Libertad
Legend
This unassuming town of about two hundred permanent residents was always a small community outside the capital city. Located five miles south of Drakkenheim, it was spared the worst of the meteor’s direct destruction, although its fall caused weaker buildings to collapse, the surrounding countryside to wither, and many residents went blind or deaf from the impact. Most of the original residents have since moved elsewhere, but Emberwood Village experienced an economic upturn as adventurers of all sorts began using it as a waypoint to the ruins. For this reason the villagers are more used to seeing strange people and magic, and it’s easy to find buyers for treasure. The book also provides us with where PCs can trade delerium and with who, as well as where they can procure magic items and spellcasting services. Generally speaking, the merchants at Emberwood Village can provide spells and material components of up to 3rd level spells, and Aldor the Immense (the major magic item merchant) sells uncommon and rare magic items. Anything more valuable than this requires aid from one of the five factions.
However, the tainted soil means that food and drink has to be imported, costing five times as much and water is as expensive as alcohol. Weapons, armor, and adventuring gear cost double the normal price. There is no city watch or patrolling militia to keep order, and thus villagers either take the law into their own hands or appeal to adventurers or the factions for problems they cannot deal with themselves. Each Lieutenant of the five factions can be found in Emberwood, and the text encourages the DM to provide opportunities for the PCs to meet them and leave impressions.
There’s several places of interest for PCs in Emberwood, such as the Bark and Buzzard inn, which has a rejuvenating piece of animated armor out back that adventurers take bets to see how well they can fight against it; the the Gilded Lily that hosts an “Open Mike Night” named after the missing master of ceremonies, where characters can put on talent shows and gain a good bit of gold in tips if they roll well enough on a proper skill check; Crowe and Sons Smithy, owned and managed by Tobias Crowe who can build and repair various kinds of equipment including plate armor;* the Chapel of Saint Ardenna and Shrine of the Olds Gods, whose respective religious caretakers can provide cleric and druid spellcasting services up to 3rd level, along with healing potions and the Purge Contamination spell which is pretty much what it sounds like; and the Caravan Court, an impromptu marketplace where merchants coming and going from the town set up to buy and sell all sorts of wares. The owners of all these aforementioned establishments aren’t faceless vendors, for they each have actual names and personalities with brief descriptions of their buildings. This helps make the settlement feel more “lived-in” and not just a place for PCs to drop in, sell their treasure and Long Rest, and then leave without any fanfare.
*In the Monsters of Drakkenheim supplement, Crowe’s facilities and services count as a higher-quality service for that book’s crafting sub-system.
The Caravan Court provides descriptions for four different vendors and their specialized goods, although Aldor the Immense is unique among them in being a djinni in disguise who buys and sells more valuable magic items and material components. As can be expected, Aldor is the most secure of the shops in town, where his draft animals are a pair of gorgons disguised as oxen and his bodyguards use Assassin stats. Interestingly, Aldor got a bit of a retcon in the Seeker’s Guide to Enchanting Emporiums, a non-Drakkenheim supplement that featured him as a cameo as one of the item vendors. In that one, he is not a djinni but a giant of unknown ancestry.
Thoughts: Emberwood Village might be meager in size and scope, but it has a good deal of variety and local flavor for its named locations. As a hub that PCs will be returning to often, I do appreciate how the chapter not only goes into detail on the services and economics but also the NPCs who adventuring parties will regularly meet. Even outside of Drakkenheim, there’s a sense of weirdness from the meteor, such as the mysterious suit of animated armor that emerged from the ruins and hangs out outside the inn, or how the master of ceremonies for the Gilded Lily’s variety show went missing after the meteor fell.
This chapter doesn’t cover specific locations and encounters in the capital, instead providing detailed descriptions for random encounters, how long and arduous it takes to navigate through the crumbling ruins, as well as game mechanics for the omnipresent Haze.
Drakkenheim is a city that was once home to nearly a hundred thousand people, and all but a few hundred died when the meteor fell. It is split into three distinct regions: the Outer City which consists of neighborhoods surrounding the city walls; the Inner City, which lies behind the walls and through which passage is typically done through one of five gates; and Castle Drakken, which lies to the northeast atop the highest elevation. The Drann River cuts through the city, but it is heavily contaminated to the point that immersion risks a PC gaining 1 Contamination level per turn on a failed Constitution save.
The Haze covers the entirety of the city of Drakkenheim and extends for about two miles beyond its walls. It is akin to radiation, where it permeates even solid material and can’t be so easily cleaned away like a dirty surface. During daylight hours it looks like mist which obscures long-distance vision, and it dampens sunlight so that creatures who are weak to solar rays aren’t affected while within the Haze. During nighttime the Haze appears as coronas of octarine lights passing over the city in the form of motes and particles, and delerium crystals glow brightly during this time.
It is impossible to gain the benefits of a Long Rest within the Haze, and for every hour past 24 a creature remains inside they risk gaining one level of Contamination on a failed Constitution save. Most monsters encountered inside Drakkenheim ignore these effects. Food and drink spoils within 2d6 hours within the Haze, so adventurers need to bring their own rations from outside and can’t store them in safehouses in the ruins. Additionally, the Haze foils certain forms of magic, particularly divination, teleportation, and communication spells that would cross between the Haze/not-Haze threshold of Drakkenheim. Spells and abilities that would otherwise provide protection from the Haze, such as Tiny Hut or Rope Trick, fail, although the Magnificent Mansion allows inhabitants to safely rest within the Haze. Divination spells automatically fail to reveal useful information about delerium, the Haze, the meteor’s origins, or any events that occur within the Haze. In fact, attempting to cast such spells risks psychic damage and the Incapacitation condition until the next long rest due to overwhelming madness.
Certain areas of Drakkenheim have an even more potent concentration known as the Deep Haze. It's easily recognized as a thick prismatic fog, and people within it must make Constitution saves for each hour to avoid Contamination, and also take necrotic damage in the process.
While a map of Drakkenheim and labeled locations comes with the book, ruin-delving between locations is summarized in a manner akin to overland travel. PCs choose whether they go at a Fast, Normal, or Slow pace which determines whether or not they can use stealth and if they make Investigation and Perception checks at advantage or disadvantage. The book does cover alternative forms of travel, such as navigating by the sewers (dangerous given the copious amounts of tainted water and thus Constitution saves are made more frequently), the use of vehicles (ruined streets makes their use practical save for using boats to traverse the river), or even flying through the air (might catch the attention of gargoyles and harpies, and the walls of Castle Drakken are watched over by a contaminated dragon).
We also get a sub-system for scavenging the ruins for delerium deposits and similar valuables as a skill challenge. DCs are determined by whether they’re made in the Inner or Outer City (Inner is higher but yields more valuable results), and failing enough checks triggers a random encounter. But even then, the PCs might still find valuables if they also get enough successes. Delerium in particular gets its own tables of results, with higher numbers of successes finding more valuable crystals. Each scavenging attempt is done in a quarter-mile diameter and takes one hour to do, and scavenging close to the crater grants 1 automatic success given its proximity to the meteor. Delerium crystals come in six varieties, only the first 4 of which can be found via this sub-system: chips which are worth 10 gold apiece, fragments 100 gold, shards 500, crystals 1,000, geodes 5,000, and a massive cluster which is priceless beyond measure. The bigger the crystal, the more time it takes to extract, as deposits are securely embedded in the ground and foundations.
This section ends with 6 tables for random encounters and brief descriptions of each one. Random encounters have a chance to occur every hour the PCs explore the city, but can trigger more often at DM discretion or when the text in a location calls for it. Every player rolls 1d20, and if anyone gets a natural one then the DM rolls on a random encounter table commensurate with where they are in the city. A 20 can grant some bit of good fortune, and if every player rolls a natural 1 then the DM chooses the absolute worst result from the table. After a random encounter’s conclusion, the DM rolls 1d20 to see if the PCs come across any useful loot. Said loot is nice but nothing awe-inspiring, ranging from coins, small delerium fragments, art objects, and healing potions and low-level spell scrolls.
The specific random encounters include your motley assortment of monsters, such as oozes spilling out of a ruined alchemist’s shop to Haze-spawned horrors. But they can also involve running into rival adventurers, rank-and-file faction members, and city-based complications such as getting lost and aimlessly wandering as a result.
Thoughts: The Haze’s restrictions help reinforce the environmental dangers of Drakkenheim. It forces the PCs to plan out their trips, rather than staying overnight in the city and its dungeons. Additionally, it makes safe points all the more valuable, such as the Cosmological Clocktower that rises high enough that it isn’t affected by the Haze. The anti-divination measures make long-distance spells and telepathy difficult to do from outside the city, forcing PCs to venture within Drakkenheim or remain within 2 miles in order to deploy such spells. The rules for scavenging, ruins navigation, and random encounter generation look simple enough to use.
This mini-adventure serves as a trial of sorts for PCs visiting the Outer City for the first time. If the PCs begin play at 1st level via escorting Eren Marlowe’s caravan, the DM is told to give them sufficient experience to reach 2nd level while they’re in Emberwood Village. The completion of Delerium Hunt should help them reach 3rd level.
The adventure begins with a simple hook, by encouraging the party to head to Drakkenheim’s Outer City on their own to scavenge for delerium and other valuables. Alternatively, they are hired by a villager or faction lieutenant to prove themselves by venturing into there and back again alive. The adventure opens with some mood-setting boxed text highlighting the ruined city’s most notable landmarks in the distance, as well as the weird mists and lights of the Haze. Random encounters don’t use the default table, instead pitting the PCs against predetermined low-level enemies such as delerium dregs or ratlings. For the latter, think skaven, or demented ratpeople for non-Warhammer fans reading this. Once the PCs get two successes on a scavenging check result, they come upon craters filled with delerium crystals, but 6 haze husks are nearby. Haze husks are undead reanimated by the Haze’s energies, using modified zombie statistics where instead of Undead Fortitude they explode in a burst of damaging energy that risks Contamination.
But the PCs aren’t out of the woods yet! Three rival adventurers (noble, scout, and hedge mage stats) arrive after the battle with the husks is done, claiming that they have the rights to the area. It’s possible that the adventurers will be there first if the PCs take too long to trigger the above encounter. Once that’s resolved, the DM will need to check for any random encounters for when the PCs decide to head back to Emberwood Village.
The chapter ends with a sidebar explaining that the campaign has now entered full sandbox mode, advising the DM to take note of how the PCs interacted with people back in Emberwood Village. Such as who they angered, who they seemed particularly fond of, and so on. The faction Lieutenant the PCs got on with the most will be the first to approach them with a sample mission. The book recommends some sample locations for missions, but otherwise it’s entirely up to the PCs where to go and who and what to prioritize.
Thoughts: There’s not much to say about this mini-adventure other than it being a tutorial session for the city navigation and scavenging sub-systems. Which works well IMO, as some gaming groups can be taken aback when a new set of rules are thrust onto them mid-session. Making it a short test run can help absolve this a bit.
Thoughts So Far: Along with the caravan escort mission, these chapters serve as a good “tutorial mode” and first impression for Drakkenheim and its dangers to a new party. I do note that it makes the PCs level up quite rapidly to 3rd, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it’s a common house rule for many campaigns to start at that level. In fact, I would much prefer to start a Dungeons of Drakkenheim campaign at 1st level with this method rather than the alternative at 3rd: it’s linear, but helps set expectations rather than throwing the PCs into the thick of things.
Join us next time as we venture through the eerie countryside in Chapter 6: Outside the Walls!
