Adventure log of Session 02
of Nightmare over Ragged Hollow
using the Dolmenwood System
Monday, the 18th of May 2026
Players, characters and retainers
- Ash was playing Kristi, a level 1 Mage
- Emory was playing Mabel, a level 1 Friar
- Kyle was playing Julius, a level 1 Knight
- Marcus was playing Lament-of-Broken-Bones, a level 1 Elf
- Nick was playing Rodger, a level 1 Thief
- Moss, a level 1 Cleric, works for Lament-of-Broken-Bones
Read here if you missed the previous session report, or here if you missed the introduction to this campaign.
Session Report
Hayme, the 17th of Iggwyld, 1661
From 01:00 to 24:00
Windy, cloudy
Julius the Knight chose to sleep outside, inside a boat. He was lucky: not only did no one disturb him, but he even managed to have a restful night.
Julius paid the owner of the boat to be rowed to the island he had seen in the middle of the Upper Hameth River. Once there, he used the bell to request access to the dilapidated villa. After a series of out-of-tune bell rings, the door was opened by the spectral ghost of Andrew, the butler, who, after receiving praise for his conduct, dissolved into a pool of soapsuds and ectoplasm.
After quickly scanning the living room, Julius ascended the stairs and found the master bedroom. Here he ransacked heaps of dirty clothes, discovering a fortune in gold pieces and a silver mousetrap that nearly nipped off one of his fingers.
From there, he investigated the workshop, where he found a pair of metal boots resting on top of a pressure plate. Using his lance, he displaced the boots from a distance, maximising his chances of avoiding the needles sprayed by the device.
The intended solution was to place an object of equal weight on the plate, possibly some of the cans available on the ground floor. I ruled that using a 10-foot-pole-equivalent to dislodge the boots was worth an advantage (roughly +3) to the saving throw against paralysis, and Kyle once again proved to be very lucky.
In the meantime, early in the morning, Sigurd the Fighter and Shank the Bard arrived in town - just a bit behind the rest of the hallooers - and met with Lament-of-Broken-Bones the Elf and Moss the Cleric retainer at Sharp's General Store.
There, they learned about the issues with the town's well, which had been producing rancid water for the last couple of days. Lament, confident in his resistance to mortal diseases, sampled the water and, to everyone's horror, was cursed: his face took on rat-like features.
The adventurers fished Croaker, a cursed, weak, diseased rat-goblin, out of the well. He told them that the Gloomwood Hag was responsible for the curse and, after they offered to help, he made a Fay bargain with Lament.
Croaker explained that more of his cursed kind lived beneath the Windler house on the island in the Upper Hameth River. He also told them how to recover a pair of metal boots in the same location. Finally, he spoke of the hag's sister, who lived in a cottage in the woods, and of an incoming Ggoblin Market on the next full moon.
In exchange, Lament swore that he would slay the Hag (or find another way to lift the curse) within the next three days. They were now bound by a Fay bargain.
The players do not yet know what happens if a Fay bargain is broken, but I made sure to telegraph that the consequences would be quite severe.
Rodger the Thief, after a night at his aunt's house, paid to rent his cousin Tobias's room for three more days and stashed some of his belongings there. He visited the Slit Anvil Smithy to sell some of his equipment and learned from Joanna the Smith that his cousin Tobias had been there a couple of days earlier on his way to Mount Mourn.
He then noticed some commotion outside the Dancing Needle, where the Ragdolls, accompanied by some local teenagers, including his brother, were negotiating with the owner over the price of an extermination job in the basement.
After failing to convince his brother to leave the other gang and join him in taking the job together, Rodger invited him to go drinking later that evening at the Lost Oxe and then went to inform the rest of the party.
In Dolmenwood, there is a subsystem for locating recruitable NPCs. I decided to allow PCs to circumvent this system and attempt to recruit NPCs encountered naturally in the fiction, but only if the NPC is actively looking for mercenary work, OR owes the PC a debt (as with Moss in Session 01), OR if the PC invests 15 gold and several hours in a drinking establishment getting wasted together. The HR document was updated accordingly.
When the party arrived, Laban, owner of the Dancing Needle, successfully played the two gangs against each other and lowered the job price from 150 to 70 gold pieces.
Tension between the PCs and the Ragdolls was steadily rising until Lyla, a muscular red-haired girl, started punching Shank the Bard after he had been taunting her. While the fight was going on, Sigurd the Fighter made a convincing argument to Laban to choose their group for the job, and at the same time, Shank managed to put down his opponent.
The adventurers used some cheese to determine what was infesting the basement: a great number of fat, cat-sized rodents with far too many legs hiding among the boxes of textiles lining the walls.
The group decided to pile the boxes in the centre of the room, trapping the rats in one corner. While doing so, they discovered an abandoned box of precious golden thimbles that had been lost, and chose to loot it.
After several hours of hard work, nearly all the boxes had been moved, and the rodents, now literally cornered, became increasingly aggressive.
While some of the PCs, crossbows in hand, prepared to fire on the spider-rats from atop the new mound of boxes in the centre of the room, Lament, Shank, and Moss moved to shift the final hiding place.
The spider-rats, after hissing, decided to attack.
The fight was fierce. Lament was struck in the back by friendly fire but was saved by Moss. Shank, however, was overwhelmed by the rats and fell, only for the creatures to begin devouring him on the spot.
Because more rats were attacking him after he had reached 0 HP, I declared the character dead and skipped the Death's Door rule. I then asked Callum to roll up a new character.
Moss managed to stabilise Lament and carried him to the Lost Oxe to recover. Meanwhile, Rodger and Sigurd noticed that the spider-rats had entered a feeding frenzy over their fallen companion's body and took advantage of the situation by dropping a heavy box onto the swarm, instantly killing most of them. Rodger then skewered the last surviving rat with his shortsword.
After tending to his patron, Moss carried the dead bard's body to the back of the Church of St. Sedge and buried him beside Sister Mable, who had fallen the previous day.
The entire group attended the funeral.
It was there that they were joined by a mage called Ursegine Addercopper (Adder for his friends). After studying the golden barrier further, Moss shared that he knew of a miracle performed by St. Sedge in which something similar had been used to fend off brigands. They also noticed that a larger portion of the Wetherwane was now protruding from the barrier.
New character hook
Callum will now play a mage named Ursegine Addercopper (Adder to friends).
XP for session 02
Opponents neutralised
6 Spider Rats (48XP); 1 CROAKER THE RAT-GOBLIN (8XP) for a total of 56XP
Treasure recovered
6 Gold timbels (300gg); 1 Payment for extermination job (70gg); 1 Treasure in the laundry hips (297gg); 1 Silver rat trap (8gg); 10 Twine-eels (30gg) for a total of 705XP
Charitable acts
1 Cleared well (100XP); 1 Assisted townfolk (50XP) for a total of 150XP
Totals
- Rodger gains 182 XP and reaches 453 XP; they have 37% of the necessary XP to progress to level 2
- Julius gains 182 XP and reaches 453 XP; they have 20% of the necessary XP to progress to level 2
- Lament gains 121 XP and reaches 302 XP; they have 8% of the necessary XP to progress to level 2
- Moss gains 61 XP and reaches 151 XP; they have 10% of the necessary XP to progress to level 2
- Sigurd gains 182 XP and reaches 182 XP; they have 9% of the necessary XP to progress to level 2
- Adder gains 182 XP and reaches 182 XP; they have 7% of the necessary XP to progress to level 2