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Dwimmermount is explicitly an experiment in seeing how both rules and campaigns develop organically through play […] Our game is diverging from the rules as written, but those divergences are not based on theory but on practice. We are in the process of creating our own game, unique from everyone else who plays, and it’s the embrace of this process that I see as at the heart of the old school.
The Purpose of Dwimmermount, Grognardia
I have a longstanding preference for pig-faced orcs, owing no doubt to the Dave Sutherland illustration that appears on the title page of the Holmes Basic rulebook, which depicts two fighters and a wizard fending off a horde of these vicious things.
This is an orc, Grognardia, October 2020
I also enjoy a pig-faced orc, and they've come up as a plot element in my own campaign already.
I know orcs in Dwimmermount have a twist on their origins, rather than just being evil humanoid scapegoats; I want to read up on that before my party encounters any more of them to make sure I do them justice. I don't need generically-evil bags of hitpoints marching around.
Swearing an Iron Vow
When #dungeon23 was announced, initially I was very interested; a day-on-day project was exactly what I was looking for. But as January approached, I couldn't shake the voice at the back of my head telling me I already had a megadungeon tucked away on the shelf that I wanted to explore: Dwimmermount.
When you swear upon iron to complete a quest, write your vow and give the quest a rank. Then, roll +heart. If you make this vow to a person or community with whom you share a bond, add +1.
Ironsworn rulebook, p. 98
So here's my Iron Vow. I think it counts as an epic rank:
I will run a solo Dwimmermount campaign throughout 2023 and I will do something to forward the campaign every day
I will document the campaign on this tumblr blog
I may not actually play every day, and I almost certainly won't post here every day, but I'll do something -- work in my campaign obsidian vault, update notes, research the material. No zero days is the goal.
I hope you'll stick around to see how it plays out. Happy new year!
An introduction
For my only 2023 resolution, I'm vowing to enter the old-school megadungeon, Dwimmermount. I'm going to brave it solo, using a combination of Moves, Assets and Oracles from Ironsworn, Starforged, and the excellent Delves & Denizens. I've got a decent amount of experience with them, so I'm pretty confident I can make it work. I imagine it will take me all year.
Dwimmermount is written for classic OSR-style games -- I have the Ladyrinth Lord edition -- while Ironsworn is a "modern" PBtA-inspired system; naturally I'm going to have to make consessions and adjustments as I go.
During the course of play, I'm going to make the published version of Dwimmermount by Maliszewski, Macris and Allison my own, and also explore the archives of the Grognardia blog archives, the development call videos published on Tavis Allison's YouTube channel, and anything else that seems relevant.
I hope you'll join me in delving the depths.
Expeditions vs Delves
After a brief hiatus, I took The Ironsworn back into Dwimmermount last night. My first trip there, I used the Undertake an Expedition rules from Starforged, and this time I used the Delve the Depths rules from Ironsworn: Delve. I wanted to compare and contrast.
In short, I prefer Delve the Depths, but neither are really very good for playing in a pre-set, published dungeon like Dwimmermount.
Fundamentally, both Ironsworn and Starforged are set up to describe the world as you encounter it. Both as solo-friendly, oracle-driven games, and sharing a mechanical lineage with Powered by the Apocalypse games, they work best when you play to find out. I spend a lot of time in Dwimmermount pretending I haven't already found out by reading the book. This is not a slight on either Starforged/Ironsworn or Dwimmermount; it is a growing pain of adapting a pre-published setting to solo gaming.
Starforged works incredibly well outside of the dungeon. Introducing NPCs, factions, and pushing storylines in Adamas and Muntburg has all been really fun, and the oracles have thrown up some great twists and turns that I hadn't anticipated.
But what to do about the dungeon crawling that's ostensibly the focus of a Dwimmermount campaign? I have a few ideas. First of all, let's get back to this inciting statement, one of the first things I published on this blog:
Dwimmermount is explicitly an experiment in seeing how both rules and campaigns develop organically through play […] Our game is diverging from the rules as written, but those divergences are not based on theory but on practice. We are in the process of creating our own game, unique from everyone else who plays, and it’s the embrace of this process that I see as at the heart of the old school.
The Purpose of Dwimmermount, Grognardia, April 2009
This campaign needs to develop a little so that I will still enjoy it, and so that I can get the best out of Delve the Depths. My plan is to throw away Dwimmermount's published maps of the dungeon. Instead, I'll assign each level (or section of a level) a Delve Theme and Domain, and populate the Denizens list with the wandering monsters. Next; I'll create a list of the most important and interesting keyed rooms and have them tucked away for when I score a strong hit with Delve the Depths, or as goals for Locate Your Objective. When the oracle throws up something like
You confront a harrowing situation or sensation
or
You face a perplexing mystery or tough choice
I don't have to fret that it doesn't match my situation as per the published map; I can either invent something from scratch -- as Ironsworn and Starforged intend -- or I can drop in a published room that seems to fit regardless of sequence. The Dwimmermount I explore won't be the one that was published; it'll be one of my own, "unique from everyone else who plays", moulded by the system and circumstances of my own exploration. Floors will become Delve style pointcrawls, which I'll have to map myself, and their structure will better align with the progress track based systems used to chart progress through them.
I don't know yet if this adjusted approach will work, but I'm certainly feeling excited to give it a try.
Rod of Opening
This two foot long shaft of metal is usable by any class and contains 2d6 charges when found. When touched to any locked opening or object—for example, a chest—the rod of opening automatically opens that lock, lid, door, valve, or portal, whether secured by ordinary or magical means (provided that the caster was of 14th-level or lower in the latter case). Each opening expends one charge. The rod of opening will also automatically remove ordinary or magical traps on anything listed above, at the cost of an additional charge.
Dwimmermount, Appendix A, p326
6 Mid-Winter, 923
This was a very short downtime session, consisting of a single Sojourn move, leading to Hearten, and then trading some Wealth for Supply with the Treasure Hunter asset. The hirelings are just rolled into the Commander strength track.
Aestrid visits the bonding house and hires another two hirelings: Hamund and Oriabel. These two will be in the dungeoneering party. Arasen will stay with Gimvar and help him track down Herluin. Beltran will remain in town to guard Jasper, and help set up the house we're using as a base.
The group rests, picks up supplies, and gets Jasper settled into town. We make introductions to Danthan.
The horses are left with the stable boys at the public stables.
5 Mid-Winter, 923
A simple day.
Aestrid, Avella, Jasper and the Typhon's Fists arrive in Muntburg in the afternoon. The Fists bid them farewell; they are cordial, but not warm by any stretch.
Avella goes off to find the rest of The Ironsworn, while Aestrid accompanies Jasper and his wagon of possessions. Jasper puts down some gold to rent a two-story private apartment. He now has somewhere to stay, and The Ironsworn can call it their home.
Avella returns with the rest of The Ironsworn, plus Gimvar, and everyone goes to the The Flask and Scroll Tavern for drinks and a meal. Stories are swapped and much ale is drunk.
Finally, everyone is back in Muntburg and ready to do some dungeoneering again, which was supposed to be the focus of this campaign! In future I'm going to try hard not to get embroiled in these little dangling plot threads that take us away from Dwimmermount for too long. I still have to resolve Gimvar's missing person plotline, and Danthan is still waiting on us to make some progress on investigating the orc raids in the area.
