Hello đź‘‹, I'm a fairly new dm and I was planning to run lost mine of phandelver, but I would like to change it quite a bit to make it fit more into a dark fantasy theme with some sorts of slight suspense / horror elements to it aswell.
I was thinking about changing the black spider and maybe the goblins or other enemies into part of a cult (worshiping my future bbeg) and changing some of the enemies to be from said cult.
How would I go about doing this? All help would be very greatly appreciated, thanks very much.
I appreciate that my initial answer seems dismissive, but I simply wouldn't attempt to do it with this adventure. There are aspects of it that can be changed, a few bullet points I'll list below as pure spitballing, but LMoP is more a fantasy spaghetti-western than the beginnings of a horror adventure. My ideas are inspired by the works of Lovecraft, King, and the video game Dreamweb. I draw inspiration from themes of inevitability, the unfathomable and a healthy dose of body horror.
0. I'd begin by having the adventure seem light-hearted, that we're all playing cowboys on our way to a boom town during the gold rush, and in this fantasy land the players will strike gold. What could possibly go wrong?
Cragmaw Hideout. The goblins who live here previously held up travellers on the Triboar Trail for loot, but recently they've become a lot more selective in their victims, attacking with little regard for their personal safety or morale. They're savage, even for goblins. The party, should they survive, will find their leader, who claims to possess magic powers. They'd only be minor, but enough to tell the party that something's off. I'd recommend trying to make this seem like a one-off event: the party should leave believing they dealt with whatever cult this goblin ran here and now. Little do they know that this is as far as the corruption as spread... for now. Those who are familiar with goblinoid physiology will notice that the wilder ones in the cave have features resembling fish, especially the eyes, and their skin is more oily than normal.
Tresendar Manor. This is where the party might suspect there's something rotten in the heart of Phandalin, and the Sword Coast itself. The hints should be few, but toward the end the party should be convinced the goblins and Redbrands are in some way connected. Slaying the Nothic should bring about a feeling of peace, but it is not the cause of the evils happening here.
The Middle Bit. Nothing here has to be related, that each quest could be a red herring. Much like in the adventure as written, this is essentially exists to get the players to Wave Echo Cave. In this instance, it could be a break from your horror elements. If you still want to stay with the horror stuff, here's some suggestions:
3a: We Are Venomfang. For what I'm about to suggest Venomfang the Young Green Dragon of Thundertree needs to have a presence. Frequently comment on a dragon soaring through the skies, rumours of it getting bolder, and how all these bad things seemed to have happened around the time he showed up. What the players don't know is that your Venomfang is afflicted with a parasite not unlike the poisonous environmental effects that green dragons have on their lairs, and that his boldness is entirely down to the equivilent of magical dragon rabies with lots of oozing purple. When the party gets to Thundertree, they find that Venomfang is dead: rapidly decaying, rotted, and that his remains were a coccoon. It's evident that whatever was within him has freed itself, and the slick, odious trail leads to wherever you want the party to go next. This is an opportunity to inject whatever homebrew monster you'd like as a minion in your campaign.
3b: Hassle in the Castle. Cragmaw Castle could well be as it is, except the residents - those allied with the Black Spider, the original villain - are at war with those of your BBEG. Not that the Cragmaws are necessarily allies to the players in this instance, but perhaps they may appreciate saving their resources for tackling the greater evil. Depending on how long the party takes to get here, your homebrew BBEG may have already converted the Cragmaws by hook or by crook. If they didn't discover Venomfang's remains, they should find a mostly empty castle and again: whatever lived here has moved on to despoil greener pastures.
3c: At What Kost? You can go crazy with Hamun Kost, a necromancer who's a Red Wizard of Thay so he's already fairly evil as is. Is he in league with your BBEG? Does he not want to pick sides with the Black Spider and your BBEG? Does he revile your BBEG because of how their cult is disrupting his own efforts? As with Venomfang, if you want to have something horrible happen to him, the players need to have an idea of how powerful he was in life otherwise they won't appreciate the evil that defeated him.
3d: Agatha Aunt. I wouldn't change much about Agatha here other than to let her answer the many questions the players ask. However, for each answer they start to suffer strange effects. One asker's rest gets interrupted by a loud screech in the night. Another character might suffer a nosebleed each time they cast a spell of first level or higher. Another gets pins and needles in their feet each time they touch something made of iron. The effects can worsen: exhaustion, disadvantage on social interactions (advantage on Intimidation), and taking minor damage from touching their own money. This shouldn't be permanent, but it should last long enough for the party to know not to screw around with Agatha when they're explicitely told not to.
4. Rave in the Cave. The fourth and final bit of the adventure takes place in Wave Echo Cave, wherein the Black Spider and his myriad minions are fending off your BBEG's fiendish friends. Whatever motivation the Black Spider had for using Wave Echo Cave is no longer the case, and now hopes to use it simply to save himself. Perhaps he's benevolent, willing to rid the world of the BBEG but doesn't see the adventurers as willing or competent enough to help him, and so decides to fight them as obstacles. When he dies, the BBEG reveals themself in some form or another, and the party has leads enough to go on your homebrew adventure. In the meantime, the people of Phandalin can sleep without weird dreams, ominous sobbing coming from the forest, and seeing blinking eyes underneath the floorboards.
That's all I've got. I hope it helped, it was fun to write up and at the very least think about. It's going to be a difficult conversion but if you can pull it of you'll have no problem with your own homebrew campaign and having your BBEG flex their muscles fully!
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Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
I appreciate that my initial answer seems dismissive, but I simply wouldn't attempt to do it with this adventure. There are aspects of it that can be changed, a few bullet points I'll list below as pure spitballing, but LMoP is more a fantasy spaghetti-western than the beginnings of a horror adventure. My ideas are inspired by the works of Lovecraft, King, and the video game Dreamweb. I draw inspiration from themes of inevitability, the unfathomable and a healthy dose of body horror.
0. I'd begin by having the adventure seem light-hearted, that we're all playing cowboys on our way to a boom town during the gold rush, and in this fantasy land the players will strike gold. What could possibly go wrong?
Cragmaw Hideout. The goblins who live here previously held up travellers on the Triboar Trail for loot, but recently they've become a lot more selective in their victims, attacking with little regard for their personal safety or morale. They're savage, even for goblins. The party, should they survive, will find their leader, who claims to possess magic powers. They'd only be minor, but enough to tell the party that something's off. I'd recommend trying to make this seem like a one-off event: the party should leave believing they dealt with whatever cult this goblin ran here and now. Little do they know that this is as far as the corruption as spread... for now. Those who are familiar with goblinoid physiology will notice that the wilder ones in the cave have features resembling fish, especially the eyes, and their skin is more oily than normal.
Tresendar Manor. This is where the party might suspect there's something rotten in the heart of Phandalin, and the Sword Coast itself. The hints should be few, but toward the end the party should be convinced the goblins and Redbrands are in some way connected. Slaying the Nothic should bring about a feeling of peace, but it is not the cause of the evils happening here.
The Middle Bit. Nothing here has to be related, that each quest could be a red herring. Much like in the adventure as written, this is essentially exists to get the players to Wave Echo Cave. In this instance, it could be a break from your horror elements. If you still want to stay with the horror stuff, here's some suggestions:
3a: We Are Venomfang. For what I'm about to suggest Venomfang the Young Green Dragon of Thundertree needs to have a presence. Frequently comment on a dragon soaring through the skies, rumours of it getting bolder, and how all these bad things seemed to have happened around the time he showed up. What the players don't know is that your Venomfang is afflicted with a parasite not unlike the poisonous environmental effects that green dragons have on their lairs, and that his boldness is entirely down to the equivilent of magical dragon rabies with lots of oozing purple. When the party gets to Thundertree, they find that Venomfang is dead: rapidly decaying, rotted, and that his remains were a coccoon. It's evident that whatever was within him has freed itself, and the slick, odious trail leads to wherever you want the party to go next. This is an opportunity to inject whatever homebrew monster you'd like as a minion in your campaign.
3b: Hassle in the Castle. Cragmaw Castle could well be as it is, except the residents - those allied with the Black Spider, the original villain - are at war with those of your BBEG. Not that the Cragmaws are necessarily allies to the players in this instance, but perhaps they may appreciate saving their resources for tackling the greater evil. Depending on how long the party takes to get here, your homebrew BBEG may have already converted the Cragmaws by hook or by crook. If they didn't discover Venomfang's remains, they should find a mostly empty castle and again: whatever lived here has moved on to despoil greener pastures.
3c: At What Kost? You can go crazy with Hamun Kost, a necromancer who's a Red Wizard of Thay so he's already fairly evil as is. Is he in league with your BBEG? Does he not want to pick sides with the Black Spider and your BBEG? Does he revile your BBEG because of how their cult is disrupting his own efforts? As with Venomfang, if you want to have something horrible happen to him, the players need to have an idea of how powerful he was in life otherwise they won't appreciate the evil that defeated him.
3d: Agatha Aunt. I wouldn't change much about Agatha here other than to let her answer the many questions the players ask. However, for each answer they start to suffer strange effects. One asker's rest gets interrupted by a loud screech in the night. Another character might suffer a nosebleed each time they cast a spell of first level or higher. Another gets pins and needles in their feet each time they touch something made of iron. The effects can worsen: exhaustion, disadvantage on social interactions (advantage on Intimidation), and taking minor damage from touching their own money. This shouldn't be permanent, but it should last long enough for the party to know not to screw around with Agatha when they're explicitely told not to.
4. Rave in the Cave. The fourth and final bit of the adventure takes place in Wave Echo Cave, wherein the Black Spider and his myriad minions are fending off your BBEG's fiendish friends. Whatever motivation the Black Spider had for using Wave Echo Cave is no longer the case, and now hopes to use it simply to save himself. Perhaps he's benevolent, willing to rid the world of the BBEG but doesn't see the adventurers as willing or competent enough to help him, and so decides to fight them as obstacles. When he dies, the BBEG reveals themself in some form or another, and the party has leads enough to go on your homebrew adventure. In the meantime, the people of Phandalin can sleep without weird dreams, ominous sobbing coming from the forest, and seeing blinking eyes underneath the floorboards.
That's all I've got. I hope it helped, it was fun to write up and at the very least think about. It's going to be a difficult conversion but if you can pull it of you'll have no problem with your own homebrew campaign and having your BBEG flex their muscles fully!
Thanks very much, that's a great help
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Hello đź‘‹, I'm a fairly new dm and I was planning to run lost mine of phandelver, but I would like to change it quite a bit to make it fit more into a dark fantasy theme with some sorts of slight suspense / horror elements to it aswell.
I was thinking about changing the black spider and maybe the goblins or other enemies into part of a cult (worshiping my future bbeg) and changing some of the enemies to be from said cult.
How would I go about doing this? All help would be very greatly appreciated, thanks very much.
I appreciate that my initial answer seems dismissive, but I simply wouldn't attempt to do it with this adventure. There are aspects of it that can be changed, a few bullet points I'll list below as pure spitballing, but LMoP is more a fantasy spaghetti-western than the beginnings of a horror adventure. My ideas are inspired by the works of Lovecraft, King, and the video game Dreamweb. I draw inspiration from themes of inevitability, the unfathomable and a healthy dose of body horror.
0. I'd begin by having the adventure seem light-hearted, that we're all playing cowboys on our way to a boom town during the gold rush, and in this fantasy land the players will strike gold. What could possibly go wrong?
3a: We Are Venomfang. For what I'm about to suggest Venomfang the Young Green Dragon of Thundertree needs to have a presence. Frequently comment on a dragon soaring through the skies, rumours of it getting bolder, and how all these bad things seemed to have happened around the time he showed up. What the players don't know is that your Venomfang is afflicted with a parasite not unlike the poisonous environmental effects that green dragons have on their lairs, and that his boldness is entirely down to the equivilent of magical dragon rabies with lots of oozing purple. When the party gets to Thundertree, they find that Venomfang is dead: rapidly decaying, rotted, and that his remains were a coccoon. It's evident that whatever was within him has freed itself, and the slick, odious trail leads to wherever you want the party to go next. This is an opportunity to inject whatever homebrew monster you'd like as a minion in your campaign.
3b: Hassle in the Castle. Cragmaw Castle could well be as it is, except the residents - those allied with the Black Spider, the original villain - are at war with those of your BBEG. Not that the Cragmaws are necessarily allies to the players in this instance, but perhaps they may appreciate saving their resources for tackling the greater evil. Depending on how long the party takes to get here, your homebrew BBEG may have already converted the Cragmaws by hook or by crook. If they didn't discover Venomfang's remains, they should find a mostly empty castle and again: whatever lived here has moved on to despoil greener pastures.
3c: At What Kost? You can go crazy with Hamun Kost, a necromancer who's a Red Wizard of Thay so he's already fairly evil as is. Is he in league with your BBEG? Does he not want to pick sides with the Black Spider and your BBEG? Does he revile your BBEG because of how their cult is disrupting his own efforts? As with Venomfang, if you want to have something horrible happen to him, the players need to have an idea of how powerful he was in life otherwise they won't appreciate the evil that defeated him.
3d: Agatha Aunt. I wouldn't change much about Agatha here other than to let her answer the many questions the players ask. However, for each answer they start to suffer strange effects. One asker's rest gets interrupted by a loud screech in the night. Another character might suffer a nosebleed each time they cast a spell of first level or higher. Another gets pins and needles in their feet each time they touch something made of iron. The effects can worsen: exhaustion, disadvantage on social interactions (advantage on Intimidation), and taking minor damage from touching their own money. This shouldn't be permanent, but it should last long enough for the party to know not to screw around with Agatha when they're explicitely told not to.
4. Rave in the Cave. The fourth and final bit of the adventure takes place in Wave Echo Cave, wherein the Black Spider and his myriad minions are fending off your BBEG's fiendish friends. Whatever motivation the Black Spider had for using Wave Echo Cave is no longer the case, and now hopes to use it simply to save himself. Perhaps he's benevolent, willing to rid the world of the BBEG but doesn't see the adventurers as willing or competent enough to help him, and so decides to fight them as obstacles. When he dies, the BBEG reveals themself in some form or another, and the party has leads enough to go on your homebrew adventure. In the meantime, the people of Phandalin can sleep without weird dreams, ominous sobbing coming from the forest, and seeing blinking eyes underneath the floorboards.
That's all I've got. I hope it helped, it was fun to write up and at the very least think about. It's going to be a difficult conversion but if you can pull it of you'll have no problem with your own homebrew campaign and having your BBEG flex their muscles fully!
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
- The Assemblage of Houses, World of Warcraft
Thanks very much, that's a great help