Necromancy! I’m running a Shadow of the Demon Lord [SotDL] campaign for the first time. Blogging has been a huge help in re-capping and organising my thoughts during a campaign, so the blog is back for a bit.
For those that don’t know, Shadow of the Demon Lord is an RPG by Rob Schwalb. It’s a high-fantasy, apocalypse-in-progress RPG with horror elements. A Demon Lord campaign is intended to run in a dozen or so sessions, one for each of the eleven character levels.
Horror is not an easy genre for me. Apart from a session or two of Don’t Rest Your Head, I don’t have much experience running it.
Session 0
This session was about establishing the setting, our starting situation, and creating level 0 characters.
The great human empire appears to be crumbling. It’s former slaves, the orc horde, has risen up in rebellion. One by one, the city-states of the empire are overrun. Our soon-to-be heroes are among the refugees being led south by the twin nobles, Janice & Gerald. They have secured the help of a dwarven king who has offered some nearby land for settlement.
While traveling to the dwarven burg known as Bartertown, Our players choose their ancestries. We have:
- Thumper, an orc slave who has chosen to remain with their master “Joe”. Thumper used to manage a herd of huge cows for Joe, but the herd is now lost.
- Toejam, the goblin fence. That’s Mister T to you. Show some respect!
- Grievance, the pixie. Grievance has joined in by accident, having been trapped in Thumper’s incredibly huge and wild beard. G has made a nest in there and has (so far) remained hidden. Sometimes they pretend to be Thumper’s conscience.
- “Joe” a farmer with no history since their player didn’t make it. Joe’s character was being made up as we went. Once mentioned, Toejam immediately declared that they joined the refugees because Joe owed them money.
The twins ask for volunteers to investigate the ancient, overgrown ruins located in the forest near Bartertown. This is the land where they are allowed to clear and settle. Toejam decides to check it out before the twins can get organised and sets out with Thumper (and Grievance in beard) to see if there’s any salvage to be had.
The party arrives at the tumble-down ruins just before midnight. most has been reduced to suggestive piles of stone, but there still remains part of a tower with a massive dead tree growing up and out from within it. it looks at though the tree may have exploded the tower out from within as it grew and it’s trunk nearly fills the circumference of the structure. Inside the tower, the party finds a opening in the trunk leading underground.
The earthen tunnel leads 10 yards or so down into a similarly unfinished chamber. At the far side is throne made of roots and an elven king, sitting motionless. On his belt, he has a plain iron dagger. In his arms is clutched an ancient tome. On his hand is a silver ring, and at his feet is a golden cup.
Despite his ageless appearance, the ancient king is long-dead. handling the corpse turns his flesh to dust. Otherwise, all his possessions are untouched by time. All but the iron dagger is claimed.
The throne of roots is unmovable and difficult to burn. What’s more, it half-conceals doors that may otherwise open into the chamber. The roots of the throne grow into the door as well as the floor.
The party returns to the surface and climb the tree. As they climb, the seem to move forward in time. As they ascend, the leaves turn color and fall away. But the time they reach “winter” they can see a dead forest beneath them, spider-webbed with moon-shadow. then the light dims as a shadow crawls across the start. An alien and hungry face appears in the moon’s features as it turns an evil, reddish color. The party quickly retreats to the ground, receding in time to the present. Upon closer examination, the sealed tome they recovered is engraved on the cover with the same tree showing life at the roots and progressing toward death at the top. Chills!
The tome is locked with a hasp. Toejam can’t see how to open it and hands it off to Thumper for the brute-force approach. Thumper sets off a needle trap that pricks their thumb deeply. The tome suddenly opens up and it seems that Thumper is the only one that can read and understand it (+1 corruption!). (This is not repeatable. Thumper is declared the “chosen on” by their fellow players.)
It’s a long march back to town since no-one is sleeping in the woods that night.
We briefly run through the following seasons as the party takes on new professions in the settlement, Mossburg. Thumper is a leather-worker. Toejam is a merchant managing the flow of supplies in from Bartertown for Janice & Gerald. Grievance makes a nuisance of themselves by riling up the children of the village.
Curiously, no-one else seems to have discovered the cave!
Behind the Scenes
Mossburg? Where have I heard of that before? I had dusted off this old idea for SotDL but little did I know what a trove the lore of Demon Lord would serve up to me. I’m usually not one for following established lore, but so much of what I found in the bundle of Demon Lord books I had purchased seemed tailor-made for the concept I had in mind. In many cases it improved on them too. I was re-structuring the early levels of the campaign at the last moment.
Session 0 was all new material as the morning of the first session. I had the image of the dead king underground and added a few suggestive items that might be used as a catalyst for the players to select their novice paths. When Thumper opened the book, I asked if it had to do with priestly or wizardly magic. They chose priest. I took a moment to choose which god and a design for the front. I never imagined that they would climb the tree too. I revisited the cover description and they didn’t even catch on until after they descended again!
We didn’t get much in to the mechanics of SotDL this session. There were a few challenge rolls–one with a bane. The next session is a total creature feature though, so we’ll dig into some combat and spell-casting then!
What’s next for me is stating up the encounter for the session. I don’t like to re-skin stats but SotDL doesn’t offer any guidance for from-scratch monster creation in it’s core book or The Demon Lord’s Companion. I *think* I have the gist, but only just. Whatever happens, it’s going to be exciting though.
