Posts
-
Let's Read Neverwinter: River District
The River District occupies the city’s northeastern quadrant and was where most of the city’s merchant class lived, and also the location of a couple of wizard towers. These homes were not as nice as those of the Blacklake nobles, but they were still sturdy and are still mostly standing.
Today’s River District is much more dangerous and hostile than Blacklake. The many guardhouses and security walls here now act as prime ambush spots. It’s protected from the Chasm by the river, but monsters from the wilderness outside can freely wander in. The main source of danger, however, are the Many-Arrows Orcs. Neverember has so far failed to dislodge them, and maintains an uneasy truce punctuated by skirmishes while he thinks of a way to do so.
The Mintarn mercs mostly stay away from the River District, making it a good place for shady deals if one can dodge the orcs. Hot-blooded youngsters also love to go here on dares, despite their parents’ protestations. And while scavengers have long taken all of the most obvious treasure, there’s still some left in secret stashes all over those merchant mansions.
The Fallen Tower
This used to be a wizard’s tower, but it was destroyed during the Spellplague. Some time later, its ruins became a tavern whose main attraction is the nightly haunt showing the deaths of the wizards as they fall from a great height into what is now the tavern’s cookfire at the center of the common room. Charming.
The place was vacant when the orcs found it but it still contained a lot of stored food and drink, so they reopened it for their own use. Lord Neverember and Commander Vansi have declated The Fallen Tower to be neutral ground, and their envoys meet here when they have cause to talk. Non-orcs deemed worthy to share a drink with the Many-Arrows are also allowed to frequent the Tower.
The Cloak Tower
The Cloak Tower was once the headquarters of a mage guild called The Many-Starred Cloaks. It vanished into thin air at the height of the Spellplague and rematerialized six months later at a different address, without its wizards. People who have tried to explore it in the past were turned away or killed by its magical wards and traps, and everyone thought the same would happen to the orcs. However, for some reason, they had absolutely no trouble moving in and making this tower their home.
The Shard of Night
This black stone tower appeared high above the River District during the Spellplague and has floated there ever since. It looks like it was cut off from its base, with an opening at the bottom. It casts no shadow during the day, and when people walk under it their own shadows vanish as well. It does cast a shadow by the light of the moon, and even though no one was ever seen to enter or leave the place, eerie sounds sometimes echo from it.
The tower used to be part of a distant temple of Selûne, but it was cut off and banished to the Shadowfell during a Netherese assault on that temple. After the battle, they found out they could control where the tower appeared in the world, so they sent it to Neverwinter during the Spellplague and left it there until the day when it was needed.
Now it is needed, and they’re using it. The Shard’s enchantments allow it to absorb shadows during the day and use them to power a teleportation circle inside that links it to Xinlenal.
Creatures infused with shadow power, such as the Scion of Shadow, are immune to the absorption effect and still cast shadows while under the Tower. They also feel a comforting pull from it, which might help clue them in to what lies inside.
Impressions
This is the “bad” part of town. I imagine most who live here are either Many-Arrows, allied with them, or sneaky enough to go undetected. I also think envoys who want to go to the Fallen Tower for diplomacy with the orcs might need some sort of token of safe passage, since it’s actually quite far from the district’s borders.
Profit-oriented parties could have some interesting adventures following up on rumors of a big treasure cache still hidden in the River District, but most of the hooks here involve dealing with the Many-Arrows somehow. Raiding the Shard of Night is an interesting way to get to Xinlenal without a long and arduous overland trek into the Woods, but that place is only approachable by “endgame” parties.
-
Let's Read Neverwinter: Castle Never
Castle Never sits on the northern bank of the river, in the Blacklake District that takes up Neverwinter’s nortwestern quadrant. It used to be the seat of its government, and home to its ruling family. The cataclysm wrecked it and killed almost everyone inside. The surviving servants decided to seal its crypts, vaults and grounds, hoping that a worthy heir might make use of them one day.
The castle’s ruins are still a towering landmark, and its foundations are still solid. While many interior chambers were destroyed, some are still intact and a lot of the interior is at least navigable - most notably the underground bits. Now it houses several groups who compete with each other for territory.
The book doesn’t give you maps, leaving those as an exercise to the GM. There’s enough going on here that it could be a full megadungeon and the focus of the campaign… or it could be “downsized” to the site of a single targeted delve for groups who want to keep their focus elsewhere.
Surface Areas
The surface portion of the castle is partly ruined but still contains a large number of navigable areas. There are some places of interest that should feature in whatever map you draw for it, like the locked armory or the odd places detailed below.
“Drow” Encampment
This used to be a campsite in a hidden spot in the city, near Castle Never. It was originally set up by Drizzt and Jarlaxe around the time of the cataclysm, when they were here investigating the Thayans and trying to stop their plan. They come back every once in a while to attempt to tie off those Thayan loose ends, usually without much success.
The location of the encampment was recently discovered, however… by their fans. These eager youths and would-be adventurers have made the spot into a permanent “DrowCon” of sorts. They train together, challenge themselves by delving the castle, and hope to become good enough to join their idols’ entourages once they return. Neither of the two celebrities have been back for a while, but Jarlaxe has heard of these events and has sent some of his Bregan D’Aerthe agents to mind the place and keep a watch for promising recruits from among the fans. They are Xalbyn the quick-witted rogue, Kimmuriel Oblodra the quiet and focused mage, and Aerlyse the half-drow psion who spies on the other two for Jarlaxe. Xalbyn hides his drow heritage with a Hat of Disguise.
The book makes an effort to take this place seriously… but I just can’t see it as anything but comic relief. It would be a funny place to use whether there are Bregan Spies on the party or not. If there are, then I’m guessing the three stooges here don’t know about them. Jarlaxe seems very fond of keeping his underlings in the dark.
Hall of Ashen Mirrors
This is a hallway inside Castle Never. It has huge windows and used to be lined with mirrors, being a popular spot for young Alagondar heirs to practice their regal posture. When the cataclysm hit, air pressure shattered all the mirrors, filling the place with flying glass and killing everyone inside right before a pyroclasm came in through the windows and turned the corpses to ash.
Now the hallway is very, very haunted. When living people enter, it will reconstruct itself, and the reflections in the mirrors will re-enact the events that happened just before the explosion. The replay ends with the explosion-and-pyroclasm combo, just as deadly as it originally was. Anyone lingering here for too long is gonna have a bad time.
Surface Factions
These groups make up the inhabitants of the castle’s above-ground portion. They’re all hostile to each other, though some are more amenable to befriending the PCs.
Ghosts
Since the castle’s destruction was so sudden, pretty much everyone who perished in it ended up becoming a ghost. They can be found all over the interior, and are a varied lot. They’re not automatically hostile, and PCs who approach them correctly might strike up some extremely useful conversations with them. However they tend to talk in riddles both because they like it and because their sanity might have been a little damaged in the last 30 years. And if the ghosts come to believe the characters are just there to loot the ruins, they will become hostile.
Thayan Forces
Castle Never is Valindra’s second major focus in the city of Neverwinter (the first is Neverdeath Cemetery, as we saw earlier). On the surface, her forces are engaged in a small war against those of Talgath, which consists of a tense standoff with occasional battles. There’s at least one residential area that became isolated due to cave-ins after a battle. The ghoul troop that got trapped inside passes its time wearing the former inhabitants’ clothes and pretending to be nobility, waiting for a rescue that will never come. The PCs will probably stumble upon them first. Other undead patrols can probably act as random encounters.
Talgath, Watcher of Castle Never
Talgath the Beholder has recently moved in. He wants to be king of the castle, starting with the ettercaps on the upper spires and working his way down. He pays little attention to humanoid intruders like the PCs, unless they get in his way.
Valindra sees Talgath as the greatest threat to her goals in the castle. She’s sent people to kill him several times, but Talgath has defeated them all. Not only is he a powerful monster in his own right, he also makes extensive use of his charm ray to keep a small army of minions. He brought in a coven of harpies and a pack of displacer beasts from outside, and has charmed many of the assassins sent to kill him as well.
Independent Communities
The castle’s atrium was boarded up long ago, and the heat and darkness have turned the garden within into a fungal paradise complete with a village of very territorial myconids.
Its upper spires have been taken over by a group of ettercaps who used to live in the dungeons but were pushed out and up by Valindra. She ignores them these days, but Talgath is currently trying to enslave them. Their leader says he had a prophetic dream where a group of outsiders would deliver them from the beholder, which makes them more likely than usual to befriend the PCs (and give them that quest).
Underground Areas
The castle’s underground areas are structurally intact. The things that make them dangerous are of another nature entirely.
Neverneath
The castle had a sizable dungeon area underneath it, protected by strong wards that let it survive the cataclysm intact. Radiation from the Spellplague pocket at the bottom of the Chasm has altered the wards, however, making it so they actively trap any who enter the dungeon, causing its corridors to shift and close around these intruders.
Space here is all wonky. A straight corridor can lead you through a circuitous route full of loops and circles. A door might lead you to a different place than it did the fellow PC who was just in front of you. The place is filled with self-resetting traps, and inhabited by a large pack of gargoyles who love to attack anything fleshy they find. It also houses a small force of desperate gnolls that stumbled upon it several months ago and haven’t managed to escape yet.
Vault of the Nine
Below Neverneath lies the Vault of the Nine, where those legendary bodyguards have been entombed to honor their meritorious service in life. If you’re using the subplot where Valindra plans to reanimate them, her forces are already here and have turned the vault’s many outer chambers into their base of operations, filling it with guardian undead. If she manages to animate the Nine, she will order them to kill and replace all of New Neverwinter’s leadership, including Neverember.
Player Tie-Ins
Why would the PCs want to mess with this place?
The Neverwinter Noble has the most reasons for wanting to do so. The ghosts are likely to be their direct ancestors, for starters! The fabled Crown of Neverwinter is also lost somewhere inside the castle, and it’s likely the most definitive proof of legitimacy for anyone wanting to claim the throne. Legend says the crown’s magic properties only work for someone of the line of Alagondar, and that anyone else who tries to wear it gets simultaneously burned and frozen.
Reaching the Vault of the Nine would also be a desirable goal for the Noble even if Valindra’s forces are not down there. It could be possible to call the Nine back into service through their oaths to the line of Alagondar, and if the noble can do so that would be another excellent proof of their legitimacy.
Oghma’s Faithful would also love to explore this place and find its many lost historical secrets. They might be mostly interested in interviewing the ghosts and finding any sealed off libraries, but finding a safe path to the Vault would also be a worthy goal even if they wouldn’t actually want to loot the place.
Even the Devil’s Pawn might benefit from talking with the ghosts, as it’s quite possible one or more of them have had to deal with a similar problem in life.
For everyone else, Neverember is always hiring adventurers
stupidbrave enough to delve the Castle in search for the Crown or any other relics and documents that might help increase his legitimacy. He also wants it to be clear of monsters so he can move in.The Crown of Neverwinter
We get stats for the Crown, and it’s indeed a nifty item (level 15, head slot, strong protections against mental conditions and a nice bonus to social skills). The stats do not include the genetic lock from the legend, so it’s up to the GM whether those stories are true or not. The people certainly believe them, in any case.
If the GM likes the idea of the Crown but doesn’t want to bother with the Castle, the crown might be placed in another place that’s more relevant to the campaign. As a lost artifact, it could turn up anywhere for any number of reasons.
Impressions
I like the dynamic with the different factions here. There’s a lot going on in this castle and as in any megadungeon the situation here feels a lot less stable than even the one in the city outside. PCs who come in here are definitely going to have a drastic effect whether they have themed ties to the place or not.
-
Let's Read Neverwinter: Blacklake District
The Blacklake district, named after the lake located here, was where most nobles of Neverwinter used to live. Pretty much all of them died in the fires of the cataclysm, but their very sturdy and well-built residences remained standing. They sheltered many of the city’s survivors during the following decades, even though the lake became a fetid, ash-choked pool.
Today, Blacklake is a rough-and-tumble place still largely outside of Neverember’s control. His forces have begun moving in and attempting to extend the Enclave to the district, but so far they have not met much success. This is, after all, where everyone who can’t stand his harsh rule lives.
Castle Never is located in Blacklake, and we will cover it in its own post.
The Driftwood Tavern
The place where everybody knows your name. The Driftwood tavern has been open since before the Cataclysm. Its owner, Madame Rosene, opened the tavern’s doors to shelter refugees in the event’s immediate aftermath, and it became a kind of makeshift city hall for the survivor community in the following years.
Today, the Madame is in her fifties and the tavern is filled with mementos and relics of Neverwinter That Was, making it a sort of museum. Both the place’s somber atmosphere and its high prices keep the Mintarn mercs at bay - the only customers are long-time regulars and old friends.
This suits Madame Rosene just fine, because the Driftwood Tavern is also the main headquarters of the Greycloaks faction of the Sons of Alagondar, which she leads.
A text box says that Madame Rosene would react positively to PCs who can recognize the historical and sentimental value of the Neverwinter relics that decorate her tavern, and that she might test their patience and resolve by sending them on seemingly pointless quests to recover more.
The Beached Leviathan
This tavern is actually built out of an old pirate ship that ran aground decades ago. Its owner Harrag was also the boat’s former captain. He presents himself as an adventuresome scallywag but the truth is Neverember owns him. Anything people say within earshot of him eventually makes its way to the lord.
The tavern also acts as the current residence of Len-Jes, a watersoul genasi who works as Neverember’s harbormaster. Her job includes keeping track of (and taxing) every ship at port, and also dredging the bay to open more berths for trade ships.
Len-Jes only took this job because if facilitates her second, much shadier source of income. The exact nature of that is up to the GM. Is she a spy for an Abeir trade house or pirate crew? Does she have buried treasure somewhere? Does she actually work for some other faction like the Harpers or the Ashmadai?
Vellgard Manor
Mordai Vell’s family home. They used to be a prominent Neverwinter noble family but they all died in the Cataclysm. Mordai Vell was the only survivor because, as a tiefling, he was a source of shame and was sent away from town. As the sole heir, he came back to reclaim his home shortly before Neverember arrived… and he brought his Ashmadai buddies with him.
Vell’s charisma and wealth soon secured him an informal community leadership role in the district, and there are those who think he’d make a fine lord of the city. I don’t think he ever made overt claims to the throne, but perhaps he will when his cult is in a strong enough position.
Vellgard Manor is very well fortified, and guarded by a small army of cultists and summoned devils. A direct assault would be difficult… but Vell likes to party, so the PCs might get in by arranging invitations to his latest social function. The devils are kept hidden during these. Of course, Vell is no fool, so he might allow the PCs to get in and spring a trap on them if they’re not subtle in their maneuvering.
House of a Thousand Faces
This tavern used to be a fancy boutique, and it’s still decorated with mannequins in old-fashioned clothing. It closed after the cataclysm and reopened as a tavern when the city’s population began to recover.
Its owner, the elf Theryis, is a member of the Harpers. Her brother Toram took over as the leader of the group once Cymril died. As mentioned elsewhere, these two are the sole remaining full Harpers in the city, and they aren’t predisposed to trust the PCs just because they’re PCs. Their default stance is to watch and test them until they prove themselves properly heroic, or until they bring evidence of the larger factions.
Toram, however, will attack the Harper Agent on sight because he’s convinced they were responsible for Cymril’s death. He was in love with her, you see… or, as the book puts it, she was seducing him before her supposed death. Make of that what you will.
Impressions
All those secret society HQs gathered up in one convenient neighborhood! In most campaigns the PCs are guaranteed to end up visiting one or more of them, either to talk to its owners or to raid them.
Blacklake is not quite the “bad” part of town, but it definitely has a different atmosphere from the Enclave. I’d portray it with a more “frontier” feeling - it’s a bit more dangerous and run-down, but also more free, and the residents’ opinion of Neverember is significantly worse even when they aren’t involved in organized resistance against him.
-
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.
-
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.
subscribe via RSS