One Adventure Sketch for ShadowFinder (Patreon)

I have been working on ShadowFinder, a modern-urban-fantasy play mode for Starfinder 1st edition, for more than three years. It's been badly sidetracked by societal and personal health issues, but I have never given up on it. As I slowly recover from chemoradiation treatments, I'm trying to spend a few hours a week getting back to this project.

Since it's been so long since I posted a lot about ShadowFinder, I wanted to remind folks who the play mode is supposed to be like. So, I am letting free members to see one Adventure Sketch and get the first section of the other nine. (Or you can upgrade to be a paying member, and see all of All Ten Sketches). And, obviously, you can take these sketches as use them for inspiration for any modern urban fantasy ttRPG game.

As a reminder, the Shadowblast is a shadowy demiplane that has trapped numerous dangerous entities inside it, and Shadowblastoi are creatures that have, at least temporarily, escapted that demiplane and are likely working to stay our, or even to jailbreak their more powerful lords.

Adventure Sketches

These aren’t fully-detailed adventures by any means, but they are quick sketches of events that could make good ShadowFinder sessions. A GM should be able to use these as inspiration for crafting a blueprint, filling in the details as appropriate depending on what world and tone and characters they are using for their ShadowFinder adventures. These also have some thematic suggestions that show how the energy of the Shadowblast can animate, alter, and infect things to create effects that defy rational, and even most mystical, explanation.

Each sketch includes the following sections:

Title. While these aren’t official the way a published adventure is, it’s easiest for people to have something to use when referencing these sketches in conversation. Plus, if there’s strong demand for one of these sketches to expanded into a full adventure (or get a follow-up, or get a follow-up that is a full adventure), it’s nice for people to know what to call it when talking about those options.

What It Looks Like. This is what the situation appears to be with casual observation. Even in worlds where magic is a fact of life, the Shadowblast’s weird mix of realities and tendency to create things inspired by belief and common media are often overlooked, disbelieved, or seen as a misunderstanding of “real” magic.

What’s Actually Going On. A short description of the real situation, as the PCs may come to understand during the course of the adventure.

How Do PCs Get Involved. Suggestions on ways to get PCs started on the adventure. If the PCs have a patron or are connected with the ShadowFinder Society, those methods can almost always get them to an adventure by having one or the other hear rumors and send PCs to investigate, so I don’t bother mentioning that every time.

How Does It End. A suggestion for that kind of encounter an end the problem driving the adventure. Again, these are just suggestions, and GMs should feel free to come up with their own ideas, or even follow the players lead if they come up with a cool idea on what might be going on and how to stop it.

Then What. Assuming the GM is running ongoing ShadowFinder sessions, this provides some ideas on what could develop after the events of the adventure.

[H4]Cult of the Corn

What It Looks Like: There is a spreading epidemic of missing children, starting in one small rural town several weeks ago, but now spreading out and covering more minor municipalities, all in the same region, which is mostly corn farms and silos.

[H4]The Haar

What It Looks Like: As a cold coastal sea fog (a “haar” in local terms) moves in over the region, people begin to play pranks, vandalize business and public spaces they dislike, and settle grudges. But it’s getting more and more violent as unusual weather conditions causes the haar to stay for days, and the vandalism begins to include attacking people, blowing up telephone and radio towers, and wrecking the only bridges out of town. Local authorities think’s mass hysteria. Or maybe Antifa.

What’s Actually Going On: A planar conjunction has allowed part of the Shadowblast to overlap with the material plane. The haar is a side effect of things getting dark and visibility being limited, not the cause of it. While a few people have actually used this as an opportunity to settle old grudges, most of the damage is being done by monsters leaking over from the Shadowblast, and the longer things stay like this, the more powerful and dangerous the creatures are crossing over are, and the more damage they’ll do.

(Art by Dave)

How Do PCs Get Involved: If the PCs have a connection to the ShadowFinder Society (or a similar group), they may have been sent here because the planar conjunction was predicted and the Society wants them to make observations… of course no one predicted anything this serious. If any PC has predictive or psychic abilities, they might have had prophetic dreams telling them something weird and important was going to happen in the area. Of, if this is a first adventure, the PCs might all be people in the region, whose 1st-level abilities kick in as a result of the planar conjunction.

How Does It End: There’s no way to end planar conjunctions early, but appropriate skill checks or research challenges (see Complex Skill Encounters in Chapter Nine: ShadowFinder Rules) can use the movement of the haar, astrology, astronomy, and maybe tea leaf reading to predict when and where the planar barrier with the Shadowblast will be thin enough for monsters to cross over. The PCs can then intercept the last few incursions, preventing those creatures from causing more trouble (and possibly from performing rituals to bring over something big, if you want to have a set-piece final fight).

Then What: The PCs will now know that when the Shadowblast overlaps with the Material plane, it can cause strange weather phenomenon, and possibly other unexplained disturbances in the natural order (an aurora borealis only seen from some locations, flocks of animals moving in strange ways, milk and food spoiling suddenly, mass sponge migrations, and so on). This gives them a chance to find more Shadowblast incursions before they become serious. Not only does this given them a significant edge in Shadow Finding, but it makes it easy for the GM to introduce new adventures.

[H4]Hunt the Crocagator!

What It Looks Like: According to old records, in the 1980s, an unlicensed genetics lab was creating hybrid alligator-crocodiles as part of a project to try to unlock the ability to add specific genetic features from one species to another. Eggs they believed were defective they dumped in the sewer… and some of them hatched anyway. The spawn fought amongst themselves until only the strongest survived, the feared Crocagator. It hunted through the sewers for a few years, generating all sorts of urban legends, until it burst up through the sewer on day and ravaged a few neighborhoods. It was hunted down and killed, and the government hushed the whole thing up.

But now people claim it’s happening again. In the same sewers, in the same neighborhoods, people claim to be seeing smaller, younger versions of the Crocagator. It sure looks like someone has started up the old experiments.

[H4]Knight At The Museum

What It Looks Like: A publicity stunt for the “Hellknight” movie franchise has gone wrong, or someone is sabotaging it for bad press. The producers of  “Hellknight III: Hellevator” sponsored a major exhibition about medieval armor and weapons at a mid-sized museum in a city that is a major movie market. The exhibit includes a few suits of Hell Armor created for the movie, with placards explaining what real-world armor styles were used as inspiration.

But the night before it was supposed to open, a security guard went missing, and one of the suits of armor – known as the Hexecutioner – was found holding a bloody axe. But that’s all just PR for the movie, right?

[H4]Little Shop of Terrors

What It Looks Like: Someone keeps breaking into the Garden of Versatiles plant shop, and smashing it. They don’t seem to steal anything, just break things up. They especially tend to pull some of the bigger plants out of their pots, and scatter them all around the shop. Apparently fed up with the constant vandalism, the shop owners have declared they are leaving the country, and they don’t care what happens at their shop. When questioned, no one in the nearby neighborhood is willing to admit they saw anything, suggesting the vandals may be threatening people to ensure silence.

[H4]Maisy Built a Fort

What It Looks Like: A child at an orphanage, Maisy, has convinced the other children to try to make the world’s largest pillow fort. The staff is unwilling to make any effort to take it down, and several kids are hiding in it and refusing to come out. Also, a few of the staff seem to have taken this opportunity to take unauthorized days off.

[H4]Save The City Beneath

What It Looks Like: Water is mysteriously disappearing. From the drinking water system, reservoirs, even entire rivers and lakes are showing water levels way, way below what they out to be. The systems are all connected to the city’s drinking system, and if the loss isn’t stopped, the entire city is going to have a water shortage.

[H4]There Must Have Been Some Magic…

What It Looks Like: Someone in a snowman costume is scaring kids out in the woods. Or some kids are pulling a prank, and maybe it went too far.

Either way, some kids are claiming a snowman came to life when they put an old silk hat on its head, and began terrorizing them, and demanding they bring it tribute. Other kids say they were in the same place at the same time, and the terrorized kids hid and destroyed the snowman they were supposed to put the hat on. Then, the kids who claim a snowman came to life jumped out of nowhere screaming there was an evil snowman after them.

But, regardless, a couple of the terrorized kids are missing now.

(Art by Dominick)

[H4]Vermin

What It Looks Like: Giant, man-eating cockroaches are flooding up out of the sewers. Maybe they are related to Hunt the Crocogator? Or the effort to Save the City Beneath? Wherever they are from, they’re swarming up in masses in alleys, abandoned buildings, and condemned sections of town in vast swarms… eating people.

[H4]Yellow Tide

What It Looks Like: A strange new algae in a local body of water (be that a lake, pond, ocean, or even cistern) is driving people into murderous rages. The area needs to be isolated and quarantined until an effective algaecide can be developed and sprayed over it.

More ShadowFinder Coming!

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