Bleaklands - Found Journal

24 Apr, 2026

Found old notes for a solo OSE game I played around two years ago. Nearly completely forgot about the game. Think they're a good example of an output I'm aiming for when playing solo. So I'm posting them here pretty much unedited.

Day 1

• It is snowing heavily.
• The party arrives at the Abbey of the Silent Bell.
• Zara presents a letter from Lord Farold, securing the party lodgings at the abbey.
• Monks know no useful info about the surrounding area. Or if they know, they do not want to divulge it yet.
• Party ventures north, looking for an entrance to the dungeon.
• Snowstorm slows down the base movement rate to 30.
• Morning random encounter: 17 giant rats, 70 yards away.
• Zara throws out a ration as a peace offering.
• Rats eat the ration and let the party pass.
• Party camps for the night.

Day 2

• Cold wafts of mist roll over the hillside.
• The party continues to travel north into the hills.
• Morning random encounter: 16 giant rats, 70 yards away.
• Rats return for more food offerings. Babette throws them one. They whimper for more but let the party pass.
• The party reaches a river in the hills. They spot 10 orcs travelling along the river. They’re laden with treasure (5000 gp) and they haven’t spotted the party yet.
• The party ambushes the orcs from 50 yards away.
• Combat goes terribly for the party. Antonio, Wessely, Zara and Kaspar die. Othello and Babette run away.
• Othello and Babette run for the rest of the day, all the way to the abbey.
• CHAOS FACTOR +1.

Day 9

• It is snowing heavily once again.
• Othello and Babette spend a week recuperating while they wait for reinforcements from the lands of Lord Farold.
• Abbess Renata asks the party to clear a green slime from the abbey cellars.
• Babette spends the day preparing fire arrows and in the evening they dispatch the slime.
• Whilst cleaning up the slime remains, they discover a trap door with a heavy padlock on it. Presumably leading to some even lower level of the abbey cellars.
• They ask Abbess Renata about it but she knows only that the trap door leads to an underground level that’s been there since before the abbey was built. She thinks the key to the padlock might be somewhere in the attic but no one cleaned up there in a while.
• CHAOS FACTOR -1.

Day 10

• Heavy snowfall continues.
• Abagail climbs up the ladder to the attic. As she opens the trap door a string snaps and a crossbow bolt flies at her. She manages to duck just in time as the bolt hits and deflects off of the trap door.
• The party pulls back, closes the trap door and listens carefully against it. They hear nothing.
• Kai goes up this time, shield held in front of the direction the bolt flew from.
• As the party enters the attic one by one, they notice shadowy figures scurrying behind the attic clutter. Too large to be rats, even giant ones, but not by much.
• Kai calls out, extending an offer of peace. From the shadows emerges a family of kobolds. 2 adults and 5 of their children. They somehow made their way to the attic last year and have lived there since without anyone noticing.
• The party agrees to keep their existence a secret for their help with finding the key to the lower cellar level.
• Even with their help the party does not find the key. Othello finds a pair of jewelled earrings (700 gp) which he pockets.
• In the next attic room they find a chain bound reinforced wooden chest which rattles ominously whenever someone steps close to it. They leave it be for now.
• Floorboards in the third attic room creak loudly as Silvia steps on them, so the party leaves searching it to the kobolds. They find no key.
• In the last attic room they find nothing but rotten food. Which kobolds quickly declare to be still salvageable.
• Party leaves the kobolds to it and exits the attic. Before they leave, kobolds teach them a knock code, to enter the attic without triggering the trap.
• Salomo asks Ischell Wyvernbane, an apprentice blacksmith at the abbey, to help them with the padlock. He doesn’t understand why they’d want to go down there but agrees to help them anyway. He doesn’t manage to pick the lock but a few swings from a hammer break it into pieces.
• Party opens the trap door to reveal a ~10’ deep shaft leading down. Silvia kneels and lowers down a torch to better see what’s inside. She notices there’s an invisible force pushing out whatever passes through the threshold of the trapdoor.
• After some experimentation the party surmises the threshold of the trap door reverses gravity or at least something similar.
• Since it's getting quite late, the party decides to leave further exploration for tomorrow. Because they broke the lock, they have to at least push a heavy barrel over the trap door, to stop anything from crawling out. Yolanthe marks the position of the barrel with a chalk stick, to be able to tell if it was moved.
• CHAOS FACTOR +1.

Day 11

• Snowfall gets lighter but doesn’t stop.
• The party borrows a wooden ladder and returns to the cellar. They notice the barrel is shifted slightly. Something has been trying to get out?
• They shift the barrel away and open the trap door. They prop the ladder inside the trap door shaft using some iron spikes. Babette and Othello light their torches.
• Party climbs the ladder, entering a 20x20’ room with three wooden doors and a couple bunk beds. They’ve been used not too long ago as well.
• The party splits and listens at each door. To the east Babette hears weird rattling chirping noises that sound like stone plates rubbing against one another. To the west and north they hear nothing.
• They decide to avoid the eastern door for now. Yolanthe attempts to open the door to the north while Kai and Silvia are ready to strike at whatever might come through. She finds the door stuck and so leaves opening it to Silvia, who is the strongest among them. Silvia kicks hard but is unable to get the door open in one go.
• Ten minutes later, with the use of her crowbar, she finally manages to crack the door open. Beyond, their torchlight reveals a 20’ wide room extending forward as far as they can see. The floor is covered with acrid smelling black substance. Yolanthe pokes the floor with her spear and only though only the tip touches it, it becomes stuck fast. Even Silvia is unable to detach it.
• The party moves back to the first room and tries to kick down the door leading west but again it takes some time.
• As they enter the room they see 7 robed figures chant in hushed voices and dance around a tied up person. Salomo tries to call out to them but robed figures ignore him.
• As their chanting intensifies, Babette starts to have a pretty bad feeling about this and urges the party to attack. In the first missile salvo, one of the robed figures dies and one is injured.
• Chanting stops and cultists take out vicious looking daggers and charge at the party. Yolanthe starts casting the Entangle spell. Another missile salvo goes off, killing one more cultist. Yolanthe’s spell binds all the cultists and they’re easily picked off by party’s ranged weapons, even as they screamed and tried to cut at the grasping vines.
• After the cultists are dealt with, the party frees their prisoner which turns out to be a gnome by the name of Wicket Fiddlebottom. He is immensely thankful to the party, though thanks is all he has to offer at the moment.
• As they escort Wicket to the dungeon exit, they hear sniffing and pitter-patter of approaching paws. Badger, Silvia’s war dog, starts barking.
• The party manages to enter the first room and slam the door behind them just as three giant shrews slam into it. They soon lose interest, as they presumably start feasting on the cultist corpses.
• Wicket climbs out of the dungeon and the party takes a short break to catch their breath. Othello and Babette light new torches.
• CHAOS FACTOR -1.
• The party contemplates trying to ambush the giant shrews but ultimately decides against it.
• Kai suggests stripping the blankets from the bunk beds and using them to create a safe path across the sticky tar in the room to the north. Othello and Babette volunteer to hop across the blankets.
• Opening the door takes another good while but the party executes their plan pretty much without a hitch and on the opposite side of the room they find a menacing iron trunk with a clasp in the shape of a dragon’s head.
• Since it’s sitting on the tarred ground, they can’t move the trunk itself. Neither Othello nor Babette want to mess with the locking mechanism and besides the acrid fumes from the sticky tar are starting to make them light headed.
• After safely regrouping in the first room, the party decides to at least check out the room to the east and once again the door proves to be a mighty foe.
• Once they finally get it open, the dim torchlight reveals a natural cavern hall with many stalagmites and stalactites.
• As the last of the party steps into the room, one of the stalactites falls right on top of Yolanthe, killing her instantly. What’s more, the stalactite starts to eat her corpse. It’s a piercer!
• Party takes one look at the amount of seemingly normal stalactites still hanging above their heads and quickly books it out of the room. Three more piercers drop down. Two narrowly missing Babette and Badger, one killing Salomo.
• Once the party calms down, they have Othello and Abagail stand at the threshold of the room and shoot at the piercers that dropped down and are now feasting on remains of their comrade.
• Three additional pierces have dropped down now, for a total of 6 piercers on the ground.
• More and more piercers keep dropping from the ceiling and soon the party runs out of arrows to shoot.
• With a heavy heart they decide to leave the bodies of their fallen comrades and retreat from the dungeon.
• CHAOS FACTOR +1.