(Following: Wave Echo Caves (Finale) as the party seeks a powerful healer for Ujio's wounds)

Falcon: Finding Reidoth

The battle with a psychotic Flameskull in the Wave Echo Caves included horribly burning Our Party's fighter Ujio's face to the point of disfigurement. The ability to mend the scars went far beyond the skills of anyone sympathetic to the part - but for one possible exception: the druid of Thundertree: Reidoth. Knowing druids to be notoriously difficult to find and ranging widely, Willow employed Animal Messengers to find him and arrange a meeting. After weeks with no response, a bird returns with a message not from Reidoth, but from a ranger named Falcon, who suggests you meet him at his hunting lodge deep within Neverwinter Wood.

Falcon was a fine host for the part and suggested, if truly needing to find Reidoth, they check within the mysterious ancient manor a day’s travel through thick forest to the northeast of the lodge.  Falcon provides an apprentice scout to show the way, while warning this manor is older than any remember and deeply and dangerously cursed.

His reasoning for seeking Reidoth there is twofold. First, his own scouts (animal and apprentice) have on rare occasions in the past year, spied Reidoth in the manor’s vicinity. Second, the dark mansion has regularly produced the evil plant beings called Blights - products of a Gulthias Tree, which maliciously infects the surrounding wood. The presence of needle blights and twig blights during Reidoth’s stay in Thundertree lead to suspecting he has done some “transplanting,” perhaps to drive out the ruin's trespassers.

Halloween Spookiness

As our game came upon Halloween IRL, we wanted to run a nice spooky adventure - so I adapted this top-rated module (worth the $$$!) from DMs Guild: The Haunt, blending it within the context of the stories around the Anchorites of Talos and the Circle of Thunder.

The Montarthas Manor replaces the Woodland Manse from the Dragon of Icespire Peak module.  I had to alter the floor plan so the entry (Rooms 1-2-3) face northwest out of room 4 and the swimming pool area squares off into the well and tree zone on the map of the Woodland Manse. (The tree being an essential part to tie this back to the Reidoth story).  The high fences enclosing the courtyard are now choked with thorny twisting branches and vines from the evil tree, which also lends a darkness from the outside that discourages entry (except, perhaps, from someone with an abundance of overconfidence and the ability to polymorph into a chipmunk...)

I added a property to the manor that its terrors scale with the power of the mind of those who enter, so it would be truly deadly for Falcon or Reidoth if caught within, not to mention the temptation their capture would be for its BBEG!  Therefore, our more humble party had a better chance of success. 

NOTE SPOILERS FOLLOW

Haunted Mansion

The house projects an impenetrable opacity on all sides but the main entry, and the party spent quite a long time and effort working at the doors until working out how to enter. Right away, their paranoia led to careful triggering of the gargoyle guards, who were quickly dispatched.

The party almost instantly discovered the lever to toggle the secret doors, in the room by the portcullis-barred stairs and the doll on the cushioned bench.  The party investigates the doors, then leaves Yeet Longshade alone at the control - the party is separated, and alone with the evil doll, Yeet is viciously attacked and bleeding, realizing the danger of his situation - he pulls the lever to get the party back to help. The doll vanishes before they arrive. This wonderfully put everyone on edge!  The girl’s giggles would occasionally be heard from time to time after this...

The party would never work out entry to the rooms through those secret doors, but one of its treasures would be collected at the end.  Instead, the party explored the basement, only to be trapped within with noxious gas forcing them to solve a puzzle in a deadly escape room involving repairing a flesh golem (a la Frankenstein’s monster) whose brain held the knowledge of how to safely leave the room.

Courtyard Bloodbath

Proceeding to the courtyard, the Gulthias tree loomed large, as if braced possessively against the surrounding tall wrought iron fence enclosing the area. A chipmunk runs to Willow from the shadows, fearful and pleading to be held safely in her pocket. It urges the group to "flee!" - and - does the chipmunk have a little white beard??

But noting a glint within the small swimming pool, Yeet dove in - the good news being he soon placed hand upon hilt of what would be a fine rapier - the bad news being this caused the emergence of a zombie beholder from the murky waters. The party suffered some great injuries in this battle, sufficient to retreat back into the mansion to patch up. 

Willow converses with the chipmunk, who she believes is indeed Reidoth in animal form, but offering nothing while appreciative of shelter! The party recalls Reidoth was similarly unhelpful in fighting things in Thundertree - zombies, blights, and in particular the dragon - so this is really no surprise.

Noticing the stairway’s portcullis had somehow been raised, the party began to ascend the stairs when suddenly the sounds of an enormous CRACK! - a terrible wrenching sound, an enormous BOOM! (now well-known to the party as the sound of Tallon the Tall using Thunderwave), and taking attendance, indeed noted the enormous dwarf barbarian was not among their ranks. They head down the stairs, to be greeted by Tallon utterly soaked from head to toe in blood - just absolutely caked in it. But reporting he was fine, with a wide smile on his face.

It so happened that at the end of the zombie beholder batte, Tallon’s Rage continued to linger, spurred on by his magical axe Hew, who has a particular taste and vendetta against plants, especially wood, and extra-especially wood that can move. This was the Gulthias Tree and its blight-spawn in spades!  Tallon had taken on the tree himself, and scoring the record-setting critical hit of the campaign so far, his first chop at the tree nearly cut through the entire trunk in one shot, followed by enough to cleave in twain on his second attack. Vine blights swarmed him, only to be blasted away with the Thunderwave. The tree is hemorrhaging blood-sap like a Monty Python skit, as the weight of its upper trunk and branches crash down, filling the courtyard, and blights falling left and right  to a combination of Rage and Hew’s auto-max damage to plants.  Satisfied with his carnage, and his rage coming to an end, the blood-soaked Tallon calmly walked into the house, to be greeted by horrified companions.

Second Story

The group heads upstairs now, facing the hallway of ectoplasmic veins and sensing the whole building itself (like Monster House) may be alive - or undead - or something. At the end of the hallway, the evil doll sings her lullaby, sending half the party into fear - and later even paralysis, while those shaking the effects meet her half way down the hall in their own battle against the vicious midget. Just as the party manages to surround it, the doll vanishes with a ghastly giggle.

Picking an adjacent room to once more patch up injuries, the party is given no pause to catch their breath, two phase spiders, surprise them and deal vicious bites before the party - in no mood for mercy, pour on their responsive attacks, destroying their bodies which vanish back into the Ethereal plane from whence they came.

A kitchen is found, with a tempting chest at the far end, triggering the attack of a poltergeist, which sends pots, pans, and knives into a dangerous whirl of damage, forcing most of the party to flee into the hallway.  Stubbornly insistent on putting this room to rest, Belcoria, Mon-Kei and Willow persist in seeking the source of the fury.  Finally working out the shelving impacting the strength of the whirl, the cabinets are destroyed and the room quiets.

Other rooms provide apparitions playing out vignettes of the ancient tragedies that still (literally) haunt the manor. The doors at the end of the hallway prove particularly confounding, even separating the party. Tallon and Belcoria find their way into the General’s suite, spooked by the apparitions and calling the party together.  There is one last beat-down of the evil doll, lying on a bench after being part of an apparition showing the evil woman who bewitched the General, giving it to his young daughter, only for it to stab her to death.

Monster House

And in the final room of the house - the BBEG is discovered... with the General - or perhaps some more recent victim - pinned on the ceiling by black veins and green ghostly tendrils connecting it to a figure at a desk. His heart glows an eerie green. The room is piled with long-dead bodies. Of course some of the bodies become undead, as the party engages the Night Hag Gertrude. There is some confusion on which is the enemy - the thing on the ceiling or the thing on the ground to which it is connected. So some early attacks are wasted, giving the hag time to prepare.  Despite this, several significant attacks - most prominently from Mon-Kei, who had one turn with not one but two particularly well-rolled critical hits - the battle ends relatively quickly, the cursed emerald falling to the floor, the man’s body disappearing into ash with the sound of a whispered “thank you” and an eerie quiet.

There is not much time to investigate the room, as cracks begin to appear in the walls, the floor shakes, stones fall from the crumbling ceiling - the house in its entirety is collapsing! Running best as they can, the party makes the stairs, taking damage from falling debris.  Impaired on DEX saving throws by her heavy chain mail armor, Belcoria suffers injury to 0 HP and blocking others in the narrow, curving passage of the stairway.  Willow places a Cure Wounds on the paladin, and the retreat continues, devastation surrounding on all sides. The party splits at the bottom of the stairs - half out the door, half into the courtyard - whoops - blocked in the crush of the tree’s branches, these turn and join the others.

The entire building now implodes on itself, lifting a grey mushroom cloud up up up into the forest canopy as a mushroom cloud, just as the light of dawn illuminates the dust in spears of light through the shadowy forest.
Two ice cold eyes glow from across the gloom, then vanish into the woods with the giggle of that horrible doll...

As the dust settled on what proved to be a glorious day - warm and bright in stark contrast to the foreboding prior evening, one curious anomaly hovered above the wreckage, a metal bar floating in space, propping up a now-cracked door and crumbled doorway. Ever-curious and eager for loot, Mon-Kei dashed to the item, exploring it for some enchantment or mechanism. Finding a button at one end of the rod, it drops into the monk’s hands as he presses the device.

(Continues in: The Druid, a Dragon, and a Unicorn)

(Related: Saint Greycastle Hospital) (Conclusion: Put Evil to Bed)

When Our Party examined some magical treasure found in the caverns beneath Tresendar Manor in Phandalin, Ujio sprung out of a magical sword and Mon-Kei out of a magical sack. The two had been suspended in space and time within these objects for five centuries, placed there to spare them as a battle was turning against the Adept they served, a Veteran of the Psychic Wars named Askelon.

The Veterans of the Psychic Wars are a host of displaced heroes and villains seeking to contain and oppose their historic enemies as they continue to seek to raid other worlds and planes of existence. Time can stand still on the Astral Plane, which connects many of these worlds, and it is possible Askelon made his own escape and the warrior and monk could rejoin him, even 500 years later.

On 1-Ches-1492, Ujio released Askelon from the Seeing Sword, using the Ruinstone. Askelon has vowed to take upon himself a quest to find the paired stone and attempt to restore balance to the multiverse (at least as caused by this pair of objects/concepts).

Small town off the Triboar Trail between Leilon and Triboar, originally a farming community feeding the mining activities in the Sword Mountains by Phandelver's Pact.  Destroyed in 951 DR in the orc invasion sweeping the Sword Coast. Has been rebuilt recently to support renewed mining activities. A group of successful adventurers (see Dragonslayers) brought attention to the town, rebuilding its Tresendar Manor, but then also an attack by the Cult of the Dragon that resulted in yet another devastating destruction. This last attack ended the oversight of townmaster Harbin Wester, clearing the way for its new townmaster, the fiesty and ambitious owner of the Phandalin Miner's Exchange, Halia Thornton.

(See: wiki)

Eternal rival of her brother the Platinum Dragon Bahamut, Tiamat is the 5-headed Unknown, an Arch-Devil (serving Bane and later Asmodeus) and deity of evil dragonkind.

The most commonly shared trait of those called or self-identified as the Children of Auril is devotion to the Goddess of Winter, Auril, also called the Frostmaiden.  The term is exclusively used in the Frozenfar of Faerûn.  The primary sub-groups are:

1. The Frost Druids: a circle of druids dedicated to cold, ice, snow, winter, and generally darkness as far as that opposes the sun's meltiness. The Archdruid of the circle is called the White Inquisitor, and she holds even more merciless cold wrath than the other fanatics.  She took this position after Gildreban the Timeless departed from the Frozenfar (rumored to have joined Auril in her court.) Others include the sisters Ravisin and Vurnis of Lonelywood, Faash (friend of the giant Garagai), Siovakis (Reghed Bear Tribesman said to have fallen into madness), Augvald the Storm-summoner of Kelvin's Cairn, Drofn (Auril's messenger to the Goliath peoples), and Bitra, who menaces the Redwaters region.
2. Shrine-keepers of Auril: In contrast to the wild-ranging druids, there are also clerics/priests of the Frostmaiden who maintain more town-oriented shrines and places for sacrifice. None have risen to the prominence of the druids, however.
3. Fanatics of Auril: encouraged by the Frost Druids and the Shrine-keepers, a cult has emerged over the past years without the Spring melt, composed of those driven mad, lost in depression or desperation, and simply some eager to follow what is clearly a divine presence on the lands - for so many other gods remain aloof from the lives of mortals.

Prior to the Desolation at the end of Tarsakh in 1492 DR, the presence of the Children of Auril and their hand on political power were felt most strongly in Good Mead, Targos, and Dougan's Hole - where humanoid sacrifices to Auril were performed regularly for well over a year.  Lonelywood's proximity to the deep forest area has also caused it to receive added attention, though perhaps unwanted. Sufficient fear and respect for the Frostmaiden prevailed throughout the towns to ensure compliant sacrifices and influence in the night to night goings-on.

After the Desolation

When the Chardalyn dragon of Xardorok Sunblight burned nearly all the Ten Towns to the ground, all this changed. There may not be any direct connection of these events, but such a consequence was realized all the same. (See Ten little Towns).

1. The regularity of the nightly auroras associated with Auril ended the same night as the attacks - adding to superstitious speculation linking the events, And while the colored lights across the skies were a reminder of the wintery grasp, they were still a prominent awe-inspiring phenomenon of beauty.
2. Bitter blizzards descended during the attacks on the northern towns: Termalaine, Lonelywood, Bremen, Targos and Bryn Shander - and in all cases the Frost Druids were openly calling forth the weather and unrepentent. These blizzards then persisted for a week, burying the roads and leading to most of the casualties by way of exposure and starvation.  Many so dying became Coldlight Walker spirits, further creating fear and death in the aftermath.
3. Swift retribution and hatred arose in the people of the Ten Towns against the Children of Auril - and even the creatures associated with her such as Yeti and Ice Trolls. At the forefront of this was Vaelish Gant the Brown, the new Town Protector of Bremen, who nurtured a personal vendetta against the White Inquisitor and several Frost Druids for bad treatment in the past, including the incarceration in and pursuit after escaping Revel's End. Targos and its new-influencers the Zhentarim also pressed for this harsh treatment of Auril's devout.
4. The Knights of the Black Sword declared their focus to free those in the grip of this tomb of ice, launching expeditions into pursuit of arcane lore and ancient sites.
5. The White Inquisitor herself withdrew from what was once prominent imposition of her indignant demands on the Ten Towners, making only occasional and brief appearances, but often well-timed to spare the followers from deadly wrath. Her whereabouts remain unknown, her power remains as intimidating as anything in the dale.
6. Frost Giants, ever-respectful of the Frostmaiden, though perhaps even predating her rise, began to be seen to gather in larger war-ready groups, where previously only seen in lone or paired hunting parties.