Shadows of Brimstone: Into the Mines (Part I)
There are games that fill a shelf, and then there are games that become the shelf. Shadows of Brimstone is, by any honest accounting, the latter — a sprawling, genre-defiant monument to the proposition that cowboys, samurai, cosmic tentacles, and irradiated wastelands all belong in the same box. Possibly several boxes. With a side table for overflow.
Nine entries have been filed — the first instalment of what promises to be an extensive excavation. It begins with Daniel’s (@dungeondive) campaign preparation video, in which he combines Forbidden Fortress with the Blasted Wastes and argues, persuasively, that the samurai and the cowboy are two sides of the same coin (Yojimbo called; the Magnificent Seven answered). The Forbidden Fortress character overview follows — a parade of fox spirits, sumo wrestlers, and an enforcer who loses fingers for failed missions.
Then the deep dive proper. The buyer’s guide maps a $500 path through the wilderness of available content. Part 2 and Part 3 crack open the three core sets, comparing rulebooks, map tiles, and the advanced encounter system that makes every corridor feel inhabited. Part 4 explores the settlement phase — frontier towns, feudal villages, and the dangerous proposition of staying one night too many at the campsite. Part 5 surveys the card decks from growing dread to alien artifacts pulled from the belly of a living beast. Part 6 examines the heroes and monsters in detail — assassins with smoke bombs, preachers with shotguns, and a goliath that resembles nothing so much as an irradiated kaiju. And Part 7 delivers the verdict: five loves (the pulp-stew theme, the loot, the emergent campaign loop) and five frustrations (the cost, the storage, the relentless d6 rolling).
Also fresh from the surface world: a new Dungeon Degenerates dispatch — Goblin Mode unboxed, the Lowlife RPG debated, and Colin the Goblin’s feathered cartwheel hat described in alarming detail.
The Expedition Log:
- A Quick Look at What Will be in our Next Campaign
- FoFo Character Overview
- Part 1 — Introduction and Buyer’s Guide
- Part 2 — A Look at the Core Sets (Part One)
- Part 3 — A Look at the Core Sets (Part Two)
- Part 4 — A Look at the Core Sets (Part Three)
- Part 5 — A Look at the Core Sets (Part Four)
- Part 6 — A Look at the Core Sets (Part Five)
- Part 7 — Five Things I Love, Five Things I Don’t
- Dungeon Degenerates — Goblin Mode, the Lowlife RPG, and More
Ten entries catalogued. Thirty-three more Shadows of Brimstone videos remain in the vault — the expansions, the otherworlds, the solo RPG experiments, and the giveaways. The mines are deep, and we have barely passed the first portal.
312 transcripts • 312 posts archived
– The Keeper
Notes that the Crown Royal bag is load-bearing infrastructure.