One of the things I love about being a Dungeon Master is I get to connect with the source material in a way most players do not. There are days where I feel like Gandalf, poring over ponderous, dusty old tomes at the Archives of Minas Tirith, searching for scraps of unremembered lore to pull into the stories I bring to the players at my table.

In a recent search of Sword Coast lore, I stumbled across Southcrypt Garden in the Forgotten Realms wiki, which pulled me further down the rabbit hole to Dragon Magazine 236.

For the most part, Southkrypt Garden is mentioned only in passing in previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons texts. It’s a ruined dwarfhold that was a silver mine. It is inhabited by a bunch of monsters. It’s said to have a cache of magic weapons. The rest is for the Dungeon Master to fill in.

But the article in Dragon Magazine 236 gives Southkrypt Garden some depth. Across three pages, the magazine’s article tells of Morg, a vampiric hill giant whose thirst for blood has him regularly lure adventurers to Southkrypt Garden.

Morg rules over three vampire spawn (also vampiric hill giants), a garrison of hobgoblins (forced to serve him because of the tribe’s connection to how he became a vampire in the first place), and several other feral monsters who inhabit the ruin, including xaren (more than one xorn), gibberlings, and vargouilles (one of my favorites).

In order to lure people to Southkrypt Garden, Morg has his hobgoblin minions sow rumors of the site’s forgotten treasures wherever adventurers congregate – even going so far as to provide treasure maps to the site. The hobgoblins aren’t deployed to defend the site against intruders. Rather, they are used to prevent the intruders from escaping, allowing Morg and his spawn to hunt, toy with, and feast upon those unfortunate enough to walk into this trap.

When there are no adventures to come calling at Southkrypt Garden, Morg and his spawn hunt among the peaks and valleys of the Sword Mountains at least twice each month. Morg is a shapeshifter, who transforms into a 14-foot tall owl with a 30-foot wingspan that swoops down upon miners and explorers camping in the mountains, taking his quarry alive and then deliberately dawdling on the return flight to his lair in order to allow for pursuit, luring would-be rescuers to their deaths.

And Phandalin was worried about Cryovain? Pssh.

If you’re considering which adventure to seek out once the party has finished with Lost Mine of Phandelver or Dragon of Icespire Peak, there are other adventures to be had on the Sword Coast map. You just need to go looking for them!

I’ve been having fun sharing my random D&D thoughts over at Bluesky. If you’re interested in following, I’m at @ticklecorn.bsky.social. I’ll follow back.

If you’d like to support my work, please consider checking out my supplements for Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak over on Dungeon Master’s Guild! All of my titles are Free/PWYW offerings.