The Great Dale Sandbox 0 - Introduction & Table of Contents

My Neverwinter: Year of the Ageless One campaign will conclude in a few more sessions and I need to get another campaign ready. I have a few ideas that I have been toying around with for a while - plus the ones I have mentioned in the past on this blog - but I realised today I needed something simpler: Good vs Evil. Dungeons. Maybe dragons. Very little plot. Fairly old school.

While looking for something else in the 4E Forgotten Realms Player's Guide I noticed this description of the Great Dale:

The Great Dale is the vast, windswept vale that divides two enormous forests, the Dunwood to the north and the Forest of Lethyr to the south. The druids and other folk who inhabit the great rocky tor of Yeshelmaar are all that stand between the sparsely settled, wild southern woodlands and the festering evils of the northern forest.

Trade has collapsed along the Great Road, leaving the defenders of Yeshelmaar as the last bastion of civilisation in the Great Dale. Demons that were bound beneath the Dunwood by the long-fallen Empire of Narfell now stalk the northern forest and threaten to overwhelm the wild reaches of the Forest of Lethyr. The southern woods are home to hidden wood elf villages and a handful of human settlements along the border with Thesk.

And then I looked at the map and realised it already showed a few dungeons which means I would simply show the map to the players and let them choose where to go to find adventure. That's simple. That's fairly old school. And that might be just what my players are looking for after a more plot-intensive campaign.

Further, I continue to hope that I can persuade my wife's extended family to play this game one day so a simpler dungeon-focussed campaign is probably a good thing to have as a standby. So, here comes a series of posts called The Great Dale Sandbox which could otherwise probably be called Dungeons & Demons....

(It also gives me something to blog about while I wait for my copy of Princes of the Apocalypse. Ahhh, the joys of living in a Third World country....)

What About 5E?

Frankly, I think this idea of dungeons-on-a-map would work perfectly with 5E or any of the old school editions/rules. It's also suitable for DMs who don't have a good grasp of FR as, at its heart, it's a fairly generic campaign involving exploring dungeons with a possible BBEG being an aspect of a demon lord (and I think of aspects in the context of the 3.5E Miniatures Handbook where they were CR 12 or so and not Epic threats - I think that would also work well in 5E).

Introduction

(TL;DR: I have come to think of this campaign as something like the answer to this question: What would happen if Necromancer Games set its adventures in the world of the Forgotten Realms?)

The layout of the Great Dale is quite simple. There is the demon-haunted Dunwood on the northern side and the druid-protected Forest of Lethyr on the southern side. Dunwood vs Lethyr, or demon vs druid, is a fairly simple shorthand for describing the conflict in the Great Dale and the source of so many adventuring opportunities.

Beyond that, the Great Dale is a place containing numerous ruins from the demon-worshipping/-binding ancient Empire of Narfell. For my own take on this sandbox-based campaign that I expect/hope to run, I am actually calling it Legacies of Narfell. In due course, I hope to post actual play reports... assuming that is the campaign that we run through next.

The BBEG is going to be an aspect of Demogorgon and this aspect will be the source of much of the corruption of the Great Dale and its forests. That said, I suspect some of the other unique tanar'ri such as Orcus - or at least said tanar'ri's followers and thralls - will make an appearance but it's going to be a campaign that ends in a confrontation with the Big D himself.

And, yes, that means I will be stealing ideas along the way from the Savage Tide adventure path.

Table of Contents

Adventure Locations

From the 4E map:

Clymph Tower
Dun-Tharos
Val-Murthag


From the 3.xE map:
Fortress Narder
Great Barrow
Tower Threespires 

Other Locations & Features

Bezentil
Dunwood
Easting River
Forest of Lethyr
Giantspire Mountains
Great Road
Kront
Lake Ashane
The Mucklestones
Narfell
Tammar
Thesk
Uthmere
Yeshelmaar

Helpful Links

WotC posted the sections on the Great Dale from both the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and Forgotten Realms Player's Guide <here> and <here> respectively.

All of the information from 3.xE's Unapproachable East - one of the best FR sourcebooks, IMO - can be found in four posts on another site: <overview>, <people>, <cities>, and <history>.

 

Silver Marches Sandbox 1A - A Revised Introduction

When I started this series of posts I began with a simple introduction that, twelve or so posts later, feels in need of an update.

As I have been putting down my ideas for this campaign in these posts, and also thinking about other ideas as I go about my daily business, I am finding that some things are taking on a more definite shape primarily in relation to background information and the identities and activities of antagonists. That said, I still want to try and keep the sandbox feel - conscious, too, that that is such a vague term - but there are antagonists and there are things going on in the background so why not give them a little bit of detail.

Behind-the-Scenes: What is this All About?

I am no fan of WotC's adventures. Generally speaking, they suck. Even WotC seems to agree as there have been public comments about the need to publish better adventures particularly with the dog's breakfast known as D&D Next (aka D&D Previous, aka D&D Fifth Edition, aka AD&D Third Edition etc...) scheduled to be published later this year. This seems to be the sink or swim edition for D&D at WotC in the face of demands from Hasbro to turn D&D into a genuine moneyspinner.

Anyway, corporate crap aside, WotC needs to produce better adventures for the new edition. It cannot afford another Keep on the Shadowfell or (the even more execrable) Pyramid of Shadows so I have been watching the few Next (pre-Next?) releases carefully.

The first one that was widely available was Murder in Baldur's Gate. It sucked. It blew chunks. It was not an adventure. And yet some people enjoyed it. Good on them. :)

But then came the second: Legacy of the Crystal Shard. Wow. This was an adventure - actually, a mini-campaign - that I could really enjoy. It got my creative juices running to the point where my largely dead blog had a burst of new life in the form of a series of posts suggesting ways to expand Legacy of the Crystal Shard with some other published adventures.

But Icewind Dale is relatively small and, as I am not a R A Salvatore fan (with the exception of The Crystal Shard), the area doesn't hold my interest. Plus, as I thought about some of my posts, I realised that the ideas would work even better in the Silver Marches. The final clincher for using the Silver Marches was, simply put, the superb map created by Mike Schley.

This is the map Mike Schley created:

It's simply superb.

And this is the shitstain, if you will pardon the language, excreted for 4E's Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide:

It's one thing to destroy the Realms with the Spellplague and the other 4E changes (frankly, I understand why these were done and the fact that I use the 4E Realms shows I can work within those changes). It's another thing to then map the world using the contents of a baby's nappy/diaper.

Focussing on the positive, I can work with Mike Schley's map and it's something I can show to new players and give them a decent overview of the region their characters will be exploring. And that's a good segue into my next major point, I am planning to run this campaign for players new to tabletop RPGs and to the Realms.

And while I plan to use either 4E or 13th Age to run the game (and I am leaning toward 4E because, despite its greater complexity, I think grid-based combat is a great way to learn tactics), I want to try and include a lot of old school influences primarily by adapting old 1E and 2E adventures. Other than the ruleset, anyone who plays this campaign should be having similar experiences to someone who started playing D&D in the 1980s like I did.

That also means I want to include a lot of the so-called clichés (aka tropes) of D&D and the Forgotten Realms. There will be dungeons and there will be dragons. There will be drow and the Underdark. There will be slavers (and Slave Lords) and the Zhentarim. There will be beholder and mind flayers and other monsters from the first Monster Manual. And, of course, there will be bugbears, goblins, hobgoblins, ogres, orcs and giants.

And these monsters will be fought in homages to, inter alia, B1 In Search of the Unknown (for which the campaign is named), B2 Keep on the Borderlands, D1 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, D3 Vault of the Drow, G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King, and Night Below.

Plot, Metaplot & Subplot

When I started thinking about ways to create a sandbox in the Silver Marches that would basically involve throwing existing adventures on to Mike Schley's map, I made a conscious choice to avoid issues of story or, as I have termed it here, plot, metaplot and subplot (a paraphrase, in the loosest sense, of the legendary Winston Churchill's comment about "rum, sodomy, and the lash"). However, as my ideas involve, inter alia, the drow, the Netherese and the Zhentarim I do need to give this some attention.

The Zhentarim

Tackling them in reverse alphabetical order, I will begin with the Zhentarim because they are the simplest.

Normally when I involve Zhentarim in my campaigns they are a major enemy and may even provide the ultimate BBEG of the campaign. At the moment, that is not my plan for this campaign. Rather, my plan is to use them as they are found in the 4E Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide: they are purely a band of mercenaries with no principles preventing them from being hired by even more evil groups. 

In this campaign, they have been hired by the Netherese to cause strife in the Silver Marches by disrupting trade between and among the three major cities of Silverymoon, Sundabar and Everlund and also along the River Rauvin by acting as river pirates. And that's it. There is, at the moment, no grand scheme for the Zhents in the Silver Marches other than fulfilling this contract for the Netherese. Even the Cyricist clerics that are part of the Zhentarim are happy simply to spread strife in accordance with the Dark Sun's dogma; being paid to do so is just a bonus.

This may change later - I still have plans for a campaign involving a new clone of Manshoon taking over the Zhentarim and turning them into what they were before the Spellplague, including making them Banite rather than Cyricist - but I don't think that will happen in this campaign. Here they are bad buys, but not as bad as other groups that the PCs will encounter.

The Netherese

As noted, the actions of the Zhentarim in the Silver Marches are due to a contract from the Netherese, also known as the Shadovar.

The Netherese are noted worshippers of Shar, the Mistress of the Night, who is fundamentally opposed to her sister Selûne, also known as the Moonmaiden. As Silverymoon and, indeed, the Silver Marches, are considered to be strongly aligned with the Moonmaiden. the Shadovar plan to bring the Silver Marches under Netherese rule have a strong religious element amongst the more diehard Shar-worshippers among them.

More importantly for a growing empire like that of the Netherese, the Silver Marches is rich with natural resources, the same resources that have attracted dwarves - and, indeed, dwarven kingdoms - for many millennia. Similar, the Silver Marches is rich in magical resources which attracted the original Netherese to this region two or so thousand years ago.

The use of the Zhentarim to disrupt trade and cause strife is merely an opening gambit by the Netherese. They also plan to stir up the giants and the orcs while simultaneously preparing their own forces to invade once their catspaws have done their jobs. And any prospective Netherese invasion will not come by land: the Shadovar plan to send a flying city when the time is right. (And perhaps one of things they are searching for in the Nether Mountains is a ruined flying city that can be repaired....)

I don't think the invasion will form part of the campaign: that's really just backstory to justify or explain Netherese actions in the Silver Marches in case the players become interested in that part of the story.

The Drow

Right now, I am planning to use the Rise of the Underdark storyline as the major metaplot of the campaign. A large part of this is because I want to run homages to D1 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and D3 Vault of the Drow - with Menzoberranzan taking the place of Greyhawk's Erelhei-Cinlu - but also because they are a threat powerful enough to justify the Netherese losing interest in the Silver Marches.

The guts of the Rise of the Underdark story is this: Lolth wants to become the new deity of magic, taking the place of the now-dead Mystra (bear in mind that I am setting this game in 1479 DR before Ed Greenwood [apparently] brings back Mystra in one of the Elminster books) and creating something called the Demon Weave which is a replacement for the former Weave and which, I suspect, draws some of its power from the Abyss and/or Lolth's Demonweb Pits.

This Demon Weave is to be created and/or fuelled by sacrificing powerful magic to Lolth and by draining off the power of imprisoned primordials and other creatures of power. I like this basic idea because it explains the reasons for the drow being involved anywhere and in almost anything. It also means that if the PCs obtain powerful magic for themselves, they might find drow assassins on their tail sent to recover said magic from them.

My plan with the drow is to focus on House Xorlarrin, largely because they are noted as being the most powerful arcanists in Menzoberranzan and their motivation for being away from Menzoberranzan is easy to understand (and, at the appropriate time, to explain to the players). The nature of the Demon Weave also means I have a good excuse for revisiting the demonic eladrin known as the fey'ri and the demonic orcs - or tanarukka - of the Scourged Legion.

TL; DR: Over the course of the campaign, the PCs will encounter drow doing things necessary for the creation of the Demon Weave and one possible logical conclusion of the campaign will be to have the PCs adventure through a 4E homage to D1 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and D3 Vault of the Drow with a goal of ending the threat of the Demon Weave. That may take the campaign beyond my plan to focus on the Heroic Tier into early Paragon Tier but I will only do it if the enthusiasm from the players is there.

4E vs 13th Age

Firstly, I should make it really plain that I am writing these posts with a plan to run this game in beginning in 1479 DR, the Year of the Ageless One, which is the default start year for the 4E Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide.

Secondly, I am writing these posts from the perspective of running the game using D&D 4E. That said, I may end up using 13th Age instead - in many ways it would be better for new players - but for the moment I am focussing on 4E. I may, however, post some ideas for a 13th Age version as time goes by.

Thirdly, I custom build almost all of my 4E monsters primarily because I want to run a game aimed at the Heroic Tier and I basically believe that 1E got the hit dice of most monsters right. As a result, my monsters are basically the same level as their number of hit dice in 1E which may help to explain why I think, for example, that a conversion of D3 Vault of the Drow can be used with PCs at the end of the Heroic Tier/beginning of the Paragon Tier.

So, if 13th Age is easier for new players why am I planning to run 4E?

My plan for this game is to use it to introduce my wife and her family and our friends here in the Philippines to tabletop RPGs. They're familiar with a clone or add-on to World of Warcraft called Dawn of the Ancients but have no concept of a pen and paper game. Actually, with the exception of cards, they have no working knowledge of any non-computer games. It's a different culture, particularly here in one of the more Third World parts of a Third World country.

For some reason, I think the visuals offered by miniatures and map tiles are going to be key to "converting" my prospective new players into actual tabletop roleplayers. Maybe I'm right and maybe I'm wrong; I suppose I will find out soon enough.

One thing I am concerned about with 4E, though, is the sheer number of choices available to a player, particularly a new player. Hopefully I can design a decent cheat sheet for the players that will make that easier but, the simple fact is, I am going to doing a lot of hand-holding. Even something like the use of action points is an issue: I'll probably drop them for the first few sessions and give the PCs a +10 damage bonus to their first significant attack each encounter to make up for the lack of action points.

Of course, another option is simply to use miniatures and 13th Age together but that just doesn't seem right. 

Wrapping This Up

I am excited by the prospect of a campaign in the Silver Marches. It's a nearly perfect setting for adventures due to its history of dwarven, elven and Netherese empires which ensures that even the existence of traditional dungeons makes sense. Couple that with a landscape almost designed for dragons, giants and orcs and you have a classic setting for D&D in whatever form you prefer.

I also want to write more this year and I find that blog posts are a good discipline for me even though this is completely unrelated to my real life. It's a creative outlet and it's good writing practice. Also, having the basic framework of the location shown on Mike Schley's map and simply finding things to write about locations on that map makes it a lot easier to come up with an idea for a blog post. After all, there are over 100 named features and locations which means I can easily find at least 100 things to post about. 

Silver Marches - Web of Everlasting Darkness: A Bit More Brainstorming

The Web of Everlasting Darkness

Of course, this should be War of Everlasting Darkness. Oops.

Initial Thoughts

After much trawling of the internet I have finally been able to locate a PDF copy of Season 11 of D&D Encounters: The Web of Everlasting Darkness.

It's a rather unusual approach to an adventure. There are eight weeks of adventures and the PCs gain a level each week. There are no experience point or even magic items, per se; advancement is hand-waved. Furthermore, there are gaps of weeks or months between each weekly adventure; this is not your usual campaign or adventure path!

That said, I quite like the basic story and I would like to see the events of the Demon Weave played out in my own games. In addition, I love Mike Schley's map of the Silver Marches and I want to use it to run a game. What I thought I might do, therefore, was use The Web of Everlasting Darkness as the outline for an adventure path or campaign of my own construction.

Obviously, I need to fill in the time and XP gaps but I also need to remove the overt railroad; my players much prefer making their own choices. Nevertheless, here are the background and summary sections from the published adventure to provide a framework for what I end up creating.

Background

Deep in the darkness of the Demonweb Pits, Lolth has been spinning a web of deceit, treachery, and ambition.

Her goal is to seize control of arcane magic, a domain that has lain vacant since the death of Mystra a hundred years ago.

To facilitate this grab for power, Lolth has sent the prophet Danifae Yauntyrr to all the cities of the drow. Danifae is a fallen priestess, a scoundrel, a seductress, and- if history is any guide- an avatar of Lolth.

Whispering to the leaders of all the great drow houses, Danifae has spurred them to gather ancient knowledge and relics to aid Lolth 's ascent.

The drow have scoured the world for the physical remnants of dead or sleeping primordials, sought out the remains of great wizards, gathered artefacts once sacred to Mystra, and fought for control of magical locations on the world's surface. As the dark elves have gathered arcane energy and channelled it to Lolth, her strength has grown.

Lolth's web has extended to cover most of the world, forming a Demon Weave to replace the sundered Weave that Mystra maintained. This new matrix of arcane magic grants the priests and wizards who serve Lolth access to newfound abilities, and their task now is to use them.

Across the surface world, Lolth's servitors draw on the Demon Weave to create shrouds of darkness that they call the Darkening. Under this pall of shadow, the drow can move and fight with darkness on their side during what would normally be daylight hours. With this newfound advantage, they hope to help complete Lolth's ascendancy to her new role as deity of Magic.

Adventure Summary

This series of adventures takes place in the Silver Marches (also called Luruar), a region in the FORGOTTEN REALMS® setting. This area includes the city of Silverymoon, the dwarf stronghold of Mithral Hall, the orc-infested Spine of the World Mountains, and numerous forests, ruins, moors, and dungeons.

The following is a summary of the eight short adventures that make up the War of Everlasting Darkness campaign. The adventures take place over the course of almost two years, starting in the spring (of the year 1484 in the Dalereckoning calendar) and coming to a close in the autumn of the following year (1485).

Nightfall in Methegrist (Session 1)

Drawn by their own motivations, the characters gather in the village of Quaervarr, under the eaves of the Glimmerwood.

Setting off together, they investigate rumours of a mysterious wandering phantom bound to a ruined fortress deep in the forest.

There, the adventurers can either ally with, mislead, or fight off a group of would-be tomb raiders. Inside the ruins, a short dungeon offers exploration and a couple tricks and traps. The characters then have a chance to end the phantom's wandering by defeating the minor devil that has cursed its former home. Just as the characters lift the curse, however, a sinkhole opens up in the

dungeon. From it, a stream of darkness pours upward slowly growing to cover the sky.

Envoy to Many-Arrows (Session 2)

Orcs from the Spine of the World are attacking the village of Winter Edge. The village elder asks the characters to approach and parley with the orc King Obould in Dark Arrow Keep. After years of peace, why have the orc tribes begun another war in civilised lands?

The characters are quickly ambushed and captured by more orcs than they can easily handle. However, they can attempt to save themselves in one of two ways.

The characters, hoping to impress King Obould with a show of strength and martial skill, can offer up one of their own as a champion in the arena known as the Pit or they can talk the orcs into letting them go.

While negotiating with the orcs, the characters can see that the king is having difficulty keeping his subjects from succumbing to the bloodlust that was the way of things before the first King Obould. The characters have an opportunity to remove some of the orc tribes from the war.

Siege of Mithral Hall (Session 3)

A horde of orcs spreads across the Glimmerwood and the Moonlands, while their raiding parties reach as far as Silverymoon and Everlund. In response to Obould's position on the war, the characters travel to inform and seek aid from the dwarves of Mithral Hall. However, orcs are laying siege to the dwarven defences. The characters must win through the siege lines to get into Mithral Hall.

Descent into the Depths (Session 4)

A bumbling dwarf mystic named Axelcrantz informs the characters that they must obtain a magic relic lost in the Underdark - a relic that will play an important part in the thwarting of Lolth's plans. Unless they can use diplomacy to convince the xenophobic dwarves of Citadel Adbar to give them safe passage, the adventurers must fight their way through the hazards of the Underdark to succeed in their mission. The dwarves might require the characters to accomplish a secondary task before granting passage.

Spirits of the Fell Pass (Session 5)

Axelcrantz performs an augury, revealing that a key to breaking the magical darkness that hangs over the Marches lies in the Fell Pass, where drow work to raise an undead army. The adventurers must protect Axelcrantz from orc patrols and restless spirits as he travels to the apex of Fell Pass to perform a ritual that can banish the darkness. However, the drow wait in an ancient fortress located in the pass. They have no intention of allowing their undead-raising ritual to be thwarted.

Trolls of the Evermoors (Session 6)

In the Fell Pass, the characters uncovered information telling them that the town of Nesme is on the brink of being overrun by trolls, and Silverymoon is next. Forced to dwell beneath the constant shadow of the Darkening, the people of Nesme have succumbed to hopelessness and have little chance of defending themselves.

The adventurers must reach the town, help direct and assemble its defences, and prepare for the assault.

Shores of the Darklake (Session 7)

As Lolth 's Demon Weave nears its completion, the magic of surface-dwelling spellcasters begins to falter, even as the drow are empowered. As the magical wards protecting Silverymoon fall, the characters follow another of Axelcrantz's visions to the svirfneblin city of Blingdenstone. There, on the shores of the Darklake, they must help overcome devils to open up the trade routes without which the Silver Marches will fall.

Spellcaves of Eryndlyn (Session 8)

Armed with the treasure, knowledge, and power they have acquired in their adventures around the Silver Marches, the characters travel to the ruined drow city of Eryndlyn to confront Tsabrak Xorlarrin, the powerful wizard responsible for the darkness that covers the land. But are they prepared to face Danifae, the avatar of Lolth?

The key to their success lies in helping a reborn Mystra seize control of the Demon Weave and restore her tattered Weave.

New Players in the 4E Realms

Cover Art from Waterdeep: City of Splendours

I live in the Philippines and my gaming group is in Oz. Due to some internet connection problems in my new house here I have not been able to get an internet-based game started yet but it is going to happen. However, I am also thinking that in a nation with around 60% unemployment (the real number as opposed to the government's lies) - and a family-in-law with an even higher unemployment rate! - that maybe I should also start a group here.

Everyone is familiar with World of Warcraft - they all play a pirated version called Dawn of the Ancients - so basic concepts of race, class and hit points won't need too much explaining. For once the complaints that 4E is like a MMORPG will be arguably working in my favour, except that I have no personal experience with playing MMORPGs.

Unfortunately, I need dice. I have almost everything I own on my laptop as PDF files and, while dice rolling programmes and apps are a dime-a-dozen, I think it's an important part of the tabletop experience that dice are rolled. Hopefully I can address this on a trip to Oz next month.

I also need a battlemat but that's simply a trip to one of the local hardware stores for a sheet of white board of some sort and a Stanley knife. I won't have miniatures but I can just use home-made counters from the art that WotC (and Paizo) has published. 

(I am hoping on my next trip to Oz to ship all my RPG stuff and quite a few other things here. It might take a few months but it will be exciting to take delivery of it all here and then organise everything in the library/game room that is currently being built).

I suppose they're the practical, physical issues so now to the real meat of this post: system, world and adventure/campaign type.

System: 4E Roolz!

4E is quite a complicated system but being able to present character sheets that have been prepared electronically and look rather professional is a big deal, IMO. Plus the character sheets are basically complete: there's not a lot more that a player needs to look up other than a list of conditions and what they mean.

Anyway, as I will be the one preparing the PCs - and probably focussing on simpler, Essentials-style characters - I can always assist if a player is having problems making a decision on what to do. Hopefully someone will be up to the challenge of playing a wizard because they really are the best controller as far as I can tell.

World: Forgotten Realms

I think it's important for a first game of D&D to run it in a "normal" D&D world. I love Dark Sun but I can't imagine Athas being the sort of place to introduce new players and perhaps Eberron has too many non-standard fantasy tropes.

As it stands I think I will stick with the Forgotten Realms - and the less-detailed 4E version, at that - simply because it is a fairly standard fantasy world and I know it well. Plus I have so much material for FR games that it simply makes sense.

Campaign Type: Waterdeep & Undermountain

The other reason I want to go with the Forgotten Realms is that I think one of the perfect introductions to D&D is a delve into Undermountain. Check this out:

Something about this picture screams "adventure" and "D&D" to me.

It's the Yawning Portal tavern in Waterdeep and it shows adventures descending into the titular yawning portal for a foray into Undermountain. I think this picture really shows some of the tropes I want my new players to experience.

I've also got the adventure Halls of Undermountain to run, plus a DDi adventure, What's Up in Downshadow. Halls of Undermountain has three adventures plus some plot points that could be developed into another adventure in Waterdeep itself. I've also got the 3.5E Dungeon issues with Eric L Boyd's Vampires of Waterdeep trilogy. These adventures are far too high of a level for beginning PCs but I can certainly steal the maps, room descriptions, NPCs and some of the background.

And look at the map:

There's lots of room there for all sorts of dungeon-y goodness. I need to give some thought to "zones" and themes for those zones. That will make it easier to come up with material on the fly should the PCs wander off from the beaten path of the Halls of Undermountain adventures.

Material To Use

I have already mentioned Halls of Undermountain and the DDi adventure What's Up in Downshadow together with Eric L Boyd's Dungeon trilogy comprised of:

• Dungeon 126 - Blood of Malar
• Dungeon 127 - Dungeon of the Crypt (Hall of Harsh Reflections is the Age of Worms adventure in this issue of Dungeon and it is also worth a look, particularly when combined with Eric L Boyd's FR conversion notes in the same issue)
• Dungeon 128 - The Fireplace Level

This is one of the pieces of art from the Dungeon 127 adventure that I definitely want to use:

In addition, I have the D&D Encounters season titled Halaster's Lost Apprentice. My favourite part of this is the stat block for a deformed and de-powered beholder runt. I am definitely going to use that!

Finally, there is a Backdrop - Skullport article published for DDi in the online version of Dungeon 200. I suspect that will also play a part.

Looking at all of this, it's plain that I have plenty of material for dungeon adventures but I also need to give some thought to city adventures plus possibly adventures in the wilderness outside the walls of Waterdeep.

I love this sort of preparation!

Putting It All Together

This is a placeholder for the moment.

I rather like the idea of a beholder as a BBEG as it is one of the quintissential D&D monsters as it was specifically created for D&D. And, of course, Waterdeep - more particularly, Skullport - has a long history of being influenced by beholders.

Vampires seem to be another possibility for a BBEG. They play a role - obviously - in the Vampires of Waterdeep trilogy and they also feature rather prominently in Halls of Undermountain. They're also a good monster to include with new players as they are well-known. (As these new players are Filipino, I think I might even include a penanggalan as that is a vampire-like undead from Philippine mythology.)

Beholders and vampires give me two factions but I also want a third faction. As my blog clearly shows, I rather like drow. I also like Ghaunadaur and the oozes, ropers and drow that follow him. It's probably a cop-out as I have so much material to work with already, but I think Ghaunadaur-worshipping drow will be my third BBEG faction.

And this is where the placeholder kicks in because I need to go back and read the source material I have selected to see if I can tie this all together.

Edit: Mon 03Sep12

Earlier tonight I noted that this month's DDi editions of Dungeon and Dragon are going to include, inter alia,  an adventure involving The Xanathar and an article about the Xanathar. There might be some good ideas for how to expand my preliminary notes above especially if I go the route of a Heroic Tier campaign where the ultimate BBEG is a (or the) beholder crime lord of Waterdeep.

Edit: Thu 06Sep12

It looks like I have a name for this campaign, even if it only turns out to be a placeholder:

Companions of the Yawning Portal

Things to Avoid

As I am uncertain of the group's ability to deal with really supernatural horror - as opposed to vampires - I will avoid using demons and devils and I will also avoid well-organised religions. Followers of Ghaunadaur are perfect for the latter because they really are more of a cult (although I may not use them).

Things to Include

I definitely want to include:

• Undermountain;
• Downshadow; and
• Skullport.

Of course, I will be including Waterdeep itself - more correctly, a subset of this enormous city - and I may also use the lands outside. Fortunately, Eric L Boyd wrote a tremendous web enhancement for 3.5E's Waterdeep: City of Splendours which gives a lot of information on the areas surrounding Waterdeep. Hmmm, I wonder if I can use Goldenfields....

The backstory of Halls of Undermountain is really the starting point of my plot. (Name) is trying to take over the noble house of (name). She is, however, but a pawn of The Xanathar who has decided it needs a noble house to act as a front on the surface world. Why is this? Demand for slaves in Skullport has increased markedly and The Xanathar needs to cast its slaving net much wider than it has before.

Another important consideration relates to determining what monsters to include. Obviously, I want a core of the basis evil humanoids - kobolds, goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, lizardfolk, bugbears, ogres and trolls (and I should probably add drow to that list) - but I also need some D&D-isms.

I've already noted that I am going to use a beholder as the ultimate BBEG but here are some other monsters I should include even if simply to showcase different rules and different types of threats:

• displacer beasts;
• gelatinous cubes;
• owlbears;
• purple worm (a young'n reduced to, say, a 10th-level solo);
• rust monsters;
• wererats and werewolves; and
• yuan-ti.

It's time to re-read my material about Skullport, Undermountain and Downshadow to see what else I can come up with.

The Climax

Ideally, the climax of the campaign will occur at the end of the Heroic Tier and involve a grand melee against The Xanathar and some of its minions (which will be minions).

That, of course, is the climax for the characters. Just as importantly, what about the players? As this will be their first time playing I would - ideally - like them to be hooked. That means the climax is important because it needs to give all of the preceding events, encounters and adventurers meaning and also resolve all the hanging plot points and it needs to give them a real sense of accomplishment. After all, you cannot "win" in D&D: what I need to give them is a sense, though, that they have indeed won.

On that note, I think it is vital that the entire campaign be structured around quests. This is probably something that will come naturally to them from playing so many CRPGs but it also makes it easier for them to grasp that this isn't a variation of a first-person shooter but, rather, there is a story to be explored as well (which FPSs probably do these days, anyway).

The Black Age of Bane - Skull Gorge

Why Skull Gorge?

A couple of years ago I noticed a reply given by Ed Greenwood on the Candlekeep forums in relation to some questions involving Skull Gorge which is an area bisected by the Chionthar River near to Darkhold and the Well of Dragons on the 4E map (Of course, despite being a significant - and interesting - feature, it is omitted from the [inadequate] 4E map.)  Ed's reply is reproduced below as Appendix One to this post and a separate Appendix Two is included with Eric L Boyd's notes on the area which were part of his FR conversion notes for the Age of Worms adventure path.

The area really seemed like a great place to an adventure site similar to or inspired by the Caves of Chaos in B2 Keep on the Borderlands. One of my players has been asking for this for a while so beginning the Black Age of Bane campaign with an adventure in Skull Gorge might be my best chance of giving him what he has been asking for.

The Crypt of the Arisen Army - a temple complex of the now-dead Velsharoon - is noted as being present in Skull Gorge and this ties perfectly into my latest idea of using Dread Rings from Thay in this campaign. Besides the obvious connection with undead, Velsharoon and Szass Tam had previously been noted as rivals some decades before the Spellplague (I'm pretty sure that this rivalry dates back to early 2E).

Also, after reading Ed's Candlekeep reply, I have been thinking about having the campaign begin some months after Darkhold has fallen to the Thayans. This would mean that it is no longer a Zhent stronghold and the Zhents are now effectively without a home in this area - they're almost refugees! I need to think about this some more but this could make the Zhent presence that much more interesting. Also, perhaps the Zhents were betrayed to the Thayans by beholder mages who had infiltrated the ranks of the Black Cloaks.

(I'm also thinking of making this concurrent with the deaths of Manshoon and Elminster in spell-battle in Stormkeep outside of Westgate to give the sense of the Zhents being an organisation in decline - and also because I want that event to frame my campaign set in the Moonsea North - currently entitled The Knights of the North - so that I can use a recently awakened clone of Manshoon as the BBEG. Frankly, this is going to be the big event to kick off the Year of the Ageless One in My Realms.)

 

Brainstorming

Ingredients

 

I need to combine sandbox elements with a few key encounters that will set the party on the course of the rest of the Black Age of Bane campaign. Frankly, with a bit of effort I could turn Skull Gorge into a megadungeon/sandbox quite easily and just run that for the entire Heroic Tier. I can also imagine my players enjoying the sandbox elements so much that they just keep exploring the gorge.

From a campaign perspective, I need to include the following:

• Undead must be present, not just because they practically define Skull Gorge but also because they are the link with the Thayan necromancers and the Dread Rings which will soon threaten Elturgard.
• I like the idea of Zhents that escaped the Thayan siege of Darkhold are also present. Perhaps they're trying to organise the goblins (which also includes hobgoblins and bugbears and potentially gnolls from the Reaching Woods) and also trying to marshal some of the undead.
• Skull Gorge is probably a good staging post for the transfer of slaves from Elturel (see my earlier blog posts about how certain heretics of the Eye of Justice are selling prisoners from the Dungeon of the Inquisitor beneath Elturel) to Darkhold. They're moved from Elturel by barge up the Chionthar River. Any dead ones are animated as undead in the Crypt of the Arisen Army which possesses some necromantic energy that makes undead creation a lot easier there. Investigating the slaving operation is the next adventure in the campaign arc so this is really important.

These are the sandbox elements I think I should include:

• I want lots of small dungeons inhabited by goblin tribes a la the previously mentioned Caves of Chaos. (As I explore this further, I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with a Banite-flavoured Red Hand of Doom. After all, undead cannot march on Elturel until the Companion is corrupted - living troops are needed for this.)
• A ruined giant fortress inhabited by ogres and maybe a young behir (I really want a behir).
• In place of the Temple of Evil Chaos from B2 Keep on the Borderlands, an ancient stone giant shrine of Ogremoch might work well. (I'm also thinking of the Thayans tapping into ancient primordial magic - possibly including awakening an earth or stone titan a la the central concept of Orcs of Stonefang Pass - in order to build the physical structures of their Dread Rings that much faster.)
• Due to Skull Gorge's links with ancient Netheril - as noted in the appendices - it would be appropriate to include encounters with Shadovar patrols. Some would be looking for ancient artefacts while others would be spying on the Thayans and the Zhents.

Some other ideas might include:

• What about a hobgoblin king's tomb a la the Lost Tomb of Kruk'ma'Kali?
• For some reason, the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth wouldn't feel too out-of-place and I love the visual of the hill giant with his pet giant beetle (I might include this in the sandbox elements anyway).
• What about serpentfolk from Najara? How could I include them - or even run the 3.5E Dungeon adventure Racing the Snake?
• I could include the angler fish encounter from Orcs of Stonefang Pass.
• There could be drow emissaries of Sshamath seeking out their allies, the Zhents, wondering why they are no longer in Darkhold. I may still be able to put Crenshinibon in Zhentarim hands....

 Appendix One: Ed Greenwood's reply on Candlekeep about Skull Gorge

First off, I apologize greatly for the delay. There were plans to set key battle scenes in a one-shot FR novel in the Class series in Skull Gorge, later superseded by plans to have a hidden citadel located in the gorge in ANOTHER FR novel, so I had to just keep quiet and wait (until first one and then the other notions were set aside by others, in favour of other ideas).

Skull Gorge is indeed a large gorge through which the River Reaching runs, and the Misty Stair is a series of cascades or waterfalls (surrounded by an ever-present mist of spray created by water rebounding up from its rocks) upstream of it.

The river is icy-cold (shocks breath from creatures falling in, carries them away swiftly throughout its run from the Stair to below the Gorge, which are the spawning areas for dreel (short, fat, green-black river eels that live on algae and carrion, and keep the river waters clean and clear; they taste like mucous, but are quite nourishing, and if fried with the right herbs or spices, can be nice; due to their appearance, they are sometimes called “trollfingers”), dartflash (small-human-palm-sized, bony silver fish that swim in short, very fast “darting” straight-ahead ruhes, and are usually netted or scooped; edible and usually steamed until the bones are soft enough to crunch and eat, though a human adult needs a helm-full pile to make a meal) and mursk (fat, slow-moving green-brown fish that are unpleasantly oily in taste, but can be fried to skim off oil that will burn in lamps “as is”). These three creatures range all the way down the River, though overfishing has made mursk almost unknown in its lower reaches.

The weather table I created for SILVER MARCHES (it got modified and improved greatly by Wizards, probably by Rich Baker) is usable for this area, but in summer months is a tad too cold; winds blowing across the desert create cold extremes in winter and brief hot spells in summer, so in summer roll two dice, the second being a d6, upon which any odd number means use that table, but “even” means substitute a much warmer weather result of your choice.

In a word, weather in this region is: windy (down to gentle breezes at night), so there are frequent weather changes.

Right: on to Skull Gorge. Yes, it was the site of a legendary “last stand,” and for years haunted by undead as a result, which kept it empty of most other life. Hobgoblins eventually moved in, led by shamans who managed to deal with the undead, but disputes arose among the hobgoblins and they warred amongst themselves.

For a long period of time after that, a succession of various wandering goblin, orc, hobgoblin, and even bugbear bands took up residence in the Gorge, fought with and drove out whoever was already living there, and were in turn supplanted by the “next wave” of opportunistic invaders. The fish were plentiful, and so were huge numbers of birds nesting on ledges, who could be driven off with sticks or flung debris and their eggs taken; the krawthant and smokewings in particular simply go on laying eggs until they manage to hatch a chick or die trying, so their eggs can be taken again and again.

From time to time wandering monsters happened along and decided the Gorge would make an ideal home for THEM (being as it has food, water, and shelter in the form of almost a dozen shallow “fissure” caves in the gorge walls). On most occasions the resident goblinoids slew the monsters, but sometimes the monster or monsters prevailed - until the NEXT goblinoid band or more powerful monsters happened along. Wyverns nesting nearby regularly raided, devouring anything they could catch sufficiently “in the open,” and their depredations took care of some of the more formidable monsters.

In this manner, the Gorge changed hands repeatedly over the years, until the Zhentarim started to scout the area, and started basing a succession of “magelings” (low-level wizards of Zhentil Keep desiring to “prove their worth” and rise in the ranks of the Zhentarim) in the Gorge who were given magic items with which to control bands of monsters (often hobgoblins or orcs) to patrol the lands around, keeping predatory roaming monsters away and running off or slaying anyone who wasn’t a Zhent, or part of their caravan operations. Aside from defending the Gorge itself from intrusion, their patrols were confined to the area between the Gorge and Anauroch, avoiding the Well of Dragons.

Many of the Zhent magelings were cruel, overambitious fools, and either attracted attention by “sideline” activities in Corm Orp or Hill’s Edge designed to enrich themselves personally (slaving, drug-running, kidnappings for ransom, protection rackets), and so were eliminated by senior Zhentarim, or tried to eliminate the warring giants to the north (that upper-rank Zhentarim wanted to remain as deterrent to humans or others seeking to prospect or establish trade routes or try to settle in the area) or take on other perils in the area (dragons, wyverns, etc.) and paid the price.

So they died, frequently, often with most of the patrols they were commanding (and in a few cases, at the hands of those same patrols).

The Long Road caravans didn’t traverse the Gorge (aside from a rare handful of experiments in barging goods down the River Reaching; rare because Scornubel proved to be a den of far too many powerful rivals for the Zhents to take on, and defeat, all at once); they passed it by to the east, skirting the western Desertsedge; the Gorge was part of the “wall of deterrents” the Zhents wanted to keep between their trade-route and prying eyes (and swords) of rivals.

Skull Gorge was re-conquered by the Zhents on many occasions, though their grip on it weakened as divisions developed within the Brotherhood; the skull (of Tashara’s seven) took up residence, with spell-controlled monsters of its own and its magical “giant flying skull” image, during one interlude between periods of Zhent control, slaughtered several Zhent magelings sent to retake the Gorge, and retreated (present whereabouts unknown) when the Zhents sent a small group of accomplished wizards with a few spell-controlled death tyrants.

More recently, the Zhent grip on the Gorge weakened still more (again due to strife within the Zhentarim), fiends were summoned by some Zhent wizards seeking to rule the Gorge (wizards who perished, leaving the fiends lurking there), and with effective Zhent control gone, a temple to Velsharoon (The Crypt of the Arisen Army) was established in the Gorge.

The ultimate Zhent aim involving Skull Gorge was, however, achieved: the area has a firm reputation as “dangerous, haunted, and crawling” with all manner of monsters (just pick your wild story), and nearby settlements such as Hill’s Edge and Corm Orp wouldn’t dream of trying to found ranches or prospect for metals anywhere near the Gorge, or the wilderlands to its east.

Of course, in the meantime, the Black Road route across Anauroch was established, shortening the Zhent “faster, privately-controlled” caravan route between the Moonsea and the Sword Coast.

The Long Road, that skirts Anauroch, was established purely because the Zhents of the day were too weak to magically exterminate or control the Bedine AND the natural perils of the desert (the city of Shade is, of course, a recent complication in all of this). Yes, its route is long and torturous, but preferable to the longer and far more expensive “public” routes through Cormyr, Iriaebor, et al because the Zhents could move weapons, armour, battle-ready mercenaries, drugs, slaves, and other items that rulers of places long the public route might stop, seize, or make war on the Zhents because of.

The Zhentarim DO have magic enough to make both tribes of giants simply shun their passing caravans (allowing them through where others, not specifically magically equipped for such a passage, cannot). Yes, many Zhent goods DO just appear on the Trade Way through Soubar and other stops, or are dispersed through Scornubel, but again, the illicit nature of the majority of the most profitable shipping makes bringing such goods through places the Zhents came to control or dominate (Llorkh, Loudwater), and then via barge past most scrutiny until they can leave Zhent hands, preferable to the Trade Way or other “public” caravan routes.

The establishment of the Black Road, and changing priorities within the Zhentarim (the “make us all rich” overland trade project was a chief goal of the Zhentarim WIZARDS, not the later Fzoul-dominated priest/beholder cabal; the beholders formerly sided with Manshoon, but turned against him when they saw this project and others becoming seeming obsessions, and turning the Brotherhood away from THEIR goals, which remain largely mysterious [and heavily under NDA protection].

CorranH, you are quite correct in saying that Darkhold “split from the ‘Eastern’ Zhents in all but name.”

The 3rd edition books weren’t quite clear on the specifics of this, for as long as possible, in order to give DMs maximum freedom in handling this as they wanted to in their own campaigns.

Here are some of the things an “isolated” Darkhold can do: act as a gathering place (and breeding pens) for slaves, and the magical alteration of slaves, and then ship them out for sale (perhaps primarily down into the Underdark). Act as a defended transfer point for goods from the Underdark being shipped into the World Above, and vice versa. Become a drug, poison, perfume, and drinkables (fortified wines, zzar “with something extra,” and other exotic, expensive “doctored” drinks) manufacturing center and shipping source. Train wizards and send them forth on covert missions to coerce or slay wealthy individuals in Amn and Tethyr, and successful “shady” traders in Scornubel, and gain access to their businesses and property.

All of which, of course, would make Darkhold a prime target for Red Wizard infiltration and takeover.

And who’s to say the beholders of the Brotherhood, or the Underdark interests, would let the Red Wizards get away with that? What if Zhents who had to flee Darkhold for their lives decide it would be wise to stay in hiding, wherever else they are, and hire or compel adventurers to “go in” and try to wrest Darkhold back from the Thayans?

Moreover, there are ancient and fell magics hidden in Darkhold that neither the Zhents nor the Red Wizards control. What if they awaken, and take a hand in the conflict in some way?

Appendix Two: Eric L Boyd's notes on Skull Gorge in the Age of Worms Conversion

Skull Gorge is narrow canyon cut by the upper reaches of the River Reaching as it drains the northern Sunset Mountains. It lies in the unclaimed reaches of the Backlands south and west of the Great Desert of Anauroch.
 

In ages past, the caverns that lined the gorge’s walls were claimed by tribes of stone giants. The stone giants were citizens of the ancient giant empire of Grunfesting, and their lord ruled the gorge from the ramparts of the city of Kongen-Thulnir. As the power of the giant empires waned, the stone giants
permitted small tribes of primitive humans to settle in the smaller caverns along the gorge.
 

In -1,145 DR, Netherese explorers established the town of Holloway in one of the caverns as a base for their explorations of the ancient ruins. They hoped to recover ancient magics of power similar to that of the Nether Scrolls, but failed. In their wake, Holloway continued as a lonely outpost of Netheril.
 

Over time, the church of Jergal came to dominate the town, and a series of crypts were built into the caverns of the gorge. After the fall of Netheril in the Year of Sundered Webs (-339 DR) and the subsequent Netherese diaspora, Holloway began to dwindle and was finally abandoned in the Year of the Winter Wolf (-270 DR).
 

In the Year of Slaughter (1090 DR), a horde of goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs out of the Stonelands met an army of humans, elves, and dwarves north of the Sunset Mountains. Although the humanoids were defeated, the Battle of Bones scarred the land, leaving behind the horrid undead hunting rougnds that retain the battle’s name. The orc and goblinoid shamans who survived the six-day conflict fled south into the Skull Gorge, pursued by their enemies. The shamans summoned demons and devils in great numbers to defend their newfound redoubt, but the fiends quickly decimated the survivors of both armies.
 

In the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR), clerics of the newly arisen god of necromancy, Velsharoon, established a temple amidst the crypts of Holloway. The Forgotten Crypt, one of Velsharoon’s abodes when he was a mortal, was transformed into the Crypt of the Arisen Army, and Velsharoon’s necrophants laid claim to the length and breadth of the gorge 

(NB: Some Age of Worms-specific information was omitted.)

Current Campaign Arcs

These are the campaign arcs I am currently working on/blogging about:

• The Black Age of Bane (this is one option for a campaign set in Elturgard: the other option is Dark Weavings and another possible option is Rise of a Dark Sun); 
• Dark Weavings (despite the same location as The Black Age of Bane and some similar adventure ideas, it really is a different campaign);
• The Dread Rings of Thay;
• The Knights of the North (possible new name: The Ageless One; former name: Fimbulwinter); and
• Neverwinter: Vie for Glory!

Here's a brief synopsis of each of these campaign arcs. It seems that I am only capable of writing a campaign arc that includes either Dread Rings and/or the darkening of the Companion. No wonder my current "favourite" is the Black Age of Bane as it involves both ideas....

The Black Age of Bane

The paladins of Elturgard are distracted by increasingly militant Cyricist Zhents from Darkhold with rumours of a new alliance with the gnolls of the Reaching Wood and even the drow under the Far Hills.

While this is happening Thayan necromancers and Banite runepriests are constructing Dread Ring fortresses around the borders of Elturgard - Elturel and the Companion are in the precise centre - in preparation for a new Dread Ring ritual. 

This time, however, the ritual will not be performed by Szass Tam - rather, a banelich is going to unleash the Dread Ring's magic so that Bane will absorb the power of the Companion and strike against both Torm and Amaunator with one foul blow.

If successful, the Companion will turn into a thing of darkness and the lands of Elturgard will become a haven for undead and those who love the night... particularly as the Dread Ring ritual will also suck all life from the land.

Thus will the Black Age of Bane begin....

(As I think further about this, if I use the drow from Undrek'thoz in this campaign arc, I may also be able to use the Crystal Shard idea as I originally wrote for the Dark Weavings campaign. Hmmm....)

Dark Weavings

The drow of Sshamath are not noted worshippers of Lolth with the exception of one house - House Zauvirr. At the command of the Queen of Spiders, they will try and take the sunlit lands of Elturgard for themselves. To do this, they must extinguish the light of the Companion and tranform it into a think of darkness instead.

House Zauvirr is in possession of the Crystal Shard (I don't care what R A Salvatore's atrocious books say... House Zauvirr has it) and offer it to the Zhents as a sign of good faith in the new alliance. The Zhents use it to mobilise across Elturgard and begin posing a major threat to the paladins.

In due course, the drow use primordial magic stolen from aboleth to assault Elturel from below. In the midst of the chaos caused by earthquakes and sinkholes, a foul ritual is performed that blots out the Companion and causes it to become a thing of darkness... if the PCs fail to stop the drow.

Of course, if that happens, it will only lead to something I have wanted to do for 30 years and that is run D1 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-toa, D3 Vault of the Drow and Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits (although the last will be heavily influenced by the 3E's The Harrowing from Dungeon 88 and will not contain a giant metal spider ship with a marilith secretary).
 

The Dread Rings of Thay

This is quite simple in concept : Szass Tam is building a network of Dread Ring fortresses around Rashemen and must be stopped before he steals all life and power from that land. This basic idea was more or less the inspiration for this blog a few years ago which is why Szass Tam and berserkers and wychlaran from Rashemen appear as the banner.

There is supposed to be a DDi Backdrop article on Rashemen in the next couple of months so I am actually waiting for that - largely because I want a map better than the baby's butt-wipe which is the 4E map - before I do much more than finally get around to reading The Haunted Lands trilogy - Unclean, Undead and Unholy - by Richard L Byers.

I have been reading a lot on the internet about Dread Rings in the past week or so and I rather like some of the ideas that have been posted about linking the Dread Rings with the Eminence of Araunt from Returned Abeir. It may be that there will be an additional complication in this campaign involving the corruption of the Dread Rings by agents of the Eminence of Araunt. (The same complication could also apply in the Neverwinter: Vie for Glory campaign arc where I really want to make the Thayans the principal villains.)

The Knights of the North

aka The Ageless One

This campaign started out of a desire to use the excellent map of the Moonsea North - and, to a lesser extent, the city of Phlan - by Sean MacDonald in the Monument of the Ancients adventure from Dungeon 170. The sheer excellence of that map really highlighted how the wiping of a baby's defecations across a sheet of paper by Rob Lazzaretti was a complete devaluing of the cartographer's art and an insult to the Forgotten Realms and its fans.

The really annoying thing is that there is no hyperbole in that statement.

The basic theme is this: a weaker clone of Manshoon from 1355 DR has been awakened in the ruins of the Citadel of the Raven and decides to recover what he and the Zhentarim have lost. Concurrent with this, the PCs have taken up the mantles of their fallen parents and are the new Knights of the North, sworn to oppose the Zhentarim.

Manshoon the Night King, the vampire ruler of the Zhents, is now dead, slain in spell battle with Elminster. Beholder mages that infiltrated the Black Cloak ranks of the Zhents have decided to awaken a weaker Manshoon clone - one from 1355 DR - so that they can control him better but still have the Zhentarim led by the sole human that they respect. 

The Citadel of the Raven is now being rebuilt and Manshoon is seeking out ancient spellweaver magic in the Glacier of the Silver Blades to try and regain his mastery of cloning and also to arm himself with the spells and items that he will need in this post-Spellplague era of the Realms that he finds himself in.

The Zhents are gathering resources and allies and the PCs start interfering with their plans before finally facing off with Manshoon in the spellweaver ruins in the Glacier of the Silver Blades.

Neverwinter: Vie for Glory!

I'm not sure if I really like the Neverwinter Campaign Guide or if I really want to like it.

Nevertheless, preparing for the Knights of the North campaign resulted in me reading a couple of campaign journals set in the pre-Spellplague ruins of Phlan and made me realise how much fun it could be to run something like the old Ruins of Adventure module - which involved the retaking of Phlan - albeit one with decent maps and no stupid names.

Neverwinter seems like a possible substitute. It's well detailed, has a great city map and a great regional map, and it allows me to indulge my Dread Ring fetish.

The basic theme of the campaign needs to be driven by the players' choices of themes for their characters but I am really hoping that one player will choose to be the true heir of the Crown of Neverwinter (the original title for the campaign) and aim to rule a rebuilt and recovered city.

As it stands, the biggest threat is going to be posed by the Thayans and their Dread Rings (and this may also include some of the ideas from The Black Age of Bane in that this could all be to Bane's benefit - after all, the Black Lord is a tyrant and having the city of Neverwinter ruled by a Banite dreadmaster would suit him greatly) but the Shadovar with a reactivated flying city might pose an equally dangerous threat depending on how the campaign plays out.

But I am not using the Ashmadai. The last good idea that R A Salvatore had was the Crystal Shard and I am happy to make that the centrepiece of the Dark Weavings campaign.

In Summary

Yes, I like the Dread Rings. Yes, I like the darkening of the Companion. 

It's clear I haven't really come up with anything really original in these campaign arcs. That's no surprise because some of the ideas grew out of a desire of mine to run several classic adventures - including the original drow series that I have wanted to run for 30 years.

These campaign arcs are all basically meant to cover the Heroic Tier. I am hoping that by running them I can use up all the D&D ideas I have ever had - or ever stolen! - and then wear myself out on D&D so I can finally retire from this obsession of mine that I have had since 1981.

If I can use the drow, Graz'zt, Manshoon, the Zhents, some giants and cause the Companion to go dark I think I will have done what I set out to do.

Anyway, there is more to come on this blog. This post was really about summarising the main ideas I am playing with.

Other Campaign Arcs

A brief summary of other campaign arcs I may return to at some point:

All That Glitters/Heretics of the Harlot's Coin: This is about removing the Amnites from Snowdown. The Amnites are actually serving Graz'zt and creating corrupted gold that they are circulating on the mainland as part of the continued corruption by Graz'zt of the church of Waukeen and part of his plan to add three more layers to his Triple Realm. The surprising thing about this campaign is that it is largely an original idea.

Baron of the Stonelands: This is a cross between Paizo's Kingmaker adventure path and the original Keep on the Borderlands with some flavour from the original Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Essentially the PCs are trying to have one of their own named Baron of the Stonelands and this requires that they clear and hold part of the Stonelands. I'll return to this one when I feel more confident that I can run it well. Really, it's a combination of a sandbox and a hexcrawl.

Doom of Daggerdale: Another Kingmaker clone but one flavoured by the 2E adventure Doom of Daggerdale and 2E's Randal Morn trilogy with a little bit of Keep on the Borderlands thrown in and it involves lots of Zhents and drow. It's not as much of a sandbox as Baron of the Stonelands but it is definitely a hexcrawl.