D&D 5E Out of the Abyss: Hemeth the Duergar

[CapnZapp]

The adventure barely mentions this NPC.

Have any one of you expanded his role and backstory?

I'm especially interested in if you have invented a role for him to play back in Gracklrstugh.

Cheers

 

[Daern]

He introduced the group to Captain Errde as potential contact for supplies and information. Sort of a low-level betrayal because he'd made big promises.

 

[mgshamster]

There's some excellent NPC cards with associated Houserules located in the GitP 5e forums. Hemeth is one, and he gives the PCs some interesting abilities to use. Created by Goober4473. The thread is called "NPC Companion System Idea." You can also find a link to them on the Paizo messageboards under the forum "4e and Beyond" in the thread "Out of the Abyss Resources (5e)." Posted by Bookrat.

I'd link it, but I'm new to these forums and can't post links yet.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm leaning toward making him a Darkhaft Duergar in the employ of the Laduguer church. His real name (and appearance) is as Hemathon, a spy/agent of Deep Duerra opposed to any demonic influence in the otherwise devilish city.

You see, in my campaign I made him quite insistent on returning to Gracklstugh as soon as possible after seeing the rise of Demogorgon in Sloobludop. That alone made my players curious, speculating he has a role of some importance to play, and I would disappoint them if he "only" was what the module makes him: a small-time arms dealer at the wrong place.

Next, the players dropped the Whorlstone dungeon bash as soon as they found the secret passageway from the alchemy lab up to the docks district, so I want to make something of the Council of Savant plot to bring madness to the city, and to incite a Derro uprising and/or have Demogorgon reduce it to rubble (I'm guessing even Aliinka and Zubriska, the derro savant twins themselves don't really know).

Having Hemathon suggest to the archpriest of the Laduguer church* in Gracklstugh he's found a suitable party of gullible surfacers that he can use to infiltrate the Council of Savant HQ to check for demonic presence would mean an alternative adventure to the rest of Whorlstone.

What do you think? Any pitfalls to look out for?

*) Grim Herald Brilmara Gloomstorm high cleric of Laduguer
(I thought Morndin would be very old by now, so he runs the church from "behind the throne" with a daughter as puppet)

 

[Goober4473]

My plan was to use him as-is as an arms dealer, but if the PCs manage to befriend him, he may stick around. At the very least, he'll feel indebted enough to keep them out of too much trouble in Grackletugh. Though I might give him a connection to the Keepers of the Flame. Perhaps he deals in weapons they make? That way if the party gets arrested, he can request to speak with the Keepers instead.

There's some excellent NPC cards with associated Houserules located in the GitP 5e forums. Hemeth is one, and he gives the PCs some interesting abilities to use. Created by Goober4473. The thread is called "NPC Companion System Idea." You can also find a link to them on the Paizo messageboards under the forum "4e and Beyond" in the thread "Out of the Abyss Resources (5e)." Posted by Bookrat.

I'd link it, but I'm new to these forums and can't post links yet.

Thanks for the shout out.

You can now find the cards, along with the ruleset to use them, on these forums: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?474885-5e-Companion-System

 

[Valchymax]

I had Hemeth help guide the party to Gracklstugh so he could get home and get back to work, then he arranged a meeting with scouts from the Xornbane clan, who in turn got them an audience with Ylsa the caravan master.
I also made Hemeth part of the Ironhead clan, weaponsmithing rivals of the Steelshadows. Hemeth would love to see the Steelshadow clan brought down, but of course he and his clan dare not move against the king and his kin directly.

 

[feartheminotaur]

In our game the kuo-toa were engaged in an inter-clan cold war that had recently turned into a violent civil war after both sides were suddenly supplied with high quality arms and higher level magic. Shushaar tried to stop it, only to find that the entire thing had been instigated and orchestrated by Hemeth and his backers to "create a new market" for their weapons. Shushaar fled and was captured. Meanwhile, the arch-priest's daughter got the demon madness and became a sort of messianic 'stop the violence' figure and that's why Hemeth was on the sacrificial altar. He traveled with us for a couple of days and then "disappeared" (Shushaar killed him on his watch and dumped the body)

The DM played Hemeth like an amoral CIA/Soviet operative from an 80's movie.

 

[Crucial_agony]

Been running Oota and I accidentally mislabeled Hemeth a regular dwarf and not a duergar in the chaos of the sacrifice event at Shloppdeloopduhslup. So I rolled with it and made him a dwarf with fiery red hair, claiming the name Hemeth Fireblood who was going to sell a cargo of dwarf weapons to the Kuo-toa before they went all Kalllii-maaa. PC's helped him escape the Prince on his trader boat and Hemeth hired them as bodyguards across the lake back to Gracklstugh (and eventually Blidgestone) in hopes of recouping his loses.

Thing is he's also a crooked conman of sorts and adopted the name and goods of a trader that he and Gorlakk exed out for east profit to sell outside the city Gracklstugh.

Only reason why he is able to even be seen in the dark dwarf city is because he convinced enough people that his name and hair implies a certain lineage to Azer fire dwarves (conman = impressive charisma). But the origin helped add a layer of conflict to the party in the city, especially since of the Gorlakk was expecting Hemeth to come back with a decent load of gold and not a handful of montley crew convicts....and ontop of that Hemeth nearly swindled the party and almost sold the PC's to a Drow slavemaster for a healthy profit.....and last session all but Hemeth got arrested by Gorlakk for assassinating rival Drow emissaries in public for said slavemaster.

So its a big exciting mess but having Hemeth know the town without being too embedded as a duergar let the whole city still feel alien to the PC's when they arrived but added a personal level of drama to all the chaos of the city.

 

[Motorskills]

Been running Oota and I accidentally mislabeled Hemeth a regular dwarf and not a duergar in the chaos of the sacrifice event at Shloppdeloopduhslup. So I rolled with it and made him a dwarf with fiery red hair, claiming the name Hemeth Fireblood who was going to sell a cargo of dwarf weapons to the Kuo-toa before they went all Kalllii-maaa. PC's helped him escape the Prince on his trader boat and Hemeth hired them as bodyguards across the lake back to Gracklstugh (and eventually Blidgestone) in hopes of recouping his loses.

Thing is he's also a crooked conman of sorts and adopted the name and goods of a trader that he and Gorlakk exed out for east profit to sell outside the city Gracklstugh.

Only reason why he is able to even be seen in the dark dwarf city is because he convinced enough people that his name and hair implies a certain lineage to Azer fire dwarves (conman = impressive charisma). But the origin helped add a layer of conflict to the party in the city, especially since of the Gorlakk was expecting Hemeth to come back with a decent load of gold and not a handful of montley crew convicts....and ontop of that Hemeth nearly swindled the party and almost sold the PC's to a Drow slavemaster for a healthy profit.....and last session all but Hemeth got arrested by Gorlakk for assassinating rival Drow emissaries in public for said slavemaster.

So its a big exciting mess but having Hemeth know the town without being too embedded as a duergar let the whole city still feel alien to the PC's when they arrived but added a personal level of drama to all the chaos of the city.

Nice recovery.

 

[wedgeski]

He's been mentioned, in passing by a duergar trading party the PC's managed to avoid a fight with, but I actually replaced the sacrifice at Sloobludop with Skriss from the Society of Brilliance, so Hemeth stands in reserve for now.