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Let's Read Neverwinter: Overview and Protector's Enclave
Neverwinter is a coastal city-state built at the mouth of a river. There are several stories about how it got that name, but the most popular one is that it was from the warm waters of that river, which prevent the delta from freezing during winter and so keep its port viable year-round.
Comparing the book and the computer games, I see present-day inhabitants of Neverwinter have a somewhat romanticized view of Nasher Alagondar, the former adventurer who ruled the city about 150 years before this campaign starts. He was an effective ruler, though, and his descendants formed a dynasty that remained unbroken until the cataclysm 27 years ago, when the last of them died or vanished.
The cataclysm wrecked the city, opening a huge chasm that destroyed its southeastern quadrant and began to vomit forth mutated monstrosities. Most of the citizens who didn’t die left as refugees, and only a minority of holdouts decided to stay and protect their ancestral homes. They built a makeshift wall to isolate the Chasm and its monsters from the rest of the city, and soon began to see its defense as a sacred duty.
Lord Neverember arrived nearly ten years ago at the head of an army of carpenters and builders, protected by a mercenary force from Mintarn. Around five years ago he established the Protector’s Enclave, a sort of “green zone” taking up the southwestern quadrant of the city, which he declared safe for occupation. There were already people living all over the city, but the establishment of the Enclave opened the way for refugees to return and for new immigrants to come seeking opportunities.
The people of Neverwinter, then, can be split into two demographic groups: the “holdouts” who never left the city, and the “newcomers” who arrived or returned after Neverember declared it once again open for business.
The Enclave
The Enclave’s infrastructure has been restored to pre-cataclysm levels, more or less. This includes the port, which has once again begun to see trade from Waterdeep and elsewhere. The variety of goods in its markets does a lot to make life in Neverwinter easier.
Not all is roses in the Enclave, though. Neverember’s government imposes a steep tax on all commercial transactions, and the place is heavily policed by those Mintarn mercenaries. The taxes are something one can get used to, but those mercs have spies and goons stationed everywhere and love to employ all sorts of excessive force against any perceived sign of dissent.
Neverember doesn’t personally care about this police brutality, but he does make an effort to keep it at a level that’s beneath his notice, occasionally blaming and punishing one of his underlings to get things to simmer back down for a while.
There’s discontent aimed at Neverember from a lot of sides. The holdout population dislikes him because he’s taking credit for much of their work, and sidelining them in his new government. The newcomers see him in a better light but still dislike the heavy taxes and oppressive mercs. Those who like him usually also like the whole New Neverwinter rhetoric and say the harsh measures and heavy taxes are needed to keep the city’s restoration going.
The Sons of Alagondar in particular see him as a foreign occupier and call him Lord Pretender. If your PCs want to brawl with a guard patrol, saying those words within earshot of them is the best way to do so.
Neverember’s current headquarters is at the Hall of Justice, the former temple of Tyr. If you played the first Neverwinter Nights game you might recognize this as your quest hub during Act 1. Tyr died in the Spellplague, but the citizens refused to convert the temple to worship of another god. Neverember had it restored and sponsors a group Torm priests that perform rituals following the old Tyrran tradition in here. While many people see this move in a positive light, the Sons of Alagondar claim Neverember’s presence defiles the temple and call it the “Hall of Never-Justice”.
The Moonstone and Other Earthmotes
There are three earthmotes in Neverwinter. These were created by the Spellplague, and became fixtures in the city’s skyline long before the eruption.
The first as the Moonstone, so called because it’s the current site of the Moonstone Mask. Another familiar location from the computer games, this fancy inn fell on hard times and shut its doors after the cataclysm. About five years ago it reopened under new management, with some financial help from Neveremeber. Liset Cheldar, the current owner, repays him by housing a large number of Mintarn mercenaries in her establishment. They take up most rooms and a bunch of them can be found there at all hours, dragging the atmosphere down and picking fights with non-merc patrons. The Moonstone is lashed to the docks with heavy chains, and connected by a bridge.
The book suggests making Liset the puppet of one of the other factions, but I think that’s a bit too cliche to make the pretty and flirty woman a secret monster. The inn is already dangerous enough with all the mercs in it.
The southernmost earthmote is called Fisher’s Float, and it’s home and workplace to a small community of fishers that have lived there since before the cataclysm. Their catch provides a great deal of food to the city, though their isolated location often gives rise to rumors of sinister goings-on. They’re just rumors unless the GM decides otherwise.
The mote that flies the highest and furthest from town is the Pirate’s Skyhold. A gang of sky pirates used it as a base because it’s impossible to reach without flight. One night, though, the pirates apparently all killed each other in a frenzy of betrayal, leaving the island deserted. Their skyship, and all of their treasure, are rumored to have stayed there intact - though other rumors say that a dragon made the island its lair after a while. You can still see the ruins of wooden buildings poking out of this island’s forested slopes, but it remains inaccessible to most. The GM is explicitly encouraged to make this place into a cool aerial dungeon of their own design.
The Wall
The Wall was built by Neverwinter’s holdouts after the cataclysm. It separates the southwestern quadrant of the city from the Chasm in the SE quadrant. It was initially built from rubble and barricaded buildings, and manned by martially-inclined survivors. Neverember reinforced it with proper defensive architecture and assigned a significant chunk of his mercenaries to supplement the survivor garrison. Those survivors still guard the Wall alongside the mercs, because they see it as their sacred duty.
Together with Neverwinter River, the Wall has been effective at preventing any plaguechanged horrors from leaving the area of the Chasm, but recently some of them have been spotted north of the river and near sewer entrances. Mayor Galt fields several daily petitions for expanding the Wall further.
Guarding the Wall and repelling plaguechanged assaults is one of the quickest ways to win the hearts and minds of the city’s inhabitants. The increasing friction between the mercs who make up most of the guard forces and the hardened native veterans who refuse to abandon their posts can also be a source of many plot hooks.
The House of Knowledge
This used to be a great temple to Oghma, occupying what is now the northeast end of the Wall. After the cataclysm, the elderly Brother Anthus became its head priest for a while, and they dedicated themselves to studying the plaguechanged creatures that emerged from it. When Anthus died under mysterious circumstances, the priestess Rohini took over and moved their whole operation to Helm’s Hold.
(To know the truth about those mysterious circumstances, check Rohini’s bio).
A single volunteer priest remained behind to look after the temple’s extensive library and archive, Brother Atlavast. Long years of solitude and isolation have made the priest a paranoid eccentric. He keeps to the lower levels underground and I don’t think a lot of people even remember he’s there.
By default, Atlavast is ornery but not evil. He’ll be very happy to see Oghma’s Faithful, for example, though he will insist on testing them and any other PCs to see if they’re worthy of the archives. If they do manage to befriend him, he can be a great help when exploring the library. Optionally, he might be in thrall to the aboleths (like the rest of the priests over at Helm’s Hold), and must be freed before he can become an ally.
The surface levels of the temple, long abandoned, have been taken over by a group of squatters which decided to make themselves useful by serving as lookouts on the Wall and ringing the temple’s bells when they see monsters. The mercs often leave them gifts of food and clothing, and are becoming fast friends with them… unaware that the squatters are all undercover Ashmadai cultists. They already managed to get one of the Mintarn captains possessed by a devil.
Neverdeath
This huge graveyard was in use for centuries until the cataclysm, when the vast expanse of graves and mausoleums was wracked by tremors. Some sections of it sunk, others rose up, and these convulsions exposed graves and underground crypts, causing coffins and bones to tumble about the whole area.
The current inhabitants of the city fear this place. The Mintarn mercs burn dead bodies outside the city walls instead of burying them here. It’s not uncommon for unburied bodies on or near the cemetery to rise as undead of their own accord.
It doesn’t help that the Thayans have a major secret base in here, and are using it as their main source of bodies for reanimation. The place also contains a shadow crossing into Evernight, and Valindra has built a teleportation circle here to make use of it.
The Netherese are aware of the shadow crossing and one of their goals is to destroy it or otherwise deny it to Valindra. They want to be discreet about it, though, and don’t want to jeopardize their project to raise Xinlenal.
Waterclock Crypts
Neverwinter was once known for the amazing quality of its water clocks. The guild responsible for making them built this crypt to inter its dead. Located somewhere inside Neverdeath, it’s filled with clever traps and engines built using hydraulics and elemental magic. Hidden here is the laboratory of its founder, who first arrived in the city coming from Luskan with a cartload of stolen magic knowledge. Its library contains all of that knowledge and more, including notes on the original ritual that bound Maegera.
An underground vein of elemental magic that links Luskan and Gauntlgrym passes through the crypt - it’s why the founder’s lab was built here. Following the vein could be one way in which the PCs find the lost city. Of course, they need to get through all the undead and Thayans up above, as well as whatever defenses this place has.
The Docks
Rebuilding the docks was one of Neverember’s greatest priorities. While there’s still plenty of work to be done here, the docks are already functional and able to receive ships. Trade with the rest of the world has resumed, and the lord makes a pretty penny charging tariffs on its cargo. There’s lots of crime and corruption here as well, but I get the feeling Neverember only cares about it to the extend that it impedes trade.
Also here is the Tarmalune Trade House, belonging to a merchant guild from Returned Abeir (the new continent a ways off to the west of Neverwinter). In what might be an unexpected development, they’re just a normal trading house who can offer supplies and filler quests to our protagonists. Their goal is entirely mundane: to form commercial ties with the very lucrative markets at Waterdeep. They’ll be extra-friendly towards any PCs that have ties to the nobility of that city, like the Neverwinter Noble or the Devil’s Pawn.
Impressions
Even though this is the “safe” part of town there are still quite a few sources of danger in it. A lot of that danger comes from the mercs, who will mercilessly harass anyone who looks like they might start trouble, a description that fits most PCs. Neverdeath will be a major location in any campaign focused on either the Thayans or on Gauntlgrym.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: Other Factions, Part 3
In this post, we’ll cover the minor factions that are located underground, in and near the ruins of Gauntlgrym.
This dwarven city was a major metropolis in its heyday, and the capital of the dwarven empire of Delzoun. Its underground location allowed it to survive the fall of Netheril mostly unscathed, but it would fall to an orcish invasion a couple of centuries later.
The original inhabitants of Gauntlgrym either perished in this attack or fled to the surface, and the location of the city was lost to them after a few generations. The history of the city did not end there, however, as passed through the hands of several Underdark factions over time. It’s also still inhabited by the ghosts of the dead.
This means our encounter table here is mostly undead. While some dwarven ghosts might be helpful to their descendants, most of the undead here are of the usual mindlessly murderous variety. The table contains several skeletons, zombies, ghouls, wraiths, ghosts, and even mummies. It also has dire corbies.
Dire Corbies
These critters look like buff skeksis, and are given the same header style as actual Gauntlgrym factions, but they’re not really organized enough to be called that. This is mostly a “new monster” entry. Looks like they made their debut in a Gauntlgrym-focused post in Dungeon 183.
This entry says they’re descended from predatory birds who were lost and trapped in the Underdark a long time ago. The evolutionary pressure and uncanny radiation of the Underdark changed them into these monstrous humanoids. Their wings have been changed into powerful clawed arms, and their coal-black feathers blend into the darkness. They’re predatory and ravenous, pulling themselves through narrow underground tunnels and viciously attacking anything that looks even remotely edible.
Dire Corbies are Medium Natural Humanoids and Level 7 Brutes with 96 HP. They attack with Gashing Beaks that do immediate and ongoing damage, and when first bloodied emit a Rending Screech that covers a Close Burst 2, deals psychic damage, and inflicts Vulnerable 5 to Everything for a turn. A miss does half damage with no riders.
Since they’re classified as Humanoids and have an Int of 11, it might be possible that they could form more complex communities and interact with PCs in non-violent ways… but as written the typical dire corby is Chaotic Evil and an enthusiastic cannibal. Even if they weren’t, the stronger factions are fond of enslaving them, so the PCs would still end up fighting dire corbies when facing those groups.
Mind Flayers
The orcs that invaded Gauntlgrym were eventually conquered by mind flayers. Those mind flayers ruled for a while, conducting an extended experiment on illithid-derro hybridization, but that got out of control and the resulting creatures kicked them out.
When the primordial Maegera woke up for a brief time thirty years ago, the resulting shakeup in Gauntlgrym allowed a new mind flayer colony to move in. I guess they initially wanted to reclaim their old haunts, but shortly after arriving their Elder Brain was targeted by the Abolethic Sovereignity’s Symphony of Madness and infected with the Spellplague. Now the brain and its colony are completely under AbSov control.
The mind flayers are researching the bound primordial on behalf of their masters, and also act to protect it from meddlers and would-be conquerors. As the aboleths funnel more and more Spellplague radiation to them, both the Elder Brain and its subordinate illithids are becoming more mutated. The brain knows what’s going on, but it’s become addicted to these energies and will keep obeying the aboleths in exchange for its regular fix. The individual mind flayers’ perceptions are clouded, however. They believe all is business as usual and are incapable of perceiving their own mutations or discovering their elder brain is working for someone else.
We get stats here for a Plaguechanged Mind Flayer (Level 8 Controller) and the Plaguechanged Elder Brain (Level 9 Elite Controller). They work a lot like their baseline versions, adjusted to Heroic Tier. The illithid is of the type that can perform thrall surgery on PCs instead of eating their brains. The brain is mostly immobile (unlike its nimble base version) but has the usual assortment of psychic attacks and an aura (3) that can strip resistance to psychic damage. It can also use an interrupt to redirect forced movement effects back to the enemy who tried to impose them.
Duergar
These duergar are relatively recent arrivals to Gauntlgrym. Led by an unholy warrior of Asmodeus named Kholzourl the Fire-Speaker, they have come here under orders from their diabolical master. They’ve occupied a section of the ruined city and resumed some of its ancient and abandoned mining operations. They’ve enslaved dire corbies and other nearby sapients to work for them, but fear the ghosts and undead that plague other areas of the ruins.
Only Kholzourl knows the expedition’s real goal, which is actually left for the GM to determine (the book gives several options later). Regardless of that true goal, they have been profiting from the ores extracted from the Delzoun mines, which include iron, mithral, and a metal known as Hellthorn which takes remarkably well to enchantments based on infernal magic.
The duergar and Ashmadai do not know about each other, and despite serving the same masters the two factions have no inherent inclination to cooperate unless directly ordered to do so by a devil emissary of Asmodeus. The default reaction of the duergar to outsiders is “kill or enslave on sight”: they’re not here to do diplomacy.
There is one notable exception here: a duergar named Nimor Ironvoice found a tunnel leading from Gauntlgrym to the surface. He disguised himself, explored a bit, and found out about the Ashmadai. Now he has a profitable side gig smuggling small quantities of hellthorn up the well and selling it to the cult. He knows Kholzourl would punish him if he found out, and soon he will have to decide between severing his ties to the surface or turning against his fellow duergar. He’s hoping an infernal sign will tell him the way before either his boss or Mordai Vell discover the truth by themselves.
The duergar get their own encounter table, which as expected is mostly made up of duergar from the MM2 and Monster Vault. Kholzourl gets a stat block, which is fairly typical aside from being level 9. We also get stats for Steeders, the disgusting devil-spider-things these duergar use as mounts; and for Hellthorn weapons, which start at Level 10/+2, do immediate and ongoing fire damage on a critical, increase your fire resistance if you have any, and can let an allied devil make a free attack once per encounter when you miss one of your own attacks.
House Xorlarrin
This Forgotten Realms drow house is said to be “atypical” because its matriarch is less authoritarian than the others and even occasionally asks for input from male advisors. But it also has a full-on eugenics program where males are “bred for magical ability” and sacrificed if they turn out to lack it. So we’re back on icky old-school drow territory here.
The newest arrival to Gauntlgrym is a Xorlarrin expedition. They’re after the sleeping primordial, wanting to control it and use it to turn Gauntlgrym into a drow capital to rival Menzonberranzan. Their encounter table is all drow and unlike most others it goes up to level 14. We also get stats for a Drow Spellspinner, a Level 8 Artillery mage that uses lightning-based spells.
These drow feel like an optional addition, and work best if you have a Bregan D’Aerthe spy in your party. If that’s the case, they work well to tie that PC more strongly to the campaign’s “endgame”, since the Bregan would want to prevent a Drow house from gaining control of a primordial. For added drama, the Xorlarrin could have been the ones responsible for destroying the PC’s own house, or that of one of their friends. They’ve sent their own spies to the surface, so that can provide the party with an initial lead to follow.
The Fires Below
This is less of a faction and more of a grab-bag of thematically related monsters. These are the elemental creatures that live beneath Mount Hotenow and usually feed on slumbering Maegera’s ambient magic. They got very happy with her awakening and the volcano’s eruption and some of them want to find a way to awaken her for good.
Unlike most other groups with a similar goal, they don’t intend to control the primordial once she’s awake, but to serve her instead. I don’t think they are likely to succeed on their own, since they’ve been at it for 30 years with nothing to show for it. They’re more intended as a group of secondary antagonists that you find on your way to Maegera’s resting place… or as an additional complication if someone else does manage to wake her up. Whoever ends up controlling Maegera will also get to order these creatures around.
The encounter table here is all about fire and/or earth elementals, and it goes up to level 14. We also get a couple of new stat blocks for salamanders.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: Minor Factions, Part 2
Continuing our exploration of the minor factions at play here, we’ll now look at those whose presence or attention are centered on the Neverwinter Wood.
Gray Wolf Uthgardt
The Gray Wolves were just another typical Uthgardt tribe of no particular distinction until a few hundred years ago, when they took in human refugees from Gauntlgrym who had been fleeing their captivity by the mind flayers who lived there. Some of those had been afflicted by lycanthropy. Time and primal magic made this condition the tribe’s main power and badge of honor.
In the context of the Neverwinter campaign, this is kinda bad for the PCs because the Gray Wolves have been captivated by the Shadovar’s honeyed words and recruited as their agents and shock troops. They expect to be citizens of their new world-spanning empire, and to be given dominion over all of the North’s wilderness in exchange for their service.
Fortunately, not all members of the tribe fell for this. Those that didn’t were cast out and banded together into a group known as the Forsworn, who work to oppose the works of the Netherese. The Forsworn avoid fighting their own kin, but the Grey Wolves do not return the favor and try to kill them on sight.
The book recommends using existing werewolf and shifter stat blocks when building encounters against Grey Wolves, and gives us stats for a Werewolf Stormcaller (level 6 Artillery) that fulfills a niche not usually covered by those blocks. It also has stats for Ethraniev Marrowslake, a particularly bloodthirsty Gray Wolf pack leader (level 7 brute). Both work as you’d expect for werewolves, with the ability to change shape and both weapon and infectious bite attacks. The stormcaller has ranged spells that do lightning or thunder damage.
The Pack Outcast PC was among the first of the Gray Wolves to be exiled, since they didn’t agree to join the Shadovar right at the start. The Forsworn were exiled after that, as the tribe’s tactics became more and more violent. As the campaign start, dissidents are being executed instead of exiled. The Outcast has an easy in with the Forsworn as written, because the group will likely recognize the PC as being right all along.
The book says the GM is free to make the Forsworn still be evil if they don’t want the PCs allying with them, though I probably wouldn’t do that. It leans too much on the “savage barbarian” trope.
PCs who become friends of the Forsworn might be granted an utility power named Primal Surge as a blessing or reward. It’s an encounter power that triggers when you use one of your other encounter powers. It lets you roll a d20, and on a result of 10 or higher the other power is not expended.
Iliyanbruen Fey
This is the group the Iliyanbruen Guardian PC belongs to. As we saw earlier, they’re descendants of eladrin who fled to the Feywild to survive the destruction caused on their kingdom by the fall of Xinlenal. When the barriers between worlds started thinning, they sent expeditions back to the place where they crossed, and found it occupied by evil fey. They drove those out, and built an outpost named New Shandarar on both sides of the portal. Then they explored their old ruins in the middle world and discovered that they had been ravaged by more than time and disuse - many of their sacred relics and cultural treasures had been plundered.
The expeditionary force made it their mission to recover what was stolen. All of them are pretty angry about this: the main difference is some of them are angry just at the people responsible for the looting, while others are angry at All The Mortals and want to genocide/conquer the region on principle.
Whether moderate or extremist, the fey of Iliyanbruen are likely to respond with violence to anyone trespassing on their territory now, unless the Guardian PC is with them.
The expedition’s commander, Merrisara Winterwhite, is a moderate and the main reason they haven’t started attacking the region. Several of the community leaders under her, however, are extremists, and spend all of their time agitating for more bloodshed. One in particular, a dude named Addemios Three-Dawn, is a secret worshiper of Asmodeus and in league with the evil fey the expedition drove away from the portal. He’s the assistant to one of the city’s priests of Corellon, and his influence is responsible for a lot of the recent upswing in violent sentiment among the eladrin.
The encounter table for New Shandarar is made up of heroic-tier fey creatures: elves, eladrin, dryads, unicorns, treants and lots of trained fey beasts. Addemios is statted up as Level 5 Artillery with ranged and area spells. He’s far from the most powerful individual in this faction, so I’m guessing that getting them to back off would involve more than defeating him. That’d still be an important step, though.
Should the extremists win out, the fey could move to “major faction” status relatively quickly, as they are a significant military force with some pretty powerful creatures. They certainly believe they have what it takes to conquer the region and kill everyone they dislike, but they are probably unaware of the true extent of the Thayan, Netherese, and Aberrant presences here.
Cult of the Dragon
Unlike the Ashmadai, these cultists have a lot of trouble passing as typical citizens. The local cell was busy with the usual Cult of the Dragon activities, which are sucking up to evil dragons and trying to convince them to become dracoliches. This changed when Valindra (the lich leading the Thayans) took their leader’s Ring of the Dragon.
Now they work for her as muscle and are also tasked with finding a way to raise the dead Lorragauth as a dracolich. Their leader, Adimund Kroskas, is working on that as slowly as possible while he tries to figure out a way to recover his ring. He hasn’t made much progress in that either and desperately needs something to change in his situation. He’ll probably try to make a move when a significant setback occurs in Valindra’s plan - likely one caused by the PCs.
Their encounter table includes humans, genasi, dragonborn, and other “typically playable” stat blocks.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: Minor Factions, Part 1
Looks like I accidentally skipped a few posts when making my last update! So instead of going to chapter 04 now, we’ll finish out chapter 03 and look at the minor factions over this and the next two posts.
These factions are considered “minor” because they’re either simpler, less powerful, or less involved in the region than the majors. Most don’t have custom stat blocks associated with them, and even if they do I’ll only spend time on them if they’re really interesting. This post covers the “urban” factions, those whose territories and attentions are in the city proper.
Dead Rats
Looks like the wererat gang has a chapter in Neverwinter, led by a one-eyed lieutenant of Toytere’s name Rrost. Their main racket is smuggling, and as the campaign starts they managed to set themselves up as the middlemen in the weapons trade between the Sons of Alagondar and the Thayans. More on that later.
In the longer term, the Rats would like to usurp control of the rebels and use them to become big shots in the city’s underworld, remaking it in Luskan’s image.
Their roster features rats, dire rats, and any low-level thug-types you can fit in, the latter of which can be boosted by a wererat theme pack that gives them regeneration, an infectious bite, and the ability to assume hybrid form. Rrost uses the stats for a Wererat Mugger introduced here, a Level 4 Brute with a poisoned morningstar and a stronger bite than what’s in the theme.
The gang would love to kill the Dead Rat Deserter PC, and their ties to the Thayans are just the thing to get that PC more personally involved in the campaign’s larger plots.
Impressions
Rrost feels like a “Small Bad” who will be a problem at the start of the campaign for city-focused parties. His plans are big but his faction has no hope of seeing them realized before the PCs end the Rats’ ambitions for good.
Sons of Alagondar
The Sons of Alagondar are die-hard Neverwinter nationalists who believe the city should be independent of foreign control so that it can once again be the Jewel of the North and a bastion of goodness. They draw most of their membership from the holdout population of Neverwinter: those people who never left the city and spent twenty years protecting and rebuilting it before Neverember arrived with his mercs. As you might imagine, they vehemently oppose him.
Until very recently their overall leader was a Harper named Cymril, who was brutally murdered under mysterious circumstances shortly before the start of the campaign (as seen in the Harper Agent theme). Her death split the Sons into two sub-factions along generational lines.
On one side you have the Nashers, who take their name from the first Alagondar lord (the one from the computer games). These young rebels are willing to pay any cost to see a free Neverwinter and readily resort to violent actions like rioting, assassination and sabotage. Their leader is a firebrand named Arlon Bladeshaper.
On the other you have the older Graycloaks, who take their name from the old city militia. They see themselves as focusing on the big picture, with the city’s welfare as their highest priority. They focus on building support and alliances with like-minded groups and the city’s population in general. They also try to infiltrate and influence Neverember’s organization through bribery, blackmail, and secret deals. Their leader is the human mage Madame Rosene.
(The Nashers call the Graycloaks “greyhairs”, and the Graycloaks call the Nasher “gnashers”. Also, there’s a subsection here titled “Fractured but Whole”, which I can never take seriously after learning about that South Park game.)
It’s the Nashers who decided to partner with and accept help from the Dead Rat gang and the Thayans. Bladeshaper was a bit leery of this at first but he quickly changed his mind once he saw his faction start racking up bigger victories against Neverember’s forces. The Rats, as mentioned before, plan to take over the Sons and make them into an extension of their planned crime syndicate. The Thayans are using them to distract New Neverwinter from their own shenanigans and are happy to push their own agents and the Sons to ever greater heights of violence to that purpose.
The encounter table for the Sons is entirely composed of stat blocks belonging to typically playable ancestries, matching Neverwinter’s demographics. Players who oppose the Sons will do well to play on their divisions, those who want to support them should focus on healing that same rift. Cymril’s death nearly broke them completely, and finding the truth behind it would be a big goal in a rebellion campaign. As we saw in the Harper Agent’s background, there’s room for a variety of sinister explanations.
Impressions
Probably the most complex of the minor factions here. It’s possible to make a campaign entirely focused on the Sons’ struggle, but it would have to start with earning their trust. They are not predisposed to allying with PCs and are likely to be actively hostile to certain themes like the Harper Agent or even the Neverwinter Noble, whom they might see as just another pretender.
Harpers
Making Neverwinter into the bastion of good it once was is also part of the Harper’s mission statement, and they are generally better at sticking to it than the Sons, but they were broken even more thoroughly by Cymril’s death. She was their highest ranking member in the area. With her gone, there are about a dozen members left, and only two of them are full agents.
These local Harpers are pretty focused on opposing Neverember at the moment and are completely ignorant of the machinations of the Thayans, Netherese, or Aboleths in the area. It’s unlikely they will find out on their own, but if they learn through other means they will instantly shift their focus to opposing these greater threats.
If the PCs manage to acquire a reputation as local heroes, the Harpers might approach them and ask them to help the Sons of Alagondar get back on track.
Impressions
The Harper presence in the city is larger than I was led to believe from reading the Harper Agent theme. My inclination is to only include them as written if the party doesn’t have one or more PCs with that theme. If it does, then the PC is the sole Harper left in the region.
Many-Arrows Orcs
The orcs of the North usually stayed away from the Neverwinter area, because the city was hostile to them and they had many stories about how the surrounding woods were haunted. They have recently dismissed these stories as myths and grown a little bolder and more curious.
King Obould XVII of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows recently sent a scout force here with the mission to find what was going on and report back, but the force’s power-hungry commander far exceeded her orders and decided to push into the city and take over the Cloak Tower, claiming the surrounding territory in Neverwinter’s ruined northern half as her own.
If I remember correctly, Obould was depicted elsewhere as a reasonable king who had the capability to turn his people away from their universally hostile ways and forge more peaceful bonds with his neighbors. Commander Vansi is none of those things. After taking over the Cloak Tower, she was approached by the aboleths and gladly accepted a “blessing” of the Spellplague to get stronger. There’s a stat block for her here. She’s a Level 6 Soldier (Leader) that fights with a flail and a spiked gauntlet. The Spellplague covered her in fiery bone spurs, so she loves to grapple.
The encounter table for them is obviously all orcs all the time, with the occasional ogre or half-orc thrown in for variety.
Impressions
I kinda like that there’s a more elaborate reason than just “they’re chaotic evil” for why this group of orcs are hostile occupiers. Neverember has an open call for adventurers willing to help drive them out of town, and their connection to the AbSov might be what clues the PCs in to the presence of that faction.
It’s even possible that King Obould would reward the PCs for dealing with the rogue detachment if you want to play up the newer, less hostile orcish civilization.
Bregan D’Aerthe
These assholes again. They wrung Luskan dry a few decades ago and left the area when the cataclysm hit. Now a handful of their spies have made their way back to seek profitable opportunities and report back.
In practice this means you can spice up certain encounters with drow mercs or informants. They have no elaborate goals for the area yet.
Impressions
Again, this feels like a minor faction I would only use if there are no Bregan Spy PCs in the party. If there are, then the PC is their sole representative in the region. They appear again in a slightly more fun form in the upcoming locations chapter.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: Chapter 4 Intro
Here begins Chapter 4, the Gazeteer. This takes up the remaining half of the book and focuses on describing interesting places in the region and their associated plot hooks. It also talks about interesting NPCs that might get involved with the group. These locations and people aren’t fully mapped or statted out, but are intended to serve as starting points for individual GMs to customize. As promised in the book’s preface, a lot of plot hooks here are optional and/or multiple-choice, and GMs are free to change anything in here however they want.
The chapter covers several major areas, and we might need more than one post for each of them:
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Ruined Neverwinter is the city proper, struggling to rebuild and deal with political intrigue, dangerous ruins, and plaguechanged monsters.
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Helm’s Hold is a stout-hearted village with a monastic community that hides a terrible threat to the region.
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Neverwinter Wood: You wouldn’t believe how many dangerous places and threatening factions can fit into this one forest!
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Gauntlgrym: the hidden dwarven city no longer has any dwarves in it, but it has pretty much everything else including that slumbering primordial.
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Evernight is Neverwinter’s reflection on the Shadowfell and the main battleground in the war between Thayans and Netherese.
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Thay Through the Veil: PCs who follow the plot threads from Evernight all the way to their end might find themselves needing to make some visits to Nazi Necromancer Central.
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