The Shadows of Silverton – A D&D One-Shot (unfinished)
Fall of 2022, when I was still in college, I decided I wanted to make a D&D one-shot for my family as a Christmas gift. The first finished version was fairly good, with original art and homebrew characters and creatures. Of course, it was also a mess, as I discovered when I picked up the project again to give it a redesign and touch up the art. I quickly realized that even though I had some fun ideas for the story, I had no idea what I was doing when it came to game mechanics (lol). I’d played a lot of D&D, but being a player and knowing how to DM and craft a well-tuned one-shot are two very, very different things. I am full of hubris, however, so I have decided to share the unpolished, rough-around-the-edges project anyway! It was also an opportunity to revisit an old project and further hone my formatting skills. Alas, not all projects are meant to be. However, I do think the story is somewhat interesting, if not funny, and the art is pretty, if not unfinished. I hope you enjoy my work and my journey. Maybe you can perfect what I could not!
coming soon – PDF download 🙂
the story
The town is home to a small but well-respected wizard’s college, which has brought in money and resources for the townsfolk. Throughout most of the year, the town is full of students. During the winter season, however, the college closes and most of the students return to their homes. During those months, the town is quiet, the streets nearly empty. Only the Winking Mist, the town’s only tavern, retains its lively atmosphere.
When I started this project money was tight and we were still experiencing the pandemic. I think those things are pretty obvious with how it impacted my crafting of the story as well as the Boss. A lot of the monsters and main conflicts were inspired by the idea of the combined stress isolation and limited finances can have. I wanted the story to have a creepy, horror vibe. I love a good thriller.
The main story follows the Party as they explore a small college town called Silverton, which hosts a Wizard school during some parts of the year. Folks are friendly, but the town is overall quiet, almost uneasily so with the absence of the students and whispers of something even more unnerving that no one seems willing to talk about. The party explores a friendly, if not shy town that seems cheerful enough until the sun goes down and spooky stuff happens lol.
The world is meant to be explored as an open-world experience. Certain events are triggered by the PC’s making certain choices. I think I did a fair job designing all of these elements, even if my grasp of balancing combat and designing effective PCs is very poor.
Strange forgetfulness
If the players pass a passive perception or perception check of 15 or higher, or if they ask a local about the lighthouse, they will notice that no one in the town seems to be able to see the lighthouse. Only the adventurers can see it.
The Lighthouse
At the far end of town on an outcropping of rock, an old, dilapidated lighthouse looks out over the sea. A low, crumbling wall surrounds it and an overgrown garden.
Ordinary Enough
If the players approach the lighthouse without an attuned talisman, it will appear like any other abandoned old lighthouse.
The Winking Mist
The Winking Mist is the town’s only tavern and therefore is the hub of life in Silverton. It is rather big for the small town, and you can see where recent additions have been made to the building as rooms have been added on. It has a handful of rooms the players can rent out. The tavern has a handful of patrons, most of whom will be polite, but uninviting to newcomers.
The Old Church and House
A small graveyard is at the north end of the town. There is an old, dilapidated church and a small house right next door. A history check of 10, or asking a local will reveal that the church was once a church of Hecate. The church looks as if it is under construction. Scaffolding, construction supplies, paint, etc. can be found around the property. The church is roped off…
Monsters, NPCs and PCs
Peabody is the Winking Mist proprietor. He is a large, friendly man who knows nearly
everything that happens in his small town. He is popular and clearly has been one of the biggest benefactors of the wizard’s college. He looks out for the townsfolk and is the person people go to for advice and help. He is an NPC who will have the most useful information for the adventurers.
This is the area where I realized I had some limits. I think my story was solid, but my grasp of the D&D dynamics for combat and building balanced characters and NPCs was flimsy at best. I relied too much on things like Kobold Flight Club and adapting established monster builds. As I have become more familiar with D&D through entertainers like Dimension 20 and various games I’ve had fun with, I realized there’s an incredible amount of possibility with what you can do with D&D. I didn’t really do the game justice with my builds as they were. There’s a lot to learn if I want to create something dynamic and interesting enough for me to feel confident I’ve made something worth playing.
Stats aside, some of my ideas for the story and Pcs have a lot of merit. I’m a big fan of classic literature and fairytales, so the main cast is from either Shakespeare or European folklore. I loved the idea of being able to play Hamlet as a bard because I love Hamlet lol. I think my original idea for the PCs would be really fun to play and I’d love to play one of the characters sometime in the future.
And of course, as part of my touch-ups, I updated all the character and monster art so they look really cool 😀
The buttons that the shadow puppets drop are copper, with an insignia of a salamander on it that matches the Wizard school’s logo. On the back are the initials T. W. This button counts as a talisman that will allow them to enter the
lighthouse. They will also be able to see a network of gossamer-fine threads spreading out from the top of the lighthouse all over the city, as well as a handful of magical strings connecting the button to the lighthouse.
As a part of my process for making this mini campaign, I used a lot of bases from D&D Beyond and re-flavored a lot of the basic things to fit the theme I was going for. I don’t remember what I used for the Loom Master, some kind of exploding psychedelic slug. I wish I did! But the puppets are re-flavored zombies, and crawling claws are, of course, crawling claws.
This was another part of the creating the game process I don’t feel 100% confident about. I don’t know enough about etiquette as a baseline for how to homebrew/ flavor monsters. And I didn’t even understand enough about how they worked as a baseline to be able to know I was making adjustments that made sense and would work for the campaign. In other words – I had no idea what I was doing! But I had fun. lol
Above is my doodle of a crawling claw that fits the vibe. I think my favorite thing I created for this project was the Loom. However, I did not create a picture for that. 😀
Combat and Playstyle
Another weak point for me. Story-wise, I think they’re pretty solid, but again, not sure about the combat mechanics. Since the main theme was supposed to be horror, the spooky, chilly kind, I wanted the combats to feel cramped and unstable, thus, the attic. I also had a lot of fun with the maps. A lot of the story is much more built around exploring the world and finding people to talk to and interact with, which is my preferred playstyle.
the unfinished touch-ups
A lot of these designs are unfinished because I was trying to do something I realized I didn’t understand enough to do well. I wanted to create different character sheets for different situations, so you could quickly find stats to fit what you are doing in the moment instead of having to scan through a list. I have a hard time reading and sorting through text without losing my spot so I thought this could help fill up the gaps of time when I’m trying to find the right stat. I didn’t think I did too bad of a job, but I also didn’t feel satisfied with what I was able to come up with. I was planning on creating spell cards as well, but never got around to finishing them either.
Still, I’m proud of the art, and I think I was on to something. Maybe when I am better prepared and ready to take on a new project, I’ll come at this again with another attempt. For now, I think I am more than happy to share this project despite its many flaws because it had potential, but also because not every project goes well but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about. There are some very obvious reasons why I wasn’t able to finish this, one of them being my planning from the get-go, as well as my knowledge base. But it was still fun, and I did learn a lot about formatting and design throughout the process.
You can see a similar thought process in how I designed the character sheets in phase one. There are a lot of stats to keep track of in D&D!
Cool idea one – play cards (about tarot card size) with the main stats you use the most on the back. 😀
Cool idea two – very fancy illustrated character sheets with fun symbols.
Aaaand that’s all folks! Thanks for reading. Check out the libary for more if you’d like to stick around. Feel free to share if you like. I’d love to know what you think of my project, what I could have done better, etc. If you want to share any of the art or use anything for a campaign, please do! Just be sure to tag me in anything or link to my website if you share on SM.
