Crawl Strip & Crawl Bar

The always-on party display pinned to the top of your canvas, and the control bar that launches the rest of the suite.

The Crawl Strip during a crawl, showing four party members and the GM card

What it does

The Crawl Strip is a horizontal row of cards—one per party member—showing live HP, movement budgets, Luck tokens, AC, and active status effects without opening a character sheet.

The Crawl Bar sits directly underneath, changing controls based on whether you are exploring or in combat.

The strip switches modes automatically:

Mode	Cards shown	Order
Crawl (out of combat)	Party members added to the roster	Out-of-combat initiative order
Combat	All active combatants	Foundry initiative tracker order

The module honors the Shadowdark system's Clockwise Initiative setting automatically.

Opening it

You do not need to open it manually. The strip and bar install themselves when your world loads and stay pinned to the top of the canvas. The strip hides itself when there are no active members to show.

The Crawl Bar

In crawl mode

Crawl Bar, crawl mode

Control	Left-click	Right-click
Crawl · Round #	Shows current crawl round	—
Next Round	Advances round and refills movement budgets	—
Add Tokens	Adds selected tokens to crawl roster	Reset Initiative (clears roll order)
Combat	Starts a combat encounter from current state	—
Encounter	Opens Encounter Roller	Encounter menu (check, threshold, table)
Forge & Loot	Opens tools menu (Forge & Loot, Shop, XP, Downtime, Renown)	Same menu
Importer	Opens Importer Hub	—
Start / End	Starts or ends the crawl session	—

You can also drag a RollTable from the sidebar directly onto the Encounter button to set it as your active random encounter table.

Add Tokens adds only Player actors to the crawl roster. Selected NPC tokens are ignored with a notice. Membership is stored by actor ID, so characters remain on the strip when switching scenes.

In combat mode

Crawl Bar, combat mode

Control	What it does
Begin / End Encounter	Starts or ends combat round structure
Add Tokens	Adds selected tokens to combat tracker
Delete Encounter	Deletes combat encounter without running end-of-combat flow

In combat, the strip displays one card per combatant in initiative order:

The crawl strip in combat mode

Dead enemies leave the strip: Defeated NPCs and monsters dropped to 0 HP are removed from the strip automatically. They remain in the combat tracker so loot generators and session recaps can still count them. Healing an enemy above 0 HP returns its card.
Downed PCs stay on the strip: Player characters at 0 HP remain visible with a skull badge.
Dead turns are skipped automatically: When an enemy dies, the module skips their turn in the tracker automatically to keep combat moving.

Starting and ending a crawl

Start: Begins a crawl session and starts (or resumes) a Session Recap.
End: Ends the crawl and prompts you to save, pause, or discard the recap.
Next Round: Advances the round counter and refills out-of-combat movement budgets. See Movement Budgets.

Rolling party initiative

Each card displays a d20 button when initiative is unrolled.

In crawl mode, GMs get a group dice button above the round number on the left of the strip. One click rolls out-of-combat initiative for all members who have not rolled yet. Characters who already rolled are skipped.

Detail	Behavior
Visibility	GM only. Players roll using their own card's d20 button.
When shown	In crawl mode while at least one member still owes a roll.
When hidden	Hides once all roster members have rolled.
Resetting	Right-click Add Tokens on the bar (Reset Initiative) to clear rolls.

During a crawl, a Crawl Order tab appears in Foundry's sidebar directly beneath the Combat tracker icon. It functions like an out-of-combat turn tracker:

Section	Content
Header	Group roll button, round title, and Reset Initiative
Rows	Portrait, name, and initiative value or roll button
Footer	Turn and round controls (players see a single End Turn button)
Popout	Right-click sidebar icon for a floating window

Clicking a row selects that token; players get a pan-to control on their row.

Differences from combat:

Next round advances the crawl round, rolls wandering encounter checks, and refills movement budgets.
Previous round adjusts the round counter back without reverting rolls.

The party cards

A single crawl strip card

Each card displays live actor data:

Element	Detail
Portrait & name	Drawn from the actor document
HP bar	Current/Max HP with color bands (Green >75%, Yellow ≤75%, Orange ≤50%, Red ≤25%, Black ≤0)
AC	Displayed as `AC n`
Luck pill	PCs only. Left-click to spend. Right-click (GM) to grant. Click another PC's pill to gift Luck.
Movement pill	`remaining / budget ft`. Turns red when over budget.
Active effects	Icons for current effects with hover tooltips for duration
Light source	PC cards: click to toggle character light source
Initiative	d20 button when unrolled; badge showing result once rolled
Current turn	Active combatant card is outlined in accent color; others dim
Skull	Marks a downed PC (0 HP)
Eye-slash	Marks a combatant hidden from players

The GM card

The strip includes a Game Master card. Click its portrait to open a file picker and set your avatar, or configure it under Configure Settings → Game Master avatar.

The Merchant Shop button

In crawl mode, the PARTY plate on the left includes a shop button. Click it to open Merchant Shop. This button disappears in combat.

Activating turns (GM)

In combat, each card includes a GM-only button to activate or end that combatant's turn manually.

Cards you own display an action tab strip underneath. Hovering a tab opens a panel organized in Shadowdark stat-block layout so players can act without opening their sheets:

Actor type	Tabs available	Contents
NPC	Actions · Abilities	Attacks, special attacks, and features
PC	Weapons · Spells · Abilities	Equipped weapons, spells/wands/scrolls, and class abilities

Weapons & attacks: Shows damage inline with melee/ranged icons. Click to roll using standard system attack rolls.
Spells: Lists memorized spells, wands, and scrolls. Wand charges and scroll consumption follow system rules.
Hidden items: The menu automatically hides lost spells, spent wand charges, broken wands, and stashed or unidentified items.
Abilities & features: Click to open the item sheet for full rules text.

Hidden combatants

The module automatically synchronizes token.hidden and combatant.hidden:

Tokens hidden on the canvas produce hidden tracker combatants.
Initiative rolls for hidden combatants are suppressed entirely from player chat, avoiding spoiler roll notifications.

Troubleshooting

The strip is empty in crawl mode.
Select your player tokens on the canvas and click Add Tokens on the crawl bar. Only Player actors are added.

A player card disappeared after changing scenes.
Cards require an active token on the current scene to calculate movement budgets. Place the player's token on the scene.

An enemy disappeared from the strip during combat.
Monsters and NPCs at 0 HP or marked defeated leave the strip automatically. Healing them or clearing the defeated marker brings them back.

The combat tracker jumped past a turn automatically.
The module automatically advances past dead combatants. Use the strip's Previous Turn button if you need to take an action on that turn.

No card is highlighted and it looks like nobody's turn.
The active turn pointer landed on a defeated combatant. On GM screens, this advances automatically. If all enemies are dead, end the combat encounter.

Two party strips appear on screen.
Disable the legacy shadowdark-crawl-helper module in your world.

Clicking a Luck pill does nothing.
The character has 0 Luck tokens remaining, or the world is in classic mode where Luck caps at 1.