This is the physical hard-cover print version of the ShadowDark RPG Core Rulebook. By emailing a copy of your Brain Spice receipt to The Arcane Library, you also receive a free downloadable PDF version!
In Shadowdark RPG, you and your group of crawlers use magic, steel, and wits to delve into mysterious ruins, lost cities, and monster-infested depths. Wondrous treasures and long-forgotten secrets await you! But don't let your last torch burn out, or you could be swallowed by the Shadowdark...
5Eplayerswill find what they've been waiting for: an intuitive and complete TTRPG that serves as a seamless bridge into the heart of the Old School Renaissance.
Old-school gamerswill find a system that is familiar and nostalgic, but with major quality-of-life upgrades that modernize the old-school experience.
Your legend awaits, crawler.Lift your blade, light your torch, and plunge into the unknown depths of the Shadowdark!
Features
Shadowdark RPG has familiar elements of classic fantasy gaming, but it isn't a retro-clone. A lot of new game design ideas have emerged in the last 50 years, and we wanted to bring our favorite concepts together into anostalgic-but-newadventuring system.
In this game, torches only lastone hour of real time.The characters (and players) must make decisions quickly, or they'll run out of precious light!
A few other features include:
The four coreclasses: fighter, priest, thief, wizard
Ad20-based, roll-high system
No darkvision— total darkness is dangerous
Treasure grantsXP, and tracking it is dead simple
Roll-to-castspells— magic is exciting and risky
Simpledistances(close, near, far)
Monstermoraleand reaction rolls
Always-oninitiative— time is easy to track
The sixclassic stats(3d6 in order)
No skills— just ability checks and advantage/disadvantage
Separateancestry and class
Randomizedcharacter class abilities — emergent character growth!
Lowhit points — fast and deadly combat
Simpleencumbrance(gear slots)
Shadowdark RPG pulls players in faster than a gelatinous cube
Shadowdark RPG Core
This book is a black,digest-sized hardcoverfeaturing a subtle, silver-ink print of The Ten-Eyed Oracle, the most notorious and feared denizen of the Shadowdark!
Shadowdark RPG is acomplete gamewith all you need in one tome. It features:
330 pagesin a concise, two-page spread layout
Fullrulesfor characters, gameplay, and GMing
239 classicmonsters
85 iconicspells
97 mightymagic items
Dozens of robustroll tablesfor just about everything
Handyreference chartson the inside covers
Spectacular black-and-whiteart
Lay-flat, sewnbinding
A black ribbonbookmark
Chapter markersalong the side of the book
Game Mastering
The Game Mastering chapter of Shadowdark RPG is absolutely crammed withadviceandrolltablesto help you improvise and be surprised alongside your players.
There arerobust generatorsfor traps, hazards, rumors, events, adventures, NPCs, names, rival adventurers, dungeon and hex maps, taverns, shops, and much more.
Shadowdark RPG also features rich, d100 encounter tables for 22 adventuring environments. There are1,100 unique encountersbrimming with kinetic energy!
TheMonstersandTreasurechapters get the same attention to detail. Random generators combined with hundreds of monsters and treasures give you all you need to dive in and let the adventure unfold.
It has two 68-page guides (Player and Game Master), eight 1st-level characters, and an expansive 1st-3rd-level dungeon crawl,Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur.
What About Everything Else?
Mini Adventures, Character Cards, a Game Master Screen, and Cursed Scroll Zines are just the beginning!
Publishing for Shadowdark RPG
We're proud to say that Shadowdark RPG doesnotuse theOpen Game License, so third-party creators can publish Shadowdark RPG material royalty and worry-free!
Check out a few examples of the fantastic work by Shadowdark RPG creators:
NewShadowdark RPG Classes, including mighty barbarians, wild druids, and sword-wielding spellcasters, written byJake Savala:https://brewin-druid.itch.io/
Kelsey Dionneis the founder of The Arcane Library, a TTRPG publishing company based out of Las Vegas. Her adventure,The Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse,is the highest-rated adventure of all time on DMs Guild and has over 130,000 downloads. Her claim to fame is that she once met Gary Gygax when she was a young gamer, and he encouraged her to become a Dungeon Master. She's very glad she took his advice!
Art Team
Lucas Korteis an artist and illustrator who works primarily in the underground death metal scene. His international roster of clients include Blood Incantation, Tomb Mold, the Black Dahlia Murder, and many more. He received his M.F.A. from the University of Notre Dame after studying biology at Wayne State University and fine art at the College for Creative Studies. After teaching art at the University of Notre Dame, Korte and his partner moved to Lancaster PA, where they currently reside. Korte is a lifelong lover of early sword and sorcery illustration and Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
Yuri Perkowski Domingos- A Brazilian artist and member of Ink Potion Studios. He's passionate about the art of old Warhammer and Fighting Fantasy books. Yuri works with his own pointillism technique and has illustrated forOld School Essentials,Warlock!and many other indie TTRPGs.
Matt Morrowhas been creating illustrations professionally since 1996. He worked for a computer magazine as an in-house illustrator until 1999, where he crafted hundreds of editorial illustrations. Since then, Matt has been juggling being a stay at home dad with three great kids and working on freelance projects in various areas such as newspapers, children’s books, RPGs, and drawing subjects from hedgehogs to zombies.
Brandish Gilhelm- "Strength, honor, and beer." Brandish is the head of Runehammer Games and has published numerous bestselling industry-shakers includingIndex Card RPG,EZD6by DM Scotty, and5E Hardcore Mode.
Jessee Egan- Kelsey's wife and the true force of nature behindShadowdark RPG, since it wouldn't exist without her creative direction, marketing skill, art contributions, and encouragement. Also, she makes sure Kelsey remembers to eat during writing benders.
David Wright-Spaner- The video and audio visionary behindShadowdark RPG! David is a vastly talented digital multimedia artist and consultant, voice over actor, and Game Master, as well as one ofShadowdark RPG's very first playtesters.
Abdul Latif- A horror and necro-surrealism artist based in Indonesia whose work appears in numerous band logos and album covers in the death metal scene.
Matt Ray- Matt Ray's iconic pen-and-ink style of classic fantasy illustration has been featured in notable publications across the TTRPG industry, includingBack to BasiX,DungeonDelve, andOld School Essentials.
Mark Lyons- Mark's ink illustrations can be found inOld School Essentialsand numerous retro adventures from the OSR scene, as well as the comic anthologyStrange Stories for Strange People.
Lachlan M.
Prompt delivery and the only local distributor I know for this niche TTRPG.