Back to Prigwort - Dolmenwood Play Reports: Session 3
The group heads back to Prigwort to rest and resupply before setting back out.
In the last session, the group had finished their quest to return Sir Chyde’s ring to Princess Snowfall-at-Dusk in faerie. They spent the night resting in Sir Chyde’s burial chamber and planned to return to Prigwort to resupply in the morning.
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Characters
Chalice-of-Duskviolet. Elf Enchanter (Lv1), HP 5/5
Hesper. Breggle Fighter (Lv1) HP 6/8
Sister Molly. Human Nun (Lv1) HP 3/3
Moriah. Human Hunter (Lv1) HP 5/5
Roland. Human Cleric (Lv1) HP 6/6At this point, two of our players had dropped out (Jack and a player that hadn’t ever shown up. The rest of the players seem pretty engaged and consistent, so I think this will be the group in the future.
Day 2, Grimvold 2nd, 1089
Weather: Relentless Blizzard
Wandering Encounter: No
After a cold night’s rest, the group checked the weather outside and found that it had worsened to a full-blown blizzard during the night. Several of the group were still exhausted or wounded from their time in the tomb, so despite the terrible weather, they decided to risk traveling back to Prigwort rather than spending a night in the tomb. The journey was largely without incident; no one got lost, and nothing assaulted them. A few hours after they set out from the tomb, they arrived, freezing and miserable, in Prigwort.
The group “banked” a hefty chunk of XP during their rest, but not enough to level up. The group earns minimal XP for defeating creatures, but most of it comes from finding treasure. To encourage exploration, I’m also going to give out XP for travel-related goals: visiting a location for the first time, finding a secret, etc. However, characters only really gain/bank the XP when they rest at a safe location. Normally, this wouldn’t include resting in a tomb, but in this specific case, they were resting behind a magically secured door that could only be opened with a specific passphrase. I decided that counted as safe.
Sister Molly and Moriah are exhausted, and Hesper is still at 6 of 8 HP. Exhaustion stacks, and each level reduces attack and damage rolls by 1. Healing is also time-consuming as you only heal 1 HP per “successful” night of rest.
Even though they were traveling on the road, I gave them a 1:6 chance to get lost, and I just told them that due to the weather, there was a slight chance they would get lost even though they were following a trail/road.
They arrived at Prigwart in the late afternoon and set about wrapping up their business before shops closed for the evening. They sold some of the valuables they had found in the tomb and restocked supplies. While splitting the gold, the group decided to put an equal share into the local bank and require at least two individuals to withdraw any funds. The group upgraded some of their weapons and armor, Roland commissioned a fine silver Warhammer that would be ready in 5 days, and Sister Molly secretly donated most of her gold to the church.
Day 3, Grimvold 3rd, 1089
Weather: Freezing Rain
Encounter: No
The weather hadn’t improved much the next day, so they decided to spend one more day in town resting and gathering rumors. The locals seemed concerned about an increase in the population of sapient beasts to the north. They lived in a valley known as The Valley of Wise Beasts, and those living in Prigwort feared the beasts were rallying to overrun the forest and wrest control of Prigwart from its rightful owners.
Merchants traveling south from Fort Vulgar spoke of hearing haunting pipes on the wind during the two-day journey. The piercing melody seemed both inhuman and beautiful. They also mentioned an increase in attacks by Crookhorns along the Swinney Road.
Some of the travelers in town talked about strange happenings to the south, along the banks of Lake Fog. The caves there grow crystals that people say can heal the sick (and possibly be made into drugs), and adventurers spoke of finding a cavern where giant frogs guarded an ancient shrine filled with long-lost treasures.
At the church, Sister Molly and Roland overheard a group of travelers talking about seeing a dilapidated shrine during the journey along the Sweeny road. When the two asked for more details, the travelers said they spotted what they thought was a shrine a few miles Northwest of town. The travelers were confident they had seen a shrine in a small cave in the cliffs above the Groaning Loch and Sinkhole Creek, given that the cave was off the main pass and hundreds of feet above the river, none of the travelers had investigated further.
Meanwhile, at the Wrinkled Medlar, an upscaled Inn that Chalice-of-Duskviolet had opted to spend the prior night in, the proprietor, Maydrid Hydball, approached Chalice-of-Duskviolet about a job. Maydrid asked if she would be willing to inquire about her missing lover if she planned to travel toward Fort Vulgar. Gherigew Thorncripe, her lover, was a bard with a heart for traveling the Dolmenwood, but her last letter from him had been months ago. Last she knew, he knew he was on his way to Fort Vulgar, and she offered 1,000 gold if the group could return him or at least bring her news of his whereabouts. While Chalice-of-Duskviolet assured Maydrid that “All love is folly and will only break your heart,” she did say they would keep their eyes open for the bard.
Rumors are one of the ways I try to seed adventures in a hex-crawl-style game like this. I’ve found that if I don’t put in some kind of signs pointing to adventure sites, players will sort of just wander randomly and get very bored very fast. Normally, I look at some of the interesting things in surrounding hexes or pick a few adventures I’d be interested in running. Then, I drop 1 to 2 rumors for each point. The goal of the rumor is to give just enough information to the players so they can decide if it’s something interesting to them while not giving too much away. The rumors I used this time are tied to 3 different adventures, a plot happening in the larger world, and two places I thought looked cool.
That night, the group met at Raptappen’s Quadrant as the Wrinkled Medlar was far too fancy for most of them (it had a strict dress code that excluded weapons and armor). Raptappen’s Quadrant was designed to evoke the spirit of the forest; it had mossy green carpet and dark wood paneling. It also had private dining rooms, which allowed the group to discuss what they had learned in peace. After talking it over, they decided to head North towards Fort Vulgar the next day. Several of the rumors seem to point in that direction so they could pursue them all at once. Plus, Chalice-of-Duskviolet pointed out that she was the only person with information that could lead to guaranteed money.
Day 4, Grimvold 4th, 1089
Weather: Deep freeze & hoarfrost
Wandering Encounter: Yes, 3 Stirge Owls
The group set out early in the morning, following the Sweeney Road northeast out of Prigwort. They decided to move slowly, searching for the hidden shrine, and found it after a few hours. A short, overgrown path led to a crumbling 3-foot wide natural staircase that descended to a small natural cave on the side of the cliff 200 feet above the river. Inside, Roland and Molly found an overgrown shrine to Sait Hollyhock the Jubilant. Despite the sad state of the shrine, both of them were excited at the discovery. Several hundred years ago, many of the wayside shrines throughout Dolmenwood began to disappear. By now, the majority of old wayside shrines, outside of those found in towns and villages, had been lost. Finding this shrine after so many years was a major accomplishment for both Sister Molly and Roland, even if they could not currently devote time to properly restoring it. Regardless, they made a note of it on their map and determined to make the church aware of its location.
Unfortunately, as they were preparing to set back out, the group heard a blood-curdling screech and realized that their activities had attracted unwanted attention. Three large owls raced in their direction from a small island in the middle of the river. The white owls were 3’ tall with wickedly curved beaks and moon-like eyes without pupils. Moriah recognized these creatures as Stirge-Owls and informed the group they were more akin to monsters than beasts. Knowing they could not outrun them, the group readied themselves for battle.
A lot of this session revolved around gathering rumors and getting better equipment. It was really interesting listening to them talk through the different options and try to find the most practical solution. They are all very aware of how fragile they are, and I don’t think they feel confident going to explore a full “dungeon” yet. I can’t blame them, especially since you just die if you hit 0hp in Dolmenwood. Coming from more high fantasy games, this feels a bit much. It makes me wonder whether it causes players to be overly risk-averse. I’m not going to make any changes to this game as I want to get used to playing with rules as written, but this is one of the first things I’ve encountered that I think I would change. I’m not sure what I would change it to, but I might just say that you die at the end of the next round so that people at least have a chance to get healed.
The other thing I’m beginning to realize is that while the Dolmenwood setting is exceptionally detailed, there are still a lot of random dice to roll. If you roll a random encounter result, you then need to roll to see if it’s the hex-specific encounter (in this case, it was, so I didn’t need to roll more). If it isn’t, you then roll the encounter type, the encounter table results based on the type, whether the creature is in its lair, the number of monsters, their reaction, their distance, surprise for both the monsters and the party, and an activity. So, if I didn’t get the hex-specific encounter, I would be looking at rolling 13 dice to have all the details for a random encounter.
That is way too many dice for me to roll while asking my players to wait, so I built out a random generator in Perchance. Now, I only have to roll the die to see if there is an encounter and then if it’s unique to the hex. Other than that, the generator does all the work. If anyone is playing Dolmenwood and wants to use it, feel free.
We’ll pick up next time with the group in the middle of combat with three massive owls that like to eat children. (Don’t blame me; it’s literally in the description)
I like to (when possible) roll random encounters ahead of time and between session, though that only works when you assume a slow rate of travel.