This post may contain spoilers, so if you are a player in a campaign that uses either Dolmenwood or Mystara, check with your DM before reading this.
Last September, I helped fund the Kickstarter for Necrotic Gnome’s new rule set, “Dolmenwood”. The rules are based on the Moldvay “B/X” Dungeons and Dragons rules, with some changes in both mechanics and flavor.
Work-in-progress PDFs of the three books (Player’s Guide, Campaign Book, and Monster Book) have been periodically sent out, as updates become available, and now the only things that remain are the addition of some artwork in all three books, and an introductory adventure in the Campaign Book.
Dolmenwood is an extremely atmospheric setting, based primarily on English and Celtic folklore, legends, and fairy tales. The area is under the rule of the Duke of Brackenwold, and has a variety of factions that players can deal with, from witches and Drune (kind of like Druids, but less nature magic and more occult magic), the Church of the One True God (fantasy Roman Catholic Church), a being of pure chaos called the Nag Lord, and Elves that come from the alternate dimension of Fairy. Each hex on the Dolmenwood map has interesting things for the Player Characters to investigate and interact with. An interesting element is that, in Dolmenwood’s history, an alliance among the nobles, the Pluritine Church, and the magic-practicing Drune was able to drive out an ancient evil. This mirrors the first three classes of original Dungeons & Dragons: the fighting-man, the cleric, and the magic-user. Pretty cool.
Forty-three years ago, TSR published the second edition of “the Basic Rules”, which were organized and written by Tom Moldvay. The “basic rules” were actually two box sets, “The Basic Set” and “The Expert Set”. In the book of the letter set was the description of a small campaign world, called “The Grand Duchy of Karameikos”. The adventure included with the Expert Set, “X1: the Isle of Dread”, expanded the map of a place called “The Known World”. Through a series of Gazetteers and published Adventures, the Known World was expanded and deepened, and eventually renamed “Mystara”.
The first Gazetteer is “The Grand Duchy of Karameikos” (available as a pdf or as print-on-demand at drivethrurpg.com) and has an Eastern European flavor to it, based on the real-life Balkan states, along with elements of The Byzantine Empire. It describes a land with two main human peoples, the native Traladarans and the invading Thyatians, along with societies of non-human elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings. There are also monstrous tribes, like goblins, and dangerous monsters, like vampires and werewolves.
To be honest, the Grand Duchy of Karameikos initially failed to interest me very much, because I associated D&D and fantasy with Western Europe—King Arthur and Charlemagne and Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It wasn’t until I saw this picture, in Necrotic Gnome’s set of retro-rules, “Old School Essentials”, that my imagination was captured for an Eastern European fantasy setting:
I want to visit that place.
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Having read through much of Gazetteer #1, “The Grand Duchy of Karameikos”, I find that I prefer this setting to Dolmenwood, and am not entirely certain why.
I’ll begin with what I like about Dolmenwood. Firstly, we FINALLY get a relatively major published setting that has a monotheistic religious system. Western Europe, and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages was primarily monotheistic, with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Even the major non-Christian religion in the region, Islam, was monotheistic. There were still pockets of polytheism in the frontiers, of course, but the Knights of the Round Table did not worship Thor and Odin. Charlemagne did not give homage to Zeus and Apollo. The reason for having a polytheistic religious system for a game that was based on a culturally monotheistic society was probably to avoid controversy. Of course, then they put a naked woman on the cover of the book, “Eldritch Wizardry”. A drawing of a naked woman, I mean. Whatever.
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After reading through a good portion of the Dolmenwood Campaign Book, I get an idea of the worldview of the authors. I could be wrong, but in my estimation, they present a world where the “good guys” are not much better than the “bad guys”. The top two leaders of the Pluritine Church—the main force of the concept of Law in the duchy—are of Neutral Alignment, and are hypocrites. The “good” Duke has done horrible things. One of the two lawful nobles has secretly turned non-lawful, because of drug addiction.
Meanwhile, over in The Grand Duchy of Karameikos, Duke Stefan is a good guy—even if he doesn’t always make the best choices. At first, he is resented by the native people he conquered, but his resolute commitment to fairness in ruling the duchy has won many of them over to his cause. He hasn’t done horrible things, except perhaps installing his evil cousin as one of his barons. His other two barons are good guys.
In The Known World/Mystara, there are no gods, but there are powerful beings called Immortals that act in place of gods. Above them in the mystical hierarchy are beings called The Old Ones, but I believe the rules state that these beings are known only to Immortals.—and even they aren’t exactly sure who the Old Ones are. There are two churches in the Grand Duchy; one is the Traladaran natives’ church, and the other is the church of the Thyatian interlopers. The differences are worship rituals and style. Also, the Traladaran church teaches that Duke Stefan is actually an ancient Traladaran hero reborn—signifying how popular Stefan is among the people he conquered. The authors of this supplement have more of the worldview that good guys are good, and bad guys aren’t mostly misunderstood and mistreated victims of the good guys. The bad guys *are* the ones who misunderstand and mistreat others.
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Changes I would make to the lore of Dolmenwood would first of all ensure that the good guys are actually good. The leaders of the church will all be lawful, and certain relationships will be adjusted to reflect that. Several nobles will switch from neutral to lawful. Clerics of the church will be situationally more powerful. The Drune will become less “occult magic druids” and more “misunderstood defenders of Law”.
Changes I would make to the Grand Duchy of Karameikos would be adjusting some of the economic elements, especially the tax system. Religion will change from clerics worshipping Immortals to worshipping a single deity that they call “Father Law”, with the Immortals acting as Father Law’s overseers—kind of like saints, in Dolmenwood.
One major thing I would adapt from the Dolmenwood rules to playing B/X and/or BECMI would be the chart for monster encounters. In “basic” D&D, the variables for monster encounters are how far away from the PCs the monsters are, and whether the monsters are friendly, neutral, or hostile. In the Dolmenwood Monster Book, there are added elements detailing what the monsters are actually doing—whether they are chasing a victim or trying to fix a wagon or relieving themselves in the trees. That’s genius. The PCs can decide to interact with the monsters, or skip away, if conditions allow.
Greymerry Faire 