Submit requests and argue ceaselessly with me on our Arcane Library discord channel.
Background art by Matiu
Popular Posts:
-
Review: Curse of the Velvet Morning
Today we’re looking at Curse of the Velvet Morning by Dave Silberstein. It is a small region-based adventure for levels 1-3, focused around investigation and mystery. This one’s a bit different from the usual fare. For one thing, it doesn’t have any dungeons. surprisedpikachu.gif For another thing, we are told right off the bat that it’s inspired by Lee Hazlewood’s…
-
Review: The Shadow of Sharad
Today we’re looking at The Shadow of Sharad by Michael Benoit. It is a crawl through a 14-room cultist hideout aimed at level 1 PCs. Full disclosure: I provided some design feedback to the author early on. So if there’s something I don’t like it’s partially my own dumb fault. The setup is brief and sticks to…
-
Elements of OSR Adventures Particularly Valuable for Shadowdark
Friend of the blog and well-seasoned Shadowdark GM Dollface Killah made some excellent comments over on the Arcane Library discord server about what differentiates a good OSR/classic D&D adventure from a good Shadowdark adventure, and what elements can really enhance system synergy. He formatted into a blog post and I highly recommend that you read…
-
2025 Retrospective
I started this blog for three primary reasons. 1) To entertain myself and 2) to try and bring attention to what I felt were the best adventures in an unfathomable sea of content and 3) provide a counterpoint to the well-meaning but perhaps overdone positivity that exists in the Shadowdark community around 3rd party adventures.…
-
Review: A Haunting in Glass
Today we’re looking at A Haunting in Glass by Jesse Winter. It’s a 30-room tower adventure for levels 3-5. The page on DriveThruRPG has some recommendations from folks like directsun (author of Aberrant Reflections, one of my favorites) and Joel Hines (author of Desert Moon of Karth, also one of my favorites) so I was…
-
Review: The Devoured Labyrinth
Today we are looking at The Devoured Labyrinth published by Bite-Sized Gaming, with Andrew Bishkinskyi and Zac Goins as lead designers. It is a collection of 46 dungeons, the vast majority being 1-2 pages, spread across a 160-hex region map. Let’s address the elephant in the room: The Devoured Labyrinth is not a labyrinth or…
-
Review: Final Torch Issue #2 – Pirates of Barnacle Bay
Today we’re looking at Final Torch Issue #2 – Pirates of Barnacle Bay by Ross Mahler. Barnacle Bay is a setting and hexcrawl (hexsail?) through a dangerous island/sea region. Besides the hexcrawl it’s got rules for for ships and ship combat, a nicely fleshed-out settlement, an intro adventure, some tools for creating adventures, monsters, magic items, etc etc. It’s what…
-
Review: Lovely Jade Necropolis
Today we’re looking at Lovely Jade Necropolis by Joseph R. Lewis. After tackling 5e and then OSE, Mr. Lewis has added Shadowdark to his repertoire. This is a 100 location adventure for level 3-5 PCs. It’s inspired by the works of Clark Ashton Smith and that is exactly my jam. The eponymous necropolis was once the site of…
-
Review: Inside the Everflowing Curtain
Today we are looking at Inside the Everflowing Curtain, designed by Anthony J. Zinni and published by Revivify Games. It’s a level 3-4 dungeon with 16 rooms where the PCs are tasked with recovering the second half of a magical staff from a goat demon’s lair. Everflowing Curtain pulls double-duty, being written for both Mörk…
-
Review: Tower of Hapshut
Today we’re looking at Tower of Hapshut by Fenris-77. It consists of a small 5-hex region and a 29-room dungeon for levels 6-8 and was written for their Shadows of Empire setting. It could easily be dropped into other settings, even if you just take the dungeon. The primary adventure site is a temple currently…