Fort Vulgar - Dolmenwood Play Reports: Session 8
The group spends the day in Fort Vulgar before continuing their search for the missing bard, Gerigrew Thorncripe.
In the last session, the group traveled to Fort Vulgar in search of the missing bard, Gerigrew Thorncripe.
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You can find the prior play report here and the full play report index here.
Characters
Chalice-of-Duskviolet. Elf Enchanter (Lv2), HP 10/10
Hesper. Breggle Fighter (Lv2) HP 15/15
Sister Molly. Human Nun (Lv2) HP 4/4
Moriah. Human Hunter (Lv2) HP 13/13
Roland. Human Cleric (Lv2) HP 12/12
Day 8, Grimvold 8th, 1089
Weather: Relentless Wind
Wandering Encounter: No
Roland and Sister Molly arrived at The Chooks Nob to find the locals trying to convince the rest of the group to get tentacle tattoos as a souvenir of their first visit. They all strongly declined and turned to discussing the rumors they heard in the tavern and church the night before.
Crookhorn soldiers were blockading a bridge to the north, partway up Quogg’s Crook. They were charging tolls to travelers passing by land or by water. Though sometimes the crookhorns simply attacked the caravans without warning.
Moriah and Chalice-of-Duskviolet heard opposing rumors about a burnt cottage north of town. Moriah was told that at night, spirits of long-dead witches gathered and traded in secrets. Those who approached with deference could learn powerful secrets of the Dolmenwood. Chalice-of-Duskviolet, however, heard of those same witches' spirits but that they were vengeful. They supposedly hunted morals in the woods at night. Vicious and evil, the whole of Dolmenwood would be safer with the spirits gone.
Since the group was pretty focused, I figured they wouldn’t pursue any of these rumors, but I like to give them out anyway. It makes the game feel a little bit more “alive,” and it gives the players more options for things to do. In this specific instance, I decided to give the rumors to the players privately about 15 minutes before the session started. This let each player explain the rumors they heard to the group and led to an interesting discussion when they realized they had received conflicting information. Not that it mattered a great deal because once again, the group remained laser-focused on their goal, LOL.
They also asked around about Gerigrew, and the inn’s owner, a breggle woman named Brewigg Shankwolde, told them he had been through a while back. She remembered how talented the bard was and that he was looking for some woman. Oddly, he didn’t seem to be seeking her romantically because he talked a lot about his girl back in Prigwort. She told them if they wanted more information, they should speak to Sir Osric at the keep. The bard had stayed at the keep, and Sir Osric would have more information, though for her part, Brewigg was pretty convinced he was dead.
The group headed towards the Keep when they encountered two odd-looking characters. They were unkempt and mumbling to themselves. One of them stumbled into Roland as if drunk, shoved a clay cup into his hands, and loudly proclaimed,
Eat of the blessing of the lake! Consume the small flesh of our Lord Big Chook, and let his feast open your mind!
With that, the two men stumbled on.
Roland looked into the cup and saw that it was filled with dirt and dozens of plump worms… blood-red worms. Suddenly, the end of one worm split open, and a mouth gaped open at the cleric. To his horror, the worm’s “mouth” was filled with human teeth. Roland dropped the cup and raced back to grab one of the two men. He demanded to know what the worms were, and the two men simply told him it was the flesh of their lord. Roland then wanted to know where they found the abominations.
The two seemingly insane men led the group to the trees that lined the road leading to the Keep. The trees were twisted and gnarled, and in the dirt beneath the trees, the group found more of the red worms with human mouths.
Roland and Sister Molly spent a few moments trying to determine if there was anything they could do for these two men before finally deciding that they were too far gone. With a sense of mounting unease, the group continued to the keep.
When I was reading about Fort Vulgar and the areas around it, a few things jumped out at me as being exceptionally creepy, so I decided to lean into it. I wanted Fort Vulgar to feel like a horrifying place that no one in their right mind would actually want to live in. These were my traits for the town:
Fort Vulgar: [Militant, Ramshackle, Afraid, Horror] I think it worked because they were all freaked out by the worms and their unease only got worse in the next session. Very quickly, they all started trying to figure out how to wrap up their task here.
After arriving at the keep, there was a bit of a mix-up when the group told Sir Osric’s squires that they had eliminated the Crookhorns nearby. They quickly realized that the squire was far too excited by the prospect of 7 dead Crookhorns and must be thinking of a different Crookhorn problem. This was confirmed when Sir Osric, a tall, broad-chested human with a remarkably fabulous mustache, hurried to greet them. The Lord of Fort Vulgar looked them over and skeptically asked if they had indeed dealt with the encampment of 50 or more Crookhorns to the north.
They quickly explained the misunderstanding. They had encountered and dealt with a small group of Crookhorns at some ruins several days to the southeast of Fort Vulgar. Sir Osric explained that the area around Fort Vulgat had been dealing with increased Crookhorn activity lately, and he was aware of a large band to the north under the command of a Captain Snarkscorn.
The Crookhorns patrolling the rivers and woods between Fort Vulgar and Prigwort had become an ever-increasing problem for the last few weeks. Sir Osric offered to pay the group well for any intelligence they could gather on the Crookhorn forces to the north.
The group told him they were actually there trying to find the bard Gerigrew and asked what he knew. Sir Osric told them that the bard had been at the keep several weeks ago before setting off to the west. He confirmed that Gherigrew was in search of a woman. He also mentioned that he had received several of Maydrid’s letters and had tried to convince her not to get her hopes up. He genuinely believed that Gherigrew was dead. But if the group wanted to try and track him down, he suggested they head west into the marsh. He warned them that if they did go in search of the bard, they needed to be cautious about the Lamprey Men that dwelt there. They were known to the locals as Galoshers and were said to capture wanderers and consume their dreams.
The group asked about the insane individuals they met and the red human-mouthed worms. Sir Osric told them that he had no idea what caused the red worms. They had started appearing years ago, and no one was ever able to determine the cause. As for the insane people in town, they were called “Chookers”. They were the few mortals that had come into contact with Big Chook and survived, though their sanity had not. Big Chook was a horrific entity that lived in Lake Longmere, the massive lake to the south of Fort Vulgar. It took the form of a massive fish with three cockral heads and a body covered in hooked barbs and weeping eyes. It was solely responsible for the cesasion of almost all marine traffic on the lake.
Worse, it seemed like the creature was immortal. He had been killed before by a large group of knights in service to the church. Their victory had come at great cost, but it was all for nothing. Big Chook appeared again on the next full moon, and since then, the lake had been avoided.
The group was now even more convinced that Fort Vulgar was just a terrible place. They wanted to find Gherigrew and get out of town.
Before heading into the swamp, they wrapped up a few more things in town. They deposited some additional funds in the bank while Chalice-of-Duskviolet secured rooms at the Keep from Sir Osric rather than stay another night at The Chooks Knob. Roland also asked around town about the Lamprey Men, trying to gather as much information he could. He learned the creatures were large humanoid sized masses of eels. They had the ability appear as whomever their viewer would find most beautiful, and rumors said they fed on the dreams of their captives.
Roland did an incredible job of trying to find out as much information as possible about the Lamprey men so they could be prepared. I really like this level of prep from players since it lets me get the players information that could be helpful for what is coming. Dolmenwood’s monster book helps with this by having a small list of rumors for each monster.
After purchasing a few supplies, the group set out west, hoping to find their missing bard.
Moriah had no luck finding any tracks, so the group spent several hours winding their way through the bog before the water nearby began to roil and bubble. The group lept to defensive positions, while Chalice-of-Duskviolet used her glamor to turn her clothes into a bush, hiding both herself and Arda.
Most of the group watched as a horrific mass of lamprey eels roughly in the shape of the large humanoid burst from the water and began to move towards them. Sister Molly, though, saw something quite different. She saw a Solar in service to her god and began to rush to his side!
The characters are really starting to not like Fort Vulgar. The players keep calling it the “armpit of Dolmenwood” and have even joked about getting a giant “Welcome to Fort Vulgar” billboard and having it just say EAT OF HIS SMALL FLESH! It’s honestly amazing, and I’m definitely leaning into it. I’m playing Sir Osric as trying to get assigned to a different posting, the priest in town as hoping to get reassigned, things like that.
The group is making good use of banks too, so I did some looking at the whole “banking” think in Dolemnwood. After perusing a few Discord posts, I landed on solutions we’ll use for this game. I wanted it to be as simple as possible but still a benefit for the players. So I landed on a few things:
All Banks in Dolmenwood are connected. It doesn’t seem even remotely fun to have to keep track of which city you deposited money in the bank and then have to go get it.
The group can deposit their money, but if they withdraw it before the following month, there is a 10% fee
Any funds left in the bank until the following month earns 3% interest
We’ll pick up next time with the group engaged in combat with more than a few Lamprey men. Until then, stay curious!
Great write up. Thar Fort seems like a great place to take a vacation.