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Dark Cities - 100+ scenarios for urban adventures!Click to magnify
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Dark Cities - 100+ scenarios for urban adventures!

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Welcome to "Dark Cities", a collection of over 100 plothooks and storyseeds for RPGs!

"Cities are beacons of civilization and order. But sometimes the strongest light casts the darkest shadows."

This book contains dozens and dozens of scenarios and scenario ideas for adventures in urban settings, suited for nearly all imaginable kinds of fantasy RPGs. If your game has settlements of any significant size, you will be able to run these scenarios!

Our plothooks and storyseeds (around half a page in length each) are ideas: a collection of political intrigues, murder mysteries, criminal undertakings, the plans of secret cults, supernatural powers unleashed and much much more. A few adventures are straightforward, but many come with a twist, designed to lead to more trouble and more action for your average adventuring party!
Each adventure introduces the basic story: a villain's plan, the most important NPCs and how things might develop once our heroes become involved. 

Use these scenarios as they are written, or let them inspire you and grow your own, custom adventure from the sprouting seed of our story!
Most of the scenarios are written with a medieval-ish fantasy setting in mind, but are easily adaptable to ancient, victorian or even more modern urban settings.

Each adventure seed is focused on one or more of the four large categories of RPG scenarios: exploration, diplomacy, investigation and combat.
Many adventures are designed for mid level characters, but you can find quite a few for rising heroes or legendary champions in this collection as well.

Urban adventures, with the intrigues of criminals and nobles alike, are especially well suited for investigative adventures. In this collection you will also find a short guide with the most important tips on running such adventures. 

Last but not least: we have included a list of 20 short encounters that can be used in any urban area and are especially well suited to be thrown into your campaign as a bit of a distraction, a small tidbit of interest that gives your player characters a little room to breathe...but at the same time holds the potential for much more!


"Dark Cities" is the first of ten booklets in our "The Thousand Trails" series. Each book focuses on a specific adventure environment, and gives you over 100 adventure ideas to play...and trails to follow.
Five more books in the same series have been released:
"Edge of the Wilds"
focuses on rural areas, where wilderness and civilization battle for dominance.
"Ocean's Call"
gives you adventures in fishing villages and harbours, on rivers, islands and the mighty ocean itself.
"Realm of Leaves"
 speaks of adventures in the depths of ancient forests, from sweltering jungles to snow-covered boreal woods.
"Crown of Winter" presents scenarios in mountains and other cold places of the world, where the forces of ice and rock reign supreme.
"Marshland Mists" is focused on adventures in swamps and bogs, places of decay and mystery.

Edge of the Wilds Cover       Ocean'c Call Cover image     Cover Art Realm of Leaves    Crown of Winter Cover    Marshland Mists Cover Art

In the meantime you can check out "Invisible Hands", a book about factions of all kinds. It entails not only a thorough guide on how (and why!) to create factions in your games but also holds twenty fully fleshed-out factions of different kinds that you can directly put into your RPG setting! "Pawns in a Greater Game" adds the rules you need for playing as factions instead of individual characters and also adds stats and rules for each of the factions presented in Invisible Hands. "Unseen Strings" adds another twenty detailed factions, plus all the attributes and equipment these factions have according to the rules in Pawns in a Greater Game. 

Invisible Hands Cover Art   Pawns in a Greater Game Cover   Unseen Strings Cover Art

Our newest release is "Lost Dice", a simple, narrative RPG systems suited for all settings! It is based upon a dicepool mechanic that makes every single roll count even in the long run, and gives the players the chance to decide how much they want to risk for victory!

Lost Dice cover


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Reviews (4)
Discussions (11)
Customer avatar
Ronnie S October 15, 2019 2:22 am UTC
PURCHASER
Any chance ya’ll will make this available on POD?
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Customer avatar
Aleksandar P October 15, 2019 7:00 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Hey Ronnie,

I have been thinking about it, but I would have to redo most of the layout, which is a pretty significant amount of work. Not sure I can commit to that at the moment. Thanks for your suggestion though, I will give it some more thought!
Customer avatar
Darren D January 21, 2019 11:53 pm UTC
PURCHASER
This series (please make more :) is really great.

100 adventure seeds detailed in about three paragraphs each, including a)What appears to be happening, b) what the PCs quickly find out is happening and c) What is really happening.

Perfect for dropping into almost any game quickly and easily.
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Customer avatar
Aleksandar P January 22, 2019 1:18 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Thank you Darren!

I am currently working on "The Ocean's Call", the third book of the Thousand Trails. It will be focused on adventures on ships, islands, harbours and the general coast. :) I hope I can finish and publish it in mid/late February, if everything goes to plan.
Customer avatar
Alex G December 19, 2018 7:40 pm UTC
PURCHASER
This really is a great supplement for any GM who needs to throw a quick adventure to player characters in any urban setting. No spoilers, because some of the story seeds are surprising and brilliant. Grab it. This book is totally worth it.
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Customer avatar
Aleksandar P December 19, 2018 9:26 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Thanks Alex! :)
Please let me know if you have any questions at all!
Customer avatar
Stephane G May 15, 2018 3:05 pm UTC
PURCHASER
What I feel sets these random adventure generators apart from many others is the fact that Alekandar has taken the time to explain how to use the adventures, what experience level the heroes should be, how long it might take to run it and what said adventure focuses on mainly.

These books are system agnostic, but he does mention levels for a popular D20 system as a guideline. And for other systems that use another type of experience level tracking system (or none at all), this can give you an idea on how tough the scenario might be.

After telling you what the plot seeds are roughly about, the author has a d20 Random Encounter table for a quick side adventure, for both books.

Then he has a page of notes and thoughts about the types of adventures for both environments, the pros and cons of each one.

And then we delve into the various ''Plothooks and Storyseeds''. There are 100 in each book, as the cover hinted at. Each one has a title, a short description and the...See more
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Customer avatar
Aleksandar P October 06, 2018 6:32 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Stephane,

thank you for your review! Glad you like the books! Please feel free to reach out if you have any further feedback or questions.
Customer avatar
Todor T April 23, 2018 3:33 pm UTC
PURCHASER
For some reason I am unable to download your Products after puchase (tryed every link aviable for downloading them). For both ""Dark Cities" and "Edge of the Wilds".

FAILED - {"error":"The requested source file could not be found.: /data/rawpdfs/rpg/True Mask Games/Dark_Cities_1.3.pdf"}
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Customer avatar
Aleksandar P April 23, 2018 4:01 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Sorry to hear that! Very strange. I have not made any changes to the files recently. I will investigate and get in touch with you!
Reply
Customer avatar
Todor T April 23, 2018 5:11 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Thank you for the quick response. As for right now is still the same. I will be checking again in a day or two.
Customer avatar
Styrmir T March 08, 2018 12:24 am UTC
PURCHASER
It only took me a few minutes of looking at the preview to know that this was just the kind of book I like to have for inspiring my stories played out with my players. The purchased version did not disappoint, clean and readable format with each adventure or story plot layed out with just enough detail and ideas to spark the imagination, and a few images here of good quality to entertain the eye while browsing through the booklet.

I'll be keeping an eye out for your other releases in this series, well done!
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Customer avatar
Aleksandar P March 15, 2018 11:58 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Thank you very much! I am glad to hear you are enjoying Dark Cities!
"Edge of the Wilds", our next booklet in the "Thousand Trails" series, that gives 100+ storyseeds for rural areas, is going to be released in about ten days. We are very much looking forward to feedback!
Customer avatar
Martin W January 14, 2018 1:52 am UTC
I finally read through all of it.<br>
<br>
I will use a lot of it. And yes it seems kinda medieval, but I think I will use it also for Dark Heresy and other system set in that setting. :)<br>
<br>
What I really like is that you come up with stories, names and backgrounds but still leave everything open enough for people to influence it with their own ideas. <br>
<br>
It is, what you say, a lot of real good plothooks.<br>
<br>
Keep up with it, I will keep reading and inplementing in my adventures.
Customer avatar
Thomas B January 12, 2018 10:44 pm UTC
This product says it is 'system agnostic' but the art seems to suggest something vaguely medieval/medieval fantasy. I'm guessing this isn't for modern or post-modern urban or for sci-fi urban. Would I be correct? I'm sure you can always adapt some types of plots and villains - an enterprising GM can transform any plot from another genre.

Assuming the product is primarily for pre-modern urban settings, it might be good to mention that in the description explicitly. System agnostic isn't the same as period-agnostic.

FWIW, that might suggest an alternative product - 100 modern & scifi urban adventure hooks, plots, etc.
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Customer avatar
Aleksandar P January 13, 2018 7:35 am UTC
PUBLISHER
You are correct, "Dark Cities" is mainly suited to pre-modern fantasy, even though many of the plothooks can very easily be adapted to more of a modern, urban fantasy approach as well. I will update that in the description. Thanks for your suggestion!
Customer avatar
Emmitt W January 08, 2018 6:50 pm UTC
PURCHASER
A lot of really good ideas and plot hooks in here, I am eager to possibly see the other 100 scenarios you release next
Reply
Customer avatar
Aleksandar P January 09, 2018 6:22 am UTC
PUBLISHER
It's getting very likely that "Edge of the Wilds", our collection of rural storyseeds, will be released within the next couple of months!
Customer avatar
Daniel D. F January 08, 2018 4:23 pm UTC
Congratulations on making the top 5 list!
Reply
Customer avatar
Aleksandar P January 09, 2018 6:21 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Thanks Daniel! Honestly, I never would have expected to make it that far! :)
Customer avatar
Anne T January 06, 2018 6:05 am UTC
PURCHASER
How/where did you get permission from Pawel Zych to use his artwork? Wasn't aware he offered stock art?! Definitely makes for a lovely cover...
Reply
Customer avatar
Aleksandar P January 07, 2018 9:33 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
I simply contacted him on Deivantart, because I LOVE his artwork, and asked him if he was ok with me using one of his artworks for a project I was working on. He was kind enough to allow it after we talked for a bit and I of course promised to credit him. His medieval city art is honestly one of the best things I have ever seen!
Reply
Customer avatar
Anne T January 08, 2018 4:03 am UTC
PURCHASER
That's awesome! Your story really illustrates how it's worth reaching out to creators you admire :) I first saw his work when a distant friend was using it as a backdrop for the papercraft terrain for a game he was running, I love the techniques he uses, and the sheer amount of detail and evocation is amazing.
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File Last Updated:
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This title was added to our catalog on January 04, 2018.