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A Glorious Death: Sourcebook

A Glorious Death: A Sourcebook for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG

A Glorious Death: Sourcebook for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPGFor 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!

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Exquisite Agony: Sourcebook

Exquisite Agony: Sourcebook for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG

Exquisite Agony: Sourcebook for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPGFrom pulpits and street corners, doomsday preachers shriek about the horrors awaiting those who walk in darkness. The druids, roaming the lands under their protection, whisper prayers to the Fair Folk to keep the dark ones at bay. Even the witches use symbols to ward against the attention of the malevolent spirits, those fallen faeries known as devils.

Every religion, large and small, claims there exists a place of punishment, a great repository where the souls of the damned face suffering beyond description at the hands of fiendish tormentors. This place has many names, such as the Darkness Below, the Nether World, the City of Graves, or Torment, but most know this place as Hell.

Hell would not exist without mortals. It is a place of purification, where souls stained by evil can find release from their burdens through the cruel ministrations of the warped faeries living there. The process of purification does not come easily but involves extraordinary pain; thus, the devils have amassed a wide range of torture techniques for this purpose.

Hell is also the staging ground for the devils’ efforts to corrupt souls in the mortal world. In this place sustained by great magic, devils can draw power to tempt mortals, to bestow on them wondrous gifts in exchange for ownership over their souls. Devils find mortals’ rapid descent into darkness hilarious—even more so when it hurts other people. However, as much as they enjoy ruining mortals’ lives, devils depend on them for survival. Should mortals ever pass from the world, so too would the devils. For this reason, devils have a keen interest in the present troubles blighting Urth. The Demon Lord’s shadow reaches even into the bowels of Hell, and its denizens stand ready to contribute to the struggle to save the world.

Exquisite Agony lays bare the secrets of Hell and its inhabitants, offering GMs new inspiration for creating adventures and campaigns that explore themes of corruption and redemption, take groups into the depths of darkness, or test the player characters’ ability to resist the power Hell offers. As with other sourcebooks, you’ll find a mix of story and mechanics to support these goals. Players can also find more options at the end of this supplement, including a new ancestry, a selection of new paths, and new spells.

Since the material in this book injects a heavy dose of evil into the game, it might not be appropriate for all groups. Be sure to consider carefully before you introduce these options into your game.

Buy Exquisite Agony in Print and PDF at DriveThruRPG!

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Tombs of the Desolation: Sourcebook

Into the Desolation!

In a few weeks, I’m releasing Shadow of the Demon Lord’s first setting expansion: Tombs of the Desolation. To give you the vapors and make you pine for mint juleps, you’ll find tasty, tantalizing morsels here over the the weeks leading up to its release.

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The Demon Lord’s Companion: A Sourcebook

Demon Lord’s Companion: A Sourcebook for Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG

Demon Lord's Companion for Shadow of the Demon LordAs the Demon Lord’s influence creeps across the land, it touches more people, awakening in them crippling dread, tempting them to commit unspeakable acts, or to rise up and take a stand and fight back against the spreading darkness. In the end times, all must choose a side, to save the world or watch it burn.

The Demon Lord’s Companion reveals new options for players and Game Masters alike, providing a host of new options such as:

  • Faun and Halfling ancestries
  • Six expert paths including the psychic and mountebank
  • A dozen master paths such as the blackguard, martial artist, and Alchemical Items, Forbidden Items, Marvels of Engineering, and new Potions
  • New rules for creating gear and using vehicles
  • Alchemy, Demonology, Telekinesis, and more new traditions of magic
  • Magical places, relics, new creatures, and more!

An essential addition to the Shadow of the Demon Lord line of products, the Demon Lord’s Companion is bound to take your games into darker and stranger places!

A Deeper Look into the Demon Lord’s Companion

Content for Shadow of the Demon Lord was never a problem. I spent the time leading up to the Kickstarter campaign designing, testing, redesigning, massaging, and doing all the work I needed to do to get the game as close to editing-ready as I could so I wouldn’t have to spend time during production to fill out the book—the last thing I needed was pressure to create on top of everything else. I wound up with enough material to fill another hundred pages beyond the 272 that made it into the book. (And, by the way, 272 was never the plan. I set 256 as a hard limit but we discovered during layout that we needed the extra pages to include all the content, despite my meticulous estimations and we still had to leave out a few pieces of art that I’m sure will make their way to you in future products.)

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