A Review of Forgotten Foes for Shadowdark

A monster book earns its place beside my campaign notes when I can open it and find something worth using. An interesting illustration helps, and recognizing an old favorite is enjoyable, but I want to know what happens when the party meets the creature. Does it change how they explore, give them something to investigate, or make them reconsider a plan? Michael Benoit’s Forgotten Foes for Shadowdark RPG provides plenty of creatures that can do those things.

I backed it on Kickstarter, and this review is based on the draft PDF provided to backers. Final editing and playtesting are still underway, so some details may change before release. Benoit specifically notes that the eight Epic Foes may receive mechanical changes as playtest feedback comes in. I have not run these creatures at the table; this review considers the material as written and what I would use in my own games. Published under the Merry Manticore name, the supplied draft runs to 129 pages. It expands Shadowdark’s bestiary with familiar fantasy creatures, named adversaries, rival adventurers, and reference material for creating or converting monsters. There is material here for individual encounters as well as opponents a GM could build an adventure around.

Monsters That Change the Expedition

The smaller creatures make a strong first impression because several interact directly with exploration. Fire beetles have three glowing nodules that continue providing light after removal, lasting 1d4 times ten minutes of real time. That puts a potential resource inside an encounter. A party running short of torches has a reason to investigate those moving red lights, and acquiring illumination becomes something the characters do within the adventure. Cave crickets create a different problem. Frightening or attacking them causes shrieking, with a two-in-six chance of a random encounter each round. Their description says they avoid fighting when possible. I could place them near a passage the party needs to cross and let the players work out how to proceed quietly. Drawing swords might solve the immediate obstruction while making the expedition considerably more dangerous.

The cave fisher uses vertical space particularly well. It hangs filaments from ledges, catches a victim, and pulls that creature toward it. A cavern with an overhead shelf now has a reason for players to look up, consider their formation, and keep rescue equipment accessible. I would establish signs of its hunting before the first attack, perhaps through hanging remains or abandoned gear below its perch. Those clues would be my preparation, but the creature supplies the behavior that makes them useful.

These entries are easy to borrow individually. A mine, ruined tower, or woodland cave can accommodate them without importing a setting or learning another system. Their usefulness comes from how they affect light, noise, movement, and the party’s ability to help one another.

Familiar Monsters With Distinct Jobs

Benoit’s stated priorities are mechanically interesting creatures, Shadowdark’s simplicity and speed, and fidelity to established lore, in that order. That approach usually produces a recognizable creature with a manageable set of abilities. It also matches what I appreciated in the official Shadowdark books: concise abilities that create decisions without slowing the game. The warp panther displaces its apparent position, making attacks against it more difficult, while blink dogs teleport and explicitly hate warp panthers. Together, those entries suggest a conflict the party could encounter without either side immediately attacking the adventurers.

The thoul particularly caught my attention because of my fondness for Mystara. It combines regeneration and a paralyzing touch with a formation bonus when close to another thoul or hobgoblin. Put one beside hobgoblin guards and the players have a reason to break up the formation. That encounter already asks the GM to track who is close enough for the bonus, who is paralyzed, and when the thoul regenerates. I’d run that combination on its own before adding another creature with an effect to track each round. Constructs offer similar opportunities. The shield golem absorbs half the damage dealt to its nearby master, making the relationship between guardian and spellcaster immediately relevant. An iron living statue holds mundane metal weapons that strike it, while the caryatid column can shatter nonmagical weapons on a natural 1. These are creatures I would introduce through visible evidence and local knowledge. Learning what happened to an earlier expedition could change what the next group brings.

The disenchanter is one I would read twice before using. Its ability to permanently strip an item of magic makes it more memorable than another creature that deals damage, but the players need a chance to recognize what they could lose. I’d show it draining an enchanted object before putting a character’s prized weapon at risk. That gives the party a reason to hide its gear, try another route, or decide the fight is worth it.

There is also room for cooperation. The lammasu is a guardian of Law and a potential patron, while brownies and pseudodragons give the party other creatures it might approach for help. Across a collection this large, the entries feel more consistent as stat blocks than as sources of adventure ideas. The cave fisher tells me where it hunts and how it catches prey, so I can picture the encounter as soon as I read it. The lammasu tells me what it stands for, but I still have to supply a reason for the party to seek it out and a reason for it to help. Some entries are ready to place in a room; others are useful starting points that ask more of the GM.

Enough Material to Build Around

The Epic Foes ask more of the GM than the ordinary entries. Carophalanxia’s five breath effects make it matter where the party stands and how closely they group together. Choosing among those effects and tracking what they leave behind also takes more attention than running an ordinary dragon. I’d read that block closely before a session and plan a battlefield with enough room for the players to respond. Uleksandr Konstyantyn offers a different kind of value: his cursed domain and predatory hospitality suggest a campaign antagonist, but the GM still has to build the domain and give the party a reason to enter it. One gives me a fight to prepare; the other gives me a villain to write around.

Tolkien wrote in The Hobbit, “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.” That applies here: a powerful creature can influence the party’s plans long before anybody attempts to fight it. The metallic and gem dragons offer several possibilities for that kind of continuing presence.

Some entries suggest an entire adventure with very little additional explanation. The oblex steals memories and creates obedient copies of its victims, with those copies dissolving if they travel more than a mile away. That limitation gives an investigation a practical boundary. I could build a village mystery around people whose recollections seem convincing but whose movements remain strangely restricted. The book supplies the creature and its capabilities; the village, clues, and relationships would be mine to develop.

The yellow musk creeper and its associated zombie provide another ready connection. One creature produces the conditions for the other, allowing a GM to place evidence of an infestation before revealing its source. The various blights likewise support a corrupted woodland with threats of different strengths. Those relationships help a location feel occupied by something more coherent than unrelated results from a wandering-monster table.

Rival Parties Without Building PCs

The adventurer section may be the part I would consult most often. It supplies fighter, priest, thief, and wizard stat blocks across levels one through ten, along with party-strength and tactics tables. The introduction explicitly suggests adapting them into bandits, cultists, or monstrous humanoids. That makes the section useful whenever an existing encounter needs a particular combat role without the work of building a full player character.

The tactics table helps distinguish groups quickly. Rivals might take hostages, use diplomacy, feign weakness, or steal a magic item and flee. Those approaches produce different encounters even when the underlying statistics remain similar. I would choose a tactic that fits the group’s motives, then establish what would make it negotiate or withdraw. A competing expedition can remain interesting across several meetings if its members have goals beyond attacking on sight.

Fighter talents and spell tables add variety without demanding much preparation. Spellcasters can use suggested standard selections or randomized spells, letting the GM decide how much variation is useful. The higher-level blocks also deserve attention before play: some can make multiple attacks or combine weapons and magic in a turn. These are purpose-built NPC statistics, and I would assess the whole rival party before putting it against player characters.

Finding and Converting Monsters Faster

The level index combines this supplement’s creatures with entries from the Shadowdark core book, identifying the source and page. That is a useful convenience when stocking a location because both collections can be consulted through one list. The individual entries also include typical numbers appearing, allowing a GM to begin with a suggested group size and adjust it to the circumstances.

Neither feature determines whether an encounter is appropriate for a particular party. A low-level creature can still have poison, paralysis, or another ability with severe consequences, and several creatures acting together can change the situation quickly. I would use the level index to find candidates, then read their abilities and consider the terrain, available information, and escape routes. The numbers appearing help establish a population; they still require judgment.

The final monster-stat reference provides suggested armor class, attacks, ability modifiers, and talent difficulties at listed levels. It is handy support for adapting an older adventure when a creature is missing or when an existing entry needs adjustment. Combined with the bestiary, it reduces the amount of conversion work a GM must do before concentrating on the actual location and its inhabitants.

The black-and-white illustrations are most useful when they give me a feature I can describe before naming the creature. The flail snail’s clubbed stalks, for example, tell the players something about how it might fight. For creatures with less distinctive silhouettes, I’d still lean on the written description and behavior to tell them apart. At the table, the two-column layout and bold ability names do the practical work: I can find the effect I need without rereading the entire entry.

Conclusion

I’d recommend Forgotten Foes first to Shadowdark GMs converting older adventures or looking for classic monsters that make light, noise, and positioning matter. The entries I’d reach for most add a decision to the encounter without bringing a longer 5e-style stat block along with them. The rival-adventurer section, combined level index, and conversion reference also make this a useful book to keep open during prep. The Epic Foes take more preparation, but the ordinary entries are where I expect to get the most use.

I would start with fire beetles and cave fishers for an underground expedition, thouls for a hobgoblin stronghold, and the adventurer blocks for a competing party. Each provides something I could put to work without building an entire campaign around the supplement. Forgotten Foes has already given me ideas for my next game, and that is a good reason to keep it close.