A terminal RPG for 1-4 players built on 5E rules. Build a party from 12 classes and races, fight through 100+ rooms of cursed crypts and the Shadowfell, cast 146 spells, and face a villain who won't stay dead. Grid combat, narrated audio, and a three-act campaign dark enough to earn its name.
Descend into the Crypt
Beneath a crumbling church, ancient wards are failing. Vaelthar the Undying — an elven lord who cursed himself with shadow magic after watching his people slaughtered — stirs on his throne of black iron and bone. The seals that held him for centuries are cracking. Someone has to go down there.
That someone is you.
The Crypt of the Shadow King is a couch co-op RPG for 1–4 players, built on the 5E SRD ruleset and played entirely in the terminal. Roll a party, equip your gear, and fight your way through a three-act campaign — from the crypt beneath a church, through the threatened overworld of Thornfield, and into the Shadowfell itself for a final confrontation with a reborn god who won't stay dead.
Build Your Party
Play solo or share the screen with up to 4 players on one machine — each creating their own character and taking turns in combat. Choose from 12 full classes — Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Monk — each with subclasses, unique features, and progression from level 1 to 10. Pair your class with one of 12 races including Humans, High Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Dragonborn, and Tieflings, each with distinct racial traits. Pick a background, assign your ability scores, and choose an alignment.
Fight on a Grid or in the Theater of the Mind
Toggle between tactical grid combat with movement, positioning, flanking, and cover — or streamlined theater-of-the-mind encounters. Either way, the full 5e combat engine is under the hood: initiative rolls, attack rolls vs. AC, saving throws, advantage and disadvantage, opportunity attacks, conditions, concentration, death saves, and more.
Enemies aren't mindless. A threat-scoring AI drives monster tactics — goblins use stealth and numbers, undead shamble relentlessly, and the Shadow King himself wields legendary actions, lair effects, and multi-phase abilities that will punish careless adventurers.
Cast 146 Spells
Sling Magic Missiles that never miss, sculpt Fireballs around your allies, heal with Cure Wounds, or shut down an enemy caster with Counterspell. The spell system covers 146 spells from cantrips through 5th level across eight schools of magic, with proper slot management, concentration tracking, and spell preparation for classes that use it.
Act 1 — The Crypt (30 rooms)
Three dungeon levels beneath a crumbling church.
The Crypt Entrance — Crumbling burial chambers, skeleton patrols, a poisoned dart corridor, a music puzzle on ancient stone chimes, and a massive elemental dial locking the way deeper.
The Shadow Warrens — Bioluminescent fungal caverns, a goblin war camp holding prisoners, a library guarded by animated armor, mimic treasure chests, gelatinous cubes, and kobold warrens rigged with tripwires.
The Shadow King's Throne — Supernatural darkness, a towering skeleton guardian wreathed in purple flame, and the throne room where Vaelthar himself waits with shadow tendrils, necrotic fog, and collapsing pillars.
Act 2 — Thornfield and the Overworld (29 rooms)
You killed the Shadow King. The seals held. The town throws a party.
Then the farms start burning.
Raids from the wilderness, wolves in the fields, and a trail of evidence leading to a cult that wants Vaelthar back. The overworld opens up into a network of towns, forests, roads, and dungeons — each with merchants, NPCs, lore, and choices shaped by your alignment.
Thornfield — A hub town with a tavern, smithy, temple, market, library, barracks, and town hall. Rest, shop, and pick up bounties.
Whispering Woods — A corrupted forest with giant spiders, a druid grove, fey clearings, a basilisk den, and a cult ritual site hidden in ancient ruins.
The King's Road — A trade route with a merchant caravan, a troll bridge, bugbear toll collectors, and the road to Ravenmoor.
Ravenmoor — A rival town with a corrupt mayor, a smuggler's warehouse, and a cemetery where gargoyles stand watch over sealed crypts.
The Abandoned Mine — A 14-room dungeon crawling with ghouls, vampires, a flesh golem laboratory, and the Shadow Priest Malachar conducting the ritual to tear open the Shadowfell.
Act 3 — The Shadowfell (42 rooms)
Malachar's ritual rips a breach between planes. The only way to stop the Shadow King's rebirth is to follow him through.
The Breach — A planar rift zone patrolled by cloakers, cerebral devourers, chain devils, night hags, and an oni. A young black dragon claims the shadow nexus. An ancient shadow dragon guards the way deeper.
The Shadowfell Wastes — An ashen landscape of dead villages, bone fields, a river of liquid shadow, corrupted treants, and a wraith-haunted watchtower. Colors drain. Cold seeps into everything.
The Corrupted Citadel — The ruins of Thal'serin, the elven city Vaelthar once ruled. A forbidden library with a ghostly librarian, a desecrated chapel, a dungeon with prisoners, and a tower overlooking the Rift Nexus. The Shadow Archon sits on an obsidian throne at its heart.
The Rift Nexus — Floating fragments of shattered reality above an infinite void. A bridge where gravity shifts, a forge of shadow-wrought weapons, the ghost of the hero who sealed Vaelthar the first time, and the final arena where the Shadow King Reborn waits in a pillar of living darkness crowned in black iron.
Every room has something to do — fight, solve, loot, or learn. Riddles, skill challenges, environmental hazards, hidden alcoves, rescue missions, alignment- gated dialogue, and a merchant who somehow got locked in the dungeon before you did.
Loot Cursed Swords and Drink Suspicious Potions
Find and equip 27 weapon types from daggers to greatswords, 13 armor sets from leather to plate, and 37 magic items including a Flame Tongue Longsword, a Javelin of Lightning, a Wand of Magic Missiles, and a Berserker Axe that might be more trouble than it's worth. Potions of Healing, Heroism, and Hill Giant Strength round out the loot table. Some items are cursed. You'll find out which ones the hard way.
Hear the Dungeon
Optional voice narration brings the narrator to life with spoken descriptions of every key moment. Dynamic background music shifts between exploration, combat, and boss themes. Prefer silence? Disable audio for a pure text experience.
A Villain Worth Fighting
Vaelthar isn't a cartoon. He watched humans burn his city and kill his children. He chose vengeance, bound his soul to the Shadowfell through a crown of his own making, and became something that cannot die by mortal means. His journal entries are carved into the dungeon walls. You'll read them on the way down. You might even understand him by the time you reach his throne.
You still have to kill him. Twice. The first time in his crypt, surrounded by the bones of his jailers. The second time in the Shadowfell itself, at the heart of a rift between planes, where his true name echoes off walls that were never meant to exist. A cult of followers, a shadow priest, and a corrupt mayor all work to bring him back — and by the time you reach the Rift Nexus, he has become something worse than what you buried.
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