Since December '19, I started my BW campaign inspired by Dwarf Fortress video game, about founders of new Ninth Fortress called Lielivarti over Dreaming Hills - plagued with monsters and human outcasts. The campaign focuses on their first steps, from settling up an outpost and organize first industry, to their dabbling steps into politics and preparings into looming threat from Empire of the Great River from the west. Dwarven Dominant Kingdom finally woke up from the knees and almost three thousand years of recover from monstrous Southern Plague…
Three Protagonists of our story (PCs) are:
Grimm of Dastod lineage, “Lunarist”: Graybeard called from his heirloom axe “Luna”,
Thermyr, Artificeress who learns how to forge Dwarven Weapon Art into her ambition to forge the mightiest and the scariest axe ever
Tobul from Akur clan: happy brewer who sworn an Oath to the King to raise the tavern in Dreaming Hills which will enforce spirit of Dwarvendom!
All 4 LP characters, all RoTM lifepath builds except of Tobul (Husband/Wife between career of miller and tthe latest Brewer).
We managed to play eight session, so far I translated (from Polish) almost all session report except the latest (eighth). Below there is a convenient one link that leads to all related reports of BDF campaign. Including: session zero, Trait Vote (first) and in future - PC snapshot between “parts” of the campaign (we concluded “Prologue”).
Keep in mind that BDF campaign was my returning point from relatively short (13 months) hiatus from RPG hobby - and BW at all. I consider myself barely “intermediate” Oathsworn here…
At your discretion or permission I will update that topic each time new entry will show up.
Just wanted to say that I started reading these, and it’s an interesting campaign! I also very much appreciate the detailed descriptions of how the mechanics are engaged (how fiction drives the dice rolls). Thank you for posting it here.
I always wondered why so many session reports are actually just fan fiction based on played action, with no details on how the game actually went on (which rule applied, how dices rolls, etc.).
The tenth session of BDF campaign, now we faced a crumbling attempt to save Lielivarti’s freedom over Humans and actually witnessed some desperate decisions.
We managed to play next, eleventh session in BDF campaign. So far, we introduced a new Player Character (the fourth) and we played out the construction works and consequences of those. Including fighting the giant cockroach!
12th session od BDF campaign, the Dorfs (all four) tried to make a granary and some stone manor to cowardly swaggering dvergar family. But most importantly tho, they finally arrived to human cossack large town Sich. And somebody made Dwarven Hoes!
Sometimes session are destined to be shallow. At least some greediness of Dwarfs has been shown. At least somebody spent his precious Deeds Artha. Another positive thing - that report session is a bit shorter than previous, so it’s kinda easier to read it…
We decided to revive our campaign, not bothering about 3 (actually 3,5) months long hiatus. Trait Vote number two happened as the landmark of our “session 14+0” meeting. I’m still surprised that we all four wanted to jump in into seemingly “lost cause”.
While writing that post, we already played 15th Session.
Finally I managed to translate awaited restart of the Burning Dwarven Fortress campaign. 15th Session, actually went as the conclusion of some story arcs and kinda soft-reset (or to be more precise - verification) of the points of interests. We needed that “builder session” to figure out what we really care about… But at least, DoW happened!
Sixteenth session went slightly better than the previous one, with reworked set of Beliefs and Instincts, with initial new development arcs pushed forward, and finally bringing the year of 2999 Silver Era to the end!
One of our Dwarfs happened to be released from his Oath, but as we know the rules about BW Dwarfs, any of them needs to have an Oath! So it might be a very hot topic on the next 17th sessions…
The seventeenth and the last session in Burning Dwarven Fortress campaign, surprisingly ended by not so pleasant meta reason. Let’s spoiler that one of the players was too attached to his - seemingly - own avatar in that world and campaign…
At least, we had fun while playing those 17 sessions, two Trait Votes and session zero. I feel like we started proper cycles of intended BW long run, but still we were quite far from first Epiphany: one Deeds required to one of the characters (two in others) and still a lot of Fate Artha to spent in that particular Coarse Persuasion.
In fictional time,almost 10 months went off. The Lielivarti fortress started to be intact fortified settlement with granite (requiring just some finishing, like proper gatedoors, not provisional ones) with own microeconomy.