When the party eventually finds and navigates through the lost mines they coincidentally find Iarno negotiating something with The Spider (I forget the actual name), making that encounter a bit more challenging for them.
Yeah, Iarno escaped from my group as well and I'm planning on him ambushing them with some creatures on their way to the Castle. The aim will be for him to escape and run back to the castle and then have the Spider kill him just before fighting the group. Or the group can kill him in the ambush, I never know how this group is going to react!
yes, in both cases, the guy will appear like some random dude with no obvious link to Redbrand hideout. It might be a lost opportunity to keep depth in the story.
What I would like is to re-inject in the story a colorful character that in fact the PCs have no knowledge about... the guy is still supposed to be a "good guy', Iarno who turned to the dark side.
I like the idea of him re-appearing at the cragmaw castle but only if the characters can identify him as who he is supposed to be not a circumstantial sidekick.
I am thinking about a few options now but none that look entirely satisfying:
-leave a dying redbrand give to the party a description, motivations and possible whereabout of Glass staff then
have him found by the side of the black spider
or have him captured by the trade counter merchant lady from Phandalvin and sent on his way to presumably disclose any information he may hold. Maybe the Cultists could capture him as an offering... the PCs could witness this and think this Iarno the good guy they are looking for, go an free him an Thundertree just to discover along the story that him and glass staff are the same person, and then encounter him again by black spider's side
I think what I'd do is have him head to Cragmaw Castle, seeing as he is being employed by the Black Spider he might go report to his boss. The Spider will likely be displeased that Iarno/Glasstaff has failed him and decides to either:
A.) kill him on the spot, with the players discovering his body inside or hung outside the keep, or
B.) imprison him to "deal with him later," only for the players to find him shackled up in the castle.
(But I can also see Glasstaff being a total coward and just fleeing the Redbrand hideout forever, but where is the fun in that?)
In option B you can have him try to play the good guy, talk his way into being freed and let go. I think he'd try to introduce himself as Iarno, but in retrieving his things the players might notice that one of his possessions is a glass staff. I'd let the players try to put 2 and 2 together and see what they do from there. Do they try to take him in for being a criminal? Or do they not notice, take him at his word and let him free (or try to convince him to give word to Sildar, who is looking for him)? Or maybe Glasstaff wants to seek revenge on the Black Spider, offing to aid the party in exchange for being turned in (and maybe back stab them at the end?).
I've seen this campaign played out a couple of times (running it once), but I've never seen Iarno escape, despite it being a viable option. Just my 2 copper on how I might handle it.
He escaped the Redbrand hideout in my game as well.
I had him end up at Cragmaw Castle, delivering a report, when the party caught up with him. It made for an extra difficult encounter.
I also took that small room beside the leader's room and put a hidden cellar in there. Below that I had am elven soul gem (augathia's) which then gave the party a hook for when they went to talk to the banshee. That it least helped connect Cragmaw Castle in my mind. In my world it was originally an elven winter home for augathia's family.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
My party snuck in on him before he could do anything with killer initiative and Stealth rolls, the rogue maxing out sneak attack damage, and the ranger rolling a Nat 20 on her shortsword attack which resulted in Iarno's beheading without him even picking up his staff.
My party sweet talked the nothic for the promise to bring back food. When iarno ran past the nothic, I had ol’ big eye assume this was his meals on wheels and started to fight. When the party caught up they were about to defend the iarno when my wizard noticed the staff. The fight didn’t last long with the nothic helping but it was fun to watch the show!
Realistically he should cut his losses and start over elsewhere. That’s why he has that pack of getaway supplies hidden in the well.
However, I agree that’s unsatisfying. Having him in Cragmaw making that encounter more difficult works well.
But I'm not necessarily sure that he would cut the losses.
In a case where the party returned to the manor, perhaps asked to bring back more of the stolen loot, I'd time this with Iarno having tethered a mule outside with saddlebags half-filled with his valuable alchemy gear. This would give the party a second chance to hunt him down and perhaps catch him in his lab.
I am running a LMoP/DoIP campaign and Iarno kinda turned into one of the big bads? When the first party (there was a TPK in the middle so they are using new characters) snuck into the Redbrand Hideout they chose to fight the Nothic and once it became clear that they would kill it, it seemed logical that it would run away screaming telepathically for help, they began engaging the redbrands in the room close to Iarno and then the bugbears. I was planning to have Iarno slip away through the secret passage as the module said, but the fight went back to the room of the crevice and Iarno ended up coming out just in time to flank the character and gun all of them down with magic missiles as they tried to run away.
I didn't feel like having a tpk so early in the campaign so I had him take them prisoner instead. They escaped and then rallied the town to fight the redbrands. They fought them in the streets along most of the fight capable people in phandalin, which were the sidekicks from DoIP (it was hell. I am a new GM and I made the mistake of having them run a 10 people party against a force of redbrands that might actually pose a threat to them, the fight lasted like 6 hours and the party almost got beaten again). I had him complete his research into invisibility potions so while the party was in a shotout against the Redbrands that had barricaded themselves in the Sleeping Giant (I gave them crossbows because it would have been a massacre otherwise), a group of elite redbrands snuck down on the party while invisible and ganged up on/ downed a few of the sidekicks in a single turn.
Iarno didn't participate in the fight, so while the party was resting and organising to storm the hideout, he slipped away since most of the redbrands were dead (I think I had told the party the redbrands were between 40-50 people total and they killed over 36 of them). That did feel a bit anticlimatic and since he had more time to prepare his escape since the party was resting, not only did he take his research with him but he filled the cave with traps, including barrels that filled it with poison gas and raising Thel Dendrar's body as a Wight with the spirit of the previous owner of the Mannor possessing him and enchanted to believe that the party were the orcs invading. I wanted to set things up so that he would blow up the hideout and have it collapse on the party bond villain style, but seemed too much for the amount of preparation he had.
From there, Iarno headed to Cragmaw castle. A goblin the party captured told them where the castle was and also told them that Glasstaff had visited. Because he didn't have control of the gang or Phandalin anymore, he couldn't offer that much to the partnership anymore other than his skill making potions (so that is a thing you could do, have him complete his research and give invisibility potions to the bugbears). Because of this and as punishment for failing, he was sent to Thundertree to negotiate with Venomfang and see if he could get it into the conspiracy. Doesn't make that much sense in LMoP, but when combined with DoIP then Venomfang has a rival in Cryovain and green dragons like servants so it could have worked.
The party didn't go to Thundertree though but to the Mines. They fought the Black Spider away from his pets, beat the Black Spider, then walked into the room he was waiting in in the module without healing. The spiders attacked and captured them to eat later. The Black Spider's body was put in a coccoon and began a metamorphosis as a drider, to give the party something to escape from. The party woke up, escaped from their cocoons, set the room on fire awaking the Drider and getting the spiders mad, then ran. The Drider ran into the Bugbears that the party snuck past going in and began fighting them (it killed them all but was left with like 3 HP left). One of the party members got separated and got killed by the Flameskull. The others died to the doppelganger in the mine, that disguised itself as the separated party member and attacked them right as they were at the exit.
Anyways, new characters rolled at level 2, most of the plot of LMoP is done with only Glasstaff and Venomfang left standing. I was planning to continue the adventure with the Beyond Dragon of Icespire Peak module and a lot of the missions from DoIP were still available. So new plan, the Black Spider was working for the cult of Myrkul from the expansions and Glasstaff is now the head of the local branch. He got a new statblock to make him a threat to higher level characters, he now has an apprentice that is running a hospital in phandalin and using it as a front to implant spirits of the dead Redbrands into the patients for possession. The new town sheriff (recruited by the previous party) is under mind control potions from said apprentice. The new town mayor, Daran Edermath (the previous party pushed for elections and suggested them as a candidate) was replaced by a doppelganger before the first party even suggested that elections should take place. There are bandits along the route working for him, attacking only caravans of groups unaligned with him. He is using magic to enhance both the undead (under his control) and the plants (under Venomfang's) to make them more deadly. And he is doing so not only to take control of the area and get the resources to turn Venomfang into a dracolich but to take over the Mine, which is now under the control of an insane Drider creating mutated spider monsters, so that he can use the forge of spells to make even deadlier creations.
I wil probably have his men cultivating the new variants of plant monsters in Thundertree, then have in his workshop there clues about where the mine is as well as plans to take it over with his creations so that they can have the final confrontation there. Or, well, not final, since I am warming up to the idea of having him be this super frustrating an opportunistic opponent. So he could probably use magic to take control of the wraith that leads the undead there so that they don't attack him and the mine is big enough that he migth actually be able to get away if the confrontation goes against him. We will se when we actually get there.
So basically:
a) Take advantage of his expertise in potions to have him complete his research and give the enemy troops a boost using invisibility potions.
b) Have him negotiate with Venomfang to tie Thundertree to the rest of the storyline. They could learn where either Cragmaw Castle or the Mine is if they capture and interrogate him.
c) Use him to add magical traps to either the Castle or the Mine
d) Have him ambush the party in the mines. He should still have the scroll of fireballs if he got away, maybe use that? You can either choose to have him support one of the bosses at the castle or the mines, an extra encounter in the mines or have him betray them and try to take control of the opperation, either during or after the module.
Of course, this was the way I went about this because the party actually saw Glasstaff's face. If they never saw him... well, it would depend on whether Sildar is alive or not. If he is, then he could pretend that he was captured by goblins and either the party rescues him or he "escapes" and leads the party into an ambush under the guise of taking them to the castle the globlins had him in to rescue the dwarf. If Sildar is dead, he could be anyone.
When the party eventually finds and navigates through the lost mines they coincidentally find Iarno negotiating something with The Spider (I forget the actual name), making that encounter a bit more challenging for them.
Nezznar, Nezznar the Black Spider.
btw, love the Imwe quote.
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Hi, I am not a chest. I deny with 100% certainty that I am a chest. I can neither confirm nor deny what I am beyond that.
I used to portray Krathian, Q'ilbrith, Jim, Tara, Turin, Nathan, Tench, Finn, Alvin, and other characters in various taverns.
My players are starting next session about to burst in on glasstaff and supprise him they took the rat out really stealthy , so knowing there gona run in and beat him up instantly , once here about to interugate him im gona have sirdar come in the room behind them , but its not sidar its a double ganger which they've seen before so prang about it , gona try and convince then to hand him over if they do he leaves with glasstaff then 2 bugbears come in and laugh at how stupid they are, contingency plan if they suspect abd attack hell flee room 2 bugbears will cone in fight the players meanwhile 2 turns it will take for dobleganger to run round to glasstaff through secret entrance at dash and he'll rescue wizard hopefully all players in alchemical room fighting bugbears , if not fight in room with just one or 2 players , but if not in room once they take out bb s they go back in room no glasstaff and secret door swung open
I think you as a dm need to always increase the monster in phandelver pack , my first time dm ing with 5 new ppl to dnd and they steamroll everything especially with 5 players but also 3 seem to handle everything too easy , so I'm gona increase everything now as they nearly killed the doppelganger in one round! And I had to habe it flee and the nothic I mean jeeze I put boss music on and it barely lasted 2 rounds ! I'm gona be adding atleast 10 %hp to most things now its just too easy
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Hello,
Campaign is going pretty well and everybody is having fun. We finished the bugbear cavern, the village and the Redbrands hideout.
However, Iarno/glass staff, the Redbrands' boss, managed to escape undetected the hideout. Any idea how to use him next?
thank you
When the party eventually finds and navigates through the lost mines they coincidentally find Iarno negotiating something with The Spider (I forget the actual name), making that encounter a bit more challenging for them.
I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.
Yeah, Iarno escaped from my group as well and I'm planning on him ambushing them with some creatures on their way to the Castle. The aim will be for him to escape and run back to the castle and then have the Spider kill him just before fighting the group. Or the group can kill him in the ambush, I never know how this group is going to react!
yes, in both cases, the guy will appear like some random dude with no obvious link to Redbrand hideout. It might be a lost opportunity to keep depth in the story.
What I would like is to re-inject in the story a colorful character that in fact the PCs have no knowledge about... the guy is still supposed to be a "good guy', Iarno who turned to the dark side.
I like the idea of him re-appearing at the cragmaw castle but only if the characters can identify him as who he is supposed to be not a circumstantial sidekick.
I am thinking about a few options now but none that look entirely satisfying:
-leave a dying redbrand give to the party a description, motivations and possible whereabout of Glass staff then
have him found by the side of the black spider
or have him captured by the trade counter merchant lady from Phandalvin and sent on his way to presumably disclose any information he may hold. Maybe the Cultists could capture him as an offering... the PCs could witness this and think this Iarno the good guy they are looking for, go an free him an Thundertree just to discover along the story that him and glass staff are the same person, and then encounter him again by black spider's side
I think what I'd do is have him head to Cragmaw Castle, seeing as he is being employed by the Black Spider he might go report to his boss. The Spider will likely be displeased that Iarno/Glasstaff has failed him and decides to either:
A.) kill him on the spot, with the players discovering his body inside or hung outside the keep, or
B.) imprison him to "deal with him later," only for the players to find him shackled up in the castle.
(But I can also see Glasstaff being a total coward and just fleeing the Redbrand hideout forever, but where is the fun in that?)
In option B you can have him try to play the good guy, talk his way into being freed and let go. I think he'd try to introduce himself as Iarno, but in retrieving his things the players might notice that one of his possessions is a glass staff. I'd let the players try to put 2 and 2 together and see what they do from there. Do they try to take him in for being a criminal? Or do they not notice, take him at his word and let him free (or try to convince him to give word to Sildar, who is looking for him)? Or maybe Glasstaff wants to seek revenge on the Black Spider, offing to aid the party in exchange for being turned in (and maybe back stab them at the end?).
I've seen this campaign played out a couple of times (running it once), but I've never seen Iarno escape, despite it being a viable option. Just my 2 copper on how I might handle it.
He escaped the Redbrand hideout in my game as well.
I had him end up at Cragmaw Castle, delivering a report, when the party caught up with him. It made for an extra difficult encounter.
I also took that small room beside the leader's room and put a hidden cellar in there. Below that I had am elven soul gem (augathia's) which then gave the party a hook for when they went to talk to the banshee. That it least helped connect Cragmaw Castle in my mind. In my world it was originally an elven winter home for augathia's family.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
My party snuck in on him before he could do anything with killer initiative and Stealth rolls, the rogue maxing out sneak attack damage, and the ranger rolling a Nat 20 on her shortsword attack which resulted in Iarno's beheading without him even picking up his staff.
My party sweet talked the nothic for the promise to bring back food. When iarno ran past the nothic, I had ol’ big eye assume this was his meals on wheels and started to fight. When the party caught up they were about to defend the iarno when my wizard noticed the staff. The fight didn’t last long with the nothic helping but it was fun to watch the show!
Realistically he should cut his losses and start over elsewhere. That’s why he has that pack of getaway supplies hidden in the well.
However, I agree that’s unsatisfying. Having him in Cragmaw making that encounter more difficult works well.
But I'm not necessarily sure that he would cut the losses.
In a case where the party returned to the manor, perhaps asked to bring back more of the stolen loot, I'd time this with Iarno having tethered a mule outside with saddlebags half-filled with his valuable alchemy gear. This would give the party a second chance to hunt him down and perhaps catch him in his lab.
I am running a LMoP/DoIP campaign and Iarno kinda turned into one of the big bads? When the first party (there was a TPK in the middle so they are using new characters) snuck into the Redbrand Hideout they chose to fight the Nothic and once it became clear that they would kill it, it seemed logical that it would run away screaming telepathically for help, they began engaging the redbrands in the room close to Iarno and then the bugbears. I was planning to have Iarno slip away through the secret passage as the module said, but the fight went back to the room of the crevice and Iarno ended up coming out just in time to flank the character and gun all of them down with magic missiles as they tried to run away.
I didn't feel like having a tpk so early in the campaign so I had him take them prisoner instead. They escaped and then rallied the town to fight the redbrands. They fought them in the streets along most of the fight capable people in phandalin, which were the sidekicks from DoIP (it was hell. I am a new GM and I made the mistake of having them run a 10 people party against a force of redbrands that might actually pose a threat to them, the fight lasted like 6 hours and the party almost got beaten again). I had him complete his research into invisibility potions so while the party was in a shotout against the Redbrands that had barricaded themselves in the Sleeping Giant (I gave them crossbows because it would have been a massacre otherwise), a group of elite redbrands snuck down on the party while invisible and ganged up on/ downed a few of the sidekicks in a single turn.
Iarno didn't participate in the fight, so while the party was resting and organising to storm the hideout, he slipped away since most of the redbrands were dead (I think I had told the party the redbrands were between 40-50 people total and they killed over 36 of them). That did feel a bit anticlimatic and since he had more time to prepare his escape since the party was resting, not only did he take his research with him but he filled the cave with traps, including barrels that filled it with poison gas and raising Thel Dendrar's body as a Wight with the spirit of the previous owner of the Mannor possessing him and enchanted to believe that the party were the orcs invading. I wanted to set things up so that he would blow up the hideout and have it collapse on the party bond villain style, but seemed too much for the amount of preparation he had.
From there, Iarno headed to Cragmaw castle. A goblin the party captured told them where the castle was and also told them that Glasstaff had visited. Because he didn't have control of the gang or Phandalin anymore, he couldn't offer that much to the partnership anymore other than his skill making potions (so that is a thing you could do, have him complete his research and give invisibility potions to the bugbears). Because of this and as punishment for failing, he was sent to Thundertree to negotiate with Venomfang and see if he could get it into the conspiracy. Doesn't make that much sense in LMoP, but when combined with DoIP then Venomfang has a rival in Cryovain and green dragons like servants so it could have worked.
The party didn't go to Thundertree though but to the Mines. They fought the Black Spider away from his pets, beat the Black Spider, then walked into the room he was waiting in in the module without healing. The spiders attacked and captured them to eat later. The Black Spider's body was put in a coccoon and began a metamorphosis as a drider, to give the party something to escape from. The party woke up, escaped from their cocoons, set the room on fire awaking the Drider and getting the spiders mad, then ran. The Drider ran into the Bugbears that the party snuck past going in and began fighting them (it killed them all but was left with like 3 HP left). One of the party members got separated and got killed by the Flameskull. The others died to the doppelganger in the mine, that disguised itself as the separated party member and attacked them right as they were at the exit.
Anyways, new characters rolled at level 2, most of the plot of LMoP is done with only Glasstaff and Venomfang left standing. I was planning to continue the adventure with the Beyond Dragon of Icespire Peak module and a lot of the missions from DoIP were still available. So new plan, the Black Spider was working for the cult of Myrkul from the expansions and Glasstaff is now the head of the local branch. He got a new statblock to make him a threat to higher level characters, he now has an apprentice that is running a hospital in phandalin and using it as a front to implant spirits of the dead Redbrands into the patients for possession. The new town sheriff (recruited by the previous party) is under mind control potions from said apprentice. The new town mayor, Daran Edermath (the previous party pushed for elections and suggested them as a candidate) was replaced by a doppelganger before the first party even suggested that elections should take place. There are bandits along the route working for him, attacking only caravans of groups unaligned with him. He is using magic to enhance both the undead (under his control) and the plants (under Venomfang's) to make them more deadly. And he is doing so not only to take control of the area and get the resources to turn Venomfang into a dracolich but to take over the Mine, which is now under the control of an insane Drider creating mutated spider monsters, so that he can use the forge of spells to make even deadlier creations.
I wil probably have his men cultivating the new variants of plant monsters in Thundertree, then have in his workshop there clues about where the mine is as well as plans to take it over with his creations so that they can have the final confrontation there. Or, well, not final, since I am warming up to the idea of having him be this super frustrating an opportunistic opponent. So he could probably use magic to take control of the wraith that leads the undead there so that they don't attack him and the mine is big enough that he migth actually be able to get away if the confrontation goes against him. We will se when we actually get there.
So basically:
a) Take advantage of his expertise in potions to have him complete his research and give the enemy troops a boost using invisibility potions.
b) Have him negotiate with Venomfang to tie Thundertree to the rest of the storyline. They could learn where either Cragmaw Castle or the Mine is if they capture and interrogate him.
c) Use him to add magical traps to either the Castle or the Mine
d) Have him ambush the party in the mines. He should still have the scroll of fireballs if he got away, maybe use that? You can either choose to have him support one of the bosses at the castle or the mines, an extra encounter in the mines or have him betray them and try to take control of the opperation, either during or after the module.
Of course, this was the way I went about this because the party actually saw Glasstaff's face. If they never saw him... well, it would depend on whether Sildar is alive or not. If he is, then he could pretend that he was captured by goblins and either the party rescues him or he "escapes" and leads the party into an ambush under the guise of taking them to the castle the globlins had him in to rescue the dwarf. If Sildar is dead, he could be anyone.
Nezznar, Nezznar the Black Spider.
btw, love the Imwe quote.
Hi, I am not a chest. I deny with 100% certainty that I am a chest. I can neither confirm nor deny what I am beyond that.
I used to portray Krathian, Q'ilbrith, Jim, Tara, Turin, Nathan, Tench, Finn, Alvin, and other characters in various taverns.
I also do homebrew, check out my Spells and Magic Items
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons, even death may die"
My players are starting next session about to burst in on glasstaff and supprise him they took the rat out really stealthy , so knowing there gona run in and beat him up instantly , once here about to interugate him im gona have sirdar come in the room behind them , but its not sidar its a double ganger which they've seen before so prang about it , gona try and convince then to hand him over if they do he leaves with glasstaff then 2 bugbears come in and laugh at how stupid they are, contingency plan if they suspect abd attack hell flee room 2 bugbears will cone in fight the players meanwhile 2 turns it will take for dobleganger to run round to glasstaff through secret entrance at dash and he'll rescue wizard hopefully all players in alchemical room fighting bugbears , if not fight in room with just one or 2 players , but if not in room once they take out bb s they go back in room no glasstaff and secret door swung open
I think you as a dm need to always increase the monster in phandelver pack , my first time dm ing with 5 new ppl to dnd and they steamroll everything especially with 5 players but also 3 seem to handle everything too easy , so I'm gona increase everything now as they nearly killed the doppelganger in one round! And I had to habe it flee and the nothic I mean jeeze I put boss music on and it barely lasted 2 rounds ! I'm gona be adding atleast 10 %hp to most things now its just too easy