In October 2024 we presented Wulfwald, Lee Reynoldson’s old-school FRPG from Glasgow-based publisher Lost Pages set in a low-fantasy world inspired by mythic Anglo-Saxon tales. Lost Pages offered the complete five-book set of Wulfwald core rulebooks, funded in a March 2022 Kickstarter campaign, for a special promotional price.
In Wulfwald you play a Wolfshead, an outcast adventurer trying to regain a place in society, in a world filled with mythic monsters, dark and dangerous magic, and even more dangerous rulers. The life of a Wolfshead is fear, mistrust, and privation. Being excluded from society is perilous; you might survive but never thrive. Seeking redemption, you undertake covert missions and skulduggery for a Thegn, a noble warlord. Together you form your Thegn’s Wolfpack, a dire weapon he wields ruthlessly.
The Wulfwald game mechanics are old-school-based, broadly compatible with B/X, Old-School Essentials, and any retroclone. Wolfshead characters can be human or “foreigners” (unusual recastings of elves, dwarves, and wild Outlanders). Each of these four kindred gets three character classes, based on broad archetypes of Warrior, Skirmisher, and Wizard. Each class has unique abilities suited to the low-magic setting. Instead of fireballs and magic missiles, expect curses, necromancy, and blind rage, powered (and resisted) by your Gealdor, your magical power. Styles of magic include Runic Fateweaving, Spell Singing, Wicce, and the forbidden path of Shining One necromancy. Weapons, armor, equipment, and tools resemble those of post-Roman Europe.
The Wulfwald map and its eight petty kingdoms are the size of early medieval England and its kingdoms and shires – small by the standards of fantasy settings, but big enough for a campaign of adventure. Wulfwald is the opposite of a “Points of Light” setting, which has small enclaves of order and civilization surrounded by encroaching darkness or chaotic wilderness. In this setting most of the land is settled, with few wild places (points of darkness?) – untamed marsh and mountain and moor, hill and heath and wood where dwell dwindling numbers of monsters, such as the seven surviving Wyrms (dragons). Each Wyrm is a unique creature unlike the others. Six Giants survive, and one Grundwiergen (Waterwolf, the Beast of the Deep). In the deep forests lurk Spider Wights, Slaughter Wolves, Half Hounds, Marsh Fiends, Ravenmen, and Murderworkers.
The default Wulfwald campaign structure calls for the PCs to risk their lives to help an ambitious Thegn in the rise to power to Ealdorman and then to Cynn (king), lest the outcasts themselves become pawns of a succession of increasingly powerful patrons. A Wolfpack is a cross among a special-ops team, mob crew, terrorist cell, and gang. Missions for their Thegn might include threatening, leaning on, beating up, or killing rival Thegns – spying, stealing, cons, capers, stings, and double-crosses – kidnapping, ransoming, bribing, and blackmailing – all the things nobles want done without staining their reputation.
The player characters start as outlaws, Wulfesheafod, holed up in some damp cave or forest camp, unable to move freely. They travel mostly at night so as to avoid confrontation with the peasantry and Fyrdmen (army men), and they’ll rely on their Thegn for all their food. The PCs’ Thegn won’t acknowledge his involvement with them. As they progress in the service of an Ealdorman, the PCs eventually become Hildewulf, accepted by the warriors of the warband, albeit begrudgingly, and might even be invited to their Ealdorman’s Meadhall. By the time they serve a Cynn as Wulfdryhten, the PCs have many Thegns and Ealdormen they count as allies and friends, and just as many well-earned enemies. Yet the peasants and ceorls (freemen, just below a Thegn) might never forget that outlaw taint, no matter how many times the Wolfpack sups at the Cynn’s Meadhall.
This all-new Wulfwald offer included all five Wulfwald core rulebooks – Wolfsheads, Magic, Campaign, Monsters, and People – 276 pages, a US$13 retail value for just $5.95. Each purchase included a high-res .PDF of the beautiful black-and-white Wulfwald regional map, one of the last works by legendary British illustrator Russ Nicholson (Fiend Folio, Warhammer, Fighting Fantasy).
