A Glorious Death: A Sourcebook for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG
For centuries, jotun raiders sailed up and down the Empire’s coastlines in their longships, sacking towns and villages as far away as the eastern shores of the Northern Reach. Each raid carried off gold and plunder, slaves and magic to fill the vaults of the jarls, while turning the lands they struck into blackened ruins, the dead left for the crows. As history records, the Empire assembled a great and terrible host to lay waste to the lands of the giants and rid the world of its threat. The imperial hordes spilled south into the frozen wastes, shattered the jotun’s defenses, scattered their enemies, and took prisoners back in chains to serve as the Empire’s slaves.
The conflict cost the jotun dearly. Nearly three-quarters of their population died in the fighting or were dragged off to be warped into orcs. Although starvation, exposure, and disease further winnowed their numbers, the survivors vowed vengeance. They endured during the first terrible years following the devastation and eventually rebuilt their holdfasts and longhouses, crafted new ships, forged weapons and armor, and increased their numbers over the following generations in preparation for renewing their war against humankind.
Like other supplements for Shadow of the Demon Lord, A Glorious Death zooms in on one region of the continent and lays bare its secrets. This book explores a stretch of cold, inhospitable land known as the frozen wastes. Like the Desolation, many in the Empire deem it uninhabitable by all but the hardiest people, and thus the most powerful nation on Rûl has made little effort to tame any of this territory. Other obstacles to civilization are the indigenous jotun, people with the blood of giants flowing through their veins; strange monsters birthed in the cloying darkness under the mountains; and the sense that dark, strange gods watch over all that happens here.
Everything described in this book is optional and might not be appropriate for all campaigns. If you’re a player, discuss using this material with your Game Master. If you’re a GM, you can drop the setting information into any world you use, adapting the content to suit your needs.
Pick up A Glorious Death in print or PDF on DriveThruRPG!
Also, check out spell cards for A Glorious Death!
One of the most feared and hated traditions of magic is Necromancy, for it exists in flagrant opposition to the wheel of life, allowing the living to refuse Father Death’s call and remain in the world long after the body has failed. The undead of Urth trace their origins to this sordid art, many standing as examples of misguided and botched experiments to bind the soul to the world. In many cases, the efforts simply failed, and the magic used functioned instead as an animating force, power that imbued cold flesh with mobility and made these rotting puppets subject to their caster’s will. While more powerful magic came of these initial efforts, many necromancers still rely on these crude spells to create servants, soldiers, or even disturbingly, lovers.
Five days sailing east of the Northern Reach’s city of Gateway, if the wind favors you, there rises the first of a series of sixteen islands arrayed over the Auroral Ocean in a massive crescent that stretches southwards over hundreds of miles. The cultures across the islands are diverse, yet they all regard themselves as one people, the Tide Born, and owe allegiance to a single nation: the Kingdom of Sails.