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Let's Read Neverwinter: The Ruins of Shandarar
Historical Errata
Before I continue, I feel a correction is in order. This one’s on me, not on the book, since it was a detail from that long and detailed timeline at the start that I missed. I’m correcting it here because it will be important later.
As we already know, Shandarar was the former capital of Iliyanbruen, an elven/eladrin empire that existed in this region thousands of years ago. It coexisted with the human empire of Netheril, and witnessed its fall when the flying city of Xinlenal fell on the Neverwinter Wood.
The bit I got wrong was this: the fall of Xinlenal did not also cause the end of Iliyanbruen. The crash site was far from the city, and though the elves explored it soon after the event they decided to declare it off-limits after the first few explosions and carried on with their lives.
Iliyanbruen would last for a few centuries longer. They’d manage to repel a massive orc invasion that covered the North, but their kingdom would collapse from the effort it spent to kick those same orcs out of the human city of Illusk (located where Luskan is today). From here on out things proceed as previously detailed, with the empire’s population scattering and some of them deciding to take refuge in the Feywild.
Present-Day Shandarar
The middle world ruins of Shandarar cover a sizable area in the Wood but were mostly hidden by the passage of time and the growth of vegetation. Sometimes a farmer at the edges of the forest would find shards of pottery as they plowed a field, or some village builders would end up unearthing a ruined structure. These rumors helped the Netherese find the core of the ruins and steal a bunch of ancient relics from it, which has the eladrin in a tizzy as we already learned.
Most of the ruins are still, well, ruins. They’re overgrown and weathered enough to be hazardous. The oldest part of them, however, is being rebuilt and renovated by the eladrin, since that’s where they crossed over from the Feywild.
The biggest news here is that there are still several shielded vaults in the ruins that haven’t been found out by anyone yet. They contain extensive troves of ancient Iliyanbruen artifacts and works of art, of immense cultural value even when they aren’t magical, all protected against the ravages of time by stasis spells. The eladrin themselves don’t remember their locations, and this is the first time the book itself mentions them.
Here is also where it goes into a little more detail on the Feywild side of the crossing. That’s where the military outpost of New Shandarar is. It was also built on top of ruins, after the eladrin force kicked out the evil fey that had been living in them.
New Shandarar’s fortifications are living vegetation shaped by magic, and the portal opens into a courtyard kill zone. Aside from all the military defenses you expect, built of out living and magically reinforced wood, the fort also has plenty of facilities for long-term habitation. This includes a temple to Corellon.
The Hidden Serpent
As we saw before, Merrisara Winterwhite, the force’s commanding officer, is part of their moderate faction. She spends most of her time in the middle world overseeing the restoration of the city. Her second-in-command is an extremist, and spends all of his time in the Feywild. Addemios Three-Dawn, the secret Asmodeus worshiper, also spends all his time in the Feywild. He has a hidden shrine to his god underneath Corellon’s temple. The evil fey who were supposedly kicked out of the area have a hidden camp not too far from the fort, and they cooperate with Three-Dawn because their interests align.
A side box here explains that Asmodeus presents himself in the Feywild as a trickster god of a “better class” than the usual archetypes found there. Instead of lying and cheating for the lulz, he encourages and teaches his followers to do so in order to advance their own power and influence.
The Fey and the PCs
Another box discusses the possible attitudes of the eladrin towards PCs. As we already known even the moderates are standoffish and aggressive to outsiders by default. However, they are likely have a more diplomatic stance towards a party which includes the Iliyanbruen Guardian.
Which of the two sub-factions wins out depends largely on the actions of the PCs. The moderates win and might become valuable allies if the PCs can offer them evidence that the Shadovar are responsible for the relic thefts, or if they can prove Addemios Three-Dawn is a traitor who is manipulating them.
On the other hand, if the PCs steal from the ruins, fight the eladrin or attack Three-Dawn before proving his guilt, the Fey will adopt the extremist stance and launch a full-scale invasion of the region, likely starting a major open war with the other factions.
Impressions
How important the fey of New Shandarar are depends entirely on what the group wants for their campaign. They could be anywhere from isolated and irrelevant to a potential region-wide threat that needs to be defused as soon as possible. Even groups who aren’t interested in spending a lot of time dealing with these elves might still get an adventure or two out of a visit to their camp, perhaps as they’re traveling the Wood on the way to some other location therein.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: The Neverwinter Woods
The Neverwinter Wood dominates the northern half of our regional map and is much larger than the city that gives it its name. It’s a classic Creepy Forest, where the canopies block out all sunlight and even in the safer trails it seems like someone is always watching you from the shadows. And that’s just the baseline mood - the Wood is also currently full of ill-intentioned outsiders.
Characters in a Neverwinter campaign might need to trek through this place for any number of reasons. This section of the chapter covers some of the Wood’s most notable places, but it’s large enough that you could run a full hex-crawling campaign on it.
The book actually includes rules for a “Creepy Woods” hazardous terrain type that can be included in exploration or combat maps. Anyone on this terrain when a fight starts must roll a save before rolling Initiative - if they fail, they’re surprised during the first round. They also gain a -2 to Will while on Creepy spaces and when they fail a Perception check there they always think they heard something that’s not there.
This first post covers the “smaller” areas and “standard” geographical features of the Woods. It also contains several faction strongholds that will each get their own post.
The Crags
This is a large mountain range that splits the Wood in two, running from NE to SW. Mount Hotenow is the most notable place in the Crags, as it’s where the Neverwinter River starts and also the source of the eruption that caused the cataclysm.
There’s a lot more besides the volcano though - this is a typical D&D mountain range full of monsters, caves, and hidden valleys and is also rumored to contain paths to lost Gauntlgrym. Whether those exist or not, the range does definitely contain a lot of old Delzoun outposts.
Those outposts will give the Heir of Delzoun something to marvel at even if they don’t find a path to the lost city here. They’re also targets for Netherese plundering in their unceasing quest for magic items to burn.
Iceless Waterways
All of the Wood’s rivers are warmed by Hotenow’s heat, so they never freeze even during winter, and generally act to keep the forest warm and untouched by the seasons. They teem with non-monstrous aquatic wildlife but never gave rise to monsters - except for the River Morgur, the northernmost tributary of the Neverwinter. It’s still iceless, but also has river monsters.
Bones of Thundertree
Thundertree used to be a logging village that produced a lot of quality timber. It was completely destroyed by the eruption, and all of its surviving inhabitants fled to never return. The place is now haunted by possessed plant monsters (take plant monster stat blocks of your choice and give them undead traits). Aside from them, only the dwarf Favria, leader of the more violent faction of the Ashmadai, calls this place home. She lives in an underground wine cellar.
I was given to understand her whole Ashmadai sub-faction used this place as a base, so it looks like there was a miscommunication between different authors here. I’d probably add them here if I ran a Neverwinter campaign. Maybe say those plant monsters are possessed by devils instead of undead. How do you like evil treants with 20 fire resistance?
The Tower of Twilight
There used to be a wizard’s tower built in the middle of a lake island. It, and the bridge leading to it, only appeared at night, becoming more solid as the sun set and fading out again when it rose. During the Spellplague, the tower vanished entirely and did not return until after the cataclysm. Now, it appears sporadically with no set schedule, and no one knows what goes on in there anymore.
One suggestion from the book is that the tower fades out of time when it’s not visible in the physical world, and the people inside only experience the passage of time when it appears. This mean that the tower’s wizard and their apprentices and staff might still be there, either absorbed in their studies as if this was still 3e or struggling with what is to them a very recent bout of “original strain” Spellplague.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: Helm's Hold
We’re getting outside of the city proper now! Helm’s Hold is a small town located on the edge of the Neverwinter Wood, built around a monastery and cathedral dedicated to the god Helm. It’s about a day’s travel northeast of Neverwinter.
The town’s proximity to the Wood and its traditions of rugged individualism give it big “American frontier” vibes, tempered a bit by the monastery’s own culture. Helm used to be the god of guardians, and the monastery’s purpose since its ancient founding is to give sanctuary to those who have none. The monastery came first, and the town slowly grew around it.
About a year before the Spellplague, when the inhabitants had just laid the foundation for the cathedral, Helm died. The grieving priests and citizens finished the huge building as a monument in his honor, and kept its purpose as a sanctuary, welcoming people of all faiths.
My experience of Helm’s Hold from the computer games and reading this book is that the place’s narrative purpose is to be infiltrated and secretly taken over by the current campaign’s Big Bads. It happened in the first computer game (ancient underground civilization), it happened again shortly before the Spellplague (Netherese), and now it’s happening once more (the aboleths). We’re headed for a plot pileup here because the Netherese are also trying to infiltrate the town anew, via their werewolf minions.
Lurking Threats
Those mysterious disappearances and murders are caused not by the spellscarred, but by the Grey Wolf Uthgardt, who have been ordered by their Netherese masters to infiltrate the town and cause chaos. They’re proficient at disguising themselves as locals or pilgrims, which lets them get into position to wolf out at night and go hunting. The core of their force hides out in the Wood. The Netherese don’t think the Hold is strategically valuable, they just want to keep the barbarians occupied until they’re needed in their true function as expendable muscle to throw against the Thayans.
The two barbarian-themed PCs are quite likely to end up here, and a peaceful resolution to the Grey Wolf plot would involve convincing them the Netherese are both evil and not interested in the tribe’s well-being. This has to be done subtly, though, as they are likely to attack the Pack Outcast on sight.
And of course there’s also the cathedral itself, which is currently being run by Rohini’s group and thus is a secret aboleth center of power. No one else knows about this currently, though ironically the AbSov is also interested in solving the murders because it will reduce the suspicion currently directed at them.
The Hold and Environs
The Hold’s mission as a sanctuary turned into the region’s premier treatment center for Spellplague victims, a duty which only became heavier about a year ago when Lord Neverember made it his official policy to send any such victims he finds in Neverwinter to the cathedral.
The rest of the region tends to see the spellscarred as dangerous freaks, but the inhabitants of the Hold see them as unfortunate victims affected by a horrible curse. Still, the overwhelming influx of new patients has been testing their open stance, as the city had to do a lot of rush construction to accommodate them all, with limited success. You can find newer buildings haphazardly constructed between older structures, their quality dubious due to the Hold’s chronic labor shortage. Most skilled builders are over on Neverwinter, where the work pays better.
The Hold’s citizens are further stressed out by the recent spate of mysterious murders and disappearances, which the more conservative among them have started blaming on the spellscarred. A group of spellscarred activists calling themselves the Heirs of Azure has sprung up to try to counter the distrust heaped upon their community. However, the Mintarn detachment sent by Neverember to help keep the peace isn’t having much success tracking down the real culprits, tensions keep increasing.
The city is governed by a council of elected Speakers who meet at a former tavern named The Dragon’s Gauntlet. They’re also split on the issue of the spellscarred, though the official stance is still receptive since current Chief Speaker is in that camp. The council’s collective power is waning, as there are enough mercs in town that they could declare martial law unopposed. Their commander, however, is uncharacteristically responsible and dutiful, so the order won’t come from him.
Heartward
The market plaza, so named because there’s a shrine to Sune here. Fights are frequent because resources are scarce and prices high. Every now and then, at night, a major haunting happens here and a bunch of ghosts goes through the motions of market life. Some crew the stalls, some walk around making purchase and talk to each other. Most of their words are gibberish, but some are prophetic.
Old Dirty Dwarf
And old, respected, and dirty tavern, with a reputation as the place for new arrivals to go in order to get the lay of the land and hear the latest news from the Hold. The owner is friendly to the spellscarred, but some of the staff aren’t. Agents of the Prophet keep an eye here at all times and report news to their boss.
Scar Alley
The ground under this neighborhood softened during the Spellplague, causing many of its buildings to sink and crack. Nowadays it’s a barely-standing, precariously-patrolled slum that is home to the most deformed of the spellscarred, those even the Hold shuns. It’s also filled with shady characters and the occasional monster hiding out in an abandoned ruin.
Helm’s Cathedral
The aging faithful of Helm’s Cathedral now share it with a contingent of Oghma’s priests who arrived to set up a sanatorium for spellscarred patients. Brother Satarin commands the former: he’s a 160 year old dwarf who was an acolyte before Helm’s death. Rohini the Prophet officially commands the latter, and is the de facto boss of the whole place. As we learned a few posts ago, she’s a former succubus turned aberrant creature, and serves the Abolethic Sovereignity, as do all her subordinates. She holds the loyalty of Helm’s old priests because some of her (fake) prophecies hint at his return.
The surface levels of the cathedral are airy and well-lit. The underground is far less pleasant and houses the sanatorium for the most “severe” cases. Rohini spends a lot of time down there “treating” them (i.e, turning them into foulspawn). They go out for exercise every day, and the foulspawn among them are only detectable as such by people specifically looking for them.
The Warrens
This was a failed attempt to expand the city’s drainage system, abandoned when the dig broke into the monastery’s old crypts and was overwhelmed by monsters. It became a kind of unofficial sanatorium for monstrous humanoids afflicted by the plague, who find no acceptance even in a tolerant city such as this. Goblins, kobolds and others venture into the city to steal food for themselves, and this has given rise to rumors of fey hauntings. I think it still connects to the rest of the crypts, described below, and would be a good alternate route for parties who want to sneak in. I’d probably run that as a negotiation focused adventure rather than a classic murdery crawl, at least until the PCs get to the crypts where the actual bad guys are.
Crypts of the Vigilant Eye
These crypts lie beneath the Cathedral, and predate its construction. Though the levels closer to the surface were clearly used by priests of Helm from the older monastery, things get more ancient and mysterious the deeper you go. There’s a big vertical pit full of side niches that could only be reached by flight or teleportation, and is now full of gargoyles. There’s a hallway full of gigantic robed skeleton statues that don’t resemble any sort of Helmite iconography.
And all that is without counting the twisting of the place by Spellplague energies and its current occupation by AbSov agents and foulspawn. Or the trapped Grey Wolf recon force that still hasn’t managed to find a way out through all of that.
The deepest levels turn into caverns that were excavated and mutated by the Symphony of Madness, turning into a fungal underground swamp. These are Chartilifax’s hunting grounds, so they probably contain all sorts of creatures that are tasty to dragons and dangerous to adventurers. From here you can enter a pulsating tunnel to the brain-like chamber containing the Hex Locus, a bronze coffer that acts as a repeater for the Symphony of Madness.
The Locus chamber can also be reached via a teleportation circle somewhere in the crypt levels, and Rohini will use that as soon as she learns someone is inside. She is linked to the artifact and can feel when someone enters its room. This is likely where any final confrontation against her and her pet dragon will occur.
Plot Hooks
The Spellscarred Harbinger will most likely be told to go here soon after the campaign starts. The Pack Outcast and Uthgardt Barbarian’s pursuit of the Grey Wolf might also bring them here early.
The city’s werewolf problem and the creepy happenings at the cathedral should be obvious enough to get the PCs investigating, and the growing tension between locals and refugees would make a fine secondary plot line.
Rohini herself would not appear immediately villainous - she would instead attempt to coopt the PCs and get them to help with her goals. By default that’s serving the AbSov, but the book offers a few alternatives. Perhaps she wants to break free of them and would secretly help them destroy the Hex Locus instead of protecting it. She is of course still a devil, so she might double-cross the PCs once she has what she wants.
Independent of that, Mordai Vell is working hard to woo her, aware that she’s a devil in disguise but unaware of all the rest. So he might hire the PCs as go-betweens in his courtship efforts. That’d be a fun way to introduce the AbSov and Ashmadai to the campaign.
Impressions
I tried to be fair and write a complete summary of the material in the book, but the truth is that I have a hard time caring about what’s going on in the town of Helm’s Hold proper. The original Neverwinter Nights computer game colors my perceptions here - it skipped the “town” bit entirely and placed you directly inside the monastery, which it treated as a dungeon. I only learned the Hold was an actual town once I read this book.
I feel like most campaigns will go a similar route, focusing all of their “urban intrigue” creative energy on Neverwinter itself and treating the Hold as a mostly-skipped prelude to the big delve into the cathedral and the crypts beneath. On the other hand, it would also be possible to do the reverse and ignore the big city depending on your party composition. There are several themes that have more reason to start at the Hold than at Neverwinter, like the Spellscarred Harbinger, the Uthgardt Barbarian, and the Pack Outcast.
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New project page!
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that I’ve been doing a Let’s Read of the Neverwinter Campaign Setting for D&D 4e. This has been generally less organized than the ones I did for the monster manuals, and it didn’t have a project page.
Well, now it does! If you want to see all the Let’s Read Neverwinter posts collected and neatly linked in one single place, then you can head over there.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: The Underground
We already saw several underground danger spots in the city. Neverdeath Cemetery, the dungeons of Castle Never, and of course the Chasm. But there are even more beyond those. The Mintarn mercs usually stay on the surface, so every one of these places can be considered “dungeon-like”.
Shattered Sewers
Neverwinter had an extensive sewer system that’s still largely ruined. It makes for a great way to move about the entire city undetected, but it’s hazardous to navigate and filled with both monsters and other people who don’t want to be discovered.
Kraken Tunnels
This is an underground complex with a floor plan that vaguely resembles an octopus. It used to be the former headquarters of the Kraken Society, a criminal syndicate specializing in slavery. Now it’s the headquarters for the Nashers faction of the Sons of Alagondar.
The complex is build right above an underground canal that links to the sea, and this canal is the home of an actual kraken. The Spellplague reduced the monster to bestial intelligence. The Society used to feed it and keep it as a guardian beast, and the Nashers have continued the practice. The complex has several floor openings through which the creature can attack intruders.
The kraken was trained by the Society to recognize anyone bearing an amulet with its symbol as a friend - it attacks all who don’t have this amulet on them. The Nashers know this and carry Kraken Society amulets with them when inside the complex.
There’s a tunnel here that links the Kraken Tunnels to the Dead Rats’ HQ through the sewers, which the Nashers use to talk and trade with them. The Rats don’t yet know the trick to avoiding the Kraken, but it’s just a matter of time until they find out and attempt to take over.
It’s possible the Nashers might end up releasing the kraken into the river or the docks as a sort of weapon of mass destruction if they become desperate enough. The aboleths could also try to get to it in order to search its mind for secrets from back when it was sapient.
Dead Rat Hole
This is a section of the sewers that has been taken over by the Neverwinter chapter of the Dead Rats. It’s marked with gang signs gouged into the sewer walls, and packed with both loot and trash collected by the gangers. Their leader, Rsolk, holds court at a set of caves near the shores of Blacklake. There’s a trap here that can let the waters of the lake in and “flush” the whole complex.
These Dead Rats are not familiar with the Dead Rat Deserter PC, contrary to what I thought before. Looks like word hasn’t got to them yet. A bold Deserter might try to infiltrate the gang and perhaps even challenge Rsolk for leadership. This starts as a one-on-one duel but turns into a standard mass fight once he’s bloodied. And of course he flushes the lair if it looks like his side will lose.
Tunnels and Trenches
The sewers around the Chasm area are partly collapsed, forming trenches where the street above was destroyed and tunnels where it hasn’t. This and the influx of non-sapient monsters provides good cover for the AbSov’s smarter agents to infiltrate the River District or to escape the city and head to Helm’s Hold and other places.
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