GM: Louis Stone-Collonge
Players: Shannon Bell, Sean Nittner, Chad Rey, Todd Hitchcock, Nick M
System: Shadow of the Demon Lord
Something hunts the streets of Crossings after dark. The poor are vanishing, a priest is missing, and the city watch has abandoned the investigation. Can you uncover the truth before another victim disappears, or will you become the next offering to the shadows?
Our band of vagrants Hans, Frans, Shramp, Trip, and Ted, residents of The Grieving, a poor district in The Crossing, learned of a beloved figure Father Gregory going missing, after he had been searching for many other who had gone missing as well.
Offered five gold coin each (more than any of us had ever seen before) by Sgt. Allysa, one of the Brown Cloaks that cared about people in The Grieving, we set out to find Father Gregory.
His temple the Shrine of the Ascendant, dedicated to the new god gave us clues that he was investigating the Moarhouse, a that Shramp had hear was once the domain of a demonic cult, but had been abandoned for ages. That sounds like a nice place to go.
Our adventureres:
- Hans, a newsstand owner and informant. He hefted an axe that was just a bit to heavy for him, but it was part of his dwarven heritage, so he used it with pride.
- Frans, an astrologer that broke bones with his stout staff.
- Ted, a human child who had a horrific past. He killed his father, a known serial killer, and carved out his crystal skull. At nine, he was already grizzled.
- Trip, a detective goblin that bullied those around him into compliance. On the take from the Brown Cloaks, which Shramp saw him do it.
- Sharmp, a goblin sailor raised by giant rats who scavenged shipwrecks.
The moarhouse teemed with mercenary guards, patchwork men, hungry rats, and an even more hungry ghoul. We found Father Gregory, or what was left of him (barely alive) and the remains of the others who had gone missing.
Thoughts on the game
The system for SofDL uses a d20 vs. DC 10 mechanic not dissimilar to Mork Borg. Attributes modify the roll as do boons (which add a d6) and banes (which subtract a d6). Each of our heritages offered narrative (see in the dark) and mechanical (boons on stealth roles) benefits and we had tables to roll up a few other factors like wealth, personality traits, and physical characteristics (Shramp had a tooth growing form his forehead and Trip was bright orange). All of this felt pretty familiar, though I like the boon/bane mechanic (add/subtract 1d6) more than the advantage/disadvantage roll (roll 2d20 and keep the better or worse respectively). It’s a personal preference.
Combat was divided into four phases in this order: players fast actions, enemy fast actions, player slow actions, enemy slow actions. I was curious about how this would break down, especially after hearing that Crows playtest v3 was going to use it. My take away is that it added extra steps without tactical depth. We ended up always picking fast actions (attack) and slow actions were reserved as penalties (you got knocked out so now it takes a slow action to stand up and act).
The adventure itself was four fights separated by some exploration. I think there were probably two opportunities to do something other than fight (the guards outside probably could have been bribed) and there was a scroll we found that might have been useful when facing the ghouls, but we always jumped straight to violence so those options were never exercised.
