Underworld Speculation

Underworld Speculation was a little module I got for free on Roll20, as they are very generous when it comes to giving users free resources, especially users that have pro level subscriptions. Evidently, it is a promo thing for Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Looks like you can get the pdf from DM's Guild. 

It's small, weird, and funny. Very much recommend it as a little "interruption" sort of mini-adventure. 

Anyway, the premise is that the players are in Waterdeep and wake up on a dim, rocky beach inside what appears to be a flooded cavern or sea cave with a sort of alien glowing object, and no recollection of how they got there. 

The DM notes state that the map should not be shown to the players, as it may give away too much. Indeed, I have read other DMs saying that it runs "theater of the mind" just fine. However, I am a great lover of fancy maps and my players enjoy them (in one case, absolutely rely on them). So I recreated the map myself and adjusted the dynamic lighting (remember, I run on a virtual tabletop exclusively these days) and token visibility to account for the visibility described in the module. Letting players only see what they can see in low visibility doesn't really allow them to take in the lay of the land enough to spoil the adventure.  I've run this at least twice with an adjusted map and it worked just like any other dungeon adventure map. 

Virtual tabletops with dynamic lighting do have decided perks. 

SPOILERS!

The glowing object in the cave is all that remains of an aboleth that was defeated by the Xanathar of Waterdeep, has been trapped in the cave, and really wants out. This orb can communicate telepathically, but only tells them it prefers to be called "Dawn's Beacon" and that it needs the players to help them escape the cave and will confer water breathing on the party if they agree to take it with them on their escape. 

The party will have to swim through an underwater cavern to reach the exit. These caves are filled with creepy "sea spawn", which are kind of sea-changed former prisoners of this cave system. They will have to fight their way past a flail snail in the exit of the cave to emerge into a wide, underwater landscape. They can see a small castle off in the distance on the sea floor. 

There are aggressive kelp creatures and hungry giant clams to navigate. A giant shadow appears overhead. Is that a whale? A giant shark? It's...orange...? 

My nephew, Taijitsu of the Rebels: "We're in a fishbowl."

A distorted, fang-mawed face appears dimly through the glassy surface of the "cliff" surrounding the rocky plain. It looks disturbingly like a beholder. Beyond the walls of the fishbowl lie what looks like a nicely appointed study. 

The players will have to do some serious wheeling and dealing with their new buddy, Dawn's Beacon, to get out of this one. Someone in the group may have to enter into a Geas with the thing before it's all said and done. I believe Sir Peter from the Rebels made one, as did Atalaya from the Class. The geas is this: At some point any time in the future, if you get a clear opportunity to kill the Xanathar, do it. 

I mean...the Xanathar is a powerful crime lord. It's not like anyone is being sent to kill the Easter Bunny. And the alternative ain't great, either, so...

The Rebels have a little more straightforward campaign, as they don't play every week and so go on fewer side quests. So they were returned to Riverport, where they were when they were snatched. And I keep their sessions to two hours, because I keep sessions to no more than two hours when kids are involved. So this is a fine two hour session. 

The Class (who's sessions are much longer because we are all a pack of stir-crazy adults) were in Waterdeep when this happened, and were also dumped back into the town where they were picked up. However, they ended up being dumped back into the hideout of what turned out to be a minor crime boss hiding out with his gang of were-rats in a sewer. 

I used an adventure from MDT 5e: Level 4 Adventures, which is a great bundle I picked up on Roll20 Marketplace. It has a collection of small, quick mini dungeons that make great side quests. I used the adventure Thelamos from that collection for the crime boss encounter. 

I made the crime boss to be not particularly murderous, but he was definitely an opportunist.  And kind of broke (given that he was running his base of operations out of a sewer). And here was Boz Boswell, who had a large bounty on his head in Waterdeep by both the crime underground and the constabulary alike, dumped into his lap like a nicely wrapped Yule present. So the Class ended up having to haggle over who was going to have custody of Mr. Boswell when the Class and the crime lord's minions parted ways. Atalaya put up a ridiculous amount of her personal gold to pay the crime lord off and the group beat a hasty retreat out of there.  

Ghosts of Saltmarsh: The Sinister Secrets of Saltmarsh

 Ghosts of Saltmarsh is a compilation of modules that can all work together as an overarching campaign. It comes with a well-fleshed out town and some nice hooks and story springboards. I recommend this collection for anyone running a campaign in a coastal area. The modules go up in level as they go, so you can easily use the modules as they become level-appropriate. 

In my own campaign, I have located the town on Saltmarsh a small distance north of the town of Daggerford (colloquially called "Riverport" in my world). As the Class of '81 find themselves in that area frequently, and the Riverport Rebels live in...wait for it...Riverport, this works great for both my campaigns. 

The first module in the series, The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is basically a Scooby Doo type of investigation of a haunted house on the edge of town. It's pretty simple and a fun little crawl, but the problem I have experienced with it is that if your group wants or needs a more meaningful hook besides "this is the adventure the DM prepared for this session", you're going to have to get a little creative. 

The hook for the Riverport Rebels was that Regus, the Duke's steward, says that the mayor of Saltmarsh is concerned about some weird going-ons in his town and has asked Duke Orsino, upon whose lands Saltmarsh resides, to send some resources to help him investigate, as some of these shenanigans were starting to affect business (namely, trade and shipping) in the town. 

For the Class of '81, I sent them word that the annual Greengrass festival was losing its main music venue, much to the horror and chagrin of Sorrow, Tifinin, and Ivar, who play in a band and were looking to make a little coin as a paid attraction for the music stage. The venue in question was on the grounds of an abandoned mansion, and things had gotten too weird and unstable on the property to use as a venue. So the organizers canceled the music fest. (Tif, Mactereh, Ivar, and myself were all playing in a real-life folk band at the time. So if this seems like a weak hook, I assure you it wasn't for this particular group of players!) And because Ivar's family home is in Saltmarsh, he always went home for his birthday anyway. So of course the Class was heavily invested in solving this mystery. 

SPOILERS AHEAD!

The haunted house is perched near a rock cliff overlooking the sea, with overgrown rosebushes and a crumbling stone wall  surrounding it. The players will have to fight their way through some angry Weasels of Unusual Size, giant centipedes, and possibly some giant snakes  as they explore the grounds. 

Upon entering the house itself, observant players will see that there are muddy footprints leading through the house, and in one case, mysteriously disappearing under a rug.

Yes, of course it's a trap door. This is D&D, after all. More on what's down there later. 

The house is falling into ruin, with holes in the roof and ominous sagging and creaking in the stairwell. In fact, Sir Peter (Riverport Rebels) fell through the landing when he reached the second floor. There's not much other than rotting furniture and mildew up on the second floor, but the players will discover a lantern near a window and some notes in a notebook. They may or may not figure out that the lantern could be used to cast a signal seaward.  There is also a dude named Ned, tied up as if he is a prisoner in the upstairs bedroom, who will be very thankful for being "freed" and then literally backstab the players first chance he gets. 

Unfortunately for him, he chose Stephanie (Riverport Rebels) for his target. Stephanie is very fond of Fireball, and she assisted him in going out in a blaze of glory. "I knew that guy was gonna turn over on us."

There are small bits of minor treasure on the second floor, including some valuable books (which is handy for the Class of '81, as they are planning on traveling to Candlekeep at some point.) But the real point of all this is in the basement. 

There are two ways down to the basement. One, through the aforementioned trapdoor. The other is through a secret door in the wine cellar. There, the players will discover a sort of barracks that, depending on how you want to set it up, may have a gang of smugglers there.  Either way, it's clear that someone is using this house as a base of operations. They will also find Sanbalet's personal chambers. Sanbalet is the annoying, self-important mastermind of what turns out to be a smuggling operation. The Class found a few more books inside, which they took with them. Whether or not they accept porn in Candlekeep remains to be seen.. 

There is also a door down there that has been very intentionally and enthusiastically sealed shut, with "DANGER" scrawled across the crosspiece. 

The Class, being the Class, opted to obey the sign and not mess with it. 

The Rebels, being the Rebels, opted to crack that sucker open and wade into the hoard of animated skeletons and the skeletal alchemist inside, blades and fireballs blazing. The alchemist's lab contains some questionable but interesting treasure. 

Through a hidden door in the basement, a winding sea-cavern meanders its way out to the cliff face overlooking the ocean. And to the hidden sea cave where the smugglers are sending and receiving boats filled with contraband. 

The players may have figured out how to use the signaling lantern in the upstairs. None of mine did entirely. So the smuggler's cargo ship, The Sea Ghost, that was approaching was dealt with by both my groups by sneaking aboard, lying to the crew about who they were, and, when the jig was up, brute force. 

What I like about ship combat in particular is that it's possible to use the multi-layer nature of a ship to really have a fun, chaotic battle. Players can jump down hatches, fight on stairs, climb rigging, shoot down from the forecastle, and in Taijitsu's (Rebels) case, grapple opponents and simply throw them over the side. 

Since the cargo ship was involved in crime, and since the Rebels claimed it, the Saltmarsh council told them it was their by right of salvage. If I'm being honest, I don't exactly remember what the Class did about the ship. I know they defeated the smugglers in the cave and turned Sanbalet over to the authorities, but as for the ship, they did not really attack it so much as do some recon on its part in the smuggling operation. What I do remember is Ivar (Class of 81) who himself had been on and off the crew of pirate ships, was disinclined to give the Captain a lot of grief out of pure professional respect. So the Class didn't end up taking the ship. 

So in a perfect Scooby ending, turns out the "ghost" was someone trying to scare away anyone trying
to intrude on their illicit operations. And these smugglers would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for these meddling adventurers. Jinkies!

The Story Thus Far, Part 1

 The Vault   

(spoilers for The Master’s Vault)

There was a great Master named Elaria Feywing, who lived in the little town of Parabor. She was an elf, and rumored to have been an adventurer in her day. She mostly kept to herself, but during the summer, would accept a small handful of youths to come help her about the place. In return, she taught them how to hone their natural skills, be it in music, woodcraft, magic, or martial activities. Word got out, and it came to be that being taken in by a summer student by Master Elaria carried a little status in the surrounding countryside. 

So one day in the spring of 1491 DR, the four alumni that had spent the summer of 1491 with the Master received word that the Master had passed away, so they returned to Parabor for her funeral. While in Parabor, they discovered that she had been murdered. Those now-adult students were Ivar Greenleaf, a half-elven sailor/privateer/pirate from the coastal village of Saltmarsh, Tifinin (just Tifinin), a halfling bard from a vanished shire, Macterah Danorae, a copper dragonborn druid from Abeir, and Atalaya Loravaris, a half-elven ranger from the High Forest. 

She had left instructions for them, requesting that they collect nine blue tiles that would allow them to open a vault on her property. Inside this vault would be important information she had left for them and them alone. Unfortunately, the nine blue tiles had been scattered throughout the valley and they'd have to go find them. Her old friend Alcaeus, a hermit that lived in the nearby Staircase Cliffs had a few of them, but they'd have to hunt down the rest.

Their travels through the vale included kobolds, a monstrous spider, and the unquiet specter of one of Master Elaria's contemporaries, but they finally assembled the collection of tiles and made their way back to the Master's house.

Upon opening the vault, they discovered that operatives of a cult called The Pact of the Lich had already infiltrated the property and were waiting for them. After a pitched battle, which involved undead, a murderous necromancer, and some unexpected booby traps laid by Elaria herself, the companions discovered a few magical items (including Elaria's sword) a portrait of Elaria's long-dead adventuring companions, and her journal.

They learned that the name "Elaria Feywing" was an alias and that their Master was, in fact, a Harper, and part of a faction striving to keep a dangerous artifact called The Eye of Death out of the hands of the Pact of the Lich, a dangerous cult that was threatening the entire valley and surrounding area. She gave hints as to where the Eye might be found, and charged the group, who she confessed were her favorite and most reliable students, with taking up the task of protecting the valley and either keeping the eye away from the cult or figuring out a way to destroy it. She also left them her house. 

The Library 

(spoilers for Tomb of Crossed Words)

After puzzling through the hints Elaria had left for them, the Class of '81 headed to Gillian's Hill, a tiny village to the west. She had reason to think the Pact would not return to that place to look for the Eye after having used a remote library there as a base in the past. It was dank, abandoned, and obviously cursed. They found the eye in a dusty urn in one of the rooms. They also found a spectator monster who had been cursed when the library had been cursed, and now suffered from amnesia. Pitying the creature, who they named Avalon (and who they to this day live in fear of his ever regaining his memory) and took him with them. They tasked him with hanging out in front of the vault and not letting anyone in but one of them. 

The Dryads 

(spoilers for The Fey Sisters' Fate)

The roads to and from Elaria's house cross through patches of fey-touched forest. Not exactly Feywild, but as close as one can get before crossing over. While traveling from Gillian's Hill, the group crossed through what can only be described as an occupation by a hostile force of a dryad's grove and the human village the dryads protected. One dryad was already dead, starved of water by a group of frogfolk who had dammed up the creek. The nearby villagers were in a state of panic, as many of their town guard (including their beloved captain) had gone missing. Investigating the situation, the four adventurers found themselves embroiled in a battle to free the imprisoned militia, drive off the frogfolk, and restore the remaining dryad. 

The Sea Wizard's Tower 

(spoilers for Pillars of Pelegia)

Seeing as how the Eye of Death was now in the possession of the Class of '81, they were understandably nervous about what to do about it and how to hopefully dispose of it. They were advised to seek out the council of Arcadianus, a sea wizard who had made his home in the sea-stacks of Pelagia,  headed south down the coast toward Blue Haven. 

So down to Pelagia the four of them went, only to discover that Arcadianus had been intercepted by a contingent of cultists, led by a powerful priestess, and unfortunately dispatched. So they were caught a bit unawares when they ended up having to battle her and her gang of koalinth. In the process, they managed to rescue and befriend Arcadianus' companion, a fussy sea pseudodragon named Myricia, who had been leaving them clues as to what was happening in the keep. 

Without the benefit of council from the wizard, and with the knowledge that the Pact was now frantically searching for the Eye, the party used the submersible they found in the basement to hide the Eye in a heavy trunk on the sea floor until they could try to get more information about it. Not unreasonably, they feared being overpowered by a superior force while the Eye was in their immediate possession.

Not having anywhere better to go, Myricia decided to accompany the party instead of staying alone in the keep. 

Underwillow

(spoilers for The Witch of Underwillow)

On the way back to Parabor, the coastal road has to go through a narrow pass in the hills, and in that pass is the small halfling village of Underwillow. Travelers through the pass often stay overnight in Underwillow, in the boisterous tavern called The Smoke Ring. So our intrepid heros stayed the night there on their way home.

While they were having supper, it came to their attention that a problem had arisen in the village...a witch had stolen a baby, and the mother, a strange, simple woman, was beside herself with grief. The halflings of Underwillow were afraid to challenge the witch, so the group decided to head into the forest to seek out the witch's lair and retrieve the child. 

They figured one witch shouldn't be too much trouble, but this particular witch was accompanied by a pack of particularly fearsome wargs. And worse, she knew about the Eye of Death. It seems that she knew more than she should have known, in fact, and was very interested in getting her hands on the artifact. 

And to the group's annoyed surprise, the "baby" they'd been sent to rescue turned out to be a doll. So they grabbed the doll and made their escape. 

Tifinin made an illusion of the Eye and used it as a decoy to buy the group time to get out of her lair, the wargs in hot pursuit.

Returning to The Smoke Ring, the party returned the woman's doll and angrily confronted the locals for sending them into harm's way over a doll. Apologies and explanations were in order, so the bar owner confessed that they had a particular soft spot for the mentally ill young woman who thought the doll was her child, but they felt fearful and helpless against the witch. Seeing how it all shook out, the discussion turned to the possibility that the witch had used the doll to bait the adventurers to her lair, somehow knowing that they might have had the Eye and that they were coming to Underwillow. 

The business with the doll and the witch resolved, a night of carousing in The Smoke Ring ensued, with Tifinin composing a new song entitled "Round" for the occasion. He had the tavern singing along with him before the night was done. 

Return to Parabor

(spoilers for Against the Cult of the Reptile God)

The party makes its way back to Parabor, and their newly-bequeathed house. When they enter the property, they saw a beautiful Gurrish vardo and a more rustic covered wagon in the yard. They were immediately on the defensive, knowing full well that the Pact was looking for them. 

The owners of the wagons were a handsome tiefling musician named Sorrow Trelenus of the House of Wendre, and an imposing half-orc archer named Joan of Gell. They claimed to be former students of the later Elaria Feywing, and were too far away when they got word of her death to make it to the funeral. They had come to Parabor anyway to pay their respects, and were expecting the two other members of their party to meet them there before they left. 

The Class was, needless to say, very suspicious about these unexpected visitors, but the strangers were respectful and did nothing to increase suspicion. So they were warily invited to supper and treated with guarded hospitality. 

True to their word, another vardo arrived that evening, containing a scruffy young Gurrish man named Vasilya "Boz" Boswell, and a motherly, grey-haired halfling named Seraphina Greenbottle. The four newcomers were sort of a patchwork "tribe" of misfits, it seemed, and it became fairly obvious that Boz was the unofficial chief. 

They had gotten word that Elaria had been murdered, and knew that they were interested in getting to the bottom of that, but were completely ignorant about the Eye and the cult. 

They learned about the Pact of the Lich sometime between the end of supper and the beginning of bedtime, when the cult showed up with a gang of undead zombies and attacked the house. 

Avalon kept anyone and anything from compromising the vault, but it was up to the Class and their four guests to defend the house and grounds. During the course of the attack, Sorrow and one of the cultists incapacitated each other, and one of the priestesses got to them before his rescuers did. He was captured and the cultists escaped with him using Elaria's rowboat. 

Reeling in frustration and fear for his tribesman, Boz revealed that could "see" where Sorrow was, and psionically searched for him, telling the rest of the group where to find him and his captors. He paid for the effort with a crushing headache, as happened when he forced his abilities instead of allowing them to happen naturally. 

The group found Sorrow and his captors, retrieving him and dispatching their foes. At that point,  the Class realized that their new allies were not part of the cult and were probably telling the truth. 

The Situation In Parabor

(spoilers for Against the Cult of the Reptile God)

By now, the combined group was worried about what was going on in Parabor, and they also needed some supplies. So they headed into town. 

It became fairly obvious very quickly that something was amiss. People were hiding in their house, staring at them from their yards, and either putting on disconcertingly cheerful fronts or meeting them with open hostility. A pall of paranoia pervaded the entire town. 

People had been disappearing almost nightly. Entire families seemingly taken in the night. After questioning the few people that would talk to them, the group was able to piece together the truth: the Pact of the Lich had managed to gain control of the town, and was violently recruiting the townsfolk. Either citizens would return as brainwashed zealots, or would disappear entirely and not return at all. 

The group determined that the local headquarters for this operation was the Temple of Merikka, located in the eastern edge of town, and one of the two taverns, the Golden Grain, which was located in the western part. The only people who seemed trustworthy was the Mayor and his family, two elven emissaries that had been sent to protect the Mayor, a ranger and his wife who owned a farm on the edge of town, and a wizened old wizard named Ramne who lived in a grove nearby. It seemed most everyone else were brainwashed cultists. 

In the course of cleaning out the temple the group discovered a young tween girl being kept in a cage by a mad priest, who forced her to endure his bad sculpting and worse poetry. Her name was Cirilli Finla, she said, and was the daughter of the shopkeepers. The shopkeepers were wholly in the cult, and Cirilli had no interest in returning to them. She begged the group not to make her go back, and they agreed to let her stay with them if she wished. 

Ramne had information about a second location in which he believed the cult was taking its victims in order to either brainwash or murder them. Being too physically feeble to accompany them on the journey there, he agreed to hide and care for Cirilli until the group could return. 

North to the Cult's Hideout

(spoilers for Against the Cult of the Reptile God)

After an unpleasant, days-long trek through rain and mud and a dark, bullywug infested swamp, Our Heroes make their way to the main headquarters of the Pact of the Lich. The outpost consisted of a series of wet, muddy tunnels cut into the mud and muck of the swamp. They made their way through, past all manner of disgusting creepy crawlies, crazed cultists, troglodytes and other horrors. It turned out that the brainwashing was being done by a Spirit Naga that was inhabiting a beach on an underground lake. 

After battling the naga and some of the more powerful operatives inhabiting the hideout, they freed the handful of prisoners they found being held captive, including Sandy and Summer Carpenter, who were friends of Cirilli, and also the two elves helping the Mayor, Dorian and Llewellyn. 

They made their way back to Parabor, determined to drive the remaining cultists from the town and hopefully allow the townsfolk time to shake off the mind control. 

The remaining cultists were holed up in the Golden Grain Inn. So the group headed over there to see what was going on. The main room in the inn was mostly empty, but the smell of cooking bacon wafted from the kitchen. So Tif stayed downstairs to talk to the cook, but the rest of the party went upstairs to look for more cultists. 

In the course of the ensuing conflict, Boz took a near-lethal shortsword to the chest and Tif beat the cook unconscious when the man attacked him with the hot pan full of bacon. Carrying the grievously wounded Boz out of the inn, the party discovered that Tif had covered the entire ground floor with angry graffiti.

Having dispatched/routed the cultists, the group stayed in the Slumbering Serpent for about a week while their friend recovered. 

The Festival in Saltmarsh

(spoilers for Ghosts of Saltmarsh: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh)

Sorrow wasn't happy. He had been booked to play at the Greengrass Festival in Saltmarsh, and the group traveled there with him, only to discover that the venue had been shut down due to "haunting" and "irregular goings-on" at the uninhabited mansion that sat on the grounds the town traditionally used as a music venue. It was too late for the town to find another venue, so the musicians were left without a gig. This was of particular disappointment to Tifinin and Ivar, as they had been accompanying Sorrow often and the three of them had more or less formed a band that sometimes performed under the name "Constant Sorrow."

So the group took it upon themselves to look into it and try to salvage the venue. 

Boz and Seraphina were making themselves scarce, and Boz's only explanation was that he had business in Saltmarsh he had to attend to. 

Ivar's family, the Greenleafs, lived in Saltmarsh. They were a wealthy farming family, headed by an Elven ex-adventurer named Cirdan Greenleaf, who had retired in the town and raised several generations of family there. They were overjoyed at Ivar's visit, and put the entire party up in their home.

After quite a bit of investigation and urban spelunking, it turned out that the house where the concerts were to take place had been quietly taken over by smugglers. These smugglers had been giving the illusion of the house being haunted to keep people out while they ran their nefarious business out of the basement and the secret sea tunnels underneath. So they confiscated the cargo (which happened to be bolts of silk) and scattered the smugglers, bringing in the constabulary to help.

The town was overjoyed that the concert was back on at the normal venue. Constant Sorrow played a profitable gig, and despite Boz's obvious but uncharacteristic case of nerves, everyone had a fun day at the festival. Later that night, they retired to the Greenleaf estate. 

Later that night, Seraphina breathlessly returned in a frantic state. She and Boz had been jumped in The Empty Net Tavern by Captain Jade Hawk and her crew, the pirates manning The Witch of Swords. Hawk was a friend of Boz's, but apparently, something had gone terribly wrong. Seraphina knew her drink had been drugged. She managed to shrug it off, but Boz was not so lucky. Outnumbered and alone, she had fled back to the estate to get help.

The group charged down to the docs and boarded the ship by force. Boz was tied up and nearly unconscious in the hold, along with a captured Sea Elf named Oceanus. Wresting control of the ship away from the mostly drunken crew, the Class chased or tossed their foe from the ship and sailed it out of the harbor, Ivar at the helm.

As it turned out, Boz was fencing a shipment of stolen silk that was supposed to end up on Hawk's ship. When the silk didn't show up, she decided she had bills to pay herself and that taking Boz to Waterdeep to collect the bounty on his head would be an easy enough way to pay them. 

Oceanus was an emissary from the Sea Elves, on his way to discuss an alliance of some sort with the town council at Saltmarsh. He didn't really understand why or how he ended up in the hold of the Witch of Swords, but he had a suspicion that it might have had something to do with the business he had in town, which he didn't disclose. Either that, he figured, or he was simply the victim of a press gang. In either case, he was grateful for being rescued and thanked the party profusely.

Since the Witch of Swords had been confiscated by the Class while it was in the process of committing a crime, and since Hawk was a known pirate, the captain of the militia told the group that the ship was theirs by right of salvage, a fact that made Ivar extremely happy. He'd been telling his folks he was a respectable sailor so they wouldn't find out he'd been a pirate, so this worked pretty well to support that claim.

They repainted the ship and renamed her the Hond Ebrath.

The Truth about Mr. Boswell

Atalaya wasn't entirely happy with the news that one of her companions was dealing in stolen contraband. Particularly when she considered that he was doing illegal shenanigans right alongside the group and without their knowledge. She had often been paired with Boz for night watches, as it was their habit to watch in pairs, with at least one member of each pair being someone able to see in the dark. So the fact that he was doing dodgy dealings and she didn't know didn't sit well. 

So she made a point to talk to him about it when the opportunity presented itself. And he was utterly embarrassed at having to be rescued. So he was contrite and humbled when she approached him. 

What she learned was that he was a fence, and pretty well entrenched in the criminal underbelly of many of the coastal towns. And he was wanted in Waterdeep for quite a bit of money.

The Waterdeep crime underground had put a price of 500 gold on his head for running a grift without properly cutting them in. The Waterdeep constabulary had put the same price on his head for the same reason.

So Boz didn't really go to Waterdeep anymore.

Atalaya made him promise no more underhanded secret dealings. She reasoned that there was no reason to do crime. They'd made quite a bit of money in the last couple months, enough to make sure everyone would be taken care of, at least for a while.  He agreed that the last thing he wanted to do was put the group in danger. 

What's Up With Duke Orsino?

(spoilers for The Brain-Gorger's Appetite)

The group headed up to Riverport (The nickname of the Town of Daggerford) to deliver some cabbages for Ivar's older brother Raven, and also because they needed to do some serious shopping. While they were there, they visited The Green Goblin, the non-human tavern in the eastern part of the town. While they were there, they were recognized by two of the halflings working at the tavern, a pair of halfling siblings named Bluebell and Bodie Hardcheese. They remembered the group from The Smoke Ring because they happened to be in that tavern the night Tif had everyone singing "Round." So the entire group got the rock star treatment. 

The tavern folk were pretty concerned about what was going on in town of late, namely the fact that Duke Orsino, who was in charge of the town, was behaving more erratically than usual and it was causing quite a bit of trouble for the town and for the surrounding villages that depended on trade with it. 

They worked with Captain Mercutio to infiltrate the ducal mansion as guards and employees. While they were there, an botched attempt was made on the life of the Duke's sister, who had come to town and was running things until they could get Orsino straightened out.

It started becoming apparent that a criminal organization called The Ceaseless had infiltrated the duke's household and were running some sort of activity in the town. What it could be was not clear. What was worse, the group discovered that the Duke's trusted steward, Regus, had been kidnapped and replaced by a doppelganger. 

After rescuing Regus, the group tracked some of the criminals to an iron foundry called the Brick, just outside of town. There they dispatched the criminals and returned to the Green Goblin, only to discover that the Ceaseless had put out a hit on them. Their friends at the Goblin were locked in an upstairs bedroom, and assassins were waiting to kill them in the common room. All hell broke loose. Sorrow was stabbed and Macterah ended up chasing the last hitman down the street, taking him down with a crossbow bolt to the back.

The group retreated to their ship, tended to Sorrow, and figured out what to do next.

The next day, using itel supplied by Captain Mercutio and Regus, the group set out for the copper mine in the nearby hills. They enlisted the help of a runty, oddly pacifistic kobold named Grinda to distract the kobold guards to gain entry into the mine. There they discovered the truth about what the Ceaseless were doing in Riverport.

A by-product of copper mining is azurite. And azurite is like high-grade coke to a Mind-Flayer. The bad news was that that was exactly what was overseeing the mine operations for the Ceaseless. The good news was that he was absolutely tripping balls when the Class discovered his base of operations in the back of the copper mine.

So instead of being killed outright, they actually managed to barely survive the horrifying battle that took place between the group, the flayer, and the flayer's cerebral stalker allies.

Boz was tackled and brutally bitten by one of the stalkers, tearing a deep rent in his shoulder and contaminating the wound with azurite. After the battle, he managed to walk out of the mine under his own steam, and the group, bedraggled, beaten, and exhausted, made their way back to the Hond Ebrath.

While they were in Daggerford, they made a stunning discovery: Kay Palantir, one of Master Elaria's own companions that had been lost in the taking of the Library in Gillain's Hill, was not only still alive, but living there in the city, as mindwiped and amnesiac as Avalon. 

The Vision

Aboard the ship, Boz took a bit of a turn for the worse during the night. Perhaps it was the fever, or perhaps it was the azurite he'd been exposed to, but he went into a ranting delirium in the dark hours, muttering in Gurrish and repeating over and over, "Wave. Whelm. Blackrazor." Nobody knew what he was talking about. It took Sorrow using a Comprehend Languages spell to figure out that he was talking about "destroying the Eye."

It was that night that the Class decided that it was probably about time to let Boz's tribe know about the Pact of the Lich.

Against the Cult of the Reptile God

Against the Cult of the Reptile God is definitely an oldie but a goodie. It's got a lot going on with it and you will get a lot of hours out of it if you choose to run it for your group. This is not a side quest by any stretch.

For the Class of '81, I set the location for this module in the same place that I located the Masters Vault and the Class of 81's home base, which is the town of Parabor. So they are definitely motivated to get to the bottom of what is going on with their town.

In the Riverport Rebels campaign, Regus, the Duke's steward, requested that they go out to the town because several people were going missing and the mayor had requested the Duke's help in getting to the bottom of the town's problems.

And I changed the "reptile god" part to it being a larger faction of the undead cult that is the nemesis of the Class of '81. With that minor change, it fit really well into my campaign.

Spoilers! 

The town's problem is that it has been infiltrated by an evil cult that is brainwashing the townspeople to become evil savants, ready to do harm to those who are not in the cult.

Ironically, I opted not to run another module that was based on a plague. I figured we needed a break from plagues. So instead we did an oppressive cult that turns its members into mindless zombies. Please enjoy this irony with me.

An interesting thing about this module is that it could go one of three ways depending on what the players do. It could be a straightforward battle against the evil cult. It could be a rescue if the players get separated and some of them get captured. Or it could be an escape, if the entire party gets captured. It could literally go either way.

So anyway, this is a module that starts out with a good bit of role-playing. The players can spend a lot of time in the town talking to various people and gathering clues. There is also the potential for combat if the players are not diplomatic and careful. One of the two taverns is being used as a town base for the cult.

Some of the townsfolk are not in the cult and could potentially be good allies for the players. In fact, the other tavern is run by some good honest folks. The Riverport Rebels were actually advised by one of these allies to not split up and not eat or drink anything if they went into the bad tavern. Literally the first thing they did when they walked in was forget that advice. Tijitsu and Peter plopped down at the bar and ordered lunch and Stephanie went exploring upstairs.

So of course she got jumped by cultists. Alerted by her screams, the men leaped  to their feet before they could eat (and get drugged) and ran upstairs, joining the fray. Stephanie, seeing that her companions had the fight well at hand, used all of her actions to set the tavern on fire. It ended up burning to the ground.

The Class of '81 were only marginally more careful. They are a lot more cautious as a group than the Rebels are. However Tifinin was nearly seduced by the bacon being fried in the kitchen. He opted to stay behind when the rest of the group poked around elsewhere, and was surprised by the cook, who threw the pan of bacon at him in a surprise attack.

The rest of the Class returned to find Tifinin in a wild rage. He had defeated and tied up the cook, found a can of red paint in the basement, and covered the first story of the tavern in rude graffiti. The unconscious cook had "bacon waster" written across his chest in red paint.

If you run a game in Roll20, the first thing your players will learn how to do is put graffiti on your maps. I almost fell out of my chair when I scrolled the map down and saw what he had done.

The players will eventually find their way to the corrupted temple. There are three levels to that. This is where the Class of '81 picked up the non-player character Cirilli, who is now a permanent part of the campaign. She is a module NPC That one of the priests had locked up in a cage and who was resistant to the brainwashing.

From there, the players will go on a long trek through the wilderness to a muddy subterranean outpost that the cult is using for its brainwashing facility. There are prisoners here as well as cultists and a variety of creepy crawlies, troglodytes, and other creatures. At the end of this will be a few increasingly difficult encounters involving undead, a necromancer, and a spirit naga. 

I like this dungeon because it's interesting terrain.  It's very muddy and water filled. Part of it is so flooded the players will have to use rowboats to get through it.

There is something for everyone here, so while it's a very old module, there's a very good reason it's still around.  

The Pillars of Pelagia

 

The Pillars of Pelagia by Chris Doyle is my daughter's favorite module so far. It's got a lot going for it. A cool setting at the rocky seaside cliff lair of a wizard, lots of thematic puzzles, an intricate, interesting dungeon map, and a high-stakes boss fight. I ran this for the Riverport Rebels in person, around a live table, and had made all the puzzles into actual hands-on escape-room type challenges. When I ran it later for the Class of  '81, I had re-invented all the puzzles into formats that could be worked in real time on the Roll20 virtual tabletop.

When I ran this for the Rebels, the hook was that Duke Orsino, their patron and employer, had sent them to deliver a mysterious note to his friend the Countess in Blue Haven to the south. Now, I'd made an actual note to give to the players. It was on parchment and sealed with red wax, so I figured my daughter, who plays a fast-talking grifter of a sorceress, would naturally pop the seal as soon as she was out of sight of the town and dig right in. 

This plan was almost foiled by my husband, playing an uptight paladin, who declared that it would be wrong to violate the Duke's trust by breaking the wax seal on the later. 

I mean, he wasn't wrong. 

Anyway, after much argument, the seal was broken and the letter was found to contain an embarrassingly bad bit of love poetry. And after much mocking and hooting, the poetry was discovered to be an acrostic telling the Countess that the Duke was in trouble and needed her help. 

So off to Blue Haven they went, and Countess sent them to seek out the wizard Arcadianus, her advisor and helper, and escort him back to Riverport to help the Duke. 

When I ran this module for the Class, I believe the hook was simply that they were supposed to seek out Arcadianus to advice on what to do with the Eye of Death, and maybe how to destroy it, since it was now in their possession and they were a little freaked out. 

SPOILERS: The players must get past an angry harpy to enter the keep, where a convoluted, multi-level keep features all kinds of interesting puzzles and challenges that will keep a party of adventurers on their toes, exploring and thinking. A trail of clues left by the wizard's pet faery dragon, Myricia, leads them on while telling them an increasingly urgent story about what's going on in the keep. 

The module as written has Arcadianus dead already, and the players confronted with having to battle a drow priestess with a contingent of koalinth and goblin sharks. Myricia has been captured and is in a cage, about to be roasted alive. 

When I ran it for the Rebels, Arcadianus was still alive, and hiding in the underwater trunk that is in the water below this chamber. When the Class ran, it was closer to how it was written and he was dead already. Also, since the Rebels consists of two kids who were pretty young at the time we ran it, no cute little faery dragons can be burned to death in front of them. This is D&D, not How-To-End-Up-Paying-For-Therapy-Later. 

Anyway, this module contains a mechanical submersible! It's supposed to only hold one person, but when young kids want to excitedly pile in and drive it back to Riverport, you let that happen. They named it the "S.S. Bumblecrab" and drove it home. 

The Class didn't do that. They used the submersible to hide the Eye of Death underwater in the ocean until they could get some intel on what to do with it or how to destroy it. They did, however, take Myricia with them when they left. 

Back to The Riverport Rebels page.