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.
Githyanki Diaspora 
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