D&D 5E 5th Edition and Cormyr: Flexing My Idea Muscle and Thinking Out Loud

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

You know something? There ought to be autonomous, self-loading catapults roaming the Stonelands. Something uncontrolled and Netherese in origin.

Maybe the catapults behave like Clone copies: when they encounter each other, they go crazy trying to destroy each other. In the end, there can be only one.

And wouldn't that be interesting? Think about it. You're off adventuring in the Stonelands. You've got your map and your trusty companions by your side and you're making good time through the difficult terrain when all of a sudden woosh and then crash. You look to see what the heck just flew over your head and landed with a bang in the distance when woosh and crash happen again, but this time in the other direction. That's when you see two massive constructs that look like keep-sized scorpions, except their pincers are dragging rocks closer and the tails are twisting in an impossible way before unwinding at tremendous speed and then their payloads woosh over your head and crash next to their distant targets. Maybe one even scores a hit. Or, possibly, the hurled rocks collide with each other right over your adventuring head and send deadly debris raining down on you and your companions.

I'm telling you, the Stonelands just got way more interesting.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Marpenoth - Leaffall​

Eigth day of the first tenday​

1500 DR - Year of the Sea's Secrets Revealed.​

Bumper barley harvest. Suspects ride rapids. Lord Warder eluded - again.

ARABEL - Market stalls and warehouses alike are filled to the brim with harvest goods and produce. Arabellans are paying below average prices to fill their larders for the coming winter, thanks to an abundant harvest across Cormyr. Several farms to the east of Arabel recovered from this year’s floods in time to produce a bumper crop of barley and wheat. Ale producers will have the opportunity to bid on the excess beginning on the first day of the second tenday of Marpenoth, at the Thousandheads granary (behind their main warehouse). Merchants with trade bars to spare have placed early orders for select winter-produced ales, and have reserved caravan space for shipments to Marsember (and then by boat to Westgate and Teziir) and north to the Dalelands at the start of next year’s trading season.

KALLAMARN - Crown agents chased a pair of travelers off the Way of the Manticore and pursued them as far as Kallamarn. The travelers rode hard through an orchard to the edge of the Starwater River and dismounted. No one was arrested, as the two sutravelers leapt into the fast-moving river and were soon lost among the rapids. The travelers were suspected of being members of the Three-Headed Helm.

SUZAIL - Yestereve, Amaerelle and Athandriss Hawklin departed Suzail, but did not travel far. The ladies were seen exiting their carriage at the Nightgate Inn, in the company of a cloaked and hooded person. The next day, Crown officials briefly questioned the noblewomen while Purple Dragons searched the Inn for their missing counterpart. Thanks to a story shared by a palace messenger of a conversation overheard between the Underclerk of Protocol and the Lady of Graces, both the Royal Palace and Court are now abuzz with gossip over the daring of the two ladies, who may well have escorted the quarry of the Lord Warder out from under his prodigious nose.

According to the messenger, the Underclerk of Protocol had entered a passageway just as the the Lord Warder was informing a cadre of war wizards that Alashendal the Necromancer had been seen in Suzail, and was to be summoned to the Royal Court for questioning before she left the city. No sooner had the war wizards departed then Alashendal herself entered the passage via a concealed door adjacent to the Warder’s office entrance, winked at the underclerk (who’d positioned himself in the lee of a recessed doorway—a skill shared by many courtiers who wish to hear without being seen, particularly when there are cantankerous Wizards of War nearby), and politely knocked on the Lord Warder’s door.

The conversation that followed devolved into a heated argument full of accusations of law and rule breaking, and recriminations of indiscriminate detentions based more on paranoia than evidence. (On the matter of the Lord Warder’s recent actions, the Lady of Graces appeared to side with Alashendal, while the Underclerk of Protocol thought the Lard Warder’s tactics entirely justified.) Alashendal left the Lord Warder’s office, loudly promising to set things aright herself. “The Lord Warder must not have known about the hidden passage next to his office. The way the Underclerk of Protocol told it, Alashendal slammed the Lord Warder’s door shut, disappeared through the secret door a few steps away, then the Lord Warder threw his door open, stepped into the hallway and bellowed an angry epithet at her unexpected disappearance.”

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Marpenoth - Leaffall
Ninth day of the first tenday
1500 DR - Year of the Sea's Secrets Revealed

Bhaal dominates tavern talk in the Bones.

HULTAIL - Tavern talk in the Blue Dragon’s Bones has placed the location of an abandoned temple to Bhaal in the Hullack Forest. As ever, talk is lively, contradictory, and entertaining. Some of what may be heard follows.

“To find it, one need only travel due north into the forest for two days, always keeping Hultail at your back” according to Rostrarl Harnshield, a regular of the Bones who specializes in building rafts and sloops at the Trindar Shipyards.

“Aye, and that will send you hurtling to your doom when your feet find only air beneath them at the edge of the first ravine that borders the heart of the wood. Travel a day and a half north at most, then turn northeast to find the ravine’s edge. Skirt around it and follow the ravine until you are south of Hultail again. Then proceed north.” This advice comes from Roldo “Blackhands” Harthhammer, another Bones regular who spends his days repairing ironmongery and forging metal necessities in his smithy, located a stone’s throw from the hill Rallyhorn Castle stands atop of in Hultail.

“It’s not a temple, mind, but the ruin of a simple keep. I’m told that if you look closely among the nearby trees, you’ll find slate shingles and rotting timber buried under years of deadfall. That's all that is left of the homes that grew up around the keep. No doubt there’s treasure buried there, too.” This information comes from Glemglora of Arcantlet, who frequents the Bones sparingly but never fails to find a conversation to join. (Glemglora is happy to buy drinks to loosen tongues.) Most folk assume she splits her time between Cantergates, the Arcantlet family seat of power south and east of Hultail, and “the Windcoast,” which consists of a series of much expanded farmhouses and verdant fields located far to the south of Hultail and due east of the Wyvernflow. (Such folk are correct.)

“Don’t be obvious about searching for the keep. Glemglora’s bullyblades will track you as far as the ravine and wait to ambush you on your return. They’ll take everything of value you found and toss your corpses into the ravine.” This warning delivered by the wandering bard Thalantheera Thestleharp, who travels Cormyr’s eastern reaches by day and makes its waystops, taverns, and inns her place of business by night.

“Thala speaks from experience.” A blunt statement delivered by the dwarf Undak “Broken Bones” Horn, who never consumes ale or spirits while on duty inside the Blue Dragon’s Bones. Undak has been especially cantankerous ever since his brother Odak left to open his own establishment in the sheep town of Bospir. Customers new to the Bones are advised to not cross “the dwarf at the door” unless they are interested in earning broken bones and seeing their coin purses emptied for Ondak’s trouble. “Mind ye, she worships Finder, just like her father did. There are things the god wants found in the ruins where Bhaal’s killers once lived. Of that ye can be certain.”

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

The holidays are upon us. My gift to you, Dear Reader, is an entry from an old DM's Guild product of mine, Cormyr in the Year of the Ageless One. The title of the entry is Wizards Run.

Merry Christmas!

Wizards Run

The keep at the heart of Wizard’s Run is old; its true name, and the knowledge of who built it, has been lost to time. The keep is set partially into a hillside and faces south. From its battlements one can see the village of Nesmyth in the distance. The tower in the center of the keep stands taller than the hill; its topmost level allows for a splendid view of Cormyr’s rolling countryside to the north.

Wizard’s Run takes its name from the story of the last moments of a rarely seen wizard who’d claimed the dilapidated keep for himself around the time Azoun IV ascended to the Dragon Throne. Gardgragath, as he came to be known, rebuilt the keep’s walls and erected a splendid tower in its center. Rumor held that Gardragath had discovered a formula for creating Helmed Horrors, and that his keep was filled with all manner of objects the wizard could inhabit with his will and cause to move about.

Such claims were likely based on the horseless wagon that emerged from Gardragath’s keep once every tenday and trundled into Nesmyth. If the stories still told in Nesmyth hold any truth, then Gardragath could both see and hear through his wagon, and speak out of it. A strongbox occupied the space where a driver would otherwise have sat; it dispensed coins to merchants after they stacked their wares onto the wagon bed.

Such stories oft turn to the night Wizard’s Run gained its name, and describe the great green fire erupted within the keep and enveloped the tower. Not long after, the keep’s iron-shod wooden doors burst open and a barefoot, bald and wild-bearded man came running out of them. Suits of field plate wielding battleaxes sailed high over the battlements and gave chase, the eye slits in the helms trailing green fire.

The man turned and shouted a word of magic that shattered the pursuing armor, the report echoing through the night like a thunderclap as pieces of metal rained down. As if in reply, the mouth of the gatehouse spat a shower of emerald sparks that sought the broken armor. As one the shards of plate armor rose up in a whirling maelstrom to rend and tear at the wizard.

Gardragath’s body was left in a bloody heap ere the wet, whirling remnants of battle plate spun away and returned to the keep, its doors closing shut as the fire in the courtyard died away.

Two subsequent attempts by adventurers to enter the keep met with swift death, as anything within not made to be fixed and immovable worked to slay all who dared trespass. Most were skewered by animated longswords that attacked silently from above, others by flying wands that pierced eyes and ears with the speed of an arrow. On both ocassions something unseen dumped the corpses over the walls by night.

The lone path to Gardgragath’s home was walled off with farmer’s carts, timber, and stone, and travelers were warned to keep a safe distance lest “some animated thing come flying out of Wizard’s Run to slay you before you can outrun it.”

The magic-rending nature of the Spellplague cast doubt on magic of all kinds in Cormyr, and left some to wonder if lingering magical presences might be lessened in its wake. Those who dared find the answers to such questions usually met with injury or death, but not the novice adventurers comprising the Company of the Singing Harp.

Eighty years after the appearance of Gardragath, the Company found the keep at the heart of Wizard’s Run to be empty of danger. They explored the tower, the undercellars, and even discovered warehouse-sized storage chambers in the hill backing the keep. In the years that followed, the Company of the Singing Harp rode forth from the keep to find adventure and fame in Cormyr, and infamy in Sembia. In the Year of the Silent Flute (1437 DR) all but one of their number was slain while protecting King Azoun V from assassins. The survivor, one Aurbrand “Firebrand” Ambrival, was granted a title of nobility by the King and given Wizard’s Run for his home.

Aurbrand retired to Suzail late in life, and left his eldest son in charge of the keep. In time, both father and son died in Suzail under mysterious circumstances.

Today, residents of Nesmyth whisper the fell magic that long ago slew Gardragath has renewed itself into a curse slowly killing off the surviving members of the Ambrival noble family, while farmers in the vicinity of Wizard’s Run claim to have seen pieces of armor and daggers wreathed in green light flying through their fields at night, and in one case a full suit of armor with green glowing eyes roaming about in the fields near the keep under the light of the moon.