Posts
-
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.
-
Let's Read Neverwinter: The Chasm
The southeast quadrant of Neverwinter is where a huge chasm opened during the cataclysm, a chasm which has been disgorging a constant stream of mutant monsters ever since. As if that wasn’t enough, staying near the rift for too long also makes people go mad. The other quadrants of the city only survive because they managed to isolate themselves from this one somehow.
The Ruined City
This isn’t a “bad part of town” like the River District. There’s nothing “town-like” about this expanse of ruined buildings and twisted streets. By setting foot in here you’re already on a proper dungeon delve. No one does this much any more, since few who try ever return and those who do come back changed.
PCs might be hired to search for someone who vanished here. Or they might end up sleepwalking here due to the Chasm’s influence and need to fight their way out. If they have a Spellscarred Harbinger, that character is going to feel an odd connection to the Chasm and a desire to explore it.
As we already learned from the faction descriptions, the Chasm goes all the way down to the Underdark, where it opens on an underground lake whose bottom houses a Spellplague pocket and the AbSov research base built around it. The Plaguechanged monsters are projects and rejects created by the aboleths - they have been growing more powerful and “efficient” as of late, as the creatures improve their designs.
Even if no other reason draws the characters to explore the Chasm region, they will eventually have to come here in a campaign where the AbSov is the greatest threat. Getting to them requires not only traversing the ruined city on the surface, but also going down the Chasm itself.
The Upper Reach
When descending the Chasm, the first few hundred feet might seem fairly mundane, but after that the landscape starts resembling the Elemental Chaos or Abyss more and more. Elemental energies surge up from the depths at irregular intervals. The walls are harder to climb, with handholds appearing and vanishing at random and occasional blasts of fire or wind erupting from them. Earthmotes abound, some drifting slowly and others bashing against the walls.
Monsters can be found climbing the walls or flying from the depths. Even those who have no flying ability can be seen floating up in bolts of chaos magic, particularly if they were sent to attack the surface.
Creeping Madness
At this point the Spellplague radiation is already so intense that characters are already at risk of contracting Creeping Madness, a magical disease similar to the plague itself. They must make a DC 10 Endurance check on every short or long rest to avoid contracting it. Further resistance rolls also use Endurance, with a Maintain DC of 10 and an Improve DC of 15.
Stage 1 inflicts a -2 penalty to Will and Initiative, and a +1 bonus to psychic attacks. Stage 2 eats a healing surge and inflicts -4 to Perception and Insight. Stage 3 inflicts a -2 penalty to all skill checks, and makes the victim’s attacks deal +1d6 psychic damage. Stage 4 drives you mad and makes you permanently dazed.
Unlike most diseases I think it’s possible to recover from the final stage through Endurance rolls. If a character fully recovers from stage 3 or later, they also gain a spellscar. The Spellscarred Harbinger has a +2 on all Endurance checks against this disease.
The Twisted Fane
This is the apparent bottom of the chasm, a broken wasteland whose rock pulses as if it was alive. There’s an alien-looking black fortress here, the Twisted Fane, which is built around an eerily shining crystal. The Fane is guarded by a colony of fouslpawn which will fight to repel any intruders they detect. The monsters attack on sight and fight to the death.
All of this is a ruse put in place by the Aboleths to stall any would-be heroes. They expect these interlopers to slay the disposable foulspawn, destroy the useless crystal, and go back home thinking they solved the problem of the Chasm. PCs can make several different skill tests to notice the crystal doesn’t have any actual power, the foulspawn are acting strangely because of mental domination, and that there are tunnels hidden in the area around the fortress, leading deeper underground.
Plaguechanged Warrens
This is an enormous chunk of rock wedged between the two walls of the Chasm. It could be moved by sufficient force, but only has room to go up. The top surface is where the Twisted Fane was built, and the inside is a maze of twisty passages that end in gross “breeding pits” where creatures are stuffed into fleshy cocoons and mutated by Spellplague magic directed by the Symphony of Madness. This is where all the plaguechanged monsters that attack the surface come from.
This deep into the chasm, characters have a -2 penalty to Endurance to resist creeping madness. At the bottom levels of the rock, they also start to hear the physical sounds of the Symphony of Madness, which inflicts a -2 penalty to Will on all non-aberrant creatures.
The Blue Cauldron
The underside of the Warrens opens into a large cavern mostly filled by an underground lake. The water glows blue and bubbles as if boiling due to the Spellplague pocket at the bottom.
There is no physical way to safely climb down to the water; characters must either fly or fall down the 60-foot drop. There is an “unfettered travel” magical effect put in place by the aboleths that lets them swim in the air inside this cave. Characters trained in Arcana might be able to hijack that and be able to swim through the air as if it was water.
At a depth of 20 feet, the PCs can find bubbles holding particularly interesting prisoners. At the bottom of the lake, is the research lab itself. Any characters who get to this cave will immediately draw the attention of the aboleths, both because they proved themselves a major threat and because they might make excellent research subjects. The aboleths themselves are quite powerful and might also be plaguechanged.
At this depth, characters have a -4 penalty to resist creeping madness.
Impressions
The surface of the Chasm could make for a decent hex- or point-crawling map as characters try to find a safe path to the rift itself. As described, it seems the Chasm itself is a very meaty dungeon delve. None of its separate areas described above get maps, so the GM can make maps that suit their purposes.
Sure, once you’re here you know you need to go down, but depending on how long the GM wants you to spend inside each of the named areas could vary in complexity from the equivalent of a single “room” with a big battle in it to an entire labyrinthine dungeon level where finding the way down is a significant challenge in itself.
-
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.
subscribe via RSS