What do icy waterfalls, greasy floors, and light stealing smoke have in common? They’re all hazards!
Welcome to Lair of Secrets. In this episode we’re talking about Shadowdark hazards. The things that drown you, crush you, blind you, steal your memories, and more!
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Shadowdark Hazards
02:33 Types of Hazards in Shadowdark
04:50 (Spoiler Warning!) Examples of Hazards in Gameplay
07:25 Creating Hazard Charts
09:57 Combining Hazards for Greater Challenges
12:38 Future Adventures and Hazards
15:01 Conclusion and Call to Action
Listen to the Episode
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Watch the Episode
- Watch Shadowdark Hazards 101 on YouTube.
Show Notes
What is a hazard? Hazards are often environmental effects like quicksand, rushing water, and falling debris. They’re things you might be able to mitigate or evade, but per the rules, there’s often no way to “defeat or permanently disable them”. The core rulebook defines them on page 115.
Hazards are divided into three types:
- Movement: Slow or stop movement.
- Examples: Caltops, tar fields, steep incline
- Damage: Ongoing damage that characters suffer while exposed to the hazard
- Examples: Acid pools, lava, pummeling hail
- Weaken: Saps the character’s physical capabilities, mental grit, or resources.
- Examples: blinding smoke, memory stealing, snuffs light sources,
The rules note that you can combine these to create particularly dangerous threats.
- Movement + Damage
- Exploding Rocks (Damage) + Loose Debris (Movement)
- Movement + Weaken
- Grasping Vines (Movement) + Sleep-inducing Spores (Weaken)
- Damage + Weaken
- Icy Water (Damage) + Snuffs Light Sources (Weaken)
What the rules don’t do is give you specific stats or mechanics for the example hazards, which hurt my brain, which grew used to having things stated out under the various editions of Dungeons & Dragons.
While the core rules don’t give any written mechanics for hazards, the Arcane Library’s published adventures *do* give us a few examples of how they’re used in adventures.
Hazards Chart: Published Examples, Sample DCs & Damage, and Homegrown Hazards
- Check out our “Shadowdark Hazards Chart” post for the hazards chart we reference in the episode, as well as example hazards quoted from Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur and Cursed Scroll #3: Midnight Sun.
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Featured Image Meta
Cover artwork from the Shadowdark RPG game master screen. Credit: Arcane Library.