Solodark Session 00

I am starting a solo play of Shadowdark using the Solodark rules, the new hex crawling rules previewed in Cursed Scroll No. 4, Mythic Game Master Emulator (2nd edition), Delve, and ChatGPT.

I am using some of the world building ideas from Kill Ten Rats YouTube channel.

Human Dominance: The country is predominantly human, with elves and dwarves being rare.

Magic: Magic is rare and often feared.

The Darkening

• The Shadowdark is an underlying, malevolent force that ebbs and flows, often taking generations to manifest.

• Through subtle influence, it acts to bring together otherwise separate agents into a major world threat.

• Some monitor the Shadowdark to work to hinder it or aid it.

• The major events and threats are called a Darkening. It is a familiar term, and it is often heard that, " the times of Darkening are coming."

• The Watchers (those dedicated to search out and hinder any coming Darkening) also ebb and flow based on how long ago the last Darkening was.

There have been many old civilizations had their rise and fall, leaving behind ruins filled with relics, inscriptions, and enigmatic technologies or magics.

Starting map

I will start with 4 characters:

• Elric (Human Ranger)

• Johan (Human Thief)

• Archibald (Human Fighter)

• Drogo (Human Mage)

Shared Past:

Elric, Johan, and Archibald all served in the Duke of Redmar’s Third Militia — a conscripted force tasked with patrolling the borderlands.

The Third Militia was undermanned, poorly paid, and treated like expendable tools.

Rumors among the soldiers were that the Duke had no intention of ever paying them their full wages — many were being “lost” on dangerous missions so the Duke wouldn’t owe them land or pensions.

Session 00

Drogo had once studied briefly at a minor arcane college. He later fell in with mercenaries and smugglers, and during this time worked with Elric and Johan before they were conscripted. Two years later, Elric and Johan are in The Third Militia alongside Archibald. Conditions are grim: dwindling supplies, officers selling rations, and constant whispers of the Duke of Redmar]] sacrificing men to thin the ranks. One rainy evening, Drogo appeared outside the militia camp claiming to be a lost scribe. He approached Elric and Johan telling them of the map.

“You’ll never get what you’re owed here. And probably never leave the militia alive. But that vault… it could hold relics, treasure, names long dead. Enough to vanish — live like ghosts. What do you say? One desertion for a lifetime of peace?”

Elric, Johan, and Archibald desert that night with Drogo — taking a few stolen rations, gear. The act brands them as traitors, and the Duke’s Redmantles begin hunting them across the Marches.

Drogo purchased a map off of a drunken scribe in the riverside town of Rellinford, who claimed to have copied it from a collection of estate scrolls in the Duke’s archives. The scribe said it came from a post-war tax record: after the abbey was shut down, officials couldn’t find all its tithes.

On the map:

• A partial hand-drawn copy of an old map, scratched onto folded parchment in cramped, careful script.

• It shows the ruins of an old roadside abbey, marked simply as “St. Yoren’s Retreat — Disbanded 52 years ago”

• Notes scribbled in the margin (in another hand) say:

  • “records, coin held, vault beneath altar — 3rd stone loose?”

• A branch of the Old Road, diverging into overgrown hills near a faded ink marking:

  • “St. Yoren’s Retreat — sealed winter of 1373

• A nearby landmark called “Three Sisters Stones” — three standing stones still visible on the plains near Brackenford.

• Notations include:

  • “root cellar blocked?"

  • “prayer vault sealed under altar — not cleared?”

  • “catacomb entrance collapsed?”