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City of Chains: Lands in Shadow

City of Chains: Lands in Shadow for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG

City of Chains: Lands in Shadow for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG

On the coast of the Auroral Ocean, almost directly opposite from the Pirate Isles to the east, stands Dis, the City of Chains. One of the member states of the Confederacy of Nine Cities, it sits on the eastern shore of Rûl, perfectly situated at the intersection of several major land and sea trade routes. While nominally a trading city, it is more famous—or infamous, most would say—as the preeminent marketplace for the slave trade on the continent. Despite strict prohibitions on slavery elsewhere in the Empire, the peddling of flesh continues unabated in Dis, flourishing even, just as it has for nearly a thousand years.

The well-to-do citizens of Dis enjoy a great deal of freedom: the freedom to own other people as slaves, enjoying a decadent and heady lifestyle at their chattel’s expense. The poor and downtrodden of the city enjoy none of these luxuries, instead living in constant fear of its ruler, the cruel autarch, whose minions snatch up those crippled by debt or who break the law, no matter how small the infraction, clapping the hapless victim in shackles and chains from which they will never escape.

City of Chains reveals one of the most cruel and decadent cities in the Confederacy of Nine Cities. As with other installments in this series, the information contained herein is intended to inspire you to develop Dis beyond what is provided in these pages, to help you make this vile and sinister place your own.

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Pull of the Stars: Lands in Shadow
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Pull of the Stars: Lands in Shadow

Pull of the Stars: Lands in Shadow for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG

Pull of the Stars: Lands in ShadowThe people of Urth are not alone in their universe. Demons rush forth from the Void, devils torment the wicked in Hell, and the faeries plot and dance in hidden kingdoms—yet worlds just as strange drift nakedly visible across the night sky. Power radiates from innumerable stars, while traumatic shockwaves pulse across the cosmos, the final screams of entire civilizations consumed by the Demon Lord’s shadow. The seeming emptiness is filled with half-thoughts from idiotic star gods, the psychic wails of dying races, and the tremendous bursts of gravity as black holes collide. The prison moon of Tarterus shields the minds of mortals, elementals, and fey alike, but this protection is imperfect, and venturing out to explore and exploit those other worlds comes at great risk.

Madness is all too common among both astronomers and seekers who set foot on alien soils. It has innumerable forms and symptoms, but a common refrain is that something wants to be known. Moons full of the bastard offspring of the genies’ insanity, mooncalves born of mortal creatures exposed to the energies of the aether, and artifacts of dreadful knowledge—all seem to join in a single song. Such whispers of a grand cosmic agenda are dismissed on Urth as paranoid, but it is impossible to deny that those exposed to the cosmos change in specific ways.

Pull of the Stars details nine worlds orbiting the same sun as Urth, each offering strange locales for adventures, as well as the means of getting to them and elsewhere in the solar system. Here you will find both stories and rules to help you send groups to truly alien locations and face all manner of mysteries and mad threats.

Venture beyond, and be forever changed.

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Song of the Woad: Lands in Shadow

Song of the Woad: Lands in Shadow

Song of the Woad | Shadow of the Demon Lord RPGIf you were to ask the scholars of Rûl to discuss the origins of the Woad, they would likely speak to you about “simple, savage, debased tribes descended from the First People,” and perhaps they would venture forth that they are “common in descent from the beastmen,” and “little different than those corrupted creatures.”

But these academic musings would be sadly misguided at best: while they might share some archaic and nomadic customs with the first tribes of mankind, and are rightly characterized by their bestial nature, the Woad came to the lands much later than either humans or beastmen, and from a place no scholarly mind could ever grasp.

Propelled across the Void to Urth by the last gasping scream of a genie succumbing to madness, the Woad came from a world destroyed and forgotten long ago. They are a people who struggle to maintain their ancient customs and beliefs in a world that was initially alien to them upon their arrival, and has been hostile to them ever since.

Song of the Woad explores the various tribes of the Woad, a largely independent and wild folk who have long resisted efforts to be either absorbed or destroyed by the many great civilizations that have risen and fallen in Rûl in the centuries since their arrival on Urth. The Woad’s steadfast refusal to be assimilated has resulted in a general view of them by most peoples of Rûl as hopelessly backward, beastly, and barbaric.

However, a closer look reveals that there is far more to the wild folk than one might expect, as you will discover in this addition to the Lands in Shadow series.

Buy Song of the Woad as a PDF from DriveThruRPG!

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Borderlands of Tear: Lands in Shadow

Borderlands of Tear: Lands in Shadow for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG

Borderlands of Tear: Lands in ShadowThe last conquest of a dying empire stands between two arms of the Shield Mountains. A province forged from necessity, its territory drenched in blood spilled across countless battles fought over the long years since mortals first stumbled across this land, the Borderlands of Tear stand as a reminder of the Empire that was and what could be once more. The Borderlands were a foreboding and dangerous place—a land that spawned hordes of beastmen, fell monsters, brigands, and far, far worse. Long believed cursed, it took the son of an emperor to bring the territory to heel and establish the rule of law, ensuring stability and peace, but now, with the Empire in turmoil, all eyes turn to the last heir who rules Tear for a way out of these desperate times.

Borderlands of Tear examines a battle-scarred corner of the Empire, detailing its history, people, and places. Written by designer Robert J. Schwalb and illustrated by Svetoslav Petrov, Cecil Howe, and Jack Kaiser, this 12-page entry in the Lands in Shadows gives you everything you need to set your adventures in a wild and dangerous place!

Buy Borderlands of Tear as a PDF from DriveThruRPG!

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Weight of the Underworld: Lands in Shadow

Weight of the Underworld: Lands in Shadow

Weight of the Underworld: Lands in ShadowMortals with souls stained with corruption go to Hell. Most other souls sink down to the Underworld, a place of different horrors, of quiet misery, protracted grief. Here the torment is not punishment but erasure, as everything you are is eaten away by the coruscating wind. Should you awaken to see its grey deserts, rejoice, for you are not in Hell. Then despair, for other agonies await.

Weight of the Underworld joins the other installments of the Lands in Shadow series, each zooming in on one part of the world and providing you with the lore you need to realize the place in play. While most Lands in Shadow deal with places characters can easily reach, this entry examines a place no one wants to go but one where almost everyone winds up. Read on to discover the cold dread of the Underworld.

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