The Shrike - Escape Hell /// Dante's Inferno Meets Dark Souls
You wake on black shores of a fragment of Hell where death is not the end and everyone is starving. How will you escape?
$20.00
/ Session
Details
1 player following this game
Weekly / Saturday - 5:00 PM UTC
Jun 6 / Session 13
Session Duration / 3โ3.5 hours
3 / 6 Seats Filled
Top Game Master
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Schedule
Meet your party members
3/6
About the adventure
๐ฒ Want to learn Shadowdark or play more of it? ๐ฌ Looking for a long-term sandbox campaign where your choices matter? ๐๏ธ This adventure won an ENNIE for Best Long-Form Adventure. Want to see what the fuss is about? Sign up for The Shrike! ๐๐โ๏ธ Premise โ๏ธ๐๐ You awaken on the shores of The Shrike - a colossal rusted blade the size of a mountain, adrift in an endless black ocean, where a nameless God is eternally impaled upon its peak. In this grey and pitiless wasteland, you will encounter masked Devils squabbling over who's in charge, Partials born of inanimate matter animated by the Godโs blood, the Sinners who endure their punishment unable to die, terrible monsters, perilous locations, and wondrous treasures from across the planes. How did you arrive? Death? Dark magic? Cosmic misfortune? It doesn't matter. You're here now. What will you do about it? Will you escape? Can you right any of this place's wrongs? Can you hold on to the good within you even if you're in Hell? In this campaign you will: โ๏ธ Navigate faction intrigue among five diabolic courts and other factions ๐๏ธ Ascend the Shrike itself: from black sand beaches and sea caves, through the lightless Guts, up the treacherous crags and to the Palace of the Heart where the Devils host a perpetual ball ๐ Discover strange beauty in damnation - impossible architecture, groves of candle-trees, landscapes as beautiful as they are harsh, and beings that could only exist in this place. The Shrike is harsh, but endlessly fascinating. ๐ฉธ Survive hardship and deprivation and come out stronger for it. ๐ญ On Tone: โ๏ธ Look, there will be elements of horror. There will be suffering. There will be monsters and cannibals. But we're here to tell a story about you persevering in these unfortunate circumstances, not to gross each other out. The horror will lean towards atmospheric dread, not graphic content. I am interested in the story of how you maintain your humanity, who you choose to help, and what lines you won't cross. Honestly, this won't be any more graphic than, say, Baldur's Gate 3. ๐ฒ๐โ๏ธ Game Specifics โ๏ธ๐๐ฒ โ๏ธ The Shrike is a dark fantasy sandbox campaign that will be run using Shadowdark RPG. โ๏ธ This campaign welcomes both OSR veterans and newcomers to old-school play. I'll teach you how to play, but then it's up to you. โ๏ธ This is going to be a fairly long campaign, similar in length to typical one-book "full length" 5e campaigns. โ๏ธ Everyone is welcome! My goal is a respectful table where everyone can have some fun no matter who they are or where they're from. ๐ฐ Financial Assistance Available If the session price is a barrier but you're excited to play, please send me a direct message. I know things are tough right now for many folks so I'm willing to work out an arrangement.
Game style
Theater of the Mind
Sandbox / Open World
Roleplay Heavy
Hexcrawl / Exploration
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(20)
5 years on StartPlaying
89 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Teacher, Voices
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
About me
๐: ๐โ๐ฆ ๐ฌ๐จ๐ซ๐ซ๐ฒ, ๐ฐ๐ก๐จ ๐๐ซ๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ? A: I'm a thirty-something man from the Baltics. I've been a huge RPG nerd for, dang, almost two decades now. ๐: ๐๐ซ๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ ๐ ๐จ๐จ๐ ๐๐? Iโm not a professional actor, improv guru or a celebrity GM, but I run a pretty good home game! ๐: ๐๐ก๐ฒ ๐๐ซ๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ซ๐ฎ๐ง๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ ๐๐ฆ๐๐ฌ ๐ก๐๐ซ๐? A: It would be nice to be able to justify spending more time on tabletop RPGs by paying my bills with it. ๐: ๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐๐ซ๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ ๐จ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ซ๐ฎ๐ง? A: I really enjoy running prewritten campaigns. It gives me a foundation to work off and lets the players know what to expect from a GM they havenโt played with before. So Iโll be running various published modules for 5e, Call of Cthulhu, OSR, Pathfinder 2e, etc. ๐: ๐๐ก๐ฒ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ฅ๐ข๐๐ฌ? It's one of those things where I've been 'mega' online for so long, it just feels weird when people call me anything else, y'know?
View Profile โCharacter creation
Creating your character
We will create our characters together at the start of our first session. We can do it by hand in Foundry, or I will also provide pre-gens or allow you to generate a character to import via shadowdarklings.net, if that's your preference. Stat Generation: We'll decide as a group, but I am open to anything from 3d6 down the line to 4d6 drop lowest (to compensate for how difficult a situation you find yourselves in) to everyone settling on a stat array for consistency. Classes: I am not terribly impressed with most 3rd party classes or even some of the Cursed Scrolls classes, so if you want to play a class outside of the core four in the Rulebook I reserve the right to ask you to pick something else, or let you try it and ask you to switch if it doesn't seem to be working out. Custom Ancestries: The Shrike has custom OSE race-as-classes - Imps, Partials, Sinners - that I've converted to Shadowdark, but I think it makes more sense for these to be something you choose if your original character dies, after everyone is more familiar with the setting. Character Tone: Good-natured characters who work well in a group and want to do the right thing encouraged.
We currently have a Pit Fighter, a Warlock and Witch. (Rolled up at random!) If you're interested in reading what the crew has been up to so far, you can check out the Campaign Log: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fwg9VDqLUS2SVEpzxBdQ7egihZQSSxGULhyIUDARjb8/
What to expect
Preparing for the session
You should be familiar with the basic rules: https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/products/shadowdark-rpg-quickstart-set-pdf Thankfully, if you've played D&D before you're 90% good to go! We'll be using Foundry and Discord so you should be able to use both. (Please test before applying, or message me if you need help with this.) Also, using a headset or headphones+mic will be appreciated by everyone involved. Hearing everyone else echoing on a player's speakers is not fun!
What GM mega brings to the table
I'll set up a game on Foundry, provide a Discord server, provide a personal wiki for information and recaps and share the necessary materials. (I use a Discord bot to transcribe and create recaps for your convenience.)
Homebrew rules
We won't be using any Modes of Play from the rulebook, but I have one homerule, though: Luck will be grouped into a single pool that every player can contribute and pull from. Otherwise, we'll start with rules as written and adjust if anything comes up.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How GM mega creates a safe table
We'll do Session 0 and go over character creation, expectations and any topics we might want to avoid (or 'lines and veils' as some people call them). Then we'll start playing if there's time left. The adventure feature many mature themes, such us devils and demons, body horror, starvation and cannibalism, general suffering and so forth. Generally speaking, think in terms of "about as mature as Baldur's Gate 3". It is my hope that we can navigate all of these in a tasteful manner, without making anyone uncomfortable.
Content warnings
Safety tools used