Play Report Sep 9 2025 - DCC Keep on the Borderlands Open Table (IRL)
Introduction
Unforeseen events led to a much smaller table today! The gang was reluctant to delve into Quasqueton without our stalwarts Rudy and Birdy, so I had to pivot into some sidequests for them. This fraction of the group was relatively content to play-act for much of it, but looking back it seems like a necessary warm-up exercise for them. Plus, it gave me time to weave one of my already-keyed hexes into the play-acting. I had put a griffon lair from OAR #6 into map, so I decided to expand the existing Woodfolk thread.
They got straight to business once they had a chance to chat with the familiar NPC Róisín. The table seems to have taken a shine to her and the Woodfolk. I’ll have to pepper the woods and marshes with some more Woodfolk sites and build them out into a fully-fledged faction. Much of the party is neutral, so I think they may well try to help Róisín restore a Woodfolk domain.
First character death, too! The table has been going for seven sessions now with only a few hireling deaths. The griffon really highlighted the swingy, easy-come-easy-go of DCC; poor Anders the Haberdasher did not stand a chance. I always keep a fat stack of pregenerated characters with me for the open table, so we were able to quickly nip in the bud any hard feelings by getting the player back into the game before his next turn came around. I also took a quiet pride in the player excitedly talking about how he was interested in his new character’s Woodfolk origin.
Next week, Quasqueton!
Report
In attendance:
- Carrick
- Winifred
- Kalimdar
- Anders (RIP)
Along with hireling Woodfolk, Róisín Haregetter and her huntspeople; including Glenda the Alchemist.
A carousing Kalimdar led taverngoers at the Bloated Stoat Inn in singing a song insulting a much-hated lord from the vicinity of Verbobonc, known as Viscount Frederick Schmederick to his detractors. Though word got around of this political agitation, Kalimdar befriended a subversive visiting bard—though a name could not be retrieved from beyond the veil of his hangover. For now, Kalimdar elected to call his new friend David Buddie.
With Rudy and Birdy attending to critical business elsewhere, the party put Quasqueton expedition plans on hold. Instead, they followed up on scuttlebutt that nobles in the hunting camp north of the Keep were planning to hunt a griffon to the hills north beyond the Whispering Wood–and claim the bounty from the Duke, whose lands had been ravaged by the beast and wanted it dead.
On the way, the band stopped again at the nameless Woodfolk village. In speaking with Róisín Haregetter, they learned that the Woodfolk planned to kill the griffon themselves and claim the bounty. The band was able to talk Róisín out of such an ambitious move against the massed noble hunting parties, and again hired her and some bowmen to form their own hunting party.
The Ogre-whelming Force next stopped at the nobles’ camp to place their hats in the ring. Hal the Huntsman, the spokesman from their last venture into the Whispering Wood. A festive atmosphere had settled over the camp, with nobles and their retinues making ready to chase the beast.
A brief audience with the nobles led to an awkward confrontation between Kalimdor and Frederick Schmederick, who was aware of the slander spread against him. The Viscount assured Kalimdar that luck was on the neutral cleric’s side this day, for the Viscount was too busy preparing to hunt griffon to seek satisfaction against the uncouth pagan!
The next morning, horns were sounded and the hunt began in earnest. With a party of half woodfolk, a pagan priest of the Horned God, a thief and a halfling, the band covered ground quickly and outpaced all but the mounted noblemen. Treachery was uncovered when they happened upon one such unlucky noble–ruffians had ambushed and killed him in an apparent robbery!
After dealing with the brigands, the crew took one, Aethelfirth, alive. He confessed to having been paid by the Viscount Frederick Schmederick to waylay early frontrunners and winnow out the competition for the hateful lord. The party kept Aethelfirth on as a hostage to reveal the Viscount’s plot, and took bandit heads, the dead noble’s signet identifying him as Sir Karlo of the Green City, and a portion of horsemeat for griffon bait. For the remainder of the day, Carrick and Kalimdar established a rapport with Róisín, who shared with them her ambitions of restoring the Woodfolk’s claim to the region. A trail of feathers led straight to the rocky crumbling hils overlooking the region, with a collapsed signal tower atop a bare peak the most likely spot for a nest. With light dying, the party made camp in the lee of a glacial moraine.
In the night, a trap caught a lone gnoll scout who had crept up upon the Ogre-whelming Force’s camp. The morning after dealing with the scout, the band later came across the flayed remnants of old Mad Hermit John, who seemed to have been captured and devoured by the gnolls.
A tough hike up the rocky hill toward the tower took a good bit of time and effort, with a small bivouac established behind some rocks a few hundred yards from the tower. Aethelfirth was bound and lashed with horsemeat and left as bait for the griffon. The waft of flesh rode a fresh wind from the southeast straight to the griffon’s nose, and the majestic she-beast made her entrance.
Arrows flew, with the band hiding behind rocks away from the sharp beak and talons of the griffon. An invocation of Kalimdar’s was ineffective against the griffon, who shook off the magic like water. Hoping to drive home a killing blow, Anders charged up and clambered onto the distracted beast’s back, only to be thrown to the ground and instantly disemboweled. In the ensuing chaos and panic, the Woodfolk hunter Glenda was possessed with the spirit of adventure, and Winifred surprised the beast with a deadly blow from Lareth’s black staff!
With the beast dead, the band found that Aethelfirth had escaped in the confusion, depriving them of their witness to the Viscount’s murder plot. Anders’s remains were gathered for cremation at the Keep, and five griffon eggs were claimed. Another large groove in the nest hinted that a second griffon, perhaps the sire, was still at large. The band unanimously decided that now was the time to beat a hasty retreat before the widower griffon returned.
Back at the nobles’ hunting camp, the Ogre-whelming Force claimed their bounty and made their accusation of the Viscount Frederick Shmederick! Without concrete evidence but a couple of severed heads and a signet ring, few nobles were convinced enough to arrest the dishonorable lord. However, clever Kalimdor remembered the grimoire pages gifted to him by the spider-witch, Mallory Weaver. Reading her scratchings on the spider-silk scroll allowed Kalimdor to call upon the spirits of the recently-deceased brigands and have them speak instead.
Though this was pagan magic, the gathered nobles were impressed enough by this mystical display to seize the Viscount. With justice served and their pockets fat, the Ogre-whelming Force split the eggs and their earnings with Róisín’s Woodfolk, keeping but one to try and hatch with the aid of the Keep’s very own Witch…