Two of my Favorite Shadowdark Adventures II
Finally the other one! I know you shiver with antici...
A couple weeks back I started writing a recommendation for two Shadowdark adventures I ran over that weekend which I’d run and enjoyed multiple times, but I decided to shorten it and cut it after one. This is the other shoe dropping.
I don’t see myself becoming a reviewer, but every now and then I’ll probably highlight something I’ve run that I feel worked really well.
Tower of the Spectral Sorceress
Authors/Artist: Austin Holm & Gabriel Hernandez - WatcherDM
Watcher DM first dropped onto my radar when someone shared “Five Swords for Shadowdark” on my feed. I read that article and thought “wow, these guys really get Shadowdark!” and I immediately put them into my campaign. From there I started picking up all the Watcher DM written adventures, starting with Tower of the Spectral Sorceress which I fell in love with right away.
Hook(s): The scenario doesn’t provide a strong hook beyond looting a supposedly haunted tower for riches, which for my purposes was quite enough. When I run this at conventions (which I do a lot) I use the Grimoire Umm Ghullah - the item that caused all the mess in the first place - as the hook; that a wizard has offered them a generous bounty for returning with the powerful tome.
Lore (spoilers) - What went wrong? It was a book club meeting that went awry when the wizards involved “read too greedily and too deep.” That sentence right there sums up the perfect level of tongue-in-cheek humor that makes this a great one shot, or part of a campaign. Grim and darkly funny. The adventure as-written provides that information up front, but I prefer to put the meeting further in the past and forgotten. The players don’t know at the start and the tower just has this creepy reputation of being haunted … and then having the players find the dark humor after we’ve already established the danger level.
What I Love:
Darkly humorous, humorously dark. These wizards died an ignoble death, but at least they were doing what they love.
The NPCs - 100% this. I don’t know what I love more - playing Beauregard the undead but faithful butler still suffering with unrequited love … or the shallow Sabbatha Johmes, the ghost who once wormed her way into book club without bothering to do the reading and is now dead and stuck here forever, isolated from the group, or Cosima Fantine - the arrogant Sorceress herself.
You know what, it’s probably the garden gargoyles described as “very rude” and critical of the adventurer’s appearances. At one convention, after some back-and-forth antagonization with the party leading to a brief fight, one gargoyle tried to fly away … and describing the magic missile that caught it out over the harbor causing it to crack into pieces and fall into the waves sent up a cheer as cathartic as any climactic boss battle.
The magic items - this adventure provides some really terrific and offbeat items that I love.
Creative ideas - most of the encounters are more interested in interacting with the party rather than attacking, which makes this a lot of fun to run. But at the same time, they can all be lethal which makes it even better. But whether it’s banter with the gargoyles, or finding a way past Beauregard without an invitation. Unless the party has a higher level Priest (see my home game, below … lol).
What I Didn’t Love
Not really anything? The bulk of the adventure is in the tower which is, by necessity, a linear adventure. Any effort to “Jacquays the Tower” would probably feel artificial and forced.
The fact that it’s a tower and not a dungeon makes me wonder, sometimes if I’m doing convention players a disservice by not showing off Shadowdark’s torch timer as a mechanic. Nah, worth it.
The island itself is non-linear and has some really tremendous encounters (see the gargoyles above), but players are naturally drawn straight to the tower and I sometimes find it difficult to encourage players to explore the island first without feeling like I’m pushing.
What I Do Differently
Again, not much. I think I add more flavor and motivations to the NPCs than are presented, but I expect that from a written adventure. I don’t want it spelled out too heavily. Let me make it my own.
The tower is on an island. When I run this I usually describe it being out in a harbor of a fishing village, and make hiring a boat part of the adventure. The last time I ran this at a convention I had the boat pilot accompany the party onto the island as a non-combatant who was interested in exploring the island, and that really juiced up the first part of the adventure (he refused to actually enter the tower - probably a good idea).
In My Home Game
I was thoroughly disappointed that the party priest cast “Lay to Rest” on Beauregard before I could get to roleplay him (lol).
The book “Polyglot’s Friend” plays a big role in my campaign. I really push languages as a limiting factor in communication and encourage players to use language learning as their downtime activity, making this book very valuable.
The biggest complication came from the Marlith Demon trapped in the magic circle on the second floor. The characters actually came back a couple of times trying to figure out what to do with her.
At Conventions
I try to find that delicate balance between making this adventure fun without being silly. The undead NPCs all have their quirks and motivations that make them fun to play, but I don’t ever forget that they are potentially very lethal undead.
From the difficulty around the sword that can only be drawn by someone in love, to the potion that is cursed to make its drinker forget one of their languages (it was a convention game - but when I had a player blurt out “I forget Common” without any hesitation is one of my favorite ballsy player moments).
Another favorite moment. I unintentionally described the sign on the statuary garden as saying “Do Not Enter”. When confronted by Beauregard’s demand for an invitation I had a player go back, grab the sign and break of the part that said “Do Not”. I laughed uproariously so of course that worked. And now I always say the sign says “Do Not Enter”.