Go to Part 1

One of the first elements I established for the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist was to have the Cassalanters approach the PCs and attempt to recruit them as their agents in the Grand Game: I found the story of their children’s plight very compelling, and the entire situation rife with incredibly tough and emotional decisions that I felt would really elevate the campaign if they were put center stage. (Whereas in a traditional run, even with the Cassalanters as the DM’s chosen villain, it’s very likely that the PCs will never even discover what the Cassalanters’ true motives are.)

But what if we went a different way?

There are four rival factions in Dragon Heist, of which the Cassalanters are only one. If it’s interesting to swap the Cassalanters’ approach from open antagonism to would-be collaborators, what might happen if one of the other factions took the same approach?

Of course, none of the other rivals have innocent children for the PCs to be called upon to save. So their approach to collaboration will look a little different.

MANSHOON’S ULTIMATUM

The timing of Manshoon’s approach can be identical to the Cassalanters (he discovers the PCs are investigating the fireball that killed several of his agents and decides they would be useful pawns), but it might be better to wait until the fallout from the Gralhund Villa raids. Assuming that the PCs end up with the Stone of Golorr, Manshoon would be highly motivated to get them onboard.

His method for doing so, however, is far less discrete than the Cassalanters: He takes a hostage.

Circumstance will determine whether it will work best to find someone in a PC’s backstory or to target someone they’ve built a relationship with during the campaign, but either way the kidnapping takes place offscreen. Perhaps the PC becomes aware of it when they find their loved ones’ ransacked quarters, but more likely it takes the form of a simple letter arriving at Trollskull Manor.

The letter explains the situation simply: They have something he wants. And now he has something they want. A meeting will be arranged (to which Manshoon will send his simulacrum rather than appearing himself), and the following proposal will be made:

• Their loved one will not be harmed. Quite the contrary. They are enjoying luxurious accommodations (If only the PCs could be so lucky.) Manshoon is personally seeing to it that their every need (except freedom) is being met.
• The PCs will seek to restore the Stone of Golorr and use it to claim Neverember’s Enigma – the 500,000 golden dragons he embezzled from the city.
• Manshoon is not an unreasonable man, of course, and if the PCs fulfill their end of the bargain, not only will he free their loved one, they will also be free to keep fully 20% of the treasure.
• The Zhentarim will also make available to the PCs the full resources of their intelligence-gathering and mercenary networks.

IF THE PCs JOIN MANSHOON: The Zhentarim response teams and safe houses are put at their disposal, with more and more resources being made available as they prove themselves more trustworthy. All of Manshoon’s lieutenants can be played as allies, and this extra muscle will certainly free the PCs up to try more daring (or, at least, direct) heists to obtain the missing eyes.

IF THE PCs REFUSE: Manshoon shakes his head sadly. Then he leaves, has their loved one murdered, and dumps the corpse on the front step of Trollskull Manor.

IF THE PCs SEEK TO RESCUE THE HOSTAGE: A heist! I love heists. The hostage is being held in Area E11 of Manshoon’s Extradimensional Sanctum. The Zhents who made their quarters there have been turned out for the moment; consider spreading them out between Kolat Towers and the Zhentarim faction outposts.

JARLAXLE’S ALLIANCE

For Jarlaxle, we’ll move in the opposite direction: When running the opening scene of the campaign at the Yawning Portal, instead of using Step 2: Friendly Faces (in which the PCs pick one of the NPCs on p. 221 of Dragon Heist to be the contact they’ve come to meet), the contact they’re meeting with is, in fact, Jarlaxle.

Depending on the approach you want to take, they might think they’re meeting with “Captain Zord” or they might know the true identity of who they’re meeting. Either way, Jarlaxle does, in fact, connect them with Volo.

This means, of course, that the PCs are members of Bregan D’Aerthe from the very beginning. Refer to the general information on p. 14-15 of Dragon Heist and the faction missions on p. 34-35.

INVERTED NIMBLEWRIGHT INVESTIGATION: If you want to radically shift Chapter 2 of the campaign, then have one of the PCs’ jobs be to sell the nimblewrights for Jarlaxle. One of the reasons Jarlaxle wanted to get on Volo’s good side was so that Volo could help make introductions to various guilds, nobles, and other highly-placed and influential people. Refer to the list of owners in Part 5C: The Nimblewright Investigation as a resource for the prospective clients Volo refers them to.

Whether the PCs are selling nimblewrights or not, they still have Trollskull Manor as a reward from Volo. Jarlaxle will help bankroll the renovation costs and is eager to develop it as a safehouse for Bregan D’Aerthe operatives.

The fireball explosion also still happens on schedule: When the PCs discover that a nimblewright is involved, they can either go to Jarlaxle and clue their whole organization into the Grand Game. Or it’s possible that they were literally the ones who sold the nimblewright to the Gralhunds. (Small world, eh?)

THE GRAND GAME: Tracking forward, slot in the PCs everywhere that the campaign refers to Jarlaxle’s agents.

At Gralhund Villa they’re able to review nimblewright footage in Jarlaxle’s crystal ball and are then ordered to set up a surveillance post. (Maybe they even end up in Artheyn Manor, just like Fel’Rekt would in a ‘normal’ campaign.)

I recommend not having Jarlaxle accompany them on the other heists (he has a lot of other projects and a busy social calendar to attend to), but they can certainly tap Bregan D’Aerthe resources (in the form of a response team). And Jarlaxle may be able to directly feed them information (and access) to Xanathar’s Lair.

XANATHAR’S GANGSTERS

For this final collaboration we’re going to radically invert the campaign: Rather than starting the campaign at the Yawning Portal, the PCs will be gangsters working for Xanathar. Their first job? Raiding a warehouse where the Zhentarim are holding Renaer Neverember, capture Renaer themselves, and bring him to a sewer hideout where they’ll be met by Nihiloor.

Of course, they discover too late that they’ve kidnapped some fuckin’ mook named Floon Blagmaar. A total disaster. Maybe they try to double back to the warehouse, but by the time they get there, Renaer is gone and the place is swarming with watchmen. (Their first inklings that a Grand Game is happening will come from the questions Nihiloor asks ‘Renaer.’)

CHAPTER 2 – WORKING FOR THE BOSS: You need some time to pass here and, in this scenario, the PCs don’t get Trollskull Manor. Run a few faction missions that introduce them to the Xanatharian faction outposts (they get outfitted by Grinda Garloth; they struggle to figure out how to get the mechanical flying beholder working before the Twin Parades; they’re charged with running security at Terasse Estate and escorting gamblers through the dangerous tunnels to the gladiator tournaments).

Their contact person for these faction missions? Dalakhar.

CHAPTER 3 – THE TRAITOR: Then comes the day when Dalakhar vanishes. Turns out he’s betrayed the Boss and stolen something. Boss won’t say what, but it’s clearly important. The PCs need to find him.

They track him to the Inn of the Dripping Dagger. The timeline is slightly different in this version of reality, and they end up finding the letter from Kalain. They track Dalakhar to Kalain’s place, and she tells them he’s headed to some place called Trollskull Manor. (You’ll want to buff this up a bit to fully satisfy the Three Clue Rule.)

The PCs head over to Trollskull Manor. As they’re heading through the alley, a huge explosion goes off just around the corner up ahead: Rushing forward, they discover Dalakhar and a bunch of other people dead!

THE TROLLSKULL MANOR TEAM: From this point forward, the campaign more-or-less follows the normal track. Investigations will lead the PCs to Gralhund Villa; they’ll find the Zhentarim and Jarlaxle’s team watching the place.

But here’s the twist: There is a group of heroes who rescued Renaer Neverember and moved into the Trollskull Manor. And they’re doing what the PCs in a ‘normal’ Dragon Heist campaign would have been doing: The PCs likely first spot the Trollskull Manor Team at Gralhund Villa, but they’ll keep turning up:

• They raid one of Xanathar’s sewer hideouts.
• They perform a heist at Xanathar’s Lair. (Maybe the PCs can foil it. Or maybe the PCs foil their attempt, only to have Jarlaxle simultaneously steal the Eye. Guess it’s time to pursue them back to the Eyecatcher for a heist-in-kind.)
• While the PCs are trying to perform a heist at Kolat Tower, the Trollskull Manor Team is simultaneously active onsite.

And so forth. Play the heroes actively, and figure out what faction(s) they belong to and bring those into play, too.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

The cool thing here is that, once you’ve restructured the campaign components into scenarios instead of plots, you can use those components in myriad ways. These examples push that to an extreme, but it demonstrates how much flexibility this approach has and how easy it is to take material prepped in this way and actively play it in order to respond to player choice.

Compare this to the approach taken by the published campaign, which attempts to give you flexibility and ‘reusability’ by, for example, giving you three different versions of an Old Tower. But the truth is that you don’t need multiple versions of a tower in order to get different utility out of it during actual play.

The other thing I’ll point out is that in all of these collaborator scenarios – including the original remixed version with the Cassalanters – we have no idea what’s going to happen. Do they take the Cassalanters offers or refuse it? Do the Xanatharian gangsters take the money and use it to take over the organization, launching a bloody gang war in and below the streets of Waterdeep? When Jarlaxle’s agents tweak to his true identity, do they remain loyal or turn on him?

Just as the flexibility of the material allows us to reframe the presentation of the campaign, it also provides infinite variability in the actual running of the campaign, providing you (and your players) with a constant stream of surprise and wonder.

Go to Part 1

As the scenario begins, one or more of the PCs have received a call from Detective Fred Watson in the middle of the night. Perhaps they’ve worked with him on previous cases. Perhaps they’ve been recommended to him. Whatever the connection, he has a case that needs their ‘special skills’ and he needs them to come up to the James J. Hill House in St. Paul immediately.

BACKGROUND – THE HILL FAMILY

• James J. Hill (1838-1916) was the CEO of the Great Northern Railway.
• Met Mary Theresa Mehegan (a daughter of Irish immigrants; waitress working in the Merchants Hotel in St. Paul) in 1864; married her in 1867. She died in 1921.
• They had 10 children together: Mary, James, Louis, Clara, Katherine (d. 1876, infant), Charlotte (d. 1923, pneumonia), Ruth, Rachel, Gertrude, and Walter.
• The children have largely scattered – most to New York. Walter lives on a ranch in Montana. (Louis and James are still local, but went with Ruth and Gertrude back to New York a couple weeks ago. Ruth and Gertrude were in town arranging the donation of the house with Rachel.) Only Rachel is currently in town.

BACKGROUND – THE MANSION

• Exterior built of a reddish stone.
• The mansion was completed in 1891. It was the largest and most expensive home in Minnesota, containing 36,500 square feet on five floors (13 bathrooms, 22 fireplaces, 16 cut-glass chandeliers, profusion of elaborately carved oak and mahogany woodwork, a three-story pipe organ).
• President McKinley visited in 1899.
• Back side of the house is on a kind of bluff. It looks out past the Cathedral (which rears up from some unseen depth) and across the sweeping, gently swelling hills of Saint Paul.

OVERVIEW – THE PARTY

• Rachel Hill wanted to throw one last party before she and her sisters donate the house to the Roman Catholic Dioceses of St. Paul. (They have recently purchased the house from her mother’s estate.)
• She invited 8 people. 13 people actually showed up because people brought friends or dates, so there were a total of 15 people in the house (including Rachel and the house servant Lucretia Gray).
• Gladys Roy left early (because she has an aerobatics show in the morning).
• Rachel went to bed with headache shortly after midnight.
• At 1 AM (the thirteenth hour), the Tanit-tainted liquor activated. Alicia Corey activated her Hamsa, which disrupted the ascendance of Tanit, but killed everyone there. Alicia Corey’s left hand was partially saved; but the partially ascended Tanit fragments in the left hands of the other guests separated from their hosts and crawled away.
• Screams awoke Lucretia. She woke Rachel. The police were phoned and arrived around 1:40 AM.

LOCATIONS OF THE DEAD BODIES

• Carriage Porch (1)
• Hall (2)
• Library (3)
• Art Gallery (3)
• Balcony (1 + Alicia Corey’s body)
• Attic Theater (2 + 2 Hands of Tanit)

GM Note: If the number of bodies are compared to the count of guests given by Rachel, it will be noted that one is missing: Gladys Roy (who left).

INVESTIGATING THE DEAD BODIES

Left hands are missing. Stumps left behind are not bleeding.

Some bodies have a small amount of bleeding from nostrils or ears.

Medicine: The flesh on the stumps are pink and new.

• Medicine 1 / Pump Stomach: The contents of the victims’ stomachs are slightly purplish and resemble a non-Newtonian fluid; like water mixed with corn starch. (This can be analyzed with proper lab equipment. See General Research: Lab Analysis – Tanit Parasites.)
• Medicine 2 / Autopsy: Cause of death is acute hemorrhaging in the brain, similar to an aneurysm.

Autopsy: Multiple sites in the right side of the brain are damaged. Left side of the brain appears entirely healthy.

• Autopsy (Medicine 1): The Broca area of the brain, in the left hemisphere, shows signs of very slight atrophy.
• Autopsy – Alicia’s Body / Hand of Tanit: Tissue in the left hand has been replaced with some sort of purplish, crystalline structure. (This counts as a 1-point dedicated pool when investigating the tophet serum, allowing the researcher to automatically see how the hexagonal cells are forming the biocrystalline structures.)

Alicia’s Biocrystal: The structure has decayed throughout her hand; some sort of apoptosis or necrotic effect damaging the tissue. It extends up the Ulnar canal – the semi-rigid longitudinal canal in the wrist which allows passage of the ulnar artery and ulnar nerve into the hand.

Hands of Tanit: The biocrystalline structures are connected to the eye in the palm of the hand. Their exact function is unclear.

AROUND THE HOUSE

These items can be found throughout the house. The GM should liberally strew them wherever it seems appropriate.

Minnesota 13 Whiskey Bottles: They were being drunk everywhere.

• Prop: Minnesota 13 Whiskey
• See Node 2: Research – Minnesota 13
  

13 Black Cat Flyers: Several people have them in their pockets, etc. There may also be a few strewn around on tables and the like where people abandoned them. (See Node 1: The Black Cats.)

• GM Note: Gladys Roy was handing them out.

ARRIVAL @ HILL HOUSE

There’s a gaggle of reporters at the front gate (which is being watched by two patrolmen; they’ve been told to expect the PCs). Police officers mill about on the front lawn. Fred Watson meets them as they come across the lawn.

Detective Fred Watson:

• Police arrived. He got called in. Saw the missing left hands and concluded this was the type of case he should call the PCs in for.
• Cleared the cops out of the mansion so that the PCs would have a clean slate (and to put some sort of stop to any weird rumors that are beginning to spread).

GM Note: The structural key here is that the PCs should be allowed to do their own investigation. If they just listen to Watson tell them what he’s found or have him lead them around the house, that’s really boring game play.

Three Key Points from Fred:

• There are bodies; he doesn’t know how many.
• Rachel Hill, the owner of the house, is in her room on the second floor.
• He’s going to go talk to the reporters now; the PCs should go look at the house.

GM Note: Fred won’t think to mention Lucretia (she’s just a Negro servant after all); but if someone explicitly asks if there are any other witnesses he’ll mention her. She’s in her room in the Servant’s Quarters on the third floor.

Cops: If the PCs question the cops who were cleared out by Fred, they can tell them:

• The known locations of dead bodies (see above; although they don’t single out Alicia Corey).
• That Rachel Hill is in her room on the second floor.
• That Lucretia Gray, the household servant, is in her room on the third floor.

Carriage Porch: There is a corpse with a drop-cloth over it on the front stairs.

Next: The Hill House Investigation

Go to Part 1

REFERENCE – TWIN CITIES 1925

NOTABLE NEWSPAPERS:

• Minneapolis Tribune (since 1867)
• Minneapolis Daily Star (since 1920)
• Minnesota Pioneer (since 1849, first daily newspaper in Minnesota, morning paper)
• Saint Paul Dispatch (since 1868, evening paper)

TRANSPORTATION: Twin Cities Rapid Transit operates 524 miles of electric trolley lines, laced between Minneapolis, St. Paul, and into the suburbs as far as Anoka and Lake Minnetonka. (Map above.)

UNIONS: Minneapolis’ reactionary, anti-labor employers organized into the Citizen’s Alliance. They blacklisted labor organizers, hired spies to keep tabs on “radicals”, crushed strikes, maintained scab registries, etc.

The Minneapolis CLA (Communist League of America) is led by Carl Skoglund, a Swedish socialist who immigrated to America in 1911, and Vincent Ray Dunne. These Trotskyists undermined the business-friendly leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). The first strikes would not actually happen until 1934, but the union-business espionage ran rampant through the ‘20s.

Source: Red Teamsters

FARMER-LABOR PARTY: Founded in 1918, by 1925 the Minnesota Farmer-Labor party – operating on a platform of farmer and labor union protection – was beginning to dominate statewide elections.

• J.E. Meyers is the mayor of Minneapolis. He ran as a member of the Loyalty Party, focusing on a patriotic platform of supporting America’s World War I veterans.
• Laurence C. Hodgson, a former newspaper reporter and poet, is the mayor of St. Paul.

GENERAL RESEARCH – HAMSA

Occult 1 / Library Use: The Hamsa symbol, also referred to as the Hand of Fatima and the Hand of Miriam, is a protective sigil or charm taking the figure of a hand with an eye in the center of its palm. It is supposed to guard against the “evil eye” and is widely recognized throughout the Middle East and North Africa, with some scholars believing it to have originated in Carthage.

GENERAL RESEARCH – TANIT PARASITES

Lab Analysis (Chemistry/Medicine): The purplish color in the whiskey / denatured ethanol is due to a contaminant. This appears to be bacteriological in nature.

• If analyzing raw ethanol, this will be remarkable because alcohol is generally antibacterial – it destroys cell membranes, penetrates the bacteria’s cytoplasm, denatures its proteins, coagulates the enzymes, binds water (dehydrating the cell), and dissolves fats, leading to massive cell dysfunction and death.
• Closer inspection of the bacteria reveals it to be disturbingly unusual: The cell envelope is shaped like a symmetric hexagon. Its internal structures are simplistic, similar to those of a prokaryote (the first form of life on Earth) and lacking anything suggestive of an internal nucleus. It’s possible that this is some atavistic remnant of an alternative evolutionary path.
• Chemistry 1 / Medicine 1: The hexagonal cells interact strongly with each other, forming honeycomb-like lattices and, due to their symmetrical nature, capable of forming tightly-packed, perfectly tiled structures similar to hexagonal crystals. Within these larger hexagonal bio-crystals, the individual cells appear to take on specialized functions – although its impossible to determine exactly what those functions are, it would seem they serve a function similar to organelles. Thus, in relation to the prokaryote-like individual cells, the bio-crystals are analog to more complex eukaryotic cells – although organized in a way seemingly completely alien to terrestial biology.
• Chemistry 2 / Medicine 2: The interactions between the cells within each bio-crystal seem to possess a neuronal character – perhaps synapse-like micro-structures could explain the coordination between the various “organelle cells” of the crystal, in a fashion similar to a nervous system or brain tissue.
• GM Note: If investigated in a later time period, researchers might detect electrical signals “disturbingly reminiscent of human brain activity”, but neither the equipment nor knowledge of the human mind necessary for this conjecture exists in the 1920’s.
• Organic Tissue: If exposed to organic tissue (whether human or not), the tanit parasites will swarm – forming a kind of purple halo around the tissue. (Investigation of this specific phenomenon with Chemistry or Medicine would suggest that this is stimulating biocrystal growth, as described above – and functionally reducing those point spends by 1 point each.)

Tophet Serum: If dosed with tophet serum, a character must make a 2 point Stability test each day. If they succeed on three tests in a row, the effects dissipate and no further tests are required. (During this time, they will begin to manifest hallucinations, motor apraxia, and alien hand syndrome.)

• If the character is Shaken by tophet serum, they begin to manifest symptoms of dissociate personality. (The bicameral division of their mind is breaking down, their perception of self is evaporating, and the Tanit consciouness is striving to take sole control of their body). This takes the form of a Driver that can impel actions (i.e., Tanit’s consciousness is taking control). As with any other Driver, obeying the driver restores Stability per the normal rules, but also prompts a 7 point Stability test (due to Possession).
• If the character is Blasted by tophet serum, in addition to permanent mental illness they also develop an Eye of Tanit on their left hand.
• A character who is rendered Incurably Insane by tophet serum has become a fully-realized host of Tanit.
• Non-Human Hosts: Unknown effects.
• GM Note: Those who observe the progression of tophet serum may realize that virtually everyone who drinks it will, in fact, be lost to the Tanit consciousness. Realizing that hundreds of serum-tainted whiskey bottles have been sold (and presumably drunk), they may make the intuitive leap that Barca has successfully created hundreds of fully-realized Tanit hosts. (Cthulhu Mythos could also provide a similar revelation.) Where are they? Some might be lost to insane asylums, but most are just quietly continuing the façade of their mortal lives – an invisible army of sleeper agents who will continue to pursue the eventual re-awakening of Tanit throughout the 20^th century.

Go to Part 3: Arrival at Hill House

I’ll be serializing this scenario for Trail of Cthulhu, set in the Twin Cities (Minnesota, USA) in the 1925 over the next few weeks. Originally run in an abridged format at Gen Con 2017, it will be presented here in its entirety for the first time. If you’re a member of my local gaming groups, you may want to steer clear of this one, even if you’ve played this scenario before: The background elements (discussed in depth in this first post) aren’t fully revealed in this scenario and may feature in future scenarios I design.

STARTING DATE
Friday, November 13^th, 1925

DAWN OF MAN

Tanit and Ra are both incomprehensible alien intellects which came to Earth (or perhaps arose on Earth) in a prehistoric era. Some legends speak of them as brother and sister, suggesting the possibility that they are both exemplars of a single species (or perhaps a single entity turned against itself). But it’s more likely that they are utterly unlike in nature except for their shared point of commonality in humanity.

Before the origin of the conscious mind, humans were simply very smart apes. In anatomically modern humans, tool use and even agriculture were more advanced than among other animals, but they did not possess true intellect.

THE HERDS: This made them ideal hosts for Tanit and Ra, both of whom infested the minds of man like viruses and turned them into extrusions of their will. The resulting herds created the first civilizations, although they still did not exist as individuals – they were merely tools wielded by Tanit or Ra; a physical host for a vast hive consciousness.

THE FIRST HUMANS: The First Humans came to exist when Tanit attempted to infect the herd of Ra (and vice versa). Human consciousness was born from the friction between them. The bicameral mind is, in fact, a manifestation of this conflict between Tanit and Ra – and in its asymmetry, human consciousness is given form in the discontinuity between the mind’s two halves.

THE REBELLION: The First Humans rebelled against the herds. In Egypt, there is some evidence that the ensuing rebellion may have even fractured the Ra consciousness (into Amun-Ra and Aten-Ra). Tanit endured in her last refuge of Carthage until the Punic Wars razed the city.

FUNDAMENTAL METAPHYSIC: To be clear, it is not the case that there is a human identity which is plagued by Tanit and Ra. Rather, all human identity is nothing more than a byproduct of the conflict between vast alien intelligences. The lateralization of brain function in each individual is merely the wavering frontlines of an ancient war. Your entire sense of self and all of your conscious thought is nothing more than a metaphysical fever boiling out of the trench warfare being fought in the sulcus of the cerebral cortex.

Note: Ra is primarily active in the left hemisphere of the brain. Tanit in the right.

TANIT

In a fully realized host (i.e., one in which the taint of Ra is not present), the parasite which is Tanit manifests as an eye in the palm of the left hand.

THE FASCICULUS: Tanit forms a cluster of nerve tissue within the hand, suborning the Ulnar nerve and altering the structure of Guyon’s canal. This cluster is the actual seat of the Tanit consciousness, with this “mind” or “eye” of Tanit remotely controlling the primary brain of the host. It is capable of operating the hand as an independent entity in the case of death (a “hand of Tanit”); and in some cases may even lend a semblance of motion to an otherwise brain dead host (as long as the brain stem is intact), creating a shambling, zombie-like thing.

INFECTION: Tanit is a parasite — microscopic and slightly purplish in color. When a host is infected by Tanit, the parasites cluster in the left hand, where they join together (in accordance to a biology utterly foreign to terrestial life) to form more complex structures.

Child Sacrifice: Tanit uses rituals of child sacrifice to create tophet serums of viral payload capable of overriding (or destroying) Ra’s presence in the host. This effectively kills the human “personality”, and creates a fully realized Tanit host.

FACE OF BAAL: Tanit is also referred to as the Face of Baal (a word meaning “Lord” or “master” in primal Semitic tongues). This suggests that perhaps the Tanit hive consciousness is nothing more than a representative or tool of some greater and even more inexplicable entity.

RA

Ra transmits itself to new hosts as a primarily memetic virus — it is written that Ra created man by “speaking their secret names” (proper verbal coding can actually alter the Broca area of the brain, effectively infecting the host; fortunately, the memetic payload must be customized to each victim). Direct transmission via liquid, however, is also possible — in another Egyptian tale, Ra weeps and from his tears man is given birth. In the Book of the Dead, Ra cuts himself and his blood transforms into the personifications of Hu and Sia.

HU/SIA: When fully realized, Ra’s hosts manifest in two forms — the Hu (authority) become central coordinators while the bulk of the host is made up of Sia (mind). (Hu is the deification of the first word, the word of creation, and was “companion to the pharaohs”.)

Hu-manifestations are at least somewhat resistant to the Tanit parasite. Those with a Hu-strain of Ra may experience this as an enlightened/mystical state. But the more a Hu-infected host opens itself to Ra, the more its own personality is destroyed.

Note: There could be fourteen different manifestations of Ra (in the “train of Ra”). In some translations of the Book of the Dead, Chapter XVII begins: “I am Tem in rising. I am the only One. I came into being in Nu. I am Ra who rose in the beginning… The pillars of Shu were not as yet created. It is Ra, the creator of the names of his limbs, which came into being in the form of the gods, who are in the train of Ra” (i.e., the gods who personify his phases) “– fourteen Spirits, seven dark and seven light…”

APEP SERPENTS: Hu-infected hosts can be particularly long-lived, with their bodies undergoing severe transformation which eventually leaves them in a form similar to a huge, misshapen, white wyrm.

Apeptosis: Apep serpents can sometimes undergo a bizarre fission, rapidly undergoing a clonal fragmentation in which their mass collapses in a multitude of small serpents — almost maggot-like in character, but incredibly fast. These small serpents can enter potential hosts through eyes, ears, or other orifices and rapidly infect them with Ra.

Replication Errors: Apeps are dangerous to Ra, however, because they can diverge from the parent-state and become independent entities. In a fully-realized Ra society, therefore, Apeps are often killed before this happens. In the modern world, Apeps are particularly dangerous because there is no guarantee that their apeptotic fission will maintain a state of equilibrium with Tanit (which could result in anyone being infected by them having their humanity destroyed).

EYE OF RA: Eyes of Ra were extensions of Ra’s will. They included Hathor, Sekhmet, Bast, Wadjet, and Mut.

SISTERHOOD OF FATIMA

A coven of witches who have passed the secrets of Tanit and Ra down through the ages. They are particularly focused on preventing outbreaks of the Tanit parasite.

The Virgin Mary, Miriam (sister to Moses), and Fatima (daughter of Muhammad) were all members.

The inner mystery of the Sisters of Fatima is that they are all Hu-manifestations of Ra. Their mystic rites are the result of opening themselves to Ra, and their interest in crushing Tanit is not entirely wholesome for mankind.

THE HANDS

HAMSA: Also referred to as the Hand of Fatima and the Hand of Miriam, the Hamsa is a protective sigil or charm taking the figure of a hand with an eye in the center of its palm. It is supposed to guard against the “evil eye” and is widely recognized throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

In mundane scholarship it is theorized to have originated in Carthage and to spring from Tanit worship. The reality is the inverse: True Hamsas are created by the Sisterhood of Fatima to both “warn and ward” against Tanit and her cultists.

MANO PANTEA: Also known as the Hand-of-the-All-Goddess. Known to Egyptians as the Two Fingers, with the fingers representing Isis and Osiris; the thumb, their child Horus. Used to invoke a protective spirit of parents over their child, it was later adopted (through Byzantine) by Catholicism as a sign of benediction, derived from a Roman symbol meaning “to speak” and eventually gaining a retconned meaning of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Mano Pantea was used by Tanit cultists to identify themselves to each other. The meaning inverted when agents of Ra began using the symbol to expose Tanit worshipers (by initiating false calls and returns; you give the sign and if the other person responds you know you’ve found a Tanit cultist), eventually eking into common Egyptian culture as a general ward against children Tanit infections.

Tanit cultists still use it as a ritualized greeting for each other. (The fact that a number of organized religions adopted it suggests Tanit cultists infiltrated them at very high levels.)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part 1: Revelation List
Part 2: Background & General Research
Part 3: Arrival at Hill House
Part 4: The Hill House Investigation

Node 1: The Black Cats
Node 2: Minnesota 13
Node 3: Alicia Corey’s Boarding House
Node 4: Harriet Tubman’s Asylum for Colored Orphans
Node 5: Fatima’s Shrine
Node 6: Davis Farm
Node 7: Harris Chemical Plant
Node 8: Minneapolis Federal Reserve
Proactive Nodes

Pregenerated Characters

DOWNLOAD
Patron PDF + Prop Pack

Go to Part 1

Our time with Dragon Heist is drawing to a close. I have a few more Addendums I want to explore, and there are a number of Running the Campaign columns based on my actual play that I think are likely to provide useful insight and cool ideas. But the core of the Alexandrian Remix is complete.

When I wrote my original review of Dragon Heist in November last year, I did not anticipate that the campaign would become the central focus point of the Alexandrian for the next several months.

Even when I started writing the Alexandrian Remix of the campaign a few weeks later, I wasn’t expecting to still be writing about it in February. My rough plan was that it would run through December and wrap up. What happened?

One of the major shifts was the decision to do full adversary roster breakdowns for each heist in the campaign. This was basically essential for me actually running the campaign, and it turned out to be a great opportunity to introduce a wide swath of new GMs to these really powerful techniques. But it was also the seed which saw my original intention of more-or-less briefly saying, “Use this lair to run a heist!” grow into a much more expansive concept of breaking down the entire heist structure and showing how each lair could be fully adapted to that structure.

The Faction Outposts also outgrew their original scope. My plan had been to highlight how material from the chase sequence in Chapter 3 of the book could be repurposed, and my expectation had been that I could basically say, “Use the Autumn Version of this location.” In order to balance the number of outposts between each faction, however, I ended up adding several all-original locations to the campaign. The process of making the clue-progression of the campaign more robust also meant including significantly more material with each outpost.

For something that stuck much closer to the original spec, look at the Faction Response Teams: The Faction Outposts were supposed to look more like that, with one post for the outposts and one post for the response teams. (Although the response teams actually expanded, too, as I realized that response teams should be included for factions beyond the four villains.)

In the end, a feature that I had originally thought would be perhaps 10,000 words ended up being more than 55,000 words. Seeing this, some have suggested that my early comments that the Remix primarily represents what the campaign could have been and arguably should have been was in error. (That clearly adding all of this new material would have considerably expanded the size of the book.) I don’t think this is accurate; reshaping material (and explaining the design choices I was making) is often more costly in terms of word count.

I primarily mention this length, however, to explain why this final installment of the Remix is necessary.

You see, when the original intention was a fairly short series of a little over half a dozen posts, I decided that the best structural organization was design-oriented:

• Discuss general principles (how the factions are organized and the new, heist-oriented structure of the campaign)
• Introduce adversary rosters and a proto-heist (Gralhund Villa)
• The path from Gralhund Villa to the Eye Heists (Faction Outposts & Response Teams)
• The Eye Heists (the heist structure and the four villain lairs)
• Making the Three Clue Rule and node-based scenario design of the campaign more robust (revised revelation lists tying all of the material together)

Most of these, with the exception of the Eye Heists themselves, were visualized as being one post. In actual practice, only one of them – Gralhund Villa – actually achieved that goal, and the tail end of the series also saw feature creep (adding full remixes of both Finding Floon and the Nimblewright Investigation, plus reference timelines and faction reports).

As the length increased, the original intention became obfuscated. The material had also become more specific than originally intended, encouraging GMs to simply pick up the Alexandrian Remix and run it… except the material wasn’t actually organized for doing that. It was organized as a design discussion.

All of this created a lot of confusion and frustration, particularly as the series began attracting new readers who weren’t necessarily familiar with the Alexandrian or the discussions out of which the Remix had arisen.

RUN-TIME ORGANIZATION

As I’ve discussed these issues with people, there has been some confusion about what the distinction is between a design-oriented structure of the material and a run-time organization of the material.

Here’s what the final organization of the Remix series here at the Alexandrian looked like:

Part 1: The Villains
Part 1B: Other Factions
Part 1C: Player Character Factions
Part 2: Gralhund Villa
Part 3: Faction Outposts
Part 3B: More Faction Outposts
Part 3C: Response Teams
Part 3D: Other Response Teams
Part 4: The Eyes of the Stone
Part 4B: Bregan D’Aerthe – Sea Maidens Faire
Part 4C: Cassalanter Villa
Part 4D: Xanathar’s Lair
Part 4E: Zhentarim – Kolat Towers
Part 5: Clues and Timelines
Part 5B: Finding Floon
Part 5C: The Nimblewright Investigation
Part 5D: Backtracking Dalakhar & Kalain
Part 5E: Outpost and Lair Revelation List
Part 6: Golorr Artifacts
Part 6B: The Brandath Crypts
Part 6C: The Vault
Part 6D: Faction Reports (Gralhund/Jarlaxle)
Part 6E: Faction Reports (Cassalanter)
Part 6F: Faction Reports (Xanathar/Zhentarim)
Part 7: How the Remix Works

(To aid with navigation, this table of contents has also been added to the first post of the series now that it’s wrapping up.)

As noted, this was a design-oriented structure: I was grouping the material, and discussing the material, by the method of design. For example, the revision of the Floon investigation came almost last because it was part of the discussion about how to structure revelation lists in investigations throughout the campaign.

From a run-time perspective, of course, this makes no sense: The Floon investigation should come first because it’s the first thing that happens in the campaign, and it shouldn’t be grouped with the Nimblewright Investigation because they have virtually nothing to do with each other. So when I actually sat down to run the campaign, this was how I organized the material:

0.0 Campaign Overview
1.0 Finding Floon
2.0 Trollskull
3.0 Nimblewright Investigation
3.1 Gralhund Villa
4.1 Faction Response Teams
4.2 Faction Outposts
5.0 Heist Overview
5.1 Bregan D’Aerthe – Sea Maidens Faire
5.2 Cassalanter Estate
5.3 Xanathar’s Lair
5.4 Zhentarim – Kolat Towers
6.0 Brandath Crypts
6.1 The Vault

The difference is stark, and I suspect abundantly clear to anyone who has been reading the Alexandrian Remix.

(Patrons of the Alexandrian can find my own run-time files on Patreon as a patron-exclusive example of this.)

It should be noted that I largely don’t regret presenting the Alexandrian Remix in the way that I did: A design-oriented approach was valuable and allowed the presentation of material that would not have been possible in a run-time presentation. A run-time presentation, by its very nature, is stripped down and utilitarian, and I believe there was value in actually discussing and exploring the design choices I was making in a step-by-step fashion.

But if you’re actually looking to run the Alexandrian Remix (which I heartily recommend), you’d probably benefit from ripping it apart and putting it back together in a run-time organization. In many ways, this was always my intention: That GMs would take the Remix and then put in the work to finalize it into their own campaign.

HOW THE REMIX WORKS

To that end, allow me to wrap things up with a concise summary of the structure of the Dragon Heist campaign.

If you’re running Dragon Heist as it was published, the structure of the campaign looks like this:

This structure is lightly accented with contrapuntal Faction Missions unrelated to the core structure of the campaign, although the application of these missions is limited because the Nimblewright Investigation, Gralhund Villa, and subsequent chase sequence are likely compressed into a very limited span of time (probably 24-72 hours at most), which means that faction missions will largely occur between Finding Floon and the fireball explosion. (And, of course, the lairs are completely absent.)

If you’re using the Alexandrian Remix, on the other hand, then the macro-structure looks like this:

(click for larger version)

This macro-structure is accompanied by two strong contrapuntal elements: The Faction Missions and the Faction Response Teams. What is essentially the expansion of Act III of the campaign (the investigations culminating in the Eye Heists) also allows these contrapuntal elements to be more thoroughly interwoven with the core structure of the campaign. In other words, the PCs will be called upon to complete faction missions while continuing their ongoing investigation into Neverember’s Enigma, thus complicating the action and possibly requiring them to make some tough choices.

(It can also be argued that the event timeline of the Fleetswake & Waukeentide festivals also constitutes a third weak contrapuntal element.)

It should be noted that the distribution of clues throughout the Alexandrian Remix will belie the straight, parallel lines of investigation implied by the diagram above. For example, here’s what a tiny selection of possible investigatory paths looks like in detail:

But in terms of actually running the campaign, it’s the macro-structure you need to pay attention to: The PCs investigate a villainous faction. You point them at an outpost. The outpost will contain clues that point them to a lair. Performing a heist at the lair will get them the Eye in the lair. Repeat to obtain the other Eyes.

If the players are struggling, use one of the proactive elements of the campaign (their faction allies or the faction response teams) to dump a lead in their lap.

Beyond that, just follow the players’ lead and everything else will take care of itself.

A SIMPLE CHECKLIST

A number of GMs — particularly new GMs — have told me that the ideas of the Remix excite them, but they feel overwhelmed by its complexity. In practice, however, the Remix can all be boiled down into a very simple structure:

1. Are the PCs looking for a lead to one of the Eyes? If yes, pick a Faction Outpost and point them at it.

2. Did the PCs just piss off one of the Factions? If yes, pick a Faction Response Team and have them target the PCs.

3. Are the PCs floundering and don’t know what to do next? If yes, pick a Faction Response Team and have them target the PCs. (If you’re not sure how they might target the PCs, just have them show up and try to kill them.)

Repeat until the campaign is done.

A GUIDED TOUR

With all of  that in mind, let me just briefly walk you through the design-oriented posts on the website from a run-oriented perspective:

FIRST: “Finding Floon” is the beginning of the campaign. The revised “Finding Floon” investigation is Part 5B. An enhanced opening scene for the campaign is presented in Addendum: First Impressions.

SECOND: The PCs are rewarded with Trollskull Manor and are recruited into one or more factions. Spend some time allowing them to fix up their new home/business and run perhaps 1-3 faction missions. This is discussed briefly in Part 1C .

THIRD: The explosion happens. The Nimblewright Investigation which follows is covered in Part 5C and Part 5D.

FOURTH: The investigation leads them to Gralhund Villa. This scenario is given an adversary roster and other tweaks in Part 2.

FIFTH: After Gralhund Villa the PCs will either have the Stone of Golorr and need to find the Eyes (leading to the Eye Heists), or one of the factions will have obtained the Stone of Golorr and the PCs will need to find that (as an “Eye” Heist) and find the Eyes.

This is the core investigation loop: Point them at Faction Outposts (Part 3 and Part 3B) which will lead them to the Faction Lairs (Part 4).

SIXTH: With the Stone reconstituted, the PCs will be able to go to the Brandath Crypts (Part 6B) and access the Vault (Part 6C).

PROACTIVE ELEMENTS: In addition to the faction missions from the Dragon Heist book, use the Faction Response Teams (Part 3C and Part 3D) to actively bring the Grand Game to the PCs.

REFERENCE:

• Part 1: The Villains and Part 1B: Other Factions provide a high-level overview of the major players in Dragon Heist.
• Part 5: Clues and Timelines has a reference timeline and revelations pertaining to the macro-mysteries of the campaign.
• Part 5E: Outpost and Lair Revelation List has revelation lists you can use to track the primary investigation paths in detail.
• Part 6: Golorr Artifacts provides an overview of how the Stone of Golorr operates and how it can be used / has been used.

LEVELING UP

This is alluded to in various places through the Remix, but I recommend leveling up:

• After Chapter 1 (when they rescue Floon).
• After the Gralhund raid.
• After each of the heists.

There are four available heists, although the PCs may only need to do two or three of them. So the PCs will either be somewhere between 5^th and 7^th level going into the Vault. (In the case of my campaign, the PCs did all four heists, but we were on a race to the end and I forgot to have them level up. So they were 6^th level heading into the Vault.)

This means that heists done later will be easier. This seems to either provide a satisfying experience (“we’re getting better at this!”) or allows players to kick a heist they find particularly daunting or difficult down the road until they’re more powerful.

Check out Addendum: The Dragon of Dragon Heist for a detailed look at how the Vault itself can be handled.

A FOND FAREWELL

And so we come to the end of the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist.

If the Remix has brought you to the Alexandrian for the first time, I hope you’ll stick around. Not only for more Dragon Heist material (as I mentioned above, there are several addendums and Running the Campaign columns that are likely to still appear over the next few weeks), but for all the other cool stuff we do here. If you haven’t checked out Gamemastery 101, it’s a great place to take a deep dive into a lot of the material that underlies the work I’ve been doing on Dragon Heist.

If you liked what I did with this remix, you can check out a very different one with the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies for the Trail of Cthulhu RPG. The Eternal Lies remix is much less about fixing the structrure of the campaign and much more about enhancing it – adding 300 + props, 150+ diorama elements, 450+ pages and 130,000+ words (including two completely new scenarios) to an already amazing campaign by Will Hindmarch, Jeff Tidball, and Jeremy Keller.

As you get your Dragon Heist remix campaigns to the table, I hope you’ll also come back here and share your own stories, tips, and modifications. Not only because I love hearing stories like that, but because I’m a big believer in GMs sharing their lore. It benefits the community and it encourages you to think deeply about your own campaigns, which is the first step towards improving your craft as a Game Master.

Good gaming, my friends!

Addendum: First Impressions
Addendum: The Twin Parades
Addendum: Fancy Props
Addendum: Other Collaborators
Addendum: A Night in Trollskull Manor
Addendum: The Dragon of Dragon Heist
Addendum: Timelines & Starting the Campaign
Addendum: The Blinded Stone

Forgotten Realms: A Textual History of the Yawning Portal

Running the Campaign: A Party at Shipwrights’ House
Running the Campaign: The Manshoon Heists
Running the Campaign: Creating the Characters
Dragon Heist: The Final Session