There is so much to love about the Shadowdark RPG by the Arcane Library.

I really don’t think my friend Kelsey Dionne gets enough credit for her brilliance in creating this book. While I am in no way compensated for this review, I am a late backer to the Kickstarter. I would have been a first day backer were it not for financial reasons. Hey, kids gotta eat. Ya know?

The first part of the review covered mostly character creation and a general overview. That article can be found here. I truly can’t heap enough glowing praise on this product regardless of what anyone else might say. Let’s talk about random tables, spells, monsters, and magic items, since that’s what most of us go in for.

Random Tables are buckets of fun and Shadowdark has plenty of them.

Perhaps one of the brightest charms of Old School Renaissance gaming is the use of random tables. As a GM, I revel in interpreting even the most bizarre rolls into playable encounters. Shadowdark definitely has all of that going on.

Need a rival adventuring party? Roll for it. Doing a bit of hexcrawling in the over world? Random tables have you covered.

I know from watching the Arcane Library YouTube channel and chatting a little bit with Kelsey that she’s a big fan of random tables and it really shows in Shadowdark. It’s the epitome of low prep and spontaneous adventure generation.

The tables don’t stop there, though. There are tables for NPCs, settlements, dungeon maps, taverns, shops, overland encounters, and so much more! Then there’s carousing and all of the cool things players can do in their downtime. Some of which, you might have guessed, is rollable on random tables. Woot!

Honestly, with my love for random encounters, this should be enough. Am I going to stop making/using my own random encounter tables? Nope. Not to mention I invested in the Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch of Mythmere games because a certain Shadowdark author recommended it on multiple occasions.

My favorite part of Shadowdark is Monsters.

Using and even designing monsters in Shadowdark is a pure pleasure. If you want a dungeon romp through multiple insane rooms, this game has everything covered. Bringing in monsters from every edition of OSR, D20, and any other game imaginable is pretty darn easy.

The stat block for monsters makes designing a creature almost the easiest it’s ever going to be. (Okay except maybe ICRPG or EZD6, but no surprise; Kelsey and Hankerin are good friends.) I actually prefer converting or building creatures in Shadowdark because it’s not as fiddly and clunky as D&D 5E or Pathfinder 2E. Shadowdark monsters take minutes and seconds where other games take half an hour or better making sure all the tags, abilities, and other things line up properly. Shadowdark basically asks, “What do I want this thing to do?”

The monster listings in Shadowdark are similar to those found in several other core rules/monster books throughout the OSR and D&D mainstream. That’s okay. Core rules probably aren’t the best space to experiment around with a bunch of funky new monsters without art and explanation. Shadowdark does save a ton of space by not including tons of fluff in with the monster stats. If this book is truly aimed toward the OSR, most of us veterans know what most of these creatures are or can put it together. 5E players or new gamers will have the experience of not knowing for sure what’s going on. Maybe they go look it up later after the game.

If you get tired of using the same old monsters from every other fantasy game- orcs, hobgoblins, dragons, nagas, skeletons, eyeball horrors, etc Shadowdark makes it easy to randomly generate some new (and freaky) monsters of your own. With a few rolls and some imagination, new creatures of every sort imaginable are right at your fingertips. I spend a lot of time making my own monsters to fit whatever adventure I’m building, but if I need something on the fly, these tables are the best I’ve seen.

If those monster options aren’t enough, most B/X or OSE monsters convert to Shadowdark in minutes or less. I own so many monster books from other editions of D&D and other games. If I’m not making my own, I’m probably pulling an old favorite out of one of many possibilities.

Spells are a must-see for any player in any fantasy game.

There are only two spellcasting classes in Shadowdark so far. The game does not bog down right away with dozens of complicated, hard-to-remember spells. It’s also not the same-old, same-old as every other Old School retroclone and d20 game out there.

Let’s be honest, though. We can only have so many basic magic effects before there are going to be some overlapping items. Light is the same spell, except it only lasts ONE hour before needing to be cast again. Light is the last spell you want a Wizard mishap on given the Shadowdark vision rules.

A fireball is still a fireball? Not quite. Because spells are not fire-and-forget, the damage has been toned down a bit to 4d6 to all targets in the blast. Spellcasting roll to hit. No pesky saves. Boom. Successful casting again the next round. Boom. Five rounds later and the tavern owner is begging for mercy along with the rest of the party. Boom.

High end Wizard magic is as one would well expect- dangerous and potentially volatile just as it is in other d20 fantasy games. It’s still possible to Disintegrate the Wizard’s enemies and cast Wish to make up for it. Teleportation and summoning massive elementals are also on the menu.

If Wizards are crazy powerful at high levels, Priests are intimidating. What they lack in raw firepower they more than make up for in healing. The only major balancing concern is the possibility of a spell failure or critical failure. This is a mechanic similar to that of Dungeon Crawl Classics for Priests and Wizards. Blowing a spell roll is no laughing matter for either class. I think being able to cast healing magic at will is well worth the risk, though.

Wizards only have twelve spells to choose from and Priests only get six at each tier. This makes random spells ridiculously easy to determine for starting characters, NPCs, or scrolls. I think this is also a great starting point as not to overwhelm new players. I mean, we can always add more spells to the game later, right?

One of my only minor criticisms of Shadowdark is the small number of starting classes in the game. I would have liked Druid as a casting class. Bards and Rangers are in a separate document. I hear some of my dreams are realized in the Cursed Scroll Zine, which I have not picked up yet because I’m waiting for the physical copies to come back into stock.

I have plans for creating new caster classes in Shadowdark. By the time I’m done, they probably won’t be recognizable as classes from other games. The thing I love about this game is the open ground to create so many new ideas just like D&D when it first started all those many years ago. It’s a wide open game with a very forgiving and functional OGL all its own. (Thanks Kelsey!)

No discussion of magic would be complete without items and artifacts.

Shadowdark is such a thoughtfully put-together game. Right out of the gate there are guidelines for people like me who love, love, love to design magic items! There are a few boundaries in Shadowdark, much like feeding the Mogwai after midnight.

1. Light. You get one hour on any given light source. All light sources are on the same hour long IRL timer.
Items do not glow in Shadowdark as they do in a lot of other d20 fantasy games.

2. Gear Slots. Time and resource management are important features of the game, so items that bend/break the number of gear slots per character are highly discouraged.
(No huge Bags of Holding.)

Aside from the two unbendable rules, the book gives some great advice on magic item creation and solid examples. Bag of Badgers is hilarious! I was happy to see the Cloak of Elvenkind make it into the game. There are also some nice magic weapons and armor, or you can create your own.

The random Magic Item Generator table is sure to bring hours of amusement and chaos to any adventuring party. (*Yay!) In true Shadowdark fashion, these tables add flavor and personality to any item created with them. Weapons and armor can be outstanding but could possibly come with slick powers along with a nasty curse.

A little bit about Potions, Scrolls, and Wands before we go.

Healing potions are pretty important in any fantasy rpg because we all like having characters a full health or at least not in the negatives. Would your character feel better after drinking a healing potion that smelled strongly of sulfur and had an eyeball floating in it? Healing potions come in different Tiers, much the same as spells, with each separate tier healing more dice of a larger size.

I think potions are hilarious when mixed (as the GM.) I had players back in the day attempt to mix potions and then chug them to see what happened because we had a potion mixing chart from Dragon Magazine. Interestingly enough, Shadowdark has a similar table for combining potions. Heh heh heh.  

If potions weren’t cool enough, we have scrolls. Parchment scrolls a kinda boring. How about finding one that’s etched on a stone tablet? There’s a really neat random table for scrolls in the Treasure section. I love it. I also think scrolls are cool because they are fire and forget spells and still suffer from a mishap on a Critical Failure to the casting check.

Wands, on the other hand, are spells loaded like bullets in a gun. Wands in Shadowdark keep going unless a fail happens (Ceases working until a rest completed.) or a Critical Failure (broken wand.) Both scrolls and wand offer spellcasters a chance to cast spells they don’t know yet.

In the end, I’m excited for Shadowdark. I anxiously await the day my physical copy arrives. I’m already playing solo, and Kelsey has promised the Kickstarter backers we will be getting separate Solodark rules as I believe they’re being called. This has been probably my favorite Kickstarter I’ve ever backed. I’m ecstatic to get the whole family into this game, possibly over the holidays.

I think Shadowdark is what Basic D&D should look like in the modern age. Luckily, Kelsey Dionne seems content doing her own thing because if I were Wizards of the Coast, I’d open up a seat on the D&D team just for her. Luckily, they don’t recognize talent when it’s clearly staring them in the face.

Shadowdark is worth every penny. I can’t wait to see what new sourcebooks come out for it. Many will probably come under the Third Party Product category due to the Shadowdark OGL. There has already been a flood of new modules/adventures on the market and more to come. I think the success of the game will continue well into 2024 and beyond.

Thank you for stopping by. I know this was a bit longer than usual. I just can’t stop talking about this game. It’s just so good.