DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 37D: Affairs of the Evening

“He’s going to come looking for us,” Agnarr said.

“Not if he can’t get out of the prison,” Elestra said.

“If they couldn’t keep him in his cell, how likely is it they’ll keep him in the prison?” Tee asked.

“If he hasn’t gotten out already,” Tor said.

When Sera Nara arrived at the beginning of Session 37, collected Dominic, and disappeared into the night with him, this was because, sadly, Dominic’s player was leaving the campaign.

Dominic was gone.

I’ll have more to say about Dominic’s departure (and the ensuing consequences) in future installments of Running the Campaign, but for the moment I want to discuss the most immediate consequences: The party had lost its most powerful and dedicated healer.

One of the most basic foundations of tactics and strategy in D&D (and many other RPGs) boils down to a simple mathematical question: How much damage can you take vs. how much damage can you deal out? There are obviously A LOT of variables here that complicate things substantially, but on the “how much damage can you take” side of the equation the big X-factors are:

• What are your maximum hit point totals?
• How many hit points of healing can you do each day?

An important secondary consideration with healing is how fast you can add hit points to the active pool. (A periapt that can heal up to 1,000 hp per day at a rate of 1 hp per round is an incredible “deep reservoir,” but probably won’t help you keep standing in the middle of a fight where your opponents are dealing out 30 points of damage per hit.)

The departure of Dominic hits the group across the board:

• Their maximum hit point total has been reduced by his hit point count.
• Their maximum healing potential per day is drastically reduced.
• Without their specialized healer, their rate of healing per round is also drastically reduced.
• There are now fewer PC targets in combat, meaning damage will become more concentrated.

This is a really risky moment for most groups. In my experience, far riskier than they may realize.

The trick is that most groups – even groups with a lot of experience and skill – don’t really think deeply about this sort of stuff. They aren’t, for example, doing explicit analysis of their hit points vs. healing vs. damage output. Instead, over the course of the campaign, they’ve developed a sort of evolving gut instinct for what they can handle and how fights are going to play out.

It can be really easy to know that you’ve lost a PC and understand that it’s going to have an impact, but then drastically underestimate the actual impact it’s going to have. The loss of a PC – particularly a primary healer liker Dominic – isn’t a linear loss of capability. It’s more like an exponential one.

That means the group’s gut instinct is going to be LYING to them. Not only will they be prone to biting off more than they can chew, but when a fight goes south on them it’s going to go really bad and spiral out of control much faster than they anticipate.

Fortunately, in this case, the players were at least partially aware of the danger. Throughout Session 37, you can see it affecting their decision-making: They’re more conservative in the dangers they’re willing to face, and they’re more cautious in engaging with those dangers.

Complicating this even further, however, is that YOUR gut instinct, as the GM, is also going to be skewed. So it can be quite possible for you to push them into the abyss without meaning to. When you lose a player (and corresponding PC), therefore, you’ll want to spend a few sessions being hyper-alert to this until your gut has a chance to readjust.

Tip: One way you could help adjust for this a bit is to level up the other PCs in the group ASAP after losing a player. The extra power up will partially compensate for their diminished capacity.

You can, of course, experience this same danger even if a player is only missing for a session or two, rather than permanently departing.

So check your gut.

Campaign Journal: Session 37E – Running the Campaign: Newssheets
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 37D: AFFAIRS OF THE EVENING

May 9th, 2009
The 20th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

ILTUMAR’S INTERVENTION

They quickly explained the situation to Lavis, who seemed both shocked and saddened by what Iltumar had done (and was doing).

“Will you help us?” Tee asked. “We want to stage an intervention for him.”

Lavis agreed. They went back into the room where Iltumar was still lying unconscious on the surgical table and woke him up.

“Tee? Lavis? What are you doing here?”

“We came to help you, Iltumar,” Tee said.

“Help? I don’t need help!”

“Look at what you’ve done to yourself.” She gestured at his hands.

Iltumar looked down. He was horrified by the mutilation. “What happened?”

“This is what they were trying to do to you.”

“No! They were going to make me stronger so that I could help people!”

Confused, dazed, and in a fair amount of pain, Iltumar was also steeped in denial. But when they brought in Lavis a few minutes later, he broke down completely.

“I just wanted to help people…” he murmured.

Lavis patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.

They seemed to have gotten through to him, but they weren’t sure it was going to stick.

“As soon as we let him go, he’ll just go running back,” Elestra said.

Tor nodded. “And even if he doesn’t, they’ll be looking for him. It’s not safe for him to go home.”

“Or anywhere,” Tee agreed.

SQUIRING ILTUMAR

They eventually decided to send him to Pythoness House. “If he really wants to do good,” Tor said, “Then maybe Sir Kabel can give him the chance.”

While the others returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, Tee bundled Iltumar into a carriage and took him to Pythoness House. The place was quickly being transformed: One corner of the courtyard, which was bustling with activity, had been stacked high with refuse cleaned out from the inner rooms of the keep. Guards were now posted openly at the gate and they were able to direct Tee to where Sir Kabel was overseeing the refurbishing of one of the chambers on the second floor.

Tee gave Kabel a terse summary of Iltumar’s situation and his desires. Kabel agreed to shelter the boy in Pythoness House, with an eye towards squiring him into the Order if he proved worthy.

Once Kabel had sent Iltumar away with one of his knights to get him sorted away, however, Tee turned back to him. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of him, but you should know that it’s possible you shouldn’t trust him. I think he’s all right, but he fell in with a bad crowd. And they’ll be looking for him. He shouldn’t be allowed to leave Pythoness House.”

Kabel nodded. “That shouldn’t be problem.”

Tee took a deep breath. “There’s something else.”

Kabel quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“We spoke with the Commissar about Dominic’s plan to denounce Rehobath.”

“What?” Kabel was less than happy.

“The Commissar was concerned. And I think he’s got good reason for it.”

Kabel shook his head. “If Rehobath didn’t know before, he almost certainly knows now.”

“I don’t think the Commissar would tell him. He’s already annulled the warrant for your arrest.”

“It’s not a matter of who might tell him, it’s a matter of how many people know. And the list keeps growing.” Kabel grew thoughtful, but there was still an undercurrent of anger. “We’ve already talked about moving up the date of the announcement.”

“I thought you were going to wait for the Silver Fatar?”

“That may not be possible now.”

AFFAIRS OF THE EVENING

When the others returned to Delvers’ Square, Agnarr stopped by the Bull and Bear to let Hirus know that Iltumar and Lavis had both been rescued and that Iltumar was being kept in a safe place. Hirus thanked him profusely. Agnarr, made slightly uncomfortable by the show of gratitude, smiled, grunted, and excused himself.

Tor went to the stables, saddled Blue, and spent the next half hour riding up and down Tavern Row. He had some sense of keeping an eye out for any signs of gang activity between the Killravens and Balacazars, but the tension on the street was palpable. Members of the City Watch were posted everywhere, and after Tor’s third or fourth circuit he was approached by some of the guards and asked his business. When he wasn’t able to give a satisfactory answer, they told him to “be about your lack business elsewhere” (with a long look of askance at the red sash he wore).

After leaving Pythoness House, Tee headed to the White House. There she found the two soldiers who had fleeced Agnarr earlier in the day and, settling herself at their table, managed to win 15 of the gold pieces back from them. After they had decided to call it a night (“You see? I told you there wouldn’t be any barbarians here!”), she shifted over to the high stake tables and – on a string of good luck – won 300 gold pieces.

ILL NEWS FROM THE PRISON

(09/21/790)

Tee and Ranthir both rose early the next morning and went shopping for potions. (Without Dominic’s divine aid, they needed more healing resources.) By the time they returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, the others were awake and they breakfasted together.

The Freeport’s Sword was due to arrive that day, but – as Tee had learned – it was unlikely to arrive until the afternoon. They decided to spend the morning attending to minor chores and the like.

Elestra decided to spend the morning gathering information from around town. But as soon as she walked out the door and bought a newssheet, she turned right around and went back inside.

“Shilukar has escaped.”

“What?!”

It was true. Shilukar had disappeared from his cell in the Prison. Warden Odsen Rom swore that the thief-mage had not escaped, but he was also forced to confess that his guards had no idea where Shilukar might be hiding within the Prison complex, either.

“He’s going to come looking for us,” Agnarr said.

“Not if he can’t get out of the prison,” Elestra said.

“If they couldn’t keep him in his cell, how likely is it they’ll keep him in the prison?” Tee asked.

“If he hasn’t gotten out already,” Tor said.

They talked about it a little longer, but there didn’t seem to be anything they could do about it. And they weren’t even sure they wanted to do anything about it: Shilukar had neither the Idol of Ravvan nor the cure for Lord Abbercombe. He might come after them, but they had no reason to pursue him. He was somebody else’s problem.

FILLING THE MORNING HOURS

Tor had another round of training scheduled at the Godskeep. He found that the work of repositioning a bulk of the Order to the Holy Palace was still under way, but the halls already seemed emptier and it felt as if the hectic activity of the day before was beginning to die down.

Agnarr headed back to the Bull and Bear for the third time. He still needed to find a suit of armor for Seeaeti, having been caught up in the Iltumar affair the first time he’d gone and deciding that it wasn’t the best time to broach the subject the second time.

He found Hirus in a welcoming and appreciative vein. He thanked Agnarr again for all the help he had given Iltumar, and when Agnarr explained what he was looking for he became thoughtful for a moment.

“I bought a suit of damaged mage-touched chain yesterday,” he said after a moment. “There’s a large section of it missing. Repairing it would be a major undertaking, but it would be much easier for me to modify it for your hound.”

“How much?” Agnarr asked.

“Oh, no! This is the least I can do to show my thanks!” Hirus waved his hands. “I’ll have it ready for you in four days.”

TEE’S INCENSE VISION

Tee, finding herself with a free block of time for the first time in days, was feeling experimental. She took out the vision incense they had found in Pythoness House and carefully prepared her room for the ritual Ranthir had described to her.

The burning incense had a pleasing scent which pulled her quickly and easily into a trance-like state. But then, suddenly, the scent turned to brimstone in her nostrils.

Her eyes snapped open.

She found herself in a hellish scene. Black, basalt rock extended off to a featureless horizon. A single, pale star glinted in the sky, providing a dim radiance. Standing twenty feet before her was a writhing globe of flesh and body parts. Mouths appeared on the globe, moaning and howling in pain.

After a few a moments, a sickening rending noise ripped its way free from the globe as the fleshy substance was torn apart. Stepping out of the rented, deflating side came a massive, black reptilian with a single, cyclopean eye of sickly yellow.

“AT LAST… YOU HAVE COME TO THE VAULT OF TSATHZAR RHO… MAY SESSURAL FEAST UPON YOUR DREAMS!”

She became aware of Agnarr screaming in her ear: “Tee! Tee! What is it? What’s wrong?”

Running the Campaign: Losing a PC – Campaign Journal: Session 37E
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 37C: Iltumar’s Folly

When everyone gathered back at the Ghostly Minstrel, they met Agnarr’s news regarding Iltumar with exasperation and impatience. They felt universally that they were facing “another Phon”, who would thank them little for trying to extricate them from a situation of their own creation.

“I’m less worried about Iltumar than about the woman who went looking for him,” Agnarr said.

“That’s true,” said Elestra (who had actually met Lavis). “I empathize with her.”

“And she shouldn’t suffer just because Iltumar is an idiot,” Tee said.

It’s not unusual – primed by published adventures, computer games, and simply practicality – for campaigns to be studded with patrons: NPCs who ask the PCs to do thing for them, usually in return for money, a favor, or some other form of remuneration. You need to hook the PCs into an adventure, and the easiest thing in the world is for an NPC to simply walk up to them and say, “I need you to go to X and do Y.” In this case, “I need you to investigate a warehouse and try to rescue Iltuamr (and Lavis).”

In fact, many campaigns are entirely structured around patronage, with either one NPC or a rotating cast of patrons cycling through to deliver episodic assignments.

Patrons can also take many forms: Shadowrun has its Mr. Johnsons. Paranoia has The Computer. You could even imagine a campaign where the PCs are Delphic Oracles, receiving their missions through divine visions.

There are ways this can go wrong, of course. One of the worst case versions is the mail carrier scenario hook, where the PCs are reduced to being mundane messengers doing boring, menial tasks. Many GMs have also experienced the potentially disastrous consequences of having a patron betray the PCs, causing a loss of trust which can permanently break patronage as a scenario hook in not only that campaign, but any other campaigns the GM might run.

(There are ways to pull off these double crosses, but that’s a topic for another time.)

But even when their patrons are playing fair and the task list is appropriately juiced with important stakes and duties that clearly only the PCs are capable of achieving, you can still reach a point where the players get fed up with a patron: Why is this guy nagging us? Why can’t he clean up his own messes? Why do we always have to do what he says?

In some cases, the solution is to up the pay. In others, it may be time to cycle in some new patrons and freshen up the premise. Or perhaps have their patron “level up” their participation, revealing some new level of the conspiracy, increasing their resources, giving them an opportunity to buy into the organization, or unlocking a new tier of targets.

This is particularly essential, of course, in an episodic campaign where you’re counting on that NPC to deliver the scenario hook each week. In a more varied campaign, the players’ interest in something getting burnt out is less of a problem: They’ll pursue a different lead. Or, in a sandbox, decide for themselves what they want to do next. When they turn down a job or duck the patron’s calls, you can just follow through on the consequences (e.g. Phon dies in a house fire) and then follow the PCs’ lead.

In the specific case of Iltumar, “the hero-worshipper who’s been following you around gets ‘kidnapped’ by cultists and needs to be rescued” was basically the endgame I’d been laying the groundwork for since introducing Iltumar at the beginning of the campaign.

If you’ve been following these campaign write-ups for a while, you’ll probably also be unsurprised to discover that I’m not actually invested in whether or not the PCs help Iltumar: If they do, things go one way. If they don’t, then Iltumar-as-chaositech-altered-cultist would be a fascinating subplot to see play out.

(As you’ll see by the end of this session, the PCs figured out an option I had never even considered.)

Not caring whether the PCs do what a patron asks them to do, of course, makes everything easier. And if your players can break the ingrained expectation of “you’re supposed to do what the NPC tells you to do” (dilemma hooks are useful for this), you can get really liberated. Now patrons aren’t a method for the GM to take control of the campaign’s agenda; they’re just another vector for information, and the players remain in charge of their destiny.

Campaign Journal: Session 37D – Running the Campaign: Losing a PC
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 37C: ILTUMAR’S FOLLY

May 9th, 2009
The 20th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

When everyone gathered back at the Ghostly Minstrel, they met Agnarr’s news regarding Iltumar with exasperation and impatience. They felt universally that they were facing “another Phon”, who would thank them little for trying to extricate them from a situation of their own creation.

“I’m less worried about Iltumar than about the woman who went looking for him,” Agnarr said.

“That’s true,” said Elestra (who had actually met Lavis). “I empathize with her.”

“And she shouldn’t suffer just because Iltumar is an idiot,” Tee said.

So they decided to check out the warehouse that Lavis had been investigating when she disappeared. But they also decided to wait until after dark: If Lavis had been caught, that was proof enough that there were prying eyes that they would be better off avoiding.

While the others kept their distance, Elestra turned into a squirrel and went scampering through the trees surrounding the warehouse. What she discovered was that the building was sealed up tight: The few windows were boarded on both the inside and the outside and the doors – although having the appearance of neglect and dilapidation – were fit tightly into their frames. There was not a single cranny or crevice anywhere on the building for her to peer through.

When she returned to the others with the news, Tor shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s just knock on the door.”

And so they did. But when they knocked on the front door, there was no answer. So Tee took a few moments to pick the lock and make sure it was safe, before stepping aside and letting Tor and Agnarr take point.

On the far side of the door they found a small room piled high with junk and refuse. The walls appeared unsound and the entire place looked abandoned… but a closer inspection revealed that the walls, like those on the outside, were without true flaw. And there was also a conspicuous absence of any door leading deeper into the building. There had to be a secret entrance hidden somewhere amidst the junk.

And so there was. Tee found a panel on the far wall, concealed behind a high pile of refuse. She also found that it was rigged to deliver a powerful electric shock when opened. She disengaged the electrical connection and signaled that it was safe for Tor to open the door.

Unfortunately, as Tor opened the door, the electrical connection Tee had disengaged swung back into place. With a sharp click the circuit was completed and Tor only barely managed to release the door before the sharp arcs of energy electrocuted him. Despite his quick reflexes, he had still been painfully scorched by the trap.

Tee started to apologize, but as the door swung open it revealed – immediately on the other side – a once-human brute, its face contorted in a rictus of pain. Four multi-jointed, bladed limbs burst from its back and its hands had been stitched into permanent fists and studded with black, chitinous spikes.

The creature’s blades and fists lashed out, but Tor’s sword was already in his hand. Nainsyr flashed in a halo of lightning, performing a nearly flawless flurry of parrying virtuosity. Only one blow, glancing off Tor’s blade, found its way through the defense, leaving the thinnest of cuts upon the knight’s cheek.

But Tee had been practicing her swordplay with Tor whenever the chance allowed, and now she tried out a few of the new tricks she had learned. Sweeping one of the brute’s many limbs aside, she plunged her sword through his chest. The blow sent it stumbling back, gurgling a thin stream of blood. Tor seized the opportunity, turning effortlessly from the defense to the attack, and swept the creautre’s head from its shoulders.

Moving farther into the partitioned warehouse, they found a storage room filled with vats of strange chemicals and mechanical detritus. None of it seemed to serve any sane or logical purpose.

Then they came to an iron door. After a cursory inspection, Tee discovered that the door had been barred from the far side. “I can pick the lock, but I don’t think I can move that bar.”

Agnarr glanced to either side. “We could chop through the walls. They’re just wood.”

But Elestra had a better solution: Laying her hand upon the door and calling upon the Spirit of the City, she felt the portal reveal itself to her. The bar flew from its grips, the tumblers of the lock spun into place, and the door swung open…

… revealing a horrific chamber.

It stunk of blood and ozone and things far worse. Large, bizarrely-shaped machines – with vats and tubes of strange alchemical liquids thrust out from them in grisly protrusions – filled the room. Spatters of dried gore could be seen everywhere. Gruesome tools were hung on racks near several stained operating tables.

Upon one of these tables, Iltumar lay unconscious. His arms rested on wooden stocks to either side of the table and the flesh of his hands had been delicately flayed open. Bent over him was a figure wrapped in robes of red silk. As the door flew open, this figure twisted to face them with an oddly alien contortion. Its face was masked with iron and strange balls of iron hovered above its shoulders.

“The Surgeon in the Shadows…?” Elestra murmured.

The figure held their gaze for only a moment, then – without ado – it raised its hand and vanished.

Only then did they become aware of the other occupants of the chamber: A stunted, hunchbacked dwarf clad in black leathers suddenly cried out. “Master! Do not abandon me! I beg you!” But he was already too late, and with a look of pure malevolence he whirled to face them, ripping a massive axe from the straps on his back. It had been outfitted with strange, mechanical protrusions which hissed slightly as he adjust his grip upon the hilt.

And from the other side of the chamber, a horribly disfigured woman sidled out form behind the banks of machinery. Her skin was a crisscrossed grid of scars and stitches, covering her entire body with a second layer of mismatched flesh. One of her arms had been replaced with a long, serrated hook formed from some chitinous, gray-black substance.

Tor stepped smoothly out of the doorway, moving off to the right to engage the dwarf. This opened a clear path for Elestra to take a shot at the behooked woman with her dragon rifle. The blast caught the woman cleanly in the chest, but scarcely staggered her. In fact, despite the scorch mark it left on her leathery second-skin, the shot’s only seeming effect was to enrage the woman and draw her ire. The woman leapt across the room with a shocking speed, and – with a gleep of concern – Elestra barely ducked out of the way of her sharp hook.

The hook buried itself deep into the frame of the door, affording Tee the opportunity to dash past the woman and come to Tor’s side.

Tor was in the process of deflecting the first swing from the dwarf’s massive axe. But as the blade slid past his face, it suddenly gave forth a blast of scorching steam. Tor stumbled back, his cheeks glistening crimson.

Before the dwarf could follow through on his first swing, however, Tee’s longsword had plunged into his side and deep into his lung. She wrenched the blade free, pulling with it gouts of pinkish tissue. The dwarf gasped for breath, and in that moment Tor’s sword caught him in the opposite side with such force that he went tumbling across the length of the room.

Tee was still in motion. Spinning from her attack on the dwarf she slid in behind the behooked woman. Agnarr had literally plunged his greatsword through the wall from the next room, catching the woman a glancing blow. Tee seized the opportunity presented to slash upward with her blade, catching one of the thick stitches on the woman’s back and ripping it apart – exposing muscle, bone, and spine.

With a silent scream of anguished pain, the woman spun towards Tee and raised her hooked arm high above her head. But Agnarr, having wrenched his blade free from the wall, came through the door and plunged his greatsword through the opened wound on her back. The blade emerged from the woman’s chest, and with a gurgling moan she sank to the floor.

LOOKING FOR LAVIS IN ALL  THE RIGHT PLACES

1 hex = 12 miles

DOWNLOAD THE MAP

Phandalin and the surrounding region of the Sword Coast have featured in three D&D adventures:

• Lost Mine of Phandelver
• Dragon of Icespire Peak
• The Shattered Obelisk

Here I’ve adapted Mike Schley’s excellent region map, featured in each of these adventures, into an accurate-but-simplified hexmap.

The reason for creating a map like this, of course, is to serve as a GM’s map while running a hexcrawl:

• The alphanumeric hex grid makes it easy to key content to the map.
• The simplified iconography makes it easier to adjudicate terrain modifiers.

For links to the original region map (including resources for creating a version you can use as a handout for your players), check the link below.

OTHER READING
Phandalin Region Map – Label Layers