Lost Mine of Phandelver
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Poke around Tresendar Manor long enough, and you start to realize the Redbrand ruffians are far more sinister than they are presented in the pages of Lost Mine of Phandelver, and especially so in the sanitized reboot, Phandalin and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. Let’s talk about their criminality. Racketeering. The most obvious piece of Redbrand…
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I feel like it’s overlooked that there are religious elements in Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak, but no real guidance on how to portray them. And I’m not talking about Sister Garaele and her Shrine of Luck. I’m talking about elements that players struggle against, rather than benefit from. For instance,…
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While there’s no official record of her death, I’ve always assumed that Auglathla’s sorrow-bound existence as Agatha the Banshee predates the founding of Conyberry in 1351 DR. Since the events of Lost Mine of Phandelver take place in 1491 DR, it’s entirely possible she’s been haunting the woods around the village for two centuries or…
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This morning, I came across Red Harvald in my Bluesky feed. According to the Forgotten Realms wiki, in the early 14th century DR, Harvald was a hero, adventurer, and resident of Glen, a village in Mistledale of the Dalelands. “A local hero, he had a reputation as a tough, but good man.“ He wasn’t a…
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If you hang around the Lost Mines of Phandelver subreddit long enough (r/lostminesofphandelver), you’re bound to come across the following advice from veteran Dungeon Masters: “Use the premade characters that come with the adventure. Each premade character has a plot hook in their background that ties nicely into the adventure.” Of course, most players will…
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In Phandalin and Below:The Shattered Obelisk, the peril of the Dendrar family shifts from the threat of human trafficking (as described in the original Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure) to a scenario where the family is held hostage for a ransom. “The three human commoners imprisoned here are Mirna Dendrar and her teenage children, thirteen-year-old Nars and…
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Volo’s Guide to Monsters was published in November of 2016, two and a half years after Lost Mine of Phandelver – and there’s some good stuff in Volo’s about the Goblinoid worship of Maglubiyet that came after the publication of El Mop: “Maglubiyet’s holy symbol is a headsman’s axe, and the block is where it is blessed by…
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Random encounters don’t always need to be combat encounters. There are three pillars of adventure, mind you (Combat, Social, and Exploration) – and the random encounters you run will be more interesting if you modulate between the three. Cooler heads will not prevail when an owlbear spots the characters out in the wild. There will…
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If you want to tie the adventuring party in knots, throw a combat encounter at them that involves a monstrous child. It’s interesting to watch as they try to figure out how to handle the situation without turning into monsters themselves. When it comes to werewolves, there’s often an assumption that anyone afflicted with lycanthropy…