Games like Shadowdark are supposed to be grim. It’s in the name, right? Dingy dungeon crawlers desperate for treasure ain’t got time to joke around. Yet there’s still plenty of room for a dark chuckle or two. The grand dame of grimdark, Warhammer, has plenty of parody characters out of pop culture, not to mention the juvenile humor of the Orkz. Shadowdark has dipped into these waters with the Shadowbarge. The backers named the ship bringing their rewards the Shadowbarge and Kelsey Dionne created it as a monster to use in the game. Designer Darcy Perry commits to the bit with Owlmanac, a book full of bird puns and playable options for Shadowdark. Exalted Funeral provided a copy for review. Did this book ruffle my feathers? Let’s play to find out.
There are actually four animal based sections within the book. ShadOwlDark is the biggest one featuring eight classes, a bunch of new spells, an ancestry, magic items and even an owl-centric explanation for the planes. Most of the classes cover the types of things you would see in typical fantasy worlds such as the Owlchemist and Vowlkyrie. These write ups are thick with puns and humorous references but there’s some neat stuff underneath the silliness. They cover a lot of stuff people have been asking for in the game, like barbarians and monks. Each class sticks to the two page writeup and art format of the original book. But even more involved classes have pretty succinct rules for complex ideas like alchemy.
Next comes ShadowPork, which seems like both a parody of the “pig faced orc” concept and a way to include them in your game. Their Destroyer class takes the barbarian in more of a Conan riff than the currently accepted rager. Hidden within this section are my preferred rules for dual wielding heroes; roll damage with advantage and take the better of the two rolls.
Shadowbark adds dogs to the mix. The Rover class adds a nature based ranger style here. This one is probably the most meta out of the sections by giving dogs a chance to players whistle for a clue or a resolution once per session. The section ends with a shout out to other like minded games like Pugmire but I felt it was the weakest of the entries in the book.
The last pun based chapter is ShadowDuck, which brings in mallard style anthropomorphic ducks into the game inspired by their inclusion in Dragonbane. The Dungeoneer is an interesting take on a character that’s got rogue skills but not backstab. They get more useful when they use the small items found in a dungeon that aren’t treasure and mist people would throw away to carry more gold.
The first thing to know is just how thick the puns are on the ground here. I found them charming with a few chuckles as I read the book, but I can see people hitting their limit and putting the book down. There’s also people who dislike animal people in their fantasy. Elves and dwarves are fine but talking ducks and owls break the illusion. If you can make it past those hurdles there are a lot of great ideas for classes and spells in the book. You can create a Redwall style fantasy world to use or you can change the puns to something more serious and use them in a classic Shadowdark game. Nobody but your Dark Master will know.
Bottom Line: Owlmanac offers some great options for Shadowdark for fans who can stomach some silliness in their fantasy setting even when the setting is grim and dark.
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