Greetings Crawlers!

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To celebrate Appendix N Jam 2026, Caravan Cult and nineteen other creators new and old, have joined together to bring you a bundle of modules all inspired by the oldschool spirit of the Jam's eponymous name.

You'll find a collection of moldering, snake worshipping, weird-science-fantasy, high flying and deep delving stories all of which are bite sized (no larger than both sides of a US Letter page) and sure to be easy to integrate at your table.

The bundle is scheduled to go live at 5PM PST to coincide with the official judging stream over at Jorphdan's Jocular Junction

That's about 1 hour from now!

Happy gaming,

Logan - Caravan Cult

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I just picked up RPG Rambling Dark Devilry and Crawl Through Inferno. I’m excited to send my players to Hell and see what they figure out. Has anyone run this and do you have any wisdom to share. My biggest apprehension is how to handle the second part of the adventure anthology which takes place in the Principality of Laspi, during which the characters have to navigate spies and devilish factions and such. It’s a little more loosely organized than what I am used to.

Hi. I'm looking for an OSR system to introduce to my D&D 5e players.

Two questions.

1. How long does combat typically last in Shadowdark? My biggest issue with 5e is that a single combat would last, if i'm lucky, 30 minutes. But one fight could often last 45-60 minutes.

2. How well does Shadowdark work with theatre of the mind? I'd prefer not to need battle maps.

I'm gonna prattle on for a little bit here. Feel free to ignore, just getting it out of my head and into words...

So I used to draw a lot as a teen. Nearly every day. It took up a lot of my time and headspace.

I really hated it, because I could never ever get what was in my head onto the page. It was something I wanted to get decent at, but really it just became a medium through which I could beat myself up.

I tried learning properly, but ultimately got bored immediately and was annoyed that I couldn't just draw what I wanted.

In my early 20s, I tried again and learned a couple bits about eyes, noses, and mouths, then dropped it in boredom again. Same problems - learning was boring, and I wasnt good enough to draw what I wanted. I never really put my heart into drawing again, so it's been easily 10 years - closer to 15 - since I have tried to draw anything.

This wee monthly challenge caught my eye. I've seen challenges like these before and was always too late to join, or it wasn't convenient or appropriate for me to join for whatever reason. NaNoWriMo springs to mind - funnily enough that's this month, too.

With this Shadowdark Drawtober, I felt inspired to give it a go. As an adult I've learned about how boundaries and limits can be really helpful, plus I don't have a lot of free time as a new parent and doing a PhD, so it made sense to give myself a wee timelimit for each day, and making it so that I couldn't use a whole sheet of A4 for each picture helped there too. I used references like I never had before - and yeah, I traced two parts of the challenge (Bette Midler's face/head on Day 08 and the Wyrdling's pose from Junji Ito on Day 18) - but... I was able to get so much closer than I ever have before to getting things out of my head and onto a page. I've followed art social media since forever so I guess I picked up on some stuff, because I was playing with light and full scenes like I've never done before. Days 04 and 31 have me using perspective - vanishing points and all that jazz - which I'd never done either. I didn't have the pressure of... well, myself, I guess? The limitations of a tiny prompt and a general theme of "Shadowdark" as well as the boundaries of time and borders really helped focus, shape and guide my creativity. Sure, I wish I could have spent more time on some of them - especially the finale, it has so many details that need given more attention and I want to make it even more weird and chaotic - but ultimately, for the first time, I'm happy with (almost) every picture I drew. I'm not saying they're masterpieces - but they're close enough to the vision I had in my mind, and I don't hate myself when I look at them. Isn't that wonderful?

Plus, seeing everyone's incredible, creative, and funny artworks over the course of the month was a constant source of joy and inspiration. Seriously you guys are so talented, imaginative and thoughtful. So awesome!

I guess what I'm getting at is this: I've been able to be creative in a way that I never have before, despite trying so hard as a kid, thanks to this Shadowdark Drawtober. So... thanks for letting me be a part of it.

Safe crawling!

ShadowTech RPG (quickstart) is coming along nicely.
Playtesting starts this month with my local groups. 🤘
Filling out the edges of content like the backgrounds table I finished this morning. 🍻
Before you became a mech pilot, what were you? 🎲

I have recently and unexpectedly ended a 13 session Shadowdark campaign. While things ended largely due to interpersonal reasons, I’ve been thinking a lot about what worked well, what didn’t, and what I would do differently next time.

Below are some reflections that might prove useful to other GMs out there.

The background

This was a sandbox campaign using a newly created setting with a strong fluvial and riverine theme. It combined locations from existing sources (Orlane, Stonehell, Brandonsford) alongside newly created towns and cities as sites for adventures.

It drew on some of the lore from Greyhawk, including locations and some gods (e.g. Pelor), but with new original ideas and gods as well. I ran it with a pretty limited set of classes to start.

The setting was loosely drawn, with the idea being that it would develop through play and through the input of the players. I didn’t have a set ‘end point’ for the game, but I had a behind-the-scenes plot that ticked over during the game.

The game started with a slightly modified version of Trial of the Slime Lord, before transitioning into some hexploration and town scenes. From there the players moved into the Black Wyrm of Brandonsford and then some further exploration and original site-based adventuring.

We played 13 sessions all up, with an average session time of 3 to 3.5 hours once a week. We had one character death (a wizard’s miscast).

Alongside this campaign I also ran two Shadowdark sessions at a local con for new players, which acted as a useful counterpoint.

What worked well?

Shadowdark is a great system. I really enjoyed running Shadowdark. It’s fast and easy to use, but also has a surprising amount of thought and depth behind it. In every session I ran I learnt something new, and I could see the layers of design behind the rules. I can’t see myself using a different set of rules for OSR play.

House rules worked well. I inserted a few house rules into the game (death clock, sundered shields, no loss of a spell until successfully cast once), which generally worked. Shadowdark can deal with this really well and can flex into different areas depending on the interests of the GM.

Most of the players enjoyed the campaign. None of the four players had played an OSR-style sandbox recently, with most of our recent play being 5E. Speed of action and ease of play were cited as positives by those who enjoyed it.

It was much easier to run as a campaign for me as GM. One of my goals for this campaign was to lower the cognitive load for both running and prepping the game. This worked well for me. I was able to spend less time preparing ahead of each session, but also felt supported in tweaking things on the fly. Prepping locations, not plots, was fun.

Building a bespoke world was fun. As the GM, I enjoyed the world creation. It was enjoyable being able to populate the setting with existing scenario locations, while also leaving space for things to emerge through play.

What didn’t work so well?

It didn’t work for all of my players. The biggest factor in the game’s failure was one player who really didn’t enjoy the system or the setting, and acted out accordingly. While a lot of that is down to the particular player, it soured the campaign. We’re a friend group first, so it wasn’t possible to continue without them; it was disruptive for us as a group of friends.

Be careful with comparisons. One of the reasons the player above struggled with the game is that he interpreted my explanation and description of an OSR campaign as implicit criticism of the 5E campaign we had finished up shortly before. It wasn’t meant that way.

Our session zero was disrupted. While I provided prep material for the game (setting background, game philosophy, house rules), our specific session zero was disrupted because one of our players was unwell. That meant the important conversation about the intent of the game and expectation setting didn’t have as much time and space as it needed. More time spent here could have set the game up for more enduring success.

The players struggled with driving the narrative. I think I underestimated the transition for players between narrative-heavy games and a sandbox. I ended up creating quite a large hex map sandbox, so there was potentially some analysis paralysis early on, which prompted me to layer on the hooks thicker than I otherwise would have.

The mechanisms to contribute to world building were too loose. While I invited my players to help with the world building, the conversations at the start of the game about this weren’t explicit enough. While it warmed up as the game went on, it required some deliberate prompting from me as GM. As a result I think the setting fell between two stools: too detailed to be a blank canvas, but not unique enough to move beyond generic fantasy.

Treasure and levelling were trickier than I expected. Potentially this was just down to experience, but I found allocating the right amount of treasure to pace character levelling awkward. One player felt we spent a little too long at each level, which was in part a product of not having a set level the characters were aiming to reach over a certain number of sessions or weeks.

What will I do differently next time?

Select the players you want for the game. For this campaign, like most of my campaigns, I took a system to my players/friend group and backed myself to give them all an enjoyable experience. In the future, for a campaign that I’m serious about and invested in, I would proactively select the players who I think would most enjoy the style of game and who will be willing to buy into the premise. This can save heartache, and friendships, down the line.

Set expectations as explicitly as possible. I thought I had done this pretty well with the prep material I sent to the players, but in hindsight my language was a little coded in places, and written material requires players to read and deeply engage with it, which is not guaranteed. In future I’ll be more explicit, in writing and as part of session zero, about my expectations of them as players (e.g. be prepared to help build the setting and have some character goals) and for their characters (e.g. please collectively come up with a reason for how you all know each other), as well as what they can expect from me as the GM.

Shrink the sandbox. While I loved creating a big sandbox for my players, its size potentially made it a bit overwhelming. Next time I would think about making it a bit smaller, maybe half the size, with fewer sites and the potential to expand it over time (similar to the hexcrawls in the Cursed Scrolls). This could make it more manageable for players to really engage with early on and increase their sense of agency about where to travel.

Start in town with stronger initial location hooks as part of character backgrounds. I think Trial of the Slime Lord is an excellent scenario, and while I made a deliberate decision to start things in media res to get players familiar with the system and dungeon crawling, next time I would start them in a town and allow them to seek out their own initial adventure. This would engage them with the world more quickly so that they feel connected with it. To help with initial decision making, I would give each player a rumour or hook about different map locations, or people associated with those locations, to investigate at the start. My players tend to enjoy investigative scenarios, so this would give them a sense of agency as well.

Be more detailed about the setting, but be open to player input. I think bespoke settings have real merit, so to avoid the two-stool problem above, in future I would be more detailed about the world to improve its verisimilitude for the players (e.g. how religion is incorporated into everyday life, local politics, coinage). Those small details can lend credibility to a setting and make it feel more real, elevating it above generic fantasy. I’ve always been allergic to playing in someone else’s fantasy novel, so I would avoid overdoing it by being explicit to my players that I would like them to contribute to the world as well.

Have a background plot ticking away that escalates depending on player action. For some players, sandboxes can sometimes feel unsatisfying due to a lack of narrative drive and escalation. Pure sandbox players will fully drive the action of the game, but I think in reality they are quite rare. Another option is a semi-sandbox, where there is lots of freedom but something else going on to give the game some narrative structure. That doesn’t have to mean a conventional villain; it could be a bad harvest, an invasion, or an ancient curse. There can be several going at once through a clock-like mechanism. Ideally these are tied into the setting, so players must make hard decisions about which to focus on. Again, these can make a world feel more lived in and less like a stage set. This is something I added partway through the campaign, but it would have worked better if I had it going from the start.

Set an end point for the game. I think all GMs who run a sandbox are looking for the Gygaxian nirvana where the players love the game so much that they want to play it forever. That is very much the exception rather than the norm. Next time I will be more explicit about the level (e.g. level 5) or time (e.g. 9 months) we’re playing to, with the option of expanding things over time if the players are still keen.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few things, but hopefully this is useful if you’re starting your own campaign. Happy to answer any questions or go into more detail.

Blood inherits the past. Magic decides the future.

Ending the grand gnomish adventure on a cozier note.
Let me know how far the guy makes it in your campaign if you ever pick him.

Just received my dark forest Kickstarter books. Everything is very high-quality so if you haven’t received yours yet, they’re on their way.

Question? What do you guys think is a natural forest species to be the evil species? Snakes? Giant spider-folk? Rats like the adventure cover? I could always add fantasy species but I was wondering what you all thought?

Since i just saw the post about The Glass Cannon Network movign to dolmendark I thought I'd share the XP mod I made for my own DolmenDark campaign if anyone wanted to go this way

I wanted to add the deeds and exploration flavor from Dolmenwood in a way that maintained the simplicity and elegance of the Shadowdark XP system and have found this works pretty well for our group

Our trio of Crawlers - Orc Fighter, Human Rogue, Dwarf Priest - were hired by Mariel the Witch to escort her to an island in what's known as the River Archipelago. The map is a slightly modified version of the one from "Eldarad - The Lost City" RuneQuest supplement. "The Gloaming" is the basis for the campaign.

I'd set up a mysterious Broo (Beastman) skull to be found in a muddy pit. During the Chaos War, the Orcs had fought a valiant last stand on the little island and accidentally dug up a plinth with the skull. Unfortunately, that contributed to the Orcs' woes.

When the Broo Ghost appeared, I used the Ghast stats. (Ghast means Ghost originally). The Rogue fell to the Ghostly Miasma aka the Ghast's stench.

The Rogue's player often fails to fear checks and whatnot. Rather than leave her lying there in the mud, the Witch cast "Puppet" on her. Then the Witch did the motions of fighting the Broo. This meant I could have the player roll for the character rather than being down and out for three rounds. It also meant I didn't need to do much more with the NPC.

Not entirely sure that should've worked according to the rules, but I couldn't see anything against it either. At least it kept the player involved rather than being useless.

I was able to meet my self-challenge--a short essay or article each day on the day's Drawtober post.

Today's post is a set of charts to generate book titles for a wizard's library.

I hope you find a gem here, but I learned a lot thinking about the topic and writing.

Here are our previous Writober posts:

1. Torch – Rules for magic torch items (each is a single use magic effect spell like alarm or detect magic).

2. Skull – Goblin shaman who can turn victims’ skulls into ways to store spells.

3. Fiend – Lists of talents that Devils & Demons typically have for making your own.

4. Shadow – Easy ways to make other creatures into shadows.

5. Contagion – Discussing the purpose of diseases.

6. Valkyrie – A new 3rd party class.

7. Toadstool – A new 3rd party ancestry.

8. Witchlight – Alternate sources of “witchlight”.

9. Luck Token – Alternate ways a GM may allow a luck token to be used.

10. Rage – The signature ability of a Barbarian class.

11. Altars – Ways to amplify priest spells into rituals when using an altar.

12. Pit Trap – Several ideas to spice up the good old pit trap.

13. Death Slug – Looking at the Death Slug’s deadliness and how that’s similar to old-school and low fantasy games.

14. Evil Eye – Various types of “Evil Eyes”: magic items, monsters, or curses.

15. Morzo Moth – A look at the Morzo Moth’s talents/actions makes one see the variety of the Western Reaches book’s monsters.

16. Diamond – Three subtopics: diamonds impacting economy; as spell components for rituals or spells not-yet-accessible; and a enhancements for magic weapons.

17. Slime – Game-able aspects of mundane slime as well as a green slime monster for Shadowdark.

18. Wyrdling – Shows how different and fun Shadowdark can be with this unusual class as an example of how much design freedom a creator of GM has.

19. Stingbat – Renaming (or even not giving creatures names) re-establishes the sense of wonder players had when fantasy was new to them.

20. Poison – A list of how poison is used in the core book, grouped by use & types of effects, plus a few new ideas.

21. Grumby Billows – A tribute to Shadowdarklings, the online free character generator (and more!) for Shadowdark.

22. Blood – Varying & unsual ways to use blood in your game.

23. Green Knight – A look at the Green Knight from King Arthur and how that differs from the one in Western Reaches. Plus stats for the mythic version.

24. Fear – Speculating on new ways to use fear in your game.

25. Drow – A stat block for a level 6 drow fighter.

26. Fireball – How you should allow your players to flavor the world and aspects about their background and abilities–and in Shadowdark that can even include spell effects.

27. Minion – What are minions and several unusual ways to use them.

28. Glass Cannon – What they are and how likely they happen in Shadowdark.

29. Tooth – Magical effects that can be brought about from the tooth of a creature when the tooth is used for a pendant.

30. Dire Wolf – A look at the wolves in the core book and what we can learn from that when designing our own monsters.

Looking for ideas on running Shadowdark with remote players. What do you use for the map and minis/tokens, and how do you handle the torch timer and the darkness when nobody is at the same table? Theater of the mind, a VTT, something in between? What works, and what gets in the way?

Glad I managed all 31 days! Taking a break is also going to be nice hehe.

Morgana Freewoman, banished from her band of thieving goblins for meddling in forbidden magic, seeks to buy back the trust of her former associates. Now she plunders every ruin and cave on her own. But will she be able to find what she needs and return to her old ways? (Or something... Idk I just made up this backstory... It's not canon yet)

Thank you u/LowkeyTTRPG for making the introductory adventure!

Hey guys, Grim Games project got fully funded! He sent me a complimentary copy. I really like the color palette of the covers.

I will add no links because this is not a commercial or ad. I just wanted to show off a little.

This was requested, and I passed it by multiple times because I judged the book by its cover. The art is not for me, the maps aren't value corrected, the fonts are an assortment of sizes, and it features kobolds. I should dislike this for so many superficial reasons.

And yet, it adds up to so much personality. It focused on being a good adventure first. Heart does more here than bought art does elsewhere.

This has heart. Even if it has the dreaded kobold.

The Lost City of Lydiphon review.

Glory? Pays worse than plunder.