Shadowdark RPG by the Arcane Library is an elegant and intuitive fantasy roleplaying game that a group of friends can learn to play in an afternoon with nothing more than the Core Rulebook, paper, pencils, and dice.  Playing Shadowdark RPG online requires a virtual tabletop that provides all the tools you need to enjoy the game’s sleek, minimalist design.

Foundry Virtual Tabletop is a sophisticated digital tool which allows Game Masters to create a streamlined gaming experience in a matter of minutes. For those who enjoy bells and whistles, Foundry VTT supports dedicated character sheets, an integrated dice roller, virtual maps, tokens for PCs, NPCs, monsters, and automated roll tables. Foundry VTT is also highly customizable and supported by an active modding community.

The beauty of the Shadowdark RPG Game System for Foundry VTT is that it has everything you need to begin playing right now, so you and your friends can experience the excitement and danger of Shadowdark RPG with the ease of a pencil-and-paper group around a table.

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Learning to Use Foundry VTT

This article is intended for Game Masters who are familiar with the basics of using Foundry VTT. If you’ve never used Foundry VTT, below is a list of recommended videos to learn the basics:

“Foundry VTT For Beginners | GM Edition” by Natertot

“Foundry VTT Player Basics 2024” by Natertot

“Shadowdark RPG on Foundry VTT - Tutorial Part 1: Basics” by Prototype

“Shadowdark RPG on Foundry VTT - Tutorial Part 2: Custom Content” by Prototype

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What’s Available in the Shadowdark RPG Game System

The Shadowdark RPG Game System for Foundry VTT contains all the materials contained in the free quickstart guides created by the Arcane Library already preloaded into the Shadowdark System compendia.  The System also includes many class features created for the three Cursed Scroll Zines which were launched by the Arcane Library in conjunction with the Core Rulebook. These include:

• The six core ancestries plus Kobold
• The four core classes plus Bard, Ranger, Knight of St. Ydris, Warlock, Witch, Sea Wolf, Seer, Desert Rider, Pit Fighter, Ras-Godai, and Basilisk Warrior
• The twenty core backgrounds plus twenty Diabolical backgrounds and twenty Nord backgrounds (also from the Cursed Scroll Zines)
• All non-magical weapons, armor, and gear
• All Priest, Wizard, Seer, and Witch spells
• All the monsters from the Core Rulebook
• Rollable tables and macros to generate characters, adventuring sites, and dungeon locations with a few button clicks

With the Shadowdark RPG’s integrated character builder, players have everything required to create a character of any ancestry, class, and background they like in moments, and play that character all the way through level 10 (if they can survive that long).

In Shadowdark RPG, light is a valuable resource, and managing it is essential to a crawler’s survival. The Game System includes a built-in torch timer that tracks the time remaining on each PC’s torch or light spell, which players can toggle on or off, and which allows the Game Master to plunge the entire party into darkness with the push of a button. 

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The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur

The Shadowdark RPG Game System for Foundry VTT also comes loaded with a starter adventure called “The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur” and eight pre-generated characters.  In this first-level adventure, the crawlers explore the ruins of an ancient civilization overrun with beastmen and ettercaps, searching for treasure while avoiding the deadly Scarlet Minotaur who can appear with an unlucky roll of the dice. 

The “Lost Citadel” adventure compendium contains:

• a dungeon map with the wall and lightning elements already set-up
• all the monsters and named NPCs with their tokens in their proper place
• all the dungeon’s treasures as unique items which players or the GM can drag and drop into a PC’s inventory
• roll tables for generating unique beastmen and ettercaps, as well as rumors about the Citadel and of course random encounter tables.

Muttley, the designer of the Foundry VTT Game System for Shadowdark RPG, writes: “Kelsey has been incredibly generous and supportive in allowing us to include a lot of data with the core system, including player facing items, monsters, the quick start adventure, etc. This really lowered the barrier of entry for people to try out Shadowdark in Foundry, as they don't need to spend a lot of time doing data entry before they can run a game.”

As an experiment, I decided to test how long it would take from the moment I created a new Shadowdark RPG Game World in my Foundry VTT until a party of four players was exploring the Lost Citadel with their own unique characters.  The total time from installation to action was 20 minutes.

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What’s Not Available in the Shadowdark RPG Game System

There are presently four official sources for Shadowdark RPG content: the Core Rulebook and the three Cursed Scroll Zines.  That will soon double once the ongoing Kickstarter campaign finishes with the Western Reaches sourcebooks and three new Cursed Scrolls.

Currently, much of the content in the Core Rulebook except the player options is unavailable, including most of the magic items, magic item generator tables, monster generator tables, NPC generator tables, and random encounter tables (one of the highlights of the book). Additionally, the Game System does not include any content from the Cursed Scrolls except the player options.

Neither the full Core Rulebook nor the Cursed Scrolls are available for purchase as a Foundry module. Game Masters must create maps, monsters, magic items, and tables not included in the Game System by hand, which is a time-consuming and sometimes tedious process.

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Support for Shadowdark RPG on Foundry VTT

The Shadowdark RPG community is vibrant and growing, but still small enough that resources and support are accessible to ordinary fans. On the Arcane Library Discord server, a dedicated support thread for Foundry VTT provides timely assistance with any technical issues as well as accepting feedback and bug reports.

Roleplaying games evolve over time and the technology to support those games needs to evolve alongside it. In the past two years, the Shadowdark RPG Game System has received more than 50 updates with new features and functionality regularly added.

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Shadowdark Heroes

Online gamers are a market often overlooked by TTRPG publishers, especially independent publishers with limited financial resources. The Arcane Library is a tiny publishing company, and no one anticipated that Shadowdark RPG would become so influential and so popular so fast.  

Thanks to the dedication and passion of Muttley and the Shadowdark RPG community, as well as the generosity of the Arcane Library, we have such an exceptionally powerful resource for online gaming which allows Shadowdark RPG fans from across the world to experience thrilling adventures together every day.  

Play Shadowdark RPG on StartPlaying Games now!

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Meaghan J (she/her) is a professional Game Master, podcaster, and game designer based in Los Angeles specializing in Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and other dark fantasy settings.