Why Hamun Kost, a necromancer, would pass up an opportunity to seek out Agatha the Banshee is beyond comprehension. The current edition of Dungeons & Dragons has exactly four banshees residing in Faerûn (that we know of).

Yo Hames, bro. We should go see this super rare undead spirit in the Neverwinter Wood. There’s only like, four of them in the world. You’re a necromancer. You like ghosts and shit, right? I hear she used to be hot. Wanna go?

Nah.

To be fair, Hamun Kost is stuck at Old Owl Well, scratching around in the dirt for lost arcane treasures at the behest of the zulkirs who sent him there. If you know anything about the zulkirs in Thay, then you know they are literally slave drivers.

So, even if Hamun Kost wants to go see Agatha, he can’t. These lost arcane treasures won’t unearth themselves, and he’d feel a little better if he could frequently mutter under his breath the name of the tool who left his shit buried beneath some tumbledown tower in the middle of nowhere.

So Hamun Kost sends the party to Conyberry on his behalf to get a name from Agatha. He has actually heard of this banshee. He’s read her book and knows that Agatha is a capable diviner. She’ll know who built this crumbling tower almost four millennia ago.

Fuckin’ Arthindol. Knew it. That’s why they sent him to this dump.

There is so much more to Old Owl Well than the info you get out of Lost Mine of Phandelver.

Arthindol is a lich who once advised the Netherse. He built Old Owl Well 3,859 years prior to the events of Lost Mine of Phandelver. Four millennia later, its well still pumps potable water.

Old Owl Well was built as a military outpost. Why?

Because there was a vast cache of chardalyn buried in the foothills of the Sword Mountains.

Chardalyn?

Chardalyn. A rare, naturally occurring substance mined in nugget form that can be used for gem magic, allowing wizards to store powerful magic spells within the stones. The foothills in the shadows of the Sword Mountains were rich with chardalyn.

Arthindol knew there was a vast cache of chardalyn in the area guarded by the sarrukh, an ancient reptilian race that were counted as one of the creator races native to Abeir-Toril. Arthindol wanted these stones, so he convinced the Netherese to build Old Owl Well and go to war with the sarrukh. The Netherese obliged.

Old Owl Well is named for the owlbears the sarrukh created for the purpose of defending the land from the Netherese. It proved to be a losing strategy, since the Netherese succeeded in their war and killed thousands of owlbears (and other unnamed magical creatures created for the defense of the surrukh).

Arthindol and the Netherese got the chardalyn they came for. But the tower isn’t the only relic of that war. Anytime you see an owlbear between the High Road and the Long Road, it’s a remnant of a war that occurred thousands of years ago. Put that in your DC 25 Intelligence (Arcane or History) check and smoke it, Jack.

Perhaps the reason Hamun Kost wants the name of Old Owl Well’s builder is that he wasn’t given all of the details by the zhulkirs. But he has a hunch that there is significance to Old Owl Well far greater than he’s been told about by the zulkirs who sent him there. And if the zulkirs are watching him by magical means from afar, well, other methods to chase down that hunch must be deployed.

Like, by sending a party of characters to Conyberry to ask Agatha for him.

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