Pathfinder: The Return of Shadowsfall

I’ve been dancing around this ever since our post on The Big Meeting. We decided then that we are going to be bringing back Shadowsfall as our Pathfinder 1e setting. We are very excited about this and hope those that are sticking with 1e Pathfinder are excited about this as well. I never liked the way that we left Shadowsfall and I always wanted to come back to it. This undead-heavy setting is one I absolutely love, and I finally feel ready to do it right. So for those that don’t know what it is, let me answer some obvious questions.

What is Shadowsfall?

Originally, Shadowsfall was the Plane of Shadows, designed to be inserted into any campaign setting. We are changing that and making Shadowsfall its own campaign setting as the material plane. To be honest, we should have done this from the beginning; I simply was not brave enough at the time and did a half-measure, finding a way to incorporate it into other campaign settings. JBE has more than doubled in age, we have leveled up several times as a company, and we are ready to create our own setting.

Tell Me About Shadowsfall.

Shadowsfall is a fantasy post-apocalyptic setting. A powerful lich led armies of undead across the planet and nearly wiped out all life on it. He grew arrogant and decided to take on the sun goddess herself. The lich won, slaying the goddess and shattering the sun. The remaining gods were angry at this affront and destroyed the lich and all his phylacteries. In the few years since that happened, the living are trying to move on and reestablish civilization all while battling the overwhelming numbers of undead left behind. You are not just adventurers—you are survivors, trying to help others survive beneath the shadow that has fallen over the living.

How Much is Changing From Your Earlier Shadowsfall Books?

Some, but surprisingly little. The map is staying the same (or at least, very little will be changing). The pantheon will remain mostly unchanged; if anything, we’ll be expanding the number of deities in it. The same basic feel and flavor will be the same.

Having said that, this is going to be its own stand-alone setting instead of just a segment of the Plane of Shadows, so previous ways of returning to the Material Plane won’t apply anymore. In fact, probably the biggest change that we will be making is that the one adventure we released for the setting—Shadowsfall: The Temple of Orcus—will be de-canonized. It was a tough call, but it had to be made. That adventure starts off on the Material Plane and takes the PCs to the Plane of Shadows. The point of the adventure was to demonstrate a method of incorporating Shadowsfall into your existing campaign.

Now, there is no escape from the undead horde. Now, you can’t simply pop through a gate to the Material Plane to escape a swarm of zombies or plane shift away from a skeletal army. Now, there is nowhere to run. Your only options are to hide behind the walls of a stronghold, evade the hordes, fight the living dead head-on, or die and become one of them.

Will There Be Adventures?

Oh yes. Most definitely. One of my never-publicly-discussed goals of our Deadly Delves line was to learn how to create adventures for the day we return to Shadowsfall. We believe we have a solid handle on it now, especially considering the number of 5-star reviews we’ve received for adventures like To Claw the Surface, Temple of Luminescence, and the Dragon’s Dream, just to name a few. We have some awesome adventures planned that we are not ready to talk about yet.

What Else Can You Share?

Keep watching our Friday blog posts for more details about Shadowsfall. We hope you are as excited about this as we are.

Download all of JBE’s Pathfinder material at the JBE Shop, DriveThruRPG, Paizo, and the Open Gaming Store.