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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yenrak" data-source="post: 7548172" data-attributes="member: 6888829">Before our games, I like to email the players with private background information they may have picked up that other players do not necessarily know. I used to do this in person during gaming sessions but these days everyone's time is short. Taking time away from everyone playing to walk through these scenarios with one player can eat up too much time.Here's the background I sent out to Valindar, the first-level human wizard in the party.--------------[ATTACH]104087[/ATTACH]You make your home in Waterdeep, the City of Splendors and Crown of the North. To all of Faerun, this great metropolis stands as the pinnacle of what a great city might be, in wealth, influence, and stability. You recently completed an apprenticeship with an elderly wizard of Waterdeep, Gader Ringsberg Hurth. You learned from him and his second, Iarno Albrek, the ancient words and ways that allow you to manipulate the weave. Albrek was more than a teacher. He was a friend and a mentor. He took you under his wing, teaching you not just eldritch skill but also how to maneuver through the byzantine politics of Waterdeep’s scheming nobility and avaricious merchant class. A year ago, however, Albrek left for Icewind Dale. His departure was sudden and unexplained. You missed his company and wondered why he did not invite you to come along on whatever adventure he was undertaking in that cold north land. Since he left, your dreams have been haunted by visions of that cold wasteland. Is it true they leave their dead standing, frozen statues during the winter because the ground is too hard to dig into? Why wouldn’t they just build mausoleums like civilized folks? Now you are beginning to understand. You are sitting at a table at the Yawning Portal tavern across from a retired officer of Waterdeep’s City Guard, the soldiery of the City of Splendors, named Sildar Halwinter. You have met him a few times over the years because he had some association with both Gader Hurth and Iarno Albrek. He tells you that Albrek went north at the behest of the Lord’s Alliance, a secretive coalition of rulers from cities and towns across the North. It turns out the Albrek has long been an agent of the Alliance and Hallwinter was his handler. Hurth too might have been an agent—Halwinter is vague about that. So you’ve been surrounded by secret agents of the Lord’s Alliance for years without ever having noticed. Stunning. Albrek is missing. He has missed the last three intelligence reports, failing to send messages southward with merchants. Interviews with merchants reveal that no one has seen him in any of the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale. Hallwinter is headed to Icewind Dale. He invites you to come along. He promises the Lord’s Alliance will pay you handsomely for your aid. In truth, that’s not necessary. You want to find your friend and are eager for adventure. But you learned enough about the ways of the world from Albrek not to turn down an offer of gold. The plan is to sail north from Waterdeep to Luskan. There you will attach yourself to trade caravans headed north. The plan is to travel in different caravans. While there is safety in numbers, traveling together would concentrate risk. Traveling separately, if one of your caravans is lost, the other can still carry out the investigation and report back what has happened. You’ll also want to recruit a band of sell-swords in Luskan to help guard the caravans and perhaps aid in whatever you wind up encountering in the hunt for Albrek. But this could be dangerous. Luskan is infamous as a pirate city. You are not sure you can trust men-at-arms from City of Sails. Fortunately, you have an old friend in Luskan, an Elven priest named Landon. Formerly based in Waterdeep, the cleric travelled north a few years ago in hopes of bringing the light of the elven faith to elves in and around Luskan. The night after your meeting with Hallwinter, you send a letter ahead of you asking him to recruit elven warriors. He wrote back with good news: he had just the crew for you. Four elves by the names of Walker, Jade, Silver, and Goldina, plus a half-elf named Arche. “They are rogues and miscreants but they have good hearts and are honest despite themselves. Best of all, though, they are not in league with the Ships of Luskan. Quite the opposite. They are constantly running afoul of the Ships. So they may be rogues but they will be our rogues,” Landon wrote. Hallwinter manages to arrange passage on a ship but time is short. Even if all goes well, you’ll arrive in Luskan with no time to lose. Caravan masters will be convening on the very morning you arrive, picking their crews, and scheduling their staggered departures. Apparently, they too believe that there is safety in division. Too many carts in one caravan makes for too inviting a target for the bandits, barbarians, and goblins who lurk along the way. You write to Landon to say you’ll meet him and his gang at inn where they have been staying, a dive known as the Cutlass. You’ve never heard of it but from Landon’s description, you hope that if you have to stay in Luskan for any significant period of time you will be able to find a better quality of place to stay.</blockquote>

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