Play Report Jan 27-Feb 10 2026 - Crow's Keep #23-25 (Sailors on the Starless Sea edition)
Introduction
Three play reports in one, getting me mostly out of arrears. I ran a juiced-up version of Sailors on the Starless Sea as part of my DCC open table. The players had blown past Hommlet previously and attacked the Moathouse from T1, so I decided to place this a little further down the river from the moathouse. It stands to reason that many castles and towers would line such a waterway, so I plugged it back into Hommlet. I feel the results were good!
Overall I enjoyed this module a lot; I understand that this and Doom are regarded as cream of the crop among DCC modules. The vibe was immaculate, dungeon is interesting and has rooms with great toys, and the final battle atop the ziggurat is memorable. It was easy to convert into a location-based adventure, and Iβm happy with how I integrated it into my B2+T1 sandbox.
With that said, I had some gripes. Since this is a small dungeon I used to key a hex, the linearity didnβt bother me as much. I did find some of the rooms to be both straightforward and obtuse, which to me kills momentum very quickly. The longship and the leviathan respectively seemed to be the worst offenders. Lighting the candle to draw over the longship seems deceptively obvious, but having the longship start within sight drew attention away from this as possibility; thereβs little to link the censer to the leviathan as a potential appeasement, and we wound up in a fight. I was very generous with the descriptions here in an attempt to speed things along.
Next session will involve the band attempting to cut through behind enemy lines and use the tunnel in Quasqueton connecting to the Caves! I will also be resolving an offscreen mass combat that they planned. Looking forward to finally returning to the Caves after nearly 200 in-game days; I sure scared them in the first session.
I dictated this report using my phoneβs speech-to-text function; I would not do so again. Cleaning it up took about as long as writing the report from scratch.
Report
In attendance:
- Sir Carrick, level 3 warrior
- Tan Gnollbane, level 1 elf
- Kaledar, level 2 neutral cleric
- HBGB, level 2 halfling
- Winnifred, level 2 thief
- Aislinn, level 1 thief
The band was accompanied by HBGBβs retainer Ingham the Priest, a level 1 lawful cleric.
With winter still sitting heavily upon the hills and woods of the Borderlands, the Ogre-whelming Force headed to Hommlet to investigate rumors of missing persons. The region had been plagued for some months with reports of disappearancesβtravelers, adventurers, and peasants alike. For some time, there had been no breakthroughs in the case, but Ostler Gundigoot at the Inn of Lost Loves in Hommlet contacted the band with a lead.
Zert, a militiamen, claimed to have seen the captors as they abducted his parter Ben in the night. Zert described the captor as an odd figure composed of parts many different animals, seemingly melted like wax onto man-shape.
Fed up with drowning his sorries at the Inn, the Force easily convinced Zert to act as bait. At the edge of town was the construction of a new fortification where many disappearances had been reported. It was there they would draw out the captors and hunt them downβcovering as many as possible in paint to track them back to their lair.
That night the band took up positions while Zert filled his belly with liquid courage. Sure enough after a time dark shapes and bright pinprick eyes appeared in the woods. As the first few scuttled out to grab Zert, the band saw that these were the beastmen Aislinn had encountered in the Caves of Chaos!
They weren't ready for the band, however! The Ogre-whelming Force launched an attack from ambush, and slew most of the Beastmen! A survivor, covered in paint, was commanded by Ingham to return home. That very night, the band borrowed horses from Gundigoot and set off.
The tracks led through Emridy Meadows, past a camp of orcs and another of goblin wolf riders. The band had no time to investigate these concerning developments lest the trail run cold. Snow had begun to fall, risking the bright-red tracks heading east.
The trail terminated at a ruined keep at the edge of the River Goblindrink, much like the moathouse they had conquered some time before. Aislinn approached to get a better look at the crumbling fort, but was beset by animate brambles.
After dealing with the foul flora, the band scouted the perimeter of keep. They found a large sinkhole that led deep into the earth, and a crumbled wall that they used to breach the courtyard. Kaledar was fascinated by a bizarre well at the center of the courtyard nearly falling in after being ensorcelled by its inky blackness.
The band retreated to nearby Quasqueton to gather supplies and strength before venturing into the fortress by daylight. Kaledar took his leave, spreading word of the orcs and goblins that had camped in Emridy Meadows.
The next morning the band attacked the keep, fighting many beastmen. HBGBβs retainer Ingham purified a burnt sanctuary that appeared to still smolder despite its destruction many years ago. Winifred, who knew the language of Chaos, gathered a censer and some incense from the sanctuary. He pushed his luck with his god Fair Justicia, though, and still more beastmen came up from below the keep! Carrickβs helm was rent in the fracas.
Badly wounded from their tangle with the beastmen, the band holed up in one of the fortressβs towers overnight. The band slept fitfully in the cold and dingy tower. In the night, Carrick thought he spotted a cloaked figure and many beastsmen moving around the courtyard, but they were not accosted.
The next morning the band awoke and found that the corpses of their slain enemies had been removed from the courtyard. Underdeterred, they pressed on, descending deeper into the complex. The band came upon a ransacked vault, with but a few coins scattered about; and a hidden tomb of some warrior. Unsure of how much time they had to hunt down the beastmen, they let the dead warrior lie.
Beyond this was a pool filled with skulls. Many members of the Ogre-whelming Force felt compelled to select skulls from the water, hearing the severed heads whisper to them: revenge. At the bottom of the pool was a large bronze ring, which Ingham pulled in a greedy attempt to gather more treasure. This caused the bottom of the pool to drop out, sending him down a chute into a draining cavern below! The band followed him down, and HBGB found in the muck a ring that glowed with a light of its own. Three rubies were set within, and an inscription in some unknown elemental letters.
The band followed the chute to a large cavern dominated by a salt lake that stretched off into the darkness. Further out on the water loomed a ziggurat, lit by the sinkhole and shedding a golden glow from something happening atop its stone steps. Drumbeats and chanting echoed throughout the cavern. Atop a large stone was a candle, which HBGB lit. Out of the darkness came a Northmanβs ship, uncrewed but sailing. The party boarded and it took them toward the ziggurat.
Halfway across this water, the boat was followed by a dark entity beneath the water, with great tentacles surfacing to corral the boat. The band scrambled to try and appease the leviathan, but before long the tentacles had wrapped around the ship threatening to rip it asunder! Winifred was ensnared and yanked overboard where she seemed sure to drown. Ingham again issued a word of command, impelling the Leviathan to attack the ziggurat. The Force scarcely had time to fish Winifred out of the water before the leviathan surged off.
Pandemonium at the ziggurat, with dozens of beastment struggling to fend off the Leviathan. All the while, drum beats atop the ziggurat grew louder and frenzied and the cries of hostages could be heard. From below, the band could see the molten gold from the vault pouring onto a mighty figure of some unknown make. Tan Gnollbane summoned another beast of the forest, sending a massive primordial boar clearing a path through the beastmen.
They were too late. Seeing that the moment had come, the clergyman of chaos leading the rite hurled himself into the molten gold, binding a spirit to a massive goat-headed effigy of a Chaos Lord. Early on, Carrickβs sword pierced the eye of the effigy causing it to spill a bright golden mixture of quicksilver and treasure. For his bravery, Carrick nearly met his maker when the effigy retaliated with a whirling three-headed flail!
But the band prevailed! They destroyed the effigy and rescued a dozen captives, then laid claim to what treasure remained atop the ziggurat. The leviathan, appeased by the rivers of blood spilled, retreated beneath the water.
In their absence, the Caves had launched a sizable raid upon the settlements west of Emridy meadows. Many houses had burnedβoutlying farms and homesteads had been put to the torch by orcs and wolfriders. Hommlet was nearly sacked, but had managed to repel the raiders. But for Kaledarβs warning and the aid of Roisinβs Woodfolk, it would have been far worse.
Amid the tense atmosphere of the Keep, many were clamoring for revenge. An expedition force was put together to bring the fight back to the Caves. The Ogre-whelming Force would be the knife in Chaosβs ribs.
Father Armand, a high priest of Law and acquaintance of Carrickβs, approached the band personally. He requested that he be included in their plans, for in his old age he longed to strike against Chaos once againβ¦