For a long time I followed and was part of the OSR… at least in the periphery. I contributed to James’ Petty Gods project and Dwimmermount was no stranger to me from his blog. But about the time that James started having problems, any gaming I was part of moved away from OSR stuff and, thus, so did I. Fast forward to the other day when I picked up Dwimmermount to check it out and wow, I’m super impressed. I can’t quite say enough good about it, and I don’t think that trying to do so here will really be a shock to anyone. I’m sure you all already know.
Anyway! I’m starting up a D&D 5E game using Roll20. Unfortunately, I got Dwimmermount a tad bit too late to use it in and of itself as the game’s setting, so I’ve moved setting I am using to Telluria (it’s just east of the Dwimmermount map, with the Lanis River and the Timeless Forest connecting to it) and reconfiguring the gods and whatnot to be the Thulian gods.
I have a couple of questions, though…
…first off, will there ever be a non-OSR system version of Dwimmermount? Like Pathfinder or something? Maybe even D&D 5E?
…secondly, are there plans for a non-PDF release? Even a POD thing on DriveThru?
…third, I’m concerned about dwarves. Starting in an area removed from the immediate Dwimmermount area might not work well for the typical Dwimmermount dwarf (while the game will start knowing about Adamas and Yethlyreom, and know the name Dwimmermount in legend - the area I’ve created was populated enough years ago that Dwimmermount is not central to it - the very Dwimmermount-focused purpose of the dwarves doesn’t make sense there). The way I figure I could:
Use the standard Dwimmermount dwarves in the immediate Dwimmermount area (call them… Dwimmerdwarves or something) with regular dwarves outside of that area (like in my setting). This would give the players something else to investigate when the game moves to the immediate Dwimmermount area.
Use the standard Dwimmermount dwarves everywhere and figure out how they continue propagating and living their lives removed from Dwimmermount by time and distance.
I’m totally up for suggestions. What would you do?
That’d be pretty freaky, a real dwarf meeting a Dwimmerdwarf.
The Stepford Dwarves.
What if the Dwimmerdwarves looked exactly like dwarves who had passed on before they were carved? What if this whole thing was some sort of reincarnation system, stealing the forms and “spirits” of dwarves but wiping their memories?
Perhaps that explains the occasional failure in the creation of a Dwimmerdwarf; the reincarnation failed. Or it worked too well, and the spirit has it’s “self”, and is driven mad - maybe Gimli’s really in there and can be reached.
Maybe some deal was reached aeons ago and service in Dwimmermount is some sort of purgatory.
Maybe the deceased dwarves are forcing themselves out back into the world via this system, from some sort of afterlife where they’re not welcome? Or they’re coming back to try to warn today’s dwarves about something, but they haven’t figured out the whole process yet and they’re coming back without their memories.
Or they’re future dwarves, and it’s some sort of 12 Monkeys thing.
…first off, will there ever be a non-OSR system version of Dwimmermount? Like Pathfinder or something? Maybe even D&D 5E?
APM: If there is demand for it we may do so.
…secondly, are there plans for a non-PDF release? Even a POD thing on DriveThru?
APM: It will be available via Print on Demand, but not at the price point that we sold it to backers. The book is 2x as long and 3x as expensive as we’d expected, so it will be about $75 in retail hardcover.
Use the standard Dwimmermount dwarves in the immediate Dwimmermount area (call them… Dwimmerdwarves or something) with regular dwarves outside of that area (like in my setting). This would give the players something else to investigate when the game moves to the immediate Dwimmermount area.
Use the standard Dwimmermount dwarves everywhere and figure out how they continue propagating and living their lives removed from Dwimmermount by time and distance.
APM: James’ intent in creating the “Dwimmer” version of dwarves was to answer many long-unanswered questions about dwarves in an effective way, such as why they live underground, why they crave gold, etc. His dwarves are thus very dwarven. It seems like it will be a bit strange to have Dwimmerdwarves exist next to traditional Dwarves, unless there’s an explanation as to why they are so similar. Koewn’s taken a great start there.
APM: Keep in mind that Dwimmermount also assumes that orcs, gnolls, minotaurs, and other beasties were also created/constructed by Dwimmermount’s denizens and/or the Eld. To the extent that they exist all over your world, so too will Dwarves.
APM: An alternative route is to change Dwimmermount’s Dwarves into something different - “gargoyles” “gremlins” “homonculi” “gollums” (hobbit-sized golems!), etc.
My group has played about 8 sessions of 5E so far using the adventure included in the introductory set. We like it so far, but when I run “D&D” (I’m just a player in this campaign) it will be using ACKS. Still, from what I’ve seen so far I don’t see why Dwimmermount couldn’t be adapted successfully to 5E. (My group completely skipped 4E, so 5E is an attempt to return to D&D without all the crunch of 3.x.)
Some of Dwimmermount might need to be reworked to take into account the power increase and faster leveling. More time with 5E might be needed before attempting a conversion, and some limits might need to be made explicit (excluding teleporting races such as the Eladrin). Since Dwimmermount is OGL it’s open to anyone to rework, though I doubt anyone would undertake to rework it lightly. If it looks like there is demand for additional 5E adventures having a megadungeon (the first for 5E?) could meet a lot of demand. However, there are a lot of upcoming ACKS products I’d like to see come to fruition, and I don’t know if the Autarchs have the bandwidth to support both ACKS and a 5E Dwimmermount at the same time.
Fortunately, it turned out to be not an issue; none of the players opted to play dwarves, so I didn’t have to deal with it. Now dwarves can be dwarves a la Dwimmermount and I get to have their origin and reproductive habits be a surprise to the players.
However, two of them opted for halflings, which I hadn’t thought to put the kaibosh on. So now I have to figure the whereto’s and the whyfor’s of halflings in Dwimmermount, but that shouldn’t be too big of an issue either. The easiest thing is to say, “they’re diminutive cousins of men who were part and parcel to all of men’s actions throughout history.”
