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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Lewis" data-source="post: 8519308" data-attributes="member: 6667921">Part IV: Regarding Eladrins, Elves, and Goblins<a href="https://postimg.cc/5Q3SmV8t" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/5Q3SmV8t/e4-MVN30.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>In the third chapter of the published adventure, the heroes seek help from the Woodsinger elves of Harken Forest. In order to gain their assistance, however, the party must deal with Yisarn, a cursed skeletal mage who is (presumably) trapped inside the ruins of Dal Nystiere. It sounds like a tall order, but the whole scenario plays out in only four encounters. In the first encounter, the adventurers meet the elves and given their instructions for completing the quest. Then the characters arrive at the entrance to the catacombs and fight some monsters. Then they enter the catacombs and fight more monsters. Then they enter the next room where they encounter Yisarn and... fight the monsters. Once the party defeats the monsters, they return to the elves who pledge to join the fight against the Iron Circle.That is really all there is to say about this scenario, which is to say you don't want to overthink it. As written, it works adequately for an abridged version of this adventure. It was, in my opinion, an interesting concept that didn't have enough print space to give it the attention it deserved. But that's no longer an issue here. Without any limitations for space to write, I should be able to significantly expand and improve on this chapter. I just need more content to fill in all the extra space. Surprisingly, I found the first part of what I needed in the next adventure I planned to run, and the other parts in adventures that I have run before. And each one is from a different edition of D&D.========================The Knight of Mithrendain (Madness at Gardmore Abbey, 4e)Madness at Gardmore Abbey introduces a large number of options for getting characters started. Using a variety of quests and patrons, DMs can weave hooks into their campaigns and move parties smoothly into this adventure. One of the minor patrons, Eriyel of the Woodsinger elves, provides a direct hook for characters that have already played through Reavers of Harkenwold. Her quest will lead the party to one of the three major patrons in Gardmore Abbey, Berrian Velfarren the eladrin knightAccording to the adventure, Berrian Velfarren left his home city of Mithrendain with his sister Analastra to search for their long-vanished father. Accompanied by a small group of retainers, they have scoured the Feywild and the world alike to find traces of their father's passing. Their journey would eventually lead them to Gardmore Abbey, but not before they visited the Woodsinger clans in Harkenwold. In this adventure as written, it is assumed that the eladrin visited the elves in Harken Forest before the heroes did, presumably passing through without incident. So what if the eladrin were there at the same time and things weren't so uneventful for them? And here is the first hook!1.When the heroes travel to meet the Woodsinger elves, the eladrin will be present to add something more to this adventure while planting seeds for the next one.========================The Song of the Elves (Red Hand of Doom, 3/3.5e)The elves of Harkenwold barely register as a footnote in their own adventure. They meet the heroes, give them a quest, wait for them to come back, and agree to join the fight against the Iron Circle. There's no stats for any of the elves, by the way, because they don't actually join any of the battles that are directly involved with the players. They're more of the "in-the-background/off-camera/behind-the-scenes" variety of support (unless the DM gets creative and goes off-script). Given the amount of space for print available, and the overall pace of the adventure, it is to be expected that the elves would not have a more proactive role in the story.The real tragedy here is that this episode could have done so much more with the elves. Granted, it might not have been the best idea to use up more print space with extraneous details and descriptions when the characters are not expected to spend more than a minute with the clans. But if I could come up with some original material to further flesh out the elven camp and some of its people, I may be able to do something more with the scenario. Maybe even give the players a temporary base of operations to do more in Harken Forest. And if I had an example of an elf camp with similar themes that I could readily borrow from, that would help make things easier on me.I mentioned before that this adventure was similar to another one called Red Hand of Doom. One of the optional goals for the characters in that adventure is to forge an alliance with a local tribe of elves who call themselves the Tiri Kitor. In order to forge an alliance, the heroes must perform several tasks to aid the elves and make good impressions on several key and influential tribe members. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? So not only do I have some detailed NPCs I can probably use here with little modifications, I also have a number of ideas I can use for quests and interactions for this one. Hook number two!2. The heroes will have much more to do to win the elves over, and will have more opportunities to interact with them while immersing themselves further into the setting.(Sidebar: Mike Schley also did most of the maps for this adventure, too. And, of course, you can purchase them as a bundle from his <a href="https://prints.mikeschley.com/p680849502" target="_blank">website</a>. I won't personally use them for this adventure, however, because they don't match the map styles and colors of the other maps I'm already using.)========================A Cragmaw Goblin in Daggerburg (Lost Mines of Phandelver, 5e)Like almost everything else in Reavers of Harkenwold, there are not a lot of details regarding Yisarn, the undead wizard, and its alliance with the Daggerburg goblins. Bits and pieces of information are scattered in different places for the keen-eyed reader to try and puzzle together. There's some very interesting tidbits, too, like a full set of dragon bones that Yisarn plans to animate to create a skeletal black dragon servant. It's a safe bet to assume that I will be using that somehow! But right now, I want to focus on the goblins because they didn't get a big role in this. And there is a lot of potential to utilize them more than what they're doing now. Let's see what the adventure says about who they are and what they're doing with Yisarn.Dal Nystiere is the domain of Yisarn who has ill plans for the Nentir Vale. The skeletal mage joined forces with a group of Daggerburg goblins in an effort to expel the Woodsinger elves from the Harken Forest. Snilvor, a goblin emissary, and his entourage have come to pay homage to Yisarn and secure three map scrolls. Each scroll is a map showing the location and layout of an elven crypt in the Harken Forest. The Daggerburg goblins intend to ransack these "lost crypts" to fatten their coffers and demoralize the Woodsinger elves.Ok. Well, I don't find that inspiring to me. Plus, the minute I put a map with the juicy words "lost crypts" into the hands of the player characters, there is a very high possibility that they'll take that as an invitation to find these hidden vaults full of treasure and go tomb raiding. You know I'm not wrong on this! And even if I were to indulge this idea for my players, it would take them too far from the main theme of the adventure they should have their attention. Then all this work will have been for naught and I'll need to throw something else together, which I'm not ready to do at the moment. So let me rethink this and see if I can come up with something else. I'll start by re-examining the relationship between the goblin and Yisarn.The alliance between the goblins and the undead wizard makes sense to me because they both share a common goal: they want to get rid of the elves from the forest. The Daggerburg goblins are described in greater detail in the Monster Vault: Threats of the Nentir Vale supplement, but I don't want to start diving too deep there unless the goblins are going to play a bigger part in the campaign. For now, all I need to know is that they are part of a larger organization that operates in the area and that a small group are working in Harken Forest with the undead mage.It's most likely that they are serving Yisarn's needs not out of fear or respect, as one might expect lowly goblins to do, but out of mutual benefit. They have something to gain by working with the undead wizard, and vice versa. Yisarn, on the other hand, must have a good reason to rely on goblins for anything. My best assumption is that Yisarn is either unable or unwilling to leave the catacombs, and thus employs the goblins to do things outside of his sanctuary that the undead creature cannot. Whatever the arrangement is between them, it is likely built on a foundation of convenience and having shared goals. But there is no reason to believe that their alliance will hold up if one side stands to lose something more than they could possibly gain. Loyalty is only to themselves.So if Yisarn is doing something down in the catacombs, like creating a skeletal dragon or whatever, then what could the goblins be doing on elsewhere? Well for starters, I have two maps from Lost Mines of Phandelver where goblins were doing a few things in that adventure. First, they were ambushing travelers on the road and taking prisoners and loot to a cave nearby. The more important individuals and treasures were then transported to another location where more goblins and their masters had set up their lair. And of course, they were all taking orders from a "secret villain" behind the scenes. Everything can be translated easily from that adventure using the same basic plot outline and replacing key characters with those appearing in this adventure. Which gives us hook number three!3. The Daggerburg goblins are operating from a hidden location in Harken Forest, assailing travelers and elves in the area. When the party stumbles into an ambushed, they track down the goblins and discover a cave nearby where survivors from a band of eladrin are held captive. ========================I'll give a more detailed outline in the next section, but you should already see where this is going if you're familiar with the adventure from the Starter Set (5e). And there's still Yisarn and its machinations to deal with deep inside the catacombs of Dal Nystiere to deal with. How is the undead wizard connected to all of this, and why will the players need to deal with him? I'll discuss that when I continue the revised synopsis below.</blockquote>

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