Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur (5/25/2025)

GM: Aaron Morneau
Players: Danni Brown, Courtney Hackman, Sean Nittner, Jonas Smith-Strawn, Tom G.
System: Shadowdark

My goal this Kubla was to play as many OSR games as I could: Errant, Mothership, and finally Shadowdark. I think Shadowdark does a lot of things that I’m excited about (torch timers!) but I’ll go over them all at the bottom. Let’s start with a recap.

Creating Characters

We had two copies of the books plus a few of the cursed scroll zines (Aaron had the whole package and Jonas brought a copy of the core book) so there was some shuffling of books needed, but eventually we created:

Gerrin Brittlebones the Dwarven Wizard (Jonas). Taken out of the mines because his bones kept breaking (very low con) and sent to academic practices. Equipped with fiery fingers (burning hands and magic missile).

Morning Glory the Halfling Witch (Tom). Former barbarian. Creator of toads!

Fix the Half-Orc Thief (Danni). Named because she fixed things like stuck doors, overburdened wallets, or living people that should be dead. She set out with 3HP and a dream.

Mommy Fortuna the Human Seer (Courtney). An ugly person inside and out. Mommy had many hurtful words but useful guidance. Her fortunes kept us alive (yay, luck points).

Skimble the Goblin Priest (Sean). Having rejected the pillaging ways of Ramlat and turning to the bounty of Gede, Skimble fled goblin society (and was hunted by them) to spread mirth and bounty. He might have also nabbed a giant sack of gold on the way out as well!

The Red Citadel

Long ago, a mighty enclave of warriors lived inside the Lost Citadel. They worshipped bulls in ever-bloodier, cultish rituals that culminated in their leader, Minoros, transforming into the Scarlet Minotoaur. This immortal avatar of rage slaughtered the warriors in a single night of mayhem. However, some of their servants escpaed through the unseen halls used by the lowly. These beastmen hid in the fallen citadel, trapped by superstitious fear of the outside.

Play is the thing

Aaron quickly rolled us up to the outside of the Red Citadel, made of stonework we didn’t recognize. There were four entrances we found but one of them was a rooftop decent into a courtyard where we saw, heard, and felt, the minotaur raging below, crashing into pillars and shaking the foundation of the citadel. We decided to take the open cave entrance where we could shine light in to see our way.

I love that Shadowdark uses a real time 1-hour timer on light. We started with Morning Glory lighting a torch and Skimble casting light (huzzah, I didn’t lose it on the first try) entering the open cavern. It kept twisting and turning (like a minotaur labyrinth!) and we soon found:

• Funeral urns with coins (that we stole all but one of in each urn, in case the dead needed them)
• Bowls that devoured coins
• Murals showing minotaur overseers forcing peasants to carry grain and gold.
• A beaten and lost adventurer Giuseppe Baldini who we helped guide out of the dungeon. Only strange because he kept asking for treasure.

We also faced:

• Skeletons. A crit on turn undead made most of them turn to dust.
• Spiderfolk with purple fur. A crit on a burning hands consumed most of them, but the others we ran from.
• The Scarlet Minotaur, who we did everything we could to never, never, never face. We threw caltrops at him, flaming oil, arrows, conjured toads, magic missiles, distracting light spells, torches, and every other thing we could think of to stay away from his horns and his axe. Mostly this involved climbing to the roof while he was distracted, but even there we weren’t safe. Poor Brittlebones earned his name. He fell from 30′ up the rope and then bled to death before any of us could get to him.
• Beastmen, delighted that the minotaur was slain. Our biggest fans!

Thoughts on the game

I loved that we had creative solutions to problems and I wanted to see more. Shadowdark does a lot of things I like:

• Real world light timers
• Roll for spells (cast until you run out)
• Simple character creation and abilities
• Rewarding clever play
• Low HP encouraging people to avoid fights when they can.
• Always-on imitative to share the spotlight.
• Regular rolls for random encounters (with encounter tables for each adventure)

There still some stuff I’d want to change for my own games:

• Invert the dungeon delve premise. Current thoughts: characters as escaped prisoners from a colonialist power hiding in dungeons, connecting with others to build community that could fight back, and reclaiming treasures stolen long ago.
• More focus on overland travel and exploration. Making the terrain the dungeon.
• Even less focus on combat.
• Encouraging characters to interact. Current thought: grant luck (once per day) to characters for acting within their alignment. Initially (to establish the tensions):
  • Virtue: Once per day gain 1 luck when you condemn the beliefs of a Chaotic character or ask a Lawful character to agree with you.
  • Ambition: Once per day gain 1 luck when you challenge the beliefs of a Lawful character or ask a Chaotic character to speak their mind.
• And then finding ways to undermine this as well. I want a mixed group with natural biases against each other forced to work together by the situation and then I’d like to see if they can overcome their differences.
• Several bits from Errant or Torchbearer to split up what’s in your backpack and what’s in your hands.
• I’d like to see if the roles from Errant (caller, note taker, etc) could be ported over. May not work for always on initiative, but it’s worth a shot.
• Trinkets (Mothership) or Keepsakes (Errant) as a personal touch.
• Perhaps (and I know this would change things a ton) attacks that automatically hit. That would involve more restructuring that I’m ready to do right now, but I really like it both to speed up the game and to make fights that much more dangerous.

I’ve been diving into the Arcane Library YouTube channel and listening to Kelsey’s design discussions. So much good stuff there and so much more to ponder as I figure out what OSR game (or perhaps what mismash of OSR games) is right for me.