Shadows Most Cruel

Check out Cruel Shadows, the latest article Chris Sims and I penned for the Role vs Roll series in Dragon Magazine. This series of articles provide chunky bits a DM can use either as a minor elaboration for some other adventure, or as the seed to create a new adventure. Either way, a fun read. Here's an excerpt:

Shadar-kai lurk in the gloom. They are maddened by pain, driven by desire, and linked perversely to death and nothingness. As a people, they aren't evil, but their morals lack a stripe of humanity more decent folk expect. The shadar-kai culture is a sometimes-cruel meritocracy consisting of contests of wit, skill, and bloody combat. The shadar-kai play these games among their own kind and with other creatures, seeking peak experience above all other goals.

For lighter, more purely story-based fun, check out another article I wrote called the Zhent Headless Horseman, also recently published in Dragon in Realmslore. It provides a seed for any number of interesting adventures, but as I intimated, is also a tale you might hear around a tavern hearth.