I love Shadow of the Demon Lord. Game designer Rob Schwalb has put together an amazing RPG with fun, easy-to-learn rules. At first glance this appears to be a simple dark fantasy tabletop RPG (which would be awesome by itself), but read beyond the table of contents and you’ll find it’s a deliciously wicked world of rules that twists tropes and archetypes you know well into something original and different.
You can hear more about Shadow of the Demon Lord in the Gamer to Gamer podcast I recorded with Rob back in March when his (super duper successful) Kickstarter launched. Since then he’s published the core rulebook and a ton of adventures by many amazing designers you can buy.
I have a very busy week this week and one reason is because I’m preparing to run my first ever game of Shadow of the Demon Lord with some players this Saturday. While we’re all seasoned with years of Dungeons and Dragons experience this will be their first time playing Rob’s game as well. We’re also limited on time, so as simple as Shadow of the Demon Lord’s character creation is, I went looking for pregens online. I couldn’t find any so I decided to make my own. I figured since I was going to make them, I might as well share them with you! Now they do exist online.
Starting characters (level 0) in Shadow of the Demon Lord only have an ancestry so these were easy to whip up. Still if you’re in a crunch go ahead and grab them. Look forward to Thursday when I’ll post up some level 1 versions of these bad boys!
Starting
Changeling
Clockwork
Dwarf
Goblin
Human
Orc
Novice
Changeling Magician Level 1
Clockwork Warrior Level 1
Dwarf Priest Level 1
Goblin Rogue Level 1
Human Priest Level 1
Orc Warrior Level 1
More Shadow of the Demon Lord pregens to come!
Hey if you want more RPG goodness, check out the Free Game Resources section of this site. You can find a lot of fifth edition D&D resources there like backgrounds, magic items, monsters, D&D fifth edition rules modules, spells, adventures, and more created by yours truly.
If you like what you’re reading, please check out my podcasts on The Tome Show, follow me on Twitter, tell your friends and share this blog post, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
Does everyone have a staff or a sling because of weapons being outlawed by the oppressive Demon Lord or something?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Starting equipment is pretty thin in the game. Your first adventure you’re supposed to find a bunch!
LikeLike
Ah okay. This system seems hella interesting, maybe I can borrow your book for a bit during down time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course! I have plenty of pregens so you can hop into the game as well.
LikeLike
This looks very neat. I’m curious to try more SotDL. That main book is looking mighty tempting…
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a great, easy read too. The system is dark! Like death from pooping dark.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi James, I hope you’ll let us know how the session goes? I backed SotDL on Kickstarter too, and am really eager to try it. I’m sort of “between groups” at the moment, so I must live vicariously for now!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maybe he could do a whole miniseries next week about our little get together aka… IntroCONso!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hunyock, qpop is right! Look forward to a lot of great RPG talk. I read the book for this and I really like the tone of the RPG. Hateful Defecation is a devastating spell.
LikeLike