Vignettes From the Wood - 2
Here are some more stories from my Dolmenwood game. The game is moving again (and the next session is tonight), so I hope to do a blogpost covering the past few sessions next week!
I’ve only included the relevant party members below. Still sorting out the aesthetics of the character listing, but PCs are bolded and retainers are italicized.
Dramatis Personae
- Utrid (Human Fighter)
- Sir Marrow Molossus (Human Knight)
- Locke Darkshanks (Human Thief)
- Karook (Human Cleric of St. Signis)
- Teg (Human Retainer of Karook ~ RIP)
- Vellumna Cuthbert (Human Magician)
- Flair (Human Magician)
Wait, Don’t We Own a Manor?
I ran the Waking of Willowby Hall with my Dolmenwood crew some time ago (some minor Willowby spoilers in this paragraph). They got through it (mostly) unscathed, only losing one retainer - RIP Teg the retainer, yanked out through a window of the manor by a giant and then pitched about 200 feet away into a tree. The mage from the rival party, Apocalypse Anne, didn’t make it (killed by the owlbear and further crushed by the giant) - though she tried to screw over the party and her comrades in order to keep the goose, so few tears were shed. Afterwards, Locke tried to hire Lisbet, the thief from the rival party, as a retainer but she refused (bad hiring reaction roll). Locke was annoyed and decided to bad talk her around the thieves guild in Brackenwold in order to destroy her reputation, spending a downtime action to do so. The party also got a deed to the manor, had it ratified by officials, and were excited to use it as their home base. The party then promptly left the region to travel south and left no one behind at the manor to guard it (!). Rest assured that I confirmed this with the group several times.
A month later in-game….
Of course, the world couldn’t allow the party to leave a whole empty manor unguarded for a month with no consequences. In a perfect confluence of circumstances, I recalled Lisbet the thief, whose reputation in Brackenwold had been damaged by Locke. Lisbet, having lost the ability to ply her trade in the city of Brackenwold, took up banditry on the roads. Every good bandit crew needs a base…I’m sure you see where this is going.
The party finally sent several party members (Vellumna and Flair) and retainers back to the manor with a wagonload of gold to hire workers to make repairs to the manor and finally set up a home base. On the way back, they heard rumors about increased banditry along the road near the manor. They finally arrived to find it occupied by Lisbet’s bandit crew, with lookouts on the roof and the fully-repaired ballista aimed at their wagon. Locke wasn’t with them and Vellumna had helped to save Lisbet’s life, so Lisbet magnanimously let the two wizards leave without a fuss (“Tell Darkshanks if he wants a job shining my boots, he can come back here and grovel for it!”). The looks on the players’ faces when they found the manor occupied by Lisbet was priceless.
The party proceeded to rustle up a mercenary company in order to retake the manor by force, but that’s a tale for another time…
Duels Under a Starry Sky
Baron Hogwarsh held a tournament in order to curry favor from the other lords and, let’s be real, to have a good time. The crowning event of the tournament was a 16 fighter dueling bracket fought under the open night sky of a new moon night. 4 PCs participated, 2 on one side of the bracket and 2 on the other. Other major Dolmenwood NPCS involved (aside from random knights) included Cabruc Lockhorn, Garnack the Horse, Mollish Nag (now buds with the party after a drinking contest at his inn and invigorated to attend the tournament after hearing of their adventures), and Malbleat’s massive half-goat monstrosity of a son - Crump (statted as an Ogre with slightly higher AC due to armor).
Side note: I used Emmy Allen’s dueling rules for this tournament (linked below), to great effect. The players really enjoyed it, even the ones who were just betting on the sidelines.
Sir Marrow, one of the PCs and a knight of High Hankle, ended up killing (!) Garnack the Horse in round 2 despite my very generous death and dying rules (he rolled a 1 on a d6, and then failed a death save). Garnack’s warhammer joined the prizes for the winner.
Two of the PCs were knocked out in round 1. Marrow and Utrid ended up fighting in the semi-finals. After a close match, Marrow won and faced Crump in the finals. Marrow handily beat the shit out of Crump and then nearly killed him as well (Crump rolled a 1 but passed his death save), cutting off his hand.
I couldn’t have predicted a better arc for the duels. Malbleat and Crump are none too happy, but Malbleat played nice for the remainder of the tournament due to Marrow being in service to Baron Hogwarsh. Malbleat is already suspicious of the party for the party minstrel enchanting the Baron during the opening ceremony. I can’t wait to see where this goes - I’m sure it isn’t the last we’ll see of Crump Malbleat.
Emmy Allen’s ‘Duels in OSR’ post: https://cavegirlgames.blogspot.com/2018/06/duels-in-osr.html