Vignettes From the Wood - 1
My group was supposed to restart our Dolmenwood campaign last week, but unfortunately we ended up having to cancel the session due to a few players being unavailable. Normally we’d carry on, but it didn’t feel right to restart our primary campaign without the whole crew there. So, instead of my planned session recap I’m instead going to write up a few highlights of the campaign until this point.
A bit of background: We started this campaign nearly two years ago, and are roughly 40 sessions in. We’ve taken some breaks here and there to play other games, but this is the campaign we keep coming back to. It was originally begun using house-ruled Old School Essentials (aka D&D B/X), but when we start up again we are switching to the Dolmenwood rules (further house-ruled B/X, essentially).
I’m very lucky to have players that write up session recaps, so I have a lot of material at my fingertips. Even if the primary author is out for a session, someone always picks up the slack. Not only is it fun to be able to go back and read past events, the session recap document has proven invaluable for playing in a large sandbox with lots of moving pieces. In addition to the recaps, the players also have notes about pending tasks and events, as well as notes about the contents of specific locations.
Below are the members of the adventuring company at the time of the events described, and their retainers. Some of them are no longer with us (RIP Jeb and Teg). Early on, the company was dubbed “Marrow’s Merry Men” by Sir Marrow. Even though all the other players hate the name, it has stuck.
Dramatis Personae (Character - Class)
Utrid - Human Fighter
- Hog - 18 Strength (!) Human Bard Retainer
Sir Marrow Molossus - Human Knight
- Lionel - Marrow’s Human squire
Locke Darkshanks - Human Thief
- Jeb - Human Retainer
Karook - Human Cleric of St. Signis
- Teg - Human Retainer
Vellumna Cuthbert - Human Magician
- Denton - Human Hunter Retainer
Without further ado, two tales from the early days of Marrow’s Merry Men (and Vellumna)…
The Tower of Flaming Stuffed Animals
Wherein the party screws up their approach and somehow (mostly) salvages the situation.
The party journeyed to an abandoned abbey to search for the missing Violet Harrowmoor, daughter of local ruler Lady Harrowmoor. Using a doll of the girl’s, Sir Marrow set his bloodhound on the scent and they tracked her to an old belltower. Despite suspecting that an undead crow monster that can bewitch children (a Gloam) was involved, they entered the tower at full volume - complete with baying hounds. The party quickly found the girl they were looking for, plus two other kids, though none of the children wanted to leave and abandon their good friend Mister Rag-in-bones. In fact they assured the party he was coming to play with the would-be-rescuers right that moment.
Cue a frantic flight from the tower, children snatched up and forcibly rescued. The party members carrying the kids (Marrow and Karook) fled the tower, while the rest stayed in the base of the belltower in hopes of heading off or parlaying with the creature. Mister Rag-in-bones, as a flock of undead crows, boiled out of the belfry and down through the tower in pursuit. I rolled ridiculously high on the reaction roll, so he was stalled for a round while the party tried to bargain with him. The gloam soon heard the screams of the kids outside and left to pursue the party members who were running, followed closely by Locke the thief who posted up with his bow outside the tower.
This resulted in Marrow and his squire Lionel dropping the two kids they were carrying to stand and fight the Gloam (who changed into his non-flock form), along with Marrow’s loyal dogs. Karook ran away as fast as he could with an uncooperative Violet, fleeing to the road and hopping on a riding horse. Locke tried to support Marrow from a distance with his bow, but had an unlucky streak of rolls. Meanwhile, the other half of the party (Vellumna, Utrid, and Hog) decided to run up the belltower in hope of finding something useful to bargain with. Lo and behold, they found the Gloam’s trophy room (Gloams obsessively collect things) - countless stuffed animals with human teeth sewn into them…teeth gathered by the children from the graveyard! They snatched a few that looked important and ran up to the top of the tower.
They rang the bell and fired arrows at Rag-in-bones to draw its attention, threatening to torch the stuffed animals. It ignored them initially (knocking Lionel the squire unconscious and inflicting a deadly rot disease on the Knight and his two dogs), before they lit a stuffed bear up and tossed it. The bear descended from the tower like a betoothed plushie comet. That was too much for old Mister Rag-in-bones, and it changed back to flock form to fly up to the tower belfry. The magic-user doused the rest of the collection in oil in the interim, and when the Gloam arrived threatened to turn the whole collection to ash if they weren’t allowed to leave with Violet. This seemed like a good time to roll a morale check for the Gloam, given the threat and the damage done to it by Marrow with his magic blade. The Gloam failed! This was too much for the creature and he begrudgingly allowed the party to leave with Violet, promising death should they ever return.
Unfortunately for the other two children, the party was primarily concerned with survival and getting Violet out. As far as the party knows, they’re still there helping Mr. Rag-in-bones make his creepy dolls…
Magic Mushrooms and Arson and Kidnapping, Oh My
Wherein the party kind of threatens to burn down a tavern and accidentally attempts kidnapping.
In one of the early non-adventure highlights of the game, the party triumphantly returned to Prigwort (home base for a time) after rescuing Violet Harrowmoor. After being lauded as heroes and receiving a hefty reward they piddled around town, spending some of their new wealth on mycological treats from Wyrmspittle the alchemist before heading to a local tavern to set up an appointment to see a famous tailor (Brandybile) the following day. Utrid’s retainer, Hog, had recently gained class levels and became a Bard. The party had the grand idea to spend the evening at the Wrinkled Medlar and convince the Bardic Guild representative (Sprewdiman Kneeve) to allow Hog to play on stage. Several players had to dip out of the session early, but we continued on with the night on the town…not expecting how eventful it would be.
With a good reaction roll and a sizeable donation, Kneeve reluctantly agreed to allow Hog up on stage. Now…way back when characters were created, I had my players roll random trinkets. Utrid happened to roll an elf-bone flute that makes no sound during the day, but plays a haunting melody at night - but once you start playing you can’t stop until daybreak. Well, Utrid had the bright idea to lend the flute to Hog the Bard for his debut performance. In an effort to get on the good side of Kneeve and the co-owner of the Medlar, Maydrid Hydball, Hog used his musical prowess to fascinate them. One problem though - he couldn’t stop playing (and the fascinate ability lasts as long as the bard plays!). I don’t know if Utrid’s player forgot or just wanted to watch the world burn, but I wasn’t complaining about this hilarious confluence of trinket and ability.
Meanwhile, Utrid ate a Puck’s Ear mushroom he bought from Wyrmspittle and ended up in a stupor for hours. As a side effect of the mushroom, an invisible-to-everyone-but-Utrid sprite manifested and tried to mess with him by mimicking his voice and yelling things out. “Utrid” screamed at a performer that he sucked and should get off stage. Angry with the possibly not-real sprite, Utrid unsuccessfully tried to grab it and eat it, which only angered the sprite further. As the coup-de-grace before flying out a window, it yelled out in Utrid’s voice that it wanted to burn the Wrinkled Medlar to the ground and murder everyone inside.
Needless to say, by now the patrons and staff are highly concerned. Utrid is apparently talking to himself and yelling frightening things. Hog has been playing flute for a half hour at this point, nonstop, despite yells for him to clear the stage for the next performance. Kneeve is doing nothing to get him off stage and Maydrid has completely stopped welcoming guests or assisting people with accommodations due to being fascinated by the Minstrel. Eventually Maydrid’s brothers, the other owners of the establishment, come out and yell at the party to leave while arming themselves with clubs and knives. The Hydball brothers accuse the party of sorcery and witchcraft for ensorcelling their sister and Kneeve, which offends Vellumna given that she is actually a sorceress and has probably had too many drinks at this point.
The party finally has the sense to leave, but since Hog can’t stop playing…Maydrid and Kneeve follow him outside. The now extremely alarmed Hydball brothers raise an angry mob to follow the party, while someone runs off to get the guards. By this point, Vellumna is getting even angrier that they’re being followed by an angry mob who is threatening them (even though they’ve essentially kidnapped the enchanted Maydrid and Kneeve) so she threatens to magic the mob in return and is accused of being a witch. Finally, realizing that things are about to take a very bad turn, Vellumna casts sleep on Hog, thus ending his enchantment of the two people and somewhat defusing the situation. The rest of the party fled immediately, running off into the dark streets, while Vellumna stayed to talk to the guards.
In the end their reputation and the fact that no one was actually hurt saved them from anything more than being banned from the Medlar and losing their Brandybile’s appointments. Vellumna’s new mission in life is to ruin the Medlar, despite the fact that pretty much everything was entirely the party’s fault (they will tell you that this is not true - they are mistaken). I’m sure there won’t be any lasting consequences from this near-disaster!