Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]

[Reynard]

I need a good starting map for a place called "The Moonless Vale." It is a hidden valley that reappears every 80 years or so Brigadoon style, full of strange vaults and tombs. It actually appears on dozens of worlds of various fantastical and technological levels, and so includes all sorts of weird fantasy fun.

This is for a 4 session convention "west marches" game where the players will all be adventurers looking to explore and loot the Vale before it disappears again. So it can't be too big (maybe an 11x17 sheet of 1-inch 6 miles hexes.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Another good swine-ish name is "wallowers." I kind of liek that one more for a suprise predator, though.

Naturally, my group has dubbed the one guy they've encountered a "werebacon."

He also beat their ass -- they have no magic items and no spellcasters today -- until someone tried to wedge the Crown of the Serpent King (from Tomb of the Serpent Kings) on his head, causing him to momentarily experience horrifying visions, causing him to flee.

 

[Reynard]

Naturally, my group has dubbed the one guy they've encountered a "werebacon."

Lol!

He also beat their ass -- they have no magic items and no spellcasters today -- until someone tried to wedge the Crown of the Serpent King (from Tomb of the Serpent Kings) on his head, causing him to momentarily experience horrifying visions, causing him to flee.

That's great stuff. You have ::chef's kiss:: players.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The game ended with them returning to home base, consulting with the wizard NPC I have on hand for magical exposition dumps, and commissioning pig iron weapons from the blacksmith. (I gave them all 1 XP boon -- a page I had historically overlooked -- for solving the mystery of who was killing the farmers and woodcutters east of town, even if they haven't defeated them yet.)

I'm going to have the pig iron weapons break on a natural one, which made one player with infamously bad dice immediately quip he needed to bring spare weapons to the battle next time.