Play Report Sep 16 2025 - DCC Keep on the Borderlands Open Table (IRL)
Introduction
Since I have been doing these play reports the night before the next game, I'm coming to see them as a form of prep unto themselves. It's been super helpful to narrativize the prior session before getting into the next, focus on what's important and turn my scrawly session notes into something the both the players and I can use.
A magnificent seven sets out for the Borderlands! New players continue to trickle in and the plot thickens. As things proceed with the game, I’m finding that the game is gradually becoming less location-based and instead the players are gravitating towards certain NPCs to orient the game around. I’m down for this, as I love making up Guys and can use these NPC patrons and allies as “nodes” for the locations. In particular, I’m scheming some kind of ruined forest manor crawl for Roisin, but more to come on that.
I’m running the Goodman Games OAR pre-stock of Quasqueton they did for 5e as it’s very easy to run right out of the book. I’m also busy and tired. I have however thrown out the encounter tables and written my own using Retired Adventurer’s 3d6 wandering monsters procedure combined with Papers and Pencils's Structuring Encounter Tables, Amended & Restated. I’ll probably post those once I get the last rascally row filled out to my liking.
Next session I’ll have eight players in all likelihood. The store owner pulled me aside to let me know to grab someone to take player overage but I’m learning that I like huge tables actually and I think eight is really the sweet spot for this campaign. We’ll see if I ever have to worry about going beyond that.
I also recently went hexcrawling IRL in Sussex County NJ up by the Delaware Water Gap and it was so sick... lots of fruitful ideas and shaggy woodlands that got the imagination racing. Hoping to get back out there sometime soon!
Report
In attendance:
- Rudy, Carrick and the woodfolk Glenn, warriors all;
- Birdy, wizard;
- Kalimdar, cleric of the Horned One;
- Winifred, thief and herbalist
And introducing:
- Zig, a dwarf miner having his midlife crisis out in the Borderlands!
With the Ogre-whelming Force now at full strength, mercenaries were hired and the expedition to Quasqueton was ready for launch. Canoes aplenty were chartered and equipment readied. With the secret back way into the fortress at their disposal, they were ready to venture in search of the Unknown…
Quasqueton had fallen almost a hundred years ago, not long after its illustrious masters, the half-Woodfolk Rogahn and the amoral wizard Zelligar, had disappeared in some uncertain campaign deep into the wilderness of the Borderlands.
The band gathered intelligence before sallying forth:
From Ilmara the unlucky elf scout, they learned the exact method of activating the ancient portal in the Spiderwood.
From Marevine the elf, advisor to the Castellan, they learned that she herself had once held a similar role at Quasqueton for Rogahn and Zelligar. When the two lords of the stronghold vanished, she attempted to hold the place together, but the situation rapidly descended into mutiny and anarchy. She asked the band to find her old office and retrieve the contents of her desk.
From their Woodfolk ally Roisin Haregetter, they learned that the woodfolk had been finding large footprints from a figure in armor leading from the Caves of Chaos to Quasqueton; it was doubly odd that one so big and equipped so poorly for the woods would evade the woodfolk so effectively. Roisin also seemed to be preoccupied with some secretive business of her own, and promised to let the Ogre-whelming Force know when the time was right.
On the boat trip into the marshes, the band was not hoodwinked by the tinkling-bell laughter of young women beyond the reeds, opting to instead row directly to the Spiderwood. The canoes were portaged and carried to the dolmen portal, where a base camp was erected and respects paid to Mallory Weaver, the Spider-Witch.
Without further ado, the portal was awakened with the stone key, and Carrick was first through its shimmering portière! A winding corridor lined with locked doors lay before them, its twists and turns hinting at a much larger system. The door to Quasqueton was clear, however, with magenta light pouring from the keyhole. The portal spat the band out in a throne room decorated with the great device of Rogahn–an eagle upon a party per bend sinister in yellow and purple. They were not alone, however, for the wizard Mothgar and their minions already occupied the throne room. A tense standoff followed by an awkward conversation ensued, with both groups agreeing to stay out of one another’s way. Mothgar hinted at two other wizards, their triplets Gothgar and Rothgar, also exploring the halls.
The Ogre-whelming Force waited until the other group had left before beginning to explore. With a hidden button they found a secret door to Rogahn’s chambers, along with the warrior’s very first sword. A secret tunnel connected to a woman’s room–Melissa, his paramour. In Melissa's room, the band found a tapestry depicting Rogahn as he may have appeared in life; a hearty man with an easy smile, horned helmet tucked under one arm with the other around the auburn-haired maiden. Birdy remarked it odd that a lord of Rogahn’s stature would have felt the need to sneak around with a lover in his own fortress.
Paranoia set in as the band tracked footprints in the dusty halls of Quasqueton. Believing them to be from Mothgar’s group stalking them for an ambush, they delved ever deeper into the labyrinthine corridors of the stronghold. In time, they found another trail; a line of fresh dark blood leading into a dark suite.
Within they found evidence of Zelligar’s disregard for decency–an undercooked heap of orcs, spilled from their cauldron and not yet separated, had shambled into the wizard’s chambers to take revenge upon their absent “Papa.” For now, these adventuring knaves would have to do!
The orc pile drew blood with its many raking claws and dozen heads with sharp tusks, but the Ogre-whelming Force’s numbers and spears won the day! With the abomination put out of its misery, the crew set about ransacking Zelligar’s room.
They found little in the austere bedchamber, and a hidden needle trap in the nightstand paralyzed the thief Winifred’s right hand! With but a few silvers for the trouble, the group set about ransacking one of the suite’s side rooms. Better luck there, for they found some of Zelligar’s notes in an encrypted jargon, as well as a ledger written in the same looping hand that was no doubt the wizards. Clever Birdy noted that the most recent date was but thirty years ago… long after Zelligar was said to have disappeared. Could one of the masters of Quasqueton have returned? And if he had, what happened to him then?