Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found on Itch.io…The Bride of Sinner’s Crypt

​A dungeon by Keilan Faganello, levels eh
Written for Shadowdark
  Sexy vampire,
  I’m fallin’ in love.
  So just bite me baby,
  And drink all my blood. 
  Oh, I thought this was supposed to be Shadowdark, but apparently, we’re veering into recreating White Wolf from first principles. Eight pages, elevenish rooms, it looks like a dungeon (pulp magazine inspiration version), but it’s mostly a Demon: The Lustening story about a sexy devil abducting maidens with a ton of backstory and a complex social setup and a sweating Shadowdark Standard Format that’s kind of straining to work with the story. AI art but it’s decent, AI map and it’s not.
  In addition to the aforementioned sexy-but-respectful devil there’s also a saint in this tomb who is disapproving and harsh and just like dad when he wouldn’t let me wear fishnets. Also there’s a weird cryptkeeper who is half vampire, half weak good guy, zero precent sexy because he keeps one eye closed. Also there’s a sacred blue-flame lantern that’s needed to progress past illusions. And also there are imps and lesser demons who are just SO IN LOVE with the sexy devil that they wear the skulls of his previous dead maiden prospects (who are being killed by the keeper). And also there are sad friendzoned heroes wandering around killing everyone because they’re Nice Guys/simps. I wish I was joking.
  Okay, some of that stuff is decent. What I liked is that blue lantern that reveals illusions in the crypts, that’s a fun mechanic. The imps wearing skulls thing is macabre but also funny, there’s something there with real potential. I like that the saint-ghost and the keeper have unique spells that can be granted/learned, “spells as loot” is an underappreciated axis for treasure. The fact that the dungeon entry is only openable on the third night of the week is good, giving eight hours to explore or else everyone is stuck for a week, that’s a nasty meta-trap that’s really strong. I like that there’s an overpowered undead-smiting sword available but it’s hidden behind the protection of a fake sword.
  What can be improved first and foremost would be to slow down the standard formatting zeal and break down NPC relationships a bit first, the situation with a curse rotting all spirits within the crypt and the semi-vampire keeper trying to cheat the devil can be sussed out by careful reading but it’d benefit from summarization. I’m okay with randomly generated maps but when you have multiple branches the solution is not to make sure there’s a McGuffin piece buried down every branch which requires 100% completion before you can advance, that’s just a linear railroad with a couple extra steps. A little more time spent making the backstory visible to the PCs in play, and also useful, would go a long way.
  The best use case for this one is to use as a quick one-shot to try and transition your Shadowdark groups to VtM or vice versa. It’s a workable enough dungeon in its own right but the “devil is actually a good guy, saint is a mean jerk” base assumption will play havoc with traditional worldbuilding. Fits perfectly with whatever the kids these days like though I guess (and these days means “90’s punk”).
  Final Rating? **/***** because it’ll be a fun enough delve, but just like the illusory walls, it’ll get a little transparent if too much cool blue light is shone onto the details.

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