Hail the Slaughter Crescent

When the daughters of goddesses make war, all will tremble

Hail the Slaughter Crescent is a brutal one-session delve by award-winning deathtrap dungeon designer Sersa Victory.

Inspired by the savage goddesses of ancient Mesopotamia, this dungeon is ideal for groups who enjoy lethal combat, difficult trade-offs, and relentless time pressure.

A gore-crusted dungeon delve for Shadowdark

In this delve, the adventurers descend into the War-Womb: a buried temple once ruled by Slaughter Crescent, the barbarian daughter of Ishtar.

Now, the temple has fallen into the coils of Misery Veil, the naga daughter of Ereshkigal: Ishtar's rival sister and Queen of the Underworld.

To save their city-state from annihilation, the adventurers must slink into the temple and steal a war relic—Her Horn of Hundred Hordes—before the black banners of extinction reach their walls.

Race the siege

Every passing minute brings the characters' home city-state closer to destruction. They have only four hours of real time to seize the Horn and escape before their people are trampled to dust.

Praise the Queen of Heaven

The War-Womb festers with the rotten faithful of Ishtar: war-mother zombies who shriek from blood-filled birthing pools, berserker oracle-harpies who feast upon entrails for prophecy, and the animated remains of Slaughter Crescent's butchered minotaur mount.

Defy the Queen of the Dead

The immortal naga Misery Veil slithers through the temple like a living cataclysm. She whispers perfumed curses, bursts innards with underworld chants, and manifests in charnel corners where invaders have little hope of escape.

Claim the trophies of conquerors

Ancient war-spoils wait behind slaughter-locked doors. Characters might discover a newborn minotaur calf preserved in an urn, the twitching severed fingers of a Sorcerer-Queen, the black summoning crystal of a butcher-maiden, or a mythic tablet capable of waking the divine dead.

Go, grant them their wish

The War-Womb is a maze of blood and birth grease. To claim their prize, the characters might animate a flayed headless minotaur, cross the gates of the Underworld in skeletal form, lubricate a skullgrinder ballista with rendered calf fat, or invoke forgotten goddesses from an age before the flood.

Bring me the Stones of the Temple and each void-darkened sphere
From the wet dark of Gaia's Green Devil's frontier
Where each priestess begs blackness; Go to grant them their wish
To fall into Nothing but blissful anguish
Slay them scarlet and offer each hot beating heart
To Star's Daughter, my children
May death be your art

Delve features

• 34-page module
• 8 illustrated handouts
• 13 deadly dungeon chambers—backup characters required
• 10 new monsters
• 14 unique treasures
• Digital temple maps