D&D 5E 5th Edition and Cormyr: Flexing My Idea Muscle and Thinking Out Loud

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

You know something? There ought to be autonomous, self-loading catapults roaming the Stonelands. Something uncontrolled and Netherese in origin.

Maybe the catapults behave like Clone copies: when they encounter each other, they go crazy trying to destroy each other. In the end, there can be only one.

And wouldn't that be interesting? Think about it. You're off adventuring in the Stonelands. You've got your map and your trusty companions by your side and you're making good time through the difficult terrain when all of a sudden woosh and then crash. You look to see what the heck just flew over your head and landed with a bang in the distance when woosh and crash happen again, but this time in the other direction. That's when you see two massive constructs that look like keep-sized scorpions, except their pincers are dragging rocks closer and the tails are twisting in an impossible way before unwinding at tremendous speed and then their payloads woosh over your head and crash next to their distant targets. Maybe one even scores a hit. Or, possibly, the hurled rocks collide with each other right over your adventuring head and send deadly debris raining down on you and your companions.

I'm telling you, the Stonelands just got way more interesting.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Marpenoth - Leaffall​

Eigth day of the first tenday​

1500 DR - Year of the Sea's Secrets Revealed.​

Bumper barley harvest. Suspects ride rapids. Lord Warder eluded - again.

ARABEL - Market stalls and warehouses alike are filled to the brim with harvest goods and produce. Arabellans are paying below average prices to fill their larders for the coming winter, thanks to an abundant harvest across Cormyr. Several farms to the east of Arabel recovered from this year’s floods in time to produce a bumper crop of barley and wheat. Ale producers will have the opportunity to bid on the excess beginning on the first day of the second tenday of Marpenoth, at the Thousandheads granary (behind their main warehouse). Merchants with trade bars to spare have placed early orders for select winter-produced ales, and have reserved caravan space for shipments to Marsember (and then by boat to Westgate and Teziir) and north to the Dalelands at the start of next year’s trading season.

KALLAMARN - Crown agents chased a pair of travelers off the Way of the Manticore and pursued them as far as Kallamarn. The travelers rode hard through an orchard to the edge of the Starwater River and dismounted. No one was arrested, as the two suspects leapt into the fast-moving river and were soon lost among the rapids. The travelers were suspected of being members of the Three-Headed Helm.

SUZAIL - Yestereve, Amaerelle and Athandriss Hawklin departed Suzail, but did not travel far. The ladies were seen exiting their carriage at the Nightgate Inn, in the company of a cloaked and hooded person. The next day, Crown officials briefly questioned the noblewomen while Purple Dragons searched the Inn for their missing counterpart. Thanks to a story shared by a palace messenger of a conversation overheard between the Underclerk of Protocol and the Lady of Graces, both the Royal Palace and Court are now abuzz with gossip over the daring of the two ladies, who may well have escorted the quarry of the Lord Warder out from under his prodigious nose.

According to the messenger, the Underclerk of Protocol had entered a passageway just as the the Lord Warder was informing a cadre of war wizards that Alashendal the Necromancer had been seen in Suzail, and was to be summoned to the Royal Court for questioning before she left the city. No sooner had the war wizards departed then Alashendal herself entered the passage via a concealed door adjacent to the Warder’s office entrance, winked at the underclerk (who’d positioned himself in the lee of a recessed doorway—a skill shared by many courtiers who wish to hear without being seen, particularly when there are cantankerous Wizards of War nearby), and politely knocked on the Lord Warder’s door.

The conversation that followed devolved into a heated argument full of accusations of law and rule breaking, and recriminations of indiscriminate detentions based more on paranoia than evidence. (On the matter of the Lord Warder’s recent actions, the Lady of Graces appeared to side with Alashendal, while the Underclerk of Protocol thought the Lard Warder’s tactics entirely justified.) Alashendal left the Lord Warder’s office, loudly promising to set things aright herself. “The Lord Warder must not have known about the hidden passage next to his office. The way the Underclerk of Protocol told it, Alashendal slammed the Lord Warder’s door shut, disappeared through the secret door a few steps away, then the Lord Warder threw his door open, stepped into the hallway and bellowed an angry epithet at her unexpected disappearance.”

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Marpenoth - Leaffall
Ninth day of the first tenday
1500 DR - Year of the Sea's Secrets Revealed

Bhaal dominates tavern talk in the Bones.

HULTAIL - Tavern talk in the Blue Dragon’s Bones has placed the location of an abandoned temple to Bhaal in the Hullack Forest. As ever, talk is lively, contradictory, and entertaining. Some of what may be heard follows.

“To find it, one need only travel due north into the forest for two days, always keeping Hultail at your back” according to Rostrarl Harnshield, a regular of the Bones who specializes in building rafts and sloops at the Trindar Shipyards.

“Aye, and that will send you hurtling to your doom when your feet find only air beneath them at the edge of the first ravine that borders the heart of the wood. Travel a day and a half north at most, then turn northeast to find the ravine’s edge. Skirt around it and follow the ravine until you are south of Hultail again. Then proceed north.” This advice comes from Roldo “Blackhands” Harthhammer, another Bones regular who spends his days repairing ironmongery and forging metal necessities in his smithy, located a stone’s throw from the hill Rallyhorn Castle stands atop of in Hultail.

“It’s not a temple, mind, but the ruin of a simple keep. I’m told that if you look closely among the nearby trees, you’ll find slate shingles and rotting timber buried under years of deadfall. That's all that is left of the homes that grew up around the keep. No doubt there’s treasure buried there, too.” This information comes from Glemglora of Arcantlet, who frequents the Bones sparingly but never fails to find a conversation to join. (Glemglora is happy to buy drinks to loosen tongues.) Most folk assume she splits her time between Cantergates, the Arcantlet family seat of power south and east of Hultail, and “the Windcoast,” which consists of a series of much expanded farmhouses and verdant fields located far to the south of Hultail and due east of the Wyvernflow. (Such folk are correct.)

“Don’t be obvious about searching for the keep. Glemglora’s bullyblades will track you as far as the ravine and wait to ambush you on your return. They’ll take everything of value you found and toss your corpses into the ravine.” This warning delivered by the wandering bard Thalantheera Thestleharp, who travels Cormyr’s eastern reaches by day and makes its waystops, taverns, and inns her place of business by night.

“Thala speaks from experience.” A blunt statement delivered by the dwarf Undak “Broken Bones” Horn, who never consumes ale or spirits while on duty inside the Blue Dragon’s Bones. Undak has been especially cantankerous ever since his brother Odak left to open his own establishment in the sheep town of Bospir. Customers new to the Bones are advised to not cross “the dwarf at the door” unless they are interested in earning broken bones and seeing their coin purses emptied for Ondak’s trouble. “Mind ye, she worships Finder, just like her father did. There are things the god wants found in the ruins where Bhaal’s killers once lived. Of that ye can be certain.”

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

The holidays are upon us. My gift to you, Dear Reader, is an entry from an old DM's Guild product of mine, Cormyr in the Year of the Ageless One. The title of the entry is Wizards Run.

Merry Christmas!

Wizard's Run

The keep at the heart of Wizard’s Run is old; its true name, and the knowledge of who built it, has been lost to time. The keep is set partially into a hillside and faces south. From its battlements one can see the village of Nesmyth in the distance. The tower in the center of the keep stands taller than the hill; its topmost level allows for a splendid view of Cormyr’s rolling countryside to the north.

Wizard’s Run takes its name from the story of the last moments of a rarely seen wizard who’d claimed the dilapidated keep for himself around the time Azoun IV ascended to the Dragon Throne. Gardgragath, as he came to be known, rebuilt the keep’s walls and erected a splendid tower in its center. Rumor held that Gardragath had discovered a formula for creating Helmed Horrors, and that his keep was filled with all manner of objects the wizard could inhabit with his will and cause to move about.

Such claims were likely based on the horseless wagon that emerged from Gardragath’s keep once every tenday and trundled into Nesmyth. If the stories still told in Nesmyth hold any truth, then Gardragath could both see and hear through his wagon, and speak out of it. A strongbox occupied the space where a driver would otherwise have sat; it dispensed coins to merchants after they stacked their wares onto the wagon bed.

Such stories oft turn to the night Wizard’s Run gained its name, and describe the great green fire erupted within the keep and enveloped the tower. Not long after, the keep’s iron-shod wooden doors burst open and a barefoot, bald and wild-bearded man came running out of them. Suits of field plate wielding battleaxes sailed high over the battlements and gave chase, the eye slits in the helms trailing green fire.

The man turned and shouted a word of magic that shattered the pursuing armor, the report echoing through the night like a thunderclap as pieces of metal rained down. As if in reply, the mouth of the gatehouse spat a shower of emerald sparks that sought the broken armor. As one the shards of plate armor rose up in a whirling maelstrom to rend and tear at the wizard.

Gardragath’s body was left in a bloody heap ere the wet, whirling remnants of battle plate spun away and returned to the keep, its doors closing shut as the fire in the courtyard died away.

Two subsequent attempts by adventurers to enter the keep met with swift death, as anything within not made to be fixed and immovable worked to slay all who dared trespass. Most were skewered by animated longswords that attacked silently from above, others by flying wands that pierced eyes and ears with the speed of an arrow. On both ocassions something unseen dumped the corpses over the walls by night.

The lone path to Gardgragath’s home was walled off with farmer’s carts, timber, and stone, and travelers were warned to keep a safe distance lest “some animated thing come flying out of Wizard’s Run to slay you before you can outrun it.”

The magic-rending nature of the Spellplague cast doubt on magic of all kinds in Cormyr, and left some to wonder if lingering magical presences might be lessened in its wake. Those who dared find the answers to such questions usually met with injury or death, but not the novice adventurers comprising the Company of the Singing Harp.

Eighty years after the appearance of Gardragath, the Company found the keep at the heart of Wizard’s Run to be empty of danger. They explored the tower, the undercellars, and even discovered warehouse-sized storage chambers in the hill backing the keep. In the years that followed, the Company of the Singing Harp rode forth from the keep to find adventure and fame in Cormyr, and infamy in Sembia. In the Year of the Silent Flute (1437 DR) all but one of their number was slain while protecting King Azoun V from assassins. The survivor, one Aurbrand “Firebrand” Ambrival, was granted a title of nobility by the King and given Wizard’s Run for his home.

Aurbrand retired to Suzail late in life, and left his eldest son in charge of the keep. In time, both father and son died in Suzail under mysterious circumstances.

Today, residents of Nesmyth whisper the fell magic that long ago slew Gardragath has renewed itself into a curse slowly killing off the surviving members of the Ambrival noble family, while farmers in the vicinity of Wizard’s Run claim to have seen pieces of armor and daggers wreathed in green light flying through their fields at night, and in one case a full suit of armor with green glowing eyes roaming about in the fields near the keep under the light of the moon.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Back in September of 2023 I added a little meat to the bones of six members of the Silent Sail trading cabal of Marsember.

Conceived by Ed Greenwood, the Silent Sail was featured in Dungeon #185 in an Eye on the Realms article of the same name.

Now that this semester of college is over, I’ve taken the opportunity to write up the remaining five members of the Silent Sail from scratch.

As before, the eleven members of the Silent Sail do not descend from old-money merchant wealth. None are noble. All own at least six sailing ships and all are loyal to each other and their common cause: trade. These five differ from their fellows in that their reach and influence is not as great.

Rhynszeene “Deathgrip” Dornalhond
A slender faced, black haired, towering widower possessed of enormous hands, feet, and ears, and an iron grip. She wears a constant scowl of dissatisfaction and regards as a challenger anyone who dares lock eyes with her overlong. She supervises the transfer of wares, payments, rents, illegal substances and “folk better placed elsewhere” between the businesses owned by her numerous relatives in Suzail and their interests in Daerlun, Sembia. This has made Rhynszeene coins enough to live comfortably. What coin she makes beyond her cost of living she invests in “wagers”—Rhynszeene’s word for purchasing small quantities of goods and shipping them to market at just the right time to allow her to double her investment. Factors (trade agents) and sea captains alike report to “the widow at the center of her web” whenever they make port in Marsember.

Baerebolt Harkmantle
An aging, pasty skinned, hulking, cheerful man with rose colored cheeks and a nigh endless sense of humor. Bearebolt has a knack for teaching and has mentored countless Marsemban orphans (whether by death or castoffs) who’ve gone on to sail the Sea of Fallen Stars and visit distant ports of call. Baerbolt’s is that rare shipping business that deals both in wares and people. Ship captains rely on him to provide trustworthy replacement sailors who follow orders and never need be taught how to perform a task aboard ship. Baerebolt has no interest in placing spies aboard a ship or selling information about its activities; he prizes the regard of his fellow sea captains most of all. He trains new sailors on his personal cog – the Bitch Queen’s Fancy. Rumor claims Baerebolt will swift-sail small cargoes on the Fancy, no questions asked, if the price is to his liking.

Shulther Immerbright
A broad shouldered, balding man of average height, with a horseshoe hairline and a pepper colored bristle brush mustache. His fleet of caravels sail mixed cargo to and from the port cities of Sembia and the Dragon Reach. The folk of Marsember remain unaware that Shulther, his three factors (business agents) and all but one of his housekeepers were poisoned in a single night. The surviving housekeeper, a doppelganger, was unharmed and took over its dead master’s business concerns the very next day. The creature is bone tired from doing the work of six humans. It fears a second attempt on Shulther’s life and hasn’t a clue who ordered his assassination.

Elembrathra “the Viper” Storniviper
A product of the Pirate Isles. A “sea brawler” and a born fighter. Later a sea captain. Her face, arms and hands are stamped in jagged, crisscrossing scars. She is never without a dagger in each boot and several knives hidden on her person. A loss of status among her kin saw Elembrathra retreat to Marsember, the place “most like home” on all the Sea of Fallen Stars. She holds a fierce hatred for Sembians. Elembrathra’s fleet of cogs sail to and from Westgate. She believes in the free flow of trade, works hard to avoid dock fees and taxes, and cares not for laws prohibiting the sale and shipment of drugs, contraband, or people. Her ship’s crews are rowdy by design. They spend their coins freely within the taverns and festhalls of Westgate and Marsember that haven’t yet banned them.

Challeth Vorlwinter
Of mixed Calishite and Turmish ancestry. Wears her long brown hair shot through with silver in a braid down her back. In a pair of sturdy boots she stands about eye level with a tall dwarf. Regularly clothed in boots, breaches, a cotton blouse and a worn leather apron covered in pockets filled with measuring strings, clasps, thread, chalk, fabric swatches, needles, buttons, thimbles, snips, scissors, a clapper, clothespins, and several razor sharp shears of different sizes. She buys bulk fabric, thread, and materials from sellers in the coastal cities of Turmish and Chondath. She resells bulk fabric and produces all manner of products in her busy shop (ship’s sails, tapestries, curtains, blankets, sheets, pillow cases, weather cloaks, etc.), located across the street from the Tankard of Eels tavern (hard by the King’s Tower). Sometimes referred to as “the Seamstress of the Wet Port.” Challeth owns six caravels and awaits construction of a seventh. Her largest caravel is captained by her eldest daughter.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Do you mind if I take your ideas and twist them a bit for my campaign? (not Cormyr-related). Lately, I been unable to come with good campaign ideas,

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Do you mind if I take your ideas and twist them a bit for my campaign? (not Cormyr-related). Lately, I been unable to come with good campaign ideas,

I don't mind at all! In fact, I want people who read these entries to do just what you've asked.

We deserve to have fun however we find it.

EDIT: I see that you love coffee. I can't say no to someone who loves coffee. (I love coffee too.)

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Marpenoth - Leaffall
Second day of the second tenday
1500 DR - Year of the Sea's Secrets Revealed

Missing merchant sells rare tome. Bullyblades batter Battlerise.

ARABEL - Agents of several interested parties are searching across Arabel for a one-legged merchant selling copies of A Manyrealms Gallimaufry. The original work, penned by the Tethyrian cartographer Trammeth Anstrelgor nearly 400 years prior, remains one of the most sought after tomes across Faerûn, thanks to its still-accurate maps of routes through the numerous mountain ranges, and its detailed renderings of coastal dangers and waterways on the Sea of Fallen Stars. Tavern talk inside the Dancing Dragon tavern says this version of the Gallimaufry includes several additional pages featuring detailed renderings of Underdark entrances and exits, and the general location of dangers one may encounter. “There’s a couple ways down below the Storm Horns that’ll take you straight to the middle of the Stonelands. The Dessertsmouth Mountains has its share of passages too, or so I’m told.” This, according to Borold “the Boar” Thulmaster, a mercenary for hire who spends his idle days in the Dancing Dragon. Borold provides bodyguard services, though his fees are stiff.

BATTLERISE - Forces from Azoun’s Hold have occupied Battlerise after an unusually bloody skirmish between merchants and locals. According to Iirahlestra(1) Margar, a pair of merchant’s wagons stopped off the Way of the Manticore, ostensibly to water their pack beasts and purchase feed from the Margar family lot and stables. No sooner had the stablejacks begun assisting the merchants than dagger-wielding bullyblades leapt from the wagons to stab and slay. A dozen bullyblades made their way into the village, attacking anyone who dared stand against them. A defensive line was formed and the villagers beat back the invaders, at the cost of one dead and six wounded. Two brigands escaped, their path taking them north in the direction of the Vast Swamp. One of the stablejacks survived her wounds and gave a description of a bearded merchant who exited the first wagon after the bullyblades were gone, his form shifting into that of a woman in black robes. “I heard her say, ‘Thavverdasz protect me.’ She raised her arms and her whole body wavered like a reflection in a pond. Then she was gone.”


1. EYE-ra-LES-stra

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Marpenoth - Leaffall
Fourth day of the second tenday
1500 DR - Year of the Sea's Secrets Revealed

Mysterious mercenary melts under Happy House.

SUZAIL - Yestereve, a frightening discovery in the basement below Montalar’s Happy House (on Swordstars Lane, three buildings down from the Society of Stalwart Adventurers) saw the place filled with Purple Dragons and war wizards. According to Bhaerusk Montalar, owner and proprietor of the Happy House, a guest had rented the basement “for private worship services” and never returned upstairs at dusk (closing time for the establishment). When Bhaerusk went downstairs to check, he discovered the guest’s body “half melted and squirming, its arms and face turned to liquid the color of spoiled wine. It started flowing towards me and I ran for all I was worth!” The Happy House was open by next morning, its live-in staff busy avoiding questions “on war wizard orders” while serving happy helms (meat pastries), ale, and sweet berry wine to guests indoors and to the everpresent warehouse workers and porters that loiter near the front window of the eatery outside.

Rumors of the identity of the “person who melted” moved up and down Swordstars Lane at the speed of local foot traffic. Dulskur Broadmantle, a warehouseman at Jhassalan’s Storage, claims the guest was “a cult member of one sort or another. One what worships the oozes that are taking over Westgate. I had it from a friend that the oozes are trying to take over Marsember next!”

“The victim didn’t go into the basement empty-handed,” according to Ustal Jharko, owner of Jharko’s Coffers and Crates (located next door to the Happy House). “I saw her carrying a catswood coffer, of the sort crafted in Athkatla. You so rarely see them here. I could easily sell one for one hundred golden lions.”

“I wonder what the Crown will do with her sword?” This question posed by Umbran Daerith, of Talarkgates, who tends to exit his home each day at about the same time when the Happy House closes next door. “It was my mistake, thinking she was a mercenary for hire. She drew that magnificent blade so swiftly when I made her an offer to accompany me for a tenday! I tell you, her two companions looked just as startled as I was, especially when her sword started glowing. Fortunately, she spared us any bloodletting.”

“They’re gone, those two. One looked scared witless, the other was crying. Their master had paid a season’s fee for two rooms and told me she’d pay for another three months after the year turned.” This account comes from Bardra Vardrim, owner of Vardrim’s rooming house (located a few doors down from the Happy House, near Jhassalan’s Storage). “Strange that no Purple Dragons have come to inspect their rooms yet.”

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Marpenoth - Leaffall
Eigth day of the second tenday
1500 DR - Year of the Sea's Secrets Revealed

Orc heralds hobgoblins’ doom. Old Axe readies for winter. Assassins skewer priest.

FORT HELM - An orc herald accompanied by banner-wielding orcs arrived at Fort Helm today and announced in near-perfect Common: “I am Guhrrak, War Speaker to the six tribes represented by these banners held high. Know this: We bring war and death to the hobgoblins and their dragon masters on behalf of the Zhentarim of Darkhold. We do not challenge the Dragon of Cormyr. We make no claim on the Tunlands.” Then at least one thousand orcs made their presence known on the hills overlooking the fort by snarling battle cries, banging weapons against shields, and blowing “howl horns” whose ominous sound carried beyond Fort Helm as far as the High Road.

OLD AXE - Merchants are finding a ready market among the miners of Old Axe. The miners are trading uncut rubies and spinels for winter goods (blankets, foodstuffs, books, and spirits, amongst other things) to carry their families over to next season. A handful of trusted merchants have Crown contracts to deliver iron ore from Old Axe south to Greatgaunt and north to High Horn. The last of these merchants is scheduled to arrive on the last day of Marpenoth and depart on the second day of Uktar. A new rotation of guardian war wizards is scheduled to arrive on these merchant wagons, too. The miners have made no secret of their displeasure over the uselessness of the current lot of war wizards, as well their hope that the new group will be skilled enough to confront the lurking dangers that inhabit the Old Axe mines. This will be the first year in at least a decade since the Warden of the Western Marches has failed to secure the services of a party of adventurers to explore the mines over the winter months and drive off or slay the Underdark threats that creep forth and lay in wait for unwary miners. Should the war wizards prove worthy, then mining is expected to slow, but not stop, once the winter snows blanket the region. Then no new visitors are expected until next year.

PRIAPURL - Alavandur Helgulkh, Holy Hand of Oghma, was attacked in broad daylight today. His attackers left their swords in his body and disappeared into the city, leaving bystanders shocked and uncertain if they should assist the traveling priest for fear of being seen by watchers employed by the assassins. One assassin yelled “Die, false tongue! Lal-Yimmur take your soul!” before plunging their sword into the priest. Alavandur did not die on the spot. Instead, the skewered priest stumble-walked from the scene until a watch patrol encountered him. He begged for aid, but unexpectedly vomited up a green gout of flesh-eating slime that melted the face, helm, armor and torso of the closest watchman. A second gout slew another watchmen before the survivors could gather wits enough to flee from the unfortunate priest. Alavandur, still in agony, found he could pull one of the blades from his body. It began to melt as soon as it landed on the ground, the whole of the blade covered not in blood but the same green slime that had erupted from his mouth. More watchmen attempted to fell the priest with crossbow bolts from a distance, but though he screamed in agony upon being struck, Alavandur found his feet and continued to the city gates, the bolts slowly melting off of and out of his body. The priest was last seen exiting the gates of the city, five of the six blades still inside him.