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ShadowDark One-shots! - Against the Cult of the Crimson Hand
Classic Dungeon Crawls using the Shadowdark system, which is basically simplified D&D 5e!
Free
Details
Once / Monday - 7:00 PM UTC
May 26
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
4 / 5 Seats Filled
Top Game Master
One of StartPlaying's top-rated GMs, a player favorite and highly recommended.
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Meet your party members
4/5
About the adventure
ShadowDark one-shots! Each time you tackle a new adventure, or continue where you left off!. Set loosely in "The Borderlands" near a Keep where you can rest up and re-supply between adventurers, or find a newbie (sucker!) to join your gang of heroes, do-gooders, rogues, miscreants, or whatever might be your purpose for heading to the Caves of Chaos or the other various dangerous dungeons, lost ruins, evil temples, dark caves, dank swamps, or other mysterious places to be found in the Borderlands! If you play more than once (and survive!) you can bring your character (and treasure!) from previous game(s).
Game style
West Marches
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Dungeon Crawl
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
4.9
(49)
2 years on StartPlaying
293 games hosted
Highly rated for: Inclusive, Teacher, Creativity
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
About me
I've been running roleplaying games since 1980 in person, and GM'ing games on-line since January 2025 I play "rule of cool" and I look forward to roleplay with you!
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
I will provide pre-gens suitable to the level of the particular one-shot, or you may create a character on shadowdarklings.net https://shadowdarklings.net/create#! If you play multiples of my Shadowdark one-shots (and your character lives to tell the tale...) you can bring continuing characters of suitably advanced levels (with their magic items!)
I'm running these as one-shots, but people can bring continuing characters to multiples of my games. The Cult of the Crimson Hand will likely take more than one session to complete, so I'll run this a couple times, and if you come twice, you can try to finish it on the second attack!
What to expect
Preparing for the session
Shadowdark free rules are available at https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/products/shadowdark-rpg-quickstart-set-pdf?srsltid=AfmBOortXTOPOvkrtxo_wY6ICA-Jzib90bzg7dCVmCxG-1rUlU2bgni1 But the game is super-simple. If you know how to play D&D you already know 90% of the rules, and everything else is trivial. I'll send a discord server link when you join, and the Foundry server link will be on my discord server (though the Foundry link only opens just before gametime.). If you're making a character of your own, please DM me the link. If you want a pre-gen, I will provide a list of options on discord.
What Swords and Sorcery brings to the table
We use discord for voice, and the Foundry VTT for the game. I'll provide tokens for your character and the monsters, or you can bring your own character art. I am a Rule of Cool GM. Describe what your character does and let's play it, beyond the character sheet. House Rule: Wizards do NOT need to make continuing rolls to maintain focus ('cos that's too many rolls and too many critical fails).
Homebrew rules
spellcasters don't need to re-cast focus spells each round. Occasional perception rolls using Wisdom. Characters get a new talent from the expanded talents list on each level increase.
Equipment needed to play
Computer
Internet
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Swords and Sorcery creates a safe table
Any concerns can be raised with the GM before game-time. Also, I have an X-card on the Foundry desktop that anyone can raise at any time if a safety concern comes up. These Shadowdark one-shots are somewhat dark and gritty. Your character may die. If so, immediately start another one! This is all part of the Shadowdark milieu, and system.
Content warnings
Safety tools used