On this episode, we talk about ShadowDark monsters! We look at a number of monster bestiaries, a zine dedicated to creating and adapting monsters for the game, and two dedicated monster-finding tools.

What more ShadowDark? We've got more ShadowDark!

d8 ShadowDark Mistakes We Made (S4E19)

d12 Ways ShadowDark is Awesome! (S4E15)

Shadowdark Impressions (Campaigns & Coffee)

Unboxing Cursed Scrolls 3: Midnight Sun for ShadowDark

Chapters

00:00 Introduction00:54 Monster 2403:02 VALHOLL!04:21 Shadowfinder Complete Bestiary05:24 Creating and Adapting Monsters for ShadowDark14:16 The Monster Overhaul15:12 Ruincairn Bestiary17:20 ShadowDark Monster Tools19:34 Conclusion and Future Discussions

Listen to the Episode

Watch to the Episode

Watch d8 ShadowDark Monster Resources on YouTube.

Show Notes

ShadowDark specific Monster Resources

Monster 24

Cost: $2 (pay what you want)

250 monsters by Tom Phillips, who spent 2024 creating monsters and publishing them to Reddit. This compiles his various critters into one document. Includes gaggles of hags (forest hags, tomb hags, venom hags), plenty of plants (carnivorous cave moss, blood orchid, vampire grass), and oodles of oozes and slimes (chaos pudding, green slime, umber jelly)

VALHOLL! Nashcraeft #1

Cost: $6.99

A fanzine that builds on Cursed Scrolls #3: Midnight Sun. Introduces a bunch of monsters as well as a “lot system” as alternative to carousing, new magic items, new blessings, and 4 classes.

Shadowfinder Complete Bestiary

Cost: $25 (PDF) $29 (POD+PDF) as part of the Kickstarter

Every PF 1E bestiary, #1-6, converted for Shadowdark RPG. The kickstarter is over; hopefully they’ll release this for sale when the Kickstarter-created book releases in October 2025.

Creating and Adapting Monsters for ShadowDark

Cost: $5 (pay what you want)

Very handy, fan-created rules for making your own monsters (or converting them from other systems).

Advice on creating monsters including “VIBES OVER COMPLEXITY”, “USE NATURAL LANGUAGE”, “MONSTER SPELLS ARE WEIRD”, and “RULES ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN”

Options include:

BUILD BY EQUIVALENTS

If your monster is like a knight, bugbear, or zombie … just use the stat block as is.

BUILD BY ADAPTATION

Say you want to recreate the 5e Bandit Captain, you take the ShadowDark bandit, and beef it up. 

BUILD BY BENCHMARK

E.g. converting Yakfolk warrior. Look at the CR (in this case, CR 3, compare it to CR3 monsters in ShadowDark, and start building.

It has a talent bank describing all kinds of monster capabilities and a big list of monster spells.

 It includes a bunch of horrors as well, including blink dogs, ettins, pseudodragons, unique horrors like the  “Eyeball Wall”, and a number of NPCs (pyromancer, cultist, etc.).

ShadowDark adjacent Resources

Runecairn Bestiary

Cost: $13.49

100 Norse-inspired monsters for Runecairn, an Old School Renaissance RPG. The OSR stat blocks are close enough to ShadowDark to make conversion pretty easy. Includes sabertooth cats, grave newts, ogres, and giant octopi.

The Monster Overhaul

Cost: $30.00 (PDF) $60 (PDF+Print)

Come for the 200+ monsters, stay for the ecology and random table pieces. Uniformly praised online. It’s got entries for NPCs (adventurers, barbarians) each with d100 names and character traits. For monsters, it delves beyond the stat block.

Goblins get the same d100 names and traits PLUS physical descriptions, motivations, mounts, elite weapons, and loot. 

Plus there are random tables like “50 mercenary jobs” and generic maps of locations like a wizard tower and a village.

ShadowDark Monster Tools

ShadowDark Tools: Monster Reference

Filter monsters from the ShadowDark core rules + the first three Cursed Scrolls. Criteria include monster level, environment, type (e.g. angel, aberration), movement type (burrow, climb, fly), attack (blood drain, petrify, venom),