Demonata

In my childhood I was not always an active reader. That changed drastically around the time that I discovered the works of Darren Shan, an Irish author of horror novels. I got through each book of the Cirque du Freak series and each book of the Demonata series in a book-a-day layout, borderline devouring the pages upon finally finding something that really clicked with me. Throughout my time attempting (and failing) to write prose and as a tabletop game player, Shan's novels have definitively influenced both my creative works and me as a person.

It's therefore kind of a surprise to me that I haven't incorporated much of his worldbuilding into any games. Let's change that.

I'm going to preface this by saying that, as a primarily D&D player, I do not think this system is the best one for capturing the tone and feel of either the Demonata series or the Cirque du Freak series. D&D is a game of heroism, epic feats, and increasing in personal power. These do come into play in Shan's books as well, but rarely to the extent that D&D will give you. The characters are constantly against odds that cannot be fought head on, which eventually, inevitably, becomes the case in many D&D games.

There are ways to get around this- rule modifications, tone, level caps- but I would still recommend people consider other game systems for running games in Shan-inspired settings/tones. Perhaps I'll do a version of this post in a different game system as proof of this at a later time.

As the title of this post suggests, I'm going to focus on the Demonata series. The goal of this post is to outline some of the concepts within the series and then begin translating them mechanically into Dungeons and Dragons so players can use them for themselves. If people like where this goes, I'll add more to it, maybe do some stat blocks and stuff for it too.

Unsurprisingly, spoilers follow after the break.