A Summary of Our Dolmenwood Campaign

Long ago, in the hazy origins of this blog, I wrote narrative descriptions of our table’s Dolmenwood campaign to challenge myself as a writer.

As a kid, I wrote for fun all the time. As adulthood subsumed my life, I fell out of practice. Desiring to not lose that part of myself, I made this blog as a public space to post my writing and hold myself accountable to it, in the same way someone might post a public record of their exercise regimen to ensure they keep up with it.

However, after a few months I quickly realized that my goal of 1200-1600 words per week was wholly inadequate for the pace of our campaign. The cavalcade of events that transpired at our table rapidly outpaced my ability to keep up in writing. Compound that problem with interruptions in my writing routine and you have a recipe for falling behind.

This post is an attempt to finish what I started. I’ve accepted that I won’t finish the “short story” write-ups I began at the inception of this blog, but I still want to summarize the rest of our Dolmenwood campaign in hopes they might provide inspiration, aid, or (at the very least) entertainment to another referee reading them.

We concluded our campaign at the end of April this year. After summarizing the events in this post, I’ll also analyze them through a critical lens in another post.

So without further ado, here is the tale of the rest of our Dolmenwood game.

After accepting Mother’s mission to secure Farthigny’s help, the heroes hired some retainers to aid them and left Prigwort for Farthigny’s cabin. They easily found it on the shore of Lake Longmere, but their meeting with Farthigny quickly deteriorated when he asked them to leave a member behind as a slave for him.

Violence ensued, in which Copper the Halfling and one of their retainers fled. The remaining heroes slew Farthigny and searched his cabin, finding the dwarf Sacristian imprisoned in the basement. (Copper’s player lost his character sheet and made Sacristian as a replacement. Thus, Copper abandoned the party and Sacristian was introduced).

The heroes removed Farthigny’s head to collect the bounty Cranduil the Bard informed them of. Upon their return to Prigwort, they met Sprewdiman Kneeve, representative of the Bardic Guild. Sprewdiman ripped them off by under-paying them for Farthigny’s bounty, then fled to Brackenwold to claim the full value for himself.

Knowing that Mother would likely be incensed at their decision to kill Farthigny (rather than secure his aid, as they had been tasked to do), the heroes decided to “lay low” for a while by returning to the Goatman Tomb and attempting to rescue two clerics that went missing there. (After the heroes initially returned from the tomb with treasure, the Church dispatched its own clerics there to see what they could recover for themselves).

The party had a rough time in Tomb, facing necrotic oozes and a giant, metal goat that breathed petrifying gas. The party found both clerics turned to stone by the monster. Upon the heroes’ empty-handed return to town, the Council of High Brewmasters brought them to trial for criminal negligence (as the last two retainers died in the Goatman Tomb after the first disappeared at Farthigny’s cabin).

High Brewmaster Jiles offered to vouch for the heroes in exchange for a “later favor,” to which the players agreed. Through some skillful oratory, the heroes won over the Brewmasters and talked their way out of imprisonment – though their friend from Mother’s cabin, Amonie, was imprisoned regarding Cranduil the Bard’s disappearance.

At her inquisition, Amonie confessed that Mother used magic to turn single male visitors into animated gingerbread men. The Council of High Brewmasters pardoned Amonie in exchange for her confession, then posted a bounty on Mother and her remaining daughters.

Legal investigations concluded, High Brewmaster Jiles asked the heroes to repay him by recovering the magical chalice of Ethelred the Sober from the nearby Barrow Mounds. (This is where the Tomb of St. Ethelred the Sober originated, which I posted here, and also where they explored a few tombs from Barrowmaze).

The heroes then recovered the chalice from the Barrow Mounds and traveled to Brackenwold to see if they could find Sprewdiman Kneeve, who had ripped them off. Along the way, a golden knight riding a lion met them in the woods. The knight invited them to the fairy plane of Whyforth to meet the Earl of Yellow, telling them the invitation was “one they wouldn’t wisely refuse.”

Arriving in Brackenwold, the heroes learned that the leader of the Bardic Guild had been murdered and the head of Farthigny had been stolen from the guild. Rumor said the Drune (a secret organization of Druids) was responsible for the murder and theft, though the Church dismissed the idea of the Drune operating within the most secure place of all the Wood.

At Brackenwold, the heroes resolved to collect the bounty on Mother and protect themselves from any retaliation she might invoke against them. When several tiny gingerbread men with razor blades baked into them tried to force themselves down the heroes’ throats while they slept, their decision was only further reinforced. They hired several new retainers (including Indigo the Elf, the character of a new player) and set out to Mother’s cabin to exact justice. Amonie the turncoat daughter accompanied them.

The heroes arrived at Mother’s cabin with their cadre of bounty hunters. In the following battle, they slew Mother and most of her daughters. Amonie assumed ownership of the cabin, planning to turn it into a haven for victimized women, while the heroes returned to Prigwort to give the Chalice to Brewmaster Jiles and collect their bounty.

Their loose ends tied, the heroes then traveled to the Golden Wood for their appointment with the Earl of Yellow. Upon their arrival in Whyforth, the Earl of Yellow explained that Mother was working for him. By interfering in her plans, the heroes had interfered in his.

As recompense for their meddling, the Earl of Yellow tasked the heroes with kidnapping the Archpriest of the Church of the One True God. He provided them with a magic portal to the holy city of Thule, into which the heroes ventured (and subsequently played the adventure Kidnap the Archpriest).

After successfully capturing the Archpriest and returning via magic portal, the heroes learned that time had passed quickly during their stay in Fairy. What seemed like a few days turned out to be several months. This worked in their favor, as it allowed the “heat” of the Archpriest’s disappearance to die down and the heroes to avoid scrutiny.

Upon their return, the heroes revisited the Goatman Tomb to continue their explorations. After some spelunking, they eventually decided to investigate the disappearance of Violet Harrowmoor and recover the promised reward for her recovery.

Violet’s disappearance led them to the ruined Chapel of St. Clewd, where they rescued Violet from a monstrous flock of child-charming crows called a Gloam. There they also rescued and recruited the elf named Sprung (a fifth player who joined the party), who was part of an earlier adventuring group that failed to rescue Violet.

The heroes returned Violet to Lady Harrowmoor and collected their reward, then returned to Prigwort. After drinking, celebrating, and purchasing fancy clothes, the heroes received a mysterious invitation to visit Shub’s Finger at midnight.

At their late-night rendezvous in the woods, the heroes found an effigy bathed in magical green flame. The effigy emanated a voice that claimed to come from the Drune.

The Drune warned the characters of a pending threat called “Atanuwe” coming from the north. The Drune informed the heroes that, to stop Atanuwe, the Drune would require a magical weapon made from the head of Farthigny (which the Drune already possessed) and the remains of St. Clewd (which they asked the PCs to recover, since the Drune were magically forbidden from the chapel).

The evil unicorn Atanuwe

The heroes returned to the Chapel of St. Clewd, this time exploring the undercroft and recovering St. Clewd’s ectoplasm. They delivered it to the Drune via a magic portal, and the Drune informed the heroes of several other ways to work against Atanuwe.

When the heroes returned to Prigwort, they found its people in panic. A horde of Goatmen had burned the village of Odd to the ground and were working their way south towards the city.

The heroes then left Prigwort to find Gheillough the dragon, whom the Drune recommended the heroes recruit to fight against Atanuwe. Travelling across Lake Longmere, the heroes eventually arrived at the lair of Gheillough, who slept under the lakewater. They defeated Big Chook (a massive worm made of the dragon’s dreams) and awoke the dragon from under the lake.

Gheillough the Phlegm Wyrm

The Drune then appeared and tried to magically enslave the dragon Gheillough. The heroes balked at this idea, however, and attacked the Drune to prevent them from taking control of the dragon. The Drune retreated, and the heroes successfully convinced Gheuillough to help them save the Wood from Atanuwe. The heroes had broken their alliance with the Drune and could no longer count on receiving the magic weapon the Drune had promised them, however.

Riding on Gheillough’s back as he swam upriver, the heroes travelled north and found a stronghold of goatmen at the Hall of Sleep. With Gheillough’s help, they defeated the Goatman commander and his legions stationed there. While searching the fortress, the heroes found a crystal ball that allowed them to communicate with Atanuwe. He provided them with an invitation that would magically teleport them to his court in the north, promising no harm would come to them if they accepted.

Unsure whether to accept the invitation or not, the heroes held onto it and returned to Prigwort. However, upon their return, they found the city burned to the ground, sacked by goatmen. Refugees had retreated to Castle Brackenwold.

Incensed at the destruction of their hometown, the heroes retaliated by accepting Atanuwe’s invitation. It magically teleported them to Atanuwe's feasting pavilion, where the heroes attacked and slew him in an epic battle.

(Though the players attacked Atanuwe immediately and thereby robbed him of his "evil villain monologue" explaining his plan, he invited them to his court to keep them from defending Brackenwold while his goatmen attacked it. He also had a vendetta against them, and therefore saw a chance to "kill two birds with one stone" by teleporting the heroes directly to him. Being an overconfident demigod, however, he wound up underestimating the power of the heroes).

Meanwhile, while the heroes were at Atanuwe's court, goatmen descended on Brackenwold. Against all odds, the humans of Brackenwold defeated the goatmen and retained their tenuous grasp on the Wood. The flickering flame of human settlement in Dolmenwood lasted another day, and the Heroes of Prigwort pressed on, past the pages of this story.

FIN

(Note that this is a very high-level overview of events in this campaign. There are several interesting details, such as Austache Bounder's bloody nose, a custom-made silver chastity belt, the tragic death of Chadwick the Naive College Student, and the immolation of an entire fungus-goblin society that have been omitted. But by reading this, you can at least get the general shape of things!)