The adventure ahead
A frontier campaign for levels 1 to 11.
The Ashen Reach is a hard land of red mesas, salt flats and iron. At its heart stands Ironjaw Hold, a hillfort city of dark brick where the orcish clans keep the old roads open and the caravan masters pay in iron and silver. East of it the Ashen Road runs down through the Skullgate Bazaar and the Redstone Draw to Saltmarch Landing, where the salt flats meet a grey sea. Beyond the water lies Moonharbor, a warm arcaded city of shipwrights and merchants, and beyond that the Deadvein Highlands, where a mountain full of old mines looks down on the coast.
For three seasons the caravans have been burning. Raiders in red sashes strike the Ashen Road, take the iron, and vanish. The Ironjaw Wardens cannot spare the fighters to chase them, and the Moonharbor Council insists nothing is wrong. It is wrong. Somewhere between the hillfort and the mountain, a brotherhood is arming itself with stolen iron and something far worse dug out of the dark.
Gritty frontier adventure with a warm, loud, crowded middle act. Orcish hospitality, harbor politics, sea caves and mine shafts. The villains are patient, courteous and utterly ruthless.
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You are in Ironjaw Hold, a hillfort city of dark brick and iron banners on the edge of the Ashen Reach. The clans here keep the caravan roads open, and lately the roads have been eating caravans whole. Three in a month, burned on the Ashen Road, cargo gone, drivers dead or missing. The Ironjaw Wardens have posted a call for sell-swords, scouts and anyone else who can ride east and come back with answers.
Warden Gruma Ashfang is paying good iron for a company of four. She has a burned wagon in her yard, three survivors who will not look her in the eye, and no wardens to spare. She wants the raiders found, the stolen iron traced, and the name of whoever is paying them.
A character with a reason to be in a frontier city and a reason to care what happens to a road. A healer, a front-liner, someone who can talk, and someone who can pick a lock will all be useful.
Behind the screen
Levels 1–11, four characters, 22–26 sessions of 3–4 hours.
Three regions, three acts, eleven key locations, eleven scenes. The party crosses the Ashen Reach (Act I, levels 1–4), the Verdigris Coast (Act II, levels 5–8) and the Deadvein Highlands (Act III, levels 9–11). Each act ends with a milestone level-up.
Edric Vane, the Red Hand was a Moonharbor shipping clerk whose family was ruined by the Council's tariffs. He spent ten years building the Redband Brotherhood out of every man the Reach threw away. Two years ago his agents found blackfire — an ore that burns without smoke and forges a blade that never dulls — in the abandoned Deadvein Deep. Vane's plan is simple and nearly complete: dig the seam with slave labor, refine it under Mother Sallow, arm three thousand men, and take Moonharbor by seizing the harbor chain. Gorek Blacktusk, an orc exiled from Ironjaw Hold, commands the field companies and burns the caravans to keep the Reach's eyes on the road instead of the mountain.
Act I is a chase: three locations, fast, with one fight per location. Act II slows down — Moonharbor is a social act and should breathe; give the party a full session in the city before the docks. Act III is a war march: the gate, the village, the mine, each bigger than the last. Do not run two dungeon-style locations back to back; Cinderfall Hamlet exists to give the party a village to save between the gate and the deep.
Blacktusk is the face the party meets first and should survive until the Deadvein Deep if possible. Sallow is heard of long before she is seen. Vane should not appear in person until the finale — his letters do the work. Nessa Crowe is a wildcard who can be bought, betrayed or allied with.
Hook 01
Warden Gruma Ashfang of Ironjaw Hold is hiring sell-swords to find who burned three caravans on the Ashen Road. She pays in iron, offers a road token, and asks only that the party keep its word. This is the default opening hook and leads straight into the Warden's Hall scene.
Hook 02
Pell, a dock urchin in Saltmarch Landing, saw an older brother dragged off by red-sashed press-gangs. Brakka Thorn, a scout in the Redstone Draw, lost a brother the same way. Either can hire the party to follow the raiders east and find out where the taken are being sent.
Hook 03
Madri Voss, a fence in the Skullgate Bazaar, sold stolen iron to a Redband recruiter and now cannot sleep. She offers information and coin to anyone who will get her out of the bazaar alive, which puts the party on the Brotherhood's trail from the first hour of play.
Hook 04
Father Cadoc of Saltmarch Landing keeps a book of every ship that never came back. Nineteen of them were wrecked on Wreckers' Cay by a darkened lighthouse. He will pay in blessings and buried silver for someone to prove who darkened the light.
Hook 05
A scholar named Corvel went up the coast road two years ago to survey the old Deadvein workings and sent one letter home. His last line read: the ore here burns without smoke, and it should not. Anyone who wants to finish that survey can start by asking in Moonharbor.
A burned caravan in Ironjaw Hold's yard starts a chase east. The party traces stolen iron through the Skullgate Bazaar, breaks a raider camp in the Redstone Draw, and follows the cargo to Saltmarch Landing, where they learn the iron is being shipped across the water to Moonharbor under a false consignment. The act ends with the party at sea, carrying proof that the Redband Brotherhood is arming itself with the Reach's own iron.
Read aloud
The Warden's Hall smells of woodsmoke and wet leather. A burned wagon wheel leans against the wall, its spokes charred down to stubs. Gruma Ashfang stands over a table of maps with three survivors behind her, and none of the three will meet your eye. 'Three caravans this month,' she says. 'Three. I have two hundred wardens and four hundred miles of road. Sit down. I will pay in iron.'
Gruma Ashfang hires the party to trace the raiders. The survivors are a driver, a guard and a cook; the driver sold the caravan's route and is terrified of being found out. The raiders wore red sashes and were led by an orc with black tusks — Gorek Blacktusk, exiled from Ironjaw Hold three winters ago. The stolen cargo was iron ingots consigned to a Moonharbor chandlery. Gruma cannot spare wardens, so the party goes.
Read aloud
Madri Voss does not look up from the lock she is picking. 'I sell hinges,' she says. 'Sometimes a hinge is attached to a door. Sometimes a door is attached to a warehouse. I do not ask which.' Behind her, three streets of awnings and shouting climb toward the hillfort wall, and somewhere in the east row a man in a red sash is offering coin to a crowd.
Madri Voss fences goods but is not Brotherhood. She sold the ingots to Corvin Sash, a Redband recruiter, and is frightened of the consequences. Tessa Quill has a coded manifest and will help decode it if the party offers her an exit from the bazaar. The east row press-gang is three bandits and a scout; breaking it up earns the stallholders' goodwill and a discount on everything.
Read aloud
Brakka Thorn crouches by a burned axle and does not look up. 'Four days old,' she says. 'Eight horses, two wagons, forty men. They went up into the rock.' She points at a cave mouth above the road, screened by scrub, and then at the ground. 'There is a boy in there. I have heard him.' The canyon walls hold the heat like an oven.
Brakka Thorn has tracked the raiders to the cave camp and wants the party's help taking it. The camp holds eight bandits, two scouts and a wounded prisoner — Pell's brother — who can be saved. Old Marn's shrine holds a cache of Redband orders signed 'G.B.' If the party approaches openly, the camp fights; if they use the hidden back exit, they can catch the raiders between two forces.
Read aloud
The tide is out and the salt flats shine like frost under a low moon. At the end of the quay, lanterns move around a warehouse with no name on it, and a ship with dark sails is taking on crates. Captain Ilsa Ren hands you a brass telescope without a word. 'That is the third loading this month,' she says. 'I have nine watchmen and two boats. Give me something I can take to the Council.'
The Salt Ledger loads at midnight onto Nessa Crowe's privateer. The party can seize the warehouse, stow away aboard the ship, or buy passage from Ilsa Ren. The warehouse office holds the Moonharbor consignee — Tace & Sons Shipwrights — and a letter mentioning 'the deep works' and a foreman named Kael Dross. Nessa Crowe is aboard and will not fight to the death over a cargo.
Milestone: The party reaches level 5 when they leave Saltmarch Landing with proof of the Redband's shipping route — whether they seized the Salt Ledger's cargo, stowed away on Nessa Crowe's privateer, or bought passage with Ilsa Ren's help.
In Moonharbor the party finds a city that has been quietly arming its own enemy. They expose the Redband's agent inside the shipwrights' guild, raid a warehouse on the north mole for the mine maps, break the Brotherhood's coastal relay at Wrecker's Cay, and hold Thornwatch Camp against Gorek Blacktusk's counterattack. The act ends with the coast closed to the Redband and the militia marching on the Deadvein Gate.
Read aloud
The council chamber is cool and full of light, and nine magistrates are arguing about tariffs. Magistra Selene Dorn listens to all of it with her hands folded, and when the room empties she does not get up. 'You came from Saltmarch,' she says. 'So you already know. I have three colleagues who are lying to me and one guildmaster who cannot look at me. Tell me what you found, and I will tell you what I can do about it.'
Selene Dorn is honest and needs proof, not accusations. Orrin Tace is being blackmailed — his son is held by Mother Sallow — and will break if pressed with evidence. Councilor Halvern is bought outright and will try to have the party discredited. Lira Fen treated a Redband courier's blackfire burn and can identify the residue. The scene is a social investigation with a hard deadline: the Council votes on the harbor chain in three days.
Read aloud
The north mole at midnight is a row of lanterns and black water. The warehouse at the end has a crane on its roof and a tide-gate under it, and there are men on the loading dock who are not dockworkers. Bram Holt hands you a chained ledger without being asked. 'Number nineteen,' he says. 'Paid a year in advance. I should have asked.'
The warehouse is guarded by six bandits, two scouts and a Redband veteran. Kessa Tide can get the party in through the tide-gate at low tide; Bram Holt can get them the lease and the crane schedule. The office holds the mine maps and a letter from Edric Vane naming the blackfire seam and ordering the coast road held. If the alarm is raised, the mole's Guard arrives in ten rounds — and the Guard has been told the warehouse is legitimate.
Read aloud
Neddy Lamp meets you on the shingle with a lantern he does not light. 'I am supposed to darken it,' he says. 'When the light goes out, the ships come in and the rocks take them, and the men in red take whoever washes up.' He points at the western beach, where a cave mouth opens in the rock. 'There are eleven of them in there. I have counted every night. I am sorry.'
The cave holds eleven prisoners and a garrison of eight bandits, two scouts and a cultist of Sallow's. Mira Shoal knows the eastern mouth and will guide the party through it at low tide for lamp oil and news of her sister. The prisoners will not flee without a leader — one of them, a Thornwatch fisherman, can be rallied with a DC 13 Charisma check. The office holds the signal codebook.
Read aloud
Sergeant Dara Vint does not offer you a seat. 'You came from the cay,' she says. 'That means the Brotherhood knows where my camp is, and that means they are coming tonight.' She taps the palisade with her knuckles. 'Forty farmers. Three crossbows. One bell. If you have a better plan than dying on this ridge, I would like to hear it now.'
Gorek Blacktusk leads the assault personally with a company of bandits and scouts, in three waves. The party must hold the palisade. If they have the signal codebook from Wrecker's Cay, they can turn one wave aside with a DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation) check. Healer Om can keep the militia standing between waves. Blacktusk withdraws if his company breaks; he does not want to die on a ridge.
Milestone: The party reaches level 9 when Thornwatch holds and the militia marches on the Deadvein Gate — or, if Thornwatch falls, when they reach the Deadvein Gate by Halden Grist's goat track with the coast lost behind them.
The party breaks the Deadvein Gate with the Ironjaw Wardens, saves Cinderfall Hamlet from Mother Sallow's poisoned well, and descends through Gran Odda's old gallery into the deep works. There they face Edric Vane, Gorek Blacktusk and Mother Sallow on the refining floor and collapse the blackfire seam before it can be forged into an army's worth of blades.
Read aloud
Warden Skarn stands at the last bend before the gate with twenty wardens behind him and the wind pulling at his iron coat. Above you the watchpost squats on its shoulder of rock, and the gate below it is three inches of iron on oak. 'I can take the gate,' Skarn says. 'I cannot take it and hold the pass. That is your work.' Somewhere below, a bell is ringing in Cinderfall Hamlet.
The gate is held by eight Redband veterans, four scouts and a captain. Warden Skarn's wardens will assault the gate frontally while the party takes the watchpost. Halden Grist knows the goat track around the eastern shoulder. If the party has the signal codebook, they can open the gate from within with a DC 14 Charisma (Deception) check. The gate's stores hold blackfire ingots stamped for Moonharbor — evidence that ties the whole campaign together.
Read aloud
The well in the middle of Cinderfall is covered with boards and a warning rope. Mayor Essa Crane stands beside it with a ledger under her arm and a bell rope in her hand. 'Three children this week,' she says. 'The water tastes of metal and the ones who drink it get slow. We have hauled water from the upper stream for a month and the stream is going bad too.' She looks at the mountain. 'They are poisoning us to make us leave. I will not leave.'
Sallow has poisoned the well with blackfire residue to break the village. Bim Sprocket can build a filter with a pump, charcoal and copper — the copper can be salvaged from the burned houses. Gran Odda knows the old gallery that reaches the deep works and will draw it for the party. Redband press-gangs are collecting miners from the upper galleries; a fight there is a chance to free several villagers. If the well is cleansed, the miners will follow the party into the deep.
Read aloud
The refining floor is a red-lit cavern of iron rails and timber props, and the seam runs through the far wall like a wound that will not close. Edric Vane stands at the edge of it with a sword in his hand and no expression at all. 'You have come a long way,' he says, 'for a road.' Behind him, Mother Sallow is pouring something into a channel, and Gorek Blacktusk is smiling with his black tusks bared. Kael Dross, chalk still tied to his wrist, whispers: 'Four supports. The fourth one brings the roof down.'
Vane fights beside Blacktusk and Sallow. Blacktusk charges the strongest fighter; Sallow uses the refining channels, fire and fumes to split the party; Vane duels whoever is left and retreats toward the seam at half hit points, threatening to fire the charges himself. Kael Dross knows the four supports — setting and lighting charges takes a DC 15 Dexterity (Thieves' Tools) or Strength (Athletics) check per support, under fire. If the party frees the slave pens first, the prisoners can carry charges and the checks are made with advantage.
Milestone: The party reaches level 11 when they enter the Deadvein Deep's refining floor. The campaign ends when the seam collapses.
Edric Vane, the Red Hand
Edric Vane is a tall, spare man in his forties, dark hair going grey at the temples, combed precisely every morning regardless of where he …
Gorek Blacktusk
Gorek Blacktusk is a towering orc warlord with jet-black tusks, a heavy black braid bound in red cloth, and the notched ear and sun-scars o…
Mother Sallow
Mother Sallow is a warm-faced, silver-streaked woman in her fifties, and everything about her is designed to put people at ease before they…
Nessa Crowe, the Harbor Wraith
Nessa Crowe, the Harbor Wraith, is a weathered human woman in her late thirties with short, wind-tangled black hair streaked with salt-grey…
Cinder Ash-Hound
Completed
· CR 1/2
· Beast
Lean ash-grey jackal-like hound with ember-red eyes and a cinder-flecked coat, throat glowing faintly as it growls, prowling a red rock can…
Drain Gnaw
Completed
· CR 1/4
· Monstrosity
A cat-sized hairless pink-grey burrower with milky blind eyes, chisel teeth, and long clawed forelimbs, crouched in a damp stone drain.
Gallows Gull
Completed
· CR 1/4
· Beast
An enormous salt-crusted gull with a hooked yellow beak, ragged grey-white wings wider than a person is tall, and a screaming, rusty-hinged…
Salt Husk
Completed
· CR 1
· Undead
A drowned sailor crusted white with salt crystals, clothes stiff as board, empty eye sockets, mouth packed with salt, shambling from a floo…
Brine Lurker
Completed
· CR 2
· Aberration
Pale eyeless eel-bodied predator with a round lamprey mouth and six hooked fins, lurking beneath black water in a flooded brick cellar, onl…
Wrecklight Moth
Completed
· CR 1
· Monstrosity
A pale, cat-sized moth with ragged white wings and a lantern-like abdomen glowing sickly green-white, hovering in a dark sea cave above wet…
Scree Stalker
Completed
· CR 3
· Beast
A slate-grey, six-legged mountain predator with a flat wedge-shaped head, piton-like claws, and hide the exact colour of wet rock, clinging…
Blackfire Slagling
Completed
· CR 3
· Elemental
A dog-sized crawling clot of black ore and cooling slag veined with red light, hissing faintly atop a trail of hot cinders in a flooded, so…
Tramway Shade
Completed
· CR 4
· Undead
Translucent grey-blue miner ghost in a rotted coat, drifting above old tram rails with a broken pick, moaning amid damp dark mine timbers.
Seam Vein Wretch
Completed
· CR 6
· Elemental
A hulking humanoid mass of blackfire ore, fused rock, and rusted miner tools, with glowing red cracks and a forge-stoked glow, standing in …
Slagbound Sentinel
Completed
· CR 7
· Construct
A squat four-armed construct of blackfire ingots, chain, and cooled slag, with a glowing furnace grate for a chest and a hammer-head fist, …
Chainline Crab
Completed
· CR 1/2
· Beast
A hound-sized crab encrusted with barnacles, green copper and old rope on its shell, clinging to a rusted harbor chain above dark water.
Vane's father was a Moonharbor shipping clerk who was ruined by a Council tariff and died in a debtor's cell. Edric spent ten years learning exactly how the Reach's money moves, then built an army out of everyone the Reach discarded. He does not want revenge on a person; he wants the Council's world replaced with one where a man's worth is what he can take. The blackfire seam under the Deadvein Deep is the anvil on which he intends to forge that world.
Courteous, quiet, unhurried. He offers wine before he offers violence and thanks a man before he has him killed. He never raises his voice and never repeats an order. He is genuinely interested in the party as people and will remember their names, their families and their weaknesses.
Vane does not fight until he must. He lets Blacktusk and Sallow absorb the party's opening, uses the refining floor's cover and catwalks, and duels the party's strongest fighter one at a time while his guard screen holds the others. If reduced below half his hit points he retreats toward the seam and threatens to fire the charges himself, forcing the party to choose between stopping him and stopping the collapse. He never surrenders; he offers terms instead.
Vane can be killed, taken alive for a Moonharbor trial that will be a circus, or — if the party has proven the Council's corruption to him — persuaded to give up the seam in exchange for the Council's public confession. Redemption is narrow but real: he wants the truth told more than he wants the city burned.
Gorek was a Warden of Ironjaw Hold until he was exiled for killing a caravan master who had cheated his clan. He believes the Wardens chose coin over blood, and he has spent three winters proving that the road belongs to whoever is willing to burn it. He follows Vane because Vane is the first man to give him an army instead of a lecture.
Loud, generous, quick to laugh and quicker to anger. He respects strength and despises cleverness. He remembers every man who ever did him a kindness and every man who ever did him a slight, and he will mention both at length.
Gorek charges the biggest target and stays on it. He uses his blackfire blade to set terrain alight and splits the party by forcing them out of cover. He fights to the death in front of his men but will withdraw if his company is broken and he is alone — he wants to be beaten by a worthy enemy, not executed by a mob.
Gorek can be killed, or beaten and spared, in which case he will tell the party everything he knows about the deep works out of sheer contempt for Vane's bookkeeping. He cannot be turned against Vane while Vane still holds the army, but he can be made to stand aside.
Sallow was a Moonharbor apothecary struck off for experimenting on patients. Vane gave her a mine, an unlimited supply of prisoners and a substance nobody had ever refined. She wants to know what blackfire does to a living body, and she is very close to finding out.
Warm, motherly, utterly detached. She calls the prisoners her children and the party her guests. She talks about pain the way other people talk about weather. She is genuinely delighted by clever questions.
Sallow does not close. She uses the refining floor's channels, fire and fumes, forcing Constitution saves and splitting the party with alchemical barriers. She keeps two cultists between herself and the front line and drinks a blackfire tincture at half hit points that makes her faster and reckless. She will not destroy her own laboratory unless she is certain she is losing.
Sallow can be killed, or captured and made to talk — she will trade her notes for her life without hesitation. There is no redemption; she is not interested in one. Her notes are the key to cleansing Cinderfall's well if the party has not already done so.
Nessa runs the fastest ship on the Verdigris Coast and owes Vane a debt she cannot pay in coin. She does not care about blackfire or the Reach; she cares about keeping her crew fed and her ship out of the Council's impound yard.
Dry, profane, allergic to speeches. She negotiates like she fights — fast, dirty and always with an exit. She respects anyone who gets the better of her and despises anyone who moralizes.
Nessa fights on decks, rigging and docks, never in the open. She uses ropes, hatches and the sea itself, and she will abandon a fight the moment it stops being profitable. She keeps two crew within reach and uses them as cover.
Nessa can be bought, beaten or betrayed. If the party pays her debt or offers her something better than Vane's protection, she will turn — and her ship is the fastest way to the Deadvein coast. She will not die for a cause and will surrender the moment the odds turn.
Recommended party: Four characters of levels 1–11: a front-line warrior (fighter, barbarian or paladin), a healer (cleric or druid), a ranged or arcane damage dealer (ranger, wizard or warlock) and a skill-focused character (rogue or bard). A rogue is strongly recommended for Acts II and III, where locks, ledgers and stealth carry whole scenes.
Before play, agree on tone: this is a gritty frontier campaign with slavery, poisoning of a village's water, press-gangs and the murder of civilians. It is not graphic or gratuitous, but it is not light. Use the standard safety tools — lines and veils, the X-card, and an open door. Establish that the villains are courteous and patient rather than cackling, and that surrender, negotiation and retreat are always on the table. Confirm the party composition: a front-liner, a healer, a ranged or arcane damage dealer and a skill character; a rogue is strongly recommended for Acts II and III. Ask each player for one reason their character is in Ironjaw Hold and one reason they care what happens to the Ashen Road, and write both down. Explain that the campaign runs levels 1 to 11 over roughly 22 to 26 sessions, that each act ends with a milestone level-up, and that the party will be expected to investigate as much as fight. Finally, set the expectation that choices stick: the Wardens, the Council, the smugglers and the miners all remember what the party does.
The module is written for four characters. For three characters, cut one creature of the lowest CR from each roster and lower one villain's hit points by 25 percent. For five or six characters, add one Veteran or two Bandits per extra character in combat-heavy encounters, and add a second lieutenant to the finale. If the party is one level below the suggested range, remove the highest-CR non-villain combatant; if two levels below, halve the number of minions and let the villain withdraw at half hit points instead of fighting to the death. If the party is one level above, add two minions; two levels above, add a Veteran and increase the villain's damage output by one die per attack. Never scale a villain's quantity above one. The XP budgets assume the SRD 5.2 encounter tables: Low, Moderate and High ratings in this module sit between 75 and 100 percent of the listed budget for the suggested level, so adjust quantities rather than adding new creature types.
Run the campaign as three acts with three different rhythms. Act I is a chase: one location, one hard clue, one fight, then move. Do not let the party linger in Ironjaw Hold past the first session. Act II is a social act and should breathe — give Moonharbor a full session before the docks, and let the party argue with magistrates, bribe dockmasters and drink with smugglers. Act III is a war march: the gate, the village, the mine, each bigger than the last, and Cinderfall exists to give the party something to save between two dungeons. Never let the clue chain stall. Every scene has a fallback: if the party misses the manifest, Brakka Thorn has a copy; if they miss the consignee letter, Father Cadoc's book has it; if they miss the mine maps, Kael Dross can draw them. Villain pressure should be felt, not seen. Vane's letters do the work until the finale. Blacktusk is the face the party meets first and should survive to the deep if possible. Sallow is heard of long before she is seen. Nessa Crowe is a wildcard who can be bought, betrayed or allied with, and she should always have an exit. Do not run two dungeon-style locations back to back. Rest often, and let the party spend their gold in the bazaar and the city.
The party spends days at Thokk Brightsteel's forge in Ironjaw Hold, repairing armour, reforging looted blades and learning to spot blackfire contamination in steel. Thokk talks constantly and prices everything by weight.
Requirements: Access to Ironjaw Hold and a working relationship with Thokk Brightsteel. A character proficient with smith's tools gains double the benefit.
Rewards: Repair all damaged nonmagical weapons and armour; silver a weapon for 25 gp; identify blackfire-forged steel on sight for the rest of the campaign; a 10 percent discount on all later smithing.
Time: 3 days per item reforged, or 5 days for the full course of instruction.
Location: Ironjaw Hold is the only place in the Reach with a forge hot enough to work blackfire-tainted steel, and Thokk is the only smith who will touch it.
Use this to slow the party down between Act I locations and let them hear rumours. Complication: a Redband courier watches the forge and reports who is buying what.
Tessa Quill has half-broken the Redband's substitution cipher and needs quiet, paper and three more samples. A character can sit with her and work through the manifests, learning the Brotherhood's shorthand and its courier routes.
Requirements: Three Redband documents and a safe room in the Skullgate Bazaar or Moonharbor. A character with calligrapher's supplies or the Sage background gains advantage.
Rewards: All later Redband documents can be decoded with a DC 10 Intelligence check instead of DC 15; the party learns the courier schedule between Saltmarch Landing and Moonharbor.
Time: 2 days per document, or 4 days total if the party already has all three samples.
Location: Tessa works out of the Skullgate Bazaar and will not leave until the Brotherhood stops looking for her, so this activity is easiest in Act I.
Complication: once Tessa breaks the cipher, the Brotherhood realises it and sends a courier to silence her. The party must protect her or lose the advantage.
Kessa Tide runs goods past the Moonharbor harbor chain and will take passengers who keep their mouths shut. A few days aboard her boat teaches the party the tides, the patrol schedules and which harbor officials can be bought.
Requirements: A favour owed to Kessa Tide, or 100 gp, and a willingness to help haul cargo.
Rewards: Learn the harbor patrol schedule (advantage on Stealth checks in Moonharbor harbor), a free run to Wrecker's Cay, and a permanent underworld contact.
Time: 4 days of coastal running.
Location: Moonharbor and the Verdigris Coast, where the tide-gates and patrol routes matter more than roads.
Complication: one of Kessa's buyers is a Redband paymaster, and the party may meet him without knowing it.
The party spends days at Cinderfall Hamlet helping Healer Om and Bim Sprocket treat blackfire poisoning, haul clean water and rebuild the burned houses. The miners watch everything they do.
Requirements: Access to Cinderfall Hamlet after the well is cleansed or the filter is built. A character proficient with herbalism kit or medicine gains double the benefit.
Rewards: The Free Miners become loyal allies (they will fight beside the party in the deep), a Bim's Blackfire Filter if it was not already built, and advantage on all Charisma checks with Cinderfall residents.
Time: 5 days.
Location: Cinderfall Hamlet, between the Deadvein Gate and the deep works, is the only settlement in the highlands and the only place to recover before the finale.
Complication: Redband press-gangs come down from the deep every few weeks. Roll a d6 each day; on a 1, a gang of four bandits and a scout arrives.
# Moonharbor
Moonharbor is the richest city on the Verdigris Coast and it knows it. Red brick rises in round arches and shaded arcades, shallow tiled roofs step down toward the water, and the whole city seems designed to keep the sun off a merchant's neck while he counts his money. The harbor is a great stone bowl with a chain across its mouth, and the shipwrights' yards below the wall turn out a hull a week.
The Council of nine meets in an arcaded hall above the harbor and governs by compromise. The Guard is well armed and slow. The guilds are rich and careful. The magistrates are honest in the way that men who own warehouses are honest, which is to say mostly, and expensively.
Underneath the comfort, the city is sick. The shipwrights have been forging manifests for two years, a councilor has been bought, and the harbor chain has been quietly altered. Nobody has said any of this aloud, because saying it would ruin the shipping season.
Moonharbor is the campaign's social hub. Give the party a full session here before the docks. Magistra Selene Dorn is the honest ally; Orrin Tace is the weak link; Lira Fen is the witness nobody thinks to ask.
# The Moonharbor Docks
The north mole is where Moonharbor does its actual work. A stone breakwater runs out into the harbor, lined with warehouses, cranes and the low arcade where the dock crews shelter from the rain. By day it is noise and rope and shouting; by night it is lanterns, gulls and the creak of hulls against fenders.
The warehouses are numbered, not named, and the numbers are not in order. The one the party wants is at the far end, leased last month by a company that paid in advance and never gave a name. It has a tide-gate under it, a crane on the roof and a great deal of traffic after dark.
Below the mole, the old tide-gates open into the harbor's undercroft — a maze of brick tunnels half-flooded at high water, used by smugglers, rats and anyone who needs to move something without being seen.
Run the docks as a night heist. Kessa Tide is the way in; Bram Holt is the way to the paperwork. The warehouse garrison is six bandits, two scouts and a Redband veteran.
# Wrecker's Cay
Wrecker's Cay is a shingle island a mile off the Verdigris Coast, low and grey and surrounded by rocks that have eaten a hundred ships. A leaning lighthouse stands at its northern tip, and the keeper's cottage beside it has not been whitewashed in years. The rest of the island is gorse, driftwood and the bones of hulls.
Under the island, the sea has hollowed out a cave with two mouths — one above the tide line on the western beach, one below it on the eastern side, only open at low water. The Redband has been using the cave as a holding pen and a signal station for a year. Prisoners taken on the coast road wait here before they are shipped up to the deep works, and a garrison of a dozen men keeps them.
The lighthouse still burns, but it burns wrong. Ships that follow it end on the rocks, and the men who come ashore are met by men in red sashes.
Wrecker's Cay is a short dungeon with a moral weight: the prisoners. Neddy Lamp is the guilt-ridden keeper; Mira Shoal knows the second mouth. The garrison is eight bandits, two scouts and a cultist of Sallow's.
# Thornwatch Camp
Thornwatch is a militia camp on the last coastal ridge before the mountains, and it is not a fort so much as a promise. A palisade of sharpened stakes runs along the ridge top, a watchtower leans over the seaward gate, and forty farmers and fishermen live in tents and lean-tos behind it. They have three crossbows, a bell, and a sergeant who has kept them alive for a season.
The camp exists because the Moonharbor Council would rather pay a militia to sit on a ridge than admit the Redband exists. The militia knows this and resents it. They are loyal to Sergeant Dara Vint, not to the city, and they will follow her anywhere she says the word.
From the watchtower you can see the coast road, the cay, and — on a clear day — the black scar of the Deadvein Gate in the mountains to the east.
Thornwatch is the Act II climax: a three-wave defense. Use the signal codebook from Wrecker's Cay to let the party turn one wave aside. Healer Om keeps the militia standing.
# The Deadvein Gate
The Deadvein Gate is a switchback pass above the treeline, where the coast road narrows between two shoulders of grey rock and an iron gate closes the way. A stone watchpost stands above it, half ruined and fully manned, and the wind up here never stops. Below the gate the road falls away to Cinderfall Hamlet; above it, the mountain goes on forever.
The Redband has held the gate for a year. Its pickets are dug in on both shoulders, its veterans hold the watchpost, and its stores are full of blackfire ingots stamped for Moonharbor. The gate's winch is on the inside, and the gate itself is old Ironjaw work — three inches of iron on oak, and it will not fall to a ram.
A goat track, known to prospectors and shepherds, climbs around the eastern shoulder and comes down behind the watchpost. Halden Grist has been using it for two years.
The gate is a set-piece assault. Warden Skarn's twenty wardens are the party's allies; Halden Grist's goat track is the alternate route. The signal codebook from Wrecker's Cay can open the gate from within.
# Cinderfall Hamlet
Cinderfall Hamlet sits in a bowl of grey rock below the Deadvein Gate, a village of dark brick on stone footings with hipped roofs and timber galleries, built by miners for miners. There is a well in the middle, a bell tower beside it, a smithy, a shrine with a slate roof, and three hundred people who have been having a very bad year.
Two houses at the eastern edge burned last month. The well has gone bad — the water tastes of metal and the children who drink it get sick. The Redband press-gangs come down from the deep works every few weeks and take whoever they can catch, and the village has stopped asking where the taken ones go.
Mayor Essa Crane has been holding it together with a bell, a ledger and sheer stubbornness. The miners still work the upper galleries on shares, but they work with one eye on the road.
Cinderfall is the party's chance to save something rather than destroy it. The well is the central problem; Bim Sprocket can build the filter, Gran Odda has the gallery map, and the miners will follow the party if the water runs clean.
# The Deadvein Deep
The Deadvein Deep is the old works: a cathedral of a mine, three hundred years of galleries and shafts and tramways cut through grey rock and left to rot when the ore ran out. It did not run out. It changed.
The upper levels are flooded and dark. Below them, the Redband has rebuilt: timber props, iron rails, lamps that burn with a faint red light, and a refining floor where the blackfire ore is crushed, washed and forged. The air tastes of hot metal and something sweet underneath. Slave pens line the eastern wall, and the prisoners in them are the miners the press-gangs took.
At the bottom, the seam itself: a vein of blackfire ore running through the rock like a scar, glowing faintly red, hot to the touch, and unstable. Sallow's notes say it will consume the mountain if it is not collapsed. Vane's letters say it will arm an army.
The finale is a three-part fight: the refining floor, the lieutenants, and the seam. Kael Dross knows the four supports. Set the charges under fire. Do not let the party rest inside the deep.
Edric Vane, the Red Hand
Edric Vane is a tall, spare man in his forties, dark hair going grey at the temples, combed precisely every morning regardless of where he …
Gorek Blacktusk
Gorek Blacktusk is a towering orc warlord with jet-black tusks, a heavy black braid bound in red cloth, and the notched ear and sun-scars o…
Mother Sallow
Mother Sallow is a warm-faced, silver-streaked woman in her fifties, and everything about her is designed to put people at ease before they…
Nessa Crowe, the Harbor Wraith
Nessa Crowe, the Harbor Wraith, is a weathered human woman in her late thirties with short, wind-tangled black hair streaked with salt-grey…
Cinder Ash-Hound
Completed
· CR 1/2
· Beast
Lean ash-grey jackal-like hound with ember-red eyes and a cinder-flecked coat, throat glowing faintly as it growls, prowling a red rock can…
Drain Gnaw
Completed
· CR 1/4
· Monstrosity
A cat-sized hairless pink-grey burrower with milky blind eyes, chisel teeth, and long clawed forelimbs, crouched in a damp stone drain.
Gallows Gull
Completed
· CR 1/4
· Beast
An enormous salt-crusted gull with a hooked yellow beak, ragged grey-white wings wider than a person is tall, and a screaming, rusty-hinged…
Salt Husk
Completed
· CR 1
· Undead
A drowned sailor crusted white with salt crystals, clothes stiff as board, empty eye sockets, mouth packed with salt, shambling from a floo…
Brine Lurker
Completed
· CR 2
· Aberration
Pale eyeless eel-bodied predator with a round lamprey mouth and six hooked fins, lurking beneath black water in a flooded brick cellar, onl…
Wrecklight Moth
Completed
· CR 1
· Monstrosity
A pale, cat-sized moth with ragged white wings and a lantern-like abdomen glowing sickly green-white, hovering in a dark sea cave above wet…
Scree Stalker
Completed
· CR 3
· Beast
A slate-grey, six-legged mountain predator with a flat wedge-shaped head, piton-like claws, and hide the exact colour of wet rock, clinging…
Blackfire Slagling
Completed
· CR 3
· Elemental
A dog-sized crawling clot of black ore and cooling slag veined with red light, hissing faintly atop a trail of hot cinders in a flooded, so…
Tramway Shade
Completed
· CR 4
· Undead
Translucent grey-blue miner ghost in a rotted coat, drifting above old tram rails with a broken pick, moaning amid damp dark mine timbers.
Seam Vein Wretch
Completed
· CR 6
· Elemental
A hulking humanoid mass of blackfire ore, fused rock, and rusted miner tools, with glowing red cracks and a forge-stoked glow, standing in …
Slagbound Sentinel
Completed
· CR 7
· Construct
A squat four-armed construct of blackfire ingots, chain, and cooled slag, with a glowing furnace grate for a chest and a hammer-head fist, …
Chainline Crab
Completed
· CR 1/2
· Beast
A hound-sized crab encrusted with barnacles, green copper and old rope on its shell, clinging to a rusted harbor chain above dark water.
Vane's father was a Moonharbor shipping clerk who was ruined by a Council tariff and died in a debtor's cell. Edric spent ten years learning exactly how the Reach's money moves, then built an army out of everyone the Reach discarded. He does not want revenge on a person; he wants the Council's world replaced with one where a man's worth is what he can take. The blackfire seam under the Deadvein Deep is the anvil on which he intends to forge that world.
Courteous, quiet, unhurried. He offers wine before he offers violence and thanks a man before he has him killed. He never raises his voice and never repeats an order. He is genuinely interested in the party as people and will remember their names, their families and their weaknesses.
Vane does not fight until he must. He lets Blacktusk and Sallow absorb the party's opening, uses the refining floor's cover and catwalks, and duels the party's strongest fighter one at a time while his guard screen holds the others. If reduced below half his hit points he retreats toward the seam and threatens to fire the charges himself, forcing the party to choose between stopping him and stopping the collapse. He never surrenders; he offers terms instead.
Vane can be killed, taken alive for a Moonharbor trial that will be a circus, or — if the party has proven the Council's corruption to him — persuaded to give up the seam in exchange for the Council's public confession. Redemption is narrow but real: he wants the truth told more than he wants the city burned.
Gorek was a Warden of Ironjaw Hold until he was exiled for killing a caravan master who had cheated his clan. He believes the Wardens chose coin over blood, and he has spent three winters proving that the road belongs to whoever is willing to burn it. He follows Vane because Vane is the first man to give him an army instead of a lecture.
Loud, generous, quick to laugh and quicker to anger. He respects strength and despises cleverness. He remembers every man who ever did him a kindness and every man who ever did him a slight, and he will mention both at length.
Gorek charges the biggest target and stays on it. He uses his blackfire blade to set terrain alight and splits the party by forcing them out of cover. He fights to the death in front of his men but will withdraw if his company is broken and he is alone — he wants to be beaten by a worthy enemy, not executed by a mob.
Gorek can be killed, or beaten and spared, in which case he will tell the party everything he knows about the deep works out of sheer contempt for Vane's bookkeeping. He cannot be turned against Vane while Vane still holds the army, but he can be made to stand aside.
Sallow was a Moonharbor apothecary struck off for experimenting on patients. Vane gave her a mine, an unlimited supply of prisoners and a substance nobody had ever refined. She wants to know what blackfire does to a living body, and she is very close to finding out.
Warm, motherly, utterly detached. She calls the prisoners her children and the party her guests. She talks about pain the way other people talk about weather. She is genuinely delighted by clever questions.
Sallow does not close. She uses the refining floor's channels, fire and fumes, forcing Constitution saves and splitting the party with alchemical barriers. She keeps two cultists between herself and the front line and drinks a blackfire tincture at half hit points that makes her faster and reckless. She will not destroy her own laboratory unless she is certain she is losing.
Sallow can be killed, or captured and made to talk — she will trade her notes for her life without hesitation. There is no redemption; she is not interested in one. Her notes are the key to cleansing Cinderfall's well if the party has not already done so.
Nessa runs the fastest ship on the Verdigris Coast and owes Vane a debt she cannot pay in coin. She does not care about blackfire or the Reach; she cares about keeping her crew fed and her ship out of the Council's impound yard.
Dry, profane, allergic to speeches. She negotiates like she fights — fast, dirty and always with an exit. She respects anyone who gets the better of her and despises anyone who moralizes.
Nessa fights on decks, rigging and docks, never in the open. She uses ropes, hatches and the sea itself, and she will abandon a fight the moment it stops being profitable. She keeps two crew within reach and uses them as cover.
Nessa can be bought, beaten or betrayed. If the party pays her debt or offers her something better than Vane's protection, she will turn — and her ship is the fastest way to the Deadvein coast. She will not die for a cause and will surrender the moment the odds turn.
A broad, grey-tusked orc woman in a road-worn iron coat, one ear notched by an old arrow. She speaks slowly and writes everything down. Her hall smells of woodsmoke and wet leather, and she keeps a burned wagon wheel propped against the wall as a reminder.
A young, soot-blackened orc with a shaved head and a leather apron burned through in a dozen places. He talks constantly while he works and prices everything by weight. His forge is the hottest in the Reach and he is very proud of it.
A small, white-haired human woman in a sun-bleached robe, hands stained with salve. She runs a shrine with no walls in the middle of the hillfort and treats orc, human and goblin alike. She has a dry laugh and no patience for self-pity.
A wiry goblin with brass goggles pushed up on his forehead and a cart that is more patch than cart. He sells rope, lamp oil, caltrops and things he insists are magical. He is honest about roughly half of it.
A tall, sharp-featured woman in a coat of salvaged locks, standing behind a stall of keys, hinges and stolen door-fittings. She never touches a customer and never forgets a face. Her voice is quiet enough that people lean in to hear it.
A thin, ink-stained young woman with spectacles mended at the bridge and a satchel of half-finished letters. She writes contracts for the bazaar's merchants and reads anything left unattended. She is nervous, quick and much braver than she looks.
A bent, sun-blackened old man with a beard like dry grass, living in a stone shrine to a forgotten road god. He talks to travelers whether or not they answer. He has not left the Draw in thirty years.
A scrawny, quick child of about twelve in a coat three sizes too big, with a whistle on a string and a talent for being where nobody looks. Pell talks fast and lies faster.
A round, red-faced old man in a robe stiff with salt, who blesses boats and buries sailors and has done both for forty years. He keeps a book of every ship that has left Saltmarch and every one that has not come back.
A lean, weathered orc in a cloak of red-dust cloth, carrying a short bow and a knife for skinning. She speaks in short sentences and looks at the ground more than at faces. She has been tracking the raiders alone for two months.
A tall, grey-eyed woman in a salt-stained coat with a brass telescope on her belt. She has the flat, patient voice of someone who has argued with the sea and won. Her harbor watch is nine people and two boats.
A heavy, sun-scarred human with coal dust permanently worked into his knuckles and a laugh that carries across a market. He wears a chain shirt under a merchant's coat and carries a boar spear he calls Negotiation.
A composed woman in a deep blue gown with silver at her throat, standing in the arcaded hall as though she owns the light. She is precise, courteous and completely aware that three of her colleagues are lying to her.
A heavy, well-dressed man with ink on his cuffs and a permanent tremor in his left hand. He is loud in public and silent in private. He has not slept properly in a month.
A brisk young woman with her sleeves pinned back and a shop that smells of camphor and burnt sugar. She is cheerful, overworked and deeply nosy about her customers' wounds.
A squat, bald man with a ledger chained to his belt and a whistle around his neck. He knows every crate, every crane and every man on the mole, and he is proud of all three.
A thin, hunched old man with a lantern burn across one cheek and hands that shake when he is not holding something. He keeps the light because nobody else will. He has not slept a full night in a year.
A weathered woman with wet hair and a coat of sealskin who lives in a beached hull on the cay and speaks to the tide as though it answers. She knows every rock and current for a mile.
A small, round old man with a bag of herbs and a permanently worried expression. He has stitched more wounds this year than in the previous ten and has run out of everything except patience.
A brown-skinned woman with salt-crusted braids and a knife she uses to clean her nails. She wears a fisherman's coat over good boots and smiles like she has already won an argument.
A stocky, scarred woman in a mismatched militia coat with a sergeant's stripe sewn on twice. She has forty farmers and fishermen under her and has kept them alive for a season. She does not waste words.
A wiry, sunburnt man with a pick over one shoulder and a map case he never opens in front of strangers. He has been prospecting the Deadvein for twenty years and has been running from the Redband for two.
A tired, capable woman in a miner's coat with a mayor's sash pinned crookedly over it. She has been holding three hundred frightened people together with a bell and a ledger. Her hands are cracked from hauling water.
A small, grease-covered goblin with a tool belt longer than they are tall and a habit of answering questions with diagrams. Bim built the village's pump and is furious that someone has ruined it.
A tiny, white-haired woman with a pick handle for a walking stick and eyes that have not seen well in years but miss nothing. She worked the Deadvein when it was a working mine and remembers every tunnel.
A gaunt, grey-faced man in a prisoner's smock with a foreman's chalk still tied to his wrist. He has been down here long enough that he flinches at daylight. He speaks slowly and precisely, as though each word costs him.
A tall, scarred orc in a Warden's iron coat with a broken tusk and a voice like gravel sliding. He has twenty wardens and no illusions about what twenty wardens can do.
Father Cadoc keeps a book of every ship that has left Saltmarch Landing and every one that has not come back, and the page for Halvard's ship has nine names and a blank space where the tenth should be. Cadoc will not write Halvard's name in it while he is alive to object, and Halvard cannot ask him to. What he can do is prove what the book is for: the Salt Ledger's midnight loadings, the darkened light on the cay, and the nineteen wrecks the keeper has been forced to cause. Halvard must gather the proof at the quay and the nameless warehouse, carry it to the Council in Moonharbor, and then come back to the harbor shrine and let the old priest close the page.
Gather proof of the wrecks: cross-reference Father Cadoc's shipping book with the Salt Ledger's true ledgers in the nameless warehouse's flooded undercroft, and recover Neddy Lamp's list of nineteen darkened lights.
Take the proof to Captain Ilsa Ren immediately, or hold it until more wrecks can be documented.
Confront the keeper of Wrecker's Cay's light with the names of the drowned, or bring him alive to testify.
Halvard can name eight of the nine men who drowned the night his ship went onto the rocks. The ninth — a young deckhand called Tam Wicke — was never recovered, and Father Cadoc buried an empty box. Rumor among the Saltmarch dockhands says a man matching Tam's description was seen alive on the shingle of Wrecker's Cay two years ago, taken inland by men in red sashes. Halvard must follow the rumor through the Redstone Draw's raider camp tally-sticks and the deep works' slave pens to learn whether Tam lives, died in the mine, or — the thought Halvard cannot say aloud — was the one who arranged the light and swam away while nine men drowned.
Find the tally-stick in the Redstone Draw cave camp that counts prisoners taken for 'the deep works', and search it for Tam Wicke's name or description.
Tell the party why this name matters, or pursue it quietly and alone.
The brass hand-bell Halvard inherited from Father Cadoc's predecessor is older than the shrine itself, and it does something no harbor bell should: on certain nights, when rung over black water, something answers. Old sailors mutter that the bell was cast from the chain of a ship that was wrecked on purpose, and that the drowned remember the sound. Halvard must learn the bell's history — through the shrine's oldest records, a retired Moonharbor bell-founder, and finally the flooded lower mouth of the Wreckers' Cay sea cave — and decide whether the thing that answers is a haunting to be laid to rest, a witness to be questioned, or a god of the harbor that has been waiting for a priest who would listen.
Research the bell's casting in the shrine's oldest records and the Moonharbor bell-founders' guild registry.
Report the bell's strangeness to Father Cadoc, or keep it from the old man to spare him.
Thokk Brightsteel forged a masterwork blade that went east on the caravan that burned, and the Redband has reforged it with something that leaves a red sheen. Gorza must follow the trail from Thokk's forge through the burned wagons, the Skullgate Bazaar fence stalls, and the raider camp in the Redstone Draw, where the blade turns up in the hands of a Redband officer. She must choose whether to return it to the anvil for re-tempering, or carry it as it is, marked by what it did. Every step teaches her what the Redband is doing to good Ironjaw steel — and what her own word is worth when keeping it costs her something she wants to keep.
Gorza examines the burned wagons in the Warden's yard with Thokk's description in mind and finds drag marks toward the Draw, plus a smith's punch mark only a Brightsteel blade would carry.
Report the forge punch mark to Warden Ashfang or keep Thokk's secret and the trail between the two of them.
Lira Fen treated a Redband courier's wound last month and has been frightened ever since, because the burn on his arm did not look like any fire she knew — it was cold at the edges and it kept glowing under the bandage. Merrit needs that residue sample, and Lira will only give it to someone who can tell her what she touched. The quest plays out in Lira's shop and the arcaded streets of Moonharbor: Merrit must analyze the blackfire residue, match it against the ore described in Corvel's last letter, and trace the courier's route through the docks to the north mole warehouse, where she finds her teacher's survey case in the Brotherhood's office. What she does with the case — and with the knowledge that blackfire can be cleansed as well as weaponized — decides whether Cinderfall's well can be saved.
Analyze the residue in Lira Fen's shop and identify it as blackfire, matching Corvel's letter.
Corvel went up the coast road two years ago to survey the old Deadvein workings and sent one letter and then nothing. Merrit has recited its last line so often she can hear his voice saying it: 'the ore here burns without smoke, and it should not.' Following the survey's route — the coast road, Thornwatch, the Deadvein Gate, and at last the deep works — Merrit retraces her teacher's steps, interviewing everyone he wrote to and everyone who saw him pass. The trail ends in the slave pens of the Deadvein Deep, where an old scholar's survey instruments hang on a wall like trophies, and where Mother Sallow has been reading Corvel's notes with genuine delight. What happened to him is the question the whole campaign has been asking, and the answer is worse than death.
Reconstruct Corvel's route from his letter and interview witnesses along the coast road.
Merrit prepared fire and cold spells for one reason: to test blackfire's weaknesses in the field. This quest is her laboratory, and the laboratory is the road. Across the campaign she must document blackfire under real conditions — a courier's burn, a poisoned well, a forge-tainted blade, a slagling in a flooded gallery, the seam itself — building a working theory of what the ore is and what it fears. Old Marn will trade shrine-news for her findings; Tessa Quill will cipher-check her copied manifests; Thokk Brightsteel will burn his fingers proving her cold hypothesis right. Each verified finding hardens the theory, and the finished theory is the only reason the party will know that the fourth support beam must come down before the seam is fired.
Document three independent blackfire phenomena and compare them against Corvel's letter.
Step into your campaign
Play a 3D adventure with your party: explore settlements, wilderness and dungeons, and fight in real time with pause. Best on a desktop or laptop with a mouse and keyboard.
Suggested Level: Level 1
A low stone cellar with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, stacked crates and salt sacks that give half cover. Two narrow drains in the floor are six inches wide — the gnaws squeeze through them. A spilled lamp oil slick covers one five-foot square and is flammable.
The salvaged cargo holds a stamped crate-lid bearing a Moonharbor chandlery mark, worth 15 gp as scrap and worth far more as a clue. Gruma also leaves a purse of 20 gp on the cellar steps for a job done quickly.
For three characters, use three Drain Gnaws. For six characters, use six and add a slick of lamp oil that catches fire if a torch is brought within five feet.
Suggested Level: Levels 1–2
Three crooked streets of awnings and stalls, crowded with civilians. Canvas awnings give half cover and catch fire easily. A brazier has been kicked over and creates a five-foot square of difficult, burning ground. The crowd counts as difficult terrain until it scatters.
Corvin Sash's satchel holds a coded manifest naming Saltmarch Landing as the transshipment port, 40 gp in Moonharbor silver, and a Redband courier's token. The stallholders, grateful, knock 10 percent off everything the party buys in the bazaar for the rest of the act.
For a level 1 party, drop to three bandits and one scout. For a level 3 party, add a Thug as the gang's leader and give the scouts a rooftop position with advantage on their first shot.
Suggested Level: Level 3
Three chambers climbing away from the road. The entrance is a five-foot-wide choke point. A guard fire in the first chamber gives bright light and can be kicked over for a burning hazard. The second chamber has chained prisoners who will not fight but can be freed. A hidden back exit behind the supply crates leads out onto the mesa.
A pay chest with 120 gp and 30 sp, a tally-stick counting prisoners taken for the deep works, and a bundle of orders signed G.B. naming a shipment due at Saltmarch Landing before the new moon. The prisoners include Pell's brother, who can be freed and sent home.
For a level 2 party, remove the ogre and add two more bandits. For a level 4 party, add a second ogre or give Mugor Bonechew maximum hit points and a Veteran as his handler.
Suggested Level: Level 4
Half the undercroft is knee-deep black water and counts as difficult terrain. The dry half has stacked crates for cover and a narrow stair. The tide-gate is a five-foot iron grille that can be opened from below at low tide. Salt crust makes the dry floor slippery — a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw to avoid falling prone when dashing.
The Salt Ledger's true books, a consignee letter naming Tace & Sons Shipwrights in Moonharbor, and a note mentioning the deep works and a foreman named Kael Dross. A locked strongbox holds 200 gp in smuggled silver and a **Salt-Crusted Lantern**.
For a level 3 party, remove the water weird and use one salt husk. For a level 5 party, add a second water weird and two more bandits on the stairs.
Suggested Level: Level 5
Four chambers running from the shingle beach to the flooded eastern mouth. The eastern mouth is only open for two hours at low tide. Standing water in the lower chambers is difficult terrain and hides the lurkers. The signal brazier gives bright light and can be extinguished to blind the moths.
The signal codebook in the cave office, 180 gp in shipwreck salvage, a lighthouse keeper's silver locket worth 60 gp, and eleven freed prisoners who know the mountain road to the Deadvein Gate.
For a level 4 party, remove the chuul and one brine lurker. For a level 6 party, add a second chuul and two more bandits, and have the cultist cast spiritual weapon on the first round.
Suggested Level: Level 5
A stone breakwater with a warehouse, a roof crane, a loading dock and a tide-gate. Crates and barrels give cover. The gantry is twenty feet up with a ladder at each end. The tide-gate opens onto black water at low tide. Lanterns give bright light in a twenty-foot radius and dim light beyond.
The mine maps marking a blackfire seam beneath the Deadvein Deep, a letter from Edric Vane calling the mine the anvil of the Reach, 350 gp in Redband pay, and Kessa Tide's crate with her bribe ledger in it.
For a level 4 party, use two veterans and four bandits. For a level 6 party, add a fourth veteran and a Redband captain using the Knight stat block, and shorten the Guard's arrival to six rounds.
Suggested Level: Level 5
A narrow deck with a raised quarterdeck, hatches that can be slammed on a hand, rigging ropes that can be cut, and open water on both sides. The gangplank is a five-foot-wide choke point. A swinging yardarm can knock a character into the harbor on a failed DC 12 Dexterity saving throw.
Nessa's bribe ledger in the false keel, 300 gp in smuggled coin, a **Tide-Gate Key**, and the Salt Wraith herself if the party can buy her debt or beat her fairly.
For a level 4 party, use two bandits and let Nessa flee at half hit points. For a level 6 party, add four bandits and a Veteran first mate, and give Nessa the high ground on the quarterdeck.
Suggested Level: Levels 6–7
A palisade of sharpened stakes on a ridge top, a leaning watchtower, a seaward gate and a bell. The ground falls away steeply on both sides. The palisade can be breached in one ten-foot section. Healer Om's tent gives a safe point between waves. Torchlight and smoke limit visibility to sixty feet.
Blacktusk's blackfire-forged greatsword if he falls, 400 gp in Redband pay chests, a **Blackfire Ward Amulet** in the militia stores, and the militia's march on the Deadvein Gate.
For a level 5 party, run two waves and remove Blacktusk, replacing him with a Veteran captain. For a level 8 party, add a second wave of four bandits and give Blacktusk two Veteran bodyguards.
Suggested Level: Level 9
A switchback road above the treeline with a forty-foot drop on one side. The iron gate is three inches of iron on oak and will not fall to a ram. The watchpost is half ruined and gives three-quarters cover. The goat track around the eastern shoulder comes down behind the watchpost and is unguarded. Ice and loose scree make the switchbacks difficult terrain.
The gate stores hold blackfire ingots stamped for Moonharbor, 600 gp in Redband coin, a **Seam-Iron Plate** in the armoury, and the pass itself.
For a level 8 party, use six veterans and two scouts. For a level 10 party, add a Knight as the Redband gate captain and a third scree stalker on the goat track.
Suggested Level: Levels 8–9
A flooded mine gallery with old rails, rotten timber props and a shaft that drops into black water. Half the floor is difficult terrain. The slaglings leave hot slag behind them. The ceiling is low enough that Large creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls in the upper gallery. Total darkness beyond sixty feet.
A water sample from the flooded shaft, 200 gp in old mine silver, a set of miners' tools worth 50 gp, and a vial of Sallow's alchemical reagent that grants advantage on saves against blackfire fumes for one hour.
For a level 7 party, remove the otyugh and two slaglings. For a level 10 party, add a second otyugh and two more slaglings, and have the press-gang collapse the gallery behind them.
Suggested Level: Level 10
A cavern floor with iron rails, timber props and channels of blackfire that deal 1d6 fire damage to anyone who enters them. Catwalks run overhead. Four great support beams stand at the corners of the floor. The air is hot and thin — a DC 12 Constitution saving throw each hour or gain one level of exhaustion.
Sallow's laboratory notes with the formula for cleansing blackfire residue, the Cinderfall Ledger from the fourth support housing, 800 gp in Vane's war chest, and Blacktusk's blackfire greatsword if he falls here.
For a level 9 party, remove Blacktusk and two cultists. For a level 11 party, add a second slagbound sentinel and give Sallow two more cultists and a prepared alchemical trap on the stair.
Suggested Level: Level 11
A cathedral of a cavern with a glowing seam in the far wall, four great support beams, catwalks overhead and a floor of broken rock. The seam deals 1d6 fire damage to anyone who starts a turn within ten feet of it. Setting and lighting a charge takes a DC 15 Dexterity (Thieves' Tools) or Strength (Athletics) check under fire. Total collapse begins three rounds after the fourth charge is lit.
Vane's red hand signet, 1,500 gp in his war chest, Sallow's cleansing formula if it was not taken earlier, and the collapse of the seam itself.
For a level 10 party, remove the two veterans and one tramway shade. For a level 12 party, add two more veterans and a second seam vein wretch, and shorten the collapse timer to two rounds.
Salt-Crusted Lantern
Completed
Act I - the Salt Ledger undercroft strongbox beneath the nameless warehouse at Saltmarch Landing
False
Warden's Road Token
Completed
Act I - Ironjaw Hold, given by Gruma Ashfang on completion of The Burned Road
False
Marn's Waystone Charm
Completed
Act I - the Redstone Draw, hidden under Old Marn's altar with the Redband orders
False
Cinderlash, the Brightsteel Blade
Completed
Act I - the Redstone Draw raider camp, in the hands of the camp's ogre enforcer
True — by a character proficient with martial weapons
Tide-Gate Key
Completed
Act II - the Salt Wraith's false keel, aboard Nessa Crowe's privateer at Saltmarch Landing
False
Harbor Chain Link
Completed
Act II - Moonharbor, in the guild counting-house strongbox behind the double ledgers
True — by any character
Warden's Signal Codebook
Completed
Act II - Wrecker's Cay, in the sea-cave's signal office
False
Blackfire Ward Amulet
Completed
Act II - Thornwatch Camp, in the militia stores behind the watchtower
True — by any character
Bim's Blackfire Filter
Completed
Act III - Cinderfall Hamlet, built by Bim Sprocket from parts the party salvages
False
Seam-Iron Plate
Completed
Act III - the Deadvein Gate, in the Redband armoury behind the watchpost
True — by a character proficient with heavy armour
Sallow's Cleansing Draught
Completed
Act III - the Deadvein Deep refining floor, in Sallow's laboratory case
False
Vane's Red Hand Signet
Completed
Act III - the Deadvein Deep, on Edric Vane at the blackfire seam
True — by any character
