The Beasts Between Light and Dark

Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist expands the divided world of Fyera. ‘The Ruination’ divided it into three when it ceased to spin on its access. The ‘Lands of the Old Days’ faced the sun, waters and rivers boiled away to leave only sand and heat. ‘The Darklands’ will never face the sun, frozen and withered, now home to beasts and beings of the darkness unknown before The Ruination. Between them runs a narrow band around the world, the ‘Penumbra’, where the survivors have to live with no diurnal cycle, no night and day, always at the mercy of attacks from deep within The Darklands. From the Penumbra, the peoples of Freya launched expeditions into The Darklands and once there, constructed Cressets of Vigil, towering portable beacons of light that revealed once again the lands and secrets lost to the darkness and advanced warnings of attacks upon Penumbra. These attacks bare cease, as if the very darkness would reach out and swallow the last of the light. Many of the survivors of The Ruination would find themselves changed, granted ‘The Gifts of Fyera’ that enabled them to hold back the Darkness, yet facing the ever-present danger of falling into the Darkness as a result of committing or witnessing sins done in the name of the Light, of their souls being scarred by both the Light and the Dark. Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is the first supplement for Soulmist: A Journey from Darkness to Light, a dark fantasy setting compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Black Lantern following a successful Kickstarter campaign, this is the first roleplaying game and setting to be published by a Greek publisher and reach the English-speaking market.

Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist leaps straight into the world of Fyera with introductions by the authors of the ‘Tenebris Cordis’—the ‘dark heart’—a treatise that presents some of the threats emerging from The Darklands. These are scholars and participants in reclamation expeditions into the Darklands whose voices give an engaging verisimilitude to the supplement, one that continues throughout the supplement with marginalia that annotates and adds commentary to its content. Yet it does leave the reader slightly adrift to quite wonder what the supplement is and what its content consists since there is no introduction from its designer. Once past the introductions—which actually could be used as handouts for the players—and the Game Master will discover that Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is a grimoire of monsters and demons supported by new rules and advice for creating memorable antagonists and stories suited to the pitch-black half of Soulmist’s world and the shadows that the Player Characters’ light can cast upon it.

The Dark Saints are the natural and spiritual leaders of the forces of The Darkness, some ancient, some new, some native to the world, some foreign. Some were martyrs of the Light who fell to Darkness, others struck down previous Dark Saints, but they all wear the legendary ‘Black Halos’, the ‘Dark Crowns’ that are the symbols of their authority and power. Fortunately, only ten Dark Saints are known, each embodying a different aspect of the Darkness and each perusing their own agenda. Each of the ten is accorded a description that includes a lengthy history, details of its lair, the Dark Endowments—major and minor—that it can bestow on its followers, and the lair actions it can take within its domain. Full stats are also given. These include not just its standard actions, but also bonus actions, legendary actions, and abilities. The least of the Dark Saints is Sixteenth Level, the highest Nineteenth Level, whilst one is listed as its Level being unknown.

For example, Nycta, the Dark Saint of Voracity was once an inquisitive young noble woman who paid to be taken on an expedition into The Darklands. Unfortunately, her naivety and poor choice of expedition led to everyone being captured by a dark raid and imprisoned. Refusing to be left to starve, she horrified the other survivors by consuming the flesh of one of their number who had died. This attracted the attention of the demon lord, who, enraptured by her beauty took her as his wife and on their wedding night, literally offered his bride his heart of magma. In seducing and taking him to the heights of ecstasy, she took his power and his ‘Black Halo’. Since then, despite many suitors and many rivals, she has seduced and consumed them in order to protect her position and make herself more powerful. There remains though, a void in her that she cannot fill, even as she continues to slake her desires. Although scholars have identified who the young noble woman who became Nycta was, an injunction has been placed by the Judiciary Order on the Legislative Order to prevent it from becoming public knowledge.

Mechanically, Nycta is a Seventeenth Level Undead Demonoid. She has a Charisma of 26 and her standard include include using Heartrender, a whip that inflicts more damage on those she has Charmed; blowing a ‘Kiss of Surrender’, that if the recipient fails the saving throw, forces him to drop his weapons and divest himself of both armour and all combat gear, before going on in subsequent rounds to extoll his allies to do the same; and with ‘Insatiable Hunger’, drain the Hit Points from the willing and the Charmed to keep for herself or her allies. Her ‘Damsel in Distress’ Reaction calls on a Charmed ally to rush to her defence. Her Abilities consist of ‘Thief of Hearts’, which makes it harder for those charmed by her to break that charm and ferociously compete for her attention; as the ‘Foil of Hearts’, appear as an innocent maiden to the pure of heart, making it hard for them to attack her; ‘Destiny Consumed’ turns her followers into zealots who gain attacks of opportunity if anyone attacks her; her ‘Innate Spellcasting means that amongst other spells, she can cast Charm Person at will; and her Crown of Voracity hungers for what desires lie in the hearts of men, forcing those nearby to attempt to fulfil them and even forces those who fight near it to swap their allegiances!

Nycta also has the Legendary Actions of Charm Person (though she can already cast this at will, so…), ‘Foerender’, which enables her to swing her whip, Heartrender, in a thirty foot radius, and ‘Voracious Command’ that gives her allies an extra action or move. As her lair actions, her very presence can drive the residents of the city to her location, drunk on desire and impulsiveness, call ruination black warriors and then an alastor knight to her, and raise a cloud of the ethereal dust that covers the city into the air causing any charmed creature in the cloud to randomly attack someone else! Last she has Dark Endowments. The Major Endowments grant advantage on saving throws against being charmed—except by Nycta, the ability to cast Charm Person three times a day, and the temporary ability to steal the appearance of someone they have charmed. The Minor Endowments make them permanently charmed by Nycta, increase two attribute scores, and grants them a Dark Spark when they complete one of her commands.

All ten of the Dark Saints are given a similar and as powerful a treatment, from Acheron, the Dark Saint of Corruption and Asmodae, the Dark Saint of Void to Sagha, the Dark Saint of Fear, and Varna, the Dark Saint of Madness. These are all major NPCs and thus significant challenges for the Player Characters to overcome and Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist makes clear that they sit atop a very simple hierarchy in the realm of Darkness—might makes right. And that percolates all the way down to the bottom. The supplement provides several ways in which to populate this hierarchy. One is to add a template like ‘Hollows’ or ‘Umbrus’ to an existing creature, another to use the extra creatures given in the supplement. These range from the ‘Yormoth’, the most common creature, known as ‘flesh hunters’, in the Darklands to the ‘Wandering Qualms’, former ordinary men and creatures whose regrets and shame ate them from within and turned into masses of stings and tentacles bound in iron. They also include the Guardians of the 2nd Legion, a unit so brave and so stubborn, that when they were recognised by the Dark Saint of Vengeance, they had to be resurrected through their armour, so worn were their bodies. With the legs of a carnivorous bird, the body of a wolf, and wings of bats, the Septigore is the major flying predator in the Darklands, flying in packs form buildings and caves big enough to accommodate their flock. They are often fielded as aerial guards or scouts. The Ruinetarians are the natives of the Darklands, the descendants of those who did not flee to the Penumbra in the wake of the Ruination, but survived enslavement and subjugation. They have advantage on Stealth rolls and can see in darkness as if it were daylight, but are sensitive to sunlight. None of the monsters in Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is below Tenth Level and all of them are challenging opponents.

Lastly, Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist discusses a means in which any one of its Dark Saints could be in a campaign. This is as a nemesis for one or more the Player Characters, who can be introduced at the start of a campaign, as part of the ongoing play, through the nemesis itself deciding that the Player Characters are his enemy—either from their actions or their fame, or simply player choice. Once introduced, they can be used to enhance the theme of a campaign and develop drama via the ‘Nemesis System’. The relationship between the Player Characters and a nemesis is measured in Edge and who has it. Effectively, this is the narrative advantage that one side has over the other, gained through scoring victories, learning information, and so on, that will push the story on to the next Challenge or episode in the campaign. Only one side can have the Edge and it can only be used once before the turn of events might mean that the Player Characters overcome a Challenge and regain the Edge over their nemesis, or they fail and the nemesis gains it. In play, it is spent by the players to advance the narrative, for example, finding a map showing all of the entrances to a fortress where the nemesis is holding some of the Player Characters family hostage or a captured prisoner is willing to reveal information in return for help. The players take it in turn to spend their characters’ Edge and the Game Master then incorporates their suggestions, if not necessarily their desired outcome of those suggestions, into the campaign.

What the nemesis can do when it has the Edge is less clearly defined, but what it can do is overcome minor challenges in going after the Player Characters. If the Player Character take too long in using their Edge, they can lose it to their nemesis. Ultimately, both sides are working towards a confrontation with each other, and whilst the campaign can progress to this narratively, it is possible to initiate a confrontation using Edge. The side which has used the most Edge will be at advantage in the ensuing confrontation. The confrontation need not be campaign-ending or result in the final defeat of one side or the other, so that it is possible to go through several cycles of Edge swapping back and forth, a confrontation taking place, and then starting again before the final, final battle. The Nemesis System is slightly lose and woolly, though far from unworkable, adding a narrative element that is not always found in Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games.

Physically, Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is a dark, grim-looking book as befits the setting. The artwork is decent, but the book does need another edit.

Soulmist: A Journey from Darkness to Light introduced an interesting setting that really did not detail the nature of the threat at the heart of the game. Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist does that, showcasing the monsters and other horrors, including their vile leaders, to be found within the Darklands. Any one of the Dark Saints would be a grand threat or nemesis in a Soulmist campaign—or indeed in any other grim dark roleplaying game—and Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist supports that too with the Nemesis System. Ultimately, Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is the bestiary—the horridly dark bestiary—that Soulmist: A Journey from Darkness to Light needed.

—oOo—

Black Lantern will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.