Children of the Void by Guilherme Souza is a role playing game supplement published by Schwalb Entertainment through the Disciples of the Demon Lord Community Content Programme for use with Shadow of the Demon Lord.
This is a three-page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG as a Pay What You Want supplement. Around half of the first page is an introductory paragraph and the Credits.
This is billed as being an unofficial Poisoned Pages supplement; Poisoned Pages are one of the official product categories for Shadow of the Demon Lord which contains what are described as short, focused expansions for the game. This unofficial edition has a new ancestry, Children of the Void.
Children of the Void are half demons, born from relations between humans and demons; the humans may be willing cultists or unwilling victims. With such a heritage, Children of the Void are always haunted by the Void itself and tempted to turn to dark.
The introductory paragraphs have the Children always born with something, such as horns, tails, claws etc., that shows their demonic heritage. They are also all sterile. Children of the Void are constantly tempted to commit evil acts and, no matter what, when they gain Corruption, it gives a euphoric feeling. This sounds rather like a drug high, and Children will be tempted to feel it again. Sadly, there are no game rules for this temptation.
Details on creating a Child of the Void follow. They are immune to poison and diseases, have shadowsight, an intimidating presence, a mark of darkness, natural weapons and more easily gain Corruption and Insanity as well as finding them more difficult to lose. 1s and 20s must be rerolled when mad.
Expert Children of the Void gain darksight, gain resistance to spells and either a spell or a new talent; a demonic talent, the area around becomes shadowy and the ability to summon a demon.
Finally, there are the standard tables to roll on for age, build, background, appearance and demonic marks.
Children of the Void in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, at three pages, doesn’t need them. Navigation is fine. The text is either a single column or two column table colour format and a number of errors were noticed. This reads like a second language supplement and, although it is never difficult to understand, the phrasing is sometimes awkward. There are no illustrations beyond the colour layout. Presentation is okay.
New ancestries have generally been introduced as shorter supplements, such as Children of the Restless Earth, or briefer details in larger ones, such as Tombs of the Desolation, and this supplement is similar to that pattern. Ancestries have also been expanded in the Victims of the Demon Lord series where they are covered in a lot more detail, such as in Only Human. This supplement definitely follows the briefer format. Children of the Void is an interesting new ancestry, although perhaps it could do with a bit of expansion, and it can be found by clicking here.
Leave a Reply