Wolden, the Forest RPG of Bewitching Cults, Gets a Free SRD and a One-Click Character Generator
The complete rules and six idiosyncratic cults are now free to read online, with a character generator that prints straight onto the new official sheet. Issues 2 and 3 come to Kickstarter in 2027.
BERLIN, Germany, November 2026 — Mottokrosh Machinations has released the Wolden SRD, a free online reference for Wolden, its forest roleplaying game of bewitching cults. It's at wolden.mottokrosh.com.
Wolden is the heart of all forests: the Ur-Forest, the place you end up if you head into the woods and keep walking, provided you can read the signs and follow the old ways. A council of eight esoteric cults found it some time ago and now guards its secrets, while striking outwards for power and adventure. You play one of their members: powerful, dangerous, and perhaps a little unhinged. Play a witch bound to the spirits, a flower-fey queen who will sprout a whole forest when she dies, a Regency lady with a dagger strapped beneath her gown, or an eye sorcerer dressed to impress.
It's a rules-light, flavor-heavy game in the OSR/NSR vein. Player agency and decisions come first, and the answer may not be on your character sheet. Tables do a lot of the heavy lifting in place of lengthy setting lore, including for names and titles, so a character takes minutes to make, and arrives with a name like Lady Lizzie Fortescue, the Occasionally Armed. It's easy to drop into any fantasy setting that has forests of some kind.
Everything runs on one d12 mechanic. Roll a d12, adding another for a gift that helps, for an ally's aid, or for favorable circumstances, up to four. Take the highest, add your ability score, and that tells you whether you fail, partially succeed, or succeed. Doubles make it critical. The same roll handles quick tests, fast and deadly duels, extended challenges like a court intrigue or romance, travel montages through the forest, and downtime, including carousing.
What's in the SRD
When issue 1 was on Kickstarter, we promised a free web version of the text under a Creative Commons license, and we delivered it. The SRD goes much further:
- The complete rules: setting, characters, playing the game, running the game, and grimoire magic.
- Six of the eight cults, each with its own tables for names, titles, traits, powers, equipment, and carousing:
- The witches, warlocks, and wizards of the Purgis Pact, and the faun, fey, and forest creatures of the Cenacle of Woodwose and Inflorescants, who bleed not blood but blooms. Both are from issue 1.
- The Lion Sodality, elegant Regency gourmands with a passion for forbidden meats, and the Enlightened Conclave of Ocultists. Not occultists, but ocultists: a proud society of eye sorcerers. Both are from the upcoming issue 3, in beta.
- An early, rough look at two cults from a future issue: the Concupiscent Concord of Consilient Bibliognosts, spicy dark academia librarians who decipher forbidden texts and archive all lore, and the Ancient Serpentyne Order of the Gormogons, anointed carriers of the light of an ancient star.
- Gifts that go well beyond spells: a shapeshifting taffeta gown or a devil's harlot's dress can be as potent as any magic tome.
- Six grimoires full of spells, for those brave enough to risk a miscast.
- Site search, labels showing how finished each cult is, and highlights marking what's changed since the last playtest.
- All text licensed under CC BY 4.0, so you're welcome to build on it.
The character generator
The SRD also comes with a free character generator, currently in beta:
- One click gives you a ready-to-play character for any of the six cults, with a name and title rolled from the cult's tables and 16 slots' worth of gifts. Many names come in pairs, so you might roll a Lady Lizzie or a Lord Liam. Prerequisites are handled for you, so a grimoire comes with the magic to read it, and eye sorcerers have sockets for their mystery eyes.
- Everything can be changed. Re-roll or swap gifts, edit their text, add your own, adjust scores, and use the cult art or upload your own portrait.
- Download or print it on the official character sheet, with the text fitted into every box.
- Share your character as a link. There are no accounts, and nothing you enter leaves your browser unless you share it.
Issues 2 and 3 are coming to Kickstarter
Wolden is published as an ongoing series of premium zines that are cheap to ship worldwide. Issue 1 funded on Kickstarter in 2025, when backers took it to more than two and a half times its goal.
Next comes a double feature, launching in 2027, likely February:
- Issue 2 is Violent Nemorous Passage, a giant forest crawl and city heist campaign of 8 to 12 sessions, fully fleshed out and illustrated. The party must get a spy into the court of King Kashiel the Thrice Blessed, Titan of the Pyramid Gargantua, and find out whether the sorcerer-king is an ally or a menace.
- Issue 3 brings the Lion Sodality and the Ocultists to print, introduces Story Arc Gifts for shaping your characters' stories, and includes The Effulgent Configuration, a full adventure guaranteed to turn some eyes.
- A free Wolden Quickstart with the rules, pregenerated characters, and a brand new forest adventure arrives with the launch. There will also be a tier that includes issue 1 for newcomers.
Sign up on the pre-launch page to be notified, and get the Quickstart as soon as it's out.
About Mottokrosh Machinations
Mottokrosh Machinations is the Berlin-based home of Frank "Mottokrosh" Reding's tabletop games, including Hypertellurians, Knightcore, and Wolden. All Mottokrosh Machinations text is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Wolden's SRD current art is by Alicia Cuellar, Alyssa Avery, Anna Molla, and Henriette Boldt. More at mottokrosh.com.
Media contact: Frank Reding, shout@mottokrosh.com, https://social.mottokrosh.com/@mottokrosh
