This is a Spiked Pit Review. The idea behind these is to grab an adventure Bryce Lynch has reviewed and review it myself, without reading Bryce’s take. What I have learned from reading Bryce’s reviews and running adventures he recommends is we have different ideas about what makes a good module. Hopefully this can help widen the range of perspectives on the adventures he covers. Is this the first of a series? Not yet, but it might be if I do more.

A quick note on process: I used ChatGPT to help me write this review. Because I know it’s a touchy subject, and in the name of transparency, I’ve written up a discussion of how I used AI for this review.

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Isle of the Bleeding Ghost is a swashbuckling dungeon module by Jordan Thompson for Kelsey Dionne’s Shadowdark RPG. The cover art is by Cassie Thompson. Isle has an incredibly unpromising title that I struggle to remember every time I type it. Fortunately, it is otherwise quite solid, especially for a game jam entry by an author who does not appear to have any prior publications. The module spans a mere 6 pages, with short, punchy room descriptions. I have never played or run Shadowdark, but I had previously skimmed the quickstart rules and revisited them to contextualize some of my comments below.

Fun, Varied, and Textured Design

The adventure design here does an excellent job of capturing the energy and humor of the swashbuckling genre. The module presents an 18-room cave complex accompanied by a lovely map. It is inhabited by 3 factions: undead, shipwrecked merchants, and merfolk. Its layout is full of little loops, and nearly every area except a carefully chosen few can be reached in at least two ways, accessed via one of three dungeon entrances. Hypnotic organ music echoes from somewhere within, serving as a kind of sonic landmark while creating pressure to keep moving. The layout leverages the nautical theme, with portions of the dungeon only navigable by boat. Fortunately, a couple of rowboats can be found at the dungeon’s primary entrance. I am a HUGE fan of dungeon canoeing and absolutely adore this.

The layout does suffer from a bit of overcrowding: there are no truly empty rooms, and while Thompson has wisely made most of the keyed encounters optional, it is easy to imagine them cascading out of control if they spill into adjacent areas. This might be intentional as a kind of powderkeg design and as such feels consistent with the theme, but it seems like it could easily overwhelm a first-level party. In some instances, it strains credulity: At one entrance is a group of merchants wondering about the fate of a friend who went exploring in the dungeon. If I understand the key correctly, that friend met their fate about 30 feet away, in plain sight of their companions if they bothered to look. This is a gamey sort of artifact that doesn’t hurt the adventure too much but can feel a bit ridiculous at the table.

Yet if the adventure is a bit too dense, it doesn’t lack for variety. The three factions have different motivations and behaviors. The most interesting by far are the merchants, who are torn between fascination with the dungeon’s treasures and the desire to escape to safety. Every keyed merchant encounter reflects this tension, providing opportunities for players to take sides and get involved in various ways. Meanwhile, the identity of the mysterious organist is delightful and weird, even if, as I discuss later, it’s a bit undercooked.

Additionally, the traps in Isle are a real standout. They are puzzly and highly interactive, with their mechanisms laid out in helpful cross-sections, and they demand interesting decisions. My favorite was a spiked pit trap with a door at the bottom. That’s already a winner, but as an added twist, approaching the pit causes it to fill with sand. This quickly neutralizes the danger but also blocks off the door! Clever players can find ways to disengage the mechanism and get to the door, but they’ll need to think fast to do so without getting hurt by the drop or the spikes.

Style and Organization

By and large, the author makes good use of the limited space. The writing is concise but never sparse. I was struck by one read-aloud description, which reads: “Salt-blasted barrels reek of old mead. Light descends from a natural chimney that leads to the surface.” This tells the GM and player everything they need to know about the dungeon’s only more or less “empty” room without making it feel empty. There are barrels. They’re full of mead. The mead is old and probably not worth much. From one of the traps: “A plank bridge crosses over sharp coral. Cracked stalactites above.” The problem, the stakes, the moving parts, all in 10 words.

While the economy of words mostly works for the dungeon keys, it leaves the overall module feeling a bit lean. Some elements are implied that it would help make explicit — for instance, the possible adventure hooks or any but the scarcest details about the titular isle that houses the dungeon. The merfolk faction felt especially underdeveloped: their motivation as a faction doesn’t really explain their actions in the dungeon nor, given their inability to accomplish that motivation on their own, what they are doing there at all. The merfolk really felt like an afterthought in a dungeon that otherwise comes off as very tight and intentional. The organ-player is a fun and surprising encounter I won’t spoil here, but suffice it to say the key raises more questions than it answers.

I was also a bit confused by the lack of XP values for treasure. Shadowdark uses a 4-tier scale for determining how much a given treasure is worth. I think this is actually quite clever, as it takes some of the most onerous accounting out of dungeon prep and adventure design. However, the delineations between tiers are pretty subjective. I would expect these kinds of decisions to be written into published adventures, as the writers presumably have ideas about how important a given treasure is. These aren’t interesting blanks to fill in, and leaving them to the GM feels a bit like homework.

Conclusion

Isle of the Bleeding Ghost is a strong first publication bursting with good ideas. Its built-in time pressures and dense key drive home its tone and theme. On balance, I feel very positively about it. Swashbuckling is a tricky genre for dungeon-crawling games, and I suspect this strikes the right balance, although I worry it may be a bit overcrowded. The traps are the stars of the show, showing a real knack for creative situation design. The merchant faction with its inner tension is a close second. In last place is the module’s title — c’mon, man. I haven’t been particularly interested in running Shadowdark, but Isle of the something whatever has me curious.

You can get Isle of the Bleeding Ghost pay-what-you-want on itch.io.