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.