Early Sessions, mixed up reports.
General Summary
Day 1
The player characters met outside Stonehill inn:
Gnomengarde is a gnomish enclave only a short distance into the upper foothills of the Sword Mountains. The three novice adventurers followed the straight-forward directions up a narrow gulley and found the glade of multicoloured giant mushrooms that stands outside Gnomengarde.
Exploring the caves behind this, the party got hit by an autocrossbow turret, which was in the process of being fixed by a monomaniacally focused gnomish mechanic named Faktore. They then spoke to other gnomes in the kitchen, (Red mushrooms are squeezed for lamp oil, green mushrooms are ground into bread, and purple mushrooms are fermented into wine) and in the workshop. They ended up finding and killing the mimic who was terrorising the settlement.
As reward, they were given a bunch of minor magical devices, including a clockwork amulet, a pole of collapsing (not the more suggestive 'rod of extending'), a wand of pyrotechnics (harmless fireworks) and a hat of wizardry (which they later sold for 50gp). Tharg also persuaded them to let him make some mushroom wine, which turned out to be of 'excellent' quality.
The party walked back toward Phandalin, finding four handfuls of white lichen as forage on the way.
Looking at the other quest bulletin slips they took, the party decided to visit Adabra Gwynn’s windmill on the way back. It was being savaged by a manticore.
The party talked to the manticore, called Zanthor, and persuaded it to hunt deer with Tharg instead of eating people.
While that happened, Anathema and Herdyr escorted Adabra back to Phandalin, where she picked up a friend, Burr, who could stay with her as a bodyguard, and they returned to the windmill.
After a satisfied Zanthor left, full of venison, Adabra gave Anathema an untranslated book of herbs and potion recipes. Adabra informed them that the lichen they foraged was Frost Lichen, which can be used to make potions related to cold. They sold it to her, along with some discarded maniticore tail spikes, as potion ingredients.
Day 2
After resting overnight at the inn, (free of charge thanks to a deal worked out involving the rights to sell 'Tharg'-branded mushroom wine,) the party headed to the third location indicated on the quest board, and found a ruined dwarven village with an archaeological excavation in progress.
There were two dwarven prospectors, Norbus Ironrune and Dazlyn Greyshard, who were both freaked out at what they'd found.
The ruined village sat in front of a (previously) sealed temple to Abbathor, the dwarven god of greed, and was infested with Ochre Jellies.
The party cleared out the temple to Abbathor and got a pair of sending stones as reward from the dwarf couple. As loot from the temple, they also found 150gp worth of gemstones and a gaudy Abbathor necklace (a gem encrusted dagger) worth 50gp.
In conversation with the dwarves, they found out about Abbathor, the dwarf god of greed and protection of treasures. He is generally seen as evil, and can be appeased with offerings of spilling blood and gemstones, particularly under an eclipse. He is thought to collapse mines and tunnels if angered, and will transform those who displease him into jellies.
Day 3
They rested for the night, but on leaving the ruins they discovered they were trapped by the approach of a group of orcs at the valley's mouth. Quickly they snuck back and re-sealed the temple, then using Tharg’s patented intimidation-diplomacy, they talked their way past the orcs, who were 'given permission' by the impressive warrior Tharg, to settle their orc band in the village ruins, providing no one ever disturbs the sealed vault behind it.
The party headed back to Phandalin and dropped the two dwarves off at the miner’s exchange. They then celebrated their successful completion of their first two quests together with a drink at the inn.
Day 4
Finding a new quest on the board, the party was told that Butterskull Ranch, down the Triboar Trail had been overrun by orcs and the owner, Alfonse Kalazorn, needed rescuing. The party set off for the ranch, camping in a roadside meadow (day 5) and then in the Conyberry ruins (day 6), finding the lost prized cow 'Petunia' from the ranch. In her downtime on the road, (i.e. camped,) Anathema translated the title of her book as 'On the Herbs and Tinctures of Illefarn'.
At the ranch, they sneaked into the farmhouse cellar and rescued the owner, 'Big Al', but decide not to chance fighting the orcs. They noted the forge at butterskull was salvageable, and able to make large equipment, but too big to move. Big Al told them that he was previously a sheriff in Triboar.
Day 7
They retreated, first to Conyberry and then travelled back to Phandalin (day 8). Once there Alfonse Kalazorn, colloquially known as 'Big Al', started raising a posse (Harbin Wester suggested it) to take back his farm.
The party met a pair of elvish women, Thelia Venthorthar, a moon elf glass-crafter, and Lluranu Rainpetal, a bard and musician. Taking positive indicators from meeting a cleric of Corellon (Herdyr), they decided to stay in Phandalin for a while, and look for somewhere to set up a house together.
Lluranu has some experience with adventuring and bardic magic, so she decided to join the posse. Thelia is a craftswoman, not a fighter and stayed in town.
Dazlyn and Norbus were questioned, but they said they were just archaeologists and would not be much help. Big Al knew some experienced characters from town and listed some names, "Ruby Hammerwhacker", a dwarf warrior spellcaster, "Inverna Nightbreeze", an elf ranger who hates orcs (who might have an issue with Tharg), "Nib Addlespur", a halfling wizard with a weakness for wagers, and "Quinn Hightopple", another halfling, a warrior who likes punching tall-folk in the groin. He says he'll ask around and see who is available.
Meanwhile, the party checked out the second new questboard bulletin: To escort a new overseer to Mountain's Toe goldmine. To keep in touch, they left one of the speaking stones with Big Al.
Day 9
The party headed out with Don Jon Raskin, the manager, along the sword mountain foothills.
Day 10
Late in the day they reached the mines and parlayed with the wererats that had taken up residence there. The guard wererats told them this was now the den of the Whiskered Gang, previously of residing in Neverwinter.
One guard took a shine to Tharg, admiring his big teeth, and let them through to talk to Zeleen Varnaster, the female lycanthrope gang leader.
Apparently, almost all the dwarven miners were dead, after killing each other off in a takeover bid and when they arrived, no-one objected to their taking over the first few chambers of the mine. The gang later fought the remaining miners against being ejected, and managed to hole them up in a portion of the mine.
The store room near the entrance to the mine contained food and water supplies which the gang immediately claimed for themselves. On searching the office, Anathema found blackmail material that could be used against investors in Neverwinter. Down one tunnel they came across a carrion crawler, a territorial caterpillar-like monster that has paralytic attacks and eats putrid flesh.
They found some gold nuggets as loot, and a pair of 'Goggles of Night', useful for Anathema, who was previously the only party member unable to see in the dark. They also talked through a door to some remaining dwarves, and found a new graveyard outside the other end of the mine where someone wrote despairingly of the goings on in the mine, declaring they would retreat into the wilderness to commune with their god.
During the night, the remaining miners/cultists appeared, trying to circle around to attack the front of the mine, but finding the party's camp instead.
They reveal themselves to be under the influence of Abbathor, and the ringleaders, of clan Brinkmine, all die in the ensuing fight. One dwarf was still alive, but mortally wounded at the end of the fight, and was saved by being bitten carefully by a were-rat and turned into one of them. Dwarves, being generally sturdier, are less succeptible to lycanthropy so this was a lucky result.
Day 11
Don Jon Raskin came to an agreement with Varnaster to provide living space and employment for the gang, while miners continue to work the mine. Raskin ended up slightly were-rattish and worked out a plan with the gang.
Through the Sending Stone, the party got a message that the posse had set out. They escorted Don Jon back to Phandalin, but left straight away to catch up with the posse. On the way back, they saw the white dragon in the distance behind them, swooping down from the sky and picking up a wild animal to eat. Their brief stop in town told them that the posse was a day ahead of them but travelling slowly.
Day 12
While camping, they saw an equine figure in the distance and through some improbable animal handling, they enticed it to come closer. They introduced themselves to Jessica, a unicorn who lives nomadically between Neverwinter Woods and the foothills around the west of the Sword Mountains. She informed them that a fairy was looking for Herdyr in the Neverwinter woods. She also gave the cryptic comment that the white dragon, Cryovain, was laired in 'Amzarr's fortress'.
Day 13
The party scared away 5 hungry wolves on the road, then met up with the posse before camping with them in Conyberry ruins.
During camp, the party noted that the locally foraged vegetables tasted funny. This was discussed by the more experienced adventurers as being caused by the spellplague decades ago, which swapped parts of the world (Toril) with another world entirely (Abeir). Most were fixed when magic started working properly again, but some pockets of exotic vegetation, foreign earth and weird magic remained in places.
The party were introduced to other members of the posse: Lluranu the elven bard who was wielding an enchanted glass sword; Shanjan Kwan, a human male spellcaster with a morbid yet self-important perspective; Nib Addlespur, a cheery halfling wizard with a pet goldfinch; Inverna Nightbreeze, the brooding elf ranger with a hatred for orcs. Big Al was armed with a crossbow and longsword.
Around the camp, people talked of different gods. Someone described Talos as the god of destruction, overseeing thunder and lightning, fire, plagues and natural disasters. Shanjan talked about Myrkul, previously the god of the dead, saying Myrkul was holder of the secrets of the dead, and judged which mortals went to heaven and which went to hell. Inverna described Gruumsh as the evil god of orcs. He hates other races and encourages orcs to kill everyone else.
Day 14
Getting to the ranch, the posse encountered three wolf-like monsters called worgs left to howl warnings if anyone approached the farm. Instead, Tharg befriended them, and persuaded the worgs, who weren't well treated anyway, to abandon the orcs and not raise any alarm. I think he bribed them with food.
Setting up carefully, the party then goaded the orcs into rushing out of the farmhouse into a fight facing a well prepared posse. The nine regular orcs gave the posse no trouble, and the two others, one dressed in red weilding a staff, and one dressed in black leather armour wielding a bow, gave them only slightly more.
Butterskull Ranch was fairly battered after being inhabited by orcs for several days. Big Al decided to clear out to Phandalin.
It took Big Al several days to gather all the salvageable belongings and escaped farm animals and take it all back to town. He and several posse members stay to do that, while the party headed straight back to town. The posse talked of setting up a permanent 'defense against orc horde' garrison in the uninhabited Conyberry ruins.
Anathema claimed the orc scout's black armour, which was made (not enchanted?) to be silent, giving a bonus to the wearer's stealth, athough she needed to get this retooled before it would fit her, which she could do when she next visited Phandalin. The three worgs followed Tharg and Lluranu back to town.
Day 15
The party camped by the road and made it back to town with no hassle. They stopped at the Lionshield Coster, leaving the armour to be reworked, and at the Stonehill Inn to pick up the profits from 'Tharg' brand mushroom wine. Lluranu the bard turned out to have a (possibly supernatural) Snow-White-like ability to get along with animals, and was willing to take care of the worgs while they stayed in town. One of them, now named Smiles, preferred to follow Tharg. Big Al gave the party his mithril chain mail as payment for the three of them taking part in the raid. This ended up as Herdyr's armour. He also promised to share any proceeds on selling the other orc armour and weapons once that was done.
In Phandalin, the party met Squats, a halfling rogue and Anathema’s previous companion. She was setting herself up as a go-between and information merchant in Phandalin, while she waited in hope for Anathema to agree to help with the fallout from the gang’s activities.
Rumours around town spoke of:
The player characters met outside Stonehill inn:
- An elven cleric with a fey presence- Herdyr Greymoir,
- a human rogue with ethics issues from the city- Anathema Summerbrace,
- and a half-orc druid from a barbarian tribe- Tharg who is Wise.
Gnomengarde is a gnomish enclave only a short distance into the upper foothills of the Sword Mountains. The three novice adventurers followed the straight-forward directions up a narrow gulley and found the glade of multicoloured giant mushrooms that stands outside Gnomengarde.
Exploring the caves behind this, the party got hit by an autocrossbow turret, which was in the process of being fixed by a monomaniacally focused gnomish mechanic named Faktore. They then spoke to other gnomes in the kitchen, (Red mushrooms are squeezed for lamp oil, green mushrooms are ground into bread, and purple mushrooms are fermented into wine) and in the workshop. They ended up finding and killing the mimic who was terrorising the settlement.
As reward, they were given a bunch of minor magical devices, including a clockwork amulet, a pole of collapsing (not the more suggestive 'rod of extending'), a wand of pyrotechnics (harmless fireworks) and a hat of wizardry (which they later sold for 50gp). Tharg also persuaded them to let him make some mushroom wine, which turned out to be of 'excellent' quality.
The party walked back toward Phandalin, finding four handfuls of white lichen as forage on the way.
Looking at the other quest bulletin slips they took, the party decided to visit Adabra Gwynn’s windmill on the way back. It was being savaged by a manticore.
The party talked to the manticore, called Zanthor, and persuaded it to hunt deer with Tharg instead of eating people.
While that happened, Anathema and Herdyr escorted Adabra back to Phandalin, where she picked up a friend, Burr, who could stay with her as a bodyguard, and they returned to the windmill.
After a satisfied Zanthor left, full of venison, Adabra gave Anathema an untranslated book of herbs and potion recipes. Adabra informed them that the lichen they foraged was Frost Lichen, which can be used to make potions related to cold. They sold it to her, along with some discarded maniticore tail spikes, as potion ingredients.
Day 2
After resting overnight at the inn, (free of charge thanks to a deal worked out involving the rights to sell 'Tharg'-branded mushroom wine,) the party headed to the third location indicated on the quest board, and found a ruined dwarven village with an archaeological excavation in progress.
There were two dwarven prospectors, Norbus Ironrune and Dazlyn Greyshard, who were both freaked out at what they'd found.
The ruined village sat in front of a (previously) sealed temple to Abbathor, the dwarven god of greed, and was infested with Ochre Jellies.
The party cleared out the temple to Abbathor and got a pair of sending stones as reward from the dwarf couple. As loot from the temple, they also found 150gp worth of gemstones and a gaudy Abbathor necklace (a gem encrusted dagger) worth 50gp.
In conversation with the dwarves, they found out about Abbathor, the dwarf god of greed and protection of treasures. He is generally seen as evil, and can be appeased with offerings of spilling blood and gemstones, particularly under an eclipse. He is thought to collapse mines and tunnels if angered, and will transform those who displease him into jellies.
Day 3
They rested for the night, but on leaving the ruins they discovered they were trapped by the approach of a group of orcs at the valley's mouth. Quickly they snuck back and re-sealed the temple, then using Tharg’s patented intimidation-diplomacy, they talked their way past the orcs, who were 'given permission' by the impressive warrior Tharg, to settle their orc band in the village ruins, providing no one ever disturbs the sealed vault behind it.
The party headed back to Phandalin and dropped the two dwarves off at the miner’s exchange. They then celebrated their successful completion of their first two quests together with a drink at the inn.
Day 4
Finding a new quest on the board, the party was told that Butterskull Ranch, down the Triboar Trail had been overrun by orcs and the owner, Alfonse Kalazorn, needed rescuing. The party set off for the ranch, camping in a roadside meadow (day 5) and then in the Conyberry ruins (day 6), finding the lost prized cow 'Petunia' from the ranch. In her downtime on the road, (i.e. camped,) Anathema translated the title of her book as 'On the Herbs and Tinctures of Illefarn'.
At the ranch, they sneaked into the farmhouse cellar and rescued the owner, 'Big Al', but decide not to chance fighting the orcs. They noted the forge at butterskull was salvageable, and able to make large equipment, but too big to move. Big Al told them that he was previously a sheriff in Triboar.
Day 7
They retreated, first to Conyberry and then travelled back to Phandalin (day 8). Once there Alfonse Kalazorn, colloquially known as 'Big Al', started raising a posse (Harbin Wester suggested it) to take back his farm.
The party met a pair of elvish women, Thelia Venthorthar, a moon elf glass-crafter, and Lluranu Rainpetal, a bard and musician. Taking positive indicators from meeting a cleric of Corellon (Herdyr), they decided to stay in Phandalin for a while, and look for somewhere to set up a house together.
Lluranu has some experience with adventuring and bardic magic, so she decided to join the posse. Thelia is a craftswoman, not a fighter and stayed in town.
Dazlyn and Norbus were questioned, but they said they were just archaeologists and would not be much help. Big Al knew some experienced characters from town and listed some names, "Ruby Hammerwhacker", a dwarf warrior spellcaster, "Inverna Nightbreeze", an elf ranger who hates orcs (who might have an issue with Tharg), "Nib Addlespur", a halfling wizard with a weakness for wagers, and "Quinn Hightopple", another halfling, a warrior who likes punching tall-folk in the groin. He says he'll ask around and see who is available.
Meanwhile, the party checked out the second new questboard bulletin: To escort a new overseer to Mountain's Toe goldmine. To keep in touch, they left one of the speaking stones with Big Al.
Day 9
The party headed out with Don Jon Raskin, the manager, along the sword mountain foothills.
Day 10
Late in the day they reached the mines and parlayed with the wererats that had taken up residence there. The guard wererats told them this was now the den of the Whiskered Gang, previously of residing in Neverwinter.
One guard took a shine to Tharg, admiring his big teeth, and let them through to talk to Zeleen Varnaster, the female lycanthrope gang leader.
Apparently, almost all the dwarven miners were dead, after killing each other off in a takeover bid and when they arrived, no-one objected to their taking over the first few chambers of the mine. The gang later fought the remaining miners against being ejected, and managed to hole them up in a portion of the mine.
The store room near the entrance to the mine contained food and water supplies which the gang immediately claimed for themselves. On searching the office, Anathema found blackmail material that could be used against investors in Neverwinter. Down one tunnel they came across a carrion crawler, a territorial caterpillar-like monster that has paralytic attacks and eats putrid flesh.
They found some gold nuggets as loot, and a pair of 'Goggles of Night', useful for Anathema, who was previously the only party member unable to see in the dark. They also talked through a door to some remaining dwarves, and found a new graveyard outside the other end of the mine where someone wrote despairingly of the goings on in the mine, declaring they would retreat into the wilderness to commune with their god.
During the night, the remaining miners/cultists appeared, trying to circle around to attack the front of the mine, but finding the party's camp instead.
They reveal themselves to be under the influence of Abbathor, and the ringleaders, of clan Brinkmine, all die in the ensuing fight. One dwarf was still alive, but mortally wounded at the end of the fight, and was saved by being bitten carefully by a were-rat and turned into one of them. Dwarves, being generally sturdier, are less succeptible to lycanthropy so this was a lucky result.
Day 11
Don Jon Raskin came to an agreement with Varnaster to provide living space and employment for the gang, while miners continue to work the mine. Raskin ended up slightly were-rattish and worked out a plan with the gang.
Through the Sending Stone, the party got a message that the posse had set out. They escorted Don Jon back to Phandalin, but left straight away to catch up with the posse. On the way back, they saw the white dragon in the distance behind them, swooping down from the sky and picking up a wild animal to eat. Their brief stop in town told them that the posse was a day ahead of them but travelling slowly.
Day 12
While camping, they saw an equine figure in the distance and through some improbable animal handling, they enticed it to come closer. They introduced themselves to Jessica, a unicorn who lives nomadically between Neverwinter Woods and the foothills around the west of the Sword Mountains. She informed them that a fairy was looking for Herdyr in the Neverwinter woods. She also gave the cryptic comment that the white dragon, Cryovain, was laired in 'Amzarr's fortress'.
Day 13
The party scared away 5 hungry wolves on the road, then met up with the posse before camping with them in Conyberry ruins.
During camp, the party noted that the locally foraged vegetables tasted funny. This was discussed by the more experienced adventurers as being caused by the spellplague decades ago, which swapped parts of the world (Toril) with another world entirely (Abeir). Most were fixed when magic started working properly again, but some pockets of exotic vegetation, foreign earth and weird magic remained in places.
The party were introduced to other members of the posse: Lluranu the elven bard who was wielding an enchanted glass sword; Shanjan Kwan, a human male spellcaster with a morbid yet self-important perspective; Nib Addlespur, a cheery halfling wizard with a pet goldfinch; Inverna Nightbreeze, the brooding elf ranger with a hatred for orcs. Big Al was armed with a crossbow and longsword.
Around the camp, people talked of different gods. Someone described Talos as the god of destruction, overseeing thunder and lightning, fire, plagues and natural disasters. Shanjan talked about Myrkul, previously the god of the dead, saying Myrkul was holder of the secrets of the dead, and judged which mortals went to heaven and which went to hell. Inverna described Gruumsh as the evil god of orcs. He hates other races and encourages orcs to kill everyone else.
Day 14
Getting to the ranch, the posse encountered three wolf-like monsters called worgs left to howl warnings if anyone approached the farm. Instead, Tharg befriended them, and persuaded the worgs, who weren't well treated anyway, to abandon the orcs and not raise any alarm. I think he bribed them with food.
Setting up carefully, the party then goaded the orcs into rushing out of the farmhouse into a fight facing a well prepared posse. The nine regular orcs gave the posse no trouble, and the two others, one dressed in red weilding a staff, and one dressed in black leather armour wielding a bow, gave them only slightly more.
Butterskull Ranch was fairly battered after being inhabited by orcs for several days. Big Al decided to clear out to Phandalin.
It took Big Al several days to gather all the salvageable belongings and escaped farm animals and take it all back to town. He and several posse members stay to do that, while the party headed straight back to town. The posse talked of setting up a permanent 'defense against orc horde' garrison in the uninhabited Conyberry ruins.
Anathema claimed the orc scout's black armour, which was made (not enchanted?) to be silent, giving a bonus to the wearer's stealth, athough she needed to get this retooled before it would fit her, which she could do when she next visited Phandalin. The three worgs followed Tharg and Lluranu back to town.
Day 15
The party camped by the road and made it back to town with no hassle. They stopped at the Lionshield Coster, leaving the armour to be reworked, and at the Stonehill Inn to pick up the profits from 'Tharg' brand mushroom wine. Lluranu the bard turned out to have a (possibly supernatural) Snow-White-like ability to get along with animals, and was willing to take care of the worgs while they stayed in town. One of them, now named Smiles, preferred to follow Tharg. Big Al gave the party his mithril chain mail as payment for the three of them taking part in the raid. This ended up as Herdyr's armour. He also promised to share any proceeds on selling the other orc armour and weapons once that was done.
In Phandalin, the party met Squats, a halfling rogue and Anathema’s previous companion. She was setting herself up as a go-between and information merchant in Phandalin, while she waited in hope for Anathema to agree to help with the fallout from the gang’s activities.
Rumours around town spoke of:
- An orc village wanting to make diplomatic ties to the town,
- the possibility of a military settlement in the ruins of Conyberry,
- sabotage by scary monsters of people from phandalin in local area,
- weird things happening at the coast involving shipwrecks and ghosts,
- people getting lost in the Neverwinter wood and hearing high-pitched voices,
- the presence of the Greycloaks (neverwinter guards) on the roads to keep them safe.
Anathema Summerbrace
Her'dyr Greymoir
Tharg Who is Wise
Report Date
24 Mar 2022
