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Let's Read Neverwinter: Abolethic Sovereignity Encounters
The table of standard monsters that make up the AbSov’s roster includes pretty much every heroic-tier aberrant creature, from Fell Taints (MM2) to the weaker varieties of Mooncalf (Threats to the Nentir Vale). It also includes Heroic-Tier versions of iconic aberrants usually found in Paragon, and non-aberrant creatures and humanoids that can act as covert agents or as the basis for mutated monstrosities with the Plaguechanged Monster theme described here.
We’ll take a look at the new monsters, NPCs, and at the template here.
Aboleth Opener
This is an aboleth specializing in brute-force psychic intrusion, “opening the mind” of its victims using mental attacks and then dominating them for transport to the underground base, where they will become test subjects. It’s a Large Aberrant Magical Beast and a Level 7 Controller with 82 HP and the Aquatic keyword. It has darkvision, a ground speed of 5, and a swim speed of 7.
The Opener projects an Eroding Mucus Haze, an aura (5) that is difficult terrain for enemies and deals 5 psychic damage to any dazed enemy that starts their turn inside. It can fight in melee with its Flaying Tentacles, which do immediate and ongoing damage, but it prefers to stick to mental attacks if possible in order to avoid damaging the goods.
The creature’s title comes from its Mental Lance ranged attack, which deals psychic damage and dazes for a turn. It can then target dazed targets with Enslaved Open Mind, a minor action power that dominates the target (save ends). This recharges whenever the Opener has no dominated victims.
Aboleth Remnant
Not even the aboleths themselves are immune to Spellplague corruption. Exposure tends to turn them into these Remnants, whose body constantly spawns and sheds tentacles and other limbs, and whose mind is in tatters. Remnants can fly, unlike typical aboleths. They’re treated like the rest of the base’s “trash”, and sent up the chasm to harass Neverwinter.
These wretches are Large Aberrant Magical Beasts and Level 5 Brutes with 78 HP and the Aquatic keyword. They have darkvision, a ground speed of 5, a flight speed of 7 (hover) and a swim speed of 10. They project an aura (2) of Maddening Mucus, which acts as difficult terrain for enemies and makes them grant combat advantage while inside.
Their attacks are a Reach 2 Telescoping Tentacle that damages and knocks prone on a hit, and a Tentacle Flurry that targets enemies in a Close Burst 2, damaging and dazing them on a hit (save ends). A miss here deals half damage. This recharges when the creature is first bloodied.
Grell Strangler
This less-venomous variety of Grell is fond of strangling its victims. It’s a Medium Aberrant Magical Beast with the Blind keyword. It has Blindsight 12, a ground speed of 1, and a flight speed of 6 (hover).
Its basic attack is a Reach 2 Tentacle Lash that deals physical damage and forces the target to grant combat advantage for a turn. That last one seems to be a poison effect.
If the strangler isn’t grabbing anyone at the moment, it can use Grasping Tentacles to remedy the situation. This Reach 2 attack does a bit of physical damage and grabs the target (escape DC 16). The grell can immediately shift 1 square and pull the victim up to 2 squares, and while the grab persists the victim takes 5 ongoing damage.
Once the strangler grabs someone, it will use Haul Away to do exactly that. This move action lets it shift half its speed and drag a victim along with it.
These are great for separating the party and messing up their formations. Defenders and controllers should focus on locking them down to prevent that.
Nothic Plagegazer
This monster is entirely made by the chaotic magic of the Spellplague pocket. Its gaze can inflict a debilitating spell sickness on its victims.
Plaguegazers are Medium Aberrant Humanoids and Level 6 Artillery with 60 HP. They have a speed of 6, darkvision, and truesight 10. They exude an Oozing Plague from their skin that causes any creature that ends their turn adjacent to the nothic to take ongoing 5 poison damage (save ends).
The nothic prefers to keep away from enemies and attack them with its Sickening Gaze, which deals necrotic damage, ongoing 5 poison damage, and slows (save ends both). After the first failed save, the Slowed condition worsens to Immobilized.
It can also use an area attack named Spread the Infection. This targets a creature taking ongoing poison damage, and affects an Area Burst 1 centered on them. It deals necrotic damage and inflicts ongoing 10 poison damage (save ends) on those it hits. On a miss, it still inflicts half its immediate and ongoing damage. It recharges when the nothic is bloodied.
If it has no other choices, it will use its claws in melee. They have no riders, but Oozing Plague will probably be in effect here.
Nothic Mindwarp
Another nothic produced by the plague pocket. It’s more insane than usual, and likes to caper and cackle about as it drives others mad with its gaze. It’s a Level 3 Lurker with 42 HP and a Speed of 6.
The mindwarp will try to affect someone with its Warping Gaze, a ranged attack that deals psychic damage and forces the target to grant CA (save ends). While the target is affected by this condition, the nothic becomes invisible to everyone but the target, and its basic claw attack does 1d6 extra damage. On a miss, the nothic still has partial concealment for a turn. The power recharges when the victim saves against it.
So the tactic here is to use Warping Gaze on someone, and then try to attack someone else with enhanced claw attacks, repeating the procedure when the gaze’s victim saves against it.
If the nothic gets surrounded, it can use its Forbidding Glare encounter power to attack enemies in a Close Burst 2, dealing psychic damage and pushing them 2 squares on a hit.
Plaguechanged Monster Theme
A monster theme modifies a monster in a less drastic way than a monster template. Templates turn a regular into an elite or an elite into a solo. Themes add a couple of flavorful powers without changing the monster’s level or “quality”. They’re a great way to really tie a dungeon together, even if the base creatures are very disparate otherwise.
Plaguechanged monsters are affected by the Spellplague. They show the scars or mutations associated with it, and possess magic abilities that use its characteristic blue flames and corruptive effects.
I was mistaken before - plaguechanged monsters do not gain the ability to sense spellscarred PCs, nor do they suffer defense penalties against these PCs. To create one, you just add one attack and one utility power to the base creature from the sets provided here.
Attack powers include:
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Blue Fire Burst: Encounter, triggers when first bloodied. Close burst 2 vs. Reflex, deals fire and force damage, pushes 2 squares.
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Inferno Step: Teleport 5 squares and attack a Close Burst 1 on arrival. This deals fire damage and knocks prone on a hit.
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Scouring Lash: At-will reach 2 melee attack, deals fire and force damage and slides 1 square on a hit.
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Unraveling Touch Encounter reach 1 melee attack, deals necrotic damage and dazes (save ends).
The attack and damage from all of these are expressed in terms of the base creature’s level, so they can be applied to any monster from any book - even minions, as the DMG2 has rules for applying themes to them.
Utility powers include:
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Burning Gaze Encounter, minor action. Invisible or otherwise hidden enemies within 5 squares of the creature glow with blue flame, losing the benefits from cover and concealment and granting combat advantage until the end of the creature’s next turn.
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Devourer of Flame: Encounter, triggers in reaction to taking fire damage. The creature gains temporary HP equal to half the fire damage, and a +4 bonus do damage rolls until the end of its next turn.
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Wings of Blue Fire: Encounter, move action. The creature flies its speed, and anyone making opportunity attacks against it during this movement takes fire damage equal to the creature’s level.
Rohini, The Prophet of Helm’s Hold
Here we have a surprise NPC big-shot belonging to the AbSov faction. Rohini is the person in charge of Helm’s Hold, which as we saw before has been converted into a hospital for Spellplague victims and has a Realms-wide good reputation for its humanitarian efforts. This is where we learn that the Hold is a front for the Abolethic Sovereignity, and Rohini is their agent. There was already some mention of it in the New Neverwinter section, but this one gives us the full details.
The Prophet of Helm’s Hold presents herself as an attractive and charismatic female human, but she’s something fair weirder. Not long ago, she was a succubus summoned by the Ashmadai and tasked with infiltrating the spellscarred treatment center in Neverwinter’s House of Knowledge. There, a priest corrupted by the Sovereignity exposed her to an artifact named the Hex Locus, a solidified chunk of Spellplague magic. This warped the devil and infused her with the same essence that turns humans into foulspawn.
Rohini’s main mission is to safeguard the Locus, which she moved to Helm’s Hold. Her secondary goal is to collect new Choir candidates from among the Hold’s patients and send them to the underground base. She is called the Prophet because she makes statements about future events that tend to come true (due to AbSov meddling). Her healing blessings are entirely fake, and make patients feel good just as their condition steadily worsens.
Rohini has stats very similar to a standard succubus, making her a Level 9 Controller. There are some important differences, though. She’s Aberrant instead of Immortal. Her basic Corrupting Touch is upgraded to a Maddening Touch that does psychic damage and slides 2 squares. Her Charming Kiss turns into a Soul-Wrenching Kiss that places more restrictions upon the victim.
As before, the victim of the kiss is unable to attack the succubus, but they also can’t willingly move away from her, closing the main loophole in the basic succubus’ power. They also take 10 ongoing fire and psychic damage while under the effect of the kiss. All of this is a (save ends) package, and it also ends when Rohini attacks the victim or uses the kiss on someone else.
Her Loyal Consort power is upgraded to Mind-Warped Bodyguard. Now it works as long as the victim of the Kiss is within 5 squares of Rohini, and lets them teleport to switch places before redirecting attacks to the victim.
Chartilifax
This complicated name belongs to a young green dragon who used to inhabit the Neverwinter Wood, and which Rohini managed to seduce and subvert. Experiments performed by the AbSov’s foulspawn sorcerers have given him the ability to transform into a Medium humanoid like his master, and the Devourer of Flame power from the Plaguechanged theme.
Chartilifax spends most of his days in the shape of a green-skinned elf in the basements under Helm’s Hold, performing menial tasks. He’s also pretty close to Rohini’s seat of power, so he’s gonna be there as a nasty surprise when the PCs manage to corner her.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: Abolethic Sovereignity
As mentioned before, one of the things the Spellplague did a century ago was to bring parts of the world of Abeir into Toril, and vice-versa. These transplanted chunks of geography also brought whoever happened to be living on them. And one of these whoevers was the Abolethic Sovereignity, a kingdom ruled by these aberrant creatures.
Shortly after arriving, the Sovereignity built a flying citadel named Xxiphu to act as their headquarters. Interested in studying the phenomenon that isekaied them, the aboleths started searching for pockets of the chaotic magic that makes up the Spellplague and sending in research teams to investigate them.
One of the pockets they found was in the Underdark beneath Neverwinter. A branch of the Sovereignity built a permanent base around it and have been studying it for the past few decades, occasionally kidnapping people from the surface to serve as test subjects.
When the eruption happened, it opened a chasm on the surface that went all the way down to the aboleth base, potentially exposing it to curious delvers from the surface. Moving the base was not an option, so they instead fortified it and began sending the results of their early experiments up the chasm as a way to discourage explorers. This worked for a long time, since the city was a mess.
When Neverember arrived and began rebuilding, the aboleths felt threatened and began taking more active steps to divert the lord’s attention elsewhere and to infiltrate his organization.
Goals
After a century of research the aboleths have a pretty good handle on the properties of the Spellplague, and they have a planned use for it.
You see, they know where Maegera is. Their entry in the book off-handedly remarks that it was a brief awakening of the primordial that caused that city-destroying eruption. The AbSov’s ultimate plan is to expose the primordial to the Spellplague, using the techniques they developed to then dominate her mind or control her in some other fashion. With a genuine primordial under their command, the Sovereignity has a real shot at taking over the whole world.
In the meantime, they’re using that expertise on a steady stream of victims brought from the surface by their agents. These unfortunates are exposed to the Spellplague in a controlled manner. Those who fail to display the proper strength of mind and soul after initial exposure to the Plague become the monsters regularly released upon the surface. Those who pass this test are then subject to a very specific series of tortures and procedures that turn them into near-mindless members of the Choir that sings the Symphony of Madness.
This Symphony can channel the chaotic energies of the Spellplague in ways that the aboleths can control, and it’s what they use to mutate their kidnapped victims. They also use it to broadcast nightmares all over the region, which afflict its more psychically sensitive individuals. The stronger it gets the more people are affected. This could eventually be the tool they use to tame Maegera, or could lead to the development of that tool depending on the GM’s designs.
Player Tie-Ins
The nightmares mentioned in the descriptions of Oghma’s Faithful and the Spellscarred Harbinger come from the Symphony of Madness. The latter in particular has very strong thematic ties to the AbSov - their starting hook sends the PC right into their clutches, as we’ll see soon.
If the GM decides to make the AbSov a major antagonist in the campaign, then the Symphony’s nightmares will likely begin affecting more and more people. Its effects are not set in stone, but the book gives various suggestions:
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They might make victims irritable and violent.
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They might drain healing surges after a long rest.
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They might impost long-lasting penalties from lack of sleep or psychological trauma.
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They might provide hints about where to find their source.
Stepping up the frequency or severity of these effects over the course of the campaign will provide a very strong incentive for PCs to find the source of these dreams and shut it down, leading to a big confrontation against the AbSov in their home base.
One way the PCs might protect themselves from the nightmares is to buy these creepy little dolls sold by Helm’s Hold. If you place one of these Dreamthief Dolls under your pillow at night, you won’t experience the nightmares. Rumor has it that the dolls send the nightmares they catch to the Hold’s patients, but Rohini, who runs the hospice at the Hold, says they’re just imbued with minor protective blessings (she’s lying; the rumors are true).
Relationships
We already know the AbSov is busily infiltrating New Neverwinter. Here we also learn that they sort of disdain the Ashmadai, because all of the cult’s attempts to infiltrate them have only fed them more converts (including Rohini). They are however more circumspect when dealing with the Thayans or the Netherese, because they fear the powerful magic those factions might be able to bring to bear if they call on their far-away epic bosses.
Impressions
This is a comparatively huge entry with an extensive encounters section, as we’ll see in the next post. This leads me to think the Aboleths are intended to be one of the campaign’s top antagonists. A campaign where you start opposing (or even working for) New Neverwinter and uncover the aboleth conspiracy seems to be an easy one to make with the book’s default setup.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: New Neverwinter Encounters
New Neverwinter’s hired goons can be represented by a variety of statblocks for characters or usually-playable ancestries extracted from the Monster Manual 2, Monster Vault, and Threats to the Nentir Vale. There’s a table here with entries ranging from level 1 to level 8. It includes a Doppelganger Sneak, every stat block from the [River Rats][1] entry in Threats plus a smattering of humans, gnomes, half-elves and dragonborn.
We also get detailed writeups for Neverember himself and for Soman Galt, and some information on General Sabine, the faction’s third big shot.
Dagult Neverember
As written, Neverember is a somewhat complex villain by D&D standards. He’s ruthless, greedy, arrogant and imperialistic, but he is not evil-aligned. His preferred way of lining his own pockets also tends to be beneficial to his trade partners, and he is sincere in his desire to improve the lives of his subjects even if it’s only so they’ll crown him king. He also behaves like a typical mercantilist aristocrat, which includes a dose of sexism. He treats “intelligent male acquaintances” with respect but “flirts outrageously” with “beautiful female guests”. I strongly suggests removing these traits from his personality if you want him to come off as sympathetic to your players.
If the PCs can stomach his horrible personality, he might end up allied with them against a greater threat, even if only because that greater threat would be worse for the region than him.
If he dies, it will cause a lot of chaos in the city, because like it or not he’s one of the region’s current stabilizing forces. The Thayans, Netherese, and the rebels would immediately feel emboldened by the chaos, and the rebels in particular will immediately turn on anyone who tries to take leadership of the city for themselves (because they want it). If no one else manages to take over, General Sabine will do it and turn the city into a brutal militarized police state. So I guess the PCs should make sure the region is set up to remain stable after his demise before facing the guy.
Neverember is a Level 7 Soldier with 84 HP. Yes, he’s a regular, which means he will have plenty of bodyguards with him. He’s armed with a Longsword whose basic attacks inflict a -2 penalty to hit for a turn, and if an adjacent enemy shifts or targets someone other than him with an attack, he can use Lord’s Rebuke to make a free basic attack against them. He can also Taunt (recharge 4+), an attack vs. Will that targets one enemy and on a hit pulls them 4 squares and makes them grant combat advantage for a turn.
General Sabine
General Sabine doesn’t get a section of her own, but I’m collecting and repeating the scattered information we get about her here. She’s the commander of the mercenary company Lord Neverember hired to act as his army and police force.
The reason he’s using mercenaries is because using his house troops from Waterdeep would make the whole situation look too much like an invasion and occupation by a foreign power. Sabine, however, is perfectly able and willing to command her army like the foreign invasion and occupation force it is. There’s not to much nuance to her character - she’s an uncomplicated brutal authoritarian. She uses the stats for the Human Cavalier from the MM2, making her a Level 7 Soldier (Leader).
I imagine there are lots of complaints about the police brutality inflicted on the citizenry of Neverwinter by the mercenaries, though I guess Neverember manages to keep them at just below the level where he’d care. If Neverember dies suddenly, General Sabine is the most likely character to replace him in the internal power struggle that will follow, and she will turn the city into a violent police state.
Mordai Vell, one of the leaders of the Ashmadai, is trying to recruit Sabine for the cult. As of the campaign’s start, he hasn’t succeeded yet - whether he will or not depends on the wishes of the GM and the events that happen in play.
Soman Galt
The acting mayor of Neverwinter gained his position because of his previous career as a government official. He’s more than a bit scatterbrained but is capable of taking his job seriously and performing it competently.
Neverember thinks of Galt as a useful puppet, and he’s right. However, he’s someone else’s puppet. Rohini, the Prophet of Helm’s Hold, got a hold of the dwarf and turned him into an asset of the Abolethic Sovereignity quite some time ago. As the campaign starts, Galt is under an incredible number of aboleth-crafted post-hypnotic suggestions, and regularly visits Helm’s Hold to receive more. This has him looking less and less healthy as time goes by.
It also means the aboleths are effectively in control of the city’s civil and social policies, and know everything that happens on it. They know which spots on the city wall are less defended, and send their monsters there. They’re going to have an incredible edge when they decide to really invade the surface.
Galt doesn’t actually know any of this, and would probably go insane from trauma and guilt if he learned it. In emergencies, one of the aboleths below can assume direct control of him, switching his alignment from Unaligned to Chaotic Evil and giving him access to extra powers. Once he becomes bloodied, that control becomes stronger and he begins moving as if he was having a seizure.
Galt is a Level 6 Controller with 74 HP. His typical dwarven speed of 5 increases to 7 when he’s bloodied. Being bloodied also activates his aura (5) of Dissonant Gibberish, which inflicts Vulnerable 5 Psychic and a -2 penalty to saves on all enemies inside.
Galt’s basic attack is a Whipping Warhammer that damages and slides the target 1 square. He can Transmute the Unwilling as a ranged attack, dealing psychic damage and slowing (save ends). Even on a miss this still slows for a turn. Once per encounter he can Weave Nightmares in a Close Burst 2, targeting all enemies, dealing heavy psychic damage and dazing (save ends). Also once per encounter he can Twist Space to teleport 3 squares. If he chooses to appear in an enemy’s space with this, they swap positions and the enemy grants combat advantage for a turn.
Impressions
I think Galt is our most pleasant surprise here, in terms of both his lore and his mechanics. As for the other two, Sabine is more dangerous than Dagult if you give her a mount and fix the damage on her MM2 stat block. I think this makes sense, both in-setting and narratively. She’s kind of his Dragon, in TVTropes parlance.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: New Neverwinter
As mentioned before, Lord Dagult Neverember of Waterdeep has recently arrived in Neverwinter at the head of a mercenary force with the intent of rebuilding the city and re-establishing order and trade. He claims descent from one of Nasher Alagondar’s bastard sons, saying this gives him the right to take over the city. Alagondar was the ruler of Neverwinter at the time depicted in the computer games.
“New Neverwinter” is a concept Neverember’s propaganda machine came up with to stir nationalistic sentiment among the populace and get them on-side. This, and the practical results of his rebuilding efforts, have worked on the majority of the city’s residents, but some of them consider the idea of a “new Neverwinter” to be an insult to the city’s memory. Chief among these dissenters are the Sons of Alagondar, militant rebels who oppose Neverember and have been clashing often with his forces.
Most of what we’ve seen so far points to Neverember being a villainous character, whose claim is fake and whose rule would be selfish and oppressive. But there’s a text box here that reminds us that not even this is set in stone. Lord Neverember’s role in a specific campaign is entirely up to the GM. His claim might be true or false, his intentions might be altruistic or selfish, and his rule could end up being good or bad for the region, and all of these “switches” are independent from each other. Also independent from all of this is the attitude of the PCs towards him - you still have a meaty campaign whether they want to support or topple the lord, and there are plenty of other things to occupy them if they’re indifferent.
Goals
Neverember’s main goal is of course to Claim the Throne. He is effectively in charge of that portion of the city his faction controls, but running the city and wearing its crown are very different things. Neverember’s current plan is to make the people love him. He’s going to improve their lives so much that they’ll beg him to become their lord, claim or no claim. Mwa-ha-ha!
Of course, Dagult will still have a much easier time of it if he can Prove his Disputed Heritage. He knows his word is not enough to prove his claim, so he’s been hiring scholars and explorers to look for documents that support it among the city’s ruined archives and libraries. He’s also not above hiring those same scholars to fabricate such documents, and has burned more than one book that had a less-than-helpful stance on his ancestry.
While seeking the crown, Neverember still has to actually Run the City, to Maintain His Position as the Open Lord of Waterdeep, and he also never loses sight of the whole reason he’s doing all of this, which is to Make Hard Coin. In order to juggle all of this, he delegates heavily. General Sabine, who commands the mercenary army, is in charge of policing and defending the territory he controls in the city. He appointed a dwarf named Soman Galt to act as mayor and oversee tax collection, grants of property, and other paperwork.
For the same reason, he loves to Hire Sellswords to care care of problems that require more discreet solutions. This includes looking for proof of his claims and spying on the opposition as mentioned above, but it also includes Finding Gauntlgrym because having that as a feather on his cap would increase his chances of being declared king by popular acclaim.
Player Character Tie-Ins
A PC with the Neverwinter Noble background is Dagult’s greatest nightmare: someone with a stronger claim to the throne of the city. He will either try to deal with the obstacle by sending mercenaries to spy on or assassinate the character, or by trying to publicly discredit them once the discreet approach becomes impossible.
The Harper Agent was also sent here to oppose Neverember, but as the campaign starts they’ve just realized nothing is as it seems. Are they proceeding with their original mission, or deviating from it now that the Harpers’ original intel proved to be woefully incomplete?
PCs with the Oghma’s Faithful theme would be eager to take part in any genuine fact-finding expedition about Dagult’s lineage (or that of his rivals!). However, their devotion is to the truth rather than to any mortal lord, and the truth they find can end up drawing the ire of either Dagult himself or his enemies, depending on whether it contradicts or supports his claim.
Depending on his exact moral disposition in the campaign, Neverember could be either a potential sponsor or a rival to the Heir of Delzoun in the search for Gauntlgrym.
PCs without direct connections to this storyline might still find New Neverwinter a ready source of miscellaneous mercenary jobs when they need some extra cash and XP. In addition to being the hired swords for the above plots, they could also bolster the faction’s efforts to evict the orcish army that has taken part of the city ruins, or get hired to investigate the numerous mysterious events in town that point to the other major factions, like spellplagued monster attacks or mysterious disappearances.
Faction Relationships
New Neverwinter has no idea the Abolethic Sovereignity is behind those monster attacks. They’re causing these to keep the surfacers distracted while they carry on their experiments.
The Ashmadai managed to secure a tenuous alliance of sorts with New Neverwinter. Dagult doesn’t know who they are beyond “a shady but influential cult”. He uses them as an occasional source of deniable muscle, and they’re hard at work subverting and corrupting his underlings with the goal of eventually inducting the man himself among their ranks. Their leader, Mordai Veil, is currently attempting to seduce General Sabine.
He was received a few reports of Thayans in the region, and has tasked General Sabine with finding out more. She has yet to deliver her first report.
Dagult is completely ignorant of Netherese operations in the region and has unwittingly hired Shadovar agents as assassins before.
Impressions
Even if you decide to make the lord himself something other than a villainous asshole, there are a lot of events in motion that could lead him and his faction in that direction. They’re heavily infiltrated by both diabolists and abolethic agents! PCs seeking to support or co-opt New Neverwinter are going to have a harder job ahead of them than those who try to destroy it. They’re also in the dark about the Thayans and Netherese as the campaign starts, and might be blindsided by either of them.
I still think Dagult and friends work better as villains, either by themselves or as an eventual tool of someone worse. Making them neutral or sympathetic would however be a good way to take New Neverwinter out of consideration if the party is not interested in tangling with it, making it a part of the background noise.
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Let's Read Neverwinter: Factions and Foes
This chapter starts the GM-focused part of the book. The factions presented here are the “other half” of all the plots hinted at in the character themes - they’re what the themes are hooking into. This chapter will contain a lot of information players won’t know at the start of the campaign.
There are five major factions operating in the Neverwinter region during this campaign:
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New Neverwinter: Dagult Neverember and his mercenary army, who want to become the legitimate rulers of the city.
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Abolethic Sovereignity: A sect from this aberrant empire is experimenting with a pocket of the Spellplague beneath the city with the eventual goal of using it to control the sleeping primordial Maegera.
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A cult of Asmodeus worshipers, also known as Ashmadai, is plotting to take over the region for themselves but is in for a whole bunch of nasty surprises.
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The Thayans want to create an undead army and possibly complete their genocidal plans from thirty years ago.
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The Netherese want to repair the flying island of Xinlenal and use it as the center of their new empire.
Aside from these, there are many other smaller factions centered around either the city of Neverwinter, like the rebel remnants, or around the Neverwinter Wood, like the Uthgardt or the angry eladrin of Ilyianbruen.
Each major faction gets their own section consisting of:
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A general overview of who they are.
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A detailed explanation of their goals. This includes text boxes with Theme Tie-Ins that could lead the faction to interact with the PCs or vice-versa. Some are obvious, others less so.
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A summary of their relationship to other major factions.
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A discussion of what encounters against them look like, complete with statistics for their important figures and any new monsters that might make up their rank-and-file.
As the introduction says, everybody’s levels are calibrated to fit in a Heroic-tier campaign, and none of the plots and goals detailed here are set in stone. Some of the faction descriptions include text boxes musing about alternate setups, or what happens if the faction’s plots are seriously derailed.
The minor factions get less space for themselves, but they still get some and we’ll be looking at all of them in the order they appear on the book.
Each major faction is going to be split into two posts here. The first will look at their general description, goals, relationships, PC tie-ins and my impressions of them. The second will deal with the Encounters section of their writeup, which tends to be pretty long and often includes new monster stat blocks.
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