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The Spear of Horrendous Iron

An adventure for Shadowdark RPG featuring devout religious Anarchists.



What You Got Right Here



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. 



Zine Properties

A Dungeon with 22 Keyed Locations (LOS & Lighting)
• A Forest Hexcrawl with 7 points of interest and multiple pathways
  
• 14 Original Monsters
  
• 6 Original Magic Items
  
• Thoughtfully and usefuly laid out for ease of reference at the table

Player Handouts

In-world artifacts
• Player-facing maps
  
• Player-facing art

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!

Anarchists?! 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. 

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.

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