A couple of months ago, we rebooted our Shadowdark campaign. We kept the same characters–a couple of the characters had advanced to second level–but pretty much started over otherwise. We’re just going to keep things relatively simple and play various adventures/dungeons that have no necessary connection to each other. These adventures will lean fairly heavily into the adventures that are weird and bizarre and provide us some fun on a Friday night after a (typically) long week of work.
The starting characters include the following:
- Alexandria (goes by Alex): A 1st level human priest played by Jen. She still has the Fist of Janda (a magical mace that can do some healing once per day) and the Training Sash of St. Taius (which allows a lawful individual to potentially avoid a successful attack against them once per day).
- Denton: A 2nd level human wizard played by Todd.
- Ellery: A 2nd level human ranger played by Rachel.
- Norfek: A 2nd level dwarven paladin played by RJ. Norfek has the Rod of Cazin the Bringer of Death. It is sort of like a Rod of Lordly Might and can transform into different weapons (mace as the default, longsword, and battleaxe) and can breath fire once per day.
I’ll provide full details of the magic items later in the post. The paladin is based on the Knight of St. Ydris from Cursed Scroll #1. Instead of demonic possession, the paladin has smite which does pretty much the same thing. Some more basic details about the campaign (e.g., campaign premise and house rules) below the break.
Premise
The campaign begins with the PCs in the “office” of Jack the Knack in the back of the Merry Mouse Inn in the city of Sonderbock. Jack is the party’s “nose” and finds them work. What kind of work? Well, they are Crawlers so crawling work…adventure! Jack is their manager, their fixer, their fence, and “sniffs” out adventuring opportunities and information about these opportunities and provides it to them. For a fee of course. Jack takes a 40% cut of the treasures recovered. For this “fee,” he provides the location and some basic information about the adventure/dungeon. If the party wants, he can do additional digging and provide more information at the cost of an additional 2% for each additional rumor. (The players balked at this until I asked if they’d rather take the time and effort to find this information on their own.)A Nose is a government sanctioned broker for adventure. Crawlers who work for a Nose have certain advantages and benefits for the fee they pay. Those without a Nose are unsanctioned and essentially illegal.
So Jack provides an adventure. The party can take the job or not. If they do, they don’t have to worry about competition for a bit. They have sole right to the adventure for at least a few days and no “sanctioned” group will jump their claim. They doesn’t mean, of course, that unsanctioned crawlers (i.e., those without a Nose of their own) won’t show up.
If they don’t take the job, he offers it to another group of Crawlers for whom he is the Nose.
The party has dubbed themselves the Foursaken (since their are four of them). I believe that coming up with a name for the group may have been the most difficult thing that they players have ever done in any campaign we’ve played.
House Rules
We have just a few house rules.
Ancestries
The halfling trait Sneaky is changed to Lucky and the player begins play with an extra Luck token.
Because characters start with maximum hit points at 1st level, dwarves get advantage on rolling for starting gold.
Hit Points
Characters start with maximum hit points at 1st level. Constitution modifier only applies if it is a positive modifier.
Experience Points
XP will generally be awarded at the end of an adventure. If an adventure is particularly long, the GM can choose to award XP during the adventure. XP is awarded for recovering treasure as well as for completing various goals associated with each individual adventure.
If a player misses a session during a specific adventure, they suffer a cumulative 25% penalty for the total XP gained during that adventure for each session missed. If an adventure takes less than four sessions to complete, the penalty is increased to be proportional to the total number of sessions involved (e.g., if an adventure took only three sessions to complete, the penalty would increase to a cumulative 33% per session missed).
If a player misses at least four sessions for any given adventure, they will receive no XP for that adventure.
Crawling Rounds
We are using crawling rounds, but we are not using real-time tracking for torches and the like. Instead, I’m loosely tracking turns and how long activities are taking in game. I have found this to be an easier approach for me given how I have the game organized. The whole point is to not burden the GM with tracking things and I found the real time tracking to be a bit more difficult for me than just tracking “turns.”
Initiative
We play remotely using Foundry VTT as our virtual tabletop and Foundry has easy tools for handling initiative for both Crawling Rounds and in combat. We are using Faendal’s Restrict Movement module for Crawling Rounds and just the built in Foundry initiative for combat.
The Shadowclock
We are using the Underclock from Goblin Punch with minor adaptations for Shadowdark…like calling it the Shadowclock instead of Underclock…including the “degeneration” or depletion of treasure each time the party leaves the dungeon (or other dangerous adventuring locale).
Dying
When a player character is reduced to 0 hit points, they are not incapacitated or unconscious. They are dying and will die after the normal 1d4 + CON modifier rounds (minimum 1) Death Timer drops to zero…unless they somehow recover hit points or are stabilized. They can still act in a limited fashion. The character can move or they can take an action. All actions are at disadvantage and all actions against the character have advantage.
If the character suffers additional damage while dying, the number of rounds remaining on their Death Timer is reduced by one each round that they suffer additional damage (not for each source of damage). If this reduces the timer to zero, the character dies.
If a character moves or acts, they forego the normal d20 roll at the start of their round to see if they recover a single hit point. If they take no action and do not move, they can make this check. (I like giving…forcing…the players decisions to make.)
Once stabilized, the player character remains at 0 hit points and falls unconscious until at least one hit point is restored.
Identifying Magic Items
Any player can spend a Luck Token to determine the properties of a magical item via prayer, meditation, or similar. It just takes a few minutes of time and any curses or detrimental effects are suffered by the character as a result.
Normal experimentation can also determine the properties of a magic item.
This topic came up with the players. I let them decide how they would like to handle it and the above is what they came up with.
Miscellaneous
Because I don’t like tracking things like spell duration in rounds and similar, most spells of shorter duration lasts for an encounter. How do we define an encounter? We’re pretty loose with that…as long as the players are abusing the idea, I don’t have a problem with them casting spells in preparation of a fight or the like. For things where a specific duration is a little more “critical” (e.g., turn undead), we go ahead and track those rounds.
Magic Items
The party had recovered a number of magic items in their prior adventures. The following are the items that these characters currently possess.
Janda’s Fist
A well-crafted silver mace with no decorations or embellishments.
Bonus. +1 mace.
Benefit. Once per day, a Lawful wielder may place the mace against an injured individual or creature, other than themselves, and heal them for 2d6 hp.
Janda was the founder of the Order of Jandastines, a monastic order devoted to St. Taius.
Training Sash of St. Taius
A perfectly woven and crafted training sash of golden fabric.
Benefit. When worn by a Lawful individual, once per day, the wearer may make a DC 15 Dexterity check during combat to dodge and avoid a single successful attack completely (an attack is defined as something that required an attack roll).
If worn by a Chaotic individual, they suffer a -2 penalty to Armor Class.
If worn by a Neutral individual, the sash provides no benefit or penalty.
Janda’s Fist and the Training Sash of St. Taius are pretty much from The Shattered Fist Monastery in Delver #1 by James Floyd Kelly. I made some relatively minor changes for use with Shadowdark and our campaign.
Rod of Cazin the Bringer of Death
A dark iron rod topped with a large citrine that is shaped like a dragon’s head. Four dragon scales sit equidistant from each other around the base of the rod’s tip. Each flares out from the rod at a slight angle and can be depressed slightly.
Bonus. +1 mace.
Benefit. Each of the scales on the rod can be depressed to trigger the following effects, starting with the scale directly below the dragon’s mouth and proceeding clockwise.
Blade. The rod transforms into a +1 longsword. The first time that the scale is pressed each day, the blade flames. While flaming, the blade’s bonus increase to +3 against undead, cold associated creatures, and regenerating creatures. It also sheds light as a torch. The sword will remain wreathed in flames for the duration of a single encounter. After the flames extinguish, the blade remains as a +1 longsword until another scale is pressed.
Axe. The rod transforms into a +1 greataxe. The first time that this scale is pressed each day, the axe oozes a sticky black liquid the consistency of sap. While oozing, the axe’s bonus increases to +3 against elves and other creatures of elven ancestry. The axe will continue to ooze this poison for the duration of a single encounter, all having dripped off at the end of the encouter. After the ooze is gone, the axe remains a +1 greataxe until another scale is pressed.
Breath. Pressing the scale aligned with the top of the dragon’s head causes a gout of flame to burst forth from the dragon’s mouth. The wielder can either target a single creature within near with the flames or spin around to target all close creatures. If a single creature, it takes 3d6 fire damage and flammable objects it carries catch fire. If using in a spin, all close creatures take 1d6 damage and flammable objects catch fire. This can be used once per day.
Mace. Pressing the last button returns the rod to its normal state. The first time that this scale is pressed each day, the surrounding air becomes dry and a small stream of sand trickles from the mace. For the duration of a single encounter, the mace’s bonus increases to +3 against plants and plant-like creatures. Once the encounter is complete, the stream of sand is depleted and the mace remains a +1 mace until another scale is pressed.
(Cazin was a famous warlord of the draconic creatures, the Ajderhan, who ruled the lands from which this “crypt” was taken by the The Vartrum many centuries ago. His people warred with various kingdoms of elves in their vicinity. This item was created by the mages of the Ajderhan to defeat and conquer their elvish enemies.)
Now, I’m not saying that any of these items have curses on them that the PCs are not yet aware of, but I’m also not confirming that they do not have any curses on them that the PCs are not yet aware of. I believe, as GM, that I’m supposed to do things like this…just to keep them guessing.
That’s pretty much it for now. We’ve now played, I think, six sessions of our rebooted campaign so I’ll post a couple of recaps of these early sessions in the near future.
