Weird ‘76: New Year, New Campaign - Dolmenwood RPG
This session happened last month, and I am only just now getting this out. Life has been extra bonkers in 2026 so here it is…finally.
How We Got Here
So, some slightly sad news over the holidays. One of my regular players had to bow out of the game due to general life overload. I think this is something we can all relate to and absolutely no hard feelings. His seat at the table will always be open. However, this did effectively kill our ongoing Twilight: 2000 4e game after about 13 sessions. Well, I should clarify, there would be nothing to keep us from continuing to play. His character could have become an NPC or simply rode off into the post-apocalyptic Polish sunset. I decided to kill the campaign, and the player departure was a convenient excuse. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed T:2K and exploring an emergent world sandbox with the players. I didn’t use any published scenarios and built out events with a combination of player actions, simple logic, and the various generation tools in the books. In short, I learned a lot about this style of play and found it both fun and manageable inside of my other out of game obligations. But…I’d started to get the itch. I’ve been kicking around a slew of campaign ideas in a number of different worlds and genres, but I just don’t have the bandwidth for more than one game in my life right now. So, I’ve been torn between continuing an already good game and booting up something new. The player departure was just the thumb on the scale to tip things into a new direction. So, what did we decide to do? After kicking around some ideas one of the players mentioned they had been interested in Times That Fry Men’s Souls by Sean McAnally. For those not familiar it is “… a weird history campaign during the American Revolution, for use with old-school fantasy roleplaying games.” It has generic B/X style stats and would be easy to run with anything from OSE to Shadowdark and would work well with Cairn as well. I considered all those before initially deciding we would use Kevin Crawford’s Worlds Without Number. I was interested in getting better familiarity with the xWN system for an eventual sci-fi campaign that would use Stars Without Number for a Foundation and Dune inspired idea that has lodged itself in my skull. However, this is a digression and only serves to illustrate my flightiness in such things. After a couple weeks of discussing setting and rules over the holidays I changed my mind. I decided to use Dolmenwood as the game engine. Why Dolmenwood? Well despite prominent tentacles on the cover TTFMS is not a cosmic horror or Lovecraftian setting. It is much more folk horror, leaning into legends, and some historical religious and occult themes. Assuming that much of Dolmenwood is inspired by actual folk and fairy tales it’s actually a rather fun fit. TTFMS is weird, but layering on DW gives me the chance to turn the weird up to 11…or at least a solid nine anyway. How well will these mash up? Pretty darn well I think, but I'm also not going to worry about it much and just trust that D&D is always right.
Prepping for Session 1
So how did I prep for the first session? Pretty Simply really. Matt and Jack decided they wanted to roll up characters at the first session so I wouldn’t have any idea of the PC motivations prior to start. Rather than stress over this I simply had them each roll a d8 and the two resulting numbers determined the starting hex on the TTFMS map. In retrospect it might have been better to slide the result to the nearest hex with a settlement, but we all agreed they were simply wondering the war-torn areas around New York, and we just went with it. I reviewed the entries for the hex and all surrounding hexes, taking some time to look at hexes that were thematically tied to the starting hex as well. Good enough prep I think, considering we collectively have no idea where this thing is going and after session 1 that is still largely the case. So, let’s hop on over to the first session.
The Play
Beginning with character creation Jack had an idea that he wanted to play a bard, but Matt was content to just follow the dice with whatever was suggested by rolling 6d6 down the line. Jack’s spread actually supported a bard rather well, though I was willing to allow some score swapping if necessary. Matt’s spread really only left fighter as a viable choice, with a high strength and very low (3) intelligence. As his character has a very solid wisdom we decided he was simply illiterate and blunt. I am also requiring all characters be of human “kin” though I intend to use the fay and demi-fay kin as NPCs. They will become available after they are encountered for subsequent characters. I am still on the fence on whether to include the other mortal kin from DW at all. We used the tables from TTFMS where it made sense in place of DW for period names and equipment. Other than that, it was basically RAW DW. We then jumped into play. I plopped them down on the shores Jamaica Bay on Long Island and away we went. It was a somewhat awkward starting hex as there is little happening (hence my retrospect earlier) but I rolled as best I could with it. They observe a fisherman watching the water and surrounding countryside from the shore. After a brief and rather guarded interaction (is this a loyalist or rebel? Are they themselves loyalists or not?) they decide to search the surrounds a bit. Find an abandoned chicken coop the sift through the dropping finding a small but serviceable hammer (result from TTFMS table). They elect to not search further and take the advice of the fisherman to head toward the village of Jamaica for room and board for the night. Of note we all appreciated the revised travel rules for Dolmenwood. It uses a rather elegant system of travel points to determine how much one can travel across or search hexes in a typical day. On the road to Jamaica the party stumbles into a group of youths who are extorting a local loyalist under the pretense of the “cause.” The party is significantly outnumbered by a ratio of more than 3 to 1, and Jack’s Character, the bard Horatio, regales them with a tune on his fiddle. The leader of the group and one other are enchanted, while the rest are put off balance by the loss of their leader and the glares of Matt’s character, the massive fighter Reason (I re-rolled the reaction roll with a positive modifier to determine this). In the resulting confusion the captive is released, and all flee the scene. Horatio and Reason continue to Jamaica arriving in the late afternoon. The settlement has a small garrison of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (from the hex description, whose commanding officer is an honest but degenerate gambler). I rolled up a name for him and thus was added Captain Hays. Horatio and Reason meet him in the tavern. Reason decided to gamble with him while Horatio offers to play the fiddle for meals and lodging. We quickly created a simple gambling mechanic using 2d6 and basic blackjack rules which seemed to work pretty well. Reason learns a lot about the town from the good captain and basically breaks even over the night. He also learns that a local wealthy roper and loyalist has gone missing (roll up a name: Eli Custis). Mrs. Custis has been petitioning Captain Hays to search, but he simply doesn’t have the men to do it right now. Horatio learns from the tavern keeper that helping with the Custis situation could win the pair favor with Captain Hays and possibly a letter of passage to move through British occupied areas. They elect to visit Mrs. Custis before it gets too late and head to Custis home just outside of town. Here they are greeted by a bruised Mr. Custis himself. The same man they helped escape earlier in the day. Immensely grateful, He invites the party to stay the night in his home, and offers a small whaling boat (won is his own gambling) in payment for their service to him. He will also put in a good word with the Captain about their help.
My Only Very Minor Critique of Dolmenwood
So that’s where we capped the first session. In all I was very pleased with both the setting/adventure and the Dolmenwood rules. I really like the changes from B/X and it feels very modern and clean in play. My only quibble is the content organization across the three books. The campaign book is mostly Dolmenwood hex descriptions and setting content but also contains the usual DMG content of GM facing rules and tables (treasure, etc.). It is thus a massive book. The monster book is pretty slim. While not an issue for anyone just wanting to play “Dolmenwood” proper, it is a bit of an annoyance for me doing something different. If the general DMG content was combined with the monster book I would only need two books to reference at the table and in prep. I also suspect the size of the books would be more balanced as well. Tiny thing and probably irrelevant to most people, but I like Dolmenwood so much I see myself using it as my go to “D&D,” so having the organization suited better to playing in other or original settings would be a plus. The campaign book is huge and I only need about 1/3 of it for my current game.
We’re playing again this Sunday, and I am super excited to see where we go next. They have a boat already and I didn’t expect that, but it should be great. Also, its time for a bit a more folklore, fairy, and horror to be felt in the world…
References
Dolmenwood RPG - Necrotic Gnome