2d6 Stingbats

  Today we're looking at Curse of the Velvet Morning by Dave Silberstein. It is a small region-based adventure for levels 1-3, focused around investigation and mystery. This one's a bit different from the usual fare. For one thing, it doesn't have any dungeons. surprisedpikachu.gif  For another thing, we are told right off the bat that it's inspired by Lee Hazlewood’s song “Some Velvet Morning”, but actually it goes a step further as Lee Hazlewood, a singer-songwriter from The Real World™ features heavily in the adventure. More on that later. The setup is that a shadow demon is using a dryad to lure mortals and feed on their dreams. This includes Lee Hazlewood from 20th-century Earth, whom the dryad has summoned and fallen in love with. Every morning after the demon feeds, the sky turns crimson, crops fail, birds die, etc. The provided hooks all center on getting to the bottom of this apparent curse. The adventure begins with an optional encounter on the road to the vi...

Today we're looking at The Shadow of Sharad by Michael Benoit. It is a crawl through a 14-room cultist hideout aimed at level 1 PCs. Full disclosure: I provided some design feedback to the author early on. So if there's something I don't like it's partially my own dumb fault. The setup is brief and sticks to what will be relevant to the PCs. There's a nice sort of multi-layered setup where we have a cult that's made it's hideout in the shrine of a legendary assassin and his legendary knife. That gives us a few reasons why the party might want to go poking around and lends a nice history to the location.  The random encounter table provides a few words of action and flavor for the bad guys that should be enough for a creative GM to improvise something beyond a pitched hallway battle. And we don't have any spots on the table wasted on entries like "you get some bad vibes" or "a random PC remembers something uncomfortable".  And then we...

Friend of the blog and well-seasoned Shadowdark GM Dollface Killah made some excellent comments over on the Arcane Library discord server about what differentiates a good OSR/classic D&D adventure from a good Shadowdark adventure, and what elements can really enhance system synergy. He formatted into a blog post and I highly recommend that you read it for some very insightful and valuable tips for Shadowdark adventure and dungeon design. https://ruinsofotranto.blogspot.com/2026/01/elements-of-osr-adventures-particularly.html On a scale of 2-12 stingbats, I give that post an A+ .  Top art by Gordy Higgins -  http://www.gordyh.net/

I started this blog for three primary reasons. 1) To entertain myself and 2) to try and bring attention to what I felt were the best adventures in an unfathomable sea of content and 3) provide a counterpoint to the well-meaning but perhaps overdone positivity that exists in the Shadowdark community around 3rd party adventures. Which is to say, I saw a lot of excitement and promotion for adventures and dungeons that I thought were not very good, and a lot of good adventures were being overlooked. I was a little worried that it wouldn't be well-received. I think the Shadowdark community is the best in the entire TTRPG hobby , and I wanted to remain in good standing, but I'm also opinionated and in love with the sound of my own voice. So I started writing reviews and held my breath, waiting for people to tell me what a jerk I was. I was genuinely (and pleasantly) surprised at the positive response. A nice little community formed around the blog over on the Arcane Library discord ...

Today we're looking at A Haunting in Glass by Jesse Winter. It's a 30-room tower adventure for levels 3-5. The page on DriveThruRPG has some recommendations from folks like directsun (author of Aberrant Reflections , one of my favorites) and Joel Hines (author of Desert Moon of Karth , also one of my favorites) so I was excited to check it out. The setup is that powerful wizard has created a device to turn moonbeams into gold. He holds a big party to show it off, but someone steals the gem that powers it and everything goes awry, crystalizing the tower and everyone it. We are given several hooks that range from tax collecting to strange dreams. The first 15 pages are spent explaining the background and various special mechanics. It is, perhaps, a touch overwrought. There is a giant device in the tower called The Argent Crucible that is powered by a gem called Tenebrolith. Part of the crucible, called Moonhymn Cantor sings the Hymns of Parnath while a lunar vampire named Noct...

Today we are looking at T he Devoured Labyrinth published by Bite-Sized Gaming, with Andrew Bishkinskyi and Zac Goins as lead designers. It is a collection of 46 dungeons, the vast majority being 1-2 pages, spread across a 160-hex region map. Let's address the elephant in the room: The Devoured Labyrinth is not a labyrinth or megadungeon. You'd be forgiven for thinking that it is, given the name. In fact the first two questions of the Kickstarter FAQ address this, where we are told "The 'Labyrinth' is a metaphor for interconnected buried ruins that have sunk underground." Ah, ok. It's a metaphor. So what it is, rather, collection of short 1-2 page dungeons that are loosely connected via themes and the overland hexmap. They are not connected literally. Maybe you shoulda come up with a different title. Since there are 46 dungeons in this thing I'm not going to review of all them, but I will dive into a handful.  First up is Doom Hold, a 12-room romp thr...