The Gloomcliff Frontier is a Shadowdark RPG campaign setting blending post-revolution intrigue, chaotic wilderness, and ancient mystery. Players balance survival, exploration, and factional politics while shaping the future of a land still scarred by war.

The Gloomcliff Frontier is grim and uncertain.  Moral choices often lack a clear “right” answer.  Corruption, wilderness threats, and factional intrigue create constant tension.  Glory and treasure lie in reach, but ruin, betrayal, or ancient curses may strike just as easily.

Landscape: A vast continental rift carved by the Noles River, with cliffs, swamps, forests, and collapsed ruins. The Arnamis Mountains are shrouded in mist and shadow, creating an eerie frontier where survival is never guaranteed.

Danger & Intrigue: Few people are wholly honorable. Allies may become enemies, and villains may provide unexpected aid. Cities are rife with crime, corruption, and espionage, often as treacherous as the wilds beyond their wall.

Isolation: Civilization survives in fortified city-states—small bastions linked by muddy roads and surrounded by wilderness filled with beasts, bandits, and supernatural horrors.

Secrets: Beneath the land lie ruined castles, lost temples, and hidden dungeons filled with ancient magic and long-forgotten history. Delving into them may awaken powers better left buried.

Treasure & Greed: The discovery of gold near Amareth (CE 1518) sparked a chaotic gold rush. Amareth grew from an outpost into a lawless boomtown, scarred by mining, smugglers, and mercenaries.

Factions & Foes: Bandits, guilds, mercenary tribes, cults, and dark organizations, each with schemes and hooks ready to drop into play.

New Ancestries appear alongside classics:

Gnomes – Clever, reclusive tricksters skilled in magic and craft.

Minotaurs – Strong, disciplined warriors and seekers of arcane lore.

Unique Classes:
Bersark – Savage warriors with feral instincts and resistance to magic.

Cutthroat – Stealthy killers using disguise, poison, and precision strikes.

Gloom Priest – Dark spellcasters commanding death, undeath, and necrotic power.

Grove Keeper – Protectors of nature who balance the wilds and wield primal spells.

Pyromancer – Fire-wielding spellcasters of destruction and transformation.

Sentinel – Warriors of faith and honor, combining martial prowess and divine magic.

The Gloomcliff Frontier Game Master’s Guide is your key to unlocking the mysteries and dangers of a land scarred by war, haunted by ruins, and crawling with schemes. Where the Players Handbook equips adventurers, this volume arms the Game Master with the secrets to challenge them at every turn.

Inside you’ll find:

Pledge in the first 48 hours receive an FREE exclusive adventure, DARKNESS AND GOLD. 

Rumors of untouched gold draw the characters to a long-sealed mine on the edge of the Gloomcliff escarpment near Amareth, but what awaits inside is far more dangerous than a simple treasure hunt. Halda’s Spear, a hardline vigilante faction, has claimed the tunnels as their base of operations, holding captives and guarding their secrets with steel and fanatical resolve. The party must brave ambushes, treacherous shafts, and the ever-present threat of collapse as tremors shake the unstable mine. With lives hanging in the balance and time running short, they must decide how deep they are willing to go—and what justice truly means in the darkness.
 

$2,000 Vault of the Gilded Dead. Exclusive Adventure.  An extension to the adventure Darkness and Gold, the player characters crawl through a partially collapsed mine where the lure of lost gold masks a deeper danger. Something ancient now stirs deeper in the mine. What begins as a treasure hunt quickly becomes a desperate descent through mystery.  At the bottom waits a treasure and a deadly revelation.

$4,500 Shadow Lord. Lostelle stands on the brink. Tension fills the streets, whispers coil through the taverns, and fear settles over the docks like morning fog. What begins as simple investigation will pull you beyond the safety of lantern light into treacherous swamp. Something dark gathers strength.  The choices you make will shape the fate of a village and perhaps far more. Sharpen your blades, steady your nerve, and step forward—because if you do nothing, the shadows will.  

$5,000 Digging for the Truth Trilogy.  
Ironfang Delve

The adventurers are  seeking the Crown of Greybane, however, the dungeon is cursed and overrun with a malevolent presence. The party must survive the horrors, unravel the mystery, and decide what to do with the cursed crown, which has a will of its own.

 

The curse of the Crown of Greybane has spread beyond the abandoned mine, corrupting the surrounding lands into a blighted wilderness teeming with undead, magical horrors, and twisted nature. The adventurers are tasked with cleansing the area and making it safe for settlers. However, the corruption cannot be destroyed through combat alone—it is rooted in the curse itself, requiring the adventurers to uncover the truth behind Greybane’s betrayal and lay his spirit to rest.

 

The adventurers discover a long forgotten fortress hidden deep in the cursed lands, once afflicted by Greybane’s corruption.  The adventurers must infiltrate the fortress, uncover the evil plans, and disable the base while avoiding discovery or they may be overwhelmed by the Hidden Enemy within.

Shipping fees are collected after the campaign.