Close
Close
Advanced Search

Servants of Darkness (2e)Click to magnify
Quick Preview
/gs_flipbook/flip.php?xml=/demo_xml/17520.xml&w=500&h=337
Full‑size Preview
https://watermark.drivethrurpg.com/pdf_previews/17520-sample.pdf

Servants of Darkness (2e)

ADD TO WISHLIST >

Young Bryonna has been judged guilty of consorting with the dark forces of Tepest, and now she will burn at the stake for it. The Inquisitors, priests whose zealousness sometimes stirs whispers of doubt among the people, have condemned her with all the surety that comes with their "holy" power.

Heroes of integrity and justice are needed to ferret out the truth. To succeed, they must travel a perilous path that winds through the labyrinthine tunnels of Mount Lament and lead them to the dreaded Hages of Tepest and Tristessa the banshee. Worse still, they must ultimately face the mysterious Prince of Shadows, who manipulates the denizens of the domain for his own evil purposes. When to stand fast? When to run? Only those who survive can say.

Servants of Darkness is a stand-alone adventure that can also lead the party of investigate the misty chasm at the center of the Demiplanes's Core in The Shadow Rift, the next release for the Ravenloft campaign setting.

For four to six characters of levels 4-6

Product History

"Servants of Darkness" (1998), by Kevin Melka and Steve Miller, is a Ravenloft adventure for the Domains of Dread. It was published in February 1998.

Origins: The Domains Line. Following the release of Domains of Dread (1997), the third iteration of the Ravenloft setting, Wizards of the Coast published just a handful of supplements — probably because the line was on its way out under Wizards.

"Servants of Darkness" (1998) was one of the most notable, because it was the first half of Domains' only multipart adventure, leading into The Shadow Rift (1998).

Adventure Tropes. Good people can do bad things. That's a pretty good trope for Ravenloft, which is much heavier on moral dilemmas than most D&D games, and it's front and center in "Servants of Darkness". As the introduction says, "If this adventure is run correctly, the heroes will almost certainly worry that they have made wrong decisions or that they are being led astray." They must investigate accusations, they must determine the worth of witch-hunters, and they must decide who is worth saving.

The actual adventure, steeped in horror, is heavy on investigation with just a bit of a dungeon crawl at the end, tying the world of Ravenloft to the world of D&D.

Exploring Ravenloft. "Servants of Darkness" is set in Tepest, a domain that was first described way back in Ravenloft: Realm of Terror (1990), but one that hadn't received much attention to date. Players visit both of its villages, Viktal and Kelee. There's even a nice color map of the domain of Tepest that shows its relation to the Shadow Rift … which is of course the heart of the next adventure in the series.

NPCs of Note. Though they won't necessarily appear in the adventure, Laveeda, Leticia, and Lorinda, the three Darklords of Tepest all get full descriptions.

They're not even the only Darklords in the adventure. Loht, the Prince of Shadows, once the Darklord of the shadow elf domain of Arak, is also present — and more integral to the adventure! Arak was one of the original domains from Ravenloft: Realm of Terror, but it disappeared during the Grand Conjunction and so was absent starting with the Ravenloft Campaign Setting (1994); Loht's appearance here was a nice touchback to the changing setting.

About the Creators. Melka is best-known as the lead for the second iteration of the Dark Sun campaign; "Servants of Darkness" was his only Ravenloft work. Miller was more central to the product line, coauthoring Domains of Dread and contributing to most of the later "Children of the Night" books.

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
 
 Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
Reviews (0)
Discussions (1)
Customer avatar
Darrell R August 29, 2021 2:31 am UTC
Print edition please.
Narrow Results
$ to $
 Follow Your Favorites!
NotificationsSign in to get custom notifications of new products!
 Recent History















Product Information
Electrum seller
Pages
64
Edition
1.0
Publisher Stock #
TSR 9541
File Size:
17.62 MB
Format
Scanned image Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
pixel_trans.gif
Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Information
Watermarked PDF Click for more information
Watermarked PDF

These PDF files are digitally watermarked to signify that you are the owner. A small message is added to the bottom of each page of the PDF containing your name and the order number of your purchase.

Warning: If any files bearing your information are found being distributed illegally, then your account will be suspended and legal action may be taken against you.

Here is a sample of a page from a watermarked title:

File Last Updated:
February 26, 2017
This title was added to our catalog on February 28, 2017.