itch.io

Excellent layout! Its very pleasant to parse & seems like a breeze to run. I like that you dared to change the usual Shadowdark statblock order, it makes more sense to end with the stats rather than LV and AL.

Cool concept! When my players inevitably awaken some terrible colossus somewhere I might pull the mechanics out from this. I think you nailed the vibes you were going for but it does make the last quarter of the layout a bit busy. (the monster stats and mayoral mansion are especially hard to parse)

This sounds like some gonzo fun! I really like the haste side-effects. There's a lot of funny quirks and moments here. The map is a bit difficult to read with such small keys. The title pulled me in, but it sadly doesn't seem to have anything to do with the legend of Lemminkäinen?

Thank you! That animated head idea is actually brilliant! Its eyes could lock onto the party's torch very intensely. I might add that when I make revisions. 

Its true that the secret passage is probably too good. Currently the only thing blocking a party from it is the lack of a thief or the knock spell. Maybe I'll make the clay area smaller near the obvious entrance, but then note that there are no footprints there. Since the party knows the enemy is ahead of them they should be suspicious of that.

You can read the condensed session recaps of running this adventure on my blog (sessions 3-5): https://pakkanen.dev/wargholm

The players later returned to the forge in session 16.

Thanks for checking it out!

This is definitely something that needs to be playtested. I'm especially worried about the amount of attack dice I will have to roll even with the horde mechanics. I'll be updating it afterwards and probably expanding it a bit. Its nice to hear the lizards seem like a good enough telegraph for you, but another reviewer thought it wasn't enough. I guess the playtest will reveal that.

I actually struggled a bit with the page limitation so treasure and some concepts are probably not explained with full clarity. But my original vision for this adventure was to use the warband rules from Western Reaches and then have the army be the real treasure of the dungeon. But for a jam that would require me to reference rules in a non-core book so I decided against it.

I always try to keep an eye out for stuff to do for each core class and here the secret door being mechanical instead of magical is to reward the party for including a thief. Though at such a high level a wizard can just use knock, but at least I'm rewarding picking that spell.

Thanks for the comment! I probably would have forgotten about this mistake otherwise. The rough draft of the map initially went down instead of up.

The adventure got reviewed by 2d6stingbats: https://2d6stingbats.com/2026/04/10/review-flameless-forge-of-the-dverg/

Inspiration: I think you utilized elements from Indiana Jones and Jeopardy really well! Rampage inspiration was a bit light since that only happens if the party fails, but I see that game being the hardest to implement. Maybe some puzzles where you break stuff?

Usability: The layout is good in the sense that nothing spills over to the next page. However it does feel claustrophobic and I had trouble reading some of the paragraphs. Especially ones where there's a lot of parentheses, underlines and bolding. For example the portal descriptions in area 1 kinda blend together when I look at it since there's little to no spacing between the bullet points. I'm also not a big fan of including statblocks or magic items in the room key since they make everything claustrophobic, but that's personal preference.

Vibes: Cool cover art! Having a Tarrasque there really piques a dnd nerd's interest. I like all the handout notes as they manage to deliver interesting lore in a very limited space. The indiana vibe is felt throughout. I'm not really getting many 8-bit vibes from the aesthetics, but that "save point" system with the trials is very video gamey. The sexy elves kinda stick out like a sore thumb in contrast to all the other art. (except in the cover)

I really like the vibes and art here! Especially the sideview map reminds me of Castlevania 1. Personally I would develop the sideview even more and try to do away with the topdown map as that one kinda confused me at first. Some of the markings aren't consistent with eachother like the ladders and my brain keeps trying to merge the two maps and figure out how they work together. It would be easier to use if everything was represented on a single map.

Wandering dungeon is a really cool concept! I could easily add this to the random encounter list of a hex crawl. I'm also a sucker for mad scientists so I'll keep this one in mind when I'm prepping my next campaign. I also love that you just dialed things to 11 with some of the random encounters and magic items. Like the tome of transmutation or the above floor randomly crashing down are things that can really cause chaos and make sessions memorable.

The silly tone in the writing was fun! The layout and small font were a bit difficult to parse.

Umm where can this be downloaded?

Interestingly people keep putting their stat as the big number within the dice and their modifier belove the "stat" line. Maybe I'll make a version where the stat box is above the dice symbol. The problem is probably the fact that people expect the stat record to be immediately after its abbreviation.

Overall I think you captured the vibes well, but there is room for improvement when it comes to design.

I like the art & the vibes. The layout is ok, but some of the initial descriptions for the areas don't make much sense like area 1 puts emphasis on the names etched into the stones, when the wind & the shadows would actually be what a character would first notice. Half of the area 1 bullet points also have no explained mechanical purpose so why are they in bullet points? You could also state it more clearly that from this point on torchlight is needed inside the forest.  I feel like there was a lost opportunity to have the "old legend" be somewhat true like summon the person's ghost inside the archway & maybe act as an NPC that can tell the players of the area. 

 I also don't like gotchas like the well & the ring so I would somehow try to telegraph that looking into the well or touching the ring might have dire consequences. 
The monster levels also seem quite high for a lvl 1-3 adventure. The treant has a weakness but spawning multiple wraiths to punish players for doing what Shadowdark was designed to encourage (explore & loot) is not good design. Its also unclear where exactly the "bucket" is. Do the players need to get it from inside the well or has it been hauled up?

I like it! The layout is super clean & the color theme is fascinating. The only thing I had trouble visualizing was the verticality & the illusory stairs in area 6. I think an isometric map would be great for this adventure, but I recognize that might be beyond the 4 page limit.

The concept seems fun & interesting!

I would work on presentation in the future. Even if its short it would make my life as a GM a lot easier if everything had a bit more spacing & more of the text was decorated. The statblock for example is kinda hard to read when every letter has the same weight. In the place/event descriptions I'd much prefer bullet points to quickly find the information I need rather than read the whole paragraph.

The town map also seems a bit pointless. I think noting distances or time to travel from place to place would make it useful.

Overall I think you did a fine job & this is certainly usable for a one-shot. I love the idea behind stuff like "Yor: The Hunter from the Future" & I think this could work well for a campaign in a setting like that.

The good

• I liked that you included a print-friendly version... I should probably do that with my own adventure.
• I love the vibes for the setting & the initial premise.
• Descriptions are short & to the point.
• The contents of the dungeon support your theme very well

Room for improvement

• The print friendly version is missing bullet points
• Maybe a bit more spacing between lines? Bullet points help, but even so its a bit scrunched up
• The connection to areas 4-6 is a bit unclear. The map makes it look like there are 3 blast doors to each of the rooms, but then the arrow makes it seem they connect to a hallway that connects the areas. The hand-print scanner is also I think important enough to include in a room's description. I would redraw the map a bit & have the doors+scanner be in area 1.
• Maybe add a bit more activity into the random encounters. "Cobras drop from the ceiling" works but "Deaf gorilla fighting a mind-controlled Gorilla" could eventually offer more intrigue into the nature of the apes.
• Maybe add references to the SD rule core page number for the monsters? 
• Differentiating public & private information more clearly would do wonders for the layout. What do italics mean? Much of the bolded text doesn't seem to have a reason either.
• Missing a danger level, which I think is a requirement for a Shadowdark dungeon crawl.
• The "New Items" header is in a weird place.
• Clear rules for using the Eye of Zarum would be nice. I think its very reasonable to assume a player will try to steal it & maybe use it in the boss fight to take control of the gorillas. If the intention was to not allow this, I would not include it in the "New Items" section.

I ran this adventure this tuesday and it was a blast! You can check out my session recap here: https://pakkanen.dev/enigmaoferyx

Great section on the Weird Tales inspiration and use of them! I also really like the indicating of light on the map with shaded sections.

Thanks! I've had similar worries with mysteries too. Its nice to hear that my design is having the intended effect.

Great work! This is at least top 3 for me. Emphasizing the importance of light even more with the tentacles fits Shadowdark very well and its probably my favorite part about this dungeon. The dungeon key also seems very practical to me.

I really liked the color coded map and adaptive encounter table! There are advantages to writing/drawing whats in a room right on the map, but it does require a more experienced GM to run it without keyed locations.
I love the undying idea and how the covers inspired it, but the merchant felt out of place.

You've got the vibes down really well! The borders of the pdf add to the "western" feeling a lot.

Great work on incorporating the foremost elements of each cover! I really like the villain.

I really liked the vibes here! Old diver helmets give me the creeps :D

Noticing that something important is missing from a section that's already full. This led to a lot of rearranging or rewriting.

Bigger image of my covers:

Added. Also I removed Shadowfolk's magic/silver immunity because this is supposed to be for lvls 1-3 and nothing like this is found during the adventure. Although you could run this for higher lvls too probably, in which case I'd bring the immunity back.

I realized the claimed alibis for each character is missing. I'll try add those before the gamejam ends.

This is super cool! Definitely makes me wanna drop some gnolls into my campaigns.

Very interesting! I like the idea of players recruiting armies to try and liberate lands that they've been adventuring in for a while.
The recruiting table looks great! You've managed to keep everything simple which I appreciate.
But there is some bookkeeping in tracking your army and all the specific ancestries in it. Maybe a separate "army" sheet could help with that?

If my players ever get the idea to muster an army, I think I'll refer back to this supplement. Great work!

Very responsive controls and nice spritework!