Dolmenwood Session 2

27 Haelhold, 12pm. Peering into the darkness past the now-open secret door and down a corridor, the party was able to see, at the edge of sight and past their fogging breath, a circular pool in the floor of a larger room. They’d been told by Famine-Whistles-Whither that the pool would be frozen, and it would require their blood to clear the ice away. After some debate about whose blood and how much they’d need, ever-chivalric Shander pricked his finger and let fall a drop. With a sizzling sound, the ice receded from the center of the pool to leave a 2’ hole in the ice, below which they could see a chalice. Shander tested the water with his pinkie [do breggles have pinkies? We decided they do] and it was colder than any water he’d ever felt. They decided to go looking for a bucket.

Retreating to Grobnott’s room, where the noxious smell of the candles was dissipating, they opted to also open up the treasure chest they’d found there¹. Shander used his dagger to pop open the lock and was surprised and relieved to see a poisoned needle erupt from the lock nowhere near his skin. They found no small amount of treasure inside – coins and a couple of bracelets – as well as a letter in Gaffe (which both Shander and Hogrid, being a student of languages) can speak. Apparently there’s a person in Prigwort who has spies in the constabulary. Intrigue! But later. Loot calls.

With their bucket in hand, they returned to the pool, which fairly quickly froze back over. Oblom was interested in possibly bleeding the addled Arda Vague they’d saved from the reek of the candles (who they’d told to hide in one of the cells and try to escape the keep if they didn’t return in an hour), but Shander merely pricked his thumb again and bought them the time they needed. Ultimately, they tied a rope to the bucket, sank it with iron spikes, then used Oblom’s staff to push the chalice into the bucket and lift it back up.

The chalice, in spite of its jostling, held a potion of some kind. Shander gave it a taste and found himself moving rapidly. The patch of fur below his mouth turned white. Curious! The chalice itself was a fetching thing. With their sought prize, the party then turned their thoughts to escape.

They grabbed Arda and tried to sneak back out of the hole they’d come down, passing through the stirge lair. They all managed to move quietly enough save for our poor addled youth, Arda, who tripped over the desiccated corpse and disturbed the stirges with his yelp. The horrible creatures immediately attacked, two of them attaching themselves to Hogrid and draining him to unconsciousness. Oblom cast Ignite on one of them, then Shander stabbed one with his dagger, and the rest fled in terror. The party lifted up their unconscious friend and were just stuffing him up the hole when they heard Grobnott ask loudly, “Who’s been stirring up the stirges?!” With a good bit of effort, they managed to push themselves up the hole. Oblom attempted to distract the crookhorn at the top of the watchtower by flinging iron spikes but they managed to only land with a thud on the grass. Luckily, the lookout was distracted by goings-on in the keep, where apparently Grobnott had returned empty-handed in his search for Famine-Whistles-Whither. The elf had escaped into the forst, and now, too, did the party.

They stabilized Hogrid enough that he would last the journey back to Prigwort. They plied Arda for details, about how he’d been captured and what more he knew about Droomen Knoll. Before sundown, they made it to town and went straight to Arda’s house, where his mother Brunhilde was overjoyed to see him. She tended to Hogrid and pushed a bag of 200 gold coins into the party’s arms as thanks. They accepted her invitation to sleep there that night, and before bed, around the table, they discussed the haul of the day. Brunhilde had shushed their talk of crookhorns in the street, telling them to keep their voices down about those awful creatures. Arda mentioned that the stone they’d found that granted a vision to the holder would be most interesting to the town’s preeminent magician, Mostlemyre Drouge. With these bits of intrigue dancing in their heads, we called the session for the night.

GM Notes

Much smoother go-round this time, although I was rusty enough with combat, ability checks, and travel that I had to do small pauses to look things up. I also could not for the life of me find out how healing-for-pay works, and couldn’t recall how the 3D6DTL does it, so I just outright told the party that Hogrid would regain 1HP for a restful night in town and they should settle for that. He would then be able to heal himself.

Speaking of Hogrid, and combat – hoo boy was I not expecting to lose anyone to stirges. The nominal death rules for Dolmenwood are definitely steep. I really dislike that there must be a magic healing intervention in order to stave off death saves. I don’t like incentivizing potions and tons of healing as the counter to bodily risk. So I called it on the spot. I did do the thing where I took death off the table immediately. For stirges, I just think the cost/benefit didn’t add up for me. I may give Hogrid a nasty puncture scar as a reminder, but I wasn’t going to kill him that quickly. Especially since the player’s Werner Herzog character voice is such a delight.

I think, still, I am continuing to wrestle with throwing the party in the deep end on OSRness. But I do honestly think this was the right call. Fortunately, it shouldn’t be so dire next time, because the party brought home a mountain of treasure (especially if you include the Liquid Time potion, which I’m opting to do for the moment) – $6620, or $2206 per player. Along with their Feats of Exploration from the last session and this session, and their fat 75 XP(!) for running off 5 stirges, they will all hit level 2 at the start of next session. And Shander is going to be most unamused that he merely rolls hit points and gets nothing more than that. OSR!