Mark writes:

In your Dragon Heist Remix, you have changed events so that there’s some more breathing room between Chapter 1 [when the PCs investigate the disappearance of Floon and discover the real kidnap victim was Renaer Neverember] and Chapter 3 [when someone is assassinated on the PCs’ front doorstep].

As far as I can see, it’s assumed that the players will be doing faction missions, other character-related content, and fixing up Trollskull Manor.

I’m worried that the group will feel disconnected from the overarching plot and the moving parts of the factions in the Grand Game [i.e., the factions in Waterdeep that are all pursuing the half million gold pieces that were embezzled by Dagult Neverember].

What would you suggest to keep the players invested in the Grand Game in that interim period?

To start with, the expected experience is that the players/PCs won’t really know that there’s a Grand Game going on at the end of Chapter 1. What they’ll have is an introductory scenario that has been successfully wrapped up and a large, neon sign saying, “GO TO TROLLSKULL MANOR.” At best, they’ll have a cluster of loose threads:

• There’s a Zhentarim/Xanatharian gang war.
• The Zhentarim and Xanatharians are both interested in the gold embezzled by Dagult Neverember.
• There was something inside Renaer Neverember’s locket.

There’s not really a defined way for the PCs to immediately pull at these threads. They’re deliberately enigmatical elements that are meant to sort of hang around until they get paid off later in the campaign.

So if the PCs choose to pull at these threads, it’ll be through some clever angle that the players creatively think up on their own initiative. That’s great! You just need to figure out how to roll with it. The Remix almost certainly gives you all the tools you need to do this. You’ll also probably want to try to breathe a little air into it, weaving the events of their investigation into the wider tapestry of Chapter 2.

(To a certain extent, the players are likely to breathe that air into it themselves: Once you can get a bunch of balls up in the air in your campaign – e.g., the investigation, renovating Trollskull, faction missions, the orphans, the business rival trying to sabotage them – the players will be forced to start juggling their priorities. If you aren’t hearing stuff like, “We can’t do that tonight, we have to meet with the distillery!” or “Meliandre can guard the tavern in case the dire rats come back, Bassario and Francesca will run that mission for the Harpers, and I’ll head back up to the Yawning Portal to see if I can find Yagra,” then just add more balls.)

For example, my group made the intuitive leap that Renaer’s mourning locket must be connected to his mother’s tomb. So after checking out their new digs at Trollskull Manor, they headed straight to the Brandath Crypts… well, mostly straight. They had to request a meeting with Renaer. Then they arranged a time when he could take them to the Crypts (“it can’t be tomorrow, because we’ve got that… thing we’re doing”). Once at the Crypts I was actually fascinated to see if they would discover the Vault where the embezzled gold was hidden early and sort of “short-circuit” the entire structure of the campaign, but they ended up missing their Wisdom (Perception) check. Regardless, the investigation had forged a closer relationship with Renaer (who ended up marrying one of the PCs), kept the players puzzling about the Grand Game, and offered a huge pay-off when the whole campaign circled back to the Crypts at the end. (“We were right here! Oh my god!”)

A more likely alternative is for the PCs to start poking around the Zhentarim and/or Xanatharians. That more or less leads straight into the core structure of the campaign: They’re investigating a faction, so you should point them at a faction outpost. (Once again, weaving these investigations into the broader scope of everything else happening in Chapter 2.) This activity might preempt some of the “later” revelations about the Grand game, but that’s just fine. (The idea of them being “later” revelations is really just a conceptual holdover from the heavily railroaded design of the published adventure. And we’re not doing that, right?)

The most likely outcome is that the group will have a little bit of a head start in the Eye Heists that follow the events of Chapter 3. We might imagine the players patting themselves on the back for getting ahead of things, but they probably won’t think of it like that. (The structure of the campaign is obfuscated from them. They don’t see how your notes are arranged and don’t know that this was “supposed” to happen later.)

BUT WHAT IF THEY DON’T?

Other groups, though, won’t pull at those threads from Chapter 1 — either because they can’t figure out how to do it or because they just don’t care enough to do it. That’s OK. It just means that the players’ focus is somewhere else. The events of Chapter 1 are still important. They’ll either foreshadow what comes later (“If only we’d paid attention to the clues in front of our face!”) or they’ll be a mystery that eats at the back of their brains. Anticipation heightens the eventual pay-off. (“Oh my god! It’s all connected!”)

Keep in mind, too, that the Chapter 2 material isn’t completely disconnected from the Grand Game: Virtually all of the initial faction missions, for example, either involve one of the factions from the Grand Game, are directly aimed at the events of the Grand Game, or result in revelations about the same. (The exception is the Emerald Enclave, which is probably one of the reasons why I never prioritized getting that faction involved in my Dragon Heist run.)

Note: Also look at Part 1C: Player Character Factions. The Grand Games of Waterdeep usually involve ALL of the byzantine factions of the city becoming collectively fixated on something. That includes the player character factions. Even if the faction play in Chapter 2 wasn’t connected to the Grand Game, it would BECOME connected by virtue of the PCs being connected to it.

One thing I would have liked to have designed for Dragon Heist would have been a series of detailed background events detailing the evolving gang war between Zhents and Xanatharians. I didn’t get that done for my campaign, but background events like these can also be a good way to keep elements of the campaign “in the mix” even when the PCs’ immediate attention is turned somewhere else.

BUSINESS AS USUAL

One last thing to keep in mind is that this whole approach doesn’t really stop when you hit the end of Chapter 2: The faction missions continue. Now that the tavern is open, you can use A Night in Trollskull Manor to provide a constant level of activity. The PCs are going to continue pulling at threads and having to deal with blowback from their actions.

In fact, once Chapter 3 starts off with a bang (pun intended), the only thing that’s likely to happen is that you’ll be tossing MORE balls into the air for the PCs to juggle.

If you have any questions for future columns, let me know in the comments! In Ask the Alexandrian, instead of looking at general methodology, theorycraft, or prep, I try to solve specific situations from actual play by asking myself, “If I were the GM in this situation, what would I do?”

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #1 – Ask the Alexandrian #3

Go to Part 1

KORA MARWOOD

(Created by Chris Malone)

Kora Marwood was born the youngest to an impoverished family living in Waterdeep. Her father, Hogar, was a member of the guard and occasional longshoreman, and her mother cared for her four siblings and kept house in a shabby apartment in the Dock Ward. In the autumn of 1471, Kora’s mother, Samira, took a short-term field job with the Snobeedle Orchard and Meadery. In the midst of a work day, she unexpectedly gave birth to Kora in the middle of the field.

Life continued to be difficult for the Marwoods, and things finally fell apart for the family when Hogar died while working on a job on the docks, killed by a faulty bit of cargo netting and crushed to death by lumber imports from Chult. Samira, fearing for her inability to care for Kora and her siblings, brought them to the Temples for adoption.

Kora, only three years old at the time, remembers little of her mother and her family. While her siblings went to temples of Lathander and Ilmater, Kora was taken by the acolytes of Mystra. She was raised in the mysteries and teachings of Mystra, learning the histories of civilization, magic, and religion.  While life was safe and predictable, it was also boring. Kora began sneaking out at night to spend time in the city, and soon found herself enamored with a young man named Aseir Kalid, from Calimshan.

Aseir was an artist, working during the day in his father’s shop weaving and dyeing, and then working on his own projects when he had time. When he presented her with a small wooden painting of her one night, she decided that she was done with life in the temple and left shortly thereafter. She lived with him for six months, exploring the city with new eyes. It was in the Spring of 1486 that Aseir fell ill with the Weeping Plague, an illness that began with sores around the eyes and nose that wept a clear fluid, then quickly spread throughout the body, followed by a fever and, for many, death. Brought to Waterdeep from ports far away, the city respond quickly with quarantine. It was then that Kora was reunited with her brother Randal, who had become a priest of Ilmater. Despite his training and magical prowess, he was unable to save Aseir, and left Kora in quarantine to care for him until he passed.

Heartbroken, Kora returned to the temple, throwing herself at the feet of the Head Priest. She begged him to take her back, so that she could serve the temple as a lay healer. While Mystra is not inclined towards life and healing, magic serves all, and they taught her the healing arts. She took to it quickly, showing prowess and aptitude.

She was asked to accompany a pilgrimage to Myth Drannor as a healer and acolyte, and she attended to this. Along the way, she made the acquaintance of a dwarven ranger named Dain Balderk. Dain was initially standoffish with Kora, but after she had several opportunities to demonstrate her knowledge, diplomacy, and skill, he showed a grudging respect. Unfortunately, the arrival of the pilgrimage was preceded by destruction, as the city of the Netherese fell upon Myth Drannor, destroying it. Again.

The pilgrimage stayed at the Ruins of Myth Drannor for several months, caring for the wounded and exploring the wild magic of the disaster. It was during this time that Kora discovered that Balasha Asorio, one of the guides and foragers with the party, was actually an agent of the Zhentarim. Exposing the traitor forced a hasty ambush that had been in the making for some time. The Zhent were repelled, but Balasha escaped and Dain received a grievous wound to his back that would never heal completely. On the return trip to Waterdeep, Dain revealed himself as a Harper, and indoctrinated Kora into the faction.

When the pilgrimage at last returned to the city, Kora swore herself to the service of Mystra and began her life as a cleric in full. She now lives at the House of Wonder as a healer, acolyte, and doing odd jobs when asked. She serves mostly as an informational asset for the Harpers, looking to find those who look to destroy personal freedom and otherwise act out of evil. She still meets with Dain regularly, who acts as a mentor (and handler).

DESCRIPTION: Kora stands about 5’6”, tending towards a leaner frame; not scrawny, but more svelte. She has darker skin, that of a deep tan or of a more Mediterranean ethnicity, not quite brown, but not pale. Her hair is dark brown, to the point of appearing black unless under direct sunlight. Her face is more narrow than broad, with a rounded chin, high cheekbones, and green eyes.

When at home and not expecting trouble or a call to action, she wears a robe or a tunic with a simple shirt underneath and blue or black leggings. When out and about, she wears her armor with a tabbard or tunic over it, leather leggings/britches, a cloak, and her shield, mace, pack, and healer’s kit at her side. She dresses in white, silver, and blue, with red elements in linings and trim to reflect Mystra’s holy colors. Mystra’s holy symbol is emblazoned on her shield.

WHAT KORA KNOWS – THE ZHENTARIM:

• Zhentarim is a shadow organization of thieves, spies, assassins, and wizards that trades mercenaries and goods (including weapons) for profit.
• Their original base of power was among the Zhent people in the Moonsea region, primarily a place called Zhentil Keep.
• Long sought to gain political influence in Waterdeep, but the strength of the city’s Masked Lords, nobility, and professional guilds makes that difficult.
• In the late 14^th century (about 100 years ago), the founder of the Zhentarim (Manshoon) was killed and Zhentil Keep was razed. Zhentarim power was shattered, with the organization breaking down into many internecine factions.
• You’ve been trying to figure out details about the local Zhentarim for awhile, as their power and influence seems to be growing. Recently, however, there appears to have been a schism within the group.
• This schism is not widely known, because the Zhentarim are simultaneously fighting a gang war with the Xanathar Crime League, and that violence is capturing everyone’s attention. You know that that this gang war is the result of some provocative action taken by the new splinter group of the Zhentarim.

CREATING KORA

I’ve run games for and played games with Chris for a number of years now. His approach to character creation tends to be a quiet one: He likes to thoughtfully develop them in great detail, often working ahead of the group even in unfamiliar systems. In this case he was quite familiar with 5^th Edition and the Forgotten Realms, and so by the time we were getting some of the new players up on their feet, Kora was already a fully fledged character rich with details. In fact, virtually everything you see above was already basically in place by the time I tuned in on Kora for the first time.

PUBLIC INTEGRATION: There’s an anecdote that’s somewhere between gospel truth and urban legend that goes around both the movie and video game production circles. You have either a developer or a writer or a director or maybe an SFX house who’s giving a presentation to their producer or editor or investor. And so they very deliberately add one element to their presentation or edit or final render that they know is dumb: Like, maybe it’s a noir drama but there’s a shot of a guy holding a goose for no reason.

So their boss says, “Looks great, but I think you should lose the shot with the goose.” And our creator-hero takes the note and deletes the goose… because, of course, they never actually wanted the goose in the first place. The point of the story is that everybody in a decision process feels a need to give notes; either because they psychologically want to feel that they’ve “contributed” to the final product or because they need to justify their paycheck. If they just say “that’s good,” it’s not like they’ve actually done anything, right? The point of the dumb goose was to provide a lighting rod for the irrelevant-but-necessary comment they pathologically need to provide.

This is my long-winded way of saying: As a GM, don’t be the executive in this story.

If you’ve got a value-add, go for it! That’s the whole point of the “public integration” phase. In this case, Chris’ expertise and clear vision meant that Kora was already fully integrated into the setting.

No need to look the gift horse in the mouth. Ride on.

PRIVATE INTEGRATION: Chris had chosen for Kora to be a fledgling Harper and had also set up a violent history with the Zhentarim, so that bit of integration with two of the major factions of the campaign was also more-or-less automatically done for me. I simply swapped out the scripted Harper contact (Mirt) for the character that Chris had created (although I eventually brought Mirt back in as Dain’s boss; thus Kora’s background gave additional depth to the Harpers rather than vice versa).

(I guess maybe it is worth pointing out that swapping out elements you had planned and replacing them with what the players created is not only just as valid as adding relevant stuff to the PCs’ background, it’s probably MORE valid.)

You’ll note that, like Sarah, Chris got a “What You Know” handout for the Zhentarim. Some of the bullet points are duplicated (there’s no reason to rewrite or reword stuff you don’t have to), but others have unique information, slightly different information, or information with a different interpretation. The goal, of course, is for the two players to be able to actually swap information in-character. (If their handouts were perfect duplicates, the interaction is more likely to be one of them regurgitating everything know and the other player not getting any pay-off from their character’s knowledge. The unique information solves that problem. The information that slightly overlaps – or even contradicts! – provokes actual discussion between the players.)

The Snobeedle Orchard appears on the map of Waterdeep:

I had a huge version of this map hanging on the wall and Chris simply grabbed it off the map when fleshing out the story of Kora’s mother. This was a really cool opportunity, but I blew it: I completely missed the fact that Dasher Snobeedle, a member of the Snobeedle family, had become one of the wererats sent to harass the new owners of Trollskull Manor (i.e., the PCs).  I eventually noticed my oversight towards the end of the campaign when I started doing some meaningful development on Kora’s missing mother and was able to work it in. (You can read about that in more detail over here.)

BRINGING THE PARTY TOGETHER: As I mentioned in Part 1, Edana’s position as a fixer made her a natural fit for being the character who would connect the rest of the party with their contact at the Yawning Portal. Kora’s role as a Harper agent, however, also made sense for this role.

There were a few options we collectively considered, including:

• Kora somehow being undercover and investigating Edana. (Chris wasn’t really interested in playing Kora with a false identity, and this also suggested that Edana was currently involved in criminality, whereas Sarah was more interested in having her at the tail end of one of her respites.)
• Edana introducing half of the party to their contact and Kora introducing the other half. (The problem was that Kitti, Pashar, and Theren were already grouped up, so there was no “other half” for Kora to introduce.)

The final solution ended up being a somewhat convoluted web of connections: Upon arriving in Waterdeep, Kitti decided the best way she could help Pashar raise money was by joining the underground fight circuit. (I made a note to connect this to the underground fights that figure later in the campaign.) Asking around, they got pointed in the direction of Edana. When Edana realized how much money they really needed, told them to skip the fights and decided to take them to Kora, who had been putting the word around that she needed a crew.

“Mystra’s got money,” was Edana’s rationale. But it turned out the job wasn’t for the Temple of Mystra. Kora was freelancing. But the offer was better than nothing, so Kitti, Theren, and Pashar accepted. Edana decided to tag along for a little bit just to make sure everything was copacetic. (It seemed to her that young Kora was flying by the seat of her pants… She wasn’t wrong.)

And that’s when Kora took them all to the Yawning Portal to meet her contact.

Patrons of the Alexandrian can now download a collected edition of the Dragon Heist Remix. This includes:

• The Complete Collection, a PDF with all 25 parts of the Remix plus the original review, addendums, and Running the Campaign essays in one convenient file.
• Justin’s Running Files, a Patron-exclusive collection of the documents I actually used to run the campaign (as described in Part 7 of the Remix). These are presented in Word format for easy editing and re-arranging to your heart’s content.

THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

The Complete Collection contains every single article from the Dragon Heist Remix — all 25 parts, the original review, 8 addendums, and 4 Running the Campaign articles — that have been posted to the Alexandrian to date. It currently stands at 110,000 words and 318 pages.

In addition to updating the previous Preview Draft to include all of the Remix material (including corrections previously only available on the website), this release also reformats everything into the new-and-improved Alexandrian PDF format.

JUSTIN’S RUNNING FILES

This zip file contains the final campaign-ready files I prepared for actually running the campaign.

What’s the difference between this and what appeared on the website?

First, a lot of my general discussion about WHY things were designed the way they were designed have been stripped out. I’ve also removed a lot of the discussion about HOW various tools can be used during play. (I know how this stuff is supposed to be used… and so do you if you’ve read the whole series.)

Second, additional reference material has been added where appropriate to ease my mental load during play.

Third, light revisions based on actual play (some, but not all of which got reflected onto the web pages) have been added.

Fourth, and probably most imporantly, organization: The Remix series on the Alexandrian was written as a design-oriented discussion that ambitiously grew into a much more prodigious project than I had originally anticipated. The original organization was not designed for use at the table, and became even less useful for such as time went on.

The running files are organized for play: The first three chapters of play are clearly broken out, each heist is given its own focused file, and so forth. I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to just look at the file list and instantly grok how they’re meant to be used.

The only thing to particularly call out, I think, is that the props for each scenario can be found at the end of the file. You’ll note that these are files are “watermarked” with the numerical code for the chapter (for example, “DH1 Props”). Why? Well, there are a lot of props. Something I learned when running my Ptolus campaign (which has literally HUNDREDS of props) is that my players will often ask me questions about a prop which they received weeks, months, or even years earlier, and I won’t necessarily remember exactly where they got that specific handout. I learned to mark on the prop what scenario they came from (using a numeric code which doesn’t spoil anything for the players) so that I could quickly and easily locate my notes regarding the prop.

These files remain dependent on actually owning a copy of the Dragon Heist book, of course.

WHY’D THIS TAKE SO LONG?

People have been asking me for a collected edition of the Dragon Heist Remix for a little over a year. Why’d it take so long?

First, I was hoping to authoritatively finish the Remix before collecting everything. (I probably haven’t. I still have a list of value-add addendums that I’d like to create at some point.)

Second, and more importantly, the Dragon Heist Remix was the last major project I launched on the Alexandrian before completely revamping my workflow. (And I revamped it largely in response to the problems I had with the Remix.)

For over a decade, I had been drafting copy for the Alexandrian in a vanilla Word file. My basic process can honestly be traced even further back, to when I was writing reviews for RPGNet (circa 1998). It had evolved over time, but was fundamentally the same thing. This draft would include notes like “ADD LINK to [hyperlink]” and “[INSERT PIC HERE]”, which would be implemented only as I transferred the draft onto the website. As a result, the website became the “definitive” copy, and if I spotted errors or needed to make updates, I would make them directly to the website.

When I started my Patreon in 2015, this inadvertently led to a Rube Goldbergian process in which I would:

• Do my traditional draft in Word.
• Transfer the draft to the website to create the “definitive” version.
• Copy the definitive version off the website into a new Word file, reformat it, and generate the Patron-exclusive PDF.

In addition, I still considered the version on the website to be definitive, so when I noticed errors or needed to make updates, I would only make them on the website. The PDF version (and the Word document it was based on) was a “dead” document — it existed to be distributed once, but once it was forked it was done.

In March 2019, I revamped the formatting of the Patreon-exclusive PDFs. There were a couple reasons for this:

• It was prettier.
• I was reworking the format so that I could draft the definitive version of an essay in it and then, with far less effort, transfer it to WordPress before generating the PDF from the same file.

One source document instead of a sequential process with a dead fork.

What had finally motivated me to trash my twenty-year-old web-copy writing process was the Dragon Heist Remix. I wrote the whole Remix in a single Word file, but I was (a) following my old workflow and (b) uploading installments as they were complete (rather than waiting for the whole series to be done). This kind of “post as I’m writing” approach had become more common after launching my Patreon. Back when I wrote the Game Structures series, for example, I’d written and polished the entire series before posting it… which meant that there had been a 10 week gap in which no new content was appearing on the site and then the whole thing appeared in like a week and a half. That approach didn’t work with Patreon, so I could either abandon long series (bad idea) or figure out how to serialize their creation.

But this meant that each installment would be:

• Written up in my draft document.
• Posted to the website.
• And then, because the website was the definitive edition, any future changes or additions to those installments would only be made on the website, even while I was continuing to draft new content into the draft document.

Which, of course, meant that I did not have a file that contained the actual Remix. I had a weird reverse-palimpsest in which the earliest sections of the document grew more and more out of date as the Remix evolved.

My twenty-year-old process was no longer rickety. It was broken.

Thus, the fundamental revision.

The Avernus Remix, in particular, has benefited from this: The definitive version of the Remix is written up in a single file and I am scrupulous in making sure that any corrections on the website are simultaneously made in that document (and vice versa). This has allowed me to effortlessly produce regularly updated collected editions as the Remix has evolved. (Looks like I’ve done 15 of them to date.)

But the Dragon Heist Remix was still in a rather hopeless state. Back in 2019, as the core of the Remix was wrapping up, I did my best to provide something workable via my running files and a Preview Draft that attempted to correct my draft document as much as possible to reflect the “definitive” version on the website, but it was clearly a stopgap effort.

Creating the Complete Collection, however, meant pulling all the content back down from the website, reformatting it, and then proofreading it. This was not particularly difficult work, but it was incredibly time-consuming — remember the bit where I said it was 318 pages and 110,000 words? — particularly if it was going to be done right. (And what would be the point if it wasn’t done right?)

I actually started work on this at the end of February 2020, at the same time I started working on Dragon Heist: The Final Session. Checking my calendar, I see that was actually the same day I started live-tweeting my reaction to Descent Into Avernus. A couple weeks later I started the Avernus Remix… and then literally the day before the first Avernus post went live, we went into COVID-19 quarantine. Three days later, my wife was in the hospital with an infection from the surgery she’d had the week before, which would lead to another surgery, which would lead to a cancer diagnosis, which would lead to chemotherapy, which would…

Shit. That got dark fast.

But everything’s fine now (except the general background malaise of 2020), most especially my wife. I’ve been slowly chipping away at this project all along, so I’m very excited to finally be able to get these collected editions out to people who have been hoping to see them for a very long time now. And my apologies to anyone who wasn’t able to get them in time to be of use in their own campaign.

Go to Part 1

THEREN

(Created by Erik Malm)

I spent my youth exploring the forests of Evermeet and learning to hunt from my father.

Shortly after coming of age, word reached the wood elves of Evermeet that not only had the ruins of our old home in the Ardeep Forest been overrun by kobolds and other monsters, but a group of humans, led by Lord Nandar of Waterdeep, had begun invading and trying to lay claim to the forest.

When Rond Arrowhome set sail with an army of wood elves to take back and protect the forest, I volunteered to join them. I was trained as a ranger and soon became an expert at hunting both humans and kobolds.

Now that the forest is once again safe, I prefer to spend my days alone with nature – exploring, observing, and experiencing the constant change and unpredictable events of the natural world. I especially love the power, beauty, and unpredictability of thunderstorms and have developed a connection to Aerdrie Faenya, though I am one of the few non-avariel who worship her.

I am always happy to help out lost travelers (who mean the forest no harm) or anyone else in need, though I remain distrustful of the wealthy elite like the Nandars of Waterdeep.

DESCRIPTION: Theren has copper-colored skin with a dark-brown/copper-colored hair (like dark, tarnished copper).

His clothes palette is standard dark forest colors; the sort of thing that would help with camouflage in Ardeep – deep greens, browns, dark grey/black. Theren’s original clothing would be elvish and probably trend more towards just greens and browns, emphasizing dark versions of those colors instead of a true black. (That said, the longer he’s in the city, the more likely he is to start wearing some greys that woud match stonework, etc. Maybe fewer greens as well, or even normal Waterdhavian clothing of a fashionable sort, but with subdued colors.) It’s ultimately all about camouflage; to blend into his environment.

Theren is 5’10”. Green eyes.

Hair is straight and shoulder length. Normally he just keeps it tucked behind his ears, which tends to keep it in place fairly well due to elvish ears being tall and pointy. But if it’s particularly windy (or similar conditions where his hair might obscure his vision), he’ll either wear a headband or tie his hair back.

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about Theren’s facial features – typical elvish face with thinner and more angular features than the average human. Rather, what is remarkable is the way that his life and outlook affect his skin, underlying musculature, and how he carries himself:

Theren has spent much of his life outdoors – baking in the sun, holding night-long vigils in the deep of the forest, and facing unafraid the heavy winds and storms which he is particularly fond of as a ceraunophile and worshiper of Aerdrie Faenya. Consequently, I think of Theren as looking a little weatherworn (or, at least, weatherworn for a young elf). It’s not that he necessarily looks particularly aged or beaten down by the elements, more like that subtle difference between how high quality furniture kept on a patio looks ever so slightly different than the exact same furniture kept in a three-season porch at the end of summer. He looks just a little out of place indoors and looks like he’s where he belongs when outdoors.

Similarly, his musculature looks just a little different than the average elf. He’s not particularly muscular or anything, though he still has an athletic build, but his muscles are all incredibly dense – like a rock climber’s, a farmer’s, or anyone else who’s primary form of exercise is one of intense and continuous use of their entire body. This also applies to the underlying musculature of his face, making him look a little extra solid/rugged/durable. I suppose it may look a little formidable in some cases, but Theren isn’t really threatening, scary, or even particularly imposing, he just looks like someone you’d rather not pick a fight with or try to rob.

His demeanor, posture, and manners have also been affected by his relative solitude and preference for the wilds. Having spent much of his time alone when he doesn’t need to worry about what others think about him, he displays his emotions a little more readily, he is a little more likely to speak his mind, his manners are a little more unchecked, and his posture and physical mannerism are a little more informal than a typical elf. To be clear, he’s still an elf raised on Evermeet, and a non-elf probably wouldn’t even notice anything at all, but to other elves he seems a little… wild/feral.

Finally, although his regular demeanor might be a bit more wild and relaxed, he also has a hunter mode that he shifts into when stalking prey or facing enemies. When he’s in this mood, he appears more cold, calculating, and emotionless. Unlike the differences described above, which might not be noticed by a non-elf, this shift is significant enough that everyone except the most unobservant can tell he’s hunting something or someone.

CREATING THEREN

The thing I always marvel at when revisiting Theren’s background is the intense depth of the physical description. I’ve had other players create similarly detailed descriptions, but usually it’s because EVERYTHING is lavishly detailed. The ratio between Theren’s physical description and everything else in Theren’s character background seems crazy at first glance.

But it works. And it’s a valuable reminder that everyone will have different touchstones that are most effective for them. (This will often depend not only on the player, but also the specific character.)

Look at how much amazing, actionable detail Erik works into Theren’s physical description! It’s all about blending into his environment? He’s a little bit uncomfortable inside? That’s gold. Even simple, specific physical actions like when/how he tucks back his hair.

PUBLIC INTEGRATION: Erik was the least versed in the Forgotten Realms at the table. Ironically, we ended up doing the most digging into the weird, esoteric corners of Realms Lore with his character.

The origin point was a simple question: Where would an elf ranger be from?

Evermeet was an easy answer: Big elven kingdom. Just across the ocean from Waterdeep. (Maybe he could be somehow tied into the maritime adventures of Kitti and Pashar?)

On the other hand, where might a wood elf live near Waterdeep? That led us to Ardeep Forest. And that’s where we really started digging in. I forget the exact path we followed, but I ended up not only pulling information from Lost Empires of Faerûn, but also tracking down an obscure article about the forest that was written by Ed Greenwood and published in Dragon Magazine #270.

There was also more recent lore, revolving around a conflict between Lord Nandar of Waterdeep and the elves of Ardeep in the 1470s. (The Waterdeep connection, however tenuous, made this appealing.) I was not particularly familiar with this era (and not at all familiar with these events), but they were intriguing.

PRIVATE INTEGRATION: The only thing of note here that I recall is that Volo was the “author” of the Dragon Magazine article. This didn’t really have anything to do with integrating the character into the campaign, but giving Erik a copy of the article was a nice way to subtly establish Volo’s existence for a player who otherwise wouldn’t be familiar with the name when it was dropped in the first session.

BRINGING THE PARTY TOGETHER: The key question which remained was how Theren would be pulled into Waterdeep. (Remember that every player needed to explain how their character ended up walking through the doors of the Yawning Portal at the beginning of the campaign.)

We looked at a few options, but what stuck was just aiming the Pashar-Kitti vector in the direction of Ardeep Forest: While passing through the forest on the way to Waterdeep, they would have met Theren. After helping him with some local trouble (or possibly being saved by him from local trouble, their mutual versions of the story had very different interpretations of those events), Theren was swayed by Pashar’s sob story and agreed to help him (them, really) raise the ransom money.

It was only six hundred gold pieces, right?

(He was in Waterdeep with them before he discovered that the actual ransom price was… uh… considerably more money than that. He hadn’t sworn an oath or anything… but good gods.)

Go to Part 5: Kora Marwood

Go to Part 1

KITTISOTH KA’ITER

(Created by Heather Burmeister)

My mother was the wife of a fisherman on the main Pirate Isle. She became worried when he hadn’t come home as expected from what was supposed to be a routine trip out to sea. She tried to make a pact with a devil in the hopes that it would ensure his safe return, but it went horribly wrong. The end result was her giving birth to me.

She tried to raise me the best that she could, I guess, but most of what I remember is her desperately trying to make me look like a normal child by hiding my leathery bat-wings or crying. It wasn’t long before she disappeared entirely, leaving me to fend for myself.

The Pirate Isles are rife with underling children who have lost parents – either on great pirate raids or to great leviathans of the deep or simply to sad, lonely circumstance. I fell in with a group of street urchin kids who took care of each other and learned how to defend my odd looks with brute force. My group of k ids would make a little cash here and there by running errands or little missions for the pirate gangs when they’d dock.

When I was around fifteen (I’m not one-hundred percent sure what my birthday is), one of the pirate gangs tasked my group with stealing a compass imbued with magical properties from a well-known captain named Iriqoth Ka’iter. It was supposed to be an easy job, but grace, stealth, and patience were never my strong points. I botched the mission by panicking when I couldn’t get the lock on the chest open, trying to brute force said lock by kicking said chest over and over again, and trying to fight the crew when they inevitably found the source of the commotion. I was brought to Iriquoth by the crew so that he could decide what was to be done with me. Being devil-born himself, he took a shine to me immediately. He became me weird pirate captain dad, but insisted I work my way up from the bottom ranks if I was to take his place someday.

That day would never come.

After I’d been sailing for a few years and was just starting to take on the responsibilities of first mate, we were boarded in the middle of the night by a legendary pirate vessel, captained by none other than the Quiet Captain, Kip Braddock. Braddock and Iriqoth had long been at odds, but Iriqoth never took the threat seriously. Kip took the ship, killed my father, and took over the crew. Some day he’ll pay for what he’s done.

Shortly after, we came across a new piggy (that’s what we called merchant ships sailing low in the waves). The merchant watchmen – who turned out to be Pashar – had fallen asleep on duty, so we were onboard before they knew what was happening. It looked like the easiest piggy we’d ever taken. But when Kip started killing the crew (including Pashar’s father) so he could take the ship as a prize vessel, Pashar’s mother started fighting back. We eventually managed to take her prisoner, but she’d heavily damaged our ship. So we set sail on the littly piggy ship.

Pashar, though completely impractical and ridiculous, is a wonder. He can tell me the names of very devil, and has been trying to help me find out what sort of devil-spawn I might be. He also doesn’t seem to know when I’m making fun of him, which is a riot for me. He also has an indomitable good nature, which is rare on the high seas. We’re an unlikely pair, but I think he’s my first “friend”… whatever that means. I protected him and his mother from the rougher members of the crew and also offered to accompany him ashore when Kip came up with the idea of ransoming him and his mother for money for a new ship. I’m also hoping that the journey will give me time to plan my revenge.

CREATING KITTI

Heather’s central concept was “tiefling pirate.” Everything else more or less filled in around this central conceit. In Part 2, we looked at how the decision to link her maritime background to Pashar’s had a major effect on shaping the details of Pashar’s background. As we wrapped up our character creation session, however, Kittisoth largely remained a cluster of large concepts. There were a few idea floating around (like “devil-spawn pirate daddy”), but they hadn’t really been nailed down. So Heather developed a lot of these details by writing her background between sessions.

You might also note that, unlike Edana and Pashar, Heather chose to write her character background in the first person. There was a brief period when I was a youngling when I wanted consistency in this sort of thing across the characters in a campaign, and an even longer period when I thought that this choice was somehow reflective of what a player valued or was focused on in their play.

These days I don’t really think there’s a meaningful distinction. There’s obviously differences between first and third person and how they can be used, but I haven’t found that it reflects much beyond the document itself if at all. (There might be a slight bias towards first person being better for developing the voice of your characters, but even that’s not consistent: Talking at the table is very different from writing at your desk, and what you learn from one may or may not be applicable to the other. And, similarly third person might be slightly better at developing lore outside of your PC due to its objectivity, but not significantly so in the long run.)

With all that being said, one of the reasons I like having the characters actually write something up away from the table – even if it’s just a few sentences – is that exploring character through written fiction is a different way of engaging with your character, and you will find stuff (and develop stuff) that you wouldn’t necessarily find at the table. It’s the most elementary form of bluebooking, and also an excellent medium for thoughtful collaboration.

PUBLIC INTEGRATION: Heather was not the least knowledgeable player at the table when it came to the Forgotten Realms, but her exposure was limited to a handful of novels she had read when she was a teenager.

I’d made a point of putting a map of Faerûn on the wall and, when she suggested a pirate, I was able to point out the Pirate Isles. The Sea of Fallen Stars immediately captured her imagination and she was able to roll forward from that.

PRIVATE INTEGRATION: Much like her friend Pashar, Kittisoth was going to be a newcomer to Waterdeep, so there wasn’t much to tie her into the extant elements of Dragon Heist. I did, actually, offer Luskan as an option if she was looking for a port that her pirates could be sailing out of (in which case there would have been some obvious hooks with Jarlaxle), but the Pirate Isles were just more interesting for her.

BRINGING THE PARTY TOGETHER: I’ve already described most of the initial work here, as it was done in collaboration with Peter/Pashar. Because of this connection, however, as Heather was writing up the details of Kittisoth’s background, she also made a point of prepping a short cheat sheet of details that were also pertinent to Pashar’s background. (This includes stuff like the name of the pirate captain who’d killed Pashar’s father and ransoming his mother.)

This is obviously a good technique for making sure intersecting continuity gets sorted correctly, but it can also be a “sneaky” trick for getting players to collaborate not just with you, but also with their fellow players between sessions.

Go to Part 4: Theren