Dungeon Merlin
Run 2026/05/21 with 3 other players in person.
- Goals & Bibliography
- Session 0
- Session 1
- Session 2
- Session 3
- Session 4
- Session 5
- Session 6
- Session 7
- Session 8
Characters present: Edmund Blackudder, Henrick Candleswick, Rowan Malksmilk
In-Game time covered: 11:30 AM of Sunning, 21st of Symswald - 11:00 PM of Sunning, 21st of Symswald
Player-Safe Session Report
Last session ended in the church of St. Pastery, with the congregation confused and the vicar annoyed by the party crashing his mass. But he had still healed Bon of the weird worms crawling under her skin. The party also dropped the word “Crookhorns”, which led to a bit of upheaval in the crowd.
Mere moments afterwards, the church doors were flung open by Sergeant Marge Bregson and three hooded figures in police uniforms. Bregson positioned himself between the party and the congregation, with his hands behind his back. The sergeant told the crowd to calm down and that whatever the party had said was lies and that he would immediately arrest them. At the same time, he opened his hand behind his back, revealing a message for the party saying “Play along.”
The party decided that this would be the smart move, and they were led away, through the city’s back alleys, until they became disoriented and finally came upon a door in a small, dark street. Inside, they realised that this had been the backdoor of the Hornstoat’s Rest, and the three hooded figures finally revealed themselves.
Standing before them were Joremy the Bladesmith, Margerie, the Hornstoat’s owner, and Farnham Ribblemead, the sage who lived there.
Marge informed the party that he had reason to believe that his partner Rodger hadn’t been the only one in Lankshorn and its police force who was already corrupted by the Crookhorns, and that he needed the party to go to Droomen Knoll and find out who those people were. He himself couldn’t risk raising any suspicions by going. He also estimated that he would be able to keep the town from falling into chaos for a few more days, before the rumours of the Crookhorns would be too strong to suppress any further.
So the party decided to fake their own execution by covering themselves in pig blood Margerie had luckily lying around, and then Farnham drove their own cart with them as fake-corpses in the back out of town towards Droomen Knoll.
Since it was pretty late in the day at this point, they decided to not head for Droomen Knoll immediately, but rather past it, down the Ditch Way towards Dreg, so that they could pitch their tent somewhere. Pretty soon, a feeling of being observed by a pitiless malevolence overcame both Rowan and Edmund. 1
Not too long afterwards, the party came upon a Drune and four “thickets of thorny wood and curling bramble, animated into humanoid form”, carrying a wounded, semi-conscious knight above their heads. 2
When it became clear that the Drune didn’t have the knight’s best interest in mind, Henrick couldn’t help himself and intervened.
Sadly, the ensuing fight cost him his life, and Rowan and Edmund had to flee and leave his (now real) corpse behind to not be killed as well.
They rode their cart back the way they came. So now they were in Nightworm territory again, at night…
DM Notes
If you are a player in this campaign, you probably want to stop here!
What Worked Well
- When I started this campaign, people with experience in running Dolmenwood told me that the random encounters could seriously derail everything at a moment’s notice. Now I know what they meant by that. But the random encounters provided by the monster book are so incredibly robust that this is actually fine, I think. You’ll just have to lean into them and see what happens.
What Could’ve Gone Better
- So this is session 9 of thinking that Droomen Knoll is just around the corner (this time literally)… (I’m kidding, it’s fine of course)