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Shadow of the Demon Lord
The End Is Just the Beginning
Sometimes the world needs heroes. But in the desperation of these last days, the world will take all those it can get: heroes, blackguards, madmen, and whoever else is willing to stand against the coming darkness. Will you fight the demons or will you burn it all down and dance among the ashes? Who will you become when the world dies?
Shadow of the Demon Lord® opens a door to an imaginary world held in the grip of a cosmic destroyer. Enter a land steeped in the chaos and madness unleashed by the end times, with whole realms overrun by howling herds of beastmen, warped spirits freed from the Underworld, and unspeakable horrors stirred awaken by the Demon Lord’s imminent arrival.
A complete tabletop roleplaying game in one book, Shadow of the Demon Lord provides everything you need to create and play characters, form groups in pursuit of adventure, and tell exciting stories with your friends. As well, the book gives Game Masters all the tools they need to create adventures, over one hundred foul creatures, a detailed region of the campaign world, and extensive advice to help run the game.
As the Demon Lord’s shadow creeps across the world, it creates the chance for heroes to seize their destinies and villains to accomplish their despicable goals. As you play the game, you and your friends tell stories about thwarting the plots of twisted cultists, hunting down and destroying bizarre demons, exploring lost lands, investigating weird mysteries, and so much more.
Sometimes the world needs heroes. But in the desperation of these last days, the world will take all those it can get: heroes, blackguards, madmen, and whoever else is willing to stand against the coming darkness. Will you fight the demons or will you burn it all down and dance among the ashes? Who will you become when the world dies?
Shadow of the Demon Lord® opens a door to an imaginary world held in the grip of a cosmic destroyer. Enter a land steeped in the chaos and madness unleashed by the end times, with whole realms overrun by howling herds of beastmen, warped spirits freed from the Underworld, and unspeakable horrors stirred awaken by the Demon Lord’s imminent arrival.
A complete tabletop roleplaying game in one book, Shadow of the Demon Lord provides everything you need to create and play characters, form groups in pursuit of adventure, and tell exciting stories with your friends. As well, the book gives Game Masters all the tools they need to create adventures, over one hundred foul creatures, a detailed region of the campaign world, and extensive advice to help run the game.
As the Demon Lord’s shadow creeps across the world, it creates the chance for heroes to seize their destinies and villains to accomplish their despicable goals. As you play the game, you and your friends tell stories about thwarting the plots of twisted cultists, hunting down and destroying bizarre demons, exploring lost lands, investigating weird mysteries, and so much more.
274 pages, ebook
First published August 27, 2015
8 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Robert J. Schwalb
123 books40 followersRobert J. Schwalb, a writer and award-winning game designer best known for his work on Dungeons & Dragons, got his start in 2002 and has never looked back. He has designed or developed almost two hundred gaming books in both print and digital formats for Wizards of the Coast, Green Ronin Publishing, Black Industries, Fantasy Flight Games, and several other companies. Some of his best-known books include the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Player’s Handbook 3, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Grimm, and Tome of Corruption. Look for Robert’s first novel in late 2011.
What does Rob have to say?
Fresh from my second go at college, all flushed and giddy for having graduated Magna cum Laude with special honors, I was ready to start writing fiction for a living. Reality didn’t waste any time intruding on my grandiose dream. The need for a steady job—beyond peddling liquor at the now closed Esquire Discount Liquors—became evident when the student loans clamored for repayment. Carpet, tile, and hardwood sales would be my future for a time. A friend ran a store in town and offered me a job. My previous careers had been selling men’s clothes, fast food, and then extended warranties. Flooring was none of these things so I jumped at the chance.
I was terrible. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had a degree in English and Philosophy. Flooring customers don’t quite get pre-Socratics humor. I stuck it out though and supplemented my income by selling liquor a few days a week. I got to chat up the regulars at the liquor store who happened by for their thrice-daily pints of Kessler/Skol/Wild Irish Rose. It seemed my fate was to join many other Philosophy majors and do nothing with my training.
However, one night, I ran across Mongoose Publishing’s open call for book proposals. I thought about it for all of 3 seconds before working up my first pitch. A little under a year later, my first book, The Quintessential Witch, hit the shelves. When I wrote the Witch, 3rd edition rules for Dungeons & Dragons were still new and fresh. The d20 system was gathering steam and gaming entered something of a renaissance as companies were created just to feed the insatiable appetite for all things D&D. There were probably more companies than there were writers and thus it proved a perfect time to break into the industry.
Now I was no stranger to gaming. My Dad introduced me to board games when I was very young with Wizard’s Quest by Avalon Hill. Then I discovered Conan, Dune, Gor, the Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and so on. My interest in fantasy kept growing so when my neighbor offered me Tracy and Laura Hickman’s Rahasia for a quarter, I happily paid. That little adventure changed my world forever. I didn’t have the rules and had no idea what I was doing. I was hungry and figured out enough from the adventure to design my first roleplaying game. “Passages” became popular in my class for a week or two. We’d play during study hall or recess.
My Dad noticed and when he went off to a publishing convention (he worked for a famous Bible publisher in Nashville), he talked with a TSR rep, who I imagine might have been Gary Gygax. My father told him that I was designing my own games, so the TSR fellow, in a deft and generous move, gave him a stack of books and adventures. I had everything but the rules of the game. Luckily, a trip to the bookstore and meeting my soon-to-be Dungeon Master Landon, put the Red Box in my hands and my first character in my imagination. Creating the character was far less interesting than talking about comics, yet when we broke out the dice the next week and played the first game, I was hooked for life.
This all happened at a time when conspiracy theories about Satanism gripped the nation. Certain members of my family bought into the hype and thought my soul was in peril. So I stepped into a much wider world of RPGs. I played everything I could. Top Secret, DC Superheroes, Gamma World,
What does Rob have to say?
Fresh from my second go at college, all flushed and giddy for having graduated Magna cum Laude with special honors, I was ready to start writing fiction for a living. Reality didn’t waste any time intruding on my grandiose dream. The need for a steady job—beyond peddling liquor at the now closed Esquire Discount Liquors—became evident when the student loans clamored for repayment. Carpet, tile, and hardwood sales would be my future for a time. A friend ran a store in town and offered me a job. My previous careers had been selling men’s clothes, fast food, and then extended warranties. Flooring was none of these things so I jumped at the chance.
I was terrible. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had a degree in English and Philosophy. Flooring customers don’t quite get pre-Socratics humor. I stuck it out though and supplemented my income by selling liquor a few days a week. I got to chat up the regulars at the liquor store who happened by for their thrice-daily pints of Kessler/Skol/Wild Irish Rose. It seemed my fate was to join many other Philosophy majors and do nothing with my training.
However, one night, I ran across Mongoose Publishing’s open call for book proposals. I thought about it for all of 3 seconds before working up my first pitch. A little under a year later, my first book, The Quintessential Witch, hit the shelves. When I wrote the Witch, 3rd edition rules for Dungeons & Dragons were still new and fresh. The d20 system was gathering steam and gaming entered something of a renaissance as companies were created just to feed the insatiable appetite for all things D&D. There were probably more companies than there were writers and thus it proved a perfect time to break into the industry.
Now I was no stranger to gaming. My Dad introduced me to board games when I was very young with Wizard’s Quest by Avalon Hill. Then I discovered Conan, Dune, Gor, the Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and so on. My interest in fantasy kept growing so when my neighbor offered me Tracy and Laura Hickman’s Rahasia for a quarter, I happily paid. That little adventure changed my world forever. I didn’t have the rules and had no idea what I was doing. I was hungry and figured out enough from the adventure to design my first roleplaying game. “Passages” became popular in my class for a week or two. We’d play during study hall or recess.
My Dad noticed and when he went off to a publishing convention (he worked for a famous Bible publisher in Nashville), he talked with a TSR rep, who I imagine might have been Gary Gygax. My father told him that I was designing my own games, so the TSR fellow, in a deft and generous move, gave him a stack of books and adventures. I had everything but the rules of the game. Luckily, a trip to the bookstore and meeting my soon-to-be Dungeon Master Landon, put the Red Box in my hands and my first character in my imagination. Creating the character was far less interesting than talking about comics, yet when we broke out the dice the next week and played the first game, I was hooked for life.
This all happened at a time when conspiracy theories about Satanism gripped the nation. Certain members of my family bought into the hype and thought my soul was in peril. So I stepped into a much wider world of RPGs. I played everything I could. Top Secret, DC Superheroes, Gamma World,
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 20, 2019
As a long time fan of things like Ravenloft and Kult, this really hits the spot. Super grimdark fantasy, extremely interesting character customization, and best of all, the rules are simple enough for a one-page character sheet (not one page front and back, just one page total). After making a character in Pathfinder 2e (with its four page tome of a character sheet) and coming away feeling like I just did my taxes, this really hit the spot. I can make characters, teach the game, start playing in no time, and accomplish all of the same sword swinging and spell slinging present in more complex games with none of the headache.
October 10, 2021
Shadow of the Demon Lord is a medium crunch horror fantasy RPG, set in a collapsing fantasy empire under threat from the reality devouring Shadow Lord. Your heroes battle against monsters coming from the hinterlands, seeping through cracks in reality, and summoned by insane cultists in order to survive another day, and maybe save a loved one or two.
The system was the first (I believe) to introduce the 1d20+k +/- nd6 system used by Lancer. Static bonus are relatively small, DCs are close to 10, and circumstances give you boons and banes, d6s which cancel each other out, with the highest one rolled. Combat is quick and simple, with strict limits on actions. One clever bit of game design is that characters can take a Fast Turn, with just an action or move, or delay to later in the round and take a Slow Turn to move and attack. Characters also get one Triggered action, by default an attack of opportunity when someone moves, but later abilities can give other options.
Characters are built from novice, expert, and advanced classes from level 0 to 12. You'll start as simple magician, priest, rogue, or warrior, and specialize from there (Cleric --> Paladin --> Templar, for example). Class choices are big ones, but after that you have relatively limited options to pick in terms of talents and spells. Another part of the character building minigame, magic items, is similarly sparse. Enchanted items are weird rather than powerful. Skills are handled by a profession system: you did something before you became an adventurer, and it's assumed that your good at whatever a professional could do.
The setting has some cool ideas. Souls are reincarnated, with decent people losing their identity as shades in the underworld before returning. Evil people have corruption stripped from their souls by devils, a type of faerie, before returning. Halflings and elves exist, but are not playable, with goblins, changelings, and clockworks standing in. Orcs recently overthrew the Emperor, though the political implications are mostly left implied.
There's a lot of good ideas, but also a few half-baked ones. There's an insanity system which seems to mostly make your characters go non-controllable at the worst possible time, which is a lazy port of old Call of Cthulhu mechanics rather than a reimagining of how adventuring, horror, and mental trauma should interact. Similarly, while this is a game of grim horror and gray morality, there's also objective evil in the form of Corruption, which your character can gain by committing vile acts and learning evil spells, and the Demon Lord and his threats. The setting, while eminently gamable, is better when it leans into sword and sorcery weirdness, and spends too much time in a Warhammer Fantasy mashup.
This is a tighter game than any edition of D&D or my favorite, 13th Age, but it's also more limited and at the end of the day, still a fantasy heartbreaker. I'm becoming one of those guys who says "why not just play Blades in the Dark?", or if I were seeking the new hotness, Massif's ICON.
The system was the first (I believe) to introduce the 1d20+k +/- nd6 system used by Lancer. Static bonus are relatively small, DCs are close to 10, and circumstances give you boons and banes, d6s which cancel each other out, with the highest one rolled. Combat is quick and simple, with strict limits on actions. One clever bit of game design is that characters can take a Fast Turn, with just an action or move, or delay to later in the round and take a Slow Turn to move and attack. Characters also get one Triggered action, by default an attack of opportunity when someone moves, but later abilities can give other options.
Characters are built from novice, expert, and advanced classes from level 0 to 12. You'll start as simple magician, priest, rogue, or warrior, and specialize from there (Cleric --> Paladin --> Templar, for example). Class choices are big ones, but after that you have relatively limited options to pick in terms of talents and spells. Another part of the character building minigame, magic items, is similarly sparse. Enchanted items are weird rather than powerful. Skills are handled by a profession system: you did something before you became an adventurer, and it's assumed that your good at whatever a professional could do.
The setting has some cool ideas. Souls are reincarnated, with decent people losing their identity as shades in the underworld before returning. Evil people have corruption stripped from their souls by devils, a type of faerie, before returning. Halflings and elves exist, but are not playable, with goblins, changelings, and clockworks standing in. Orcs recently overthrew the Emperor, though the political implications are mostly left implied.
There's a lot of good ideas, but also a few half-baked ones. There's an insanity system which seems to mostly make your characters go non-controllable at the worst possible time, which is a lazy port of old Call of Cthulhu mechanics rather than a reimagining of how adventuring, horror, and mental trauma should interact. Similarly, while this is a game of grim horror and gray morality, there's also objective evil in the form of Corruption, which your character can gain by committing vile acts and learning evil spells, and the Demon Lord and his threats. The setting, while eminently gamable, is better when it leans into sword and sorcery weirdness, and spends too much time in a Warhammer Fantasy mashup.
This is a tighter game than any edition of D&D or my favorite, 13th Age, but it's also more limited and at the end of the day, still a fantasy heartbreaker. I'm becoming one of those guys who says "why not just play Blades in the Dark?", or if I were seeking the new hotness, Massif's ICON.
September 7, 2015
Originally posted at Throat Punch Games, a new idea everyday!
Product- Shadow of the Demon Lord
System- Shadow of the Demon Lord
Producer- Schwalb Entertainment
Price- $19.99 here
TL; DR- 13th Age, DnD 4e, and Warhammer in a blender! 92%
Basics-The world is in chaos, and the Demon Lord hasn’t even set foot into it yet. Shadow of the Demon Lord is the first book by Schwalb Entertainment where characters face a world on the brink. The empire is falling, and a transdimensional evil stirs. As it casts its attention onto the world, its shadow falls on the world causing nature to go haywire, the dead to rise, or evil to open gates from other places. Players fight to keep the world safe. Will you be able to stop an unstoppable evil?
Mechanics or Crunch- This is its own system, so let’s break this down piece by piece.
Basics-This game plays like a modified d20 system with bits of DnD 4e and Fantasy Flight’s Warhammer Fantasy mixed in. Almost all actions are resolved with d20 rolls. Characters have several stats, and the modifier for all these stats is the base stat minus 10. Whatever the result is the modifier to the d20 roll. For 90% of the rolls in this game that are not attacks, the characters need a 10 result to succeed at their check; This is called a challenge roll. That’s it-it’s simple and elegant. Aside from the basics of a roll, sometimes outside circumstances modify challenge rolls. These are boons and banes. In these circumstances, six-sided dice are added (boons) or subtracted (banes) from the roll. You only ever roll boons or banes as a boon cancels out a bane and vice versa. These are given for attacking into darkness, having favorable positions, powers, good tools on a disable check, or other in-game effects. If you have to roll several boon or bane dice, you only ever add or subtract the highest six-sided die total among all the boons/banes. Again, it makes math simple and elegant. As you can tell, this is not a math heavy game. That’s not a bad comment as the game focuses that much more on the story and quick action resolution.
Skills-This game doesn’t have skills per se- it has professions. Professions feel like a love letter to the OSR movement. During character creation, players get two professions. This is what you did before you became an adventurer, and this will determine some of the activities you can do. Navigate by starlight alone? That would be impossible for a cobbler, but it would be an automatic success for a sailor or a desert nomad. Discover what a potion does? Possibly a roll with boons for a doctor, but almost impossible (several bane dice) for a grave digger. Again, being able to use professions as skills is simple and effective.
Combat-Combat is as simple as d20 and 13th Age. The game doesn’t have the movement-map requirements of Pathfinder, relying more on theater of the mind. Initiative…just isn’t a thing in this game. Turns are divided into fast and slow parts. Players get to take fast turns, then the monsters. Next, players get to take slow turns then the monsters. Fast turns are when a creature takes one action such as moving or attacking. Slow turns are moving, attacking, and possibly other actions all on the same turn. This game wants players to go first, then monsters. It built this mindset into the system, and it works well. On a creature's turn, combat works almost like any other d20 system. Melee attacks work using the basic d20 plus a creature's strength stat minus 10 vs. a creature's defense stat. Creatures can take banes to this roll to push enemies, escape an engagement, or even knock enemies prone. Damage for each weapon is determined by the type of weapon wielded, just like most other d20 based systems. Creatures and players do not have high hit point totals in this game, so combat can be pretty deadly pretty quickly, reinforcing the gritty nature of this game. In addition to fast and slow turns, you also have triggered actions; these function pretty much like reactions in DnD 5e and interrupt actions in Pathfinder. They are actions you take off-turn that are the result of other creatures’ actions such as attack of opportunity or spell effects. Again, quick and easy is the name of the game in this system.
Distance-This is a decidedly old school game with some modern twists. The game can use maps, but mostly theater of the mind is its goal. Distance between characters reflects that. Distances have descriptors like reach (at hand), short ( five yards), medium (20 yards), long (100 yards), and extreme (500 yards). On your turn as a move, you can move double your speed stat in yards. On a slow turn, you can do that twice. Some creatures move fast while some move slow, and it’s just that easy.
Character generation and advancement- Character generation is a bit limiting compared to other systems like Pathfinder and Shadowrun, but on par with DnD5e or Fantasy Age. Players choose a race and receive some preset stats. Then, that character gets to modify their stats a little based on what their specific race provides them. That feels limited, but it also makes all the creatures of one race in the world feel like their stats represent them, as opposed to the normal +2 all creatures of one type received in standard DnD/Pathfinder, where most human fighters have a 16+ strength compared to the majority of humanity with a 10 strength. As part of creating your character, you also get to either choose or randomly roll a bunch of background information ranging from what you did before to your physical build. Depending on your race, some of these backgrounds will increase various stats. Much like Dungeon Crawl Classics, you start at level 0, and try to survive to level 1 through a short adventure. If you do, you get to choose one of four basic classes called novice paths. The paths are warrior, rogue, priest, and magician, and they function exactly as you’d expect, with these paths focusing on sheer damage and combat prowess, skills, divine magic, or arcane magic, respectively. This choice will change how you level up over time. Leveling in this game is determined on your class at some levels, your race at others, and then you are allowed choices to specialize further in an expert path at level 3 and a master path at level 7. Expert and master paths function almost like paragon paths in DnD3.5/Pathfinder or class specialization in DnD 5e. Depending on your style, this type of leveling will either infuriate you or be your favorite method. Players get lots of options on what type of path to choose at each step, but once you are in your path, you don’t get as many options after that compared to, say, Pathfinder. This game doesn’t have feats or other minor character choices, so character paths and magic spells are the majority of the choices a character makes. However, what the novice, expert, and paragon paths offer that is not found in other games is the ability to really forge your own character. You do get fewer options in a path, but the paths tend to allow any character at any time to really design their own character. Want a warrior (novice path), druid (expert path), bard (master path)? Done! I’m not saying that character would be the most powerful or efficient character out there, but I am saying that that character might be the most fun to play. And that kind of character design is amazing.
Magic-Magic is gained by learning traditions through path options. As a character grows in a class, he or she also gains traditions or spells and power. A character’s power rating determines the number of spells and the level of spells a character can prepare each day. Traditions can be thought of as almost sub-schools of magic with traditions ranging from curse to air and everything in between. Each tradition has several different spells of different levels in it. Magic itself follows a pattern similar to DnD 4e with spells divided into either attack or utility spells. Attack spells have a character make an attack roll against the enemie’s defense or base stat, or the attack spell has the target make a stat challenge roll. As an added bit of fun, some magic attacks also have an extra effect that occurs if you roll above a 20 on the attack. These effects do extra damage, push the target further, or some other effect that shows that you are truly a master magician. Much like the challenge roll systems and banes/boons, magic is extremely elegant and simple. So unlike magic in a few other systems, magic is very approachable and easily mastered in a few moments.
Summary-Shadow of the Demon Lord presents a new RPG system. It’s simple and easy to run and play. The game is built to run efficiently and focus on the story. One of the things trimmed out of the game is power gaming and too long between leveling. That is done extremely well. However as part of that clean up, the game loses many of the options present in other RPGs. That is not a bad thing, but it’s something that you as a player and a GM must adjust your expectations for. You will have a blast with the system, but you will run character from level 0 to level 10 in under a year instead of 20 years. You will also have to get ready for some brutal gameplay and some limitations in character options. If you and your group can adjust to these changes, you will have an absolute blast. 4.75/5
Theme or Fluff-This game runs like a combination of DnD, Lovecraft, Clive Barker, and Warhammer Fantasy. Robert Schwalb is a sick, twisted man, and you will enjoy every minute of it. The world of Shadow of the Demon Lord is already messed up before the Demon Lord casts his influence on it. You have a world full of monsters, craziness, and feuds long before the horrors from out of time and space show up to the party. The world is extremely well written, and built in such as way that expanding it will be easy while still giving you enough places to play and build on your own. Well done! HOWEVER, this is not a family-friendly game (unless you’re in the Manson family.) The book itself has graphic depictions of violence and monsters. Judge if this game would be appropriate for your group and yourself. As someone with a steady diet of Lovecraft, King, and the entire Aliens vs. Predator franchises, I only wanted more. 5/5
Execution-RPGs generally come in two flavors when it comes to organization: world first or mechanics first. This book goes mechanics first, but the mechanics are a bit disorganized. You can get a good understanding of the game from these rules, but you will have to read things a few times. Also, there are some slight organization problems. Character races are introduced, then base mechanics, followed by novice paths and so on. It breaks up the flow and makes you have to move around the book a few times in order to build a character. It’s nothing game-ending, but it’s a minor problem. However, the book does have a decent flow overall, a good layout, and reads well. It doesn’t have many blocks of text that bore the reader. This might not be the best organized book I’ve ever read, but it is at least better than average. And, unlike some companies I could name, this book has an index! The only thing this book doesn’t have that I feel it really should is an example adventure. Shadow of the Demon Lord is its own system. I love the system and world, but as a first time GM for the game, I would like to see how Schwalb would like me to run it from his book. That omissions hurts the system a bit as I don’t have an example to base my own ideas off of. As a kickstarter backer, I get an adventure, but I’d like that thrown into the book to really help all the new players to this system. 4/5
Summary-This is a great game that is full of absolute horror. It’s got phenomenal, simple mechanics that allow players to focus on the story. The story itself is an absolute disaster in the best way possible. Every element of the world is well crafted and points to a world on the brink with the demon lord being the tipping point to drive things even further toward chaos. My only complaints are a possible feeling of lack of character options as well as the organization of the book. These complaints are minor as they don’t really hurt the game. Once you know how to play, how a book is organized is only a trivial thing. It’s a great game that I can’t wait to play more of. It’s a love letter to all the things I treasure-simple game mechanics I enjoy and horror authors who keep me up late at night under the covers. 92%
Product- Shadow of the Demon Lord
System- Shadow of the Demon Lord
Producer- Schwalb Entertainment
Price- $19.99 here
TL; DR- 13th Age, DnD 4e, and Warhammer in a blender! 92%
Basics-The world is in chaos, and the Demon Lord hasn’t even set foot into it yet. Shadow of the Demon Lord is the first book by Schwalb Entertainment where characters face a world on the brink. The empire is falling, and a transdimensional evil stirs. As it casts its attention onto the world, its shadow falls on the world causing nature to go haywire, the dead to rise, or evil to open gates from other places. Players fight to keep the world safe. Will you be able to stop an unstoppable evil?
Mechanics or Crunch- This is its own system, so let’s break this down piece by piece.
Basics-This game plays like a modified d20 system with bits of DnD 4e and Fantasy Flight’s Warhammer Fantasy mixed in. Almost all actions are resolved with d20 rolls. Characters have several stats, and the modifier for all these stats is the base stat minus 10. Whatever the result is the modifier to the d20 roll. For 90% of the rolls in this game that are not attacks, the characters need a 10 result to succeed at their check; This is called a challenge roll. That’s it-it’s simple and elegant. Aside from the basics of a roll, sometimes outside circumstances modify challenge rolls. These are boons and banes. In these circumstances, six-sided dice are added (boons) or subtracted (banes) from the roll. You only ever roll boons or banes as a boon cancels out a bane and vice versa. These are given for attacking into darkness, having favorable positions, powers, good tools on a disable check, or other in-game effects. If you have to roll several boon or bane dice, you only ever add or subtract the highest six-sided die total among all the boons/banes. Again, it makes math simple and elegant. As you can tell, this is not a math heavy game. That’s not a bad comment as the game focuses that much more on the story and quick action resolution.
Skills-This game doesn’t have skills per se- it has professions. Professions feel like a love letter to the OSR movement. During character creation, players get two professions. This is what you did before you became an adventurer, and this will determine some of the activities you can do. Navigate by starlight alone? That would be impossible for a cobbler, but it would be an automatic success for a sailor or a desert nomad. Discover what a potion does? Possibly a roll with boons for a doctor, but almost impossible (several bane dice) for a grave digger. Again, being able to use professions as skills is simple and effective.
Combat-Combat is as simple as d20 and 13th Age. The game doesn’t have the movement-map requirements of Pathfinder, relying more on theater of the mind. Initiative…just isn’t a thing in this game. Turns are divided into fast and slow parts. Players get to take fast turns, then the monsters. Next, players get to take slow turns then the monsters. Fast turns are when a creature takes one action such as moving or attacking. Slow turns are moving, attacking, and possibly other actions all on the same turn. This game wants players to go first, then monsters. It built this mindset into the system, and it works well. On a creature's turn, combat works almost like any other d20 system. Melee attacks work using the basic d20 plus a creature's strength stat minus 10 vs. a creature's defense stat. Creatures can take banes to this roll to push enemies, escape an engagement, or even knock enemies prone. Damage for each weapon is determined by the type of weapon wielded, just like most other d20 based systems. Creatures and players do not have high hit point totals in this game, so combat can be pretty deadly pretty quickly, reinforcing the gritty nature of this game. In addition to fast and slow turns, you also have triggered actions; these function pretty much like reactions in DnD 5e and interrupt actions in Pathfinder. They are actions you take off-turn that are the result of other creatures’ actions such as attack of opportunity or spell effects. Again, quick and easy is the name of the game in this system.
Distance-This is a decidedly old school game with some modern twists. The game can use maps, but mostly theater of the mind is its goal. Distance between characters reflects that. Distances have descriptors like reach (at hand), short ( five yards), medium (20 yards), long (100 yards), and extreme (500 yards). On your turn as a move, you can move double your speed stat in yards. On a slow turn, you can do that twice. Some creatures move fast while some move slow, and it’s just that easy.
Character generation and advancement- Character generation is a bit limiting compared to other systems like Pathfinder and Shadowrun, but on par with DnD5e or Fantasy Age. Players choose a race and receive some preset stats. Then, that character gets to modify their stats a little based on what their specific race provides them. That feels limited, but it also makes all the creatures of one race in the world feel like their stats represent them, as opposed to the normal +2 all creatures of one type received in standard DnD/Pathfinder, where most human fighters have a 16+ strength compared to the majority of humanity with a 10 strength. As part of creating your character, you also get to either choose or randomly roll a bunch of background information ranging from what you did before to your physical build. Depending on your race, some of these backgrounds will increase various stats. Much like Dungeon Crawl Classics, you start at level 0, and try to survive to level 1 through a short adventure. If you do, you get to choose one of four basic classes called novice paths. The paths are warrior, rogue, priest, and magician, and they function exactly as you’d expect, with these paths focusing on sheer damage and combat prowess, skills, divine magic, or arcane magic, respectively. This choice will change how you level up over time. Leveling in this game is determined on your class at some levels, your race at others, and then you are allowed choices to specialize further in an expert path at level 3 and a master path at level 7. Expert and master paths function almost like paragon paths in DnD3.5/Pathfinder or class specialization in DnD 5e. Depending on your style, this type of leveling will either infuriate you or be your favorite method. Players get lots of options on what type of path to choose at each step, but once you are in your path, you don’t get as many options after that compared to, say, Pathfinder. This game doesn’t have feats or other minor character choices, so character paths and magic spells are the majority of the choices a character makes. However, what the novice, expert, and paragon paths offer that is not found in other games is the ability to really forge your own character. You do get fewer options in a path, but the paths tend to allow any character at any time to really design their own character. Want a warrior (novice path), druid (expert path), bard (master path)? Done! I’m not saying that character would be the most powerful or efficient character out there, but I am saying that that character might be the most fun to play. And that kind of character design is amazing.
Magic-Magic is gained by learning traditions through path options. As a character grows in a class, he or she also gains traditions or spells and power. A character’s power rating determines the number of spells and the level of spells a character can prepare each day. Traditions can be thought of as almost sub-schools of magic with traditions ranging from curse to air and everything in between. Each tradition has several different spells of different levels in it. Magic itself follows a pattern similar to DnD 4e with spells divided into either attack or utility spells. Attack spells have a character make an attack roll against the enemie’s defense or base stat, or the attack spell has the target make a stat challenge roll. As an added bit of fun, some magic attacks also have an extra effect that occurs if you roll above a 20 on the attack. These effects do extra damage, push the target further, or some other effect that shows that you are truly a master magician. Much like the challenge roll systems and banes/boons, magic is extremely elegant and simple. So unlike magic in a few other systems, magic is very approachable and easily mastered in a few moments.
Summary-Shadow of the Demon Lord presents a new RPG system. It’s simple and easy to run and play. The game is built to run efficiently and focus on the story. One of the things trimmed out of the game is power gaming and too long between leveling. That is done extremely well. However as part of that clean up, the game loses many of the options present in other RPGs. That is not a bad thing, but it’s something that you as a player and a GM must adjust your expectations for. You will have a blast with the system, but you will run character from level 0 to level 10 in under a year instead of 20 years. You will also have to get ready for some brutal gameplay and some limitations in character options. If you and your group can adjust to these changes, you will have an absolute blast. 4.75/5
Theme or Fluff-This game runs like a combination of DnD, Lovecraft, Clive Barker, and Warhammer Fantasy. Robert Schwalb is a sick, twisted man, and you will enjoy every minute of it. The world of Shadow of the Demon Lord is already messed up before the Demon Lord casts his influence on it. You have a world full of monsters, craziness, and feuds long before the horrors from out of time and space show up to the party. The world is extremely well written, and built in such as way that expanding it will be easy while still giving you enough places to play and build on your own. Well done! HOWEVER, this is not a family-friendly game (unless you’re in the Manson family.) The book itself has graphic depictions of violence and monsters. Judge if this game would be appropriate for your group and yourself. As someone with a steady diet of Lovecraft, King, and the entire Aliens vs. Predator franchises, I only wanted more. 5/5
Execution-RPGs generally come in two flavors when it comes to organization: world first or mechanics first. This book goes mechanics first, but the mechanics are a bit disorganized. You can get a good understanding of the game from these rules, but you will have to read things a few times. Also, there are some slight organization problems. Character races are introduced, then base mechanics, followed by novice paths and so on. It breaks up the flow and makes you have to move around the book a few times in order to build a character. It’s nothing game-ending, but it’s a minor problem. However, the book does have a decent flow overall, a good layout, and reads well. It doesn’t have many blocks of text that bore the reader. This might not be the best organized book I’ve ever read, but it is at least better than average. And, unlike some companies I could name, this book has an index! The only thing this book doesn’t have that I feel it really should is an example adventure. Shadow of the Demon Lord is its own system. I love the system and world, but as a first time GM for the game, I would like to see how Schwalb would like me to run it from his book. That omissions hurts the system a bit as I don’t have an example to base my own ideas off of. As a kickstarter backer, I get an adventure, but I’d like that thrown into the book to really help all the new players to this system. 4/5
Summary-This is a great game that is full of absolute horror. It’s got phenomenal, simple mechanics that allow players to focus on the story. The story itself is an absolute disaster in the best way possible. Every element of the world is well crafted and points to a world on the brink with the demon lord being the tipping point to drive things even further toward chaos. My only complaints are a possible feeling of lack of character options as well as the organization of the book. These complaints are minor as they don’t really hurt the game. Once you know how to play, how a book is organized is only a trivial thing. It’s a great game that I can’t wait to play more of. It’s a love letter to all the things I treasure-simple game mechanics I enjoy and horror authors who keep me up late at night under the covers. 92%
October 22, 2015
Pese a no llamarme mucho la fantasía, las buenas críticas que cosechó el Kickstarter de SOTDL me han hecho hacerme con una copia. Y la verdad es que no defrauda; con una mecánica simple pero de desarrollo intrincado y con muchas opciones, el juego es un perfecto maridaje entre el rollo "old school" de fantasía y el terror y oscuridad de influencias clásicas como el Viejo Mundo de Warhammer o Ravenloft. Tiene un "setting" con cosas ya vistas en muchos sitios pero sabe darles un toque diferente en algunos puntos, amén de tener unas tablas de elementos aleatorios tremendamente inspiradas y que ayudan a meterte en el juego desde el primer minuto de crear al personaje. De lo mejorcito de 2015, sin duda.
Read
December 5, 2023I recently purchased a Bundle of Holding bundle for this game, largely because it was recommended by author and game designer Kenneth Hite and game player/designer and tv creator John Rogers (Leverage, The Librarians, etc.). That bundle included the core; the companion; a campaign (Tales of the Demon Lord; and sourcebooks for the north, the south, the fairies, the religions, the underworld, and the cults. But I don't want to write reviews for all of them, so I'm just gonna summarize my thoughts here.
The basic idea here is laid out by Schwalb in his prologue: he loves fantasy, horror, eldritch magic, and heroism. So after working on D&D, he wanted to put everything he loved in the first game from his own company. And it's funny because I can see all of that: the influence of D&D in character creation, along with an attempt to break away from character class: characters can basically level up in any class they want, so you can make something a little more Elric-like or Howardian, with sorcerers who can cast spells and swordsman who know some magic. Also, since this is about the entrance of world-ending evil, there's also mechanics for corruption.
But as I've never played it, that's all I'll say about the mechanics.
As for the setting, well, I'm not sure what to say. As in, I've just written and erased several lines because none of them really captured what I wanted to say. It's like the Forgotten Realms, if the Forgotten Realms were written after A Song of Ice and Fire: there's a lot of stuff about conquest and waves of civilizations; there's religions both old and new; there's dwarves and orcs, but the former are cursed and the latter are magically-twisted. And over just about everything, there's a grim-dark tone of "isn't this terrible?" or maybe "isn't it complex morally?" So there's blackmail and adultery and affairs in some intro adventure, and that's before you get to any world-ending monsters. Maybe that's the weird feeling I get off this game: it feels a little like 90s comic books, where everything was grim and gritty.
(I don't dislike the tone, but I wonder what this game would've read like if it had been a totally traditional fantasy world, but one where world-ending horror was about to break free. As it is, it reads like a grim place becoming more grim, which is like a slide rather than a break.)
And here there's gonna be some spoilers (for a roleplaying setting), which is that, as a few of the books tell us, the Demon Lord of the title -- that world-ending horror -- is actually a shard of the original one true God, who was driven mad by his creations' creation. (And there might be another level of creation in between that.) And we learn that all the gods are actually just powerful fairies. Which puts the characters in the position of (potentially) saving a world that is fundamentally a lie. Which is interesting and could lead to some interesting moments -- "yes, everything I thought is untrue, but there's still kindness and beauty here, so" ::stabs evil cultist to save the world::.
As fiction, this is an intriguing premise, but I'm not sure it would actually work in practice, which is the weird position an RPG book is in: it's the premise, but without playing it, I'm not sure I can really judge.
***
2023 Addition: Shadows of the Demon Lord Legacies
How? I bought another Bundle of Holding, this time for a bunch of additional books. Why did I buy this? I don't remember.
What? This was a collection of mostly small supplements that are PDF only. The bundle included
* 200+ page book on magic (new spells)
* a 36 page campaign(?) where most of the adventures were like 2-page outlines
* a guidebook for each main class (fighter, priest, rogue, magician) (20-30 pp each)
* a few books for setting-specific material, locations, organization
* a few books for new rules (7-20 pp), like new insanity quirks, poison, true name magic, etc.
* a metric ton of book for monsters -- fairies, lizardmen, ogres, weird machine monsters from space (or something), barrow wights, how to make your own monsters, etc. (7-15 pp, or so.)
Yeah, so? You can kind of read it in my original review of the original bundle, but this bundle makes it even clearer: Shadow of the Demon Lord is too metal.
There's a joke in programming that goes like this: when someone gives you 3 lines of code to review, you find a hundred things to change; when they give you 300 lines of code to review, eh, it looks ok.
So I want to note that as a possible driver of my reaction: there's so much stuff here, so of course my eyes start to glaze over.
But also: it's unrelenting, with burning skeletons, digging contraptions called Penetrators, monsters call "cold lover", "corpse mother", "death angel", "corpse genie". FFS, there's a spell that can make what is essentially a tank, and this is illustrated as a tank driving through a horde of skeletons.
You know what, there's someone who must love this stuff, but even the designer noted (in the Kickstarter for his next game) that some people bounced off this tone. It's me right now, I'm those people.
You know, given my lukewarm response to this game, I passed up the Kickstarter for Schwalb's next RPG, Shadow of the Weird Wizard. Which is too bad because it seems like that game is responding to almost everything I find off-putting about this game.
***
2023 Addition: Shadows of the Demon Lord Victims
How? OMG (as my kiddo says), I had a 3rd Bundle of Holding for Shadow of the Demon Lord.
What? I sometimes like to itemize what's in a bundle so that I know what not to buy, but I haven't got the energy for this third Bundle. Partly because it's just like the other bundle I reviewed before: a dozen pdfs about various locations, optional rules, monster/character options.
Yeah, so? Here's another reason why I'm not itemizing this bundle: I am not going to be buying more Shadow Lord stuff; and more broadly, I'm going to concentrate a bit more of what I buy. Like: I didn't particularly like looking through these books; why am I buying stuff when I am only lukewarm on the whole product line?
The basic idea here is laid out by Schwalb in his prologue: he loves fantasy, horror, eldritch magic, and heroism. So after working on D&D, he wanted to put everything he loved in the first game from his own company. And it's funny because I can see all of that: the influence of D&D in character creation, along with an attempt to break away from character class: characters can basically level up in any class they want, so you can make something a little more Elric-like or Howardian, with sorcerers who can cast spells and swordsman who know some magic. Also, since this is about the entrance of world-ending evil, there's also mechanics for corruption.
But as I've never played it, that's all I'll say about the mechanics.
As for the setting, well, I'm not sure what to say. As in, I've just written and erased several lines because none of them really captured what I wanted to say. It's like the Forgotten Realms, if the Forgotten Realms were written after A Song of Ice and Fire: there's a lot of stuff about conquest and waves of civilizations; there's religions both old and new; there's dwarves and orcs, but the former are cursed and the latter are magically-twisted. And over just about everything, there's a grim-dark tone of "isn't this terrible?" or maybe "isn't it complex morally?" So there's blackmail and adultery and affairs in some intro adventure, and that's before you get to any world-ending monsters. Maybe that's the weird feeling I get off this game: it feels a little like 90s comic books, where everything was grim and gritty.
(I don't dislike the tone, but I wonder what this game would've read like if it had been a totally traditional fantasy world, but one where world-ending horror was about to break free. As it is, it reads like a grim place becoming more grim, which is like a slide rather than a break.)
And here there's gonna be some spoilers (for a roleplaying setting), which is that, as a few of the books tell us, the Demon Lord of the title -- that world-ending horror -- is actually a shard of the original one true God, who was driven mad by his creations' creation. (And there might be another level of creation in between that.) And we learn that all the gods are actually just powerful fairies. Which puts the characters in the position of (potentially) saving a world that is fundamentally a lie. Which is interesting and could lead to some interesting moments -- "yes, everything I thought is untrue, but there's still kindness and beauty here, so" ::stabs evil cultist to save the world::.
As fiction, this is an intriguing premise, but I'm not sure it would actually work in practice, which is the weird position an RPG book is in: it's the premise, but without playing it, I'm not sure I can really judge.
***
2023 Addition: Shadows of the Demon Lord Legacies
How? I bought another Bundle of Holding, this time for a bunch of additional books. Why did I buy this? I don't remember.
What? This was a collection of mostly small supplements that are PDF only. The bundle included
* 200+ page book on magic (new spells)
* a 36 page campaign(?) where most of the adventures were like 2-page outlines
* a guidebook for each main class (fighter, priest, rogue, magician) (20-30 pp each)
* a few books for setting-specific material, locations, organization
* a few books for new rules (7-20 pp), like new insanity quirks, poison, true name magic, etc.
* a metric ton of book for monsters -- fairies, lizardmen, ogres, weird machine monsters from space (or something), barrow wights, how to make your own monsters, etc. (7-15 pp, or so.)
Yeah, so? You can kind of read it in my original review of the original bundle, but this bundle makes it even clearer: Shadow of the Demon Lord is too metal.
There's a joke in programming that goes like this: when someone gives you 3 lines of code to review, you find a hundred things to change; when they give you 300 lines of code to review, eh, it looks ok.
So I want to note that as a possible driver of my reaction: there's so much stuff here, so of course my eyes start to glaze over.
But also: it's unrelenting, with burning skeletons, digging contraptions called Penetrators, monsters call "cold lover", "corpse mother", "death angel", "corpse genie". FFS, there's a spell that can make what is essentially a tank, and this is illustrated as a tank driving through a horde of skeletons.
You know what, there's someone who must love this stuff, but even the designer noted (in the Kickstarter for his next game) that some people bounced off this tone. It's me right now, I'm those people.
You know, given my lukewarm response to this game, I passed up the Kickstarter for Schwalb's next RPG, Shadow of the Weird Wizard. Which is too bad because it seems like that game is responding to almost everything I find off-putting about this game.
***
2023 Addition: Shadows of the Demon Lord Victims
How? OMG (as my kiddo says), I had a 3rd Bundle of Holding for Shadow of the Demon Lord.
What? I sometimes like to itemize what's in a bundle so that I know what not to buy, but I haven't got the energy for this third Bundle. Partly because it's just like the other bundle I reviewed before: a dozen pdfs about various locations, optional rules, monster/character options.
Yeah, so? Here's another reason why I'm not itemizing this bundle: I am not going to be buying more Shadow Lord stuff; and more broadly, I'm going to concentrate a bit more of what I buy. Like: I didn't particularly like looking through these books; why am I buying stuff when I am only lukewarm on the whole product line?
March 4, 2019
This game reminds me nothing more than a melding of D&D and Warhammer Fantasy. From Warhammer it takes the main themes of overarching doom and decay over a world, mechanics of insanity and corruption, and a wide variety of jobs/classes to take, and from D&D it takes a tighter, simpler rules set with attributes/skills(more like 5e than earlier), and a higher magic game world.
It doesn't really break new ground in terms of the story, setting, or mechanics, but it feels like it's taken a lot of other interesting ideas and whittled them away to only the most useful and interesting bits. I especially like how the character advancement works. There are only 10 levels, and at each level you gain one set of abilities from one source. But there are tons of choices, though you only have to make these choices a couple times - there is your race (there are about 5), your novice class (there are 4), your expert class (16), and your master class (about 50?). In addition when you gain magic abilities, you can often choose whether to gain a new school (there are several dozen) or a new spell in an existing school, so you are free to specialize or broaden as much as you like. It's very simple, but also flexible.
It doesn't really break new ground in terms of the story, setting, or mechanics, but it feels like it's taken a lot of other interesting ideas and whittled them away to only the most useful and interesting bits. I especially like how the character advancement works. There are only 10 levels, and at each level you gain one set of abilities from one source. But there are tons of choices, though you only have to make these choices a couple times - there is your race (there are about 5), your novice class (there are 4), your expert class (16), and your master class (about 50?). In addition when you gain magic abilities, you can often choose whether to gain a new school (there are several dozen) or a new spell in an existing school, so you are free to specialize or broaden as much as you like. It's very simple, but also flexible.
February 8, 2021
Ive been looking for a perfect system to run for when I am not doing my usual Call of Cthulhu game mastering. It had to be more complex than Mork Borg and less complex than the DnD baseline, being something easily teachable to new players as I move around a lot and often have to form new groups, sometimes with inexperienced gamers. I also greatly prefer streamlined systems, myself.
Shadow of the Demon Lord has everything I want. A fast pace, easily modifiable in terms of setting and customization, but with a robust character advancement system. One of the best, quite possibly. Its the best action-oriented system I have yet come across.
Shadow of the Demon Lord has everything I want. A fast pace, easily modifiable in terms of setting and customization, but with a robust character advancement system. One of the best, quite possibly. Its the best action-oriented system I have yet come across.
Read
March 14, 2023Another fantasy heartbreaker that's ultimately not for me. However, I do really like the professions, how classes work, how the spells are organised, and the random tables are of a surprisingly high quality. But the grimdark tone comes off as lame most of the time, and generally speaking I don't think there's a lot of innovation here; to most of the sections my reaction was yep, as expected, nothing surprising. Ah well, onwards we go.
October 23, 2018
I'm trying my best to put an SotDL game together, as it takes many of my gripes about 5e DnD and simplifies them. Schwalb himself has said he wanted to make an RPG that you can play and run after having six beers, and I'm keen to put his theory to the test.
January 3, 2019
Dark and gritty in a blend of Warhammer Fantasy RPG, 2nd ed. and D&D, 5th ed. It's genius in it's simplicity and endless in it's possibility.
I definitely recommend this game!
The challenge is pulling players away from Pathfinder/D&D to join you.
I definitely recommend this game!
The challenge is pulling players away from Pathfinder/D&D to join you.
December 26, 2022
Alright as a 5E D&D/WFRP mashup, but if I wanted to play something WFRP-ish, I'd just play WFRP, and if I didn't I wouldn't want the WFRP stuff creeping in. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
October 31, 2018
I think I quite like it... the concept is great. But it could really have done with a killer introductory scenario in the book.
As it is, I'm yet to find a really killer adventure for it.
As it is, I'm yet to find a really killer adventure for it.
June 24, 2021
Really interesting ttrpg with some fun hooks. Really easy to get into & start playing.
May 18, 2022
Reads super easily. It's easy to understand how to make a character and how to level them.
February 15, 2020
The best RPG going, combines the Dying Earth, Warhammer Fantasy, and Call of Cthulhu. Advances the genre by condensing the campaign into eleven distinct parts and implementing moral ambiguity.
No lifetime commitment. No D&D levels one through thirty that take five years for players to achieve.
Nearly all race and class combinations are possible. Characters gain new abilities in each section, which should approximate to each play session.
Prior to playing the level zero introductory adventure, players choose an ancestry: human, changeling, orc, goblin, clockwork or dwarf. Once completed, they choose a novice path: magician, priest, warrior, or rogue for levels one and two.
At level three they choose an expert path where they can specialize, like a rogue becoming an assassin or they can multiclass having the rogue split off into something different, like a spell caster. At level seven you can take a second expert path or adopt a master path. These career choices are open-ended and best realized as an outgrowth of gameplay.
At level ten you complete the story arc by fighting a big bad representative of the Demon Lord. Whatever entity was hastening the demise of Urth by inviting the demon lord to eat it. I like how the setting crisis intensifies. Our antiheroes are out to save the world, much like those heroes who tossed a ring into the lava.
Brazen horror, excellent writing, enjoyable art, and a useful format make for an excellent game. Recommended. For a deep dive, see Pookie's Review. http://rlyehreviews.blogspot.com/2015...
No lifetime commitment. No D&D levels one through thirty that take five years for players to achieve.
Nearly all race and class combinations are possible. Characters gain new abilities in each section, which should approximate to each play session.
Prior to playing the level zero introductory adventure, players choose an ancestry: human, changeling, orc, goblin, clockwork or dwarf. Once completed, they choose a novice path: magician, priest, warrior, or rogue for levels one and two.
At level three they choose an expert path where they can specialize, like a rogue becoming an assassin or they can multiclass having the rogue split off into something different, like a spell caster. At level seven you can take a second expert path or adopt a master path. These career choices are open-ended and best realized as an outgrowth of gameplay.
At level ten you complete the story arc by fighting a big bad representative of the Demon Lord. Whatever entity was hastening the demise of Urth by inviting the demon lord to eat it. I like how the setting crisis intensifies. Our antiheroes are out to save the world, much like those heroes who tossed a ring into the lava.
Brazen horror, excellent writing, enjoyable art, and a useful format make for an excellent game. Recommended. For a deep dive, see Pookie's Review. http://rlyehreviews.blogspot.com/2015...
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