How to Create a Dolmenwood Character

Time to Make Characters

We got to finally finish making our Dolmenwood characters. Last time I started filling this out and realized I’d rather just do a flip through on the book. So I actually got to finish this character sheet and knock out all the characters. This will be a true walkthrough of how to build a character in Dolmenwood.

Step 1: Ability Scores

Rolling our ability scores—which we already did. So I’m just copying these over from our notes.

Here’s our ability score modifiers: 12 is none, 14 is plus one, wisdom is none, 14 is plus one, 15 is plus one, and 17 is plus two. He’s a very charismatic magic user and he’s going to be plus 5% XP.

Step 2: Alignment

His alignment is certainly chaotic. And he has decisiveness, so loyalty of retainers is plus one.

Step 3: Background and Trinket

We roll a 54—his background is a merchant. For his trinket, we roll 68: a tiny jar fish. At night, it comes to the surface and whispers the names of everyone within five feet. There’s a lot you can do with that. Very cool.

Step 4: Class Details

He is a full-blown Magician. Prime ability is Intelligence. Hit points is 1d4—we roll a three. That’s pretty good. With his constitution of one, he has four HP.

Starting equipment: dagger, holy water, oil, a staff, and a torch.

Step 5: Spell Book

We get to choose a starting spell book. Since his background is a merchant, I’m going to say he came into possession of his spell book doing his dealings—and that’s kind of what set him down this path.

We roll for which spell book: a six! We get the Treatise on Force and Dissolution. Our spells are:

• Crystal Resonance: Allows the caster to attune a gem or crystal to copy certain energies from the environment or to release copied energies
• Floating Disc: Conjures a disc of magical force that can carry loads up to 5,000 coins of weight, floating at waist height following the caster
• Vapors of Dream: A roiling violet vapor drifts from a point, flowing in the caster’s chosen direction. Living creatures level 4 or lower must save or fall into a deep sleep

Step 6: Skills and Languages

He gets Arcane Magic as a skill. Detect magic skill is 6, and all skills default to 6.

A player’s native languages are determined by their kindred. All characters speak Waldish. A positive intelligence modifier equals the number of additional languages the character speaks—so he knows Old Waldish too.

Step 7: Equipment

Two rations, water skin, and belt pouch. The belt pouch contains 3d6 gold coins—we roll 12 gold.

For adventuring items, we roll up to four from the adventuring table:

• 19: Three torches (so four total)
• 12: An oil flask (we already have one, so two now)
• 16: A sledgehammer (the dice gave it to us!)
• 2: Ten sticks of chalk (great thing to have)

Step 8: Moon Sign

Characters born in the mortal world come inevitably under the sway of the moon’s potent magical influences. Each moon of the year has different effects during waxing, full, and waning phases.

We roll D100: 62. The Witches, waning phase. He gets plus one AC.

Step 9: Combat Stats

10 AC plus one from dexterity, so he has 11 AC. Attack is the staff at 1d4.

He’s almost encumbered but not quite, so his speed is 40, 120 per turn, and eight travel points per day.

Character Complete!

There we go—we’ve made our first Dolmenwood character, our human Magician! It feels good to cross something off the list and have something done again.

I’m going to finish up the rest of these characters on my own so you don’t have to see me stumbling through the book. Very excited to start playing. Thanks for watching!