Starter Set Sandbox 19 - The City of Neverwinter

For some strange reason, the city of Neverwinter was never properly mapped in an RPG product until 4E's Neverwinter Campaign Setting, and it was really only described in Volo's Guide to the North and then The North boxed set (the latter product was essentially a copy-and-paste version of the former).

It was, however, subsequently mapped and described in the original Neverwinter Nights and the CRPG's strategy guide(s). That means that there is not a lot of canon material - and in my version of the Realms, I avoid the CRPGs, in the main, as a source of canon - to draw upon but Volo's Guide, in particular, gives a few great ideas from the pre-Spellplague era that can complement the great job WotC did with the Neverwinter Campaign Setting.

This is the final post in my Starter Set sandbox series and is, clearly, long overdue. At first the delay was caused by my desire to finish my first Neverwinter campaign but then the combination of Third World internet and a new baby kept me from returning to blogging... especially when I also knew that this was going to be an extremely long post. I suspect I will also have to go back and edit this post because most of it was typed in 2015 so some of the links and whatnot may no longer work.

   

If you haven't read any of the other posts in this series, the <table of contents can be found here>. The 5E Starter Set tag will also pull up a list of all the posts, but not as conveniently as the ToC. And if this post is too long, just buy Volo's Guide to the North and steal all your Neverwinter adventure ideas from that book. :)

Neverwinter: Ruins of Adventure

While TSR may have been horribly managed, one thing it was able to do that WotC doesn't look it's ever going to be able to do is to find good partners to produce CRPGs. Of course, that was back in the days when computer games were relatively small time, and not part of an industry that (apparently?) exceeds studio films with respect to revenues (although the Marvel films may have changed that).

The first of the so-called Gold Box games was Pool of Radiance which also had a related D&D adventure published called FRC1 Ruins of Adventure. I had intended to post a link to the PDF on dndclassics.com but, for some strange reasons, it isn't there. Odd. That said, as with all of the TSR adventures and thanks to WotC's stupidity in pulling PDFs from sale for about five years, it's only a Google search away. The link is to the Wikipedia page instead. Also, the Wikipedia article notes that the CRPG was based on the tabletop adventure and not the other way around. Interesting.

The adventure's structure is simple: the city of Phlan and the surrounding region are divided up into regions/districts/locations/what have you and each of those regions/districts/locations/what have you includes one or more threats. The end of the adventure sees you fighting the final boss monster: a bronze dragon possessed by what might be referred to in 4E and 5E terms as an evil primordial.

Neverwinter

I find that this basic structure works really well with Neverwinter and you can see echoes of it in the Neverwinter Campaign Setting.  And this really long-winded introduction is basically my way of saying: this post turns Neverwinter into Ruins of Adventure with your PCs accepting quests (or motivating themselves) to clear various zones of the assorted riff-raff that make those zones unsafe for rebuilding by the new ruler of Neverwinter, whoever that may be.

Who Rules Neverwinter?

The Neverwinter Campaign Setting has Dagult Neverember, the Open Lord of Neverwinter, ruling Neverwinter as the Lord Protector and claiming some sort of blood-related link to the last (and maybe only) king of Neverwinter, Nasher Alagondar. That's definitely an option.

With my current Neverwinter campaign, I used Dagult but I made him a cultist of Graz'zt whose fortune was tied to his membership of the heretical cult of Graz'zt at the heart of the church of Waukeen. (In other words, in my version of the Realms, Waukeen remained Graz'zt's prisoner after the 2E era and the adventure For Duty & Deity never happened.)

If either the official Dagult Neverember or my cultist Dagult Neverember are not to your taste, you could also have Neverwinter ruled by a governor on behalf of the Lords' Alliance. This could work really well in the 5E era if you are using factions. (I hope to be starting another Neverwinter/Twilit Land campaign with a new group this year and I am planning to use this for that campaign... although I am actually thinking of having a council of five or so governors, not all of whom share the same objectives....)

If you're setting your campaign in the 5E era, which seems to be about a decade after the 4E era, another option is that the rightful Alagondar heir has been found and is now seeking to rebuild his or her city... and is likely also needing protections from assassins or whatnot.

On the subject of factions, I have been a fan of the Zhentarim since the OGB. A city like Neverwinter with coastal access and roads leading to Waterdeep and the Dessarin Valley would be attractive from the perspective of their trade interests: what if a Zhentarim pawn is Neverwinter's lord instead?

I suppose I could keep posting ideas - and I may edit some more in later - but I think it's important point to decide who is ruling Neverwinter and what his or her real motivations may be. Ideally, those motivations should also tie into elements of the background of one or more of the PCs.

If you're looking for inspiration about how to include politics in any campaign, I strongly recommend <this video> and <this video> by Matt Colville.

Who is the End Boss?

In the spirit of Ruins of Adventure, the idea of an end boss who is ultimately responsible for many of the threats that the city is facing is an attractive one. IMC, it was Graz'zt, or at least an aspect of Graz'zt, and that has worked out well so far in terms of inspiring various encounters and providing a link between various events that otherwise seem unrelated.

Do you want the same in your game?

The Zhentarim can, of course, fulfil such a role and I have already mentioned them in the previous section about who rules Neverwinter. If your game is going to draw on material from the Neverwinter MMORPG, then the ex-Arcane Brotherhood-and-now-Thayan lich Valindra Shadowmantle might prove to be suitable. My next campaign is likely to be focussed on the threat posted by the aboleth of The Chasm (see my notes below) which means it's going to feel a lot like 2E's Night Below and the aboleth are going to be the final boss monsters, plural.

What about the MMORPG?

I have never played games online so I don't know much about the Neverwinter MMORPG, per se; I have, however, used some of the YouTube videos, screenshots, and (most of all) concept art to provide visual cues for my Neverwinter campaign. I can recommend those and a couple of the concept art pieces are used in this post (including the one at the top).

I also imagine there are adventure/quest ideas that can be stolen from the Neverwinter walkthrough guides or wikias. (I remember strategy guides for the pre-online Blizzard games: does Neverwinter have one?)

What are the Zones?

Based on the map I posted above, these are the adventuring zones I have divided the city into:

• Blacklake District
• Castle Never
• The Chasm
• The Docks (not marked on the map but this is where you can see the Beached Leviathan and Driftwood Tavern)
• Fisher's Float
• Neverdeath
• Pirates' Skyhold
• Protector's Enclave
• River District (this is known as the Tower District in the MMORPG)
• Upland Rise

The rest of this post will provide some notes on opportunities and threats in each of these zones. I should also mention that the rest of this post will make more sense if you have access to 4E's Neverwinter Campaign Setting and 2E's Volo's Guide to the North but I will try and include enough material so you can make sense of my suggestions even if you have only one or neither.

Blacklake District

I may be tackling the zones in alphabetical order, but this is definitely a great place to start. Why? It has sewers and wererats, two staples of any urban D&D campaign or adventure.

Dealing with the wererats, of course, can easily become the primary focus of adventures in Blacklake District, but rival thieves' guilds can also play a part. IMC, I had a band of halflings down by the docks that was able to survive against the wererats in large part because their leader was a halfling vampire. (These were the Kneecappers. The vampire's attack involved knocking someone prone and then feeding from the femoral artery.)

Beyond combat, there is the problem of the Blacklake itself. It's a toxic mess and resettling the district really requires that the lake itself get a clean-up but how to do that? There's a relatively obscure nature deity in FR responsible for, inter alia, pure waters named Eldath. There's an even more obscure reference to a temple of hers in 2E's Prayers from the Faithful which places the Fastness of Green Shadows in the Neverwinter Wood.

What if the PCs are given a quest to cleanse Blacklake and told to seek out the Chaunteans of Upland Rise (see below) to ask their assistance in cleaning up the mess? The Chaunteans cannot help but point the PCs in the directions of the Eldathyn of the Fastness of Green Shadows. The Eldathyn are willing to help but, as committed pacifists, they are unable to deal with a problem that their temple is facing. If the PCs deal with that on behalf of the Eldathyn, they give/loan the PCs an Eldathyn relic which will clean Blacklake. (IMC, I would probably also require a ritual... and then have foul horrors hiding in Blacklake attack while the ritual is being performed. YMMV.)

Castle Never

Despite its prominence on the city map and in the art I showed my players on my laptop - oh, and the fact that it is also on the cover of the Neverwinter Campaign Setting - in 20+ sessions of our Neverwinter campaign they have never once asked a question about it or tried to explore it or even noticed that it was there.

Odd

They were greatly surprised when I used that as part of the campaign's story: basically, Castle Never became the focus of the ritual that Graz'zt was preparing and part of that ritual had the side-effect of causing people to essentially forget about the tower. It seems an in-game ritual had an out-of-game effect....

Megadungeon

As it is highly unlikely that other players would do the same thing, I won't recommend that idea for anyone else. 

Concept Art for Castle Never

What I would recommend, especially for anyone running 5E or (other) old school D&D/AD&D rules is that you turn it into a megadungeon. Assume the Red Wizards of Thay unleashed some evil magic there and go a bit wild in the traditions of, inter alia, Castle Greyhawk and The Ruins of Undermountain.

Such a megadungeon would be fairly undead-heavy in terms of encounters, but you could also have living Thayans conducting experiments, constructs they use as a guardians, weird magical effects that are the side-effects of Thayan experiments, summoned creatures that guard certain areas, and even orcs and gnolls that the Thayans have here as living guards.

Also, the Neverwinter Nine - Nasher Alagondar's legendary bodyguards - are entombed beneath Castle Never. Both the Neverwinter Campaign Setting and the MMORPG turn them into undead as a result of Thayan necromancy: go a step further and make them into death knights! Make the crypts of Castle Never a place to be really feared... but match the danger of the encounters with the best loot in true megadungeon style. <Link to Neverwinter Nine concept art.>

While my own campaigns are focussed on story and much small adventure locations, I still like the idea of Castle Never as a megadungeon in the tradition of, particularly, The Ruins of Undermountain because it offers players a chance to do "normal" D&D adventures even if only for a session or two. My own players sometimes need a break from plots and simply need to explore and fight for a session or so. 

(This actually motivated one of the best sessions of our Neverwinter campaign where they fought a large orc war band and balor in a canyon filled with tar pits. While I tied it in to an important plot point, it really was something they did because they just wanted to fight some orcs for a change. I even avoided orc spellcasters of any sort just to make it simpler... but I also threw in the balor because that's what evil DMs do.)

Similarly, after the smaller adventure locations of Lost Mine of Phandelver, in the main, perhaps your players might also be ready for an old school megadungeon?

The Chasm

It's fair to say that I love The Chasm: the idea of this rift leading down to the Underdark in the middle of a city is simply rife with adventure possibilities.

There is, of course, the challenge of simply getting to the bottom. What does that mean in your Neverwinter? In mine it meant using climbing harnesses and going down an earthmote then crossing the earthmote and repeating the process with the climbing harnesses. (This super-cautious approach was driven by the desire of the players to simply avoid any possibility of falling... but at the cost of time.)

If you choose the same set-up in your Neverwinter, are any of the earthmotes or similar horizontal platforms inhabited? An adventure like 3E's The Sunless Citadel would make sense in a place like The Chasm: perhaps the PCs spy the entrance on the way down or are attacked by the kobolds or goblins that lair in that place?

The primary question to answer, though, is this: What's at the bottom of The Chasm? In the Neverwinter Campaign Setting the answer was plaguechanged creatures including plaguechanged aboleth but I imagine a lot of 5E and other DMs don't want to touch the Spellplague.

I also went with plaguechanged creatures but the highlight for my group was The Sinister Spire. The Sinister Spire was one of the good 3.5E adventures published by WotC toward the end of that edition and, thus, sadly often overlooked.

Assuming I do run another Neverwinter campaign, I suspect I will actually use the Seven-Pillared Hall from 4E's H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth as I suspect I won't be using plaguechanged creatures again.

Anyway, aside from some sort of Underdark trading post, The Chasm is an easy introduction to the Underdark with a safe city only a short climb away. My players encountered troglodytes, aboleth, a gelatinous cube, giant bats, skum, and even dwarven guardian golems plus the drow-flavoured encounters of The Sinister Spire (drow, duergar, spiders, quaggoths etc...). I also threw in some more interesting areas - slaadi vs githzerai where the Elemental Chaos was "leaking" into Toril, hook horror nest, winged sword-armed thing hives etc... - but the PCs stayed with their primary mission and chose not to explore. Hopefully your players and my group will be more adventurous because The Chasm has the potential to be one of the major adventure locations in Neverwinter.

The Chasm V2

In the campaign that I ran in Neverwinter, my players inadvertently - and, to this day - unknowingly broke the elemental bindings that were holding a city of aboleth in the petrified state known as the Long Dreaming and described in 3.5E's Lords of Madness.

(The entire set-up - including the city's name of Golismorga - was stolen from an adventure in the Savage Tide adventure path from the pages of the physical Dungeon magazine. Credit where credit is due, and all that.)

The consequences of this mistake were never explored in that campaign but, if I ever return to Neverwinter, it's definitely going to be a major story arc.

To that end, I used my kindergarten-level Paint skills to fill the Chasm with water: Yes, I was going to make it very easy for the aboleth to have access to Neverwinter. I thought that I might run an adaptation the 3E adventure The Speaker in Dreams and replace the illithid BBEG with one or more aboleth from the now flooded city of Golismorga. I suspect 2E's Night Below boxed set could provide further inspiration for a major aboleth plot as well.

The Docks

So, you're new in Neverwinter and you need a place to stay. Where will that be? If money is tight, chances are you're going to start at the Docks as my PCs did. And the Beached Leviathan - see the picture to the left - is perfect for that because 1. there's a really good picture of it, 2. there are really good maps for it, and 3. there was a DDi article published for it describing it in detail. (And, yes, you do need to be a DDi subscriber to legally download that article... or you can just use Google and grab it anyway. And, no, I am not advocating piracy: I've actually grabbed DDi articles this way by mistake when I have forgotten to include the WotC site in my Google search.)

The Docks are a great place to start because they're a bit lawless. Press-gangs and pirates roam here, and it's the ideal place for an essentially consequence-free tavern brawl. Further, if sahuagin attack the city - always a good idea for a city on a coast if you're a DM - then they will naturally target the Docks.

I had a halfling gang led by a halfling wererat vampire terrorising the docks and I can heartily recommend something similar to any other DMs. The Dead Rats of Blacklake District (see above) may also have increased their influence in this area so wererats could be another threat.

But I think slavers and press-gangs are the way to go. That and a sahuagin attack at some point.

Fisher's Float

The fisherfolk can make a fun diversion which is certainly the way I ran this location in my campaign. Most fishermen I have ever met have been a little bit crazy – and that is not an insult! – largely because their job involves risking their lives in a way that few, even soldiers, would ever understand.

So I made it something of a party place with wagon races, gambling, and whatnot. But it was also a source of information about things on the Sword Coast.

I’m hoping to run another campaign in Neverwinter this year and I plan to reuse the crazed one-eyed dwarven fisherman I used in my last game but, this time, have him talk about the dwarven dungeons behind the cliff that faces Fisher’s Float. With a successful Perception check, the PCs will be able to see the last weathered remnants of dwarven carvings on the cliff which will hopefully lead them to investigate further. Sea level changes in the thousands of years since Haunghdannar was a living kingdom will mean that the entrance is now underwater. (I’ve wanted to include an underwater entrance to a dungeon for decades and I honestly don’t know why I haven’t done it yet!) My version of Haunghdannar makes it a dwarven realm focussed on the elements – based on some references to Madbeards in FR5 The Savage Frontier – so I would have the dungeon reflect that, possibly something inspired by the Temple of Elemental Evil but smaller in scale and with an actual elemental theme running through the dungeon.

As a fairly large earthmote, it would also make sense for Fisher’s Float to include a classic dungeon or two (or more). This might even be linked by portal to the dwarven dungeon behind the cliff face opposite the ‘Float thus providing another means of accessing that location. Perhaps this could be the starter adventure for a new campaign where the PCs are hired by the fisherfolk to come to the ‘Float and end the threat being posed by some creatures that have now found a way to the surface. Basic stuff, but it could be a nice starter adventure that can conclude with a wild wagon-racing party on the earthmote. The party is likely to be more memorable than the bog standard dungeon!

(I’m actually glad I returned to finishing this blog post because I think this idea of building a dwarven dungeon with an elemental theme between the mainland behind the cliff face and in the centre of the ‘Float, with the two parts linked by portal, is just the sort of starter adventure I am personally looking for. If I ever write it up, I may just have to link it here.)

Neverdeath

While Castle Never can be the site for high-level undead-flavoured adventures, the graveyards of Neverdeath should be suitable for low- and mid-level PCs to give them their first taste of fighting zombies, ghouls, and similar undead.

So, a graveyard in a D&D world is expected to have undead but the question becomes: Who or what is responsible for the undead?

Personally, I like the idea of a cult of Orcus setting up shop. This is not simply because of the link between Orcus and the undead, but because I have already mentioned my use of a cult of Graz’zt at the heart of the church of Waukeen with that cult controlling both the Waukeenar and Lord Neverember. Orcus is opposed to Graz’zt so his cult is here to also oppose the schemes of the Dark Prince. That could even lead to the foul necromantic cult in the middle of the graveyard becoming a key ally and source of information should the PCs decide to take on the cult of Graz’zt. I could even imagine a situation where the thralls of Orcus seek to parley in the middle of combat offering to trade the knowledge of the true source of Neverember’s power for the right to continue unhindered in the cemetery for a certain period of time. There’s nothing quite like a bit of abyssal intrigue to keep the players on their toes….

Of course, the cult is not only trying to thwart the schemes of Graz’zt but also buy time so they can complete their rituals to summon an aspect of Orcus who would lead their undead forces to conquer Neverwinter. Or something like that. It’s basic stuff but it still works.

I had an extensive maze of ghoul-dug tunnels beneath Neverdeath in my last campaign which I found made for an interesting, claustrophobic adventuring environment. It’s not something you would want to visit session after session but it made for a good “one off” adventure. It might be even more “interesting” if you include, say, a vampire’s tomb in the centre of the tunnels with said vampire not only wanting fresh blood but wanting to convert one or more PCs into vampire spawn.

Pirates' Skyhold

This became one of my favourite locations in the last campaign because it ended up being the party’s safe refuge. They met an eladrin cleric of Selûne, Lady Moonsilver, whom they never discovered was a dragon in disguise. Lady Moonsilver became their confidant and quest-giver motivated by her status as a follower of Selûne wanting to restore hope to Neverwinter and thus defeat the nihilistic goals of the followers of Shar. (While the Selûne vs Shar rivalry didn’t affect that campaign much, it was there in my background notes in case the PCs ended up investigating the lost flying city of Xinlenal in the Neverwinter Wood.)

Riffing off the “pirates” part of the location’s name, I also included a flying ship in the ruins on the earthmote. Unfortunately, the players forgot about it so it never became an actual part of the campaign but it’s definitely something I would use again making the titular pirates into sky pirates.

It’s also an obvious lair for any sort of flying creatures. I like the idea of harpies – aka sirens – because of their mythological roots as threats to sailors but wyverns – and just call them sea wyverns with a swim speed – would also work.

Another option that might work, depending on how high magic your game is, is that the Skyhold is a broken piece of the flying city of Xinlenal that crashed in the Neverwinter Wood. Somehow, this fragment was made to fly again and, somewhere in the ruins on the Skyhold’s surface, is a wizard’s tower where the controls to the Skyhold can be found. Of course, doing this would radically change your game when you have your PCs flying around the countryside on their own flying earthmote. (And just wait until they get the idea to send it crashing into the campaign’s biggest threat…!)

Protector's Enclave

At the beginning of this post I posed two fundamental questions for your Neverwinter campaign: Who rules Neverwinter? Who is the BBEG? These may inform how you approach Protector’s Enclave.

Of course, if you simply have Lord Neverember as the Lord Protector trying to do his best for “his” city, possibly with the support of the Lords’ Alliance, Protector’s Enclave becomes a largely safe place with higher end shops, well-policed by the Neverwinter Watch (I would model this on the Waterdeep Watch – source material is a Google search away or comment below), and dominated by one or more important temples. Pre-Spellplague Neverwinter’s Hall of Justice was a temple of Tyr. If you’re running this in the Spellplague era this might be Torm instead while the Sundering era can see it revert to being a temple of Tyr.

But if you like evil cults like I do, the Protector’s Enclave becomes a sinister place. Ostensibly safe and wealthy, there is a darkness hidden behind the scenes. Because I had a cult of Graz’zt at the heart of the dominant Waukeenar faith – and the Hall of Justice had become the Counting House, an apt name for a Waukeenar temple but also the name of a temple of Graz’zt in his abyssal realm of Azzagrat – Protector’s Enclave simply didn’t feel right. Shadows were longer than they had any legitimate right to be and sometimes could be seen moving in the corner of the PC’s eye. Abyssal glyphs appeared in stone throughout the district, as did six-fingered black hands seemingly burnt into the bricks on different buildings. All of these pointed to something sinister at work. (Frankly, my players were too scared to investigate until much later in the campaign!)

I have almost mentioned the aboleth of The Chasm. If Neverember is in their thrall, then strange things should be afoot in the enclave. Dreams should be weird due to the influence of the Far Realm and perhaps aberrant cults have been formed, much like Eberron’s Cults of the Dragon Below, among some of the rich merchants of the district.

I would also mention the 3E adventure The Speaker in Dreams at this point. This is nearly perfect for Neverwinter. The principal villain is an illithid but this is easily changed to the aboleth of The Chasm should you choose that as a theme of your campaign (otherwise, keep the illithid). There’s also a diabolic cult that unleashes a pillar hellfire in the temple of Pelor and this could work in the Hall of Justice with the cult of Graz’zt taking the place of the hellish cult. It even has wererats which makes a good fit with Blacklake and the Docks.

It’s definitely worth a read for some inspiration if not outright plagiarism.

River District (aka Tower District)

In some of the earlier posts in this series (I will edit in the links here later), I suggested increasing the threat of the orcs in Lost Mine of Phandelver and a big part of that is wanting to make the orcs of the River District that much more important to a larger campaign.

The Neverwinter Campaign Setting has orcs infesting the River District (this is known as the Tower District in the MMORPG which, frankly, I think is a better name) without giving much of an explanation as to what they are doing there.

Fortunately, Volo’s Guide to the North has some good ideas which can not only help explain why they are there but make it important for the PCs to end the threat that they pose before they find the orc macguffin and threaten the entire region.

Firstly, here’s a bit of backstory about one of the major power groups in this district pre-Spellplague: The Covenant. The Covenant was a group of mages, led by four mages of note, that sought to protect civilisation in the North from, inter alia, the depredations of the orcs. A really solid explanation of them can be found <here in the George Krashos quote>.

The Covenant also ran a School of Wizardry (capitalisation deliberate: that is what it was called) in the River District from where they trained the next generations of mages but also schemed to minimise the orc threat. Part of that scheming including manipulating the Uthgardt barbarians to launch pogroms against the orcs. (Yeah, The Covenant was a ruthless bunch.)

The Covenant had some effect against the orc kingdom of Uruth Ukrypt in the Sword Mountains. The strength of this kingdom was a magic throne – the Bone Throne of Uruth Ukrypt – which allowed a worthy orc to exercise rule over the normally chaotic orcs. My idea was simple: What if the orcs of the River District are here simply because they are looking for this throne so that their leader, a spellscarred female (anathema!), can become ruler of the orcs of the North? It’s a simple idea but it explains why the orcs are here and it means that they could even negotiate with the PCs – “We will let you live if you tell us where the ruins of the School of Wizardry might be.”

In my game, the throne was indeed hidden in the School of Wizardry where the mages of The Covenant had several difficult-to-access extradimensional spaces or demiplanes. The orcs stand no chance of opening or evening finding these spaces but they might trick the PCs into doing it for them.

If you’re going to use orcs here I would make one other suggestion: Don’t make them completely violent. I ran the orcs as really bored so that when the bard PC offered to play ancient orc war songs the PCs ended up spending a drunken night with them rather than simply fighting their way through a mini-horde. Also, if they are completely violent, why aren’t they constantly attacking the rest of the city?

Upland Rise

The Upland Rise used to be a small forest outside the walls of Neverwinter. Now it has been clear-felled to provide Neverwinter with building materials leaving land suitable for farming.

As a result, I not only had farmers here, I had Chauntean farmers led by Chauntean clerics migrate here from Goldenfields. This was also meant to be a safe haven for the PCs but also a place where they could be paid to fight ankhegs and bulettes… and then explore the dungeons revealed by the tunnels of these burrowing creatures.

As a counterpoint to the relatively peaceful Chaunteans, some angry druids could also make an appearance. Perhaps a druid’s grove was destroyed by the logging operations and the druid killed. Now that druid has returned as an undead creature and the farmers definitely need help.

Conclusion

So, this is well-overdue as I have mentioned but it has also become a really long post. Now that I have finished it, I’m looking at bits that could be expanded or made more clear. Depending on the feedback I get, and how quickly I return to Neverwinter for my own game, I may end up writing a few more posts to try and make this a bit more coherent and thus more useful.

I've been running D&D for 35+ years and, for me, running a campaign in Neverwinter has been one of the absolute highlights. I am definitely looking forward to another campaign there ASAP. It really works. You have civilised areas where your players can have their characters feel relatively safe - barring assassins, wererats etc... - and where Bluff and Diplomacy are king and queen, and then you have, inter alia, the wererat-filled sewers of Blacklake, the Far Realm-tainted weirdness of The Chasm, ghoul packs in the Neverdeath graveyard, and the orc-ravaged River District... and it all basically makes sense.

Of course, the purpose of this series of posts has been to expand on the 5E starter set adventure Lost Mine of Phandelver and I hope this post, in particular, has shown how easy it is to expand on LMoP by simply going to Neverwinter and continuing the campaign there.

Stat Blocks - Creatures of the Dread Ring, Part One

I've been sitting on an actual play post for several weeks now involving my 4E PCs seeking out the Dread Ring in the Neverwinter Wood. There's been a session already with a couple of combats and there is at least one more session to come.

Here are the stat blocks for the creatures they have/will encounter but the stat block for the lich Valindra Shadowmantle can be found <here>.

Askarro the Unlich

I believe I came up with the name Askarro about 20 years when watching some crappy fantasy-themed movie on TV. I never used it until the second or third session of this campaign back in 2012 and it was for an undead wizard I termed an "unlich" or "lich construct" depending on how I was feeling on a particular day.

This was, of course, simply a way of having an undead spellcaster be able to return to "life" so as to become a recurring foe without having said spellcaster be as powerful as a normal lich. And Askarro is indeed a recurring foe. When the PCs first fought him he was a level 3 elite artillery. The more recent confrontation was with him as a level 7 artillery - same XP value as a level 3 elite - with the same powers but changes to his number of actions, damage, defences etc....

Suffice to say that the PCs were surprised to see him back after they defeated when they were level 2 or so.  Earlier, Askarro and his undead wyvern mount had something of a roving brief over the lands north of Neverwinter. Since being "rejuvenated", he and his mount are now the chief guard dogs of the Dread Ring, tirelessly soaring above the fell location and searching for intruders which they engage in conjunction with one of more packs of werewolves (see below).

One of the things some people don't like about Paizo adventure paths is how the NPCs often have really extensive backstories that never see any actual use in play. Askarro was a bit like this for me. I had him as a thrall of Eltab and an expert in some of the magic used in the construction of the Dread Ring. (IMC, Eltab is the master of rune magic that can be used to release primordials rather than bind them: the complete opposite of the purpose of rune magic described in the runepriest entry in Player's Handbook 3.)

Despite his pact with Eltab, Szass Tam valued his knowledge and was responsible for Askarro's undead status. And that's all I will say about Askarro for now as it was and is rather irrelevant in terms of actually deploying him in combat and he is simply a combat encounter and a simple one at that: death lightning, rinse and repeat.

By contrast, Askarro's wyvern is much more tactically interesting and its ability to snatch, fly, and drop was fun to use in play. Sting of undeath also has potential but needs further development; I would love to take a fresh look at that in radiant keyword-heavy party especially where there is an invoker with radiant attacks that only damage enemies. In such a case, I would be so tempted to have the target treated as a enemy while it is subject to that effect.

Grey Wolf Werewolf

In the Neverwinter Campaign Setting, the Grey Wolf tribe of the Uthgardt are loyal servants of the Netherese who are delving the ruined city of Xinlenal east of the Dread Ring. I decided in my campaign that the Netherese had been defeated by the Thayans (frankly, I had no use for the Netherese as I had enough factions already) due to a combination of the silver-fanged treant Silvermaw and the Bones of the Thunderbeast. The Bones are the remains of an apatosaurus and are a sacred relic of the Uthgardt barbarians. The Thayans have corrupted the Bones through (clichéd) evil rituals that has also allowed them to subvert the loyalty of the Grey Wolf tribe.

And that's my long way of explaining why the Thayans are using werewolves as guard dogs.

Bone Weird

As far as I know, the bone weird first appeared in 2E's Return to the Tomb of Horrors. No doubt inspired by the serpentine water weird, the bone weird was a snake-like conglomeration of bones animated by negative energy.

When I was thinking about creatures to include in the encounters in the Dread Ring, I wanted undead that were not common and the bone weird sprang to mind. I thought in a place like the Dread Ring where death and undeath were such real presences, that the remains of various creatures would sometimes spontaneously animate: these are the bone weirds.

I also imagined them crawling through the earth like the undead version of earthworms or ankheg and that made me think of the bulette. And looking at the stat block for the young bulette in Monster Vault, I realised that I had the creature I needed with a modicum of reskinning....

Living Wall

And here's another obscure 2E monster: the living wall. I first saw these in the 2E Monstrous Compendium; I have no idea where they first appeared.

I was thinking that the walls of the Dread Ring are largely ruined by the failed ritual performed there but they must have also absorbed some of the ruinous necromantic and demonic energy that was unleashed. Thinking about the walls being animated in such a fashion made me think of the living wall and then it was a matter of converting them to 4E.

The 2E version of the living wall could be incredibly complex (and powerful!) depending on what creatures it had absorbed. I decided to markedly simplify it as a monster and simply have it grab and absorb a creature and then share damage with its victim to the point where I am left with a fairly simple stat block that is definitely a soldier.

If I was going to use them again, I would consider other options such as making them lurkers and having them, much like a gargoyle, be able to assume a stony form but also to capture a creature and petrify it with them before leeching away its life force. I also thought about having it dominate a creature it absorbed and forcing it to attack.

But simple is often better and I'm rather happy with the simple stat block in this case.

Stat Blocks - The Nashers

The Nashers played an important role in my Neverwinter: Year of the Ageless One campaign back in 2012 when we first began. (It's been a long haul to get as far as we have!)

I had them as an amoral counterpart to the Sons of Alagondar, with the Sons representing those who wanted a true heir of the last king/lord Nasher Alagondar to rule the city - and considered Lord Neverember nothing but a pretender - while the Nashers were claiming that they were, indeed, the legitimate heirs of Nasher Alagondar and thus should rule Neverwinter.

The Nashers had also attracted quite a following in Blacklake District in part because they were relatively wealthy and ran the district's only abattoir.  They were also loansharks and thugs. 

The reason they played an important role is that the best (and first) skill challenge that I ever ran involved a scene where the Nashers and the PCs were competing to sway a crowd to their side and the PCs won. The result was great but, as a DM, I was simply more happy that I was able to get a skill challenge to work!

Anyway, on the off chance that someone is still running 4E and may get some use from their stat blocks, there they are.

Andorn Nasher

The oldest of the four brothers and definitely their leader, the charismatic demagogue Andorn was, in the course of the skill challenge, the one whom the PCs were really competing with. However, he was no match for the thaneborn barbarian Griemolt whose outstanding rolls and good roleplaying - coupled with the voice amplification provided by the bard Aelar (as Aelar had an at-will thunder power, I allowed him to use this to boost Griemolt's voice with a successful Arcana check) - won the crowd over in very short order.

All that was left to Andorn was to order his brothers to kill these "usurpers" but he played a negligible role in the ensuing combat as Griemolt killed him in the first round. Things would have ended very differently if Griemolt et al had failed to win the crowd to their side....

In the picture above, Andorn is the first on the left.

Boelel Nasher

I think my favourite 4E monster type is the brute. They're simple to design and they're satisfying in play. I like combination of low AC (the PCs almost always hit...), high hit points (... but the brute keeps fighting...), and high damage (... and the players are scared). 

In the combat that followed, Boelel did something that I think has only happened two times in this campaign: he dropped the dwarf fighter to 0 hit points. I enjoyed that.

Boelel appears on the far right of the picture above.

Darraudan Nasher

Darraudan was there for the PCs to hate. In keeping with his chaotic evil alignment, he was the one the other residents of Blacklake complained about and was the casus belli, so to speak, for the PCs' confrontation with the Nashers.

He was fairly effective in combat and his quick feint worked fairly well to set up decent damage.

Story-wise, my plan was actually to have this psychopathic murderer return as a higher level undead mohrg but the PCs chose to take the unconscious Darraudan to be executed and he was beheaded. I didn't think a headless mohrg made that much sense.... However, I still have hopes of running another group through Neverwinter and, if I do, the defeated Darraundan is definitely going to come back!

He's the second from the left in the picture above. 

Gommar Nasher

My predilection for brutes appears once more.

While Andorn may have dropped the PC dwarf fighter, it was Gommar who did the damage in the first instance. Oh yes, I enjoyed unleashing this brute against the PCs. One of the things I like about both Andorn and Gommar is that you can see their pictures and imagine exactly what they do in the course of their butchery business, and then the stat block reflects the way that would translate into a fighting style. That's something I don't you can do in 5E.

Obviously, Gommar is the second from the right waving a butcher's hammer above his head.

A Note on Formatting

I don't know what goes wrong with Blogger so often. I cannot put the pictures where I want them to go, nor can I get the fonts to stay constant through my posts. And, consistent with the saying "beggars can't be chooser" I cannot really complain as this is a free product. Nevertheless, it is still annoying....

Starter Set Sandbox 8 - Mere of Dead Men

Short Version
 
I simply recommend you find the Mere of Dead Men series, the first adventure path to appear in Dungeon, and run it in its entirety. It has so much potential.

The five issues are Dungeon 69 - 73, inclusive, and the adventures are: Slave Vats of the Yuan-ti, Ssscaly Thingssss, Dreadful Vestiges, Mistress on the Mere, and (the simply outstanding which is no surprise because it is written by Eric L Boyd) Eye of Myrkul.

Those five adventures have all the lizardfolk, yuan-ti, bullywugs, undead (including a penanggalan), and black dragons you could possibly need to make the Mere of Dead Men one of the most interesting adventure locations in the Forgotten Realms.

Longer Version
 
Firstly, I will just quote from The North boxed set:

A vast salt swamp stretches along the Sword Coast shore over 100 miles, reaching a width of 30miles at its greatest extent. It?s a desolate, insect-ridden place seldom visited by civilized races and home to a variety of fell creatures. The Mere has grown in recent memory, swallowing several farms and holdings along the road, and it?s now avoided by all but crazed adventurers equipped with water-breathing magic and looking for battle practice.

Several rich castles and manor houses stand flooded in the Mere, with only spires and battlements showing above the dark waters. Sunken riches and powerful magic guarded by evil creatures await those mighty enough to take it. Khelben ?Blackstaff? Arunsun advises adventurers that some of these flooded places (Castle Naerytar, Holk House, Mornhaven Towers, and Wolfhill House) have their own wards. These allow certain spells to be cast at double strength, and otherspells are negated. These effects are discovered by trial, for all relevant records are lost.

The Mere gained its name when thousands of men were slain by orc hordes striking south from present-day Triboar and east across the Stone Bridge and Ironford. The orcs pursued the men westward between the coastal peaks and slaughtered the human army as it was forced back into the icy waves.

Travellers on the High Road skirting the Mere to the east often travel for three days and nights without stopping to avoid camping near here. Will-o'-wisps bobbing over the water are common night sights on this stretch of road. Legends speak of floating islands, eerie pools of magical origin, lizard men commanded by liches, a penanggalan of monstrous size, and other fantastic creatures often used to scare children and entice adventurers. More recent tales come from a brave few that ventured into the dark waters of the swamp that mention dark tentacles of gargantuan proportions, yuan-ti slavers, temples to inhuman gods, giant leeches with bullywug riders, and a will o? wisp of monstrous size that pulsed with black energy.

Even if you don't have access to the issues of Dungeon I mentioned above, I think there's enough in this description for most DMs to generate one of more adventures.

Secondly, I think the Mere of Dead Men is a great location to set 1E's I1 Tomb of the Lizard King, suitably converted to your own preferred ruleset, and N1 Cult of the Reptile god might also work here. However, if you choose to run N1, you need a village and I would actually recommend Phandalin as described in Lost Mine of Phandelver. The reptile cult can simply add another layer of intrigue to the other happenings in Phandalin.

Thirdly, I think the Mere of Dead Men offers a really good opportunity for the campaign to begin heading into epic territory....

What if 4E's HPE Pseudo-Adventure Path Didn't Suck?
 
When FR was first published, the deity of death was Myrkul, the Lord of Bones, and one of the Dark Three along with Bane the Black Lord and Bhaal, Lord of Murder. All three of them died during the Time of Troubles, the RSE that heralded the change between 1E and 2E, although Bane came back with the release of 3E.

After Myrkul's demise, Cyric held the portfolio for a time only be supplanted by the incumbent, Kelemvor. While Myrkul and Cyric were both neutral evil in alignment, Kelemvor's alignment is lawful neutral (or unaligned in 4E terms).

When Myrkul was slain, it was noted that some of his remains - a brown dust, IIRC - were scattered over the Sea of Swords and eventually came to rest in the Mere of Dead Men. It was also noted that much of his sentience survives in the artefact known as the Crown of Horns.

Now, with that background out of the way, I want to turn to 4E's pseudo-adventure path, sometimes referred to as the HPE series or six reasons to play Pathfinder (because three of the adventures are actually OK). (The individual adventures are: H1 Keep on the Shadowfell, H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth, H3 Pyramid of Shadow, P1 King of the Trollhaunt Warrens, P2 Demon Queen's Enclave, P3 Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress, E1 Death's Reach, E2 Kingdom of the Ghouls, and E3 Prince of Undeath.) I better begin with a warning: most of these adventures are absolute crap. H2, P1, and P2 are the only ones worth owning, and they have little to do with the overall plot. (It really is a pseudo-adventure path.)

What is interesting about this adventure path is not the execution but the core idea: the tanar'ri lord Orcus is seeking to supplant the Raven Queen as the deity of death. (And obviously that's not a Forgotten Realms reference.) Like some others, I did waste some time trying to extract some value from these misbegotten examples of egregiously bad design and all I could come away with was how having Myrkul try and make a comeback at Kelemvor's expense could be rather interesting.

Eye of Myrkul
 

The titular Eye of Myrkul is an astronomical feature that appears in the night sky and heralds the waxing of Myrkul's power. And when it's at its apogee, a lost temple of Myrkul rises from the depths of the Mere of Dead Men.

Let's say for the moment that a DM has run a Heroic Tier campaign (using a 4E expression) using, say, the Lost Mine of Phandelver for levels 1-5 and then the ideas relating to the orc threat for, say, levels 5-10. As the orcs are being dealt with, an undead threat from the Mere of Dead Men becomes apparent and the PCs choose to investigate. After exploring one or more of the sites in the Mere of Dead Men - and Castle Naerytar is one of them and is also featured in Hoard of the Dragon Queen - they discover this plot of Myrkul's who is using as his chosen the yuan-ti abomination Nhyris D'Hothek who has been wearing the Crown of Horns since 2E. (IMC, Nhyris has become something like a devourer, as in the Large undead that captures living creatures and" inserts" them in its chest cavity in order to drain them to power its necromantic abilities. I thought that more interesting than just another lich....)

I would also add that some of the hooks for this campaign arc could actually appear as a result of exploring beneath Iniarv's Tower which I have previously suggested might make a good setting for an adaptation of The Tomb of Horrors.

Summing Up
 
I realise the "Longer Version" part of this post won't make a lot of sense if you're not familiar with the Mere of Dead Men series. If that's the case, I hope the "Shorter Version" plus the lengthy quote from The North boxed set provides any DM reading this with enough ideas to be able to run something more than a random encounter or two in the Mere. I would also point to this Wyrms of the North article for some further background on a black dragon (or two) that may nor may not make an appearance in Eye of Myrkul....

Starter Set Sandbox 4 - Wyvern Tor

What's a Tor?

I remember when I first saw Wyvern Tor on a map of the North 15+ years ago, I didn't actually know what a tor was. I had some vague idea that it was related to a hill but I had to go and look it up. As it's not a particularly common word - unless you live in a place like Dartmoor - it's probably worth pointing out that it is, more or less, "... a large, free-standing residual mass (rock outcrop) that rises abruptly from the surrounding smooth and gentle slopes of a rounded hill summit or ridge crest." The accompanying photo shows one clearly and, based on the description of Wyvern Tor in Lost Mine of Phandelver, is probably a reasonable depiction of this Twilit Land landmark.

Realmslore

In the introductory paragraph I threw in the name "the Twilit Land" and some of you might be wondering what this means. When I went looking for Realmslore relating to Wyvern Tor, the first book I looked at was 2E's outstanding Volo's Guide to the North. While it had no information about Wyvern Tor, it did mention this, "Some sages call the Coast south of Neverwinter the Twilit Land." Realms-nerd that I am, I like that I can now call my planned campaign in this area something like Neverwinter: Adventures in the Twilit Land.

Of course, non-Realms-nerds would be rolling their eyes at this....

As far as I can tell, Wyvern Tor first appeared in 2E's The North boxed set published in 1996 and then only as a location on a map. Between my Google-fu and my ability to search PDF documents using Adobe Acrobat, I have not been able to find any other references to this location so it appears that the details have been created whole cloth for Lost Mine of Phandalin.

Lost Mine tells us, "This crag is a prominent landmark in the rugged hills northeast of the Sword Mountains, and is easily visible from twenty miles away. People traveling along the Triboar Trail in the vicinity of Conyberry catch glimpses of Wyvern Tor to the south as they go." Further, it states that wyverns used to nest here - hence its name - but were wiped out by adventurers and that now a band of orcs lairs here, together with their ogre ally.

These orcs are noted as being scouts from the Kingdom of Many Arrows far to the north which really makes no sense in the context of Many Arrows activities and goals. Wyvern Tor is, however, part of the foothills of the Sword Mountains and the numerous orcs are known to lair in these mountains, including the descendants of the former orc nation of Uruth Ukrypt whose name echoes on in the Kryptgarden Forest to the southeast.

One of the more interesting sources of tidbits about the former orc kingdom of Uruth Ukrypt is the article Toppled Thrones of the North in Dragon 351. It mentions that the seat of the first three kings of Uruth Ukrypt was the Bloodbone Throne of Uruth and that it was lost to Shammagar the black dragon during the Year of the Dracorage (1018 DR).

It was described as follows, "Fashioned from the skulls and ones of the fallen defenders of Uthtower and Phalorm, the Bloodbone Throne of Uruth resembles a heap of shattered skeletons more than 12 feet in diameter and 10 feet in height, magically fused into a single seat of power. The polished skulls of six prices of Phalorm are paired to serve as steps up to the seat of the throne, itself shaped from the ribcage of a great crag cat of the North. The back of the throne is shaped in the form of a triangular stack of skulls, each sporting the single eye of Gruumsh." It then goes on to explain the 'Throne's magical powers which includes the ability to summon a blood elemental.

Uthtower was a kingdom centred on what is now the Mere of Dead Men while Phalorm was a kingdom south of Waterdeep, IIRC. The location Cragmaw Castle covered in Lost Mine of Phandelver is noted as being a remnant of ancient Phalorm. What if it was a tomb built to honour the six fallen princes of Phalorm whose skulls adorn the Bloodbone Throne after the seat was recovered from the orcs? More on this in a moment.

Revising Wyvern Tor

I must admit, my first instinct was to make Wyvern Tor into a nest of wyverns (of course, I am running 4E so I already have a full complement of monsters to work with; 5E DMs are still some weeks away from having access to 5E's Monster Manual) or even the lair of a grey (aka fang) dragon, the latter because of a great picture of  a grey dragon hunting in a hilly area in 4E's Draconomicon.

However, for the sake of simplicity, I will keep the idea of Wyvern Tor being an orc camp. I have two options here: I can make the orcs into a local tribe that is simply marauding - after all, the Tor gives them line of sight over an enormous area and allows them to spot targets on the Triboar Trail - or I go with the idea that orcs are, indeed, scouts from the Kingdom of Many Arrows and give them a legitimate reason for being here.

As explained in the article History Check: Dark Arrow Keep that appears in Dragon 429, there is a fundamental tension in the Kingdom of Many Arrows between those in power who believe in the original King Obould's vision that the orcs could form a nation with a measure of civilisation and those who believe that orcs are meant to be dangerous marauders taking whatever they want from whomever they want. For some generations now, the pro-Obould's vision forces remain in control.

What if one the rebel/traditionalist groups decided that, in order to take the throne from the reigning Obould, they needed a symbol of Gruumsh's favour that would justify their usurpation? The kingdom of Uruth Ukrypt was, like Many Arrows, an orc kingdom but it never succumbed to the trappings of civilisation. And then you have Uruth Ukrypt's seat of power, the Bloodbone Throne of Uruth Ukrypt. As the symbol of the nation, it represents not only Gruumsh's favour but also a reminder than an orc nation does not have to sacrifice orc principles.

And that's why these Many Arrows orcs are here: they're searching for relics of Uruth Ukrypt and, I would suggest, that Wyvern Tor itself is a remnant of that orc kingdom. Considering the hill's key location and its commanding view, it would make sense that it once served as a watchtower for Uruth Ukrypt which also suggests that there might be orc ruins beneath the Tor and thus a dungeon for the PCs to explore. That's potentially much more interesting than the existing single encounter with orcs that seemingly have no reason for being there.

As for the Bloodbone Throne itself, I do like the idea of having Cragmaw Castle as a sepulchre for the six princes of Phalorm. Perhaps the power of the 'Throne meant that the skulls and other remains could not be removed so, instead, the entire 'Throne was buried and a memorial to the princes built in a new underground level of Cragmaw Castle. If the PCs have already discovered the relic in their exploration of Cragmaw Castle they may realise that they have something that is incredibly valuable to the orcs... but which also have the potential to unite the orcs of the North in a great horde that would pose a significant threat to all the non-orcs of the region.

TL; DR: The Many Arrows orcs have found a ruined watchpost beneath Wyvern Tor that dates back to the orc kingdom of Uruth Ukrypt and they are eagerly searching for relics from that former kingdom. Maybe they also have slaves to do the digging as parts of the dungeon have collapsed and those slaves might be the reason the PCs are on the trail of the orcs... or the slaves, when freed, could provide hooks for other adventures.

Starter Set Sandbox 3 - Ruins of Thundertree

Oh No, What Has Rich Baker Done?

Despite the heading, you will not find any criticism of Rich Baker expressed or implied in this post or, indeed, anywhere on this blog. Rich is, without doubt, my favourite D&D designer and his premature removal by WotC was a real setback for D&D fans. After all, when Chris Perkins says that you're WotC's best adventure writer then clearly you have some talent. And WotC clearly recognised this because, instead of throwing the first 5E adventure to the OGL spambot whose bad design (Keep on the Shadowfell and Pyramid of Sh*t, oops, Shadow) and major strategic mistakes (why was there no PHB with Essentials?) did more to destroy 4E than arguably anything else, they asked Rich to write Lost Mine of Phandelver and, it's clear, he did a great job.

So, why the heading?

From reading the reviews of Lost Mine before I had it in my hot little e-hands, it seems the presence of a 16 hit dice green dragon in the Ruins of Thundertree clearly presented a problem that few level 3 parties would be able to overcome. In fact, it would appear that its breath weapon alone, by virtue of its size and average damage, would be sufficient to wipe out many a level 3 5E party.

Oops.

While the obvious solution is to make the dragon a younger age category and thus more level-appropriate (and the green dragon has to be left in the adventure because it's depicted in the cover art), the purpose of this post is to suggest some other ways to make the dragon encounter still work but have it involve negotiation because it seems the dragon has a problem. Further, I think this can also be tied in more strongly with the machinations of the Cult of the Dragon which augurs well for those DMs who want to go from Lost Mine of Phandelver to the Wolfgang Baur- and Steve Winter-penned Hoard of the Dragon Queen which is part of the Tyranny of Dragons RSE being used to launch the 5E version of the Realms.

Realmslore

Thundertree seems to have first appeared in 2003's Volo's Guide to the North where it was described as a village of 90 or so people that survived on careful logging - supervised by a ranger who was also a Harper - and animal skins. Not much more detail was added until 4E's Neverwinter Campaign Setting where, as is the case in Lost Mine of Phandelver, Thundertree is described as being a ruined village thanks to the eruption of Mount Hotenow.

Of course, Lost Mine also goes on to describe it as the demesne of the green dragon Venomfang. It also notes the presence of Cult of the Dragon agents who are trying to find a way to approach Venomfang and entice her into the Cult.

One of the recent Forging the Realms articles by Ed Greenwood on the WotC website - The Eyes of the Dragon, Part 1 - describes two Cult of the Dragon agents that operate out of Neverwinter. In view of Thundertree's status as a former loggers village, I rather like the idea of including one of these two agents, Broegran Waethlunter, as one of the agents of the Cult in the ruins of Thundertree.

This is what the article says about him:

Broegran Waethlunter is a hardy, weather-beaten, grey-haired, and grizzled man who works as a woodcutter, making frequent forays to within sight of Luskan (though he never enters that troubled port). 

He runs a crew of cutters he's trained, and they "garden" (as they put it) the woods diligently, gleaning firewood and wood for carpentry without taking overmuch (and so thinning out the woods). As a result, he has a valid pretext for ranging so far afield on runs (with wagons, or sledges in winter) that last for days at a time. His cutters are aware that he often meets persons in the forest, sometimes accepting items for transport back to Neverwinter that he covers over with wood. 

Waethlunter pays for their silence and he has told them just enough that they think he's mixed up in smuggling, not in anything to do with cults, draconic or otherwise. Waethlunter enjoys feeling important and useful as he makes and receives reports; in the twilight of his days, he wants to be part of big things if he can do so without a lot of danger. That said, he's always well armed and won't back down from a fight. He's pretty good with a crossbow, often downing edible forest creatures for the stewpots on the trail and back home. His cutters trust him and like him because he's fair, kindly, never loses his temper, and knows the woods well.

I think I can use him.

As for Venomfang herself, no backstory is given but shecould be the descendant of "Old Gnawbone", Claugiyliamatar of the Kryptgarden Forest, or perhaps the offspring of Mornauguth of the High Moor. Clicking on those names will take you to the Wyrms of the North articles on the WotC website where those two particular green dragons are fully described. Of course, giving her this sort of detailed parentage is not really required.

Other Lore

During the course of the Next/5E playtesting period, quite a few articles appeared on the WotC site describing how the designers were thinking about various matters. While most were eminently forgettable, one of the few that I found had real value related to a rethink about green dragons in terms of, inter alia, their personality, goals, and effects on their environment. I think the author was James Wyatt and this was what was written:

Personality: Green dragons are wily, seductive, manipulative, controlling, scheming, and subtle. Just because a green dragon can swallow you whole in a single bite doesn’t mean it’s going to—it would rather wrap you around its finger until you’ll do whatever it suggests.

A green dragon seeks dominion over the forest and treasure, like other dragons. It has a broad definition of treasure that includes the minions and pawns it can use to gain more treasure. Control is its driving desire—control over its environment and every living thing therein.

A master of misdirection, a green dragon bends others to its will by letting them think they’re getting what they want, right up until it’s too late. It’s very skilled at assessing the desires of its opponents and playing off of them. Anyone foolish enough to subdue a green dragon learns sooner or later that it is only pretending to serve, while actually manipulating its “master.”

Environment: Green dragons live in forests and jungles in any climate. They sometimes compete with black dragons in marshy forests (or mangrove swamps) and with white dragons in subarctic taigas. But it’s not hard to tell, upon entering a forest, whether it’s controlled by a green dragon or some other sort.

A perpetual fog hangs in the air of a green dragon’s forest, with a hint of green to it and just a whiff of the acrid chlorine the dragon exhales. The trees grow close together, except where winding pathways trace their way like a maze toward the center. Moss grows thick on tree trunks, making the whole forest a bright, emerald green with otherworldly beauty. Light barely reaches the forest floor and every sound seems muffled by the fog. Branches seem to reach out to snag clothing, and roots twist up to catch feet and twist ankles. Half-glimpsed shapes appear and vanish in the fog, inspiring sometimes fear, sometimes desire—leading you in or scaring you out, depending on the dragon’s wishes. The fog makes it nearly impossible to keep track of one’s path through the forest, too, which sometimes keeps intruders out and sometimes hems them in.

No creature living in the dragon’s forest is unaffected by its presence. A silent squirrel frozen on a branch as the party passes by is the dragon’s eyes and ears. Crows calling to each other in the uppermost branches are issuing warnings and tracking the party’s movement. Snakes dangle from branches overhead, lizards crawl upon the forest floor and scurry up gnarled trunks, and snapping turtles lurk in burbling streams. Deer and other large game are even more skittish than usual, knowing they could become the dragon’s prey at any moment.

Servants: Above all else, a green dragon delights in corrupting elves and bending them to its will. Sometimes (as was the case of King Lorac of Silvanesti), a green dragon so wracks its minion’s mind that the fog throughout its forest reflects the tortured dreams of the imprisoned minion.

Green dragons view other fey only as a food source, but other forest dwellers make fine minions for the dragons such as bugbears and goblins, ettercaps, fomorians, kobolds, peryton, and yuan-ti.

Hoard: A green dragon’s favoured treasures include people bent to its will, famous or significant people it has subverted (such as a renowned bard), emeralds, sculpted wood, musical instruments, and artistic busts and other sculptures of humanoid subjects.

Lair as a Dungeon: At the heart of a green dragon’s dominion is an enormous tree with a thick tangle of roots at its base. Among the roots is the opening to a cave. Or it might be a tree grown over an ancient elven ruin, like you see in Angkor Wat and other old temples in Southeast Asia.

Inside the cave, the tunnels branch like a root network as they proceed down into the earth, with occasional small caves that serve as dens for the dragon’s minions. Roots hang down from the ceiling everywhere in the tunnels, even at their deepest extent, and the dragon can cause them to extend and grasp at intruders.

The fog that shrouds the forest above is here in force, reeking of pungent chlorine and disorienting intruders to the point where they can’t keep track of the branches or even their direction of travel. The dragon can thicken the fog to obscure vision (like obscuring mist), slow movement (solid fog), weaken the mind (mind fog), and even sicken (stinking cloud) or kill (cloudkill) intruders.

Nestled in the midst of all the branching passages is a large cave that serves as the dragon’s nest. It often has a small stream flowing through it. Many passages lead into the cave, giving the dragon an easy way to escape from intruders—and then circle around behind them when they get lost in the passages again.

Now this is infinitely better than simply having a green dragon living in a ruined tower in Thundertree (and, again, there is no criticism of Rich Baker expressed or implied here: he had only limited space to make this adventure work). But it also seems a waste to have the first encounter with a dragon in a new edition be nothing more than just another monster, albeit one grossly overpowered compared to the PCs....

Ruins of Thundertree, Redux

So, the basic goal here is to throw out some ideas that will turn the green dragon into less of a threat and more of an NPC to be negotiated with.

The simplest way to do this - and I admit to drawing some inspiration from Green Lady's Sorrow in Dungeon 35 - is to begin the adventure shortly after the Cult of the Dragon has stolen her eggs. Venomfang is surprisingly desperate to get her eggs back as she is far more maternal than others of her kind.

The  Cult agent, Broegran Waethlunter, is a ranger and a logger who reclaimed the ruins of Thundertree as a base from which his crew of cutters could log the Neverwinter Wood as the rebuilding of the city of Neverwinter  has created an enormous demand for lumber. And while the Cult, of course, benefits from the income this generates, it also offers Broegran an opportunity to explore the Neverwinter Wood on behalf of the Cult looking for signs of green dragons that the Cult can convert to dracolichdom.

Venomfang was one of the first found but rejected Cult overtures. Sadly for her, Broegran recognised that she was ready to lay eggs and simply waited until the eggs were laid and Venomfang left her lair for a brief hunt. The Cult then stole the eggs leaving a magic mouth in their place. The magic mouth simply said when Venomfang returned: We have your eggs and you will submit to us or your children will die.

Of course, green dragons are nothing if not cunning and Venomfang has bided her time as she searches for cat's-paws whom she can use to recover her eggs or, at the very least, distract the Cult so that she can recover her eggs. She watches the ruins of Thundertree carefully, as do her animal spies, and the arrival of the PCs and their likely clash with cultists prompts her to make contact with them and offer them a deal.

The simplest deal would be for the PCs to recover the eggs in exchange for certain items from Venomfang's treasure and that would work reasonably well. And, of course, when the PCs have the eggs in hand, Venomfang will also make an appearance to slaughter any remaining members of the Cult, including some who might be in combat with the PCs while they are trying to flee Thundertree with the eggs.

However, I think a more manipulative approach might be more in keeping with a green dragon's nature, particularly as described above under Other Lore.  Venomfang is more likely to lie about what she wants - although she will be clear that she despites the Cult of the Dragon and wants them slain or otherwise removed from Thundertree - and she will feel obliged to negotiate over the terms of the reward.

To make this work, I think Thundertree needs a Cult spellcaster to be present. It's this spellcaster who poses the real threat to the PCs but also to Venomfang. In the case of the latter, it's because he's not holding the eggs as a threat: he's actively seeking to use them in a ritual that will enslave Venomfang while she is still alive (rather than in dracolich form) and/or to create other draconic beings such as the greenspawn creatures in 3.5E's Monster Manual IV. (This spellcaster may even be a cleric of Tiamat.)

Aside from the Cultists, Thundertree should be, more or less, a functioning logging village with a sawmill, log piles, barracks for the cutters etc.... That also means that a lot of those present are not members of the Cult and, frankly, have no idea what is happening. They're just working at a legitimate job that pays reasonably well.

The Dragon's Lair

Let's assume that the PCs do recover Venomfang's eggs and that they do not end up fighting the green dragon. Personally, I rather like the idea that later in the campaign the PCs might realise that Venomfang is a genuine threat to the region and they decide, because they already know something of her and her location, that it is their duty to deal with her.

Their sense of responsibility might also increase if Venomfang is raiding various settlements in conjunction with her hatchlings whom the party actually saved from the Cult of the Dragon!


So, let's further assume that the search for Venomfang's lair takes place a few levels later when the PCs are at a level where tackling Venomfang is not simply suicidal. I think this is where the green dragon lore described under Other Lore really comes into its own: make Venomfang's lair a great hollow tree and give her various servitor creatures, as well as a bunch of hatchling/very young green dragons, and make the environment one of strange clouds and mists some of which are genuinely dangerous.


And, as per the picture I have posted here, what if Venomfang is capable of taking on some sort of humanoid form? Earlier in the post I mentioned that Venomfang might be the offspring of Mornauguth of the High Moor. Mornauguth, as the linked article shows, was a human priestess of Shar transformed into green dragon form as the result of a curse. What if she passed on to her offspring the ability to change into humanoid form as shown here? And what if Venomfang has a drow lover? Perhaps he is also tied to the drow that appears in Lost Mine of Phandelver?

But back to her lair. I have only once run a "dungeon" set in a hollow tree. I stole the maps from Forest of Doom in Dragon 73 in my first 3E campaign and, I must admit, it was one of the best dungeon adventures I have ever run. The idea of doing this again, but as the lair of a dragon, really appeals to me and, I think, goes a long way to making the encounter with a green dragon feel different to, say, an encounter with a black dragon or a red dragon. After all, why have a cave lair when you can have a hollow tree?

Conclusion

As I have been typing - and this is an unedited first draft - I am also conscious of there being a lot of holes in terms of what I have suggested here. Like most things on my blog, it is horribly half-assed but, at the same time, this isn't something that is being published. I know there are the guts of some good ideas here but they do need some work if they are going to work.

What I also know is that taking this approach or a similar approach to the dragon encounter in Lost Mine of Phandelver will produce something a lot more memorable than the simple encounter that currently exists in that adventure (and that is no slight on the adventure author but simply a recognition of the constraints of limited space).