Beyond the Woods blends Irish myth with 5e for a challenging take on D&D

Since its inception, campaigns of Dungeons & Dragons have leveraged the hex-crawl play style. That’s where groups of players venture out into an unforgiving wilderness in search of adventure, only to stumble upon things like camps of brigands, monster lairs, and mysterious ruined keeps filled with magical treasure. Hex crawl is also at the core of Beyond the Woods, a new 5e-compatible setting inspired by Irish legends from Old Oak Games. Creator Emmet Byrne tells Polygon the approach results in campaigns that blend mystery, exploration, and danger in ways that modern gamers are likely unfamiliar with at the table. A crowdfunding campaign for Beyond the Woods goes live on Tuesday on Kickstarter.

Byrne, previously of Cubicle 7, where he worked on Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound and Broken Weave, says that Beyond the Woods doesn’t take place in a post-apocalyptic setting in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s more akin to something like Elden Ring or Attack on Titan — an ancient and glorious realm that long ago fell into ruin. At the center of that world is a powerful, solitary city called Céad Darach [KAYD dar-ok], whose inhabitants are protected by the light of an ancient oak tree.

“It is the last bastion of humankind and other species-kind,” Byrne says. “People have been trapped in there for centuries, and you’re going to be [among] the first groups to venture out — outside of the city into this ancient land that has seen many different civilizations.”

The main enemy, at least at the start of the game, is a class of ravenous spirits known as Sluagh [SLOO-ah] that emerged into the relatively peaceful world many years ago. As they traveled across the land, much like the Wild Hunt in the Witcher series, they gobbled up souls and left behind fast-moving, zombie-like husks called Marvach [mar-vahk]. Marvach can pop up in the open world as solitary enemies or in groups large enough to kill the player party outright. But the world itself, a land called Tír Nascath [TEER nahs-kuhth], is Beyond the Woods’ true antagonist.

Instead of a barren wasteland, Tír Nascath is depicted as endless overgrown forests with gargantuan trees, narrow game paths, and mysterious ancient ruins — all inspired by classic depictions of ancient Ireland. Simply moving from place to place is a danger in and of itself. It will be up to the players to explore the place, to make sense of it, and to help save its people if they choose to do so.

“It gives you a chance to customize your map and build it out [during your explorations],” Byrne says. “[But moment to moment] you’ve got to go hunting. You’ve got to go looking for water. [You take] long rests, you have to make a proper camp to get a long rest. Your HP doesn’t magically come back. So it’s definitely much more challenging, and much more perilous than your typical D&D game. It’s trying to bring that old-school vibe to 5e.”

Using the basic rules of 5th edition as a framework, Byrne has added in a number of novel systems to help make hex crawling even more fun. One of them is an inventory management system inspired by the Resident Evil video games. Rather than strictly using weight as the limiting factor, players have limited inventory slots. He says his take on inventory Tetris is actually much faster at the table than using weight alone, which involves lots of fiddly math. And, as in classic games like Oregon Trail, it also leads to some interesting decision making and storytelling. 

“You have a grid on the back of your character sheet,” Byrne says, “and you have a number of slots in your inventory equal to your strength score. […] One of the first things that we do when we’re making characters is say, ‘OK, you have your starting gear that takes up a certain amount of slots. You have a couple of slots left over. What are you taking with you?’”

Without the convenience of a Bag of Holding, say, or even a nearby store to shop at and top off any healing potions, characters are left to plan ahead for their own needs. How much food they carry, how much water they plan to forage for, and what kinds of weapons and equipment they arm themselves with takes on new importance.

“We might need a trap for catching animals,” Byrne says. “We need rope. We need a crowbar. [But] how many arrows am I going to bring? Can I bring one bundle or two bundles? I like those tough choices. That’s where the meat of the game is for me, rather than it being in combat — which you get, obviously, with a lot of D&D.”

Another way to play Beyond the Woods, though, is with more than one group of adventurers at the same time — an approach known as a West Marches-style game. Popularized by Ben Robbins, a West Marches campaign has several unique conceits. Players organize themselves into parties on an ad hoc basis, and different groups of players can and will show up on a given night to play. These mixed groups, drawn from a large pool of players, aren’t focused on a main plot necessarily. Together and in the moment they decide where to go that night, what to do, and how to spend their time in the world. Their adventures open up new possibilities for the groups that come after. 

Using Beyond the Woods as a creative backstop, Byrne says a West Marches-style playthrough is very nearly ideal.

“With [Beyond the Woods], you have a map that’s representative of what the world of Tír Nascath was before this great cataclysm,” Byrne says. “There’s some iconic landmarks, and you go out and explore from hex to hex. Then as you play you can customize your map. You can mark places that you’ve explored, and you’ll have stickers that you can pop on.”

For added flexibility, Beyond the Woods allows game masters to place quest locations in any location they like — ideally ones that allow players to create a series of breadcrumbs that they can follow again and again over time.

“The adventure will say it needs to be near a forest, or a river, or a mountain range, or wherever [it needs to go],” Byrne says. “The GM can put them wherever they want on the map, and then you can try and make your way there, explore it, mark a little sticker down on it if you’ve done it, and make your way back.”

Like any good 5th edition setting book, Beyond the Woods also includes new and unique character classes. Byrne’s favorite, he says, is a particularly Irish take on the bard called the Storyteller. 

“They’re very different to a bard,” Byrne says, “because they kind of weave stories together as you play them. Each round you might start a new story and you put a verse into it, and then in the next round you add another verse to it, and the next round you add another verse to it. They compound on each other, and it gives all your friends — all your allies — buffs, or debuffs to your enemies.”

The Kickstarter campaign for Beyond the Woods runs now through April 10. A free quickstart is available on DriveThruRPG.