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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9791204" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/da792918408e.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 604px" />This chapter outlines the headquarters of the five factions. PCs on positive terms with a group can visit a stronghold under most circumstances, but otherwise they'll need to sneak or fight their way inside it. Only the Inscrutable Tower and Court of Thieves are arranged in a manner akin to a dungeon crawl, with the other three being more spread-out residential areas that are nonetheless heavily guarded. It's for that reason said strongholds have a higher page count.The book notes that outright attacking a stronghold will most likely happen when the PCs are working with another faction to besiege it. Due to the sheer number of people involved, it recommends the DM to write up a few set-piece encounters representing objectives of strategic importance in order to determine the outcome: finding and killing strike teams, sabotaging defensive formations, and so on.Camp Dawn is the stronghold for the Silver Order, being a military outpost with walls, tents, and watchtowers. It is capable of holding up to 500 people along with hundreds of animals, although only 2/3rds of the total number is here at any one time with the others patrolling elsewhere. As befits a military installation, a sizable portion of people here aren't frontline combatants, including laborers, cooks, and other auxiliary occupations for keeping things running and managing supplies. Besides the Leader and Lieutenant, the rank-and-file NPCs consist of Commoners, Guards, Knights, Acolytes, Priests, and Chaplains along with warhorse and griffon mounts.Court of Thieves is the stronghold for the Queen's Men. Its default position in the module is near Buckledown Row, but the book notes that it can be moved elsewhere due to its semi-secret location. The Court has an Undertavern and Arena for its main sources of socialization and entertainment, with the Queen of Thieves' personal quarters further inside various trap-filled hallways and rooms. In fact, the first hallway to her quarters is a poison-filled passage. Should PCs wish to visit the Queen but have no invitation, the shield guardian bartender offers several drinks and a riddle for inoculation against the toxic gas.The correct answer is "nothing." The poison gas is normally harmless unless someone imbibes a reactive toxin contained in the drinks.Another clever puzzle-obstacle is a wine cabinet containing two potions of Gaseous Form, which is meant to be used to pass through a keyhole into the Queen's personal Office and avoid the last hallway. Said hallway is filled with traps that effectively trigger as Lair Actions, with rechargeable and per-day uses along with at-will versions for the less deadly types.The Arena has higher-stakes fights than the one in Buckledown Row, most notably Big Linda the Queens' "prize champion:" a mutated t-rex with an acid breath attack.Unlike most of the other faction Leaders, the Queen of Thieves is not willing to fight to the death should her stronghold be assaulted, and thus has a "panic room" which is deep beneath the earth and accessible only via teleportation. It has illusion magic to make it look like a penthouse apartment in Castle Drakken, with a view of the city before the meteor fell. There's a Decanter of Endless Water for sustenance and a Scroll of Teleportation to get out, as well as a personal vault which she stores a lot of money and some rare magic items, plus any important items she obtained or stole from the PCs during the campaign. While it's unlikely the PCs will find the location of this Sanctum, finding a way inside and getting rid of the Scroll of Teleportation can be a good means of taking the Queen of Thieves out of the equation besides killing her, as she does not possess such magic herself.Drakkenheim Garrison is the headquarters of the Hooded Lanterns, located within the city and not far from Shepherd's Gate. It's one of the few safe zones from the Haze, as its prison cells were insulated from its Contaminating influence. Its buildings and rooms serve much the same use as they did before the city's destruction: barracks, training yard, stockade, etc. Much like Camp Dawn the Garrison is filled with combatants and auxiliary workers, with the most common stat blocks being Scouts, Urban Rangers, and Commoners, although there's a Priest and Druid who use their divine spells for healing.<img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/2bd3d176bc32.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 416px" />Inscrutable Tower used to be an extraplanar building for the Sorcerer Kings, hidden away in the Far Realm-esque Space Between Worlds to keep their most secret of magical knowledge. The Amethyst Academy managed to find it several centuries ago, transporting the Tower back to the Material Plane and converting it to their own use. Although not the only magical wonder or stronghold possessed by the Academy, it is considered the greatest and its loss is an indelible blow to the faction's power. When the meteor fell, a portion of the Tower was destroyed, but due to its magical defenses the building remained intact even when the laws of gravity should cause it to collapse.The Inscrutable Tower is split into nine named floors, and the DM is encouraged to add as many other floors or rooms as they want due to the building's magical foundation letting it move beyond the bindings of geometric physics. Travel between floors is done via circular elevators with arcane rooms reading out the names of specific floors, and once activated the platform shoots up or down at an extremely fast and uncomfortable speed. Even absent of oversight, the Tower's many rooms have ambient magic keeping the place relatively comfy, from Continual Flames and Dancing Lights illuminating rooms, Unseen Servants cleaning areas, and fonts that can create water. Such creature comforts can be mentally focused on to change heating, light, and water, albeit at risk of triggering an Arcane Anomaly.The Tower's current occupants are a mixture of constructs such as stone golems, aberrations such as gibbering mouthers, and imp slaves chained to desks who've been tasked with making copies of any book or writing given to them. The bottommost level are the Deep Cells, with Antimagic Field prison cells blocked by either Walls of Force or Prismatic Walls. It's up to the DM what lies within the cells, and the walls and field can be deactivated by a matching physical key and command world. A Sphere of Annihilation is located below the floor of the cells, where a Discharge command drops the cell occupant into the Sphere.The topmost level of the Inscrutable Tower is home to a magical machine of immense complexity known as a nexus, with the damage from the meteor creating an unstable dimensional rift. In order to take charge of the Inscrutable Tower and make it livable again, the nexus must be rebooted, which requires a set of 8 skill or tool checks. A failed check causes psychic damage and possibly the stunned condition from magical backlash. After the first check is made, extraplanar creatures of random types (random as in DM discretion, not rolled on a table) start appearing once per round on initiative count 20.Gaining access to the Inscrutable Tower is a spellcaster's delight. The library has books on virtually every topic, along with spellbook/scroll entries for every sorcerer, warlock, and wizard spell. There's an exception for the new spells in this book as well as the more gamebreaking ones such as Wish and Simulacrum. The Inscrutable Staff, one of the six Seals of Drakkenheim, is here, although the entry doesn't say exactly where it is so I presume it's in the nexus room as that's appropriately climactic. Said item can only be attuned to by a sorcerer, warlock, or wizard and grants +2 to spell attack rolls and save DC along with being a +2 quarterstaff. It has charges which can be used to cast a variety of spells, from utility like Arcane Eye and Dimension Door to more battle-ready ones like Reverse Gravity and Maze. It also grants the wielder several low-level spells and cantrips usable at-will such as Detect Magic, Misty Step, and Mage Armour.Taking back the Tower for the Amethyst Academy rewards the PCs with 3 very rare magic items, and they can take the Inscrutable Staff to Castle Drakken if a mission requires it.Saint Selina's Monastery is located in the southern end of Drakkenheim, covered entirely within Deep Haze. The Monastery itself is home to about one hundred people, with several hundred more living in deplorable living conditions of improvised shelters outside the building. Everyone here has taken the Sacrament and thus are not in danger of Contamination. Lucretia Mathias has further reinforced security with permanent versions of the Hallow and Forbiddance spells thanks to a special Brazier of the Falling Fire. The protections impose the Frightened condition on a failed DC 20 Charisma save on non-members who enter the Monastery. The average Follower stat block is a Cultist, with the defenders being Cult Fanatics and Berserkers plus six Cavaliers who were paladins of the orthodox Sacred Flame that converted to Mathias' sect. A pair of Planetar angels guard the crypt holding the Brazier. This crypt also holds the Helm of Patron Saints, one of the Relics of Saint Vitruvio. The attuned wearer can see invisible creatures and objects up to 60 feet away and increase their spell attack modifier and save DC by 2.Thoughts: It's good to see writeups on all five strongholds, and even the ones shorter in length provide enough detail on numbers, defensives, and treasure/resources to give the DM a good amount with which to work. I do feel that the Court of Thieves got the lion's share of cool features for defending against a siege, with the lair action-style traps standing out. If anything, Saint Selina's Monastery felt the most underwhelming; besides the heavy-duty Planetars, the bulk of stat blocks are very fragile fractional CR NPCs or straightforward melee damage sponges in the case of the Berserkers. I get that the Falling Fire is the faction that has the highest proportion of "normal people," and its Leader is the glue holding things together much more so than the other factions, but it still feels like it will make for less interesting combat encounters.<img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/bd5594345113.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 607px" />Although further in the back of the book, it feels appropriate to talk about the characters specific to this adventure path. Included in this Appendix are stats for the five faction Leaders along with five generic NPC archetypes. The Leaders are quite appropriately "boss battles" in combat, having access to Legendary Resistance and Actions as well as high-level magic (effectively 20th-level characters) for their respective classes.Lord Commander Elias Drexel is first and foremost a martial character, being equivalent to a Ranger with some warlord-style abilities like granting a Bless-like buff to allied creatures and letting them make weapon attacks as reactions.  He also regains 10 hits each turn if he has half his total health or less, and his Ranger spells focus heavily on battlefield control and mobility. For example, he has Spike Growth, Conjure Animals, Freedom of Movement, and a modified Tree Stride that works for buildings instead of trees. Drexel's special equipment includes a +3 longsword and +3 breastplate plus the Lord Commander's Badge, one of the six Seals of Drakkenheim. This item lets the attuned wearer shout out a command that can buff up to 12 allies within 300 feet with 20 temporary hit points, and said allies have advantage on attack rolls and saves while they have at least one of these temporary hit points.Eldrick Runeweaver is basically the Archmage stat block on steroids. He is equipped with a Robe of the Archmage and a Staff of Power, and his spells are heavily themed around defense and battlefield control with a touch of utility: Forcecage, Prismatic Wall, Globe of Invulnerability, Banishment, and more.Knight-Captain Theodore Marshal is your sword and board paladin with a Holy Avenger, and instead of spending spell slots to smite he deals +4d8 bonus radiant damage on every weapon attack automatically. He's also immune to the Charmed and Frightened conditions, making him nearly impossible to mentally befuddle. He has the least utility/out of combat spells and features of the faction Leaders, but it makes thematic sense for him to be the most straightforward warrior type.Lucretia Mathias is the high-level Cleric of the faction Leaders, but also the most frail with the least hit points (90) and weak to average physical stats. She succeeds on all Concentration checks to maintain her spells, and any spell she casts is treated as being a 9th level spell slot. Her spells are a mixture of defense, utility, and offense as drawn from the Cleric list, and once per week she can use Divine Intervention as she calls upon the Sacred Flame whose effect is determined by the DM. Besides her magic, her major defensive feature is that people who attempt to attack her must make a DC 20 Wisdom save or choose another target, and should Mathias make a hostile move herself then this effect ends until the start of her next turn.Queen of Thieves is a Bard-Rogue hybrid, having access to Sneak Attack and a variety of trickery-style spells. She doesn't go for directly damaging magic, instead focusing heavily on debuffs such as Polymorph, Dominate Person, Forcecage, and Feeblemind. She has at-will spells and magic items that make it hard for others to track her, such as Disguise Self and an Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location. Whenever she takes damage, as a reaction she can turn invisible and teleport up to 60 feet away, leaving an illusory duplicate in her place.One thing I'd like to note is that the Queen of Thieves' identity and backstory is deliberately left ambiguous. In the Actual Play, she was one of the lost nobles of Westemär's royal family, Katarina von Kessel. As she is an arcane spellcaster, she is ineligible for rulership due to the Edicts of Lumen.<img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/d6a38558b9a2.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 232px" />The five NPC archetypes are heavily associated with certain factions. The Cavalier is a mounted warrior, being CR 5 with some low-level paladin spells and focusing on melee attacks. The Chaplain is a CR 6 martial priest who can cast up to 5th level cleric spells, and although they have a good AC of 18 their default Spear attack and 13 Strength makes them rather poor physical fighters. The Hedge Mage is a CR 1 arcane spellcaster who has up to 2nd level wizard spells, with a slight bias for offensive magic. The Scoundrel is a CR 3 Rogue-Wizard hybrid who has Sneak Attack, Cunning Action, and can cast up to 2nd level spells with a heavy focus on illusion and enchantment. The Urban Ranger is a CR 3 warrior with a Climb speed and proficiency in various "outdoorsman" style skills. They can cast up to 2nd level spells, notably Hunter's Mark and Pass Without Trace, which make them quite good at ambushes.Thoughts: Each faction Leader can make for an interesting opponent for PCs moving against them in a late-campaign siege. Lucretia Mathias is the most problematic in that she's very much a glass cannon. Even the wizard Eldrick Runeweaver has more Hit Points than her, to say nothing of his Simulacrums! That being said, I do like how all of them have stats and special abilities in reflection of their personalities and talents: Theodore Marshal is the most likely to stand his ground and is thus the sturdiest of the lot, while the Queen of Thieves isn't one to fight fair and she has a lot of spells and resources at her command to evade pursuit and sow discord. One thing I find funny is that Drexel has a mere 11 Charisma despite having actions pointing to his prowess as a leader. I suppose he's meant to be the more "brainy tactician" type.As for the generic NPC archetypes, The Hedge Mage is the one I can see getting a lot of use outside of this adventure; before 2024 D&D, low-level arcane spellcasters were pretty much nonexistent in official material barring some named NPCs in adventures. The Scoundrel also makes for a good Arcane Trickster, and I imagine it has that name due to said subclass not being OGL. The Chaplain is a more offensive-minded Priest, providing for a "blaster caster" divine mage which also wasn't a thing in the 2014 Monster Manual. The Cavalier and Urban Ranger round things out with specialist Paladins and Rangers, which helps differentiate the Silver Order and Hooded Lanterns from more generic NPC stat blocks.Thoughts So Far: I have few complaints for the NPCs and Stronghold writeups besides wanting some more cool features for the non-dungeon crawly strongholds and being underwhelmed by the Falling Fire's entry. One thing I particularly like is that one of the Seals of Drakkenheim and Relics of Saint Vitruvio are already respectively in the Hooded Lanterns' and Falling Fire's possession. This means that the PCs will need to deal with one of these factions should they wish to go the "crown a new king/revive Argonath" end-game routes.Join us next time as we see the fate of King Ulrich von Kessel IV in Chapter 9: Castle Drakken!</blockquote>

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