Finder’s Archives – City of Shadows

June 17, 2022 Kim Frandsen Finder's Archive 1

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.

In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.

The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This time we take our place in the “other world” and head to the Plane of Shadows at the City of Shadows.

City of Shadows

The City of Shadows lies somewhere on the Plane of Shadows. Exactly where is a mystery, as it seems to continually move around without rhyme or reason. How or why this is no one knows, but it was originally assumed that the City was a dark reflection of a city on the Prime Material Plane, but that particular theory has been debunked as no place resembling it has ever been located, even with the strongest magic. Scholars now theorize (though most sages would agree that “guess” is a better term for what they’re doing) that either the original city has been completely destroyed, or it was assimilated into the City of Shadows. Considering the HUNGER that inhabits the city itself, the latter theory is the one that most sages hold to.

Lay of the Land

The City of Shadows looks like a city built in a simple gothic style out of stone. The stone is native to the material plane, but it is infused with dark streaks of shadow matter and laying your hand upon them reveals them to be as cold as the embrace of the grave itself.

There are no living creatures here and even the undead shun it, knowing that whatever animates them is forfeit if they linger here for too long.

Exploring the various buildings reveals a city abandoned, but not in a hurry or an orderly fashion, but suddenly, as if everyone got up and left all at once. Utensils are still lying on tables with now empty pots and pans on the stoves and tools lie scattered where their owners left them.

For the City of Shadows is ALIVE. And it is HUNGRY.

Dangers

The City of Shadows is a gigantic and hungry hivemind that is able to manifest living shadows in the form of demons (Psoglavs for 5th Edition and Invidiaks for Pathfinder 2) as needed, spawning as many as it takes for it to take down intruders. Only those sacrificing an innocent at the altar at the foot of the city hall (in the center of town) are spared, and they are only given 24 hours before they too are attacked.

Those captured by the demons are dragged to the city hall and thrown inside. No one has ever emerged from there, but whenever this has happened, the city has expanded with a new building. The more powerful the person sacrificed, the bigger and more magnificent the building added…

Remember, sacrificing an innocent means that you will no longer be one. So the next time, you might be doomed. See you back next week. 😊

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Kim Frandsen

40 years old, and a gamer since I was 13. These days I freelance as a writer for various companies (currently Fat Goblin Games, Flaming Crab Games, Outland Entertainment, Paizo, Raging Swan Games, Rusted Iron Games, and Zenith Games), I've dipped my hands into all sorts of games, but my current "go-to" games are Pathfinder 2, Dungeon Crawl Classics and SLA Industries. Unfortunately, while wargaming used to be a big hobby, with wife, dog and daughter came less time.
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