Marrow: A Shadowdark RPG Adventure is a role playing game supplement written and published by Meaghan J for use with Shadowdark.
The supplement is available as an eight-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. About a third of the page are the credits. There are also two jpg maps, a labelled GM’s version and an unlabelled players’ version.
The opening paragraph explains that iron leviathans were bred for war by the nations of the Overworld and their iron carcasses rained down on the deep kingdom of Unlantis. Most were marrowed but one remains untapped.
Make Ready has the inspiration for the adventure, living World War II battleships from a story in Weird Tales, an overview of the Vengeance, a living organism that resembles an American WWII destroyer. The adventure is aimed at 4-6 third level crawlers. Details are given on the XP value and value of marrow.
Cast Off has an overview of the domed city of Unlantis, the Unlanteans, other sea peoples, a new ancestry, half-orca, and some new gear. Also given are the chances that the Vengeance will retaliate if marrow is harvested or the ship harmed, how to harvest marrow, general features of the dungeon, the skipper, a golem, and other factions exploring the sunken ship.
Chart a Course has a map of the ship.
Enemy Sighted describes some of the locations, which are continued in Battle Stations and Abandon Ship.
Marrow: A Shadowdark RPG Adventure in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, though short, has enough sections that these would have been appreciated. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. As well as the colour map, there are a couple of black and white illustrations. Presentation is okay.
This is a decent little adventure; the main downside is it’s assumed that the characters are from Unlantis. This is a bit of a limiting factor, though if given a means of surviving underwater, others could explore it too, and perhaps Untlanteans could become another opposing faction. This would also make it easier to drop the adventure into other settings. Marrow: A Shadowdark RPG Adventure can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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