In the Railroading Manifesto I talk about how railroading warps player decision-making: “When you systematically strip meaningful choice from [the players], they stop making choices and instead start looking for the railroad tracks.”

Interestingly, GMs who habitually railroad rarely notice this effect, but it becomes glaringly obvious whenever the players they’ve screwed up come and play at my table: “Nothing is more incoherent than a player trying to figure out where the railroad is when there’s no railroad to be found.”

This is a very mild form of what bankuei calls Abused Gamer Syndrome. What these players have learned is that if they don’t preemptively look for the railroad and follow it, then they will be punished: They’ll be frustrated or have their character killed or be made to look stupid or have control of their character forcibly taken away from them or any number of other un-fun things that GMs do to force players back onto the rails.

So when these players are put into a situation where there IS no railroad, they will become increasingly desperate to find it, and they’ll interpret everything through the lens of, “Is this the railroad?” So if, for example, they’ve been trained to look for a GMPC who will tell them what to do and you put them into a scenario with a bunch of different factions who are all demanding that they do different things… it basically drives them nuts.

“We’re doing what the GM is TELLING us to do, but now the GM is telling us to do something completely different?! What the fuck?!”

They’re providing the input they’ve been trained to provide and expecting a certain outcome (a clear-cut track for them to follow), but are instead getting a completely different outcome. The more this happens, the more they flail about trying to find the “solution” that doesn’t actually exist. As their frustration mounts, it’s not unusual for them to feel as if the GM is just maliciously screwing with them (“We’re doing out best! Why is he punishing us?!”) and will begin acting out and even actively sabotaging the game.

In other cases, as we’ll discuss below, the player’s default response to the railroad is always to sabotage it in whatever small ways they can. Even though the railroad doesn’t exist, the disruptive behavior continues… and is probably even more successful because this GM, unlike the ones who railroaded them in the past, will let their actions have consequences!

All kinds of dysfunctional behavior can now result: Some players, feeling rewarded in their disruption and sabotage (because it’s been more successful and had a bigger impact on the game than anything else they’ve ever done!), will now double down. In other cases, GMs who follow where players lead them (because players generally know what they want to do) will lean into this disruptive behavior because it must be what the player wants, right? Except the player doesn’t actually want this! So nobody is happy. And because they’re not happy, the player will act out in the way they’ve been trained is the only viable method of expressing their dissatisfaction and become more disruptive, creating an ever-escalating cycle.

Because I spend a lot of time preaching about alternatives to railroading, it’s not unusual for people to come to me with reports of this type of behavior and say, “See? This doesn’t work! You have to railroad some players because it’s what they expect / it’s what they want / if you don’t they just sit there and don’t do anything!”

Which is, of course, the final trap. The GM is now exhibiting their own form of abused gamer syndrome, usually (but not always) self-inflicted through the medium of their players. (Of course, in some cases GMs saying this sort of thing are just looking to justify what they want to do.)

DESENSITIZATION

Let’s take a step back from these gamers being transferred into games running under different assumptions than the games they’re used to: The GM is running a railroad. The player has been trained to look for the tracks. That’s good, right?

Short answer: No.

Because it turns out that abused gamer syndrome creates other types of unwanted behavior.

DMDavid recently highlighted this on Twitter:

[There are] many places in Descent Into Avernus where the PCs must follow leads with no reason to believe the route brings them closer to their goal. The mod relies on, “We want to keep playing, and we’re told to go hither, so I guess…”

I see new players troubled by such moments more often than us longtime enthusiasts. We should be bothered too, but I wonder if we become a bit desensitized. (…) Do we grow accustomed to just following leads without question?

Instead of acting out or resisting the railroad, these players respond to it by becoming acquiescent. But that desensitization also means that they stop CARING: They don’t care about the NPCs or the lore or even what their objectives are supposed to be. These have all become bits of railroad track whose function is to point them at the next bit of railroad track. They have become divorced from their semantic content and now only serve a structural function.

GMs who relentlessly railroad their players will often crop up complaining that their players don’t care about their game world or their plot or their NPCs or whatever, but don’t understand why these behaviors emerge. They usually think the problem is with the players. (And since all they know how to do is railroad their players anyway, there’s nothing they can really do about it.)

Even more tragic is when this, too, becomes an escalating cycle: As the players stop caring about the semantic content of the game world, the GM also stops caring. The whole thing just becomes an empty loop.

Descent Into Avernus is actually a great example of this. There’s a bit in the adventure where the PCs are trying to help an NPC named Lulu recover her memories:

• They’re told that they need to go to a specific place and talk to some kenku. “Find the kenku! They knew Lulu back in Ye Olde Days! They’ll have valuable information and help reconstruct some of her lost memories!”
• The PCs go there. They find the kenku.
• The adventure says, “The kenku (…) instantly recognize Lulu, since they’ve met her previously.”

And then… nothing. Literally nothing. The kenku remembering Lulu is never mentioned again.

The problem is that the designers were no longer thinking of the game world as a real place. They weren’t thinking about what the players’ actual experience would be like — what they would be thinking, what they would want, etc. — because their players have stopped having that experience.

So the designers are thinking of the kenku strictly as another McGuffin in the long line of McGuffins that make up this campaign:

• They need a mechanism to move the PCs from Point A to Point B.
• The kenku were that device.
• The PCs are now at Point B.
• Therefore, the kenku are done.

And the kenku are thus immediately dropped.

The designers expect the players to directly transition to the next bit of railroad track without ever asking the kenku about the memories they were supposedly here to ask them about because the designers never actually cared about the ostensible reason the PCs were looking for the kenku. And they assume that the players won’t care either (probably because their players, suffering from abused gamer syndrome, don’t any more).

ACTS OF SABOTAGE

Of course, not all players respond to a railroad by acquiescing. Others will act out, seeking to sabotage the railroad (and the GM) as much as they can. Most of these players will learn that they can’t really stop the railroad from happening, but will still find small ways of declaring their independence and giving voice to their protests.

Examples are legion, honestly, but include stuff like:

• Killing NPCs (if you kill them before they railroad you, you’ll have carved out a small corner of freedom)
• Deliberately undermining whatever “objective” the PCs are supposed to be pursuing, ensuring its failure (the GM will usually negate this, but at least they made him work for it)
• Ignoring prompts until they’ve been forced down their throats
• Challenging illusionism by taking random, contradictory actions
• Provoking intra-party conflicts

And so forth. These behaviors will often be propped up by an array of secondary techniques. A common one is to create a half-crazed/anarchic character concept that can be used to “justify” whatever other actions the player is taking. (That way they can blame the character for “making” them play that way.)

SEEKING REFUGE

Instead of acting out, other players will identify the parts of the campaign where they do have freedom, seek to expand those elements of the game, and put their overwhelming focus on them.

A really common example of this is combat: Even lots of GMs who railroad everything else in their game will nevertheless “let the dice fall how they may” in combat. The rigid mechanical structure of combat paradoxically creates a zone of freedom where the players are free to choose their own actions and see those actions have meaningful consequences.

A similar impulse also drives a fair amount of rules lawyering: When you don’t trust the GM, the rules are seen as a way of either controlling outcomes or, just as frequently, providing the neutral arbiter that the GM should be.

Provoking intra-party conflicts, in addition to being a form of sabotage, can also be a way of seeking refuge, because PC-to-PC relationships is another area where otherwise railroady GMs will frequently become hands-off.

OTHER ABUSED GAMER SYNDROMES

I want to emphasize that these behaviors are usually not conscious choices. Players aren’t often literally thinking, “Well, if he’s going to railroad me, then I’m going to kill his NPCs.”

Railroading is also not the only negative behavior that can result in abused gamer syndrome. I’ve focused on it here because railroading is so common in RPG circles that it’s basically institutionalized gaslighting at this point, so it’s a touchstone almost everyone can grok, but there are definitely other behavior patterns that result from people’s bad experiences at gaming tables. (And behavior patterns that you’ll create if you’re creating those bad experiences.)

Another common one, for example, is the player who has been “trained” to just passively sit at the table and rarely contribute creatively because their previous tables (GMs and players alike) systemically rejected and ridiculed their ideas. I used to see A LOT of female gamers suffering from this problem because their entire gaming experience was with tables full of misogynists. (Thankfully, this seems to be less common now, although it obviously still happens.)

FIXING THE PROBLEM

So what should you do if you find a new player at your table exhibiting abused game syndrome?

Honestly, it mostly just boils down to having a frank discussion with them to reset expectations.

In extreme cases, however, this won’t work because they won’t believe you. Often they’ll have actually had GMs who said the same thing and then ruthlessly railroaded them, so why would you be any different?

(Ironically, some of the worst GMs for this are those who honestly don’t want to run a railroad, but have no idea how to prep or run anything other than a railroad. They’ll say stuff like, “There’s a plot, but you’re free to do anything you want!” But because the plot is all they know how to prep, everywhere else the PCs go they just find blank walls and vast empty expanses of boringness. This still feels like punishment to the players. Worse yet, because the GM is trying to give them “freedom” to “do whatever they want,” he is no longer giving them the usual prompts and pressure to keep them on the rails, so these bad situations paradoxically become more common!)

At this point, all you can do is run your game honest and true.

Port mortems can also be useful, where you pull the curtain back a bit so that you and the players can chat about what happened in the game, why it happened, and how it could have gone differently.

You may also find it necessary to interject yourself more aggressively into the metagame in the middle of a session. For example, when a player begins openly talking about how they’re being railroaded or speculating about “what the GM wants us to do” you may need to step in and literally say, in that moment, “That’s not how this works.”

Similarly, if other bad behaviors are the problem, be prepared to step in and protect the players’ interests if other players are stepping on them. For example, saying stuff like, “I think Beth had an idea. What were you going to say, Beth?” (This doesn’t necessarily mean that the other player at your table is actually doing something wrong! But once a player has been conditioned to respond to certain stimuli, they can overreact to stuff that otherwise wouldn’t be a problem.)

Understand that this is about creating an environment of trust at your table and that trust can be tough for players who have been given no reason to trust in the past.

This becomes easier once you’ve already established this trust with a stable of players, because when a new player joins up and assumes the railroad or other bad behavior is happening, the other players will help push back on those assumptions.

WHAT IF YOU’RE THE PROBLEM?

We often talk about how the first step in solving a problem at your table is to have a frank discussion with your group about it, but first you have to (a) recognize that you have a problem and (b) identify what the root cause of that problem is. Even if you convince your players to stop creating wacky anarchist characters who disrupt the game, for example, if you haven’t addressed why they were creating those characters in the first place, then you’ve likely just moved the problem around. (That player will find a different way of responding to what they don’t like.)

So what if you’ve realized that you’re the one engaging in the bad behavior (railroading, for example) and you want to change the way your table works?

First, make sure you can actually get to the point where you can run your game honest and true. If all you’ve ever run or know how to run is a railroad, it can be hard to figure out how to do things differently. Check out Don’t Prep Plots, Node-Based Scenario Design, and Game Structures for some good places to start.

Second, it’s time to have that frank discussion: Tell your players that you want to change the way your game works. Be specific, not just with what you’re trying to do but also what it will mean for how they play the game. Remember that it’s not enough to just change your own behavior; you need to get your players to change their behavior, too.

I also recommend explicitly empowering your players to call out the bad behavior you’re trying to address. When they do, pause the game and have another frank discussion. Don’t feel attacked in this moment. If it’s happening, cop to it and figure out how to address it. If it’s not happening and the players are just being paranoid, pull the curtain back and explain what’s actually happening.

And, yup, that might disrupt a few sessions. But the long-term pay-offs as you collectively rebuild trust in each other is going to be worth it.

Go to Part 1

EPILOGUE: HONORS

They contacted Vajra and made arrangements for the gold to be brought out of Neverember’s Vault. It took workers the better part of a full day to load it all up.

A day later they stood upon the grand stairs in the courtyard of Castle Waterdeep in a carefully negotiated and orchestrated ceremony. Renaer stood at Kittisoth’s side — the son of Neverember returning his father’s ill-gotten spoils along with the heroes of the hour who had been most responsible for its recovery. In her speech to the assembled nobles, burghers, diplomats, guild representatives, broadsheet writers, and other notables, Kora made a point of thanking “the great aid that our sister city of Luskan, by virtue of their Lord Jarlaxle, gave us in pursuit of this gold.” Jarlaxle, who was standing among the crowd of nobles, tipped the broad rim of his feathered hat in silent recognition.

Laeral, of course, had known that this was coming, and her own speech was careful in thanking, “Lord Neverember and all those who aided you in this brave enterprise as part of Force Grey.” Kora appreciated the subtle political touch of pulling an official shroud over the whole affair.

Publicly, Laeral awarded them all the Bright Sleeve – literally a sleeve of cloth-of-gold embroidered with (at their request) “The Trollskulls” in recognition of their “acts of bravery above and beyond expected conduct or paid duties.”

In a private ceremony, afterwards, Laeral passed over a small coffer containing one thousand harbor moons — a tenth of the hoard they’d recovered.

EPILOGUE: J

Even before the ceremony, Jarlaxle had released the Gralhunds’ son. (The Gralhunds could not express their eternal gratitude for what the Trollskulls had done.) A few days later, a note arrived on black paper and written in silver ink:

EPILOGUE: KORA’S SEARCH

Kora stood at the entrance to the Snobeedle Orchard and Meadery in Undercliff. Dim memories danced within her. In the wake of all that had happened, she had come looking for her mother. She’d felt a need to tie off loose ends.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped off the main road and headed down the private drive which drove into the heart of the orchard. The road was shaded by a canopy of tall fruit trees and lined with the gentle swell and distinctive round doors of halfling mounds.

All Kora truly knew about her family was that, after the death of her father in an accident on the docks, her mother had given up her and all three of her siblings to various temples.

Her sister, Kaila, had been taken in by the Hospice of St. Laupsenn, a Triad Temple dedicated to the gods of Ilmater, Tyr, and Torm that had been erected by the Ilmatari knights of the Order of the Golden Cup. Kora was introduced to Vhaspar, an old man in his seventies, half blind with cataracts, to whom Kaila had been apprenticed. Sadly, he told Kora that her sister had caught the spotted plague while tending to the sick in 1488 and died.

She had more luck at the Spire of the Morning, the temple of Lathander where her other sister, Kamara, and her brother, Keryth, had been fostered. The temple was built of pink marble and, as she had arrived, the first light of the dawn had just been striking the seven spires of copper, gold, and silver which had been designed to reflect that light brilliantly across the city.

Delsanra Iangella, the Sovereign Mother of the temple, told her that Kamara had recently gone on pilgrimage to the House of the Triad in Bryn Shandar, a Lathanderian temple far to the north near Ten Towns. “But your brother should be down in just a moment.” Delsanra hadgestured up towards the spires. Keryth had become one of the seven Dawn Priests, charged to stand atop the spires and call out the Songs of Dawn when the sun rose and the Songs of Night’s Warding when it set.

He, too, had thought about contacting their mother a few years before. “She was still working at the Snobeedle Orchard in Undercliff,”

“I was born there!” Kora exclaimed.

“I remember!” Keryth laughed. “But to speak true, I felt… unwelcome there. It felt less like an orchard and more like a cult. I… didn’t find the answers I’d hoped to. I haven’t been back.”

Keryth remembered more of their childhood than Kora did, and he had been able to share a few tales with her before needing to return to his duties. They’d made promises to talk again. Kora wasn’t sure if that would happen, but his words had led her here.

To the orchard.

EPILOGUE: THE CASSALANTER CHILDREN

Meanwhile, the others had been summoned to Blackstaff Tower. Entering the tower they found that, rather than ascending it, all of their paths led down… and down… and down.

They came at last to a room. Vajra was waiting for them outside the door.

“I found the Cassalanter children. You need to be here for this.” She opened the door and stepped in.

“No,” Kittisoth murmured, shaking her head. “No… No.”

But Pashar nodded firmly and followed Vajra. Theren went with him. Edana took Kitti gently and helped her inside. It was horrible, but it was their plan. It was their responsibility. Vajra was right. But she wasn’t sure she could ever forgive her for it.

As Vajra said, “It’s all right. It’s going to be all right,” she drove two blades simultaneously into the backs of the Cassalanter children’s heads, neatly severing their spinal cords. With a wave of her hand, the Blackstaff opened a furnace in the wall of the chamber and levitated the children’s corpses into it.

Kittisoth sobbed and fell to her knees, her wings quaking.

The bodies burned away.

EPILOGUE: KORA’S MOTHER

At the end of the private drive, Kora found a complex of larger buildings, mostly still built in halfling style. The main building, in fact, appeared to be less constructed and more grown directly out of the ground as a tangle of trees winding and twisting around each other.

After some short introductions, she was led to an elderly halfling woman dressed in green robes with silver trim. The old woman smiled at her. “Yes, yes, of course. Welcome. My name is Blossom. Blossom Snobeedle. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She gave a small smile and her eyes twinkled. “I remember when you were born in the field, just over there.”

“That’s right,” Kora said. “I was born in a field.”

Blossom nodded, hearing the tone Kora couldn’t quite control in her voice. “I remember Samira’s heartache at giving up her children. Those were hard years after your father passed.”

“I’d like to talk with her, please,” Kora said.

Blossom tapped her cane. “You didn’t ever properly know this. Your mother didn’t want you to know. But no amount of hardship could have made her give you up. The only reason she ever gave you up was because she was following the Voice of the Wood.”

“What?”

“She’d joined the Circle of Initiates,” Blossom said. “All that you see here is owned by the Emerald Enclave, a powerful druidic order. Your mother had joined the order. She was still learning the druidic arts when she received a vision from the God of the Ents that she needed to give her children up for the greater good. It broke her heart. But she did what she needed to do.

“I wish I could introduce you to your mother now. But unfortunately that’s not possible. Three months ago she did me a great service: My youngest son, Dasher, disappeared in Waterdeep. He’d just been running some errands, but he didn’t come home. After much heartache, he was found by a man named Davil Starsong. He had been kidnapped by a gang of wererats named the Shard Shunners. They’d infected him. They’d turned my son into a monster; severed his connection from the Old Growth.

“He needed respite and time to heal. Samira offered to journey with him to the Isle of Ilighôn in the Sea of Fallen Stars, where the stronghold of our Enclave is located. They left three weeks ago.”

Kora wiped a tear that was threatening to fall from her eye. “Thank you. I am very proud of her for helping… for helping your son. And you should know that the wererats who plagued your son… they’ve been dealt with.”

“Indeed?” Blossom smiled. “Even out here we’ve been hearing good things about you Kora. About you and your friends.”

“When she comes back, could you please tell her to come and visit?” Kora asked. “I run a small tavern with some friends. I’d love to share a meal with her.”

Blossom nodded. “Of course. I’ll let her know.”

“It’s just off Trollskull Alley,” Kora said. “It’s called Trollskull Manor.”

EPILOGUE: THE FEASTS OF LEIRUIN

Festival season was finally coming to an end with the Feast of Leiruin. In Trollskull Alley, the celebrations they had arranged were a roaring success. Spring garlands were strung between dancing poles. Mattrim Threestrings was singing while laughing children dunked for apples and chased each other through the swirling, chaotic joy of the evening.

In the midst of this merriment, the five of them came together on the porch of Trollskull Manor and headed into the tavern’s common room. They were waving to various neighborhood faces that were starting to become familiar to them when Floon came running up. “Edana!” He was holding an orange tabby cat. “My friend Riklyn Harvester has been transformed into this cat by an irate sorcerer who was upset that he had picked up a girl at the Old Skull Tavern. Now, I’ve got Riklyn right here and—”

“Meow!”

“–I’m really hoping you can help turn him back!”

Kittisoth frowned. “Why do you think she would be able to turn him back?”

Floon looked confused. “Edana helps with everything, doesn’t she?”

Pashar laughed.

Kitti’s eyes narrowed. “Was it Riklyn who was trying to pick up the girl?”

“Of course!” Floon declared. “I was just being a good wingman! Riklyn’s a player! You’d like him!”

“I would not!”

Edana smirked. “Kora, can you do anything?”

Kora sighed and cast detect magic. “Uh… the cat’s not magical.”

“What?”

“That’s not Riklyn. It’s just a cat.”

“What?!”

Kittisoth laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Meow!” The cat leapt out of Floon’s arms and ran off into the crowd.

“Riklyn!” Floon shouted. “Wait… you’re sure that wasn’t Riklyn?”

“Positive,” Kora said.

Floon shrugged. “Then he must be with the girl.” And he headed off to get a drink.

Mattrim danced by with Bonnie, the barmaid from the Yawning Portal, in his arms. He made a point of flashing his Harper pin to them as he spun by. Kitti laughed again.

And then, across, the room she spotted Isgrigg heading toward Ilthaea, one of the floating star elf triplets. She pounded Pashar on the shoulder. “Look!”

Isgrigg nervously said, “Would you… uh… like to get a drink some time?”

“Oh!” Ilthaea blinked. “I always thought you liked Ulthaea.”

“No!” Isgrigg said. “I like you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Yes. We should go out for a drink. It is written.”

Pashar cried out, “It is written!”

“What?!” Kittisoth shouted.

Just then, coming in from the alley, they saw Valetta, the priestess from the House of Gond, accompanied by Nym the Nimblewright. Nym came over to them. “Thank you very much. For the invitation.”

They had a brief conversation with them, and then Volo came trundling over to them.

“Oh gods…” Kittisoth murmured.

“My friends!” Volo cried. “Trollskull Manor! I must say, this is the finest decision I’ve made in decades! So much activity! I’d actually like to talk to you about arranging for a signing of Volo’s Guide to Mountains… Er… Monsters.” He might have been a few drinks in at that point. “I also have a number of questions to ask you about the forthcoming Volo’s Guide to Spirits and Ghosts!”

EPILOGUE: THE DANCE OF LEIRUIN

Later that evening, Kittisoth and Renaer danced in the midst of the Feast at Brandathall. They swirled about the ballroom, gliding (and occasionally floating) beautifully across the floor. The others were nearby, part of the large crowd mingling around the busy dance floor.

They saw the Gralhunds come in. Their eyes met and, from across the room, the Gralhunds mouthed, Thank you…

Kitti and Renaer swept around the ballroom. Kitti twirled around just in time to see Laeral and Vajra teleport in on one side of the room. Mirt was with them! He was a little pallid, but he gave a grateful nod of the head to the new Brightcandle and her friends.

Kitti danced on. As they passed the door, Jarlaxle came walking in – as himself, for a change. Seeing Kitti’s doubletake, Renaer grinned. “Don’t worry. Osco has an eye on him.”

“Oh good,” Kitti grinned sardonically. “My confidence is restored!”

They passed Hermione, who was dancing with a tawny-haired Calishite noble. She gave Kitti a bawdy wink, and Kitti replied with a bawdier thumbs up.

And then the song was winding down. Renaer took the lead and they twirled out into the middle of the floor. As the music ended, he spun down onto one knee and produced a ring.

“Kittisoth, would you go on one last adventure with me?” Renaer grinned. “The greatest adventure of all?”

The entire room seemed to hold its breath.

“… Yeah. Sure. Let’s do it!” Kitti grinned and blushed red. “But I may need to go to the Sea of Fallen Stars to save my friend’s mom. And I also lost a bet with Pashar, so I’m going to have go Dip first.”

“Well, we could be married in the Yawning Portal,” Renaer suggested.

“No!” Kitti said. “We could not!”

EPILOGUE: THUNDERSTAFF

Time passed. Now they were placing the last of the Harper cache into the secret chamber beneath Thunderstaff Manor. Theren tucked the last package onto a shelf and they all stowed their Harper pins, their business as Harpers completed.

They headed back up the stairs. As they came into the entryway, the doors burst open. The two Cassalanter children came rushing in, joining the other children who were there playing at the new Thunderstaff Orphanage.

EPILOGUE: THE SEA OF FALLEN STARS

Pashar stood at the prow of a ship, the sea wind in his face and an endless horizon before him. Kora stepped up to join him on his right side. Theren stepped up to his left.

Kittisoth swooped down from the skies, flying past them and alighting next to Renaer on the lower deck. She threw her arm around her husband and smiled.

The swanwing ship sailed on into the Sea of Fallen Stars, seeking the next great adventure.

EPILOGUE: TROLLSKULL FUTURE

One year later, Edana stood on the balcony of Trollskull Manor looking out across the city towards Mount Waterdeep. Below her, the Trollskull Gardens that had been meticulously planned by Theren filled the alley — a verdant sweep of green growth and flowering trees. Squiddly was down there, shooting at a target propped up against one of the trees.

Nat was sitting in the bole of a different tree off to one side, nearly of a height with the balcony. Her brow was furrowed in concentration… and little sparks leapt from her fingertips.

Jenks, who was working in the kitchens down below, called out, “Do you want a roll? Catch!” He hurled one up through the window and Edana snatched it nimbly from the air.

Taking a bite from the gloriously fresh bread, she turned to head back into the manor. But as she did, Vajra flew down from the blue sky and alighted gently on the balcony next to her.

There was still work to be done.

The Sea goes ever on and on,
Away from manor where it began.
On distant shores we light upon,
Let others follow us who can!
With them a voyage new begins,
But one day with thought of child and friend,
We’ll turn back to lighted inn,
Where toils began and journeys end.

THE END

GM: Justin Alexander

Kittisoth Ka’iter – Heather Burmeister
Mamoon Pashar Al-Eiraf Um-Hafayah – Peter Heeringa
Kora Marwood – Chris Malone
Edana – Sarah Holmberg
Theren – Erik Malm

POST-CREDIT SCENE

Edana sat cross-legged in the secret chambers beneath Thunderstaff Orphanage. She held the Stone of Golorr in the palm of her hand. Its alien thoughts melded and danced with hers. The secrets it had stolen from the world flowed into her.

She had gained so many of them already: Horrible racial slurs. The elvish word essylathir, which meant the beauty of eyes which are the color of a storm-tossed sea. The existence of tawny-haired bipeds known as “fuzzies” that lived in the High Forest. The Kingdom of Otheria, which ruled a demesne from the Sword Coast to the sands of Anauroch five hundred years before. The name Anu-Devan which had one been the most popular male elven name. The location of sixteen silver bars buried in the rear yard of a tavern in Murann in 916 DR. The spells of blacksteel and midnight shroud. The ritual required for the creation of a Hell cyst. The location of a vast complex of gothic archways, each leading to a different locale holding great secrets.

Now a new secret was leeching into her: An atrocity performed during the Crown Wars.

She saw the utter truth of it. How history had long maintained that the dark elf Ilythiiri had viciously attacked the kingdom of Orishaar on the thinnest of pretenses, thus beginning the Second Crown War.

But there, buried inside, was the secret: That the Orishaari had actually betrayed the Ilythiiri at a wedding which was to unite their two people and slaughtered most of the Ilythiiri royal family. The Stone had wiped this truth from history, leaving the official histories to turn the murderous moon elves into victims and the wronged dark elves into villains who were served with a cold justice when they lost the Crown Wars and were forced underground into the sunless realms of their cavernous kingdoms.

And none would ever know but her.

Her eyes snapped open.

Go to Part 1

A question I’ve been not infrequently asked is what starting date I used when running Dragon Heist using the Alexandrian Remix. A quick summary:

• PCs arrive in the Yawning Portal on Ches 1^st.
• Grand Opening of Trollskull Manor on Ches 20^th.
• Fireball on Ches 22^nd.
• Cassalanter kids get their souls sucked to Hell on Tarsakh 11^th.

Some of this timeline, particularly as it pertains to the dual festival weeks of Fleetswake and Waukeentide (with the sacrificial feast thrown by the Cassalanters being a Feast of Leiruin on Tarsakh 10^th), is laid out in Part 4 of the Remix. Other dates are given on the master timeline in Part 5. But I apparently never clearly laid out how these dates related to the events in Chapter 1 (rescuing Floon) and Chapter 2 (opening Trollskull Manor and joining factions).

Basically, there are four considerations here:

First, you want to give the PCs plenty of time to resolve the situation before the Cassalanter kids get their souls sucked, but not so much that they don’t feel any pressure. It’s not quite the illusion of pressure, but it’s close: You want the players to look at the calendar and think, “We could run out of time!” without that just kind of accidentally happening despite their best efforts.

Second, you want the Grand Game stuff to play out across the full length of the festival season to give maximum opportunities for onsite surveillance. (Jarlaxle, Xanathar, and the Cassalanters all have opportunities tied to the festivals.)

For both of these reasons, you neither want the fireball (which triggers the PCs’ meaningful involvement in the Grand Game) arriving too early (no time pressure; the onsite surveillance opportunities aren’t available yet) nor too late (no time to save the kids, fewer surveillance opportunities).

However, the third consideration is that the section of the campaign you simultaneously have the least AND most control over is the refurbishing of Trollskull Manor (and simultaneous faction missions): Least because the players can theoretically fritter away a ton of time here in unpredictable ways. Most because once they’re done frittering you can ultimately say, “Okay, and then it takes you [arbitrary amount of time] for the last of the repairs to be finished. Looks like you can open the joint on [arbitrary date]!”

This allows you almost infinite control over the date that the Grand Opening happens AS LONG AS the players don’t run past your desired date. Starting the campaign on Ches 1^st gives you a nearly three week lead time. In other words, you’ll have plenty of time with a healthy margin of error.

But why do we want the Grand Opening on Ches 20^th?

First, it allows the Grand Opening to be its own distinct day.

Second, you get a “normal” operating day on the 21^st (which you can also use to cleanly establish the beginning of the back-to-back festival weeks; see Addendum: The Twin Parades) before you blow the windows out with a fireball on the 22^nd.

You’re letting the Grand Opening be a legitimate payoff for all the hard work the players have been doing and then you’re establishing something at least vaguely resembling the new status quo before you literally blow it up.

The picture at the top of this post depicts an amazing Faerunian calendar that was made by Erik Malm, one of the players in my Dragon Heist campaign. Thanks to Erv Walter, the Patreon patron who prompted me to write up this post!

In medieval Spain, free cities would erect a gallows because the jurisdiction over the death penalty was one of the essential rights they gained when freed from feudal fealty.

This led to the gallows scaffold itself becoming a sign of freedom and independence. Communities, wanting to celebrate these liberties, would place the gallows in a prominent place where it could be widely viewed. This often meant the top of a hill. Thus the Puig de lees Forques (Hill of the Gallows) or the Tossal del Penjat (Hill of the Hanged Man).

First: This is a cool bit of lore that you can inject into your fantasy worlds. You can also spin off variants, too: Like free elf communities being allowed to plant a cutting of the white-barked True Oak. Or dragonborn displaying the skull of their dead sire to show that they owe fealty to no drake. Or lean into the gallows itself by having necromantic kings send undead gallowsmen to the cities they’ve freed from feudal lords.

Second: These high places where the gallows once stood are now ideal for wind turbines.

These turbines, of course, are sucking up the ghosts of the hanged men and women who died there and are either spewing them out across the local countryside or injecting them into the electrical grid.

MINING THE WORLD

Kenneth Hite often asserts that, “No invented setting is as interesting as the real world.” No setting is better mapped, better documented, or (as we can see above) filled with more weird little bits of lore just waiting to be injected into your game. The real world and its history also instantly resonates with your players in a way which can be very difficult (Hite might say impossible) to achieve with a fictional setting.

(For example, I’ve written whole articles about how to establish the lore of your world and make your players care about it so that you can use it to best effect for awesome pay-offs. Conversely, you don’t have to do anything for “Hitler” or “Great Pyramid of Giza” or “Shanghai” to immediately resonate and have meaning for your players.)

So how can you find cool historical tidbits like this and use them in your worldbuilding/adventure writing?

The example of the gallows above was actually a really clean cut example of how this can work, so I thought it might be instructive to break it down.

FIRST: READ HISTORY BOOKS. Writers talk all the time about how important is for creators of superhero comic to read more than superhero comics; or for writers of fantasy to read stuff that isn’t fantasy. Basically, you can’t cull fresh new ideas from history unless you’re actually reading history.

This isn’t homework. Nor is it targeted, specific research. (That’s a different thing, although all kinds of tangential tidbits are likely to crop up while you’re researching something else.) Ideally this should be pleasure reading; find history books (or science books or whatever) that you enjoy delving into.

In this case, I was reading Will Durant’s Story of Civilization.

SECOND: JOT DOWN THE INTERESTING STUFF. Durant dropped the tidbit about the free cities of Spain displaying gallows as a sign of their free rights and it struck me as a cool, macabre detail I hadn’t heard before. I wrote it down in a file full of similar notes.

THIRD: PULL ON THE THREADS. I thought it would be fun to share the gallows tidbit on Twitter, but before doing so I did a quick Google search to verify it. (Durant’s series is fantastic because of its almost unparalleled breadth, but he also wrote it in the ‘40s, so its not unusual for some of his scholarship to have been superseded by new discoveries.) The search specifically led me to an entire book specifically dedicated to the death penalty in medieval Spain (The Death Penalty in Late-Medieval Catalonia by Flocel Sabaté) with a lot more information about the gallows being displayed by free cities. That gave me both the names of the hills and the factoid about the wind farms.

FOURTH: GIVE IT A FANTASTICAL TWIST. This is more art than science, but generally you can either look at your factoid and say, “If this existed, how would magic interact with it?” (This is the sort of thought that gives you “sucking up ghosts and spewing them out.”)

Alternatively, you can look at the fantastical elements that already exist in your setting and ask how they would accomplish the same thing or achieve the same goal in different ways. (For example, elves planting cuttings of the True Oak instead of putting up gallows.)

AND THAT’S IT. It really does just boil down to being self-aware of stuff that you find cool and interesting, documenting that stuff, and then giving just the tiniest amount of thought to how it can be used or adapted.

Go to Part 1

INTO THE VAULT

They headed down the long, sloping dwarven hall and emerged back into the shadow-shrouded vault. Edana’s hooded lantern swept back and forth across the immense chamber.

Kora placed the dragon scale atop the bas relief of the bronze sun and cast daylight. The bright light gleamed off the bronze beneath her feet and glittered in the depths of the dwarven runes — as crisp and fine as the day they’d first been crafted — on the adamantine doors.

Theren stepped forward and struck the dragon scale with the mithril hammer.

In that instant, there was a deep, sonorous tone that echoed around them. The doors slid back silently into the walls, revealing a vast chamber beyond. As they stepped up into the doorway, they looked into an even larger chamber — at least a hundred feet long, with a ceiling far above their heads — lit by a silvery, magical light.

Three bridges crossed the chamber above them. These had become worn with age. Stone had collapsed from their spans, and also crumbled from the large support pillars which ran down the center of the chamber to keep them aloft. Despite this damage, they could see that the support pillars had been carved to resemble warhammers with their square heads pressed against the floor.

Down at the far end of the chamber, they could see three tall niches, at least twenty or thirty feet high, which contained chipped frescoes. An equally massive doorway of bronze near these and off to the left appeared to lead out of the chamber.

Before crossing the threshold, Kora cast a ritual which would allow her to detect magical auras and Pashar simultaneously worked a rite which would allow him to more easily translate any inscriptions they found within. The others drunk in the ancient ambience while they waited and then, when the time came, took trepidatious steps forward.

As they approached the frescoes in the far wall, they could see the scenes they depicted more clearly. The first showed the dwarven god Dumathoin placing glowing gems into a range of mountains which appeared to be a primeval representation of the Sword Mountains. The second showed Dumathoin visiting the Illithid god Ilsensine, manifested in its form as a disembodied emerald brain, and bathing with it in the greenish psionic energy of the maze-like Caverns of Thought. And the third showed Dumathoin, Ilsensine (depicted in its form as an Illithid avatar), and Laduguer, the god of the duergar, with hands clasped in a dwarven circle of friendship.

“I don’t understand,” Kora said. “Why would the dwarves depict one of their own gods being in league with the illithid?”

Theren approached the gargantuan door of bronze. Pushing lightly upon it, he discovered that it pivoted easily at its mid-point, rotating into a perpendicular position allowing them to pass to either side of it. The room beyond was only small in comparison to the chamber they had just left. A broad stairway without railing ran up the far wall and then along the wall to the left to an upper level.

“That must go up to the bridges,” Kora surmised.

“I could fly up?” Kittisoth suggested.

“The stairs look sturdy enough,” Kora said, walking towards them.

The wall behind the stairs was covered in another fresco, this one depicting a vast dwarven army battling goblins. As Kora drew near it, she realized the whole fresco was magical. She stepped closer to analyze its enchantments, and then backpedaled: The entire fresco was enchanted to mesmerize anyone looking upon it, drawing them into its ‘glorious’ details.

She quickly explained the problem to the others: The fresco was directly next to the stairs. Anyone walking up it was at risk of studying the fresco for the rest of their lives.

“I’m flying up,” Kittisoth said, and did so.

“Do we need to see it?” Edana asked. “Could we just close our eyes?”

Kora nodded. That would work, and she’d already resisted the effect. The others were quickly blindfolded, and Kora led them up the stairs to where Kittisoth was waiting.

The upper hall, with three archways that did, in fact, lead to the bridges, had a series of pillars running down its length that, like the larger pillars below, had been carved in the likeness of warhammers. The wall opposite the archways bore a cracked mosaic depicting a dwarf smith at a forge, crafting dwarves out of black metal and diamonds. (Kora detected no magic emanating from this mural, but did recognize the figure as Moradin, creator god of the dwarves.)

Looking out at the bridges, they could see that two of them, although damaged, still appeared to be passable, but the third was missing a section in its middle. All three bridges ended in seemingly identical adamantine doors, smaller in scale, but similar to the larger one below.

After a brief discussion, they decided that crossing the broken bridge actually made the most sense. “Because it makes the least sense, if that makes sense,” Kora said.

“Makes sense to me!” Kittisoth said, and flew them across one by one.

Edana discovered that the door had been magically locked, but Kora was able to dispel it. The door swung open, revealing a modest chamber (only roughly the size of the Trollskull common room!). Four suits of rusted dwarven plate stood in the corners of the room, draped in cobwebs. The floor was a mosaic in a dwarven abstract style that was no longer very popular, arranged around a circular motif in the center of the floor. Carved into the far wall, in dwarven characters which Pashar (with magical aid) could read, was an inscription: A secret never told will part Dumathoin’s lips.

Pashar pulled out his notes and read aloud one of the banal, graffitied secrets he had copied form the long hall.

Nothing happened.

“I don’t think it’s a secret any more because it was written on the wall,” Kora said.

“All right,” Pashar said. Then he took a deep breath. “I… I didn’t really do something good. I stole this crystal from my master’s collection and released a djinn. That’s the real reason he erased my name from the Book of Fate.”

The others stood in a stunned silence which allowed them to clearly hear the faint puff of air as the motif in the center of the floor began to rotate up into the room.

“I can’t believe it,” Kitti murmured.

The motif revealed itself to be a hollow pillar which recessed into the ceiling above, allowing access to a staircase leading down.

“This is why you follow the letter of the law so carefully now?” Edana said blithely to Pashar.

“Well, I… We have a treasure to find!” he declared.

“Uh-uh. No!” Kittisoth said, following him down the stairs. “I have more questions for you!”

The circular stairs bottomed out onto a large landing leading to another set of broad stairs. At the bottom of these they could see a glinting, glittering light, almost like sunlight reflecting off a pond at dawn. At the bottom of the stairs was a vaulted antechamber, and a twenty-foot-wide doorway opened into another vast chamber beyond.

There were four more of the titanic, hammer-headed pillars here, defining a central area within the wider chamber, and leaving a kind of walkway around its perimeter. In the space between these pillars was a pile… a mound… a mountain of gold. A hoard of coins eight or ten feet high, spilling down into a haphazard carpet that covered the floor.

So abruptly confronted with the treasure, they were hesitant to enter the chamber. Edana instead reached out with a mage hand and telekinetically pulled one of the coins to herself.

It was a Waterdhavian dragon. Bright, shiny, and new. It was definitely Neverember’s Enigma.

“Hello?” Kora called. Theren echoed her in Draconic and Deep Speech.

Kittisoth walked forward, slightly dazed. The others also took a few steps forward, as if drawn in her wake. Then, with a pulse of her wings, Kittisoth took to the air, as if the earth could not contain the enthusiasm bursting within her.

And then they heard the shifting of some titanic bulk.

The dragon uncoiled from behind his hoard of gold.

THE DRAGON

The red dragon’s head curled up. One heavy foot crashed down atop the pile, unleashing a cascade of coins. Its tail began whipping back and forth.

Kittisoth screamed. Kora cursed, and then cried out, “STOP! We have a legal claim to the gold!”

“Oh no,” Edana said, “I don’t think dragons—”

“MY GOLD?!” The dragon’s voice boomed.

“We can’t cluster!” Pashar shouted. “Split up!”

Edana broke left. Theren simultaneously broke right, racing around the perimeter of the room while pestering the beast with arrows from both sides. Unfortunately, their shots simply ricocheted off its thick scales.

The dragon took to the air, beating its wings. The wind from those monstrous pinions actually blasted Kittisoth back against the wall. As she, knocked slightly senseless, slid to the floor, Pashar, who had also been knocked off his feet, scrabbled across the floor and fetched up behind the thick stone of the doorframe.

He was just in time. The dragon’s chest drew in air like a bellows, and then its fire spewed out. Kittisoth reacted quickly, pulsing her own wings in order to sort of half fly, half leap across the floor, scooping up Kora in one arm as she dived behind the other side of the door. Both of them were still badly scorched as the flames washed around and past them, but they managed to avoid the worst of it.

“IT IS MY GOLD NOW!” the dragon roared. “MINE! NEVEREMBER WILL NEVER TAKE IT BACK FROM ME!”

The dragon dived to one side, looping through the pillars and circling in behind Theren, who cut between another pair of pillars and ran fleetly up the pile of gold. Theren kept up a steady volley of arrow fire the entire time and a few managed to find chinks in the dragon’s armor.

It roared again, this time in pain, and swooped up in a high arc in order to follow Theren through the pillars. Pashar, however, had been waiting for this moment: As the dragon reached the highest point of its flight, he cast a paralyzing enchantment.

The dragon froze in midflight and plummeted from the sky, barreling down straight towards where Theren stood. Theren leapt over the top of the pile, sliding down the far side of it with gold coins scattering around his feet. The dragon plowed into the mountain of gold behind him, sending a huge avalanche of glittering coins cascading down and around Theren as he landed at the bottom of the pile.

Kittisoth swept past him, flying down the length of the dragon and hacking left and right with her greataxe, her mighty thews punching through its scales and laying bare the muscle beneath the ghastly wounds.

In her wake, Theren spun around and lowered his bow. The flame sacs to either side of the dragon’s neck bulged, glowing with a pure, white hot rage… but it could not move while Pashar’s spell laid upon it. Not even to breathe.

Theren shot it in the eye. Drew again. Shot it through the other eye. His arrow lodged deep in the creature’s skull.

With a final, shuddering breath, it was done.

The dragon was dead.

AFTERMATH

“That is a lot of gold,” Edana said.

Theren had set to work preserving the corpse. (“Dragon steaks at Trollskull!”) Kittisoth claimed one of its scales as a memento.

Discussion fell to logistics. How were they going to get all of this gold out? And, once they got it out, what should they do with it? They’d promised Vajra that it would be returned to the city and the citizens of Waterdeep from whom it had been stolen. But now that they were actually faced with the physical reality of all that gold, it suddenly didn’t seem that simple.

“Do we let Jarlaxle take any of the credit for this?” Edana asked. “As a way of—”

“—of getting him off our back?” Kittisoth finished.

“Yes,” Edana said. “There’s the kid. And the Stone. And all of that. But to cut to the heart of it, what he wants is to be publicly recognized as having helped Waterdeep. He wants the political leverage.”

Theren nodded. “I think we can speak honestly on Jarlaxle’s behalf and say that he’s been of help to us.”

“But he took a kid,” Pashar said. “A kid.”

“I know,” Theren said quietly.

“And this might be the best way to recover the kid,” Edana pointed out. “Or, if he knows that the game is done and he gets nothing, does he care about any of this — any of us — any more?”

“No,” Kitti said. “He kills everyone and then he comes for us.”

“Or he might say, ‘Well played,’” Theren suggested.

“I think we should give him credit,” Kora said. “He’s worked with us in good faith. I don’t forgive him for taking the kid, but that’s also why we should broker the deal and get it done. All he wants is the Lords’ Alliance. He just wants a seat at the table.”

“Which, in all fairness, maybe he should have,” Pashar said.

“Having a neighbor that’s constantly in conflict with you isn’t great for business,” Edana said. “As we well know.”

“But is Vajra really going to be all right with this?” Theren asked.

“Does it matter?” Kittisoth snapped.

“We’re talking about negotiating a seat in the Lords’ Alliance,” Theren said. “Is she going to be all right trading that for gold? Even if it’s a lot of gold?”

“Look,” Kittisoth said. “They don’t have to. Just because Jarlaxle gets credit for this, they can still do whatever they want. If they don’t want to accept him as members of their council, bullshit, whatever… That’s on them. If we broker the deal — if we give him credit — it’s not our decision to make him a Lord Whatever.”

The others nodded.

“I think we’re agreed,” Kora said.

Go to Epilogue