In the aftermath of our Thundertree dragon fight session, the characters were still in the town, sleeping in the local druid’s residence to recover from the battle. In our most recent session, the expectation was that they’d travel back to Phandelver, then make their way to the Wave Echo Cave mine to being the last leg of the Starter Set adventure.
Instead, they made their way to the nearby city of Neverwinter. They’ve been insistent on trying to scavenge and sell every last item they can possibly lug home with them, and at this point they were laden with weapons looted from defeated dragon cultists and a random hobgoblin encounter. I’d previously made it clear their item-collection efforts had left Phandelver with more weapons than it had people (including a new-formed militia, courtesy of their efforts and donations), and they weren’t going to have any luck selling any more cheap goblin swords there.
So, they reasoned, let’s go to the big city – surely somebody there will buy!
Making it up as we go along
The next hour or so (spread out over about two hours, thanks to the bi-monthly “You never call me!” call from my mother) became an exercise in making up NPCs and locations in a city I hadn’t actually read much about. Improv night at the gaming table.
A weapon shop proprietor was a haughty elf who looked their goods, sneered “those smell of goblin! Get out of my shop!” as he covered his nose with a mint-scented handkerchief. A dwarf who knew some old stories about Wave Echo and filled in a little more of its history than the players had gleaned yet – along with some exaggerations. A halfling family with a “We buy, sell, and trade old weapons” sign hung by their booth in a bazaar, who bid what amounted to pennies on the dollar for the offered items because, in his words, “the kind of people who buy this kind of gear don’t usually have much to spend”. At this point the characters were anxious to get rid of the weapons and took the deal. (The next offer would have been from a scrap dealer down by the docks, and for considerably less.)
Wizards can be cheapskates too
They’d also been able to harvest a few intact scales and teeth from the remains of the dragon, and wanted to look for a potential buyer, assuming the parts might be useful for potions or magic. After asking around a bit, they learned that the local mage’s guild maintained an outbuilding near their walled compound where the public could come during the day to petition the wizards.
They visited the site, and after a conversation with a door during which they had to show their wares to an eye carved into the door knocker, they were invited inside. There they met a human who fit so well into the stereotypical pointy-hatted, doddering-old-man wizard stereotype that they guessed (correctly) that it was an act put on because that was what people expected to see. He also kept having argumentative side conversations with some possibly not even present person to his right.
He looked at their goods and admitted that they could be useful to the guild. There wasn’t enough material to use for their intended purpose, but they would be willing to pay a fee to add it to their inventory in the hope they could acquire more from elsewhere. He also offered, in lieu of coins, to pay them with “this maaagical potion!”. (The item in question was a fancy phial filled with colored water. It was not a potion. The mages are accustomed to dealing with the gullible, apparently.)
After negotiating a price which did not involve maaagical potions, the sales-wizard opened a tiny wooden box and shook it until enough coins fell out to pay the agreed-upon amount. The box was linked by a tiny portal to a vault in some undisclosed location.
Rumor has it
By this time night had fallen again, so the party decided to hop from tavern to tavern listening for any news from the area. Most of the talk was of an alleged demon sighting along the Triboar Trail – but every description of the creature was radically different, so the players dismissed the rumor. The story of the dragon’s death hadn’t reached the city, but word of the fall of Cragmaw Castle had – a fact they discovered when they heard Bart the Bard singing about it during one of their pub visits. (Apparently, the party was actually an army raised from Phandalin, and had besieged the castle and fought a giant there. At least, according to Bart’s song.)
For his next number, Bart introduced his partner, Liza, and announced they would now be singing a song about a bucket with a hole. The party decided not to wait around to hear it. I’ve decided that Bart and Liza will have to visit Phandalin before the group is done there.
Is nothing truly random?
On the journey back to Phandalin, the party encountered the demon the people of Neverwinter had spoken of. It turns out there was a reason that no description of it matched another.
I recently came across this monster stat block on a Facebook or Reddit post somewhere and saved the graphic because, though I think it may have been done as a joke initially, its mechanics actually intrigued me.
(I don’t know the original source but will link to it if I find it.)
I had its appearance and mood change randomly every round along with its immunities. It was only a matter of time until its mood hit “enraged” while the party attempted in vain to communicate with it.
It was interesting to watch the players trying to adapt to its shifting immunity and armor class. At times it would easily shrug off fire or electrical attacks that had worked fine in the previous round. Sometimes a low roll for a crossbow bolt attack would hit it, but a 24 “to hit” roll by an enraged barbarian ended with her halberd strike bouncing off its bare head.
In the end, though, there was only one demon, and it wasn’t a particularly strong one. It took longer to bring down than the dragon did, but its hit points and damage output just weren’t enough to make it much of a threat.
Next time – hopefully, if there’s not a crawl in Phandalin’s single tavern – Wave Echo Cave!