Writober! Wyrdling! Shadowdark Post-a-Day In October

This month is Drawtober: 31 drawing prompts related to the Shadowdark RPG, 1 a day, throughout October. But I’m borrowing the prompts for short essays. Today’s prompt is “Wyrdling”.

Wyrdlings are a class from Cursed Scroll 5 of people who have been partially corrupted in the darkest of dungeons. They have a hideous biology letting them squeeze through tiny places, have a pseudopod, and their talents are corruptions like “Fish gills. You can breathe underwater.”

So wyrdlings seem to be a way to bring in the idea of people who may have succumbed to a gibbering mouther for a short time, or have simply stayed too long in the dungeons.  Which can be really fun to play!

But even more important, from a design perspective this is a case of the original creator of the game not being afraid to bring in some gonzo design ideas and variations to the game. This is nothing like the core fighter, priest, thief and wizard classes or even the other more traditional hybrid classes of D&D like a ranger, bard, or druid. This is something fresh and new that fits the setting. It is a reminder as a game designer to “be weird” or better yet “be wyrd” that shouldn’t be forgotten in Shadowdark.

Here are our previous Writober posts so far:

1. Torch – Rules for magic torch items (each is a single use magic effect spell like alarm or detect magic).
2. Skull – Goblin shaman who can turn victims’ skulls into ways to store spells.
3. Fiend – Lists of talents that Devils & Demons typically have for making your own.
4. Shadow – Easy ways to make other creatures into shadows.
5. Contagion – Discussing the purpose of diseases.
6. Valkyrie – A new 3rd party class.
7. Toadstool – A new 3rd party ancestry.
8. Witchlight – Alternate sources of “witchlight”.
9. Luck Token – Alternate ways a GM may allow a luck token to be used.
10.  Rage – The signature ability of a Barbarian class.
11. Altars – Ways to amplify priest spells into rituals when using an altar.
12. Pit Trap – Several ideas to spice up the good old pit trap.
13. Death Slug – Looking at the Death Slug’s deadliness and how that’s similar to old-school and low fantasy games.
14. Evil Eye – Various types of “Evil Eyes”: magic items, monsters, or curses.
15. Morzo Moth – A look at the Morzo Moth’s talents/actions makes one see the variety of the Western Reaches book’s monsters.
16. Diamond – Three subtopics: diamonds impacting economy; as spell components for rituals or spells not-yet-accessible; and a enhancements for magic weapons.
17. Slime – Game-able aspects of mundane slime as well as a green slime monster for Shadowdark.