I’m running a Cairn + Dolmenwood game and one of the players linked this thread, so I thought I would share what we’re doing. I’m not advocating for this approach, just describing how I’m handling things, which generally boils down to keeping things very close to default Cairn 2e and converting as needed; for me it’s a low-stress approach. Also, we’re still fewer than 10 sessions into our campaign, so, you know, early days.
This is the very simple character creation procedure I put together: Acronyms | Cairn + Dolmenwood Character Creation This method doesn’t take a whole lot from the kindreds in terms of innate capabilities, so PCs may not retain the DW flavor from the outset that your table would like. Instead, PCs are likely to be differentiated by equipment, growth related change, and of course roll play. Practically it has worked out pretty well, but that might be down to the extent to which the players have leaned into playing their kindred. Also, I would throw in noting the size categories listed for each Kindred at character creation; this has come up in play and is a fun bit of practical differentiation.
We’re using the DW calendar and weather tables, matching the specific weather to Cairn 2e’s weather categories (which does mean little opportunity for the most extreme tier of weather conditions from Cairn). For the hexcrawl we use this Hexcrawl Hack for Cairn 2E by Local Lake Games Which helps because I don’t have to think about specific point-to-point distance ahead of time. We are using the n-in-6 chance of getting lost per the hex descriptions in the Dolmenwood Campaign Book, with consideration given to the presence of roads/paths/water courses (where the Hex crawl procedure above has ‘lost’ on the travel table, I substitute ‘loss’).
I’m only converting things (items, magic, monsters) as they come up in play or while prepping locations I think the PCs are likely to explore in the coming session. I keep a d6 wandering encounter table stocked, derived from the tables in the Dolmenwood Monster Book, both the region-specific encounter table and the per-monster encounter flavor tables. I convert the monsters with guidance from the Cairn 2e Wardens guide, replenishing the table as encounters are…encountered; additionally I convert area-specific monsters when I think the PCs might run into them. When a creature I hadn’t planned for is encounter I briefly panic then look for an analog in the Cairn bestiary to get a stat block, trying my hardest not to lose track of anything really juicy and unique from the DMB.
And I think that’s everything I’ve done to bridge the system and setting. What’s most lost in the conversion are the kindred specific magic sub-systems. I don’t have a firm plan for runes etc. but anticipate they’ll be folded into growth: meeting fey who can grant runes, meeting mosslings who can teach knacks, to be treated, mechanically, as runes or spellbooks, with modifications analogous to examples presented in the Growth section of the Cairn 2e Warden’s Guide.
