A collection of three Shadespire-set Age of Sigmar audio dramas, each released initially as part of the 2017 Advent Calendar, The Darkness in the Glass consists of Doombound by David Annandale, A Place of Reflection by David Guymer and The Autumn Prince by Guy Haley. With a collected running time of around 70 minutes, each of the audios is only short, but they tell three standalone, unconnected stories featuring a range of different characters – Stormcast, Bloodbound, and an aelven prince among others. Set within the confines of Shadespire, they each show a different aspect of the Mirrored City.
Doombound and A Place of Reflection both feature Stormcast Eternal protagonists battling against various opponents and the strange rules of Shadespire itself, and play with the concept of the Stormcasts’ diminishing humanity and what that does to their minds. They’re both quite narration-heavy, but while Gareth Armstrong’s portentous delivery in Doombound does take up a good amount of the story, there’s still plenty for the other voice actors to do with two interconnected narratives and a dreamlike sense of overlapping realities. A Place of Reflection doesn’t offer its cast quite so much to do, so the narration dominates – John Banks is always very listenable, but with so little dialogue it doesn’t quite suit the audio format as much.
They also offer an intriguing exploration of Shadespire itself, most notably in Doombound’s descriptions of stairways leading to nowhere and windows suspended in thin air. The Autumn Prince, in contrast, has a different tone, being concerned with the exploits of a dispossessed aelven prince and his companion spite rather than the usual Stormcasts. It’s more an exploration of Shadespire’s history than its geography, while with no narration and everything told through dialogue and SFX it’s more focused on the characters and their development than portraying epic action or grand senses of location. It suits the audio format perfectly, and the cast do fantastic work – especially with the voice of the spite Shattercap – and while there are action elements it’s largely a tense, creepy, quiet story which feels very appropriate for Shadespire.
You can find individual reviews of the three audio dramas elsewhere on Track of Words, for more detail about each story (see below). As an overall package, though, this is well worth checking out for anyone who’s an audio fan and/or interested in bringing Shadespire to life in a different way to the game. Of the three stories The Autumn Prince is the best developed, clearly setting things up for further stories of Prince Maesa and Shattercap, albeit not necessarily within Shadespire. Doombound feels like a more successful audio story to A Place of Reflection, but there’s enough to enjoy in both of them, especially if you’re interested in seeing Stormcast Eternals battling for their sanity as well as their lives.
Check out individual reviews by clicking on the name of the story below: