The Spear of Horrendous Iron
A downloadable adventure
An adventure for Shadowdark RPG featuring devout religious Anarchists.
Leave a comment with a picture of the print copy and I'll send you the PDF.
The Anarchists are bringing back their god. They've struck a deal with a Giant. ...it's possible they may be making some mistakes.
The Giant forges again the blade that was broken.
The Ogres just want to get paid.
The People wait in deadly anxiety, for they know...
The Tax Men are coming.
The Dragon sleeps on her silver hoard, dreaming, dreaming.
The Druid is on her way, sharpening her knives.
It’s been said that a good adventure is a powderkeg and the PCs are the spark. The Spear of Horrendous Iron is like 3 powderkegs daisy-chained together and hidden under a fireworks warehouse. Something cool is and terrible is gonna happen, and that’s probably gonna lead to a few other cool and terrible things.
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The strength of The Spear of Horrendous Iron is in the interesting situations it sets up, and the inevitable interactions that will happen between those situations. How the players approach these situations will lead to interesting and impactful choices.
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The vibes are great. The writing is downright mythical in places.
-2d6 Stingbats Review (complete review)
What you got right here is an oldschool-ass dungeon adventure with all the classics: a town with a problem, a forest, and a dungeon.
Well... all the classics, plus devout religious Anarchists, vultures with human hands, a lovestruck spider, ogres learning to read, several factions in conflict, a giant, a dragon, an absolutely stupid amount of treasure, and a minimum of obvious solutions. Also, zero orcs in holes waiting patiently for you to kick in the door.
No fate but what you make. There isn't a 'right' way to do this adventure. Players might just want the treasure. They might want to be giant-slayers. They might want to join the anarchists (or even the cult!). The module makes no assumptions about what the players' goals are - but it does try to make their choices matter.
None of the encounters are balanced. In here, you got everything from Godzilla-level threats down to solitary goblins who know things they shouldn't. It will 100% kill characters who don't think beyond the tips of their swords, but it's full of cracks they can get their little fingers into.
Factions, Factions, Factions! The Godzillas wandering around here aren't invincible. The factions in this module all have access to knowledge, tools and weapons of meaningful power. But players will likely need to think both strategically and tactically, and make alliances and compromises, no matter what their goals are.
Properties
- A Dungeon with 22 Keyed Locations
- A Forest Hexcrawl with 7 points of interest and multiple pathways
- 14 Original Monsters
- 6 Original Magic Items
- Player Maps
- VTT maps
- Fully Hyperlinked PDF
- All art files as shareable assets
- Player handout files
A loveletter to my favorite oldschool dungeon things
- choices & consequences
- a workaday world wrestling with intractable conflicts and strange horrors
- problems whose solutions become problems
- clocks which move the story forward, becoming more complex over time
- darkness
- treasure
- gunpowder and matches
- death, death, death! for the unwary and the unlucky!
Like Punks?!
They're loosely based on the historical Levellers. Not on like... the Sex Pistols song. I mean you could totally make them punks if you want! I had Pierre Joseph Proudhon in mind, in an agrarian medieval anarcho-mutualist mold... but with magic.
Modern anarchism is complex. The anarchists I have known and loved are rad people with beautiful ideals and keen insight. But this module doesn't seek to represent or comment on modern anarchism. It's about a fantasy medieval peasant revolt.
Medieval Peasant Revolt
I've always looked at feudalism as essentially a protection-money racket, and I've been fascinated with peasant revolts throughout ancient history. So I really have to wonder what a peasant revolt would have looked like if there were giants and magic.
Some of them have tipped over into some very questionable behavior, and there is definitely some Bad Stuff™️ going down. But I've done my best to create a coherent (and fun!) sense of social Anarchism based on medieval politics and the Shadowdark pantheon of gods.
Leave a comment with a picture of the print copy and I'll send you the PDF.
Purchase
In order to download this adventure you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $15 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Comments
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received my copy today, good stuff!