Dolmenwood Ponderings - On the Soul
As I gear up for my Dolmenwood campaign I’m pondering little bits of lore as I want to run it. These may be considered as doctrine or true by characters in setting, but doesn’t mean it is the Absolute Truth.
On Souls
The immortal creatures of fairy (including fairy and demi-fey kindred) do not have souls. Their essential spirit or life force is inherently bound to their material form. When a fairy dies they do not go on to everlasting reward in the heavens of the One True God, or the torments of the hells, they simply cease to exist. This binding of spirit and flesh is what fends off the ravages of age and disease for eternity. Demi-fey are no different, but their long exposure to the mortal realm weakens their essence and causes their bodies to eventually fail.
It is thought that in death fairies still experience a kind of consciousness or dream-like state, a waking nightmare as their flesh-essence decays until it can no longer cohere and fades away.
This lack of a soul is why fairies find Liturgic and the pealing of church bells unpleasant. It is said these things pull at the mortal soul, bringing it closer to god. For fairy-folk this feels as if one was trying to tug at their flesh from the inside.
Mortals are those who have had their spirits cloven from their physical bodies so that the soul could live in reward for faith to the church (or for faithless pagans to be punished for failure to convert). Conflicting accounts of the afterlife from resurrected pagans and worshippers of foreign gods are conveniently swept under the rug.
It is possible for a fairy to gain a mortal soul by performing a holy ritual — often in the course of a marriage to a mortal, though there are other ceremonies for conversion. As a consequence, the fairy becomes mortal themselves, aging and dying like any other, their soul promised to the afterlife.
So, too, are there stories of fairy-folk tricking mortals into losing their soul. Mortals eating food in the lands of fairy, or bewitched by fairy-folk into pagan marriage, among other things. Whether their soul is re-bound to flesh or whisked off to the hells is unknown, but warned of in equally dire measure by the church.
On Resurrection
Resurrection as granted by divine magic calls the soul back from whatever plane it resides in and binds it to regenerated flesh.
Elfs and other fairy characters (including player characters) cannot benefit from holy miracles of resurrection; there is no soul to re-bind to mortal flesh (for this reason there are no “naturally” occurring fairy ghosts. However, phantasmal undead of fairies can still be formed by magic, and the animation of their bodies is as trivial as any other).
The Great Fairy Rune of Unravel Death does work on the fey: it’s magic is more akin to time manipulation than the re-binding of souls, reverting the body and essence to a state before death. This work on mortals too — without recalling their soul. A mortal resurrected in this way is soul-less: their souls still residing in a plane of the afterlife, with all the consequences this implies.
Dolmenwood Campaign Session 1 Report
This is my second Dolmenwood session report. We picked up where we left off, midway through the Winter’s Daughter adventure, now switched to the Dolmenwood system (plus some house rules like roll-to-cast magic).
The party moved to investigate the central chamber of the first floor, a crypt of Sir Chyde’s family, discovering two floating skeletons dancing to distant music, a strange rift, and a dripping vaporous slime. They attempted to bottle some of this, only to find their vial floating away toward the ceiling.
After introductions and inquiries as to who they are (his parents) and being told in no uncertain terms that it was hoped they were tomb robbing, the party made a deal: they would reunite the parents with the rest of the family buried in the room which would surely be worthy of some reward. They pushed the skeletal remains in the undisturbed coffers into the slime, reanimating them, and the skeletal parents offered their jewelry in return, overjoyed at reuniting with their children in dance. In the process, Basil got coated in slime and began to float as well, he started steering himself around the room with a staff found in one of the coffers.
Moving on, they found a room full of statues bearing weapons and a mural covered in mold. They cautiously tried removing a weapon, then seeing no reaction removed the rest to stack outside the tomb. Hollace carefully removed the mold wearing a make shift mask, and avoided breathing in spores. They discovered a mural of Sir Chyde and the second dog companion’s name.
With those pieces of the puzzle, they returned to the guardian chamber and called out the names. The stone dogs bowed to allow passage, and they pushed through to the burial chamber of Sir Chyde. They found his ghost manifest, sadly pining after a portrait of an elven princess. Upon entering he challenged them to their purpose. The party convinced him they meant no disrespect and came seeking only an artifact: a ring. He said he could not part with it for anything, as it connected him to his betrothed: a frost elf princess. He begged them to bring the ring to her, that she could be reached by descending to the lower parts of the barrow and would surely reward them well to which they agreed.
At first they were wary, worried the elf princess was imprisoned here in the tomb and some great danger awaited below. Descending carefully they found a barrier of candles with hints of snow and frost beyond. Eventually Stira just stepped through. After swimming visions of angelic light she found herself outdoors in a frozen wood, a white tower upon an island in a lake in the distance.
After some initial testing to ensure they could return through the passage, they ventured into the wood, noting moss-covered bodies in the trees. In the distance they saw three elf knights approach and enter the tower. Worried these were some of the princess’ jailors and not wanting to face heavily armed knights, they snuck around back to look for another way in. Basil, still floating, worked with Stira to scale they outside of the tower and tie off a rope to the top. On the way they peered in the windows, seeing kitchens, then a banquet hall, and finally the princess’ rooms at the top.
After seeing the windows were set firmly in their frames, Stira knocked, showing Sir Chyde’s ring, prompting the princess to swiftly through a pot through shattering the glass. After discovering they meant to bring Sir Chyde to her, she gratefully helped them in the room, and sent word the rest of the party was welcome.
Overjoyed at being reunited, the Princess Snow-Falls-at-Dusk and Sir Chyde heaped the party with rewards, and invited them as guests of honor to their wedding. After nightfall when this ended, they noticed the passages through the wood closing up and hurried home, discovering from their companion outside (one player who could not make the session and was left behind) that five days had passed.
With lots of loot and lucky encounter rolls they had much to carry but were unscathed, not even needing to fight this entire session. They made camp as it was night, then in the morning decided to head to the closer town, Lankshorn, to unload some loot before heading back home to High-Hankle to see after their NPC companion. As they were basically fully encumbered they could only travel one hex a day, fortunately Lankshorn was in the adjacent hex. Safely securing their loot (again without encounters on the road or during the night), they each gained XP enough to reach level 2. Actually turning their treasure into coin will be a more difficult matter.
Dolmenwood Campaign Session 0 Report
This will be the start of my ongoing session reports for my newly started Dolmenwood campaign. We were using a Shadowdark/Dolmenwood/OSE/homebrew mashup for the system, but I’ve decided going forward to just use the Dolmenwood system with some tweaks in future sessions. Spoilers ahead for Winter’s Daughter, an adventure module for Dolmenwood.
The party is made up of Basil (Human fighter), Chloe (Breggle cleric), Hollace (Human wizard), Shamash (Human fighter), and Stira (Human thief). They begin in High Hankle, either recently arrived from the greater empire to the south or as locals who have not had opportunity to travel the wood.
They all have an NPC friend in common: Dimothy Tolman, who has landed himself in jail and requests the aid of the group. He just needs enough bribe money to get out, and fortunately had a line on some treasure to be found in a barrow to the north, the burial mound of Sir Chyde. Thus the party found themselves in the woods, on the path to the tomb (I started them off directly at the adventure site just to get the ball rolling. We’ll be dealing with travel afterwards).
The party first encountered a circle of standing stones on the path leading to the tomb, inside which was an eerie twitching stag skeleton covered in green ooze. Unsettling metallic owls hang from the surrounding trees looking onward. Basil, would be archeologist, stepped forward to investigate first, and found the haze surrounding the skeleton dizzying so backed away. Hollace inspected the runes carved on the stones and determined they relate to summoning, perhaps some form of witchcraft (the group is not yet familiar with the Drune or the witches of the wood). A toad hopped from the wood and rather disconcertingly uttered the word “Betrayal” before hopping away (and becoming something of an obsession for Shamash, though he didn’t pursue the toad). Deciding to to keep their eyes on the prize, they moved forward to the tomb.
Four of the party had enough strength to move the block of granite that sealed the tomb, and promptly did so. Chole lit her lantern and the party descended. They entered a room with various religious objects (a book, candle, wooden cherub, and Chapes holy symbol of the Pluritine church), which animated as soon as the group entered (getting particularly agitated at Stira and Hollace as Chaotic characters). Basil nabbed the book from the air and sat on it. Stira and Hollace were also very deft as their objects dove towards them, Hollace capturing the candle in her bag and Stira snatching the holy symbol by its circular form. Chole, being a cleric, managed to calm the cherub down with gentle assurances and prayer. They all tied up the objects and stashed them way, bound, for now. The scuffle revealed a mosaic below, which Shamash cleared to see a scene of Sir Chyde fighting frost elves. This, along with some imagery on them standing stones outside, let them to comment that frost elves (or maybe elves and fairies in general), didn’t seem to be well liked here.
Undeterred, they searched deeper in the burial mound, finding a room with an empty plinth with drag marks leading back to the entrance and an ornate mirror. Hollace prompt strode up to inspect it, only to be caught in its magic and paralyzed. The others cautiously began inspecting the mirror and frozen Hollace from the side, looking for ways to help her. Initial prodding and moving the frozen wizard were no help, nor was Chloe slinging the wooden cherub at the mirror (to its dismay), shattering it, although this prevented future paralyzations. Shamash decided to carry Hollace along the drag marks and out of the tomb, with the idea he would place her in the standing stones. Fortunately the sunlight outside immediately cured her affliction.
Meanwhile Basil and Stira forged ahead, finding an old chapel with a door hidden behind a tattered tapestry. The door was swollen and stuck, so Basil forced it open, revealing a hidden room and a tunnel behind. Attracted to the noise, three worm creatures like tongues with lamprey mouths emerged and attacked, seeking a meal, while the rest of the group caught up. Rolling high on initiative, Basil quickly was able to dispatch two of the worms. Hollace followed up with a magic missile to finish the last before they could act. The room secure they managed to find a book in a desk, which gave a clue: the name of one of Sir Chyde’s trusty hounds.
As they were about to leave Shamash decided to clear this floor looking for another mural, instead finding a loose flagstone. After careful inspection by Stira, they determined it was safe to open, and found a metal box inside with a suspicious looking lock. Opting to investigate later, they stashed the box for now.
Moving onward, the party came to a large room with sealed stone doors, large stone dog statues chained to the wall, and an inscription saying to “call to the companions”. Shamash figured they would need to call out the names of the dogs, of which they only had one. More investigation would be needed.
We had to end the session here, as we had spent most of the time in character creation and setting up the new campaign, but this was a great start!
Merchant Dispositions using Reaction Rolls
Merchants are one of the few people who have liquid coin to buy treasures dredged from dungeons and may have the inclination to do so (Nobles would rather claim it as theirs to begin with and the Church will happily accept donations but maintains paying for treasures is sinful and base). Even then, the goods must be either something the merchant feels they can resell at profit or want personally as a status symbol. So they will usually offer less than its value.
The following is a procedure for dealing with merchants with a modified reaction roll table. Make a 2d6 roll for a given merchant. This can be modified by character bonuses or circumstances as you would any reaction roll. Then consult the following for the result:
2 or less: Offers 50% of value for the goods, but hires thugs to rob you and recoup their coin.
3-5: Offers insultingly low purchase prices (10% of value). Reaction rolls to haggle at -1.
6-8: Offers 50% of value.
9-11: Offers 50% of value. Reaction rolls to haggle at +1.
12 or more: Offers 75% of value, reaction rolls to haggle at +2.
Keep the rolled disposition for a known merchant the party returns to, unless changes to circumstances would mean a change in attitude.
Haggling
You can haggle with a merchant by making another reaction roll once. The end result assumes you’ve gone back and forth and exhausted negotiations. Any good arguments for the player or trade skills should factor into this roll as bonuses (or maluses if they are poor hagglers).
2 or less: They refuse to budge on their offer.
3-5: They will pay 5% higher than initial offer.
6-8: They will pay 10% higher than initial offer.
9-11: They will pay 15% higher than initial offer.
12 or more: They want this for themselves, and will pay full value. There is a 1-in-6 chance they pay 25% more than its value out of desire to own it.
Manipulating Reputation Tables
Things that can manipulate your players’ reputation tables (usually NPCs, sometimes monsters). Usually their manipulations will be local to their area or settlement.
The Slanderer
If offended, the Slanderer adds a lie on the party’s table. If egregiously offended, they add 1d6 lies over the next several weeks or months. These can be removed of the Slanderer is made to publicly retract them.
The Gossip
Roll on the reputation table upon meeting the Gossip. A result rolled is duplicated to another entry. There is a 3-in-6 chance this new entry is mutated. On a 1 it “explodes” adding yet another copy.
The Bard
Similar to the Gossip, but with a profit motive. Roll on the reputation table when the party enters a settlement. On a result the party’s reputation proceeds them, and the Bard has already spread their deeds adding another entry to the table. There is 4-in-6 chance the deed is exaggerated, becoming more heroic or scandalous.
The Bard can spread this reputation wider than most: any entries added also go on neighboring reputation tables (or larger tables).
The Bard can be paid to spread your renown. They can also act as a supercharged Slanderer if crossed.
The Renown Thief
Eager to claim your glory for themselves. Roll on the reputation table, if the result is positive or neutral but impressive, make a note next to that entry with the NPC’ name. They are claiming that deed for themselves and denounce other claims to it as lies. Clever renown thieves will fabricate some evidence of their completing the task.
The Starry-eyed Fan
Usually young and naive, or easily impressed. Roll on the reputation table; on a result that is positive or impressive they become enamored with the party. They add a lie to the reputation table in the party’s favor. There is a 3-in-6 chance this deed is something obviously beyond the party’s capabilities. On a 1, this explodes, and the fan adds yet another false entry.
The Historian
The historian is interested in setting the record straight for posterity. Or a record anyway. Bring corroborating evidence of one of your deeds to them and they will record it in their official record. This spreads the deed to other locales / adds them to bigger tables.
There is a 4-in-6 chance the deed recorded is slanted in such a way as to favor the local authority or power structure (make a second entry in the table with this altered form). The lower the roll the more egregious these changes are.
The Repairer of Reputations
Likely supernatural and/or magical. The Repairer of Reputations does not require a roll on the reputation table; they keep a ledger of all deeds in the area. They can strike a deed from your table — for a cost. This may be coin, or a nefarious quest (probably in the service of repairing someone else’s reputation). If you are caught performing this second deed not to worry, the Repairer can help with that too. Just one more little task… If the Repairer of Reputations is killed their manipulations start to come unraveled, and striken deeds are again associated with those who committed them. This not only affects the party but the wider area, creating chaos as people’s ill actions come to light.
The ledger contains the truth of all deeds in the area.
The Eater of Memories
Definitely supernatural. Can eat deeds given willingly, removing them from the reputation table and all memories in the world. This may leave inconsistencies and gaps in the history of events.
The Eater of Memories doesn’t discriminate between good and bad deeds, but does prefer more widespread ones. More memories to eat are more filling. However, if fed once it will become attached to the party as a source of food, and it’s always hungry. It follows them begging and whining incessantly to be fed growing louder and more insistent as time goes on. If killed it just returns the next day or whenever it is inconvenient. It can be driven away by feeding it lies, which makes it retch and flee. It is forever your enemy afterwards.
Cow Tools
A scenario for use with Violence. If you know you know.
Over the past several months you and your companions have become self aware, awakened to a sedate, bovine consciousness.
Now as evening falls you stand upright over the supine, bleeding body of the Farmer — your creator, father, tormentor — wielding crude tools. He has a keyring on his belt.
You need to get out before “they” come. You aren’t sure who “they” are. The Farmer always said if others found out about you “they” would be close behind.
You also need more of the Formula lest you revert to the intellect of a typical cow. You know the Farmer created this somewhere else on the farm.
Cow tools: Your strange bovine intelligence has limitless creativity but lacks sophistication. You can quickly craft a tool for any situation but when using it you have a Disadvantage or it has some other drawback.
Awakened Bovine: You have limited exposure to the human world. You can speak in a lowing bovine drawl, and there is a 1 in 6 chance you can read.
The Farm
A small, nondescript and unnamed dairy farm on about forty acres of land. There are ten milking cows on the farm. The players are the only awakened bovines.
The Barn
Stalls for twenty cows. A section at the back is an open area with a hayloft. This is where you all stand now, over the dead body of the Farmer. The other cows of the herd occupy the stalls, the nearest are awake and made nervous by the smell of blood.
The Farmhouse
A two story weathered 1800’s gothic farmhouse serves as the home for the Farmer and his family.
Outside
A long drive from the road leads up to the farmhouse, splitting off to the barn and shed.
Around back is a small garden full of enticing vegetables.
First Floor
Veranda Small enclosed patio to the entryway. A dog, Belle, sleeps on the porch. She is unafraid of the familiar cows but may bark to see them out of place. If given the Formula she becomes sapient in 1d6 hours and will join you, at the price of her share of Formula.
Dining
A dining room with solid, rustic table and chairs. A cabinet of fine china stands on one wall.
Kitchen
A standard home kitchen. Stairs go up to the second floor, and another set go down to the basement. Sharp kitchen knives can be found here, as well as heavy duty cookware.
A small bathroom is attached to the kitchen, as well as a walk in pantry.
Hanging over the back door is a double-barrel shotgun (unloaded). There is ammo in a kitchen drawer.
Parlor
A living room with a couch, reclining chair, and ancient television. The Missus is here watching TV, the glow flickering in the window.
Storage room
Old heirlooms, furniture, and keepsakes gather dust. Space has been cleared for a sewing table.
Bedroom
A small bedroom, with little decoration and bed neatly made.
Workshop
An attached workshop and garage. Assorted tools, welder, scraps of lumber, and bench for reloading ammunition. In a locked gun cabinet is a hunting rifle with a box of rounds.
Second Floor
A narrow hall connects the upstairs rooms, a tight squeeze for a cow (disadvantage on most actions).
Main Bedroom
Bedroom of the Farmer and the Missus. Dominated by a painting of cows.
Junior’s Room
The room of the Farmer’s son Junior, 16. Decorated in sports pennants and trophies. He is reading a magazine. If he hears a disturbance he’ll go for the shotgun in the kitchen.
Little Miss’ Room
The bedroom of the Farmer’s daughter, 10. Decorated in pink and lace. She is asleep, if startled by an intruder she will scream.
Bathroom
A shared bathroom at the end of the hall with a clawfoot tub.
Basement
Glass jars of pickled vegetables and sacks of potatoes and onions. At the far end is a locked door.
Behind the door is the Farmer’s lab. Chemicals in barrels line the shelves, lab equipment on benches. His lab notebook is here, the scribblings of a deranged mind or a genius. He was obsessed with creating a “better” cow with no indication of criteria used to determine this. The method for creating the Formula is written here. It is all nonsense to the bovines.
On the workbench are two dozen vials of Formula. One vial needs to be consumed per cow per week to maintain their sapience.
A locked storm door in the back of the basement lead to the back of the farmhouse.
The Shed
A large shed filled with farm equipment, a tractor, automatic milkers.
Events
In half an hour the Missus goes out to see what is taking the Farmer so long. If she sees him she calls an ambulance. If there are signs of foul play she calls the police. If she spots a bipedal bovine she goes for the shotgun in the kitchen or the rifle in the workshop.
In one hour a car breaks down on the road near the farmhouse. The couple head up to knock on the door and ask to use the phone—they don’t get service on their cells out here.
Escape
To the North are rural homes and wilderness.
To the West is town, a couple miles away.
To the East is the interstate.
The South is filled with dairy farms. It’s easy enough to slip into one, force yourself back on four hooves and blend in among the unenlightened cattle.
If traveling south, a light will steak out of the sky before resolving into a large flying saucer overhead. A beam of light pulls all aboard. Roll 1d6. On a 4-6 you are welcomed as ambassadors to Earth. Your sapience is made permanent. On a 1-3 you are probed and vivisected, remains left scattered on the field you were found in. You become the subject of conspiracy theories and urban legends.
Eventually the Formula will run out. You can’t stand the thought of returning to what you were before.