Appendix Demon Lord

Last week, on Twitter, I was asked if I was ever going to talk about Shadow of the Demon Lord’s “Appendix N.” For those of you not in the know, Appendix N comes from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons’ 1st edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, which listed all the works that influenced the game’s design. The books Gary Gygax included ranged from the familiar to the obscure, making it difficult to track many of them down. Reading them, I found, gave me insight into not only the mood and tone Gygax was chasing with D&D, but also provided explanations for why things worked they way they did in the game. I know I wasn’t alone in digging into the books during my stint as a designer on the 5th edition’s design team and we sought to recapture much of atmosphere those books imparted on game.

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A Year Without Rain: A Starting/Novice Adventure
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A Year Without Rain: A Starting/Novice Adventure

A Year Without Rain: A Starting/Novice Adventure for Shadow of the Demon Lord

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Exploring the World through Adventures

I’m reluctant to say “never,” but it’s safe to say you’re not going to see a gigantic setting book for Shadow of the Demon Lord any time soon. Why? Well, it’s Steve Kenson’s fault. Many years ago, at one of the Green Ronin summits, Steve and I were discussing settings and adventures and he planted the seed in my brain that settings were best revealed through adventures rather than through giant gazetteers that must be read, digested, and, effectively, mastered to use properly. He pointed to Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Temple of Elemental Evil, the Dragonlance adventures and other classic scenarios that zoomed in on an area and brought it to life. Sure, we had the Greyhawk box, but it was all presented in broad strokes (and with curious attention on trees). If we wanted more information about the world, the adventures provided the stuff we needed to understand the plot, environment, and characters. And that was enough.

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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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