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: 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: Tamrin’s Outlaw Friends arrived at the Jaunty Horn and got into a tussle with a trio of shape-shifting fairies who had been in the form of a Breggle Longhorn Knight and a pair of Thieves.
On the first night of spring the Jaunty Horn, a well known road-side inn on the Ditchway, was full of human and Breggle shepherds ready to run their herds to market. There was a Longhorn Breggle Knight whose heraldry showed that he was sworn to Lord Malbleat with a pair of thugs but they were keeping their heads down (more about them later). After Princess Donut led the Thirteen Thieves they were travelling with in some spirited dancing as they sang before the drinking began in earnest, the party set up shop near a fire-pit near the stables rather than crash in the inn’s common room.
I described the trio of Lichhounds, naming them after dogs in Susanna Clarke’s The Ladies of Grace Adieu and other stories – Wicked, Worse and Worst-Of-All because we’re animal-lovers and the dogs and their names seemed like an important detail. The inn was too busy for the inn-keeper to have time to welcome them or make much of an impression other than that she was built like a linebacker.
Did I forget about the NPC Princess Donut had recruited last game? Yes, I did but with a quick reminder from Aaron, Madam Pusskin, the King’s Own Claw, was back. I even rolled her class randomly to find out that she was a fighter.
Dream of Remembrance sang a beautiful song in High Elfish about the stars in the sky being out of sorts since the Cold Prince’s exile and Spiro (who everyone calls Inspirator) bleated out some Breggle poetry before they arranged watch shfits for the night. Something about talking about watch shifts makes me feel like a junior high kid all over again – in a good way.
I rolled a random encounter in the night, a few bramblings on patrol that gave Princess Donut a glowing green eye looking over until Worst-Of-All ran up and one of the inn-keeper’s kids yelled something in Drunish. The sleepy-eyed kid explained they were just on patrol and probably wouldn’t be a problem as the humanoid-shaped thorn-bushes headed back into the forest.
Moraine woke up the Thirteen Thieves and spoke openly about ambushing the group moving Tamrin. A half-awake shepherd overheard this and went to wake up the Breggle Knight and snitched.
Now I’ll explain what the table would soon figure out – the Breggle Knight and thugs were NOT a Breggle Knight and thugs. They were a trio of fairy shape-shifters that I pre-game rolled as the previous night’s random encounter. So, when the shepherd grabbed the not-a-knight and said that if he didn’t come out and do something he was going to alert Lord Malbleat that his knight had no honor, the shapeshifter came out to see if this could be ended quietly and without a ruckus.
It would not be ended quietly. Spiro brought the ruckus.
Before the fairy shape-shifter in the shape of a knight could do anything, Spiro, the Breggle Thief, goat-charged him and back-stabbed him, doing more than 2/3’s of the monster’s total hit points in damage. What had looked like the Breggle Knight began bleeding in a strange blue color and screeching in a manner that no Breggle would screech. The group finished off the creature, nicknamed, The Goopy, and they heard a further ruckus in the inn’s common room. Moraine went to deal with that and Princess checked out the knight’s stuff (chainmail, longsword and shield, Scroll of Protection Against Wyrm Breath, Arcane Scroll (Ventriloquism & Ioun Shard) and 1 mysterious potion and a ton of jewlery treasure that I forget to tell them about).
The shape-shifters had gotten into a tussle with the 13 Thieves, who weren’t going to let the pair go out and back up their knight friend and then DEFINITELY weren’t going to let them walk when it was clear they were travelling with a shapeshifter. Moraine walked in to the fairies taking a bad beating. One Charisma check and he successfully called a pause. The fairies talked to him in High Elfish and a few things became clear:
These were NOT nice creatures, but former assassins for the Hag Thorn-Rosie who had a job go poorly and overly violent; they ran rather than face the consequences. Despite their attempts to appeal to Moraine’s Cold Prince patriotism the elf gave the Thirteen Thieves the go-ahead to finish the job. Spiro was upset that he had killed the wrong person. Killing a longhorn knight is fine but some fairy…Spiro wasn’t sure that was the right thing at all. And Moraine was clearly sad and conflicted As they left, Moraine assured Spiro that no one in this world, nor fairy would miss these three.
Ebbi took a penny from the shape-shifter’s treasure (for some reason one of them was carrying around 10,000 copper pieces?!?) as a Hunter’s memento.
There are little moments that I really feel like I am not capturing. Yes, this is a goat-person, an elf, a cat-person and a moss-person in a darky fairy tale world. But the humanity that everyone brings to these strange characters is really cool. Ebbi’s reluctance to engage with large groups of people they don’t trust. Spiro’s reaction to violence that wasn’t against who he thought it was. Moraine’s sadness and turning the thieves’s knives against a creature of fairy, even if those fae are killers without pity. Even Princess Donut’s cat-like aloofness is balanced by a deep caring. I like these characters.
I rolled a trio of shape-stealers (DMB, 75) and decided that they had ambushed a group of adventurers. So, I rolled up the adventurers using the tables for doing so (DMB, 108-109) and got a Breggle Knight, a Breggle Thief, a Human Thief, a Human Enchanter and a Woodgrue Enchanter. I decided that they knight and thieves were easier to pose as.
I liked having a night-time encounter that was just a creepy thing sticking its head out of the woods and then going back in. Factions are on the move out there. Things are bubbling under the surface.
Next week we’ll start with some Woodgrue musicians, rocking out, oblivious to the world around them, and then into (through?) Lankshorn.
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…
Githyanki Diaspora 
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