The Shadowfell

Lore & Background

The supplement contains information a Dungeon Master needs to run adventures set in the plane known as the Shadowfell, with details on locations such as the Darkreach Mountains, Dead Man's Cross and the House of Black Lanterns, Gloomwrought, Letherna, the Oblivion Bog, and Thyrin Gol.

In Their Own Story

The door in Sigil was unmarked, as most doors were, but the Nameless One felt the wrongness in the air before stepping through—a thinness, as if the world on the other side were a sketch of a world rather than the world itself. Beyond the threshold, the sky was the color of old bruises. A forest stretched in every direction, its trees standing in rigid silence, their bark the grey of ash. There was no wind. There was no sound. Even the Nameless One's own breathing seemed muffled, as though the air itself had forgotten how to carry it. A figure stood among the trees, pale and still, watching with eyes that held no reflection. It did not speak. It did not need to. In the Shadowfell, silence was not the absence of words. It was the presence of everything that had been taken away.

Reader's Guide

The boxed set edition included a 32-page encounter booklet, a 128-page booklet presenting the fully detailed city of Gloomwrought and the surrounding area, die-cut tokens, a foldout battle map, and one 30-card Despair Deck. The Despair Deck added mechanics where players would draw negative conditions that could be overcome when their characters achieved milestones, turning them into beneficial conditions; the deck conditions would reset upon completing a long rest. A pdf version of the booklet was published on April 28, 2015.

Did You Know?

• The Shadowfell was written by Andy Clautice, Erik Scott de Bie and Matt Goetz.
• It was officially released in May 2011.
• The boxed set was the second supplement Wizards of the Coast published with the theme of shadows in 2011, preceded by Heroes of Shadow (2011) and followed by the 4th Edition Encounters event Dark Legacy of Evard (2011) a
• Chris Perkins requested a Shadowfell deck of cards; Greg Bisland came up with the Fear Deck, modeled after Ravenloft's Tarokka Deck, which first appeared in Forbidden Lore (1992), eventually becoming the Despair Deck.