Songs From the Wood: A Faerie Tale Sandbox Hexcrawl
Explore cursed keeps & stone circles, pick some mushrooms- *not those* mushrooms, & live to see another day in a sprawling fae-haunted forest.
TYPE
SYSTEM
LEVELS
LANGUAGE
EXPERIENCE
AGE
$15.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Monday - 6:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
0 / 5 Seats Filled
Report Adventure
StartPlaying Money Back Guarantee
If your game doesn't happen, we guarantee a refund. Just reach out to StartPlaying Support. Refund Policy
About the adventure
A sprawling sandbox hexcrawl through a vast and ancient forest, filled with crumbling ruins, sinister cults, mysterious stone monoliths, and the capricious and enchanted creatures of Faerie. Players might find themselves going on knightly quests, exploring cursed abbeys, lifting (or laying on) enchantments, reuniting star-crossed lovers, outwitting bandits (or turning to banditry themselves), chased out of town by mobs of angry villagers, involved in deadly court intrigue -- all this and more, concurrently or consecutively. It's a sandbox in a vast and eerie forest, and it can be your playground and your grave! Dolmenwood uses a lightly modified version of Old School Essentials (OSE) which itself is a cleaned-up version of B/X D&D (the 60-page booklets with the red & blue covers and the Erol Otus cover art if you're ancient like me). Player Races: Humans - y'all know these folks Elves - Fae lords in exile/slumming it in the mortal realm Grimalkin - shapeshifting cat-fae. Think Puss-in-Boots. Woodgrue - Bat-faced good-time loving goblins Breggle - Proud and stubborn goat folk Mossling - weird little fungal-plant people Player Classes: Fighters - self explanatory! Thieves - ditto! Bards - traveling musicians & poets who know lots of useful lore, skilled in slight of hand & minor enchantments Magicians - aka Wizards aka Magic-Users Enchanters - Workers of faery glamours and magics Clerics - Holy warriors belonging to an Order (the main religion in the game is heavily based on medieval folk Christianity) Friars - Salt-of-the-earth men & women of the cloth, sworn to poverty and a life of humble service. Hunters - aka Rangers -- rugged outdoors-enthusiasts Knights - Mounted warriors sworn to service of one of the minor Noble Houses and to the ideals of Chivalry.
Game style
Hexcrawl / Exploration
Sandbox / Open World
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(6)
1 year on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: Creativity, Inclusive, Voices
About me
I've been playing and running RPGs of one kind or another since the late 80's, when my friends and I would make up worlds and stories for each other. We didn't have rulebooks or dice, but we could draw up random number tables like the ones in the back of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and we'd take shameless inspiration from whatever books, movies, or TV we were into at the time. In middle school, I discovered AD&D 2nd ed and RIFTS (among others) and the World of Darkness came along just in time for an angsty theater-kid high school student. Since than, I've had the good fortune to experience a wide variety of games and playstyles, in person and online, from trad to OSR to the occasional storygame (for whatever value these labels serve-- I like what I like).
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
We will have a free Session Zero, during which we'll get to know each other a bit, discuss expectations for the game, any content concerns, etc. We'll roll up characters together, and work out who they are and how they know each other. If someone joins once we're already underway, I'll meet with them privately and help them with character creation.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
I will provide links to a Discord server for the game to all players, and we'll use that for announcements, planning, discussion, downtime between sessions and bookkeeping, as well as hosting documents, maps, characters, etc. The game will be run over Discord video chat. We'll be using Owlbear Rodeo to handle dice rolling, putting up maps, diagrams & visual aids. No account or login is required for players.
What Jeremy brings to the table
My games tend to feature an emphasis on roleplaying, with lots of interaction between the PCs and between PCs and NPCs. I do my best to create a living reactive world for my players to inhabit and explore. I like to keep things moving, but sometimes you have to sit back and let a scene breathe, y'know? One thing I do provide is decades (oof) of experience as a player and a GM, and that means I've been witness (at least) to a lot of best and worst practices over the years, and have gotten pretty good at recognizing when things are getting off the rails, or when bad patterns are starting to emerge, and getting ahead of those things before they become a problem. Also, I do funny voices. I will provide access to the Player's Guide via the discord server, to assist with character creation.
Homebrew rules
I'd like to start off running Rules as Written, with the option to change things as we go (with the group's consent, of course).
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Jeremy creates a safe table
It is very important to me that everyone at my table feels relaxed and welcome. We'll go over hard and soft limits during Session Zero as a group, and anyone is free to message me privately at any time with questions or concerns. In addition, I have an open door policy, and I will try as often as possible to leave some time after the game session for debriefing, etc.
Content warnings
Safety tools used