Kickstarter: Knights of the Shadow Realm

Hi, all! This post will talk about Knights of the Shadow Realm, a Kickstarter campaign that will run to April 17^th. Zac Goins reached out to me earlier with some information and a review copy of part of the campaign, and I thought it sounded pretty cool!

Knights of the Shadow Realm is a campaign for D&D 5e that can take a party from 1^st to 20^th level. The review module covers the first section of that campaign.

The Kickstarter

This D&D campaign is written and designed by David Barrentine. The Kickstarter has hit its initial funding goal within the first few days of its launch, already blowing past its first few stretch goals, though more stretch goals remain!

Review: The Urchin of Kalorr

The Adventure

The review module represents the campaign’s first tier of play in the adventure The Urchin of Kalorr. This adventure will take a group from 1^st to 5^th level as they work to solve a mystery. Overall, this seems like a good introduction to the campaign world with plenty of content for PCs to dig into.

The idea of a demigod hijacking the passage of a soul to the afterlife didn’t really grab me at first. But the concept makes for a good overarching antagonist, and I like the twist on resurrection magic. As the campaign continues, it will become more and more difficult to successfully revive a character without losing them to Umbrial’s army. (Though I would certainly recommend that DMs let their players know about this before starting—some players don’t take well to their features/spells not working as written)

The story flowchart is a helpful guideline that both provides a summary of events and shows you two different paths to the adventure’s final confrontation. The party can come across different pieces of information depending on where (and who) they investigate. Running a mystery adventure can be tricky for DMs, so tools like this flowchart are even more useful here than in another type of adventure.

The adventure’s challenges often have different ways for a party to solve them. For example, the party may discover a passphrase to use to solve a puzzle, but they can also find and disable the mechanism that bars their way. This helps the adventure adapt to unlucky rolls or just different party styles.  

There is also a list of the quests the party can pick up in the city of Kalorr. This is another good organizational tool for running the adventure. Note that not every quest in the adventure is listed here, as some quests picked up outside the city aren’t included. I think it would be pretty useful if there was another list of those quests, or maybe if all quests were put together in the same list.

The adventure is nicely laid-out with good maps and illustrations that you can show your players. There were a few moments where I wished that we had some more information—for example, one quest features a potential curse a player character could fall under, but I didn’t see much guidance for the DM on how the curse could be resolved. Additionally, the adventure notes that it’s possible to kill the culprit before the climax. I believe the text implies that there’s a way for the character to appear at the final confrontation, but I wish it was a little clearer in that regard.

Overall, the adventure has plenty of quests for a party to explore, along with some helpful support to a DM running it. There are a few different locations, but not so much as to overwhelm the DM at the beginning. It’s easy to see how different groups could have unique experiences with this module!

The module also includes a wrap-up section explaining how the DM could take their own direction with the story or how they could set things up for the next part of the written campaign.

The Appendices

The module’s appendices include an additional race option (one of two unlocked from a stretch goal), a few monster stat blocks unique to the adventure, magic items, a new spell, and handouts for the players.

The briarlings are sentient, genderless tree people. They have bark for skin and grow foliage on their bodies. This race has a lot going on—they grow goodberries (like the goodberry spell) every day, have resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning damage and vulnerability to fire damage, are proficient with the herbalist’s kit and the Nature skill, and have a small chance of coming back from the dead if their body remains intact.

That would be a lot to remember as a beginner player, but I think most people could get a lot out of playing a briarling PC. They’re a shoe-in for a druid or ranger build, but their connection to the fey opens up some fun possibilities for a warlock or sorcerer. A briarling wizard would also be cool with their naturally long life. I think a successful race option both has a clear niche plus fun opportunities for unconventional class builds.

The briarlings look like a lot of fun! I totally have a bard concept brewing in the back of my mind for a briarling PC.

The monsters and magic items in the appendices cover the unique items and enemies from the adventure. There’s also a new spell, a 3^rd level enchantment spell called blood pact. This spell allows two willing participants to enter into a contract, and the spell’s magic ensures that the agreed-upon terms come to pass (if not, the agreed-upon penalty comes into play). Blood pact seems like a really fun, flavorful spell for both DM and player use.

Overall, I enjoyed looking through The Urchin of Kalorr, and the additional DM and player options in the appendices are promising! The adventure itself is logically and cleanly laid out and written (there are a couple editing errors, but those could get fixed in another pass), and the illustrations and maps help pull you into the world.

The Knights of the Shadow Realm Kickstarter goes til April 17^th, and they still have some stretch goals to go, so go check it out!

Thanks for reading, everyone! See you next Monday.