Shadowdark RPG Level-0 Gauntlet - "Trial of the Slime Lord"

OSR System: Shadowdark RPG

You and other villagers of Ragadorn have been captured by cultists and thrown into a pit to face the Trial of the Slime Lord: escape, or die.

This is a Level 0 gauntlet for up to 5 players using the Shadowdark RPG system.

Created by Kelsey Dionne and published in 2023 after raising $1.4 million on Kickstarter, Shadowdark is an old-school fantasy adventure game redesigned with 50 years of innovation. It won the Three Castles Award for best role-playing game design and the gold ENNIEs for Product of the Year, Best Game, Best Rules & Best Layout and Design!

Shadowdark RPG is fast, familiar, intuitive, and deadly. It’s built for old-school dungeon crawls and experience points (XP) are awarded for finding treasure, not killing monsters - and combat can be lethal, so it's often best avoided through stealth & strategy. There's the familiar 4 core classes (priest, fighter, thief, and wizard) as well as some classes that are unique to the setting. Players generate character statistics and class abilities through randomized dice rolls. Gameplay focuses on risk evaluation, resource management, and problem-solving. Shadowdark uses a 20-sided die for action resolution. One of its unique features is that real time comes into play - a torch only holds back the looming darkness for one hour of actual game time!

GM: Mark

Setting: Ragadorn (border town in The Western Reaches)

Adventure Name: "The Trial of the Slime Lord"

Session Number: 1

How to Join: (1) Click on the Discord link on the scheduled date/time - we'll just use it for audio; (2) We will be using a virtual tabletop (Owlbear Rodeo 2.0) to play; the GM will send you the access link in Discord and grant you access to the tabletop (no account or downloads needed).

What You'll Need:

1. Your imagination & your creative problem-solving abilities
2. (Optional) A downloaded copy of the The Shadowdark RPG's "Player Quickstart Guide". https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/collections/shadowdark-core-rules/products/shadowdark-rpg-quickstart-set-pdf.
3. The GM will assign players a set of four pre-generated level 0 characters to start with. For more info see Mark's #trial of the slime lord channel on Discord
4. For audio & mic to talk, connect to Mark's Discord Lobby channel
5. All dice rolls will be done on the virtual tabletop using the built-in dice roller.

Useful But Not Necessary:

1. You may want to check out this article with handy tips on "How To Survive An Old-School Dungeon" - https://www.cbr.com/dd-old-school-dungeon-survival-guide/