Second Chances: The Black Ballad

By Rick Heinz and Erik Frankhouse

Second Chances is a tabletop RPG zine designed to support and expand both Shadowdark campaigns and assist groups converting characters from 5e.

Set within The Black Ballad, a dark afterlife setting that focuses on death, memory, and consequences, Second Chances reframes what happens when adventurers fall. Characters do not simply vanish from play, instead, they awaken in the Sunless Crossing, a purgatory realm where survival, identity, and memories are gradually stripped away unless they earn the right to return.

Designed for Shadowdark from the ground up, The Black Ballad: Second Chances provides guidance for groups transitioning characters from 5e-style play into Shadowdark's more lethal, torch-lit design philosophy. It offers tools that transform Total Party Kills into narrative continuations rather than campaign-ending events

The zine includes new playable options, expanded modes of play, original monsters, spells, and a complete adventure that introduces characters to the afterlife itself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GGHB27HC
• ISBN13: 9798900610078
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: Storytellers Forge Studio, LLC
• Length: 72 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.2" x 5.8"