Vigilantes for Shadowdark 2 Reaches Copper Bestseller Status on DriveThruRPG

Vigilantes for Shadowdark 2 has reached Copper bestseller status on DriveThruRPG, giving its creator, OG_GM, a visible milestone for a superhero setting built around Shadowdark and other OSR d20 systems. The listing’s Copper badge is the news; the book’s pitch is a sharp turn toward capes, psychic experiments and bruised city streets.

The product page describes this second installment as larger in scope and more intense in tone, with the unruly energy of 1980s comic books. It’s framed as a superhero roleplaying game for Shadowdark, #Blacklight and other OSR d20 systems. The article calls it the first and only superhero RPG written specifically for those systems; that’s the creator’s description, and the game’s central appeal is clear even without a deeper rules breakdown: familiar fantasy-oriented d20 play gets redirected toward costumed crime fighters and strange powers.

A city shaped by failed experiments

The setting’s backstory reaches to the 1950s, when covert programs attempted to create paraphysical agents and psychic operatives. Those efforts failed, but their wreckage gives the present-day setting its unsettling foundation. The premise leaves room for characters to encounter the consequences of old experiments without requiring every adventure to become a history lesson. A group can focus on what those projects left behind: people altered by them, secrets that refuse to stay buried, and the institutions and communities caught in their wake.

Fresno, Nevada, is one of the setting’s key locations. Its streets are still scorched and unsettled after the fall of the Crime Lords, giving street-level heroes a city with immediate troubles and a recent power vacuum. That setup points toward a useful range of superhero stories: protecting ordinary people, confronting the aftermath of criminal rule, or discovering what else is taking advantage of the disruption. The source doesn’t spell out how those situations play at the table, so the specific adventures and character choices are left for players and game masters to shape.

From two-fisted heroes to psychic horror

The material’s advertised range is part of its identity. It moves from two-fisted crime fighters to unstable psychic experiments, with body horror tied to Project Prometheus and more outlandish capers associated with Tag. Those ingredients suggest a setting comfortable with tonal shifts: one session can lean into a hard-edged confrontation, while another can embrace a stranger, more comic-book style of trouble.

That variety gives a game master several clear starting points. A street-level story can put the Crime Lords’ former territory at the center, asking what happens after the old powers fall. A psychological story can make the consequences of the failed experiments personal, focusing on a character’s uncertain abilities and the people affected by them. A body-horror scenario can draw on Project Prometheus, while Tag offers a cue for a less solemn, more exuberant outing. These are ways to build from the named themes, not claims about specific adventures included in the book.

The source also poses a question about POG without answering it. That unanswered mystery can serve as a hook for groups curious about the setting’s deeper secrets, though the article doesn’t explain what POG means or how the book handles it. For a prospective buyer, that’s a point to check on the product page before planning a story around it.

A system-specific superhero pitch

Writing for Shadowdark and related OSR d20 games gives Vigilantes for Shadowdark 2 a focused audience. Players already familiar with those systems can approach the superhero premise through a rules framework they know, while the setting shifts the expected genre toward masked identities, psychic abilities, experiments and urban danger. The source doesn’t give player counts, play times, prices or detailed turn procedures, so there’s no basis here to assess those practical details or compare particular character options.

For game masters, the strongest usable signal is the mix of setting anchors and genre cues. Fresno, Nevada, supplies a location; the fall of the Crime Lords supplies a recent change; the decades-old experiments supply unanswered history. Together, they offer a straightforward way to start a table discussion: decide whether the heroes are dealing with the city’s immediate problems, the legacy of Project Prometheus, or a mystery connected to POG. Then choose whether the session should feel gritty, unsettling or playfully over the top.

OG_GM’s accompanying note looks beyond this release to a year of writing, reading and talking about tabletop games and supplements, with an emphasis on enjoying the hobby and treating other players with consideration. That sentiment fits a game whose pitch invites groups to explore a big, strange comic-book world together. Copper gives the release its current sales marker; the next useful details for interested players are the product page’s full contents and the way its rules handle superhero action.

Vigilantes for Shadowdark 2 is available through DriveThruRPG.