Tavern Watch Plays Shadowdark, Episode 1: It was a dark and stormy night

It’s spooky season here on Tavern Watch, so we’re playing something appropriately spooky — Shadowdark! But a spooky old-school-esque system isn’t enough on its own, so we’re diving back into one of the most classic horror tabletop game modules of all time — the original I6: Ravenloft for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1E. When new spooky rules meet old haunts, will our heroes survive the night?

In this case, our intrepid heroes, outsiders to the realm of Barovia investigating some disturbing rumors surrounding the Burgomaster’s daughter, Ireena, have found themselves invited to a dinner with the infamous ruler of the region, Count Strahd von Zarovich. Will they feast… or be feasted upon? Our brave adventurers include:

• Liz as Serl Sparrow (Halfling Wizard), whose destiny is it to enter Castle Ravenloft and emerge victorious.
• Nick as Ninir (Elf Thief), whose destiny is… to steal as much loot from the infamously rich Count as he possibly can.
• Chris as Faran (Elf Priest), a brave and doughty religious elf who will face the darkness or die trying.

This is the first in a three-part game of Shadowdark! Look for new episodes every Monday.

This game was played in Shadowdark, an Ennie-Award-winning tabletop RPG that marries the familiarity of D&D with the stripped-down, rulings-not-rules sensibility of older versions of the same game, yielding something that’s fast, fun, and easy to play. Shadowdark places an emphasis on being easy to understand and easy to run, making it a great game to pick up and play — even if it’s your first tabletop game! If you’re interested in picking up your own copy of Shadowdark, you can grab it at The Arcane Library. If you want to check out our adventure in Ravenloft for yourself, you can pick up I6: Ravenloft from the DM’s Guild. (We’re also using Venatus Maps’ Castle Ravenloft Battle Maps to play in these episodes.)

The music in this podcast is “Some Amount of Evil” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

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For more Tavern Watch, check out all of our recent episodes, including Outgunned Adventure, in which we had a rollicking Indiana-Jones-style adventure in the frozen north to hunt for treasure. Here’s the first episode if you want to see what that game was like! We have new games almost every week, so follow if you want to keep up!

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Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy the show!