Dolmenwood Campaign Diary: Part 1

This post describes the first session of a campaign I GM for a wonderful group of three
players in the spectacular “Dolmenwood” setting, described by the brilliant Gavin Norman (the
Necrotic Gnome) in his Wormskin zine. This session, the players explored the first level of a
dungeon based on “Tomb of the Serpent King,” written by the equally brilliant Skerples of the
Coins and Scrolls blog. I modified elements of the dungeon to suit the Dolmenwood setting and
my own preferences – a process I will likely describe in the future. If you are a player either in a
Dolmenwood campaign or an adventure that features the Tomb of the Serpent King, please be
mindful of reading ahead. On with the story…

Once upon a time, three creatures gathered outside a tomb. Unlike most creatures who
gather outside of tombs, they did not gather to pay their respects. They did not bring flowers,
nor prepared eulogies, nor even their condolences. Someone they knew had not died – not
recently, at least. Instead, they gathered to plunder.

The first of these creatures was a man named Grendel. He wore the clothes of a woodcutter
and a scar on his face. After a wood-cutting accident disfigured him, Grendel gave up his
attempts to make an honest living. Instead, he looked for a way to get rich quickly, having
little to lose and much to gain.

The second was a moss dwarf called Gwomodom. His height rose to Grendel’s shoulder.
He bore mossy green skin, a frothy beard of yeast, and vines that sprouted from his chest.
A hobbyist cartographer since he was just a sprout, Gwomodom ventured far from his home
in the western wood, lured by an ambition to map the world.

The third was a halfling named Boots. He stood as high as Grendel’s waist. He looked soft
and, though small, weighed just as heavy (or more so) than either creature in his present
company. Like Grendel, Boots suffered a life-threatening accident – only as a roofer, rather
than a woodcutter. His appetite for adrenaline whetted, Boots decided he should risk his life
only for work more lucrative than roofing.

The eaves of the deep forest shaded these three companions as they stood in a clearing. The
tomb’s entrance squatted low in the hillside before them. Unobservant passersby missed this
entrance many times over many years. Something – perhaps luck, fate, or the One True
God – led Grendel to discover this entrance during one of his forays into the wood. Upon
finding the tomb, Grendel recruited his only two friends to discover what lay inside.

As Grendel cleared away the moss obscuring the opening, its fell nature emerged. The
darkness inside seemed to drown out the noises of Spring with its own abyssal yawn. This
dark wound in the earth beckoned only the brave or the foolish.

The lure of treasure brought these three creatures to that forbidding hole. This hole led to a
tomb of the goat-men - the same goat-men who once stole wealth from human men. The
greed of these three companions salivated at the possibilities that lie inside. Besides the
promises of treasure before them, something else prodded them onward and down: their
curiosity. Wonder ate at each of them like an unsatisfied itch, satiable only by finding
whatever lie in the darkness.

Boots first succumbed to his curiosity. He edged forward into the cave. The bottoms of his
feet found cold, hard stone in the place of soft dirt. His vision adjusted to the darkness,
revealing two passages to his left and right. The tunnel continued onward past either
opening, farther than his unaided eyes could see. Rock and earth, undoubtedly carved by
the goat-men’s human slaves, formed the tunnel’s walls. Thin white roots dangled from its
ceiling. Nervous to go much further alone, he waved Gwomodom and Grendel in.

Gwomodom explored the chamber to the right. It was ten-foot square, with splintered wood,
gnawed bones, and bristly fur on the ground. Gwomodom bent and touched his tongue to
the detritus. It tasted like bear.

Grendel explored the chamber to the left. Inside, a splintered wooden coffin contained shards
of clay and the bones of a satyr. On the floor beside the coffin sprawled the skeleton of a
human man clutching both its hands to its throat. A small golden chain interweaved the
fingers on one of its hands.

Grendel’s eyes brightened at the sight of gold. He called for his friends, nervous to extricate
the jewelry with his own indelicate fingers. Boots stepped up for the task. Lustily, Boots’ two
companions watched as the halfling slid the chain from the skeleton’s bony grasp. Boots’
tongue pushed from his lips with intense concentration. Suddenly, as the chain escaped,
the bones moved! Boots lept back in fright; his companions reached for their weapons.

A moment passed as the three friends watched, their hearts pounding. The skeleton’s
now-headless form fell still, its skull wobbling on the floor where Boots dislodged it. Their
pulses slowed and they breathed easy, their attention turning to their newfound treasure.
A small charm shaped like the skull of a goat hung from the golden chain in Boots’ hand.
Their eyes lapped it up, their greed appetized. They quickly lit a torch, passed it to
Gwomodom, and pressed onward.

Their torchlight illuminated four other passages branching off their own, each leading to a
similar chamber ten-foot square. At the end of the hall, they saw a door. In bas relief, the
door depicted a robed goat-man facing the party. The goat-man’s hands extended from the
door, their palms facing upwards. The party saw etchings in Caprice (the language of the
goat-men) around the door’s perimeter. The companions knew only some of the goat-men’s
bleating language, but interpreted the following, “Pay my tithe / _____ my ___ / _______
my ____ / You will _____.”

As they approached the door more closely, Boots noticed a seam in the floor bisecting the hall.
Grendel tapped his boot against the stone before the door and heard a sound much hollower
than the rest of the floor. The three companions eyed each other warily, deciding to explore
the other chambers before trying the door.

In the first chamber, they found a wooden coffin engraved with a satyr on its front. Boots
carefully pried the coffin’s lid open with his dagger, breaking its sealing wax. The halfling
found a clay box with a similar engraving nested neatly inside its wooden shell. Using the
pommel of his dagger, Boots punched through the clay.

Acrid dust suddenly escaped from the hole, choking Boots. He fell on all fours, eyes watering
and bulging. Grendel and Gwomodom stepped forward, helping the halfling to his hairy feet
and wiping his face with their shirts. Together, they peered inside the clay container Boots
had opened. Inside, they found the bones of some satyr and – more importantly – a golden
necklace, like what they found before.

The other three chambers had similar coffins. Another depicted a satyr, the next a nobly
dressed goat-man, and the last a goat-man wearing a sorcerous robe. The companions,
chastened, approached these more cautiously. After unsealing the wood, they broke the clay
from a distance, allowing the dangerous dust to dissipate before claiming the jewelry inside.
Besides its necklace, the coffin of the nobly dressed goat-man contained a silver ring
depicting a snake coiled in on itself, consuming its own tail. Boots pocketed the ring.

The coffin of the robed goat-man reminded them of the door. Carved on its surface in skillful
foreshortening, the wood depicted a figure like what they saw before: the robed goat-man
facing them, arms forward. However, unlike the one on the door, this goat man’s left hand
closed in a fist. Its right hand twisted at an impossible angle. It looked as if its palm once faced
up, but its arm had torqued and bent to the outside, its thumb now facing down. Such
contortion would break a normal man’s wrist.

This depiction gave the companions an idea. They approached the door again, once more
reading what of its inscription they could. Begrudgingly, Gwomodom placed one of their
golden necklaces in the goat-man’s left hand. In response, the goat-man’s fingers animated
as living stone. Its fingers closed around the necklace like a dying spider. The gold inside
disappeared, then the hand fell still once more.

Gwomodom turned his attention to the goat-man’s right hand. He noticed its wrist appeared
to articulate, as if it could spin. Gwomodom passed his torch to the vines in his chest, freeing
his hands and lifting its light above his head. Gwomodom grabbed the stony hand and,
carefully, began twisting it to the outside, to mimic the etching he saw. He encountered
resistance as the stone ground against itself. He could push no further without force.
Nervous, he glanced over his shoulder to his companions. Grendel and Boots looked to one
another, then back to the moss dwarf. Simultaneously, they nodded and committed
themselves.

Gwomodom turned back to the goat-man’s hand, beads of yeasty sweat forming on his brow.
He steeled himself with a huff, grasped the hand with each of his own, and forced its palm to
the outside.

With a snap like breaking bone, the hand turned. A vertical seam split the door perfectly
down the middle. Its two parts swung slightly out, letting a waft of musty air escape. The
flame of Gwomodom’s torch fluttered. The three companions stood still, the silence of the
crypt weighing on them. After a moment, they looked to one another and smiled. The rest of
the tomb awaited.