Dolmenwood Session 3: Leaving the Fey Lands

After a good bit of delays for various reasons, we returned to the Dolmenwood adventure. Our party of heroes, including one very quiet Fern Evergreen (I am just really bad at running NPCs alongside characters!) peeked into the family crypt to see two dancing skeletons. Pirouetting in the air, the jolly remains of Sir Chyde's parents asked if the party wished to dance. No one took them up on their offer. Seeing the chasm on the floor, and green slime and vapors. LozeBelle carefully checked the coffins: the 2 that were open were Sir Chyde's parents, apparently the sky dancing skeletons. The three other closed coffins contained the remains of his siblings. Peeking down the chasm it seemed to have sunlight reflecting off of snow. No one tried to throw anything down, or even clamber down - which was the safest thing to do. To avoid the slime, Elrod started up on the clsoed caskets to get to the door at the opposite side of the family crypt. The skeletons where not happy and attacked! A minor hit, then Friar Moon managed to turn the undead, who fled to the furthest corner of the room. 

The group gets to the next chamber, with 4 pillars in the room (though to be honest: depending on the size of those pillars they really would have been crowding that room. I think the map could have been a bit larger, though I suppose realistically it was the correct size). At the far end are heavy looking stone doors, flanked by 8' tall dog statues. Above the door was inscribed Call to the Companions. Unfortunately, realu life had interrupted the game for a long time and no one, including me, remembered that the Fairy Princess has mentioned the dogs' names. We did a wisdom roll, and 1 player got one of the names. Anyway, LozeBelle went up to the doors, and the statues did nothing. Elrod tossed a rock the simply bounced off the statues. The Dwarf fighter then tried to open the doors and one of the statues lunged at her. Elrod jumped up to swing at the door with his hammer, but it barely chipped. A quick fight started, and Keir, being part Fey, realized that mundane weapons could not hurt the enchanted statues. 

Fleeing down a side corridor, the animated statue dog stopped at the edge of the room. Deciding to explore in another direction, they found the chapel of St. Sedge. Lighting the candle, the group felt a wind and heard the sounds of battle. Behind a tapestry they found a wedged door that led to the priest's chambers. Along with 3 wormtongues. And while the game gave the stats, no images there nor in the monster manual. Pictures are always nice. A battle happened, but being stuck in the corner only 3 characters could get into position to fight. Elord was grievously wounded, and the acid spit did not help. Technically he got to 0 HP and in Dolmenwood and OSE, that means death. I decided to use the optional rule, and washing off the acid and casting some healing spells. he was brought back. Though he lost a constitution point.

It was at this point I remembered that the Princess gave the names of those hounds, so the normally quiet Fern (the NPC Elf) suddenly recalled the names. Back to the hall and speaking both names the door opened up. Inside the ghost of Sir Chyde welcomed them and asked if they would take his ring to the princess. As they took the ring from the skeleton's hand in his casket, the ghost disappeared. 

Going back to the lower level, they entered the Fey woods, snow falling on their shoulders. Trudging through the snow they got back to the tower, where Grimmlegridge the troll and Griddlegrim permitted them to enter, despite offering more mushrooms. A threat about not letting the princess get what she asked for led them straight her. Giving her the ring, the ghost of Sir Chyde showed up and the Fey and astral ghost seemed to hug.

Rewards were given: the gem of resurrection, a few of the snow crystals, and the Dwarf got a magical hammer with a butterfly engraved on it (+2 damage and only weighs half of what a normal war hammer weighs. They needed a magic weapon). She also had their wounds healed and restored that CON stat for the Breggle. Declining to stay for the wedding, they start back. The forest seemed denser and harder to get through yet they did finally get back to the lower level of the crypt. Somehow it was night outside, so they set up camp for the evening after closing the crypt back up, adding a warning to stay out on the door, and hiking a bit into the woods so as to not be sleeping on a burial mound.

In the family crypt

Next morning, as they are fishing and getting breakfast, a large 5' Otter shows up. Only because I saw the meme a while ago and it tickled me. Though the players were really focused on the fact that the Otter was not wearing clothes. And I'm doing what one series of books did that I liked: the sentient creatures were capitalized, and the "cousins" (non-magical/sentient) were lower case. So, an Otter is an intelligent, speaking otter, and an otter is a regular otter. Anyway, the Otter, Hermes, does have a quest for the group: to correct the hidden Shrine of St. Wort. Which is lost and somewhere south of Fog Lake. They do agree to do the quest and then head back to the Giant's Nose. Where they discover it has been 5 days since they left.

Hermes, the quest-giving Otter

Resting and getting supplies, and adjusting for XP, no one leveled up. A few days later, they head up Cave Lane. This road is at the bottom of a crevice and only gets daylight at noon. No one passes them in either direction for several hours of travel. They do notice the occasional smashed instrument along the way and posit several theories, most prevalent is that someone really hates bards. 

A bit past midday they come to a stone bridge, and a Grimalkin strumming a silver-stringed lute. She introduces herself as Dandy Prisslwhiff, bard. When asked if she had any information, she was willing to trade info for a musical duel or solving a riddle. As none of the characters were a bard or had any musical abilities, they opted for the riddle. I had to write it down, but here was a bit of an issue for me: we've only started playing in the Dolmenwood, and 2 of the players were playing Dolmenwood natives. As people who grew up and lived in the woods, they would have most likely figured it out. The players, on the other hand, not steeped with all the knowledge, have no clue. I decided to just let them have the answer and give them the info that the shrine is probably west of where they are, somewhere in a river. Which is why Hermes wants it fixed - he is worried that the human god may get upset with a shrine that is not correct. 

And this is where we left that session. We finished the 1st adventure and are starting along a 2nd. I need to think things through a bit more and I have several ideas and adventures I can plunder. Hopefully keep things fun and exciting for the group.

A few things in the adventure:

1. That chasm actually led back to the Feylands - the light was reflecting off the snow fields outside the tower. That ring, connecting the 2 worlds, was weakening the barrier between Dolmenwood and the Feylands.

• Had anyone touched or had anything touch the slime, it too would have floated up. Not sure how long that would have lasted.

I am still having some issues running combat of course and tracking more than 1 NPC just seems harder than it should be.