Starter Set Sandbox 16 - Neverwinter Wood

If you're reading this and you have Lost Mine of Phandelver but are not familiar with 4E's outstanding Neverwinter Campaign Setting, you might be wondering why the map on the right, while covering the same general area as the regional map in Lost Mine, is otherwise a bit different in terms of including a number of other locations that do not appear on the regional map that you're familiar with.

In the context of a post about the Neverwinter Wood, I would point out the Dread Ring, Sharandar, and Xinlenal as locations that don't appear on the regional map in Lost Mine but which will feature below.

Realmslore

FR5 The Savage Frontier

The first reference I can find to the Neverwinter Wood is in The Savage Frontier, although it refers to the Neverwinter Woods (plural). Besides some references to Uthgardt tribes being present, it has this to say

This forest east of Neverwinter seems to have a magical quality about it, or at least an air of mystical secrecy. The always-warm Neverwinter river, which flows out of the wood, has its source deep beneath Mount Hotenow, a sleepy volcano in the northern wood. Fire elementals are said to live deep within Hotenow. The steep mountains to the north of Hotenow hide griffon lairs.

These woods have never been logged by men (they are feared and shunned by the locals), and even today are largely unknown. The depths are said to harbour dire creatures. Orc hordes always go around the woods, never through them.

That's also the description that is regurgitated in The North boxed set. And Volo's Guide to the North says even less, except noting that some logging does take place. (I would refer you to the earlier entry for Thundertree for information about a ruined logging village.)


Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting


The FRCS took a slightly different tack with its description:

This charmed forest to the east of the city of Neverwinter is perpetually warmed by the Neverwinter River that flows from beneath the dormant volcano Mount Hotenow. Humans, and even orcs, fear the wood and tend to avoid it.

Unlike other forests with dangerous reputations, the Neverwinter seldom disgorges great monsters or evil forces - the unease felt by those who know they do not belong in the Neverwinter Wood stems partly from a terrible anticipation that the wood could do them damage if it chose.

Clearly, the Neverwinter Wood is meant to be a mysterious, fey place.

Champions of Ruin

An elven supremacist group, the Eldreth Veluuthra ("Victorious Blade of the People") was, to the best of my knowledge, first introduced in 2E's Cloak & Dagger. A throwaway reference was included to an Eldreth cell being present in the Neverwinter Wood. This reference was barely expanded in 3.5E's Champions of Ruin to two sentences:

The Eldreth Veluuthra claims that the forbidding reputation owned by this mysterious forest is due in no small part to the activities of one of the oldest and largest cells in the organisation. Several other small cells also operate in the area.

Neverwinter Campaign Setting

Sharandar in the Neverwinter MMORPG

I think it is fair to say that there are more words written about the Neverwinter Wood in 4E than in all the other editions combined.

Firstly, it addresses the appearance of the eladrin from the Feywild within the ruins of Sharandar, formerly the capital of the elven realm of Iliyanbruen:

When the Spellplague shook Toril, the Feywild fell once more into alignment with the mortal realm. Over time, many denizens of that untamed world crept, dashed, or strode across the newly weakened barriers.

Some eladrin from the Feywild kingdom of Iliyanbruen - who had fled when Illefarn fell into ruin long ago-decided to return to their ancestral roots. When the eladrin arrived at the portal connecting their forest to Neverwinter Wood, dark fey were already there. After driving out the evildoers, the band erected a military outpost in the surrounding wreckage on both sides of the portal and named it New Sharandar, after Iliyanbruen's former capital. Now the fey have spread through several of the ancient ruins, which time, nature, and intruders have ravaged.

The eladrin want to restore their ancient city and smash in the heads of the pillagers that defiled it. Even though most of the fey reserve their anger for the thieves and ravagers, others aren't so precise in their wrath. These eladrin are enraged at the desecration of their ancestral homes. They believe the entire region is theirs by right, and they'll happily slaughter anyone who dares gainsay them.

(I would refer you to page 126-127 of the Neverwinter Campaign Setting if you wish to continue reading: this is merely a quote.)

From page 174 onwards, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting begins addressing the Neverwinter Wood more directly:

Leagues beyond Neverwinter, a thick press of trees shrouds a foreign world in shadows and fear. In places, the land's brush grows into dense walls, and trespassers must hew through it branch by branch to gain access to the land's private places. Where the thickets are lighter and natural pathways allow for easier travel, the land's aura is no less menacing. Overhead, the canopy's branches and leaves intertwine into wooden fists, blotting out the sun and transforming the idea of" day" into a memory of brighter, safer domains. Travellers who risk entering this looming forest feel baleful eyes tracking their movements. Despite the warm temperature, a coldness creeps inside their clothing, sending shivers down their spines.

This is Neverwinter Wood. Dark and brutal outsiders journey here to steal power, magic, and lives. Monstrous denizens of this world and others dwell here in shadows, glaring in hatred at ignorant mortals who think to tame the wilds. Here, the bones of ancient civilizations that believed their magic a match for the woods reside as testaments of their folly. And here, the ghosts of such mistakes haunt the edges of this foreign reality, never escaping the winter of their lives.

A sidebar entitled Looming Woods then gives this flavour text some in-game effects:

A dark, ominous forest is enough to make anyone nervous. But in Neverwinter Wood, even the unease is unnatural. In areas of the woodland, travellers' disquiet thickens into a supernatural fear, becoming fantastic terrain.

Effect: Living creatures in affected squares must make a saving throw before rolling initiative. Those who fail are surprised during the first round of combat. Living creatures who fail a Perception check while in affected squares are convinced they heard or saw something moving nearby. Finally, living creatures take a -1 penalty to Will and saving throws against fear powers and effects.

Special: Creatures that live in these woods for more than a few weeks grow immune to this effect.

Beyond those general comments, I want to include quotes about three of the locations in the Neverwinter Wood - Sharandar, Dread Ring, Xinlenal - that appear on the map at the beginning of this post.

Sharandar

The ruins are described as follows:

Sharandar's structures were built high in trees, blending harmoniously with the forest's natural growth and forming a crown upon the canopy's brow. The thickest boles supported rounded platforms upon which peak-roofed homes and arching halls were erected. Skilled glassworkers crafted amber-tinted windows that sealed out the weather and gleaming lanterns from which mystical lights danced. Great bridges, both crafted and grown, linked one structure or tree with the next. Intricate knots, carved in wood and tied in branches, adorned ceilings, framed doors, and served as banisters to help keep occupants from toppling off platforms.

So it was. Since then, rot has been feasting, opening soft wounds in walls, ceilings, and floors for intruders to stumble through - likely to their deaths. Handrails sag dangerously, and entire sections of them are gone. Windows and lanterns are missing or shattered. Vines, lichens, mosses, and moulds snake along every surface. Small beasts, birds, and insects have reclaimed the trees, at times sharing the structures' remains with the more dangerous creatures that claimed them as lairs or with skulking invaders intent upon looting.

The descriptions continue beyond this quote and the impression the reader is left with is decayed magnificence. There is also a section further describing further the efforts to reclaim the ruins as New Sharandar but that's not a direction my only comments are heading in.

Dread Ring

My PCs will soon be tackling the Dread Ring as part of their Bones of the Thunderbeast major quest so I am rather biased when it comes to potential of including the Dread Ring as a part of a campaign. I have already covered off a lot of the ideas I have for the Dread Ring <here> (or you can follow this <tag>) but I will include a fairly long quote from the Neverwinter Campaign Setting just to explain the location with a little bit of detail:

In Neverwinter Wood's deepest region, where shadows weigh on travellers like wet wool, something malign lurks. The thick forest ends abruptly, its border abutting a circular field of ash. Animals give wide berth to the site, and the surrounding forest land is blanketed in a chilling, breathless silence. Heavy, stale air - redolent with the tang of disease - resists any breeze, stubbornly squatting over the clearing.
 
A few hundred feet in from the perimeter, black stones rise from cracked, lifeless soil. Walls, pillars, spindly towers, and gaping gates form an uneven circle of nefarious import. This structure, a combination of ritual focus and functional fortress, is one of Thay's Dread Rings. Szass Tam, the lich regent of Thay, created the rings for use in a fell ritual in his quest to attain godhood. His efforts were thwarted, however, and this ring is now the centre of Valindra Shadowmantle's regional efforts. Despite its stones having been broken, its walls hanging open, and its initial purpose going unfulfilled, the structure still holds more power than any sane person would want Thay to possess.
 
Adventurers who approach the ring do so without their mounts, since typical beasts step into the circle of ash only if they are forced. Familiars, beast companions, and the like are apt to proceed, snarling or whimpering, if their masters do.
 
Even within the unnatural oppression of Neverwinter Wood, the ring's malignity stands out against the surrounding landscape's. Characters who have training in Arcana automatically sense the magic in the broken walls of the Dread Ring (though they cannot tell its purpose). As their teeth chatter, their palms sweat, and their souls clench, even the most unobservant adventurers can tell this is a warped place.

Suffice to say, that's the sort of place that almost any DM could turn into a truly horrifying adventuring  environment.

Xinlenal

Some 20-25 miles away from the Red Wizards of Thay with their Dread Ring, you have the other ubiquitous power group of the 4E Realms, The Netherese or Shadovar, seeking to recover one of their flying cities that crashed during the whole Karsus debacle a couple of thousand years ago:

In the woodland's eastern reaches, the forest floor smacks into an earthen wall that rises about 60 feet before stretching into a plateau. Although the rise is not especially great, the topside's thick canopy and heavy overgrowth shroud it in secrecy. Beneath this wooded cloak, cracked and scattered structures and winding avenues intertwine with the forest's vines, grasses, and branches.

This plateau holds the wreckage of Xinlenal, the First Enclave of Netheril. The earliest of the Netherese flying cities, Xinlenal plummeted to the earth when magic briefly ceased to function during the empire's fall. Here it has lain for nearly two millennia. However, if Prince Clariburnus has his way, the First Enclave might soon soar again.

While not as horrifying as the Dread Ring, there's a lot to be said for a megadungeon environment which, if you don't defeat the BBEG, turns into a flying megadungeon. Now why didn't I make this a more important part of my current campaign...?

Putting it Together

Old School

If you're a old school DM, you want to be able to run a hexcrawl as well as have at least one megadungeon in the midst of those hexes that the PCs can explore. The Neverwinter Wood is that hexcrawl. PCs can fight their way through evil fey, including elf/eladrin-supermacists, while encountering the corrupt necromantic creations of the Dread Ring and the soldiers of the Netherese. And then the Dread Ring, Sharandar, and Xinlenal are all megadungeon environments. (Dread Ring, to me, seems an almost perfect place to set Barrowmaze, for example.)

And when the PCs screw up in Xinlenal, it turns into a flying city and now they have to deal with the threat that this poses and the potential that it offers. I am sure any player would remember the time their DM gave them a flying city for years to come!

Not Old School

The critical issue in the Neverwinter Wood is the presence of the Red Wizards of Thay and their Dread Ring. It corrupts the entire forest. Such is the threat that it poses that even the most xenophobic of the Eldreth would consider allying with a group of PCs in order to end the Thayan threat.

And the threat posed by the Netherese is negligible. Even if they raise Xinlenal, their interests are elsewhere. (Also, if you're setting your campaign after the events of The Sundering, the Netherese are all but wiped out. As such, I would expect that a group of Netherese who managed to escape from the fate of most of their fellows would use a repaired flying city to start life anew in a place that posed less of a threat. On that note, it might be interesting to have the Netherese of Xinlenal, regardless of when your campaign is taking place, actually be those who simply want to live a peaceful life and not a life of empire and conquest. As such, the PCs may end up deciding to help them....)

So, that leaves us with the Dread Ring as the focus of any adventuring in the Neverwinter Wood. And breaking the Dread Ring's power should require something along the lines of what is needed to destroy an old school artefact. In my campaign, the power to destroy the Dread Ring and remove its blight is contained within three Tears of Selûne - inspired by the DDi adventure Shards of Selûne - for which my PCs quested from levels 3-8.

As the Dread Ring is, for all intents and purposes, an insult (and anathema) to nature, any artefact connected to druids, primal forces, nature deities etc... could fill the same macguffin-like role that the Tears of Selûne have filled in my own game. (If you own 2E's Prayers from the Faithful, I would recommend the Eldathyn relic the Crystrum of Tranquillity.) 

Otherwise, the Dread Ring is an opportunity to go wild with dungeon design. It doesn't need to make logical sense - the Neverwinter Campaign Setting makes this plain - because reality breaks down in parts of the structure. Break out the old school random dungeon generation tables....

As already mentioned, the elves and eladrin of the Eldreth Veluuthra represent a cleart and present danger to those who enter the Neverwinter Wood. While that can mean, in simple terms, unexpected battles with "good" elves, it could be interesting to play up "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"-angle only for the Eldreth to betray the PCs once the Thayans are dealt with.

Summing Up

I'll keep this brief: evil elves and three megadungeons each with their own unique flavour, including the possibility that one could be made to fly? Yeah, I think most DMs would see the potential of running adventures in such a location.

Starter Set Sandbox 12 - Phandalin & Wave Echo Cave (Updated 26Feb2017)

Realmslore

Until Lost Mine of Phandelver was published, all we basically has by way of information about Phandalin and Wave Echo Cave was this:

Phandalin was an important farming center located northeast of Leilon, where the Triboar Cutoff East fades into a trail. The road was abandoned after years of orc attacks obliterated every caravan that passed down the road, conquering Phandalin in the process. When the orcs were driven out, the village was left largely in ruins, and it remains so today.

Under the leadership of a chieftain called Uruth, the orcs expanded steadily, building a realm called Uruth Ukrypt (Home of Uruth). Its name echoes today in Kryptgarden Forest. Too lazy to support themselves by farming, the orcs devastated the game in their realm and subsequently took to raiding human holdings for food. Some 400 years have passed since then, during which time concerted human attacks decimated the orc kingdom and nearly drove the creatures from the area entirely.

No one lives here now but monsters, though passing hunters and rangers often camp in one of the more secure buildings. It still has three usable deep wells, one of which is considered to be heavily tainted with an undetectable poison that kills the imbiber three days after ingestion. Orcs and half-orcs are supposedly immune to the toxin.

The orc attacks forced gnomes and dwarves to abandon a mountain delve near Phandalin where they mined mithral in a union they called the Phandelver's Pact. This lost lode was called Wavecho Cave because the roll of waves beating on the shore could be heard in the natural cavern. Shortly before the
mine was abandoned, a lode of platinum was discovered. The size is unknown, but a very old dwarf who worked the mine remembers that the vein "held great promise".

Phandalin is the best preserved of the many ruined keeps and villages scattered along the Sword Coast, most of which are little more than heaped stones, graves, and cellars hidden by reed grasses and creeping vines. Many of these areas shelter predatory beasts or passing adventurers.

And that's pretty much it. (I am quoting from The North boxed set.)

Adapting Other Adventures
 
Red Hand of Doom
 
If you've been reading my other posts and my rough ideas for the Cragmaw tribe to be orcs seeking to rebuilt their lost realm of Uruth Ukrypt, you can imagine that a place like Phandalin, once reduced to a monster-filled ruin by the orcs of Uruth Ukrypt, would seem to the orcs as a logical target for the modern day depredations.

One of the few genuinely good adventures published by WotC in the 3.xE era was, of course, Red Hand of Doom. (And, unfortunately, its success led to WotC thinking that Tiamat was the "go to" BBEG for the next two editions with the execrable pseudo-adventure path Scales of War for 4E and now the Tyranny of Dragons RSE for 5E.)

And while the hobgoblins of Red Hand are very different in play to an orc horde, I think the structure of that adventure can help inform a mini-campaign based on a rising orc threat with Phandalin one of the targets on the way to, say, laying siege to Neverwinter.

I will be starting another Neverwinter-based campaign shortly and I expect the orcs to play an even bigger role in that campaign and Red Hand of Doom is definitely going to inform some of the design choices I make.

Of course, some Lost Mine of Phandelver DMs are probably looking at my idea to turn the Cragmaw tribe into orcs rather than goblins as something they don't want to do. In that case, Red Hand of Doom might be much more useable "as is" other than stat block conversions.

With a bit of work it might also be possible to tie it into the Tyranny of the Dragon storyline if that's something that interests you.

Anyway, I'll stick with the orcs and maybe have a balor general driving the horde forwards....

Keep on the Borderlands
 

One of the really interesting things about B2 Keep on the Borderlands, and particularly the Caves of Chaos, is that it makes nearly no sense. Why are all these evil humanoids, many of whom are fundamentally opposed to each other, dwelling in close proximity without some sort of civil war taking place?

For me, that's not just a rhetorical question. I want to know what is uniting them and keeping them at relative peace with one another.

But before I post some ideas about the answer, let me throw out a suggestion: What if Phandalin replaced the titular keep? And related to that is this: What if Phandalin became the party's home base to scout out rumours of evil humanoids in the Sword Mountains which ultimately lead to the Caves of Chaos from Keep on the Borderlands?

So, what is uniting the evil humanoids? In the final section of the Caves of Chaos - marked with the letter K on the original map - there is a series of chambers that includes THE TEMPLE OF EVIL CHAOS (room number 58). I think whatever unites these disparate evil humanoids is the power represented in this temple.

And here are some FR-appropriate options:

Bane: The Black Lord is the deity of tyranny. Since the Spellplague, he's also been the official deity of Thay because of a deal struck between him and Szass Tam. Maybe this is a Thayan temple to Bane where they perform various arcane and necromantic experiments while also moulding these evil humanoids into an army of conquest. (This probably makes the most sense and also fits in well with the presence of Thayans in the Neverwinter region.)

Cyric: The Prince of Lies is a creature of chaos, murder, and strife. He is also the patron deity of most of the Zhentarim (this is in the 4E era rather than the 5E era where the Zhentarim are now almost player-friendly!). I do like the idea of Zhentarim recruiters training disparate humanoids to perform raids on various caravans and settlements only for the Zhentarim to then turn up and offer protection money to drive the humanoids away.

Garagos: The Reaver the chaotic evil version of Tempus, and possibly Tempus's predecessor as the deity of war. And Garagos is not happy about being supplanted. What if he and his bloodreavers (his clerics) decided to mount a campaign to increase his influence once more? Gathering war-like humanoids could be part of that. I also note that Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue referred to the tanarukka (tanar'ri-blooded orcs) of the Scourged Legion and that their leader was now a bloodreaver of Garagos. That's another option beyond the ideas I have previously posted about the Cragmaw orcs being directed by clerics of Luthic.

The Scourged Legion

Ghaunadaur: I admit, I like drow. I like really evil drow. I like the traditional Gygax-created pre-Drizzt drow. And as much as I like spider-flavoured drow, I also like the insane servitors of Ghaunadaur. (On that note, one of the best combats I ever ran in 3.5E involved a drider cleric of Ghaunadaur. It took five hours to run 15 rounds and, at the end, we all thought it had only been an hour-and-a-half. It was brilliant.) What about an outcast drider cleric of Ghaunadaur with his (or her) fellow drow heretics gradually building their strength to raid a drow outpost somewhere beneath the Sword Mountains?

Lolth: Ahhh, drow again. Some of you may be familiar with the idea of the Demon Weave (just click on the link for more information otherwise) so maybe these humanoids are being used by the Lolthite drow to gather various items and sacrifices as part of the preparation for the creation of the Demon Weave. It also ties in with the drow BBEG at the end of Lost Mine.

Shar: Shar used to be my favourite evil deity but the whole return of Netherese city of Shade and its Shadovar caused me to lost interest in her. However, it would make sense for a band of Netherese as part of an experiment to determine if these various humanoid tribes can be turned into effective troops.

Tiamat: Again I admit I don't like Tiamat but, if you want to use her, look at Red Hand of Doom for inspiration and make this one of her temples. Frankly, this could potentially tie in really well with the Hoard of the Dragon Queen and the whole Tyranny of the Dragons story. Unfortunately, it's not something I can get excited about....

Summing Up
 
Let's face it, for all of its faults, Keep on the Borderlands is a great starter adventure. Maybe you could use it as part of a Lost Mine of Phandelver-inspired campaign with multiple delves in between completing chapters of the adventure proper?

I must admit, I already have an introductory adventure planned for my next Neverwinter campaign but I am sorely tempted to move the action to Phandalin and kick off the campaign with an updated version of the Caves of Chaos....

Oh, and I have nothing to offer regarding Wave Echo Cave so I simply made it part of this post. Sorry.

26Feb17: About Wave Echo Cave...

When I first did this post, I must confess I didn't actually bother to read the Wave Echo Cave section of Lost Mine of Phandelver. Actually, I may have but clearly I paid no attention to it. That was a mistake because it clearly has potential for expansion and adaptation consistent with some of the other ideas I've posted in this series.

So, thanks, to +Ibskib and +Ben Green for prompting me to take a proper look at it.

The Forge of Spells

The key feature of this location is, of course, the Forge of Spells. While it is implied that it was once a rather potent feature, it has been emasculated to be more suitable for a level 1-5 adventure. I run 4E and use the 4E version of the Forgotten Realms in my games so let me throw around a few ideas from that perspective.

One thing I have failed to do in my 4E games, as my players keep avoiding rituals, is to include magical locations which could conceivably replace the component cost of using certain ritual magic. (3.xE's Midnight Campaign Setting has these sorts of locations and WotC experimented with a similar idea of planar touchstones - go to a place, get a special power - during the course of 3.5E and particularly in the Planar Handbook.)

If I was going to use the Forge of Spells I would have it be, for the purpose of the Enchant Magic Item ritual, the equivalent of the gp value of a level 5 item each day (arbitrary number) but its entire power could be exhausted to produce a level 10 item (another arbitrary number), even for an item crafter of a lower level. That gives the players to choose between a renewing resource or a single major item (and maybe it needs to be level 15 or higher to make it really tempting.) I'm not sure what the equivalent is with respect to magic item creation in 5E but perhaps a 5E fan can comment on that below.

Beyond its usefulness in item crafting, what if it is the remains of an older, purer form of magic?

During the 3E era, Dragon published an article about the computer game Neverwinter Nights and the writer created his take on the reptilian creator race (this has subsequently been replaced by the sarrukh introduced in 3.5E's Serpent Kingdoms). That article postulated that there was a type of magic that predated the Weave which I think it referred to as "old magic" (or "whole" magic) and that the creator races had access to this "old magic" which combined the Weave, the Shadow Weave, and some unknown power. What if the Forge of Spells is, similarly, a legacy of this "old magic"?

Also, <this post> about the Old Owl Well mentions the spell-storing gemstones known as chardalyns. What if the presence of the Forge of Spells has the side effect of seeding chardalyns through the Lost Mine and, indeed, the "stars" - the glittering minerals - in the ceiling of 13. Starry Cavern. What if the presence of the Forge of Spells has the side effect of seeding chardalyns through the Lost Mine and, indeed, the "stars" - the glittering minerals - in the ceiling of 13. Starry Cavern are actually chardalyns that the PCs can recover.

Antagonists

Obviously, Wave Echo Cave is completely useful as is but, if you think about expanding the importance of the Forge of Spells, you may also want to think about how that could change the inhabitants of the 'Cave.

Aboleth

As mentioned by +Ben Green in the comments below, the presence of a dark lake linked to the Underdark (area 16) immediately suggests that an aboleth is present.

So, what would an aboleth want with the Forge of Spells?

SPOILERS FOR NIGHT BELOW. A rough synopsis of the classic 2E boxed set adventure Night Below goes like this: Aboleth-controlled orcs are raiding the countryside and capturing spellcasters. Those spellcasters are being sent into the Underdark where they become the raw material (I forget how - I will need to read it again) for the creation of mind-controlling obelisks which the aboleth will raise around the region to bring the region under the thrall of the aboleth in their city below.

Oh yeah.

Imagine that. With a few changes to LMoP, including making orcs more important and having them capturing spellcasters, you're now looking into a much larger and longer campaign that ends up in the Underdark.

So what purpose does the Forge of Spells serve? In such a scenario, the enslaved spellcasters are brought to Wave Echo Cave and rituals are performed using the Forge of Spells in order to create the mind-controlling obelisks. And once the threat is ended in Wave Echo Cave, the PCs are tasked with exploring the dark lake and travelling further underground to seek out and destroy the real threats.

And you get to run Night Below. Ask Matt Colville; that's a good thing!

Beholders

I admit, I have beholders on the brain. My favourite bad guys in FR are the Zhentarim and the Zhentarim are not the same without beholders behind the scenes. I think I have already mentioned a few times in this series how I used the Zhentarim when I ran my own version of this adventure.

But the main reason the Forge of Spells makes me think of beholders is because the beholder section of 3.5E's excellent Lords of Madness suggests that beholders derive nourishment by exposing magic items to their central eye's anti-magic gaze. I can only imagine how satisfying something like the Forge of Spells might be by comparison!

So, if your version of LMoP Expanded has the Zhentarim playing a key role, perhaps their beholder masters have them searching for this location because it would increase the potency of the beholder hive to the point where they could produce more beholders.

Drow

In the 4E era, WotC made a half-assed attempt with the Rise of the Underdark metaplot/megaplot to tell a big story about how Lolth was going to create her own version of the Weave called the Demon Weave. (I actually like the idea but its execution was, unsurprisingly, botched.) If you look for the Demon Weave tag on this blog, you will be able to find out more about the whole scheme or you can read a short version in the excellent Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue.

If you go this route, the subsequent investigations of the drow plot could lead the PCs into a slightly different version of Out of the Abyss allowing the campaign to continue to level 20 or so with only a few changes to the story.

That's Enough For Now...

This has been very much a first draft based on a 15-minute reading of part of a product I haven't looked at for 2+ years. But even with no real research, it's plain that this can easily be expanded into a much larger campaign and even segue into either Night Below or Out of the Abyss. Of course, committing to such a choice also means making a few changes to LMoP to help tie everything together but, if you've run LMoP before, you're probably ready for a few small changes to keep things fresh and interesting for you as the DM.

Silver Marches Sandbox 15 - Reavers of Harkenwold & The Caves of Chaos

I could probably title this post Leaving the Sandbox Behind. It's also a return to my earlier Keep on the Borderlands post taking some of the ideas I expanded on a little in my revised introduction and now turning the Silverymoon Pass into the location of a larger adventure.

So think of this as Reavers of the Silverymoon Pass but also as a mash-up of B2 Keep on the Borderlands, Raiders of Galath's Roost and also Reavers of Harkenwold. There is definitely a plot at work in this adventure outline....

Reavers of the Silverymoon Pass Harkenwold

Reavers of Harkenwold is one of the few 4E adventures published by WotC that receives nearly universal praise, which is no surprise considering that the designer is listed as Rich Baker and additional design is credited to Chris Perkins. Mike Mearls, the author of so much d20 glut and two of the worst adventures in D&D's lifetime - Keep on the Shadowfell and Pyramid of Shadows - is not mentioned at all. That is no coincidence.

Until Rich Baker's forced departure under one of WotC's cretinous "let's get rid of our good people (and promote the clown who killed 4E to oversee 5E) because it's cheap"- redundancy programmes so beloved by corporate USA, he was one of two WotC employees who consistently turned out great adventures; the other was Chris Perkins and Chris has publicly acknowledged that he considered Rick Baker to be the best adventure writer working for WotC at the time. Frankly, I think he was also their best designer who was responsible for many pieces of innovative design... and he was also the only WotC game designer whose novels were actually not only readable but worth reading.

I can't wait for his new campaign setting Primeval Thule to be published....

Introduction

And that was a rather large digression. Back on topic, here is an extract from the introduction for Reavers of Harkenwold:

Reavers of Harkenwold pits the heroes against the Iron Circle, a company of cruel mercenaries that has seized control of the small land of Harkenwold. In this adventure, the heroes become daring rebels and lead the folk of Harkenwold against their oppressors.

I feel a certain temptation to use the Iron Circle because of the great art that accompanies the adventure but I am sticking with the Zhentarim simply because I think they're an important part of the Forgotten Realms... and I have lots of Zhentarim miniatures that I want to use.

Here's a revised introduction for my campaign:

Reavers of the Silverymoon Pass pits the heroes against the Zhentarim, a company of cruel mercenaries that has effectively seized control of the Silverymoon Pass preventing trade from flowing between Silverymoon and Sundabar. The keep of Hawk's Nest, normally used by the Knights in Silver to protect the pass, is now a Zhent fortress, falling under their control during the winter months when it is largely vacated by the Knights. In this adventure, the heroes take back control of the Silverymoon Pass from the Zhentarim, they evict them forcibly from Hawk's Nest, and discover a darker plan to bring ruin to the Silver Marches.

This is also where I need to mention my mash-up. My plans for Hawk's Nest are inspired by the titular keep from B2 Keep on the Borderlands and the Iron Keep from Reavers of Harkenwold. The map is definitely based on the Iron Keep simply because it is so much better (the cartographer for Iron Keep is Mike Schley; need I say more?).

Adventure Synopsis, Part One: The Iron Circle

On the outskirts of Harkenwold, the adventurers encounter a band of Iron Circle marauders threatening a farmhouse. They intervene and rescue the widow llyana and her sons. Ilyana tells the heroes about Harkenwold's troubles and begs them to help end this evil. She directs the heroes to the nearby village of Albridge and two key figures in Harkenwold's growing resistance: a retired adventurer named Dar Gremath and the druid Reithann.

Dar Gremath is keen to deal with isolated Iron Circle detachments. He suggests certain targets, among them a supply caravan. For her part, Reithann advises the heroes to strike at the Toadwallow Caverns, the lair of a bullywug tribe allied to the Iron Circle. If the heroes defeat the bullywugs, the rebels in western Harkenwold are free to bring the fight to the Iron Circle. Regardless of which option they pick, the adventurers can return to the other quest whenever they want.

Cleaning out the Toadwallow or raiding the Iron Circle brings the adventurers to Nazin Redthorn's attention and convinces him that they are a serious threat. He dispatches strong patrols to hunt them down. The defeat of one of these strike forces emboldens freedom fighters throughout the region. Heartened by the adventurers' aid, the people of Harkenwold prepare for battle against the invaders. The leaders of the resistance ask the heroes to contact the Woodsingers, a clan of elves living in the Harken Forest south of Harkenwold. To gain the aid of the elves, the adventurers must defeat the evil lurking in the wizard sanctuary of Dal Nystiere. Accomplishing the quest concludes this part of the adventure.

This obviously doesn't suit an adventure in the Silverymoon Pass but there are bits that I can definitely use - it's part two of Reavers that I am more interested in.

That said, the opening encounter involving the Zhentarim (rather than the Iron Circle) threatening a farmhouse is a great opening. Riffing off that, I think I will instead have a larger force attacking the village of Khelb and that makes me think I should also draw on some ideas from 4E's Rescue at Rivenroar published in Dungeon 156, the first adventure in the Scales of War adventure path, for further inspiration.

Here's the first draft of  revised synopsis:

Part 1: The Zhentarim Revealed

The PCs are hired by Silverymoon to investigate the raiders that have brought the spring trade through the Silverymoon Pass to a virtual standstill.

Approaching Khelb, a small caravan town at the western end of the Silverymoon Pass, the PCs notice smoke over the hill and see that the town is under attack by orcs and others. The PCs rush to Khelb's aid and help the defenders to drive off the orcs, an ogre throwing barrels of alchemist's fire and a band of Zhentarim mercenaries.

As the town cleans up, it is noticed that the raiders who escaped took captives with them and the PCs quickly agree to pursue the raiders and recover the captives. This brings them to a dwarven ruin which has been transformed into a Zhentarim supply station and the PCs not only rescue the captives but recover a large amount of trade goods.

Returning to Khelb, the PCs receive fresh supplies from Silverymoon as well as fresh instructions. Now that it is known that the Zhentarim are involved, the leaders of Silverymoon are assuming that this is why they haven't heard from Hawk's Nest and the PCs are asked to focus on that keep. This leads to part 2.

Adventure Synopsis, Part Two: The Die Is Cast

Returning from the forest with Woodsinger warriors as allies, the adventurers learn that Nazin Redthorn is marching to destroy the resistance. In the Battle of Albridge, the heroes lead the Harkenwolders and their elven allies against the Iron Circle. With hard fighting and some luck, the Iron Circle is defeated, and the surviving mercenaries retreat to Iron Keep-a stronghold too well fortified for t!he Harkenwolders to storm.

In the climactic challenge of the adventure, the heroes infiltrate Iron Keep. With fortune on their side, they strive to free Baron Stockmer, defeat the remaining Iron Circle soldiers, and kill or capture Nazin Redthorn. Their heroic efforts bring freedom to Harkenwold once again!

Actually, it's funny reading that synopsis and comparing it to what I see in my mind's eye based on my memory and my reaction to reading the adventure. Like a lot of DMs, I find that my memory of an adventure that I have yet to run is more like an edited and reshaped version than the actual adventure that appears on paper or PDF. Clearly Reavers is one of those adventures!

One of the other things I notice reading these synopses is that there is an opportunity to gather allies in Reavers and that's something that hasn't really occurred to me in relation to my adaptation. But it does make sense. It adds another element to the adventure particularly in the context that this is supposed to be a campaign for new players.

One option I quite like is to have a tribe of goliaths that the Zhentarim have been raiding for slaves for any construction work they need because of the goliaths' great strength. That leads to another thought: there could be a village of goliaths comprised only of females and young plus their Zhentarim guards. The male goliaths are being forced to labour for the Zhentarim otherwise the Zhents will kill their wives and children. The PCs have to stealthily infiltrate the village and neutralise the Zhentarim. Some of the wives will then set off to find their husbands and, when the PCs most need it, they will find a band of angry male goliaths behind them ready to inflict major damage on the Zhentarim on behalf of their rescuers.

Yeah, that would work.

Ultimately though, this is about the PCs heading into the Nether Mountains, or at least the foothills, and carefully infiltrating Hawk's Nest - the substitute for the Iron Keep of Reavers but using the same map - and ending the Zhentarim threat.

Here's a first draft of a revised synopsis:

In response to the fresh instructions from Silverymoon, the heroes head into the Nether Mountains in search of the keep of Hawk's Nest which they suspect is under Zhentarim control.

En route, they happen across a Zhentarim-controlled village of goliaths where the females and young are hostages securing the heavy labour of their husbands who have been forced into servitude by the Zhentarim. Freeing the goliaths from the Zhentarim, the PCs continue on to Hawk's Nest with a clear sense of direction and the knowledge that they will soon have a warband of very angry male goliaths at their backs.

They soon find the keep of Hawk's Nest but it is too well fortified to simply storm but the timely arrival of an appropriate NPC reveals the existence of a secret entrance (tunnel? well?). Using that secret entrance, the PCs carefully infiltrate the keep and end the Zhentarim threat... but also discover that the Zhentarim are working for the Netherese (some Shadovar emissaries will be present) and that there is a major Zhentarim base nearby where more forces are being gathered. This leads to part 3.

The Caves of Chaos

I thought this idea would work best as a mash-up of Reavers of Harkenwold and B2 Keep on the Borderlands, and I have previously posted some ideas about setting an adaptation of Keep on the Borderlands in and around Hawk's Nest so this definitely isn't a new idea.

While the keep of Hawk's Nest serves as the headquarters of the Zhentarim in the Silverymoon Pass - as well as providing a hawk's eye view over those using the pass - the primary gathering point for their humanoid raiders are the Caves of Chaos, a placeholder name from the principal adventure location in Keep on the Borderlands.

Up until now I have only mention the Zhentarim using orcs and ogres but part of me wants a bit more variety in the foes that the PCs will face. That, of course, also needs some sort of justification. For the moment I will go with some as unoriginal as any of my other ideas and have the justification for the gathering of normally antagonistic creatures be the presence in the temple complex of the Caves of Chaos of a splinter from the Shard of Evil at the heart of the Abyss.

This relic of absolute evil has been sending out a siren call to creatures of evil within the Nether Mountains. Previously quiscient, it was awakened by a cleric of Cyric who now serves as its high priest.

There's not much reason for a synopsis here. Basically this is the Caves of  Chaos from B2 Keep on the Borderlands but with this much better map by someone called The Weem:

And I'll drop the gnolls and kobolds - I don't think they're geographically appropriate - and limit the creatures to goblins, hobgoblins, ogres and orcs. But my favourite encounter will be, no doubt, with a particularly vile cleric of Cyric who is able to draw on the power of the Shard of the Abyss.

So that's my part 3.

Ultimately, the PCs end the Zhentarim threat in the Silverymoon Pass allowing trade to flow once more. They will receive both rewards and recognition from the leaders of Silverymoon and, unless I have an idea for another mission, will be free to go off and explore the Silver Marches sandbox....

Then again, perhaps as they return to Silverymoon they come under attack from undead bandits and realise the Zhentarim threat is not yet ended. Instead, the Tombs of Deckon Thar await....

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.