Dolmenwood Unboxing

The Moment Has Arrived

Dolmenwood just got delivered, but this box is torn up. I’m a little worried about it—it’s also wet and it’s not raining here. I’m going to get it open because I’m worried it’s been sitting soaked somewhere. This is the one with all the limited edition stuff.

The moment I’ve been waiting for two years is finally here. I made some mushroom soup to celebrate.

The Cloth Maps and Extras

We’ve got the cloth players map and cloth referee map. There’s a cool patch for eventually when I get a battle vest made. The dice pouch is great. And the XXL t-shirt—when I Kickstarted this, it would have been tight on me, but I’m almost at a 2X now. Hopefully by this time next year I’ll be down to at least a 1X.

The Dice

I was worried about readability since I’m a high contrast kind of guy, but seeing them in person they’re pretty solid. This d20 feels like a Dice Baron d20—definitely heavier and chunkier than base Chessex.

The important thing: the mushroom is the 20, not the 1!

First 3d6 roll is an 11. I’ll take it. Let me write down this first character: 11, 7, 17… we’re just rolling. 13, 14, and then the 6. There we go—balanced out.

The Dice Bag

This is like wax canvas feel. Not super thick but very high quality with great embroidery. The string part is a little cheesy, but I’ll probably make my own leather catch. The bag itself is awesome.

The Books

Anything Exalted Funeral does is amazing. High quality. Gavin Norman is a genius—anything from Necrotic Gnome. I was never worried about getting it or the quality, just excited.

There’s charts and tables in the back, a maps book with gorgeous art, and the players book. I intentionally haven’t spoiled Dolmenwood for myself, which has been very hard. I have big dreams for what I’m going to do with it.

Special Edition Comparison

The special editions have the same art as the standard covers, which I like—special editions should be special but shouldn’t make the normal copies feel bad. The special editions are embossed with that finish on the text.

These will be my “look at on the bookshelf and make me happy” books. The standard ones will be the ones I actually use and bring upstairs to read.

The Adventure Books

Same size as the Necrotic Gnome adventures I already have. These adventures are so awesome—they make them so easy to run and reference with maps at the front.

The Miniatures

I wasn’t too interested in the miniatures initially—I don’t typically like pre-assembled miniatures of this style. But they’re not flimsy plastic. I’m going pretty hard on bending them and they’re not giving.

Some standouts: the guy with the mushroom shield, this dude with the heavy Reaper vibes, and the archer with her dog. I said I wasn’t excited about these, but some of them I actually am pretty excited about.

The Maps

The referee’s map has a felt feeling—just like the Dragonbane cloth mat. Not too thick but stitched on the sides to keep it from fraying. I like how big the hexes are—you could fit a party of four without too much struggle.

I love this art on the players map. So awesome.

What’s Next

There’s going to be some Dolmenwood content coming for sure. I don’t want to talk about it—I want to be about it. Stay tuned.