Stonetop — Hearth fantasy: defend your village

"You're not mercenaries. You're what stands between home and the dark."

Dice2d6 + stat

Players2–5

Prep~30 min

Foundry VTTCommunity

Complexity

What is this system

Jeremy Strandberg's "hearth fantasy" RPG, Powered by the Apocalypse, grew out of a Dungeon World supplement. The heroes are not rootless glory-seekers but people of one village at the edge of the known world, taking risks for their kin, their neighbours and the harvest. The village itself has a character sheet, and beyond its walls lies a vast, strange, dangerous world. Two books of roughly 600 pages each, illustrated by Lucie Arnoux and published by Lampblack & Brimstone in 2026 after a 2021 Kickstarter. If Dungeon World is about the dungeon, Stonetop is about the home you have to get back to.

Setting

An Iron Age that never was. Stonetop village sits around an ancient standing stone at the edge of the world: the Great Wood on one side, the cliffs on the other, and beyond them hills and wastes full of ruined civilisations, strange beasts and older gods. The seasons turn, winter always comes, and the stores have to last.

What it looks like at the table

Autumn, and two woodcutters have gone missing in the Great Wood. Your Ranger tracks them through the deadfall — that's Defy Danger with DEX. Knowing these woods gives advantage: roll 3d6 and drop the lowest. You get 2, 5, 4 — keep 9, plus DEX +1 makes 10. A full success: you skirt a pit trap and reach a clearing where the woodcutters sit bound beside a stranger's fire. Back in the village, the GM notes that with hands missing at harvest, the Surplus may not last the winter.

Playstyle

Narrative worldbuilding Exploration Fantasy

Key mechanics

The village is a character

Stonetop has its own sheet: Size, Population, Prosperity, Defenses, Fortunes and Surplus. Between adventures the heroes build palisades, mills and trade routes — and watch the village thrive or starve.

Nine playbooks

Each class is a role in the community: the Heavy protects, the Judge keeps the chronicle and the law, the Lightbearer carries the light, the Would-Be Hero dreams of more. Ties to neighbours are written into the sheet.

Arcana

Magic items are cards: one side tells you how to unlock the object's power, the other what it does. Nearly all of them can go wrong and spin off a whole story arc.

2d6 with advantage

PbtA classic: 10+ is a success, 7–9 a success at a cost, 6- hands the GM a move. On top of that, advantage and disadvantage: roll a third die and drop the lowest or the highest.

What people say

Stonetop is a traditional pen, paper and dice roleplaying game - except that the eponymous, ring-walled settlement plays as important a role as any of the player characters.— Alex Evans, Wargamer

Art & materials