Venturing into the dark is dangerous, and the Shadowdark RPG offers monstrous threats, dangerous traps, and treacherous hazards to throw at your players. What it doesn’t provide is a hazards chart listing potential damage and check difficulty classes.
So we made one.
What are hazards?
The Shadowdark Core Rules detail hazards — persistent threats like quicksand, sleep-inducing spores, and collapsing walls — on page 115. The rules describe them as obstacles players might be able to mitigate or evade, however there’s often no way to “defeat or permanently disable them”.
Hazards are divided into three types:
- Movement: Slow or stop movement.
- Examples: Caltrops, 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)
Building a Shadowdark Hazard Chart
unlike traps — whose potential effects and damage are detailed on page 114 — hazard impacts are left up to the game master. As someone coming from more rule-intensive games like Dungeons & Dragons, I was hoping for a few more specifics.
I found them in the published adventures for Shadowdark, which detail environmental effects, saving throws, and damage. I’m using this chart as a quick reference guide for my campaign. This isn’t meant to be a definitive source for hazard difficulties, since not every hazard requires a saving throw or does damage. For those that do, this provides some high-level guidelines for crafting your own threats.
Want to see hazards in action? Scroll down for official and homegrown examples of hazards.
| Hazard Level | Examples | Damage | Check DC |
| 0-3 | Short fall, dense rubble | 1d6 | Normal (12) |
| 4-6 | Collapsing walls, enfeebling magic | 2d6 | Hard (15) |
| 7-9 | Drowning hazard, long fall, Toxic gas, crushing terrain | 3d6 | Extreme (18) |
| 10 | Complete cave collapse | 4d6 | Here there be dragons. |
Published Shadowdark Hazards
Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur
There are several hazards in the Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur. I’ve quoted two of them below as examples.
Blinding Cave is a cruel cave that blinds people when they enter it with their torches. Walls. Dazzlingly reflective. DC 12 DEX when entering with bright light or blinded for 1d4 rounds.
Web-Choked Cave is filled with webs (left by what? The PCs will find out…) Webs. Sticky. DC 12 STR to break free and move each turn. Highly flammable (1d6 damage to stuck creatures, burns 1d4 rounds).
Cursed Scroll #3: Midnight Sun
Hoard of the Sea Wolf King is a zero-level gauntlet set in the ruins of a Viking-inspired tomb. It appears in Cursed Scrolls #3, and includes several arctic/underground themed hazards. Here are the relevant quotes:
Stingbat Cave: Mud. Coppery-smelling stingbat guano. PCs moving at more than half-speed must pass a DC 12 DEX check or slip and fall.
Flotsam Cave: Piles. Precariously stacked debris. Each time a PC touches it, DC 12 DEX or 2d6 damage as they’re crushed under a collapse.
Homegrown Shadowdark Hazards
Basic Hazard
- Minor Geothermal Vent (Damage) – DEX DC 12 check to avoid; 1d6 damage if you fail.
Combined Hazard
- Geothermal Vent (Damage) + Noxious Gas – DEX DC 12 to avoid. 1d6 damage if you fail; CON DC 12 to avoid passing out for 1d4 rounds … and take damage every subsequent round until you wake up or are dragged from the area.
What more Shadowdark?
Check out our other ShadowDark shows and resources:
- Shadowdark RPG Tools & Resources
- d12 Ways Shadowdark is Awesome! (S4E15)
- d8 Shadowdark Mistakes We Made (S4E19)
- d8 Shadowdark Monster Resources (S4E26)
- Shadowdark Impressions (Campaigns & Coffee)
- Unboxing Cursed Scrolls 3: Midnight Sun for Shadowdark
- Unboxing the GM Companion for Shadowdark
Featured Image Meta
Artwork from the Shadowdark Game Master’s Screen. Credit: Arcane Library.