Candlekeep Mysteries

I think one of the more underrated books for 4e was "Dungeon Delve."  It was basically a compilation of 30 mini adventures, one for each party level.  Each adventure had about three encounters (and let's face it - given the length of 4e battles, three encounters could easily take multiple sessions).  Of course they were light on plot, but that just meant you could drop them into any campaign.  The main draw was that you always had a quick adventure ready if you decided to hold an impromptu game.

5e's "Candlekeep Mysteries" is a lot like that.  It contains 17 standalone quests, one for each party level 1-16 (there's two for level 4).  But unlike Dungeon Delve, CM's adventures center more on plot than fighting.  I'm about three adventures into it, and so far, I'm really liking it.

The book opens with a chapter describing Candlekeep - a huge library containing rare books from all over the world.  It's a short chapter, but detailed enough that it could inspire many adventures.  Each of the 17 short adventures involves a book in some way.  Maybe you're hired to recover a stolen tome of eldritch lore.  Maybe an absent-minded wizard attempted an unfamiliar hex he found in an ancient spellbook, and you have to clean up the mess.  Maybe an old diary contains a map to a mysterious treasure.

In an odd way, it kind of reminds me of "Friday the 13th: The Series" (no relation to the movies), where the owners of a cursed antique store had to hunt down several lost artifacts, each episode centering on a specific artifact and the trouble it caused.  

If you were to build a campaign around this book, it might start to feel a little repetitive after a while.  Although if you were specifically wanting a "Librarians" themed campaign, this would be a good start.  Otherwise, you might want to pick and choose which adventures to use.  Save this book for a night when you don't have anything prepared, and run whatever chapter is appropriate for your group's level.

My only complaint is the map.  It comes with a foldout map of Candlekeep, which is not fully repeated in the book itself (the courtyard part is repeated, but not the Inner Ward).  I keep my maps separate from my books, so they don't fall out while reading them, and I honestly would have found this map more useful if it were inside the book.  

It's not a particularly useful map for campaign strategy, like the overland map in Rime of the Frostmaiden or the hex map in Tomb of Annihilation.  This map seems to be more for flavor, and I'm surprised they bothered to make it a foldout map at all. 

But despite that little nitpick, I think it's a great book for any DM to have.  These adventures require a little more prep time than the ones in 4e's Dungeon Delve - and by that, I just mean you'll actually have to read ahead a little.  But it's still a lot more "grab and play" than the adventures in "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" or "Tales from the Yawning Portal".  

Definitely worth a read.

Daggerford: Mistcutter Isle (Part 2)

Game Date: 3/20/2021

Location: Roll20
Campaign: Daggerford, Session 13

System: D&D 5e
DM: Mike

The Party:
Azul (Cliff) Dragonborn Fighter
Khemed (Rusty) Half-Elf Wizard
Neven (Steve) Elf Monk
Sylvester (Steven) Drow Warlock/Doctor
Vanya (Matt) Half-Elf Bard

The Session:

Last week we left off in the caverns below Mistcutter Isle.  We began the session in waist deep water.  We took a short rest in a dry cave, waited for the water levels to lower a bit, and explored the deeper tunnels.  We encountered another shark, but it was trapped by the low water levels.  We finished it off so it wouldn't attack us later.

We entered a tunnel that was glowing with a bluish light, with skeletons arranged like trophies.  In another tunnel, a patch of kelp tried to grab Neven and pull him under.  Sylvester fired an Eldritch Blast at the kelp, to help set him free.  As Neven finished freeing himself, a Merrow (an ogre-sized merman) joined the fight.

The rest of the party stayed in the shallower water and fired ranged attacks, while Neven kept punching the creature.  Vanya finished the Merrow with a well-stated insult.  After the fight, Neven noticed a lot of bodies at the bottom of the chamber.  Apparently this creature had been working with the kelp to make meals of visitors for a while.

In the next chamber, Sylvester and Neven found a statue of a maiden with a marred face.  There was a skull sitting on a rock shelf, which contained a black pearl worth 500 gp.  Then they met a woman, who thanked them for saving her from the Merrow.  She claimed the monster had trapped her, planning to eat her later.  

She lied.  When they tried to leave the cave, she revealed her true face - a sea hag.  The hag used Drowning Glare on Neven, which left him gasping for breath.  It was harrowing at first, but we made some good attacks and brought her down in a few rounds.  Sylvester delivered the final blow using Create Bonfire.

We backtracked and explored a large chamber to the West.  There was a small island in the middle of the cave, surrounded by deep water.  We saw movement on the ceiling, possibly bats.  Sylvester swam to the island.  He saw something moving in the water.  He tried to reach out to it with Awakened Mind, but only detected anger and pain.  A pair of Sea Tigers burst from the surface and attacked.

These things hit hard.  Their first attack nearly wiped out Sylvester, who went down the following round.  Khemed enlarged Azul, who soloed one while Sylvester and Neven fought the other on the island.  Azul delivered the killing blow on both monsters.  We healed up a little and went North.

The next passage led to some stairs.  While searching for traps, we triggered one.  A large cylindrical stone rolled down the staircase.  We climbed over it and proceeded upwards.  To the West we found an altar with a water-filled well.  Of course Sylvester was the first to check it out, and he was attacked by a Water Weird.

It grabbed Sylvester and pulled him into the well.  While Sylvester made underwater death saves, the rest of us wailed on the Weird.  It tried to slow us down with blinding attacks.  Sylvester rolled a 20 on his a save, climbing back out of the well right after Azul finished off the Weird.

Something glittered at the bottom of the well.  Neven swam to the bottom, and gathered up 1,350 gp worth of coins and small gems.  Down the next hall we saw some large murals.  Two statues (Coral Golems) tried to hide within the murals, but we noticed them.  Vania started the battle by casting Shatter twice, getting us off to a good start.

Khemed enlarged Azul again, and he took point.  The Golems had a few immunities which made things difficult.  Azul went down, but Sylvester managed to finish off the last one with an Eldritch Blast.  The end of the hall opened to a very large, square, "boss fight"-looking room. 

We didn't go in yet.  We were low on resources and time, so we took a long rest by the fountain and ended the session there.

Unearthed Arcana: Folk of the Feywild

This month's Unearthed Arcana was of special interest for me.  Finally a fairy!  As I mentioned in my bucket list post a few months ago, I've always wanted to play a fairy character in a tabletop RPG.  Judge me if you want, but I used to play one in NeverWinter Nights, and I really enjoyed it.

It looks like a decent race - it gets flight, a couple of innate spells, and the ability to squeeze through tight spaces.  I definitely look forward to trying this out, and will instantly preorder whatever splatbook it eventually appears in.

That said, overall this edition of Unearthed Arcana was a bit of a letdown.  Four races: Fairy, Hobgoblin, Owlfolk, and Rabbitfolk.  For a Feywild document, it's not Feywild enough.  I would have preferred Dryads, Nymphs, and Satyrs to all these animal folk.  And we already had a playable Hobgoblin the Volo's Guide to Monsters, so I'm not convinced we needed another one.

Of course, that's just me.  I mean, I have to be in the minority, wanting to play a fairy.  I'm sure that for every oddball like me, there's someone out there who has always wanted to play a rabbit person.  So, sure, throw in more animal people, see if you can pull in the furry crowd.  The more fringe groups we can get to try D&D, the better.  But I hope the final book also includes Dryads.

I'm also a little wary of the new stat system.  A few months ago I read Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, which has optional rules for stat generation.  Side note, I've been rereading Tasha's recently, and I think I must have been in a bad mood the first time I reviewed it.  It's still not as useful as Xanathar's, but there's definitely some stuff in there I can use.  I particularly like the Monk subclass that can heal their allies by punching them in the face.

Anyway, Tasha's took the first steps in D&D's push to eliminate racial stats.  It presents the optional rule that during character creation, you can trade out stat bonuses for other stat bonuses.  This allows you to play characters that grew up in non-traditional environments for their race, and distances the game from problematic stereotypes.

This Unearthed Arcana continues the trend by not having set stat bonuses at all for these new races.  Instead, it just says, "When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one of those scores by 2 and a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1."

This is a great system, but it might have gone over better if they had included some suggested stat increases for each race.  After all, that "pick whatever stats you want" rule was supposed to be optional, and not every group intends to adopt it.  Even if you intend to trade out the suggested stats, some people are going to wonder what stats would be traditional for that race's society.

But I guess even asking that question is to skirt racism.  Saying "Most Orcs are stupid, but your Orc is smarter because they were raised by Elves" is no better than saying "All Orcs are stupid".  And since some people draw parallels between D&D races and real world ethnicities, it's probably best to just drop automatic stat bonuses going forward.

If only they could have made that realization during 5e's playtest phase, they could have worked it into the system, and maybe let stat bonuses be come from your class instead.  As it is, this late-stage change makes the system feel sort of messy.  Hopefully they will reprint the PHB at some point, so that the core book is more consistent with the follow-up material.

Until then, I think they're doing the best they can.  I can't wait to try the fairy.

Daggerford: Mistcutter Isle (Part 1)

Game Date: 3/6/2021

Location: Roll20
Campaign: Daggerford, Session 12

System: D&D 5e
DM: Mike

The Party:
Azul (Cliff) Dragonborn Fighter
Khemed (Rusty) Half-Elf Wizard
Neven (Steve) Elf Monk
Sylvester (Steven) Drow Warlock/Doctor
Vanya (Matt) Half-Elf Bard

The Session:

Today we switched our DM with one of our players.  The session took place in the same universe, but may or may not be canon going forward.  We started with some haggling to sell our loot from the last dungeon, selling to a guy who was obsessed with teeth.  Then he presented us with this week's plot hook.

People were having nightmares of ill omen, possibly related to some evil priest activity.  Clues pointed to an old pirate outpost on Mistcutter Isle.  We set sail aboard a ship with a lizardfolk captain. 

It was dark when our ship reached the island.  After scouting a landing location, we decided to wait until morning to row ashore.  Early in the morning, our ship was attacked by a large sea creature.  We all headed topside so we could start firing at it.  After a round, it leaped out of the water and landed on the ship.

It ate one of the pirate crew.  Azul hit it with lightning breath, bringing it down to bloodied.  Neven finished it off with a bunch of punches and psychic attacks.  We patched up the ship, and had a funeral for the fallen crewmate.  We spotted some caves at the base of the island, near an arched outcropping with a large statue.  

We rowed our boat ashore (hallelujah), landing north of the outcropping.  Sylvester and Vanya investigated the arch, spotting a large square stone at the end.  It looked like the stone was originally the base of the statue, which had later fallen into the water down below.  Sylvester found a rune-covered metal rod, which he tucked into his backpack. 

A large snake attacked them, but Neven showed up and scared it off.  They rejoined the rest of the party.  We set up camp, and all had bad dreams about being dragged against our will to an underground temple.  At about 3 AM, a blast of purple appeared in the distance.

No going back to sleep now, so we went to investigate.  It looked like the blast came from above the caves, so we headed towards the cave entrances.  Water kept rushing in and out of the caves, and we came upon a brown slime.  

The passage was very narrow at this point, making it difficult for anyone but Azul to attack the monster.  Another slime appeared on the ceiling above us.  Azul attacked one of them, and it split into two.  We tried to favor magical attacks for the rest of the fight.  

Once they were dead, we continued to explore the caves.  The water got deeper, and we had to use dancing light spells so Azul could see.  Pretty soon we couldn't proceed without swimming.  Neven scouted ahead, and was attacked by an angry shark (doo doo doo doo doo doo).

The rest of us were too far back to know he was being attacked, so he had to solo the shark for a few rounds.  Eventually he managed to swim back to us, leading the shark towards us.  We attacked it with ranged attacks, standing in water too shallow for the shark to reach.  Azul finished it off with a crossbow.

Sylvester and Khemed went down one short passage, and found a puzzle involving a skull and some seashells.  There were four colored seashells - yellow, green, brown, and blue.  They managed to trigger a few traps while figuring it out, taking damage from falling blocks.  (They didn't know how to use the four seashells.)

After some experimentation, they found the correct order to press the seashells.  They were awarded with some pirate treasure - a pearl handled comb, a decorative curved dagger, a painted hand fan, a golden locket, a gold earring, and a silver chain.  

We stopped the session there, with the benefit of a short rest.  We will pick it up in two weeks.