I bought myself the Dolmenwood Books for my birthday this year, and as my Tuesday Night group wrapped up a Beyond the Wall game, the hosts of our usual haunt were quite excited to try it out.
Since I'm trying to get comfortable with the particularities of an
OSE-esque rule-set after coming off of Beyond the Wall and Other
Adventures, and getting our schedules aligned, it took a few sessions
to get characters created. But with out crew assembled, we
began in earnest last night.
The Cast for Session 1:
Addle Forlow: A breggle hunter who left the life of an onion farmer seeking fortune
Chimm Chimmney: A woodgrue bard with a chipper disposition and penchant for parties, arson, and the co-mingling of the two.
Rosy Russula: A mossling friar, sincere devotee of the One True God, and friend of all things tuberous and mycelial
I began the the adventure in medias res, since jumping into the action is great, and gave me a session to familiarize myself with this group's quirks (so as to better pick a starting town for their their base of operations). The group, given all three starting plot hooks, remained wary of the fort. Chimm, recognizing the otherworldly notes of the thin piping amidst the drunken raucousness coming from the fort, feared the eldritch notes and quietly played a counter-charm to keep the party safe.
Slowly, the group circled the building widdershins, sticking to the treeline as the studied the place. Avoiding a crookhorn woman's watchful gaze, they ran across the gap to take refuge in the sheltering veil of clematis vines. Pressing through this green veil yielded a view of four drunken crookhorn breggles, making a ruckus in the breggle tongues as they feasted on roast deer and woodgrue haunch.
Addle knew she was
the only person in the group who spoke Gaffe and Caprice, so she
volunteered to disguise herself as a crookhorn. Thrugh turning her
clothes inside out, painting ehrself in filth and (in a most
ingenious move by Rosy) wrapping her horns in a coiled rope turban,
she ventured forth, passing herself off as “the new transfer” The
crookhorns, addled with booze, took her on, and jeered at the “piping
bastard down below” while lamenting “Boss Grobnott’s bad
moods”
Rosy, after questioning the clematis roots about
who else in the fort, was rewarded with the answer of the leader, the
prisoner, the ancient”. Nipping past the crookhorn party, she
descended the stair, and bribed the drowsy rooster with some of her
rations. .
Chimm, meanwhile, wanted to help! So that meant
barging into Addle’s little group of newfound friend, beginning to
play the pipes, and encouraging a bit of Mad Revelry! Everyone around
the bonfire, save Addle, failed – and the clever little Woodgrue
decided to take the lead the Corokhorns towards that crumbled tower!
It all so went well,at first! Grip fell down the hole, and the other breggles began to goad one anotehr into rough-housing, and even as the Stirges emerged, the party seemed to be going well! But then, Chimm decided to run back to the bonfire and light a torch, to burn the stirges with – and his enchanted song stopped! And it was here that everything began to come undone.
At first, things proceeded well. Crookhorns fought stirges, and stirges fought crookhorns, and all was wonderful. But then - woe of woes! - Drogba the drunk recognized what was happening, and cried “Get him!” as he pointied at the woodgrue. Addle , faking in-group loyalty, “attacked”, but the clever woodgrue knew clued into her ruse and they performed a stunt worthy of wrestling kayfabe, and both booked to the stairs down below.
And then, Chimm sealed their fates. Darting down the stairs, he threw open the door, hoping to find a place to hide. What he found was Grobnott, stoned on hallucinogenic smoke, flying into a rage. Chimm whipped out a flask of lamp oil and threw it at the candles, causing a conflagration (for all the good it did him.) The captive lad Arda Vague was illuminated by the light, but it mattered little to Chimm – Grobnott’s club squished him flat. Rosy Russula tried to hold off the oncoming Crookhorns, and three spears made short work of the Mossling holy woman.
Only Addle managed to survive, by bluffing (and tactically releasing the staked, mutant cockerel. Grabbing the drugged Arda Vauge, he yelled at the Crookhorns to get busy extinguishing the boss-man’s fire, and carried the dissociated youth back to the safety of civilization.
The Aftermath
So that was my first Dolemwood game! 2/3rds of the party dead, one person with 400GP in their pocket and 400 XP closer to leveling! It was a fun time! I reckon I’ve got some points of improvement to work on. I’ll need to be better at remembering some of the interactions. e.g. I just let the Breggle Bluffs pass rather than doing Reaction Rolls, and I had to re-read the Combat Procedure to keep doing Initiative right. I’ll definitely have to remember to make Morale checks when NPCs die – having at least one fewer Crookhorn in that fight might have made the difference between Rosy being much or not.
I’m worried I
might be a little too straitlaced and by-the-book, since I’m a
little uneasy with how I’m managing my player’s attention (e.g. I
told the Mossling player doing scouting that she could forage for
mushrooms after we completed
the scenario rather than during the exploration, since I didn’t
want to have to flip to the
Foraging rules while other players were deciding their actions).
I feel these will go away
with enough familiarity with the process
I
also think drawing out the maps ahead of time might benefit us,
especially since I got the scales quite
wrong during transcription. Our group has limited time to play
(typically 2 hours, depending on health issues and rides) so
saving time by having maps good-to-go… but I’ll likely end up
doing more prep at home. As I already did some prep dividing up the
Monster Book’s PDF into adventure-specific to have on-hand (I don’t
have the physical copy of this yet, thanks to a moronic Trade War no
one asked for), this sin’t
too much fo a chore, but it’s still time I’ll have to spend.
I may also encourage my players to read some of the procedures. The General OSR Procedure is a good one to have in mind, and is very similar to the Dolmenwood one (for good reason.) I’d also suggest some of Dungeon and Overland procedures, just so we’re all fresh on what needs to be done.
Overall, though, my group had a lot of fun! I felt bad I killed two characters , they were good sports about it, and the survivor is strangely pleased to have made it out alive, and with her rewards!
I have no idea what I'm going to try next - perhaps they'll putter about the starting settlement (I'm thinking it might be Lankshorn) - or maybe I'll delve next into Winter's Daughter.... but I think once we get over this learning curve, it'll work!
