The Forest

The Forest is a mini-hex crawl designed for Shadowdark RPG, but is suitable for any old school system. I submitted this to A Mystic Wood OSR Adventure Jam

Concept - Dark Fantasy. Characters are explorers or treasure hunters going into the wilderness to find something they need.

Aim - The aim of the players is to make characters and collaborate with the GM to fill in the details of the world. The aim of the characters is to find treasure and survive.

Tone - Folk horror, old fairy tales, daylight horror - the kind that can happen in the daytime.

Subject Matter - PG13 dark fantasy violence.

Inspired by the hex crawls in the Cursed Scroll zines, The Forest provides information about certain points of interest, NPCs, and monsters, but assumes the GM will flesh out the details when necessary. As with Cursed Scroll, The Forest contains a map of the region, but it  does not include individual maps of dungeons, settlements, or other similar locations.

Most of the monsters are available in the Shadowdark RPG core book.  The Bee Swarm* in the Encounter tables is a simple reskin of Scarab Swarm from the core book (pg. 249), but with flight added.

Other NPCs present a greater opportunity for the GM to create. Does Thomas the Pious have magic, is he a warrior, or does he wield politics as his weapon? Who is the Queen, and who are her subjects?

Writing & Design. J Ryan Duddleson. 

Cartography. J Ryan Duddleson. 

Art and Photography. Cover Art: Amanda Duddleson, Photography: J Ryan Duddleson.