Thinwhistle - Dolmenwood Play Reports: Session 7
The group finally finds the source of the eerie pipe music and has to decide what to do with the prisoner
In the last session the group finished clearing out lower levels of the ruined keep where they killed the crookhorn’s leader, rescued Arda, and found the source of the pipe music. They had just gotten to examining the prison door when blue fire lept to Hespers finger as he reached out to touch the door.
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Before we jump in I'm going to continue to work to make these reports more succinct and less narrative. Writing and posting 10,00+ word, play reports each week was not the goal.
Characters
Chalice-of-Duskviolet. Elf Enchanter (Lv1), HP 5/5
Hesper. Breggle Fighter (Lv1) HP 8/8
Sister Molly. Human Nun (Lv1) HP 3/3
Moriah. Human Hunter (Lv1) HP 5/5
Roland. Human Cleric (Lv1) HP 6/6
Day 6, Grimvold 6th, 1089
Weather: Freezing Rain
Wandering Encounter: Yes (See session 5)
After determining that the blue flame was not harmful, the group confirmed the door was magically locked and opened the peep window to see who was in the cell. Inside was a deathly thin, male frost-elf. He had white-gray wild hair like tangled thistledown and wore once-fine clothes, now so old the scraps barely clung to his frame. Near him floated a pan-flute that appeared to be made from small animal bones and sinew, and played the haunting melody they had been hearing all day on its own.
The emaciated elf turned towards them when the metal slide clinked open and they noticed he was singing something though in time with the strange music.
Mallowheart’s mercy, wicked, false,
Sweet it seems, but it bites and gnaws.
Mallowheart’s mercy, it hides a sting,
Lies and pain his gifts do bring.
Seeing the group, the elf scrambled towards the door and asked if they were real. Once he realized they were indeed real he begged them to release him.
Before releasing the strange frost elf into the world they had a few questions for him. They learned his name was Thinwhistle and that he was imprisoned centuries ago for baking Prince Mallowheart’s favorite hounds into a pie.
Roland: “What did you do to get imprisoned for centuries?
Thinwhistle: “Oh that. Well, I baked Mallowheart’s dogs into a pie and fed it to him. He was very angry and gave me his mercy.
When the group had satisfied most of their questions, Thinwhistle asked what they were doing in the ruined fort. He hadn’t seen civilized people in far too long and wondered why they had found their way here.
Thinwhistle: What brings you all here?
Roland: We’re ridding the land of bandits and thieves.
Thinwhistle: Oh! Good for you, I’ve killed plenty of people in my day too. After all, one man’s adventurer is another man’s murderer.
The group took some time to discuss their options out of earshot of Thinwhistle. They didn’t exactly want to leave him here but freeing a frost elf carried a little first given their history with the mortals of Dolmenwood. Roland wasn’t convinced that Thinwhislte wouldn’t attack them, or at least get involved in other mischief elsewhere, and the frost elves’ comments weren’t helping much. Chalice-of-Duskviolet wanted to try and bring him with the group, while Moriah pointed out that Thinwhistle had spent centuries in a 10’x10’ cell and probably wasn’t looking to spend much more time indoors.
Sister Molly finally settled the issue when she said that it went against her beliefs to be cruel enough to leave him locked up for another century and on that, the group agreed. They would release Thinwhistle…if they could figure out how to get it open.
Things were more complicated than they seemed for the group given that Roland and Sister Molly are from the church and “Thinwhistle” is specifically a Frost Elf. A thousand years ago the Frost Elves were the rulers of Dolmenwood before the mortal races arrived. Over time tensions escalated until there was an all-out war between the two sides. Ultimately the Frost Elves were defeated and their ruler, the Cold Prince, was banished to Frigia. In the current time, the Pluratine Church is still the enemy of the Frost Elves so the idea of simply letting a Frost Elf go is more than a little worrying.
Unfortunately, the door seemed well and truly locked and it would take some time for the group to figure out how to open it. They spent the next hour searching the small complex and piecing together the clues they needed to get the magical door open. Finally, after plenty of discussion, they discovered the method to open the door and dispel the arcade lock keeping it shut.
I’ve decided not to go into the details of the ways the group solved the “puzzle” to get the magical door open. First, while there are going to be plenty of spoilers in these reports, a lot of people interested in Dolmenwood will play this adventure and I don't want to ruin the puzzle. In my opinion, it's pretty well done and that's rare.
Second, I'm trying to keep these play reports a little more succinct, and explaining how the players explored this area, put together the clues, and came up with the final solution would only really be effective if I were writing these as a full narrative. It doesn’t feel exciting to just list the steps the group took to find the answer.
However, what I do want to do is talk about how I approach this as a GM for just a second. My 15 years of experience running games has taught me that unless you have the perfect group most people don't want to spend two hours trying to figure out a puzzle. And on top of that, we all kind of know that Players need more clues than you often think they will. So in this case, I made a list of five clues that would help them find the solution to the puzzle. I noted where they were originally found in the dungeon, but I also made notes about where else they might find these clues. The goal here was to make it as easy as possible for them to find the information they would need to solve the problem. I think it worked out pretty well because it only took them 20 minutes, but did involve all of the players talking to each other to piece together the solution.
Thinwhistle was overjoyed at his freedom after centuries after centuries in a 10' x 10’Thin whistle was overjoyed at his freedom after centuries after spending centuries in a 10’ x 10’ cell. In return for freeing them, he promised them a priceless reward. He led them through a secret door that the group hadn’t found, to a small frozen pool with a stunningly beautiful chalice at the bottom. Thinwhistle told one of the mortals (so not Chalice-of-Duskviolet) to bleed onto the ice, which melted the ice and allowed them to retrieve the chalice. Inside was a small amount of odd liquid that changed color every few seconds. Thinwhistle informed them it was “time”.
With the ruins fully explored the group made their way back to the surface and thanks to Moriah’s exceptional tracking skills they avoided getting lost on the trip back to Mallowheart’s Repose. As they got closer to the Inn, Thinwhistle started to get antsy about being around too many people. He was ready to leave back into the wilderness but Sister Molly convinced the frost-elf to at least meet her at the back of Inn for a good meal. Thinwhistle agreed and thanked her for her kindness. He was sure that their paths would cross again.
While Sister Molly once again cooked in the kitchen, the group noticed that Arda seemed glued to Chalice-of-Duskviolet’s side. He was especially pleased when she tossed him a gold coin for his services.
During the evening’s rest, the group was able to identify the strange substance they found in the chalice. It was a single dose of Liquid Time, an incredibly powerful potion that allowed the imbiber to function at inhuman speed for a significant amount of time. The group also finally reached level 2!
In addition to more HP, several characters picked up some helpful features. Chalice-of-Duskviolet randomly rolled and got a new rune and glamor. Moriah’s survival has gotten better so there is less of a chance of liquid time. Roland can finally cast spells (so now the group has 2 healers) and acquired his cleric order, The Order of St Faxis. They are devoted to rooting out practitioners of dark magic. The only disappointing level-up was Sister Molly. She only rolled a 1 for her HP so even at level 2 she still only has 4 total HP.
Day 7, Grimvold 7th, 1089
Weather: Frigid & Icy
Wandering Encounter: Yes (10 Drune Braithmaids in their lair, group surprises them)
The group was pretty clear that the goal today was to get to Fort Vulgar with minimal distractions. When random encounter got rolled it also showed that the group would surprise the enemy. Because of this, I decided to put the random encounter further off the road. They would hear a handful of voices in the woods but could easily just avoid them if they wanted to.
The group set out from Mallowheart’s Repose with a focused intent of getting to Fort Vulgar without distractions. They crossed the bridges over the River Shiver and the River Shub, which flowed with a corrupted foaming purple water.
Not long after crossing the second bridge, the group heard a group of female voices coming from somewhere in the trees off the road. They very quickly decided to avoid it.
After a long day of travel, the group arrived at the somewhat depressing “town” of Fort Vulgar. It was a small town with a single dingy inn, a rundown chapel, and a dilapidated keep just outside the main town. The population couldn’t be more than 100 people.
The sun had already set so the group quickly went about finding places to stay for the night. Sister Molly and Roland took the group’s treasure and went to stay at the Chapel of St Dougan in town. The hope was that someone might be less likely to steal the groups hard earned loot if it was inside the church. They were also able to pray at the shrine to St Dougan and learn the prayer of St Dougan’s Discernment, allowing them to cast and prepare Detect Disguise.
Detect Disguise is an “uncommon” spell in Dolmenwood, meaning that it isn’t one that characters can normally prepare. It isn’t on anyone’s spell list. I decided that since it was a Rank that Roland and Sister Molly could prepare it would be cool if they could add it to their list of “known” spells and prepare it whenever they wanted. I’ve found that players love new spells.
The rest of the group spent the night at The Chooks Knob, the only Inn in town, if it could be called that. There were no seats in the common area, just people standing around at tables. They learned that the common eating area was also the common sleeping area, they simply shoved the tables to the side and slept on the floor. This mortified Chalice-of-Duskviolet, she and the rest of the group gladly paid for the only two actual rooms in the Inn.
While it wasn’t the best sleeping arrangement, at least they weren’t sleeping on the floor of a dining area.
I had a lot of fun with this session. I tried to play Thinwhistle as a less insane/evil Gollum. I really wanted to lean into the lack of “normal” morals that a fae imprisoned for centuries might have. While I have a lot of challenges with the length of the book, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has some amazing descriptions of the fae and faerie. One of my favorite quotes that I tried to lean into with Thinwhistle is:
Chaston wrote that men and fairies both contain within them a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. In men reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies it is the other way round: magic comes very naturally to them, but by human standards they are barely sane.
I’m also wondering whether Arda’s infatuation with Chalice-of-Duskviolet will develop into anything else in the future.
Next time, we’ll have a special post about Faction Turns! Until then, stay curious.
P.S. - I clearly failed to be succinct and less narrative, we're still at 10-minute-long posts.