2024 is the 50th anniversary year of Dungeons & Dragons, so I'm running the game that gave me my first taste of role-playing games: Basic D&D, 1981, right out of the pink box.

A dungeon has been discovered beneath the keep's guild house. There's treasure in there! Also monsters and traps and who knows what else. You're a party of brand-new 1st level adventurers, and you're at the entrance to the dungeon. Good luck.

(You can bring along your own character if you like, or make one when you arrive!)
(I have some personal rules changes and additions, that's how you do it old school style. But they're pretty minor. Moldvay, Morgue's Way.)

Once a powerful proponent of Law, the Archmage Tazimack the Red was eventually driven mad by a fear of mortality. As he slipped into insanity his retirement home began to reflect the chaotic bent of his mind.

Long after Tazimack's unnaturally animated body has disintegrated, his manor house remains as a shadow cast by a twisted intellect.

Can the characters bring order to this chaos?

This fast paced game of exploration, action and humour combines old school, early D&D style gaming with a modern, rules lite RPG sensibility. Use your cunning and daring to outwit the deadly Shadowbrook Manor to claim your treasure.

Gateway, a thriving port city of canals and commercial ventures, has of late been rocked with riots and uprisings after word of the emperor’s death spread. Many members of the city’s elite stand to gain much from the unrest and have lent aid to the agitators and rabble-rousers. This chaos shrouds the whispers that dark powers hidden in the city are on the move. Will the descendants of the men of Gog rise again?

Shadow of the Demon Lord is a dark fantasy RPG of horror and madness by Rob Schwalb, a designer on WFRP2e, D&D5e, A Song of Ice and Fire RPG and the Black Company RPG. Fans of Joe Abercrombie's First Law series will especially enjoy this scenario. The characters are a band of hard-bitten troubleshooters, living in a world darkened by the Demon Lord, risking corruption, madness, and death. Crimes will be solved, depravity faced, and nightmares overcome.

Survival in the world under the shadow of the Demon Lord is difficult, not just for risk-taking adventurers, but for ordinary folk faced daily with threats of starvation, illness, and madness. What measures would such folk be willing to take to ensure the survival, even prosperity, of an entire community? And who would deny them, saving them from the memories that will haunt them in the small hours of the night?

This scenario is designed as a demonstration of the Shadow of the Demon Lord, a dark fantasy RPG of horror and madness. It is well suited for those new to roleplaying and/or the RPG. The players will have the opportunity to generate their own characters - would-be heroes risking corruption, madness, and death. Dilemmas will be explored, depravity faced, and nightmares overcome.

The Inquisiton has found the crusader citadel of Martyr’s Point to have fallen to the profane. Rumours of the ancient god-monster, Okka the Eater, spread as quickly as the plague that shares it's name. But the truth eludes those seeking confessions, despite endless nights of torture, and an elite team of witchhunters is called to root out evil and decide where the wrongness lies.

Shadow of the Demon Lord is a dark fantasy RPG of horror and madness by Rob Schwalb, a designer on WFRP2e, D&D5e, A Song of Ice and Fire RPG and the Black Company RPG. Fans of Joe Abercrombie's First Law series will especially enjoy this scenario. The characters are a band of hardbitten troubleshooters, living in a world darkened by the Demon Lord, risking corruption, madness, and death. Dungeons will be explored, depravity faced, and nightmares overcome.