Dark Shadows
4th Venu 533
Dark Shadows is a role-playing setting in the world of Dunia in the RPG universe of Celenia. It is a non-traditional, dark-fantasy setting with unique species. Dark Shadows uses the CD10 RPG system and focuses on narrative over complexity and crunch.
What is Celenia: Dark Shadows?
Dark Shadows is a role-playing setting in the world of Dunia in the RPG universe of Celenia. It is a non-traditional, dark-fantasy setting with unique species and rich lore. Dark Shadows uses the CD10 and focuses on narrative over complexity and crunch.
Dark Shadows is low magic, feudal dark fantasy, heavily steeped in fictional folklore.
This Worldanvil site is the RPG codex for the Dark Shadows setting. Here-in you will find a plethora of characters, countries and plots. This is your one go-to location for all things Dark Shadows. You want to deep-dive into this strange world filled with mystery, intrigue and horror? This is your place
Setting
A major wrench has been thrown in the political squabbles between nations on the continent of Arjin. With the discovery a new, unexplored continent, Celenia, nations are rushing to colonise the new lands and claim its resources for themselves. Old conflicts are left to fester in the homelands as the lords and ladies of the world gaze towards a new horizon, leaving their people to toil in the dust. Old rivalries bubble under the surface and with the rise of a new, ruthless ruler of the grand Empire of Kfandr, war has never looked as likely. Celenia, however, is not what it first seemed to be. The land carries dark scars of a terrible history, and with the greedy lords uncovering the overgrown ruins of Celenia, Dark Shadows have begun to spread...
Health and life
June was a good month for productivity. Both at work and at home. Mediciation is starting to really stabilize and while I'm still stressed and overworked, it's far more manageable at the moment than it's been in years. We've also just gone through the initial "stress-phase" of the investigation, so work pace is starting to settle a bit.
This has given me more opportunity work on my worlds and start to clean things up for the pending CD10 release.
CD10
The "todo list" for CD10 just keeps growing. There's a lot to do, but at the same time, progress is really great now. Many of the rules have really been polished. The Foundry system module is starting to approach something that may actually warrant release. I have a few more things to sort out before I really get to release, but it's closer than ever.
That nagging feeling I talked about in last month's update turned out to be true. Not only have I reinstated the Excess system for lethality, but I also reverted the +4 change for rolling 9's. My player-base and testers made it clear to me that while it can occasionally hilariously derail things, it provides a very necessary humorous element and there are usually tools to get around a catastrophe, even with stupidly exploding rolls.
For the more sane Keepers out there, I added a rule that 9's exploding may be capped at one reroll to curb the insanity that is 3-4 nines in a row. This rule is optional.
C2D10
Second edition is shaping up very, very well and it's pretty much ready for initial playtests. Everything is in place for creating characters and starting to play. The conflicts system is what I'm most worried about, but without putting it through its paces I can't tell if it'll work at all. Session Zero with the playtesters are kicking off in about 11 days. Excitement!
Foundry
Good progress has been made on the CD10 module and while it hasn't been released yet, the 0.5 update is looking really solid. Right now there's a lot of legacy crap in the code and I'm worried that a migration script really isn't going to be enough to clean up all the old fluff. I might actually just bite the bullet and release a non-migrated update and just accept that if there's someone out there updating their system mid-campaign, they'll have to suit themselves.
Like yes, that's on me. I was inexperienced and knew very little about Foundry development when I started and that technical debt has been building up over time and is really standing in the way of a functional system. We'll see. If I can find a clean way to do it, I'll migrate, but I very much doubt it atm.
Settings
I'm mostly working on a primer for my players in Cinders of the Cataclysm, but I'm also plodding away at Dark Shadow's history now that Chronicles is finally released. I'm enjoying worldbuilding again after a period of lull.
Celenia now has a unified place to access all the things with the url: www.celenia.se. It leads to the primary setting of Cinders of the Cataclysm, but the navbar can take you anywhere within the Celenia universe!
Support and Social MediaYou can support Celenia on Ko-Fi and get access to all the behind-the-scenes content available, get unique discord ranks and much more! Remember that CD10 Core is free to use, but that pledging on patreon gives you access to the advanced modules as well!
You can follow CD10 and Celenia on Twitter, join the official Beyond Reality Discord server as well as me on Twitch.tv where I share the worldbuilding and RPG-designing openly with you. (Stream currently on extended hiatus)
Dark Shadows is a low magic, feudal dark fantasy world where three major species, collectively called the Kykr, form the dominating civilization on the continent of Arjin. The three species do not live separate from one another, but collectively they've spread to several countries, cultures and religions. They find comfort in their faith and nationality over racial boundaries.
For a quick and dirty guide to the world of Dunia and the Dark Shadows setting, head over to the crash Course.
Dark Shadows has 264 Cultists
The Celenia project survives mainly on the kindness and support of its fans. If you want to join the ranks of noble supporters and help make Celenia a true, printed product, head on over to Ko-Fi.
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