Play Report: Dolmenwood Session 2

Run 2026/03/17 with 2 other players in person.

• Goals & Bibliography
• Session 0
• Session 1

Characters present: Henrick Candleswick, Rowan Malksmilk ¹

In-Game time covered: ~11:00 PM of Colly, 1st of Symswald - 6:30 PM of Hayme, 3rd of Symswald

Player-Safe Session Report

If you are a player in this campaign, don’t click on (or scroll to and read) the footnotes!

The session opened at the exact moment the last one closed: with the Black- and Bladesmith of Lankshorn (Joremy Whilpston-Puddingfoot) opening his upstair window after Rowan had hammered on his door at 11PM, while two figures were coming down the street towards them.

When the Bladesmith saw who these two figures were, he immediately came down, pulling Rowan inside and telling her to hide upstairs. Moments later, two of Lord Malbleat’s (the local, tyrannical Breggle ruler) henchman knocked at the door, demanding to know what was going on. The bladesmith played innocent, and the guards ended up collecting 10GP from him, as a form of bribe for them to drop the matter.

Knowing who he was dealing with, he paid up, but wasn’t too happy afterwards to make Rowan’s acquaintance.

Rowan showed him the sword, which got his attention. He told her that he would need to examine it, and that she could come back in two days time (on Hayme, after sundown). Rowan didn’t want to leave the sword with him at first, but Joremy offered to tell her a secret nobody knew about him to gain her trust. He told her that he had fairy ancestors and that this was why he could forge swords imbued with fairy magic. He didn’t know who his ancestor was, but was eager to find out. ² This was enough to gain Rowan’s trust, and she decided to leave the sword with Joremy, returning to the Hornstoat’s Inn afterwards.

On her way back, she aroused the attention of some of Malbleat’s henchmen again, but was quick enough to slip into the Hornstoat’s Inn before they could catch or get a good look at her, settling down at a table. When the guards came in and asked if someone just came in, the landlady (Margerie) played dumb, and the guards went on looking for Rowan elsewhere.

After that, Rowan decided to go to bed. Something Henrick had already done hours ago.

You see, something that’s completely missing from modern D&D due to the long rest system is actually spending days to heal up after a fight. In Dolmenwood, your character will heal 1 (one) hit point every night they sleep in a settlement. That’s it. You then have the option to spend the whole day in bed to heal another 1d3 HP. Rinse and repeat until either fully healed or fully over it.

The only character that had taken damage during the fight with the devil goat in the last session was Henrick. But he had lost 4 of his 5 HP, so at the very least, he would need to spend a night and a day healing up.

So this is what he decided to do.

But first, the wrath of King Pusskin came down hard on both Henrick and Rowan, since neither of them had left a tribute to him at his shrine the previous day. Rowan found a dead mouse on her pillow, and Henrick found his pants had been shredded by cat claws overnight. ³

We used Dolmenwood’s settlements procedure to play out the second day:

I took this to mean that the players could choose one action or thing to persue during the day. Since Henrick would be resting at the Hornstoat’s Inn the whole day, it was on Rowan to get him a new pair of pants. They decided that she should be going to the church, telling them that one of their own needed pants.

She met up with Father Eggwin Dobey, the local vicar, and told him about Henrick’s situation. He told her that he would need to see this Henrick at least once for himself, and that he would let one of his curates prepare a pair of pants for the next day.

Henrick healed 2 HP on his d3 roll, and I told them a bit about how the town celebrated the Feast of Cats this evening. With that, the 2nd of Symswald was already over.

At this point, we also decided to use Dolmenwood’s optional rules for lifestyle expenses to track their cost of living during these days, instead of tracking each drink, meal, and room separately:

Since Henrick healed another HP overnight, he woke up on the 3rd of Symswald fully rested and ready to collect his pants. Since Rowan was looking forward to collecting her sword and information this evening, this would be another day of them staying in or near Lankshorn.

Rowan decided to go explore Lankshorn’s immediate surroundings, foraging for food.

This netted her a very respectable 5 fresh rations. ⁴

At the same time, Henrick was walking over to the church without any pants on. People looked, pointed, and laughed. But it was a short walk, just across the marketplace.

There, Henrick quickly found the vicar and talked to him about his plans to build a stronghold against the undead in Dolmenwood. If powerpoint existed in Dolmenwood, he’d definitely have prepared one. The vicar politely excused himself to go get the pants, but him being very slow left Henrick with about an hour to pray at the church’s shrine to St. Pastery, granting Henrick St. Pastery’s blessing (the ability to cast Cure Affliction once).

During this time, he also talked to Lunk, a local farmer, who prayed to St. Pastery (patron of butchers and well-borers) that his cattle may grow tall and strong, and that the well he was about to dig would carry a lot of water.

Finally, a curate named Odell brought Henrick his new pants, and told him about a local legend that hundreds of years ago, a group of friars took a statue of St. Pastery into the woods to the north-west, and that the statue hadn’t been found again since. Maybe Henrick would like to try his luck?

Afterwards, Henrick decided to step onto the altar to introduce himself to the churchgoers present. He clearly has big plans for his role in this church.

In the evening, Rowan made for the bladesmith again. So we decided to end another session with her standing in front of his door.

DM Notes

If you are a player in this campaign, you probably want to stop here!

What Worked Well

• I think the settlement procedure does a nice job of structuring days between travelling. One action per day, per character feels like a good amount of stuff to handle here.
• I have the easiest time presenting the players with a lot of options for what to do and pursue. Everything in the books really meshes so well.
• The fact that Henrick decided that it was his pants that are gone, and then everyone fully commited to the bit, making it basically the party’s main quest for the session, made me very happy.

What Could’ve Gone Better

• I think I could’ve done a better job of introducing Lankshorn and the role it plays in Dolmenwood, since Rowan originally planned on leaving what she perceived to be a complete backwater as soon as she got her sword. Only when Henrick made a very good case for why it might make sense to stay in the fourth largest town in all of Dolmenwood to find their bearings did she even consider staying here for one second longer than absolutely necessary.

Footnotes