Shady Dragon Inn

The Shady Dragon Inn is an accessory designed for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Carl Smith wrote The Shady Dragon Inn as a supplement used to help dungeon masters introduce fully designed characters into any scenario. It is a 40-page book that includes a six page floor plan of the Shady Dragon Inn in 25 mm scale, groups of non-player characters including fighters, magic-users, clerics, and thieves, various races, special characters, and parties of them all.

The idea of the supplement is to provide a dungeon master with either non-player characters to fill out a campaign or already generated characters for gamers to choose amongst to play in their own right.

Fighters
The book lays out twenty-three different fighters from Abel Artone to Vychan the Little. Each character includes a statistic block, a brief description of their equipment, a physical description, and a very brief biography.

Magic Users
Eighteen different Magic Users grace the pages of this accessory from Apris the Wondrous to Zarkon the Blue. Like the fighters, each includes statistic blocks and descriptions with the addition of the wizard's spell books.

Clerics
Seventeen clerics grace the pages of this manual including everything from Ambrose the Celt to Penelope of West Haven. Like the wizards the cleric description includes known spells along with a description and general possessions.

Thieves
This class of character maintained the title of thief until changing to rogue in the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The supplement details fourteen of the thieves from Aiden Ablefingers to Zacharias the Nimble.

Dwarves
Ten dwarves find their way into the manual from Astrid Helmsplitter to Ulf the Sledge. As with the others a statistic block and brief description comes with each of the characters.

Elves
An even dozen elves including Aithne of Far Isle to Torquil of Deep Hollow occupy this section of the book. As in the original Dungeons and Dragons system, all of the elves are magic-users and their spell books come with their descriptions.

Halflings
Begol Burrowell is the first of ten Halflings described in the tome and Wat Watershed is the last. Information about their background is included with a statistic block.

Special Characters
The thirteen characters presented in this section come from the Dungeons & Dragons toy line marketed at this time. Each includes a lengthier, but still short, description block and statistic area. Mercion the cleric is the first described here while Warduke, an evil fighter, is the last.

The Shady Dragon Inn
The inn itself gets a description near the end of the supplement along with the people found there on a daily basis. Prices for the various services provided by the Shadow Dragon also come in this section.

In 1983, a followup article written by product author Carl Smith for Polyhedron Newszine provided additional details about the employees and furnishings of the Shady Dragon Inn (Smith 1983).

Parties
The last area of the book details group of adventurers, or parties, staying at the inn at any particular time.

Example
Below is an example of a typical statistic block and character description from this book.


 * Mildthryth the Mild


 * S 13; I7; W 14; C 12; D 9; CH 11; AL L;


 * LV 11; AC 2; hp 61; P/D 7; MW 8;


 * S/P 10; DB 12; SP/MS 10; THACO 13.


 * [11 using mace +2}

Spells: 1st Level: cure light wounds(x3), resist cold. 2nd Level: bless (x2), find traps (x2). 3rd Level: cure disease, remove curse, continual light. 4th Level: cure serious wounds(x2), protection from evil 10' radius. 5th Level: commune, raise dead.

Wears plate mail, shield, helm; carries mace +2, sling and 20 pellets, 4 bottles of holy water, 3 silver holy symbols.

Mildthryth is 35, stands 5'8", and weighs 125 lbs. She has brown hair, is quietspoken, and wears crimson clerical robes bordered in white at the collar, hem, and cuffs. She is known as a healer, and fighters like her company because of her healing and fighting ability.