Dark Passages by Robert J. Schwalb is a role playing game supplement published by Schwalb Entertainment for use with Shadow of the Demon Lord. This is part of the Poisoned Pages series of short supplements and was the first to be released.
This is a four page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $1.49 but was purchased at a reduced price during a sale. About half the first page is an illustration and the Credits.
The first page has some introductory paragraphs on how the supplement is intended to allow a GameMaster to quickly generate books, scrolls and other such items for libraries, something it states can be hard for a GM to come up with on the fly – and, indeed, many libraries in supplements are largely skipped over. It is recommended that a “library” of books be generated prior to their need.
The remaining three pages of the supplement contain a variety of tables, predominately 3d6 with a few d20 and one d6. These tables are used to generate the book’s form – it does not have to be a book – and condition. For books, their cover’s makeup and page material is next done.
For all types, next up are tables for script, ink, illustrations, illustration quality and contents. Contents may be false, may allow an area of scholarship to be added to a character’s professions or may contain incantations. For those containing incantations, the tradition and rank is then generated. The GM will need to pick the incantations themselves. Finally, there is a table of special features.
Dark Passages in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, at four pages, does not need them. Navigation is fine. The text maintains a two column full colour format and no errors were noticed. There is a single colour illustration and a couple of what appear to be black and white stock images. Presentation is fine.
This supplement does allow a GM to quickly roll up a description of a book and its contents, and some of the results are interestingly odd. Books generated this way are more likely to be useful than not; there are far fewer results that generate useless books, so building an entire library may not work. The tables also don’t have any means of generating author names or titles, nor is there any automated means of picking incantations.
Dark Passages is not a bad supplement but it isn’t a great one either. There are similarly priced generic supplements that create books in a far more thorough manner; the only advantage this supplement has is that it refers to Shadow of the Demon Lord specifically in the incantations tables, and these could easily be duplicated. Dark Passages is an okay supplement but there are better options available and it can be found by clicking here.
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