tl;dr: Tamrin’s Outlaw Friends drove off 11 Crookhorns, felling almost half of them but at a cost.
This was after clarifying the map. Crookhorns had run all over the place. There were arrows hither and yon. It was a confusing mess.
Princess and Madame fell but held on (1 round for every point of Constitution felt more right than 0 = death). I’ll have the other characters say more and add more personality to the combat. I felt like I was giving too much energy to getting the procedures just right.
Princess used her Grimalkin ability to turn into a near-invisible blur of claws and teeth behind bloodshot-berserker-eyes before falling.
Spiro tried to backstab a Crookhorn but missed, resorting to a desperate head-butt before the battle ended. He spent much of the battle near-death.
Morain made herself a big target and took the brunt of the damage, bleeding frozen blood as she almost fell.
Ebbi rained death from atop the willow tree and saved both Princess and Madame Pusskin’s life when she rushed to find her mushroom-loving friend and get a second dose of Ghost Shroom. Princess gave Ebbi her shiniest marble as a thank-you for saving her friend.
In the end, the Crookhorns failed a morale save and ran. One of them protested, “But I was about to burn down this willow tree!” Still, they ran.
tl:dr: Ebbi makes a skeleton friend and then the group runs into an old enemy and a mob of Crookhorns…
During the week I asked if the group wanted to move north along the lake or take the more direct route through the forest. The forest-lovers seemed to take the day. Off we went.
We started a touch late and we were tired, so we ended a little early, getting a little less than an hour to game. It was short and that was okay. I could use the time to flesh out my thoughts on Hoarblight Keep. As usual, the encounter tables and hex details of Dolmenwood delivered. That said, looking for Getting Lost rules was a little frustrating, ping-ponging me back and forth between PDF’s in a way that would’ve been frustrating with a book too. For some reason the miro board I set up with lots of screen shots of the PDF was coming up really blurry.
Ebbi got nice spotlight time picking some Spirithame mushrooms (which we quickly renamed Ghost Shrooms after I couldn’t find the description and just winged it, saying they glowed with a ghostly blue light) and doing a successful foraging dance. Tamrin, Princess, Madame and Spiro looked like they were unhappy in the cold spring rain. Moraine was feeling the Faery Malaise of the area – Ebbi seemed in her element. While in the midst of a great day, Ebbi was a touch ahead of the group, looking for shelter, as they were hoping to end the travel day early amidst miserable pouring rain.
She ran right into Colly, a polished white animated skeleton with an armful of mushrooms and a strange rune on her skull. Ebbi and Colly quickly started talking mushrooms (Colly communicates with understandable teeth whistles) and became best friends right away.
Moraine, Colly and Ebby headed out while the rest of the crew set up camp, started a fire and sought to dry off under the cliff overhang Ebbi had found for them. I forget why I decided I had to roll a random encounter. Someone had rolled something and it seemed clear that they were about to run into something dangerous. They did.
Sir Blackchurch came crashing through the underbrush without a weapon, shield dented, brow cut, horns covered in someone else’s blood. “Crookshanks!” he exclaimed, “We need to fight together or we are doomed. They are sworn to Chaos itself!”
Moraine assessed, making sure it wasn’t fae trickery (the player asked me some questions and I answered – it did seem wildly unlikely but they soon realized they could trust what they were seeing) and handed the Breggle knight who had been taking Tamrin to be beheaded, who had been hunting all of them, who had been their mortal enemy her spear, took out her sword and banged it against her own shield, being able to hear the approaching Crookshanks.
Having heard the Crookshank’s hunting horn bellow, Spiro put on his jacket and took out his knives, Princess ran to help her friends, Madame drew her blade – saluted no one and followed Princess and Tamrin ran after his friends to do whatever bards do when Crookshanks attack.
We’ll start there in a few weeks.
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tl;dr: Tamrin’s Outlaw Friends saved him in Lankshorn and headed north towards Hoarblight Keep (as you do).
If you want to play through Dolmenwood with no setting spoilers, you might not want to read this.
On their way towards Lankshorn the posse ran across a trio of Woodgrue Musicians, the Lumpfrisk Trio (Grunkle, Krungus and Wumpus) all playing their enchanting music to keep farmers at bay while they made a stew out of the veggies they stole from said farmers. Moraine, the only member of the group who didn’t fail their save, paid the farmer’s a fair bit of silver for their veggies and sent them on their way. Hearing how everyone’s character danced to the Woodgrue music was a lovely way to start the evening.
The trio shared their stew and were playing the song Tamrin wrote about the Lord of Nodding Castle. They had run across Tamrin in a cage-carriage. The crew found out that there was a knight, a squire, a merchant and the merchant’s caravan guards keeping Tamrin; they’d probably run into them in Lankshorn.
On the road outside of Lankshorn Moraine drew a line in the mud – beyond this point she’d only see Tamrin in freedom. Ebbi and Spiro found a deer carcass and dragged it into the road along with a dead tree, hoping to both block the carriage’s path and drew Night Worms. Ebbi noticed the tracks of a big wolf pack moving towards Lankshorn. That is odd. Asking the roots about it, the earth said (I rolled a d6 to see how many words the Roots could say: 3 words) “Shape Changed Witches.”
Moraine wondered if Princess Donut might use her considerable charm to go into town and scout it out. The good Princess liked the compliment and went into town with Madam Pusskin, Right Claw of King Pusskin, at her side. As Princess got to the local inn, she saw a Breggle Knight, Sir Craglow Blackchurch, and his squire, setting the local constabulary to guard Tamrin, who was in the carriage-cage. Sir Blackchurch just wanted some warm food. Hank was concerned about rumors of a wolf pack running around the town but in the end, listened to the knight.
Princess, armed with the head constable’s name (Hank) and a garbage can lid ensorcelled to look like Sir Blackchurch’s shield with the knight’s heraldry upon it (Silver Goat’s head/Black Church), told Hank that he was relieved of duty as per Sir Blackchurch’s orders, “You are free to go hunt down that dangerous wolf pack!” Confused, Hank went to find the wolves.
Princess and Madame drove the cart out of Lankshorn with Tamrin grinning within. Everything went fine until the Night Worms attacked the carriage’s horse, drawn to the road by Ebbi and Spiro’s deer carcass. NOTE: I rolled 3d20 to see how long it would be until Sir Blackchurch and Squire would notice the carriage was gone, thinking they could be right on their trail or quite a bit clueless. They were 20 rounds late.
The Night Worm was attacking a horse and everyone seemed uncomfortable with the cruelty to the horse. We agreed that the horse got away and the Night Worm that wasn’t interested in the deer carcass would instead attack them. Long story short, they drove one Night Worm off and the others dragged the deer back to their lair.
The plan was to head eastward but Tamrin was nervous about heading east, the direction they were taking him to be beheaded. Moraine, ever the fairy patriot, suggested they head northwest to Hoarblight Keep. Everyone shrugged and agreed.
Moraine had suggested the 13 Bandits go west to waylay the knight, who would soon be on his way. Surely the 13 Bandits and 13 wolves (who are really witches shape-shifted into wolves) would go forth and have their own adventures. Both of the groups of 13 were rolled entirely randomly.
And so the group headed north and west towards Hoarblight Keep. Princess could sense a terrible presence watching them all. They ran across a camp of goblins with a human baby, feeding it cooked worm. When one goblin said, “The Lord of the Pit will treat the baby well, right?” The rest of the goblins assured their friend that the Lord of the Pit LOVED children.
Trusting the goblins’ judgment, the group walked on without comment, never alerting the goblins to their presence.
They entered a border the next day that made Princess and Moraine feel malaise, as if they didn’t belong there but when they came to healthier woods and a small herd of deer happily grazing at dusk, Ebbi was confident they were in healthier lands. Spiro watched a trio of 20 foot pythons curl themselves around their campfire. Surely, a good omen for their journey to Hoarblight Keep.
We had agreed to just play 3 sessions but we renewed and will keep playing for a bit. The hex contents, overall situations on the move and random encounters very much give the feel of a lived-in fairy tale world.
tl;dr: The trio met in the Mermaid’s Arms in Dreg, ate some stew, set out to save their friend-in-common, Tamrin; met and charmed the leader of 13 thieves before stopping for the night at the Jaunty Horn Inn.
If you don’t want to know anything about Dolmenwood, maybe skip this. I’m not dropping all of the lore and secrets in the first session here but I’m sure things will slip.
We spent a good deal of that first hour in the Mermaid’s Arms Inn flashing back to how each of the characters had met Tamrin and looking over the players’ map, asking questions. I asked Ebbi’s player to roll a d6 to see what she knew about the area between Nodding Castle and High Hankle. She rolled a 5 so I not only told her about the inns along the way but also about the Night Worms and the Brood-Mother deep under the earth. Usually, I’d spill secrets early and often but exploring Dolmenwood is such a big part of the setting. Still, I like that the shy Mossling knew about a secret beast deep under the earth.
I liked hearing about how they each met Tamrin and what they liked about their friend. We did some light flashbacks. Ebbi loves music and followed him around to hear him play and he saw her and was kind. Princess and Tamrin met stealing from sleeping nobles. Moraine heard Tamrin sing in elfish and dreamed of him on the night they found a piece of a fallen star whose fate they link to the Winter Court’s possible return.
When talking to the player of Princess Donut about the local thieves’ guild, I also mentioned that there was an eccentric old lady who often stared into and talked to a dark mirror in her mansion and fed local strays. I did this because in skimming the Campaign Book about Dreg, I read about Shantywood Manor and loved it. Making a Charisma roll, Princess rounded up a Grimalkin ally among the cats (roll 1-3 to see how many Grimalkin there are among the strays, more going to the dice for decisions I wanted to be surprised about). Princess Donut made a deal with Madame Pusskin, sworn claw to King Pusskin, that they would free Tamrin and then return to Shanywood Manor to enter that dark mirror and take whatever riches they could carry out.
“70-30 split, 70 going to me fair, Madame?” “Princess, to me, the curiousity is the juice…”
We had an interesting discussion about stats and playing characters. I suggested that stats tell us how the characters fare under great stress but we shouldn’t feel like we have to role-play a certain way or not marshal all of our cunning and intelligence to solve problems and survive – especially since the characters are so brittle at 1st level. We get together to play games with our smart friends; don’t feel like you can’t be that smart friend because of a low number on your character sheet.
13 thieves just outside of Dreg was the random encounter I rolled up earlier in the week. What in the name of St. Gwigh the Unsleeping is that about? Turns out the rumors of Tamrin having been arrested for stealing the Lord of Nodding Castle’s prize jewel had gotten around Dreg. The Village of Dreg’s population is 300 people. 13 thieves + the player characters just walked out…are there any criminals and outlaws left in town other than the owners of the Spawning Salmon? The reaction table (one of my favorite parts of old school play) told me that the baker’s dozen thieves and bandits were a bit confused and uncertain. Cool.
Princess chatted up the thieves’ leader, Dorcas “Door-kicker” Rumswell and charmed her with a rune. I asked a friend to roll a d4, declaiming to the dice, which told me Dorcas was 3rd level. I had no idea. Was Dorcas a fresh-faced thief reaching for the big time or a veteran bandit, trying to claim her fortune? Nonetheless, Dorcas failed her save and so, for now, she is teamed up with Princess – not only trying to get the jewels but also wanting to take out some of the posse guarding Tamrin, so he could get free.
Ebbi gave Moraine a stone with lichen in the shape of a snowflake on it; I can’t help but think that stone has a part to play in all this. Maybe. Sometimes a stone is just a stone.
The whimsy and fairy tale vibes from the character details are really evocative. I like the slow burn pace we’re setting. I dig the d6 for skill and attribute rolls.
Used the Fantasy Name Generator’s Pirate Names to name the dozen deep posse Dorcas is leading out of Dreg:
Alston ‘White Hair’ Lynx
Harley ‘Blunder’ Voss
Whitelaw ‘Reaper’ Holt
Boden ‘Black Eyes’ Home
Edward ‘Savage Soul’ Huckabee
Tedmund ‘Foolish’ Remington
Thaw ‘Deceiver’ Raven
Fenwick ‘Defiance’ Lynk
Eden ‘The Sour’ Swales
Berry ‘Weeping’ Yao
Ina ‘Snitch’ Brady
Next Session: A small army of thieves led by a Mossling, Grimalkin and Elf make their way west along the Ditchway…
Wow. That is a game of some sturm and drang. Here is my question though, what do the PCs do in this world? LIke, what are your expectations that they do?
Instead of D&D as the rule set, I would almost want Exalted or Scion, where the PCs are giants that tread the realms too… because this feels, in D&D terms, 15th level-ish…and at 15th level, the character sheet is awfully bloated and the game system creaks under that weight.
Folks could rock out with Godbound and kick pre-lich Vecna in the teeth. No doubt. But I don’t think that lots of big conflict and planar shenanigans necessarily means that the players are missing out by not being Big Deals just yet. Spending some time getting their feet wet can allow the players time to engage with the conflicts that are interesting to them and my hope is that being 1st level doesn’t have to mean they are fighting rats in the tavern basement while the planes run red with blood and quite frankly, with far more interesting conflicts.
An elven noble house missed the exodus and needs guides and support to take their leave of the stars and enter the underdeeps.
Gith rebels have taken two Gate Towns in the Outlands and are paying good money to anyone willing to run commando missions against Iillithid tyranny.
An ancient elvish citadel was left abandoned when the folk went into the caverns below, with nothing but vicious traps and eloquent spider graffiti between adventurers willing to walk in and whatever was left behind.
Giants are willing to equip and give maps to intrepid would-be dragonslayers.
A small town on the edge of several of these conflicts needs some folks to Seven Samurai-up and help them out.
A mercenary company was denied pay by the wizard-king, Vecna, and is now traipsing all over the Outlands finding his weapons caches in order to thwart his war effort before heading to a prime material world to work lair security for a dragon. They can’t be everywhere at once, so here’s a map of half a dozen arcane weapons caches – keep and sell whatever you can get your hands on.
The shorter answer is – they grab whatever ratio of treasure to justice they enjoy in play and interact with the parts of this world that interests them.
Githyanki Diaspora 
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