D&D 5E (2024) Eberron: Fated Flight of the Recluse *possible spoilers*

[pukunui]

Back when WotC announced they would be delaying the release of Eberron: Forge of the Artificer, they told those of us who had preordered the digital version on DDB that we would get a free adventure in apology for the delay. The main book is now available for Master Tier subscribers on DDB, and so is the free adventure!

Fated Flight of the Recluse is a short adventure for 3rd-level PCs. Somewhat surprisingly, it is not set in Sharn! It does involve an airship, though (the Recluse). Travis Woodall is listed as the lead designer for this adventure, with help from Makenzie De Armas and Chris Tulach.

The adventure involves a dwarf artificer from Clan Soldorak (the ones who like to use daelkyr symbionts) hiring the PCs to safeguard him and his mysterious cargo on a journey from his home in the Mror Holds to Korth, the capital of Karrnath. The journey is supposed to take 65 days. Needless to say, the journey is not uneventful.

Don't want to say much more so as not to spoil anything. Here's the map of the Recluse:

EDIT: I'll just add that the Recluse is called out as an older model of airship that saw service during the Last War. It includes a rather unique feature that allows someone without the Mark of Storm to pilot the ship.

EDIT 2: Reading through this, it gives "written by AI, edited by a human" vibes. There's a preponderance of sentences using the "not only; but also" grammatical structure that ChatGPT and its ilk love as much as they love the em dash. There's also a smattering of unusual word choices, like "inhabitancy".

The structure of the adventure is also a bit odd:

Spoiler

The intro states that a Kreffik Soldorak wants to hire adventurers to escort him and his cargo from Soldorakhold to Korth by airship. The adventure skips over the actual meeting and hiring introduction and instead leaps straight into a classic Eberron railroaded opening: The airship has already been attacked and captured by sky pirates! In an attempt to escape them, the captain lashed himself to the helm and put the ship into a nosedive, ordering everyone else below as he did so. The pirates still managed to board, cutting the captain loose and letting him fall to his death. They are now towing the Recluse, still in a nosedive position, back to their mountain lair.

Only then does the adventure introduce the PCs, instructing the DM to have the players choose whether their character listened to the captain and went inside or ignored him and attached themselves to the railing via harness.

The adventure expects that the PCs will try to take control of the ship based on a single, subtle clue: the fact that the former captain, a halfling, wasn't a d'Lyrandar). Should they conclude from this clue that maybe they, too, can fly the ship, they can climb up to the helm, where they discover that the spirit of its original captain (a shifter d'Lyrandar) is bound into the ship's magic. Its his spirit's "inhabitancy" of the ship that allows non-Mark of the Storm individuals to pilot it ... provided they can convince the spirit to let them do so with a DC 17 Charisma check. If the PCs succeed, they can use the helm to right the ship, which automatically scares off the pirates.

If they fail, or they don't think to try in the first place, then I guess the DM will be improvising a whole other adventure (escape the sky pirates' mountain lair)!

Next the adventure finally gives us some info about Kreffik and his cargo and how he responds to PCs who ask too many questions. This probably should have been presented before the railroaded adventure start.

After that, we go on to continuing the journey to Korth. There's stuff about plotting a course, weather, piloting the ship, supplies, encounters, etc.

The climax involves an attack by a young blue dragon who has somehow learned of the dwarf's real cargo and aims to stop him. There is a "Dragon Chase" table in case the players want to try and avoid aerial combat. Should the PCs succeed in defeating or evading the dragon and continue on to their destination, they meet Baron Zorlan d'Cannith, who gets more detail than Kreffik does.

Having a bit of a railroady beginning is not unusual for an Eberron adventure. The clunky way in which this adventure is written and structured, however, leaves me wondering. Yes, I know it's free, and one shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, etc. But I am suspicious that the designers have used ChatGPT or similar to "help" them write this and wanted to point that out.

 

[Gradine]

The adventure involves a dwarf artificer from Clan Soldorak (the ones who like to use daelkyr symbionts) hiring the PCs to safeguard him and his mysterious cargo on a journey from his home in the Mror Holds to Korth, the capital of Karrnath. The journey is supposed to take 65 days. Needless to say, the journey is not uneventful.

I'm normally not the person to get all up in arms about simulationism and especially not in accuracy in travel rates, but that's certainly an eye-raiser. An elemental airship makes that trip in about 2 days. I get that it's a much older model, but unless that model is slower than walking that still shouldn't take much more than 3 weeks. It seems like there's a few detours or delays along the way but that's a... a choice.

 

[pukunui]

I'm normally not the person to get all up in arms about simulationism and especially not in accuracy in travel rates, but that's certainly an eye-raiser. An elemental airship makes that trip in about 2 days. I get that it's a much older model, but unless that model is slower than walking that still shouldn't take much more than 3 weeks. It seems like there's a few detours or delays along the way but that's a... a choice.

Yeah, I read that and I was like ... what?! I mean, judging by the Eberron Interactive Map, the distance of 960 miles is more or less correct. 940 miles is probably more accurate, but still ...

The Recluse is a Strider Airship, for which Forge of the Artificer gives a speed of 8 mph.

Under the adventure's "Plotting the Course" section, it says to refer to the "Journeys in the Skies" section of Forge of the Artificer. Here, we find under "Travel Pace" that we mustn't assume that airships can travel for more than 8 hours per day.

Airships (like other vehicles) use their speed in miles per hour to determine their rate of travel, so characters traveling in an airship don’t choose a travel pace. An airship’s crew determines how many hours per day the ship can travel; the ship’s pilot is subject to the rules for extended travel (beyond 8 hours per day) in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Commercial airships often have two or even three pilots, allowing the ship to make progress for more than 8 hours per day.

8 mph x 8 hours = 64 miles per day. 960 miles divided by 64 miles per day = 15 days. Perhaps 65 is just a typo.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Math error I suspect. I noticed the 4 MPH given for airships in the 2014 rules was too slow for Eberron when I ran my Sky Raiders campaign. I forget what I adjusted it too, I don't think there was a canonical speed given in ERftLW. I drew a small older model airship deck plan similar to this for the player ship in that adventure, but this is nicer than my work.

 

[pukunui]

Math error I suspect. I noticed the 4 MPH given for airships in the 2014 rules was too slow for Eberron when I ran my Sky Raiders campaign. I forget what I adjusted it too, I don't think there was a canonical speed given in ERftLW. I drew a small older model airship deck plan similar to this for the player ship in that adventure, but this is nicer than my work.

There is. It’s 20 mph, so the Recluse is rather slow.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is. It’s 20 mph, so the Recluse is rather slow.

I made the ship my PCs "acquired" slower than normal too, as it was supposed to be an old tub. It may have been 10 mph, but I'm not very good at keeping track of my old notes.