In Defense of the Modern (Dolmenwood) Witch

August 22, 2024

Introduction

I recently came across a blog post by Suarachán, in which he expressed his annoyance at how vastly different Dolmenwood is from the way it presented itself in its early stages of development in the Wormskin zines.

Created by Gavin Norman, one of the most important figures in my own OSR experience, Dolmenwood is a strange and erratic game with that creepy teaser that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I have to say, I love Dolmenwood. As a player, I feel immediately and completely immersed in whatever actions I take with its fleshed-out civilizations and factions; even when I’m spending my travel points on hex crawling, I feel like I’m completely immersed.

I wasn’t a backer on Kickstarter when Dolmenwood was still in production, meaning that the product backers have access to today is my only lived experience of the game (thanks to my GM for backing it!). The blog post suggested that Dolmenwood has been “Disneyfied” from its inception as a zine called Wormskin. I agree that Dolmenwood feels different from its beginnings, based on the Wormskin clips I’ve seen. However, I believe “Disneyfied” is hyperbolic as a description of the changes, and that some of the changes benefit Dolmenwood as a game, namely: witches.

Thanks for the mentions of sexual abuse and infertility in the rest of the blog post.

Pitching for the modern witch

The blog post discusses the key differences between the Wormskin Age of Witches and the Dolmenwood Age of Witches. As Suarachán notes, the key differences are:

• the witches’ pact with their wood gods, known as gwyrigons, including how it manifests and what it costs
• the strictness of the rules surrounding the witches’ lifestyle
• the general wickedness of witches.

Suarachán states in their post that the Wormskin witches are “all sexual folk horror” and I’d say that’s a pretty accurate statement, though perhaps not in the same vein as what they were alluding to. Sexual violence and infertility are inherent to the worldbuilding of this faction; there are witches who have willingly offered themselves to the wood gods who gave them their power, but there’s one really nasty bit of lore that really made my skin crawl:

“A mortal woman who crosses a witch must be brought before her coven and exposed to the presence of a gwyrigon. If the woman survives with her sanity intact, she is accepted into the sisterhood (witches initiated in this way are known as gray sisters).”

It’s pretty explicit that angering a witch as a woman in the Wormskin setting can lead to horrific and traumatic circumstances. As an AFAB female-presenting person who plays female characters in almost all of my TTRPGs, the idea that this could inherently put my character in danger feels so repulsive when that danger is explicitly sexual. I recently encountered a witch in a session, so the idea that the encounter could have led to her being sexually assaulted if she had made one wrong move feels far too extreme.

One of the reasons I play TTRPGs is for escapism, but I’m not shy about horror games either. However, I have established clear lines and veils with my GMs where necessary to avoid play that alludes to or explicitly depicts any form of sexual assault. If you don’t have lines or veils for that sort of thing in TTRPGs, good for you! Everyone is comfortable with varying degrees of brutal reality in a game setting; there are countless realistic consequences to a character’s actions that I would never want to play, and I imagine I’m not alone in that.

Another thing I’m glad changed from the Wormskin zine was the infertility beat. Does anyone else remember when Avengers: Age of Ultron came out in theaters and Joss Whedon wrote the most inhuman and unnecessary speech for Black Widow about what made her a monster? Because I do. The connection between infertility and being inherently monstrous is such an old and backwards stereotype that you find in pop culture and society. Considering Gavin published the Wormskin zine between 2015 and 2018, it feels a little late in the game to be perpetuating this stereotype (not cool Gav!). If you’re interested in a deeper dive into this kind of topic, I recommend Belle Boggs’ The Art of Waiting for a really humanizing look at infertility.

Either way, infertility isn’t necessary to build a scary or compelling villain. Removing it in Dolmenwood feels like the right move (yay Gav!), not only to distance the game from those dirty connotations, but also to make the game more inclusive. While it’s said that one of the things Wood Gods feed on is a witch’s “blood,” Suarachán specifically said “menstrual blood,” further underscoring the fact that Wormskin players may believe that their witches must be biologically female. Removing not only the “heavily pregnant” witch with “a sinister hiss comes from her belly” of the trait roster, but also pronouns altogether, means that a witch can suddenly be anyone. Becoming a witch is no longer limited to AFAB individuals, which I think is pretty cool.

How terrible is good horror?

I’ve said before that I’m open to playing horror TTRPGs and that’s true! I’ve been both a player and a watcher in many Mothership games where I’ve dealt with horror of the cosmic, corporate, and corporeal variety! I think there’s so much room for horror in TTRPGs (I’m looking forward to giving the Alien TTRPG a try when adult life allows), but I think horror doesn’t have to be extreme to be good.

For me, there’s a big difference in how I immerse myself in different forms of fiction. When I’m reading a book, I have the privilege of detachment; I have no real stake in the outcome of a story, other than what the author can make me feel. But when I’m playing a TTRPG, I’m absolutely in it. There’s a little bit of me in every character I play, and I’m the one controlling them and experiencing what they are directly. From what I’ve read of the Wormskin zine, there’s so much of it that looks absolutely fantastic and I’d love to read more fiction in that vein. That said, I wouldn’t want to experience much of the fiction in the zine.

When horror gets unpleasant, it gets unpleasant (take I spit on your grave or Raw as two examples of controversial horror). It doesn’t have to involve intense bloodshed or unexpected sexual attacks. I find it much more impressive when it creeps in and starts to raise the fear in the stomachs of your players, and Dolmenwood has so much room for fear.

During my last soiree in Dolmenwood, my awesome GM threw us into a tizzy when we were working undercover at a nobles’ party to stop a violent conspiracy and save our friend and fellow PC from danger! It was intense, but the conspiracy wasn’t the best part of the fear and intensity. Lord Malbleat, a sadistic and menacing figure, was a presence in the setting and boy did he make it clear. The way our GM made Malbleat throw his weight around and make his presence known was spectacular. We had no idea how he was going to react to things in an almost Homelander-esque way. He was scaryHe never threatened sexual violence, yet he still managed to fill me with fear.

Conclusion

To wrap things up, I think both versions of the witches, even the Wormskin version in parts, have their place in fiction. However, I wouldn’t want to play in a setting with Wormskin witches, and I believe a fair number of tables would find the same sorts of issues I do with the themes in their lore. When we fall back on harmful stereotypes for the sake of horror, we lose the opportunity to be innovative in our exploration of genres, and we also make games less accessible. Gavin Norman has created something spectacular in both Wormskin and Dolmenwood, but if you find Dolmenwood lacking in creepy content, I’d argue that you’re perhaps missing what makes the setting so sinister, like your own Malbleat.

So, no Disneyfijt here! Dolmenwood is safe from the Mouse Mafia™ again.