Dwarrowdeep #12

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was mostly role-playing, with just one single combat, so I have decided to skip right to the commentary.

I based the session off the adventure Under Dovla Mountain, found in The Malady Chronicles compilation.

With the coming of spring, more immigrants - both the casteless Dusters and dwarves from the craftsmen caste - from Orzammar have arrived.

Our session began with the PCs being asked to investigate the death of a dwarf from the miner caste in the Ore District. The Ore District had been retaken from the Darkspawn recently, but due (ostensibly) to a lack of skilled miners, mining had not begun at a large scale; at the current moment only a single mixed crew, comprising of members of the miner-caste House Oskar and members of the Duster clan Fingal were working there, with the former providing the expertise, and the latter supplementing the manpower.

When they arrived at the site, our PCs (Bertil, Lorca, Varosh (formerly Dave the Dwarf) and Zunn) found that the dwarves had not been mining, but were in fact excavating a large relief that was believed to be a portal to the buried treasures of an ancient dwarf king. A week ago, Rhinn Oskar, son of the head of House Oskar, had fallen off a scaffolding to his death. Bollol Fingal, a young dwarf from the Duster clan, was the belayer for Rhinn, and although the incident was accepted by all as an accident, there was an underlying resentment among the Oskars, particularly in Rhinn's two sisters.

I had meant this to be a chiefly role-playing session, aimed at exploring the dwarven caste system, and their relationship with outsiders; Vorash was a Duster, while Lorca was raised by dwarves, and was together with Bertil and Zunn greatly respected by the dwarves of the thaig. I had hoped that they will use their standing to reconcile the two families.

However, my players thought this was a murder mystery session, proceeded to grill the dwarves from Clan Fingal, alienating them and eventually causing a public falling out. Soon afterwards a blighted giant worm attack caused a cave-in and cut the community off from the rest of the thaig, and an infectious disease struck the community, quickly incapacitating most of the members and making self-rescue impossible.

When it seemed liked the two families would both die out without reconciling, the head of the House Oskar asked the PCs if they would help. It was Varosh who proposed they did so over ale, and so Oskar broke out the good ale that he had reserved for celebrating the completion of their work, and invited the Fingal Clan to join them.

The community was eventually rescued by the next supply convoy coming from the main thaig.

This was not a "successful" adventure or session, but I think I could have steered the players better, but I have since come to accept the outcome as being thematic to the Dragon Age setting. Heroes sometimes make the wrong choice and others suffer the consequences. Perhaps it showed the players that although their characters were respected in the thaig, as humans and elves they will still be viewed as outsiders.