The Great Shadowdark Torch Debate (S5E15)

Ken (00:00)
Welcome to the Lair. Today we're building Shadowdark Hazards, which are environmental threats that you can use to challenge your players. Our inspiration is my lunchtime game. The adventurers are trekking through a dense Scandinavian forest on their way to the trade town of Varden. It's the very depth of winter, which means the days are short and the world is very, very cold. And naturally, hazards lurk around every turn of the frozen snow covered trail.
On this episode, we're going to be using our Shadowdark Hazards chart, which we talked about in our Shadowdark Hazards 101 episode and is available on our website. But to briefly recap, the core rule book for Shadowdark talks about three kinds of different hazards. Movement, so things that slow or stop your movement. Damage, which is ongoing damage the characters suffer when exposed to the hazard. And then Weakened, something that saps their physical capabilities, their mental grit, or just resources, like uses up torches, that kind of thing.
Our chart extrapolates from published adventures and it takes you from hazard level 0 to 10, offering suggested damage for the various levels as well as difficulty classes for evading the threat. You can use some of it, you can use all of it, not all hazards are going to end up having some sort of a check or damage, but if they do, our chart may help you. My campaign is called Morka Norden.
And it's basically a iteration or an alternative version of a Norse Northlands kind of thing. And so as we're talking through our Arctic hazards, some inspiration. Obviously, the Empire Strikes Back, Hoth, Ice Caves, Wampas. You're about to freeze to death. So you have to cut open your Wampa to stay alive. And then honestly, one of my favorite films of all time, The Thing taking place in Antarctica, Long dark nights,
horrible things in the darkness and, you know, Antarctica is actively trying to kill you, right? So that's some of our inspiration. To start off, I've got the threat that I've actually thrown at my PCs like right now, which is snow covered crevasses, which I think I may have taken from the Thing There's a scene in the Thing prequel where they're driving their Wildcat across the frozen
wasteland of Antarctica and then the ice gives out beneath them and the whole thing just collapsed down into the crevasse, right? This is like the beginning point of them figuring out that there's horrible things lurking in the ice and so the idea here is you've got a thin crust of snow that conceals a deep crack in the ice and so my How I approached this was to said DC 12 decks check when you walk onto the ice And if you fail you fall through the ice plummeting into the crevasse
Exactly how much damage you take depends on how deep you made the crevasse. So if you want to be kinder or gentler, you might assume a 10 foot drop and I take a d6, right? But if it's a 50 foot drop, maybe more substantial damage. Or you might have a, fall into the crevasse, can you make another Xex check to avoid, to grab onto something and not fall farther? But I'm mindful that Shadowdark isn't constantly forcing you to make checks, right?
If they just say, hey, I reach out and grab something, can I stop my fall?
David (02:59)
And I would say the thing that makes this different from a trap is the foreshadowing of it. You know, they know that it's there, you know, they know that there are, you know, with the thin crust of ice, can probably, yes, it says conceal, you said conceals, but you know, they should know that something dangerous is here. So they should be moving careful.
Ken (03:20)
Yeah, and so how I handled that was they approach, so forest is very dense and they have approached an open field, which is in and of itself unique, right? Because there aren't a lot of open fields in the forest and they hear the sounds of someone screaming out for help, crying out for help. And so as they approach, they find the crevasse and the guy calling up and he's fallen down into it and he's broken his leg and he had fled
on his caravan and everybody else was killed by the rat men. And so, he's begging for In my campaign, that alerted them to the fact that there is at least this one crevasse. What they don't know is that the rest of the field is, there's more crevasses out I think it's one of those things where I like to give PCs the opportunity. So you've come across this big open field. That's a little bit suspicious. So they're like, so what can you, what else can you tell me? Like, well, there's some spots there that's like,
Maybe it's shaded a little blue because the ice is thinner. I think with this particular threat, in the real world, yeah, you're not going to know it's there. You just fall through it. But I think that's where maybe the first crevasse is a little less lethal. And now you know it's there. And then ⁓ maybe subsequent ones could be a little bit more dangerous. Because now we've told you.
David (04:26)
Yeah, and ⁓ an alternate version of this is they're not snow covered. The crevasses are actually there, but they're too far to jump or jump safely. ⁓ that would be more of a movement one where they'd have to figure out how to get across it. ⁓ With the penalty of a damage if they don't get across it well, ⁓
Ken (04:47)
Right.
David (04:53)
you know, but, ⁓ you know, that's, that's where you, get into the people traversing, ⁓ glaciers where they'll put a ladder down and then they'll walk across that ladder.
Ken (05:03)
Right. Right.
Which in my campaign, we had this whole, I don't know, 15 minute digression about 10 foot poles because the goblin, the goblin wizard has a 10 foot pole. He's like, why would I have a 10 foot pole? This is an unreasonably large pole. like, imagine just walking through the world with a 10 foot pole, especially if you're the goblin, right? And like, who has a 10 foot pole? Like a ⁓ six foot pole I could see, right? That's more like a staff with 10 foot. Like, I don't know, it's a trope of the genre. Like there's always 10 foot poles, but it's like.
David (05:13)
Uh-huh.
Hahaha
Ken (05:36)
It's a good point. Right? So I don't know. Now you've got these crevasses and you have a 10 foot pole. Maybe that's what you use your 10 foot pole for. He was hilarious. He was just riffing on it. like, this is an entirely unreasonable piece of engineering equipment. Who the hell would carry a 10 foot pole? Well, right. So now he's got this field of crevasses and suddenly, hey, maybe the pole will be something. So I think, or maybe the pole will be helpful.
David (05:37)
It was a 10-foot square back then, you know.
Wait till he realizes he can use it as a pole vault and get over the crevasse.
You
Ken (06:03)
Some other things to think about for the crevasses to kind of complicate matters ⁓ So first what has fallen in there before in my campaign it was you know this guard because I wanted to call out and have this role-playing encounter, but it could be a monster a very hungry desperate monster ⁓ and when they're pausing to get either their fellow adventurer out of the hole or the thing the person that fell in the hole before them what attacks so in my campaign, I've got a
yearling owl bear that has been that it just had a kill further out in the field and Has just noticed them and started to approach and now they got into this whole thing where they were putting on threat displays to try to drive off the owl bear so it doesn't tell me too close and then the owl bear too I had it very purposefully it knows where the crevasses are because it has its animal senses and so it purposely went around a crevasse on the map, which again kind of foreshadows the fact that There is something else here
But I think, know, goblins that are or other threats that are kind of off on the side with bows resting, they're resting up on a little hill because they know things are going to come and fall in there. Right. You've got any number of options, I think, to threaten your PCs.
David (07:16)
combining the hazard with the trap at that point.
Ken (07:18)
Exactly.
Because I think that makes it more like the hazard itself can be a challenge to be overcome, but I think players can debate for too long sometimes. So I think if you're finding that, you know, look on your random encounter chart or just have a have the plan B of like, huh, you hear the howling of wolves in the distance.
David (07:38)
Yeah, and if you like with the field of crevasses, it has the risk of turning into ⁓ something tedious where if they have to go through the same repetition or it just gets glossed over after the first one, ⁓ you've got to make it so the hazard actually means something. So it's actually a hazard rather than just a speed bump in the game.
Ken (07:53)
Yeah.
And they can always choose to go around, right? So that's the other thing. you know, just like in, you know, the Lord of the Rings, you head into the mountain passes and the storm is too much. It's too much for the hobbits. They can't do it. You have to turn around, right? So it could be, this is just obviously a killing field. We're going to take the half day to go around the field or we're just going to go some other direction to try and avoid this particular threat, which I think is entirely appropriate. Sometimes we all get locked into, well, there's a threat. I must solve it.
David (08:06)
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Right.
Ken (08:32)
Further complicating things for my game is that they, because you can only carry so much gear in Shadowdark and because they are going to Vorden to sell stuff, they bought a sled and a reindeer. And when they were getting the guy out of the crevasse, the reindeer heard the owl bear and was like, I don't know. I want to mess with an owl bear. And no one was tending to the reindeer. So it just starts to go away. So now the owl bear is coming to attack them.
David (08:45)
Okay.
no.
Ken (09:00)
the reindeer and their sled full of all their stuff is starting to move that away. And they're trying to get a guy with a broken leg out of a pit. Yeah.
David (09:09)
Nice,
⁓ Speaking of reindeer, ⁓ there's a, we have another, another Northern hazard here, ⁓ which is, you know, you've seen similar things in movies and such, you know, the best DM steel ⁓ is a stampeding herd of reindeer. You know, you have this distant thunder that becomes this, you know, ends up becoming this wall of fur and muscle.
as a stampeding herd of reindeer trample through the adventurer's camp. You know, we have it as like a DC wisdom or intelligence to notice what that threat is that's approaching ⁓ and be able to rouse the others in time. And then you have a couple of rounds, you know, like maybe a D3 rounds to get to safety. And if you're in it, there's a DC-12 dex check to evade the trampling herd.
⁓ And ⁓ woe be to anyone who is not able to as they take 2d6 damage as they're run over by the stampeding reindeer And of course reindeer don't stampede for no reason so What spooked them in the first place? You know, it's ⁓ how did that? ⁓ You know, was it was it a Pack of owl bears. I don't know if albers travel in packs, but you know
Ken (10:11)
Hehehehehe
Exactly. ⁓
David (10:37)
You don't want, you
Ken (10:37)
You
David (10:38)
don't want whatever is spooking the reindeer to catch up to you. Hopefully the reindeer, I would say as a GM, ⁓ you could, you could either take pity on the party or really ratchet things up for the party ⁓ depending upon how well they survived the stampeding herd of reindeer ⁓ and ⁓ either.
Ken (10:56)
You
David (11:03)
have the howls off in the distance to let them know the threat is there, or have the threat show up immediately after. ⁓ Basically, you have that option at that point. Because you could definitely TPK a party after a stampeding herd of reindeer, and then ⁓ snow apes or wolves or whatever suddenly show up afterwards.
Ken (11:21)
yeah.
Yeah, so I think I do have to say when I was coming up with these hazards, I was thinking back to like my wilderness training for scouts and what have you. And so, you know, part of when you establish a campus is thinking about, you know, what signs there are, what you're looking for possible threats. So you don't want to camp next to water because it might rise very quickly and drown you. You don't want to when you're camping beneath trees, you want to look for dead branches so that they're not going to fall and crush you in the night. Right. And so if you're on what appears to be a game trail, maybe you shouldn't be on the game trail because things go through the game trail.
So I think that's another one of those ways of kind of foreshadowing the threat. like, what I like about this scenario is, ⁓ it's not just, know, in the middle of the day, they've set up for camp. There, you know, it's a possibility for a random encounter, but it's not just, you know, you know, snow leopard comes out of the darkness, right? It's something a little different than they, than they may have experienced before. And I like the idea of like the things chasing them where like, can see them running up into the trees.
And then the wolves come and now the wolves are just hanging out at the bottom of the trees whining at them. Or you've got something that can climb trees or you've got something that can set the tree on fire. Right. Like, again, kind of going back to it, like the hobbit when the orcs chase the orcs, right. They chase ⁓ the dwarves into the trees and like they have to climb the trees and the dwarves that works are setting the trees on fire. And then I guess the eagles come and rescue them, if I remember correctly. So, you know, it's.
David (12:51)
It's been a while since I've seen it and or read it. So yeah.
Ken (12:53)
It's been a while since I read Orseed, but
like it's setting up that sort of compounded threat where it's like out of the frying pan into the fire sort of situation.
So I will say I did run something like this for, I read a Stargate game and they traveled through the Stargate and they came out and it was a prehistoric sort of camp. ⁓ They came out and it was a prehistoric planet. And so they heard the sound of distant thunder, but it was dinosaurs. It was a herd of rotasauruses coming through and then like it's being chased by some sort of like super triceratops or maybe T-Rex, right?
David (13:21)
Hahaha
Ken (13:32)
for seratops, probably wouldn't chase them. And then like, all of a sudden, it's like, my God, stampeding dinosaurs. I'm like, wait, is that thing gonna try and eat us? And then because it's Stargate, you have guns, right? It's like, do we try and kill the dinosaur? Do we run from the dinosaur? So.
David (13:47)
Right.
Yep.
Ken (13:51)
So moving on, freezing fog. So this would be something that would impact movement, right? So the first two that we talked about were more kind of damage oriented. With freezing fog, know, a chill mist fills the forest, soaking your clothing, sapping your strength. DC 12 con each hour, or your overland pace is slowed by half. So you're not taking damage necessarily, but it's really kind of wearing you down and it may start to impact your rations and some other things.
You know, I think having been soaking wet and cold in the wilderness, it sucks. You don't want to do it. And so I think if you're looking for a way of kind of reinforcing the threat of the terrain and the environment itself, this would be a cool way to approach that. think it also sets up other things. So I think, you know, what's lurking in the mists, taking advantage of that fog, ready to attack them or confuse them. What's causing the fog, right? Is it natural?
This is a magical curse. You do have these things. Fog is going to happen when there's a temperature differential. So you're still going to get fog in Scandinavia North, right? But it's not always a natural fog. And then you were talking about blinding fog, which I think is particularly insidious, especially at night, right?
David (15:07)
Yeah,
yeah, because you're I mean if you're at night, know, mean fog in general adding a light source to it does not make it easier to see through ⁓ It makes everything just a little bit worse because it's Just reflecting all that light back at you and making everything more impenetrable ⁓ You might feel better having the light with you, but you know
Ken (15:16)
picks everything worse.
David (15:35)
Not being able to see more than five feet in front of you is its own hazard. So, yeah.
Ken (15:42)
Yeah, this actually kind of harkens back
to our episode talking about torch light radius, right? And then the how big how much does a torch illuminate? in that episode, we did talk about like, well, what being able to constrain the light source is itself a threat. And so if you're used to only being able to being able to see out to near, but you can only see out to 15 feet or five feet, that's going to feel very claustrophobic and. And the PC should be worried, but that's OK, they have a 10 foot pole.
David (16:07)
Yes.
Yes, they should.
Right, right. 10 foot poles, you know, they're classic, you know, can't go wrong with them unless you try and turn a corner in a tight hallway. ⁓ Then there's, yeah.
Ken (16:25)
Yeah, what do mean
you're stuck?
David (16:28)
The ⁓ there's the ever present ⁓ hazard that is in all Arctic conditions, ⁓ which, you know, lot of people don't really think about, especially in today's day and age with, you know, high tech cold weather gear, but hypothermia, ⁓ you know, it will it will weaken you. ⁓ You know, it will confuse you ⁓ as you sleep overnight.
Ken (16:47)
Yes. Yes.
David (16:58)
All of that warmth that you would normally acquire by just moving around is just going to go away. Especially if you don't have a fire nearby or some other way to keep warm and dry. The wetter you are, the faster you're going to get hypothermia. So something like a DC-12 con save, con check.
Ken (17:11)
Yes.
David (17:24)
Become confused because it's one of the symptoms of hypothermia. They're all checks suddenly become at disadvantage ⁓ and then ⁓ Every hour ⁓ You know as you're if you're traveling through the wilderness, you know a DC 15 like in check to avoid becoming lost because of your confusion ⁓ and You know the longer you were in the cold ⁓
This kind of a sub hazard within this hazard, is a frostbite, know ⁓ DC 12 contract to avoid frostbite or take start taking damage and I almost want to not let the players know how much damage they took and this is this is kind of insidious is just ⁓ You know, it's like you you you see that your your fingers are turning, you know turning darker, you know or ⁓
Ken (18:09)
Right.
David (18:21)
a black color, a bluish color, and then you roll and you roll some damage behind the screen or privately and it's like, and they're like, what was that? How much damage was that? It's like, you don't know because you're not feeling it.
Ken (18:38)
Yeah,
I think this is a hazard you could do just as you were describing it, right? So this is like the mechanical route. But the thing about hypothermia is it is insidious, as you were saying, right? And so you don't know when you're becoming hypothermic, right? you because it impedes your reasoning. know, you just you start doing dumb things. This is why people like, oh, so hot. And then they take off their jackets when they should be like bundling up or trying to move more. Right. And they just make poor
judgment calls because you're impeded. Right. Right. And your extremities are starting to, ⁓ you know, to, to lose circulation because your body is trying to protect its core. And so I've been in these situations. I thankfully have never had to deal with frostbite, but I have seen people who are on the, the, the cusp of hypothermia after we camped out in zero degree temperatures and, know, you wake up and you start moving around and like, you're a little, ⁓ you know, you're confused. Like they're not like words are a little slurred. And so you could do this whole encounter.
David (19:07)
Your brain's getting confused signals. Yeah.
Ken (19:36)
where you don't have a roll of die, but you're just describing what's happening to them. And then maybe at the inflection point, suddenly they're like, you someone's like, well, wait a minute, what do you mean? We've seen this tree for the third time or, what have you. Like, okay, make a wisdom check because now you're suddenly realizing, my gosh, we're slowly freezing to death because it's, it's super dangerous. And again, like that's why when you're training for like wilderness first aid and what have you, the key thing is like other people paying attention to what
David (19:48)
Yeah.
Ken (20:05)
other people are doing because you're never going to notice it yourself. Right. Right. And I got to say, when I was in Philmont this past time, the second coldest I've ever been on a campout is when we camped next to a river and we were in a safe space, but it was 30 something degrees overnight and the humidity was very high because of the brook slash river and the humidity and the cold just like, just got into me. Like, so I had to get out.
David (20:08)
Not just yourself. Yeah. Yeah.
Ken (20:35)
put up an additional layers, right? was just freezing and shivering. Okay, this is miserable.
David (20:41)
Yeah, mean, humidity itself ⁓ can be a boon or a bane depending upon the situation you're in. One of the reasons why in the winter you have to humidify your house is because it is so dry in the air. You can heat the air, but that heat is not going to transfer to your body as efficiently as if there's something to conduct it, which is the humidity. ⁓
You know, it's, why people in Arizona don't go into the swimming pool until it's over a hundred degrees out because, know, it's when you get out of the pool, all of that water just flashes off and you're suddenly cold, because there's no water in the air. ⁓ and so they, have to wait until it's warmer before they actually get in, even though a hundred degrees here in Indiana or wherever you are.
⁓ is really really hot because of the humidity there. ⁓ So yeah, that hypothermia plus, know, cold weather plus humidity ⁓ equals faster hypothermia.
Ken (21:43)
Yeah, it's... Yeah.
Yeah, if people like our hazards conversations, maybe we'll do one about, ⁓ you know, the opposite, which is hot. Because humidity and heat can kill you just as well as as hypothermia can. But we're still in the Arctic North, so that might be more of a desert themed. ⁓
David (22:06)
I mean, yeah, the universe is
a lot of different ways to kill you. So it's a miracle we're here.
Ken (22:12)
Yes. Yeah, so I think
all of these in particular, like the fog and the and the hypothermia, it's be good opportunities to reinforce the lethality of the thing that you're doing and the fact that you're out on your own, far from civilization, and maybe you have three more days. And so for both these, both for the mists and this hypothermia situation, do you risk starting a fire? Do you, you know, and if it's really humid, might be hot.
hard to start a fire. So you might need to use your torches. Like, yeah, sure, there's wood everywhere, but you can't just start a fire. So do you risk using your torches to get a fire going? And then what's going to come to the fire?
David (22:47)
Do you consume them? Yeah.
If you're playing Shattered Ark, you know, do you consume that precious resource of the torch or a flask of oil? ⁓ you know, because eventually it's Shattered Ark, you're going to go somewhere dark. ⁓ You know, you're going to go underground again. You know, eventually Ken's group is going to venture back underground ⁓ to explore the deep crawl that he has.
Ken (23:04)
Great.
Right.
David (23:16)
You know, he's gonna either slay ⁓ or maybe join the Rat King ⁓ You know, so our underground hazards are you know inspired by by some movies as well, you know ⁓ the Goonies is a classic from the generation that Ken and I are from ⁓ Indiana Jones the Princess Bride ⁓ I don't remember too much of the underground and Princess Bride
Ken (23:42)
Yeah, I was thinking more along
just the hazards of the the of the Princess Bride are more like the screaming eels and the clips of insanity and the, you know, the the swamp, the fire swamp with the rodents of unusual size. Right. And so I think I think my brain went there because I think those are the kinds of I can easily transfer those to an underground setting. They're also great overland threats. Right. But like
David (23:55)
Right. Are AOSs? I don't think they exist.
Yes, okay. Yes, totally.
Ken (24:09)
You know, you're venturing through the deep dungeon and suddenly you find this massive cliff that plunges ever deeper into the dark. Or ⁓ and there's a lake at the bottom and there's some screaming eels in it. Right. So.
David (24:23)
Yeah. So what sort of nasty hazards are you thinking of for your party to encounter?
Ken (24:32)
So what I did, when I recently used was unstable tunnels, right? So maybe it's a, it's a mine shaft that, you know, a mining tunnel that somebody had dug out and you know, it wasn't particularly well done. Maybe, you know, in my campaign, it was because the rat men were raiding the town of Natham. And so they had dug up underneath it to break into like the warehouses and stuff to steal supplies, but they're not very good at their job. And so, you know, their tunnels, they had done their best to like reinforce it. And then there were some natural tunnels further on.
but those tunnels themselves were not entirely stable. So I think the idea here is that you've got a mining tunnel ready to collapse at the slightest provocation. And I think this shows up in at least one or two of the Shadowdark Curse Scrolls adventures. So this is not an original thought. But ⁓ the idea here is like, not everything here reacts well to arrows. To paraphrase, it ⁓ the hunt for October, right? ⁓ Missed attacks have a 50 % chance of
striking something critical and those nearby take a d6 of damage and then maybe it's a thing that you track over time so if the walls if there are enough misses and enough strikes maybe the tunnel collapses and then everybody dies or you take just massive amounts of damage so i think again foreshadowing that like you mess and you strike the wall somebody takes rocks fall but you know
David (25:40)
Mm-hmm.
Hopefully not everybody dies.
Ken (25:56)
Not hopefully not everybody dies. So I think, you know, that's a, I've done some ⁓ spelunking in some caverns out in Western Pennsylvania. And man, when you are underground and you can feel the weight of stone around you, it's unnerving. And that was a very stable cavern. ⁓ So.
David (26:16)
yeah.
Yeah.
Ken (26:20)
The paranoia that must come into play in a place that is not stable or clearly was dug out and there are like feeble reinforcements, it should be very unnerving for your players because it was unnerving for me.
David (26:31)
Yeah.
And I do like that in our notes here that you put that those nearby take a d6 of damage if there's stuff falling. Because hazards don't always only impede the player. In fact, most of the time, they shouldn't only impede the player. ⁓ But ⁓ there are certain things that do only affect the players.
⁓ you know there's ⁓ there's a couple of things i i've been seeing fungus a lot in some recent adventures not just not just talking with you ken but but also in shadow dark and and outside of shadow dark ⁓ you know i i think maybe it came from you know the last of us sort of ⁓ fungally spreading out ⁓ but you know like underground you could definitely
Ken (27:23)
yes.
David (27:30)
find maybe a fungal forest, ⁓ strange mushrooms that grow in the depths. So as you're walking through them, you may not want to touch them. The DC-12 of decks, or you accidentally disturb one. In old school D &D, there's, yeah, exactly. In old school D &D, there's several different types of mushroom things. ⁓ There's the all.
Ken (27:48)
And then what happens?
David (27:58)
Most most of them or several of them based on real things like puff balls, know, if you if you hit a puff ball Spores are going to go everywhere. ⁓ and spores aren't necessarily something you want to breathe in ⁓ you know, especially in a fantasy setting, ⁓ you know shriekers are another one, you know, it's like ⁓ if you if you A shrieker won't do damage to you directly, but it will draw things to you
Ken (28:02)
Right.
Right.
David (28:25)
Because
they know that that means that anything that is in that area that might hunt ⁓ knows something disturbed it. So it knows where something is now. there's a couple of things to consider with a fungal forest is what eats the mushrooms? Is it a food source for something? ⁓ Do you want to find out what that is? ⁓ In some ways, that also begs the question, what are the mushrooms eating? What is the fungal?
stuff eating. Maybe that puffball is a little more deadly than was previously thought and ⁓ it's feeding on the remains of things that have passed through before. ⁓ What lives among the mushrooms? Is there anything else that actually lives there? ⁓ The ⁓ fungus can, it's not just,
Ken (28:56)
Yes.
David (29:23)
hold stool like mushrooms, you know, they come in all shapes and sizes. ⁓ And you also kind of blend into ⁓ not mosses, I'm trying to think of the other ones like slime molds and other things like that could probably coexist with them, you know, things, things that might trip up the players as they're walking through. ⁓ Brown mold, yeah. You know, what other sorts of ⁓
Ken (29:36)
Yeah, yeah.
Brown mold.
David (29:51)
things that can happen if you do brush into those mushrooms, ⁓ possibly hallucinations. There are so many different hazards that could happen in a fungal forest. It's just so many. Maybe you did breathe in those spores and nothing apparent, you coughed a little bit, maybe nothing happened right away. And ⁓ maybe it's a few days later when you've
Ken (30:09)
Yeah.
Right.
David (30:21)
you know, start coughing a little more or, ⁓ you know, you start seeing weird growths on your arm or things like that. ⁓ you know,
Ken (30:30)
Yeah, I
like that and being able to like you could so then talking about foreshadowing hazards, right? So as you're venturing into the deep You come across this collapsed corpse and it's been mostly consumed by fungi. That's weird And then you know time passes ⁓ And maybe you find another one Why are there all these weird fungal growths happening throughout this particular crawl and then you come to the cavern it's like wait ⁓
David (30:47)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, and
if you want to really foreshadow it, you could have the body oriented in a way that it's coming from the fungal forest so that like collapsed as they were trying to leave. ⁓
Ken (31:06)
Yes, yes, clear. Yes. Yes. Yeah, maybe
with the hallucinations, there are signs of a fight. You there's all you can do so much with Fungi. And I love the Last of Us reference. I hadn't thought about that when we were kind of brainstorming beforehand. But like the idea of the fungal network that they have in that in that series where like the fungi are transmitting intelligence to one another. Right. And even if they're not even if they're not truly intelligent, but they're communicating. So not only have you set off this streak.
you've set off every shrieking mushroom in the entire complex, right? As it just kind of ripples out into the distance and then maybe comes back again, drawing the monsters to you. So I think that's pretty cool.
David (31:45)
And, and even just now
I was just thinking about it as well as like, if you've inhaled those mushrooms, maybe as they start infecting that player, they start being able to tap into that fungal intelligence. If there is a fungal intelligence and could start hearing voices or, or, or whispers in their mind. ⁓ and then maybe you play that out into a bigger adventure, you know, ⁓
Ken (32:01)
Ooooo
David (32:13)
Maybe they're friends, maybe they're foes, maybe they're just indifferent to your existence. yeah.
Ken (32:18)
Yeah, I seem
I seem to do this more in Shadowdark than I do in other things. like the adventure ends up not being the adventure. Right. So eventually they may go after the Rat King, which is this thing that's organizing all these rat cultists and were rats in the depths. Right. They may never actually get to the Rat King because they encounter this first and there ends up being a whole like side adventure that is basically just dealing with the mushrooms and the consequences of the mushrooms. Because there could be mushroom people living amongst them, too. Right. So who knows?
David (32:47)
Yeah.
Or people that used to be people that are now mushrooms, you know? you know, and that's some of what, what I've been hearing as well in some other areas outside of the Shadowdark community as well as, know, ⁓ and that's where the last of us stuff came in as well. You know, maybe, maybe you do retain your intelligence, but maybe some of your will is gone. And so, ⁓ you know, you're still you, but you are also doing the bidding of
Ken (32:52)
Exactly. So.
Right.
David (33:16)
the rest of the fungal intelligence.
Ken (33:18)
The good news is the fungal infection cured you of the lycanthropy that you had gotten from the rats. The bad news is you're part of the hive mind.
David (33:23)
Right, right.
Right.
Ken (33:29)
Or you become aware of fungi rat. Yeah, OK, we're going to some weird places here. So speaking of traveling too far, we have collapsing water slide. So we're stealing. We're just stealing from Goonies. So in that one, there was I guess they triggered in the Goonies, right? The setup was they come to this room and there's a collapsing floor and they had to play the bones to escape and and it opened up.
David (33:34)
Yes, yes, a little too far, I think.
You
Ken (33:58)
a side passage that turned into the water slides that took him down to the cavern that had the pirate ship. And yes, these are all spoilers, but it's the Goonies so we can do it. if you ever watch the Goonies, go watch the Goonies. ⁓ For me, was thinking, you know, so one, you could just strictly rip that off. There is a threat. There is a tunnel ahead of you. The only way to get away from the threat is to go down the tunnel, because basically that's your option. Stand or fight. And then in the movie, I guess they were being chased by the bad guys, right? So that was their impetus to go down the tunnels. ⁓
You also just have it be, you know, before collapses, right? So, you know, there's, and you're gonna have, or, you know, you're trying to traverse, ⁓ maybe an unstable rope bridge or something and you fail your, your decks check and you fall down into this, or you just purposely choose to jump into it. But I think that leads to maybe this is, this is less of a damage sort of thing and more of a movement sort of thing where, where do you end up? Right? So in the Goonies.
you end up in this underground lake with pirate ship. In Star Wars, although there was not a particular slide, you end up in a trash compactor with something in the trash, right? So you're no longer where you were, which may be a good thing, but what's where you arrived and how do you figure out how to get out of there?
David (35:06)
Yes.
Yeah, and another way that this is a hazard is ⁓ not everyone necessarily would fall into the water slide ⁓ and you could have a suddenly split party. ⁓ You know, or they have to make the choice to to jump down and go down the water slide in order to stay together. ⁓ Also, it's a water slide. What happened to your torch? What happened to your lantern?
Ken (35:36)
Yes.
Yeah
David (35:44)
What happened to all those dry torches that you have?
Ken (35:48)
Especially as you plunge into the lake, right? What happened to all that gear you were carrying? What happens is you're now drowning because you fell into... because you know the kids when they... in the Goonies when they plummeted into the lake, well they're teenagers, they're not carrying anything. And it was a well-lit cavern for reasons. But your adventurers whose torches went out, you plunge into, I don't know, a 20 foot deep lake and you're wearing plate mail.
David (35:50)
Yes.
Right, right.
I have yet to discover anybody in Shadowdark wearing plate mail though. They haven't gotten that high yet. Yeah.
Ken (36:15)
You
Even chain, like a chain shirt is
not going to be all that easy for you to swim. So you could get into, know, there are other hazards in the book where they talk about like drowning or, you know, just trying to swim under duress, all those kinds of things. And in Shadowdark, the lethality, the checks are harder, I think, you know, in standard D &D, would be, you'd have a lot more options and it's kind of defaulting to the fact that you'd be able to make these kinds of checks. In Shadowdark, I feel you're much more on the razor's edge.
And again, folks, have not TPK'd a Shadowdark party.
David (36:48)
Yeah, I mean, this is.
This ⁓ is one of those
times when ⁓ two things. ⁓ One, this is one of those things that is a gray area between hazard and trap, depending upon how far you go. Like if the water slide leads to a 20 foot deep lake and your adventurers are weighed down ⁓ and they didn't have a chance to avoid the water slide or you split the party and some of them fell in, ⁓ you know.
Ken (37:03)
Correct.
David (37:20)
That's more of a trap because they have a chance of dying. ⁓ But you know, it's also the second piece there though is this is when like an old school D and D losing gear was a thing. And this is something that kind of I've never really heard in modern D and D is, know, if you're drowning.
Ken (37:34)
Yes.
David (37:43)
Are you going to make the choice of shucking off that armor and drop in your backpack and live? Or do you hope that you can get to shore before it all weighs you down? ⁓ And, you know, yeah, it would suck to lose all that gear, but maybe you live and then try and get the gear from the bottom of the lake later. ⁓ Or hopefully you find some new gear, you know.
Ken (37:57)
Yes.
Yes. Yeah,
yeah. mean, trying to recover your gear is a challenge. Things attacking you while you're trying to recover your gear is a challenge. Like lifting heavy weights off of in underwater is difficult. I remember I did that for I think it was actually when I was at space camp. did this like it was lifting weights off the bottom of a pool. It was only like a 10 pound weight, but like it's hard to swim with a 10 pound weight.
David (38:38)
Yes, yes. You know, and that's that's when you're like, man, I'm glad I had that 50 feet of rope. I just grabbed the 50 feet of what rope and the 10 foot pole and you know, tie it to the you know, you dive down, you get the rope, you come back, get some air. You dive back down, you tie the rope to the backpack, come back, then you pull a pull a backpack out. See, easy, easy. Every every adventurer should know how to do that, right?
Ken (38:38)
you
Right, and that 10-foot pole!
Grappling hooks, go fishing for your gear, right? Yeah,
and while you're shivering in cold, something attacks out of the darkness. So our last one was ⁓ a black ice floor. So the cold black floor of this cavern gleams darkly in the torchlight. DC 12 decks or fall, D6 of damage. If you're moving faster, so let's say you're running or you're just making double moves. So if you're moving faster than a near,
David (39:10)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ken (39:31)
Also slide, so you fall and then slide and maybe, maybe there's a pitch to the cavern so you start sliding towards something, I don't know, like the water slide. Maybe there's something hanging from the ceiling, ready to take up, you know, the opportunistic and attack those who fall. ⁓ Again, what happens to your torch or light source if you drop it? How much damage do you take? So.
This one's personal for me because I guess I've had so many environmental hazards in my life, but I broke my ankle slipping on snow covered ice because I didn't know it was there. so ice is freaking dangerous. So if you don't know that it's ice, it's worse.
David (40:05)
Yep. know,
yeah, I mean, like black ice when driving is is not a joke. You know, it looks like regular asphalt. And then suddenly you're starting to slide ⁓ or start to lose control. ⁓ And, you know, this would this would kind of be the same sort of thing. You know, this is almost something that you could also steal ideas from from a video game where you're fighting.
Ken (40:16)
yes.
yeah.
David (40:34)
on this icy surface. ⁓ And, you know, of course, off to one side is this this cliff face, you know, that if you slide too far over you go. So there's there's an additional risk to the hazard. But, you know, having a fight happen on this this black icy floor, you know, it adds adds a little bit to to the danger, but not necessarily directly damages the party.
Ken (41:04)
Yeah, and you know from underground, because I I did do some research on this for Morca Norden to see how cold the caves get in in the north. Because the thing is, once you get underground, the temperature stabilizes, right? So like around here in Pennsylvania, the caves are always like 65 degrees. Doesn't matter if it's the depths of winter is still going to be 65 degrees. So you're not necessarily going to have this ice hazard in Scandinavia. At least based on my research, it gets you can still get to freezing and there could be things in the tunnels or caverns or whatever that are causing it to freeze.
David (41:16)
Yes.
Ken (41:33)
I think in the surface world, this is also a potential threat. Like you say, with black ice, remember many years ago, my friends and I had worked all day helping a friend out. it was February, everything melted and then cold front came through temperature drop to like 10 degrees. Everything froze. Right. But, and so that's where you get your black ice while driving. Right. And so you could have that same sort of situation.
David (41:52)
Super slick after that. Yes.
Ken (41:57)
in your campaign where suddenly a front comes through, which I love having weather in my games. But the consequences of that are not obvious, right? So now you're in this rocky field and you don't realize that the ice is there. Because that's what really makes, I think, the ice the threat is that you don't know it's there.
David (42:13)
Right, right. And even even if you do know it's there, if it's unavoidable, it's still a threat. You know, so like there are ways to do this. And and I think what comes down to it for all hazards is it's there to add tension, risk and more interest to things like like fights or ⁓ or exploration.
Ken (42:21)
Right.
David (42:42)
things along those lines and if you, know, they shouldn't just be, I've seen them used in games where it's just tedious. It's like, we have to figure out how to do this and we're just spending the next 20 minutes, you know, slogging through this thing, which really ⁓ shouldn't even be there as a, know, because it's basically a footnote in the adventure. know, Hazard should be memorable and Hazard should,
Ken (42:53)
Right.
David (43:12)
Slow things down, not in a game slow things down. They should be a risk. They should ratchet up tension. ⁓
Ken (43:21)
And they could be used
by the players as well. Like it goes both ways. Just because something happens to be attacking you, we focused on that. But the players could purposely go into the hazard to lure their opponents in.
David (43:24)
Yes, yes, exactly.
Yeah, especially like if you, know, a black ice floor, you know, like let's use our last one. You know, if the adventures are prepared and have, ⁓ have stuff on their feet that'll that, that negates the fact that it's icy, you know, if they have little spikes on their feet, they could run into that icy area and not have to worry about skidding out. And, but the things chasing them still would, or if they figured out, you know, you can.
Ken (43:59)
Right.
David (44:03)
you can do, you can allow them to kind of get used to the ice as well. You know, it would take some time. may burn some resources, but if they're, if they know how the hazard works, they can use that to their advantage.
Ken (44:10)
Right.
and provide something with caltrops like who knows. So I was thinking bonus round because we had had some notes about Indiana Jones. It's kind of strange that we haven't talked about Indiana Jones in any of this. And because there are so many great hazards and threats in Indiana Jones. So starting with snakes in the temple. Right. So, you know, Raiders of the Lost Ark. You finally found the temple. Nazis are there. They throw you into the temple and there's.
David (44:19)
Yes.
Yes.
Ken (44:43)
and there's just snakes everywhere and the light is going out and things are not entirely stable. Things are not entirely stable. Right. So you've got collapsing pillars. wait. And there's still Nazis outside.
David (44:46)
Yep.
Yes. Yeah, the snakes in the temple, know, the snakes aren't coming to attack you directly, but you have to move through the area and not get bit.
Ken (45:07)
Right, and you're trying to keep them away. ⁓ wait, and the torch is going out. Do you light more torches?
David (45:12)
Yeah.
Another one is Indiana Jones Last Crusade when they're in the crypt that's under...is it Paris?
Ken (45:25)
No, I think it's Venice, I think it's Venice.
David (45:27)
Venice? Okay, yeah, they're in this
flooded crypt. ⁓ there's this oily scum on the top of it, actual oil on the top. ⁓ so oil and torches, they work really well together, but you don't want them mixed when you're standing in the oil. So you're having to move through the water, you have to have a light source.
Ken (45:46)
Hahahaha
Yes.
David (45:57)
⁓ But ⁓ you know, how do you prevent the oil from setting on fire? Or, you know, as we talked about a minute ago, where the players can turn this to their advantage, maybe you purposely set it
Ken (46:10)
Right. Right. Now you have to make.
David (46:11)
So, but then if you set it
on fire, then you're gonna have to deal with all the toxic smoke that comes off.
Ken (46:16)
Yeah, so how far can you swim and how long can you hold your breath for? And so again, turning light into a threat like something that's supposed to be helping you is suddenly not helping you. But if you're being chased by, you know, whatever horrible monster is, maybe you want to set the oil on fire and see how far you can swim. And so this last one, we were debating trap versus hazard. Indiana Jones versus the flock of birds. Or should I say Henry Jones, senior?
David (46:19)
Yes.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, yes.
I don't, you know, it's one of those things of, for the pilot of the plane, I would think, yes, sure.
Ken (46:45)
You
So we should probably recap the scene because it may have been a bit since people have seen
Raider, or Crusade.
David (46:57)
Yeah, so they are they've just escaped from a bunch of Nazis. They are on the shore of the ocean and they a Nazi in a plane is coming to shoot at them has already made one pass I think in a circling around for another pass and Dr. Jones senior does a quote which I can't remember. Oh no, he does that afterward, but he takes his
Ken (47:14)
Yes.
He does that afterwards.
David (47:26)
He takes his umbrella
and starts opening and shutting it really quickly and running toward a flock of birds. And you're like, what the heck is he doing? And then all of the seagulls fly up into the air right into the path of the plane as it's coming to do its strafing run. And well, it doesn't end well for that pilot or the plane or the birds. And so it's one of those things is, is that a hazard or is that a trap?
Ken (47:45)
Or the birds.
Yeah.
David (47:57)
If you see the birds coming, if you're in a plane or if you're in a... And this comes down to like, is it a hazard or a trap? We bounce back and forth between these two because they are pretty closely related. If you see it coming and have a chance to deal with it, in my mind, that's a hazard. If ⁓ it suddenly flies up in front of you ⁓ and you don't really have a chance to avoid it,
Ken (48:11)
Hehehehehe
David (48:24)
⁓ other than like a quick check, ⁓ that's a trap.
Ken (48:29)
Right, so say a giant boulder is about to run you over because you accidentally triggered a mechanism.
David (48:35)
triggering
the mechanism, that's the trigger of the trap. That's a straight up trap. Now if you see, I would say a hallway where blades are scything back and forth and you see that they're scything back and forth, that's a hazard. That's not a trap, that's a hazard in my mind. Yeah, see also, ⁓ shoot I'm just.
Ken (48:38)
Yes.
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, see also Skyrim.
David (49:02)
dogs.
Ken (49:12)
good that they have opinions. No problem. ⁓
David (49:13)
Man, yes. One second. ⁓
Zeke! Zeke! Hush!
Good boy.
Ken (49:34)
You
David (49:37)
Zoe's outside, Zeke's inside, and the UPS driver came.
Ken (49:39)
Oh, so he's unhappy
about that. It's funny Chip. Now the chips too and change. He likes to go outside and he doesn't really want to come back inside. So it's twice this week. I have forgotten about him. I left him outside once I had gone to I ran some errands and she was like, hey, you left chip outside like crap. At least it's not winter. But he but now I did it again last night when I was bringing the food in. So I was just distracted and but he barks. So thankfully he will bark to come back in.
David (49:50)
you ⁓
you
Ken (50:08)
Because Hank will just hang out on the back porch patiently waiting for someone to let him back in. He will never bark.
David (50:08)
Gotcha.
Got it. Got
it. Yeah, the dogs, both dogs here will will punch the back door ⁓ to let people know. ⁓
Ken (50:25)
So I don't know where we left off. It was birds.
David (50:27)
Yeah, so the only other
one that I was thinking is ⁓ Galaxy Quest when they're going to find the Something 13 device. And it's like, who would build a ship with giant mashers in the middle of it?
Ken (50:42)
What are these choppy things here? This makes no rational sense.
David (50:45)
Right, right.
But you know, it's a game. It doesn't always have to make rational sense.
Ken (50:50)
Exactly, exactly. So we'd love to know what you all think about hazards, how you use their... We'd like to know what you guys think about hazards. Do you use them in your game? Do you not use them in your game? How do they differ from traps? Let us know. You can like and subscribe on YouTube. You can leave us a comment. And we look forward to hearing from you.