Review: The Shadow of Sharad

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're off to the dungeon. Room keys aren't breaking new ground on the layout front but they are well-organized and easy to follow. I could do with a little more description. I know there's a lot to be said for something that is terse and that the GM should spice things up a bit, but "Intricately-carved stone altar. Headless warrior statue in southern niche." is pretty spare. Just a few more words to set the scene and fire the imagination. "A bare altar of intricately carved limestone is flanked by the statue of a headless warrior garbed in ceremonial armor." Or something along those lines. As the maxim goes, terse and evocative. We do have some nice descriptions here and there, like "Robed man in green leather armor carves corpse on stained altar atop a dais. Two glittering silver snakes (Flash Snake) slither through the corpse." but they are too few and far between.

The first rooms of dungeon does an excellent job of forecasting dangers and other things the party will find deeper within. Things like a poisoned cultist corpse and some dead oil beetles do a great job of both building up some dread and telegraphing future challenges to observant players. 

Another high point is the NPCs. They are given motivations and even some intrigue that will make for interesting encounters if the PCs don't lead with their swords. And it's all described in a way that's simple and easy to run. It's not easy to cram meaningful faction play into a 14-room dungeon but here we've got some disgruntled cultists and an orc tomb-robber seeking revenge that will generate some interesting discussions at the table, leading to impactful choices and emergent gameplay. It's a simple but effective way to make the most out of what could otherwise be a very straightforward adventure.

Besides the NPCs the interactivity is a bit uneven. In room 8 there is a secret door with an obvious presence and an obvious solution. Look, I'm not a fan of puzzles that leave the players scratching their heads for 30 minutes of precious game time, but as I've said before I like HOTTness over puzzles, or at least puzzles that reward creativity. But lighting torches to open a door is Legend of Zelda-grade stuff, and it doesn't take advantage of the open-endedness of TTRPGs. There's also an elaborate pit trap that I find difficult to parse and that also seems to lead to nowhere.

And finally we have a very nice bestiary with 9 or so custom monsters with thematic and tactically interesting special abilities, like the magnetic statue that weapons stick to and a cultist priest that causes everyone to suffer visions of colossal snake consuming the sun. Great stuff.  

So we have what I think Bryce Lynch would call a good journeyman effort. Well-executed, and certainly worth a look if you like the vibe and it fits your campaign. It does have a few warts but none are showstoppers, and there's certainly enough going between the well-designed NPCs and cool monsters for a very fun session. 

On a scale of 2-12, The Shadow of Sharad gets 7 stingbats.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/545103/the-shadow-of-sharad