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Running Shadowdark's Scarlet Minotaur as a One-Shot Game

by Mike on 1 December 2025

In January 2025 I had the opportunity to run Shadowdark's Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur for a single four-hour session at the Philadelphia Area Game Expo – a fantastic convention hosted outside of Philadelphia (I’m looking forward to attending PAGE 3 in January 2026 as well!).

Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur is a 1st to 3rd level Shadowdark adventure included in the Shadowdark Quickstart Set available for free in PDF and $19 in an awesome physical pack including pregen cards.

I think the Shadowdark Quickstart Set is a fantastic D&D starter set and is now my favorite way to run D&D at conventions. You can learn more about Shadowdark in my Delving Into Shadowdark article.

Arcane Library, the publisher of Shadowdark, also sells a four-pack of player guides for $5 each – another amazing deal – as well as a bigger pack of awesome pregen character cards.

Running Scarlet Minotaur

Being included in the Quickstart set makes Scarlet Minotaur a convenient adventure to run at conventions – one that fits well with the pregen cards included in the Quickstart PDF and print set. It’s an excellent, well-written adventure and perfect for convention play.

Condensing Scarlet Minotaur into Four Hours

Scarlet Minotaur is a big adventure with 27 chambers in a sprawling dungeon and three possible entrances. Condensing it to a single four-hour session can be tough. I followed the model I use for my I6 Ravenloft games – putting a handful of goals in front of the characters and making it clear that the scarlet minotaur is going to show up near the end of the session. This setup puts a clear timer on the adventure to fit it into a game convention slot.

I also used my Shadowdark house rules which have served me well in many single session games now.

The Three Legendary Weapons

I received the fantastic recommendation from the Shadowdark discord to focus the adventure around three named weapons hidden in the dungeon. I added the quest that the characters needed these legendary weapons to defend their village from marauders. This backstory is probably a more heroic quest for a Shadowdark delve but it gives characters a strong motivation to risk their lives in this dangerous dungeon.

The three weapons include:

The +1 greatsword Asterion found in area 9.
The +1 spear Vigilant found in area 21.
The +1 greataxe Bloodfiend held by the scarlet minotaur himself, found either wandering throughout the dungeon or in area 18.

The characters don't have to find all the weapons to succeed, but the more weapons they find, the greater their chances to defend their village. This quest setup gives you and your players flexibility in the timing of the adventure. If players move fast, they might get all three. If they move slow, they might only get one – or none at all.

Tell your players up front that, 30 minutes before the end of the session, the scarlet minotaur becomes aware of their presence and location and approaches. You can roll randomly to decide what path the minotaur takes but don't make it too easy on the characters. Whether the characters stay and face off against the scarlet minotaur is up to them. It's not an impossible fight. Some careful use of caltrops, sacrifices of two of the characters, and some great tactics and luck of the remaining characters felled the minotaur in our PAGE game.

Ettercaps as Shifty NPCs

Characters in Scarlet Minotaur can approach the ettercaps in the dungeon several ways. Should they choose violence, the characters could be in trouble – particularly when using the 1st level pregen characters included in the Quickstart. Instead, treat the ettercaps as shifty NPCs seeking treasure and eager to use the characters as bait or a distraction for the minotaur. Dial back their hostility so players don't jump straight to combat. Otherwise, if things turn violent, the ettercaps can easily cut down a smaller group of 1st level characters.

A Flexible and Focused Approach

Giving the characters clear goals and a timer in a large complex like the Lost Citadel helped focus the adventure into a four-hour time slot and still give the players great flexibility and agency in their approach. It means, no matter how many times you run it, the adventure will run differently.

I can't wait to run Scarlet Minotaur again.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

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Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on What Do You Need? and Dragonbane Campaign Prep.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Don’t overprep for your new campaign. Leave room for the things you learn during your session zero.
Give a one page handout for new campaigns with a campaign hook, truths of the world, character drives, house rules, and safety tools.
After your session zero, build out three villains for your campaign with their own goals and three quests they're undertaking.
Fill in gods, factions, and historical figures in your campaign based on what you need for the characters and the story.
Build a custom faction list based on your campaign. Roll on it to drape items, monuments, locations, NPCs, and encounters with the tapestry of your campaign.
Keep a list of common divine domains to build your own unique pantheon when needed.
Build short one-scene adventures for the end of your session zeros that show off the unique features of your new campaign.

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