The next D&D hardcover is Eberron: Rising from the Last War, and releases on November 19th, 2019 on D&D Beyond. This campaign setting describes the war-torn continent of Khorvaire, as well as other regions of the world of Eberron. Additionally, it contains monster statistics for dozens of new creatures unique to this world, as well as magic items, mystical Dragonmarks, and other supernatural elements that set Eberron apart from other D&D settings. Indeed, Eberron is a world where magic has been used to create technology somewhat analogous to the real-world era of the First World War—with some additional fantastical elements, like the living constructs known as warforged.

This encounter series, called Around Khorvaire in Fifty Days, is a whirlwind tour of Khorvaire, the thematic heart of the Eberron campaign setting. It’s a perfect place for new players to enter the campaign setting, as it introduces and highlights many of the elements that make Eberron stand apart from other campaign settings, like the Forgotten Realms. This series elaborates on all the immediate details you need to run this adventure.

The background of this encounter series is described in greater detail in the first encounter, Departure from Skydock Six. Captain Angelica Estrella d’Sivis, her dragonmark, and her purported mission are described there as well.

Progression

This is the fourth encounter along this journey, and a party of five characters should be 2nd level when they begin this encounter. The previous encounters are:

1. Departure from Skydock Six
2. Storm over the Howling Peaks
3. Friendship in the Wilderness

Stealth Encounter: Espionage in Grellreach

This encounter encourages characters to use their skills creatively to avoid detection. Being spotted doesn’t result in instant failure, but being spotted several times leads to a challenging combat encounter.

A goblin artificer by the name of Ziggy Arcingwind is lying low in the backwater Darguunian village of Grellreach. He created a device that Angelica Estrella d’Sivis salvaged from an experimental airship called the Ciel Rouge, and he is the only person who knows how to use it. Angelica has asked the characters to find Ziggy and stealthily extract him from Grellreach, claiming that he can help her use a mapmaking device she salvaged from the Ciel Rouge. They can take one member of the Celeste Noir’s crew with them (as described in chapter 3: Friendship in the Wilderness), while the rest of the crew scouts around the outskirts of town to aid in their escape.

Encounter Summary

The party makes their way into Grellreach, and must evade detection using stealth and other skills. Once they reach Ziggy, he resists capture, and the characters can either leave empty-handed or take him by force. Once they do so, they must leave Grellreach. Failing to leave stealthily results in a challenging combat encounter with Wise Beak, the grell which the people of Grellreach worship as a demigod.  

As a DM, you should know the following information before running this scenario:

Ziggy Arcingwind and the Arcane Sundial

The goblin artificer known as Ziggy Arcingwind was one of the foremost magical minds in Darguun, and helped the fledgling nation rise as one of the new powers of Khorvaire after the dust of the Last War settled. He enjoyed a comfortable life in Rhukaan Draal, the Darguunian capital, and created magical tools that would help advance his nation’s standing on the continent—tools that could compete with the airships and lightning rails that have begun spreading across Khorvaire. However, one night several years ago, he was captured by agents of House Cannith and spirited away to a secret workshop in southern Karrnath, on the border of the Mournland.

While in captivity, Ziggy was put to work developing a magical navigation-and-nondetection device for an unknown purpose. Two dragonmarked individuals—one with House Cannith’s Mark of Making and one with House Lyrandar’s Mark of Storms—oversaw the operation. The final product was a two-foot-diameter stone disc decorated with images of celestial objects in gold, silver, and precious gemstone: a perfect match for the “sundial” salvaged from the wreck of the Ciel Rouge.

He was held captive for three years, but just a year ago, Ziggy managed to escape captivity along with another captive, a kalashtar who called himself Nerokhad the Dream Raider. Why he was in captivity, Ziggy doesn’t know. Nevertheless, they escaped and fled south together. He and Nerokhad parted ways in Gatherhold, the capital city of the Talenta Plains. Once Ziggy returned to Darguun, he pleaded his nation’s ruler for safety, and was allowed to go into hiding in Grellreach. He now lives a simple life under the moniker of Addim Stardust.  

Grellreach and its People

Grellreach is a backwater town at the far western edge of Darguun. Though the young nation is known for its soldiers and mercenaries, the people of Grellreach aren’t warriors. At least, not anymore. Most of its people are veterans that have sheathed their swords and taken up a plough. By all appearances, the little village of Grellreach seems very much like an idyllic rural town—one whose like could be found near anywhere in Breland—save for two major differences. First and most obviously, the town is populated by goblins, hobgoblins, and a married couple of bugbears, all of whom are wrongly considered warlike and uncivilized by the people of Five Nations.

Second, the village is ruled by a grell. Known as Wise Beak, this grell has been worshipped by the goblinoids of Grellreach for decades. This aberration is strange insofar as it has decided not to murder and devour each and every one of its disciples over the years, and has actually slowly learned the Goblin tongue. This grell’s alignment has shifted towards lawful neutral, as have the alignments of most of Grellreach’s people.

The common folk of Grellreach know nothing of the secret double-life of Ziggy Arcingwind, knowing him only as an eccentric war mage who saw a lot of terrible things in the Last War.

Journey to Grellreach

Once the characters have gathered their party (including their ally from the crew, as described in the last encounter), read or paraphrase the following:

Angelica d’Sivis stands in front of you, hands on her hips. Despite her short stature, the determination on her face makes her seem huge. “Here’s the mission, friends,” she says grimly. “Find Ziggy Arcingwind, an artificer that served in the Last War. He’s hiding here… maybe under a false name. He stole magical secrets from Morgrave University—secret information that we need to complete this mapmaking project. I need you to sneak into Grellreach and find him. Take him by force if you have to. But please, do so sneakily. We don’t want an international incident on our hands.”

Angelica hands you a piece of paper with a charcoal sketch of a goblin with thick glasses, a heavily lined face, and wispy white hair. “This is him, as best as I remember him. Good luck.”

From here, the journey from the Celeste Noir’s landing site to Grellreach is simple. The path is a wide open plain, and the adventurers don’t encounter any creatures while traveling northward to Grellreach.

Skill Challenge: Sneaking into Grellreach

When the characters reach the outskirts of Grellreach, read or paraphrase the following:

A quaint village made of thatched-roof cottages stands before you. Though the sun is setting, the village is still bustling with activity. Goblins and hobgoblins dressed in simple tunics and breeches, or dresses and bonnets, walk casually through the streets, carrying baskets filled with produce back to their homes. Small children run through the streets, playing with dogs larger than they are. With so many people out and about, sneaking in will prove difficult.

The characters need to accomplish three objectives in Grellreach:

• Enter the town undetected
• Find Ziggy Arcingwind
• Leave the town undetected

In order to do so, the characters can complete a skill challenge. (Alternatively, you can describe the entire scenario through roleplaying, though you will have to make up a layout for the town, identities for the NPCs, and other significant details.) In this skill challenge, each turn is 6 seconds long, just like in a round of combat.

Making Ability Checks. On their turn, the character can make one ability check using any ability score and skill proficiency they like, as long as they can explain how this check could reasonably help them either pass through town stealthily or find the location of Ziggy Arcingwind. For example, a character might make a Dexterity (Stealth) check, claiming that a goblin family has just passed the party’s current hiding spot, giving them a chance to slip to another location. Thus, the character’s Dexterity (Stealth) check could represent an attempt to sneak away from prying eyes. Alternatively, a character could make a Charisma (Deception) check to talk to a local, pretending to be a lost traveler in search of a goblin mage who they’ve heard lives in this town. On a success, the local takes pity on the traveler, and points them towards the hut of “Addim Stardust.”

As long as the player can convince you that a given ability check could help the party, that check should be allowed. As the Dungeon Master, you can either allow the players to fully describe the results of their successful or failed checks, or you could narrate them yourself. Giving narrative control to the players can let them feel more invested in the world as storytellers, but it could also pull them out of their immersion as characters. Find what works for your group!

Variant: Non-Repeating Ability Checks. If you want to make this skill challenge a little harder, but a little less repetitive, consider using one or both of these optional rules. First, once a character has made a particular ability check, they can’t use that skill proficiency for the rest of the skill challenge. For example, once the character has made a Dexterity (Stealth) check, they can’t use their proficiency in the Stealth skill to benefit another ability check until the end of the challenge. They can, however, make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check, instead.  

Second, once a character has made a particular ability check, the character immediately after them in initiative can’t use that skill proficiency on that turn. For example, after character A makes a Charisma (Deception) check on their turn, character B can’t use the Deception skill until their next turn.

The DC of this skill challenge is 12. If a character makes an ability check to progress the skill challenge and it doesn’t meet or exceed this number, their check is a failure. Otherwise, it is a success. On a failure, the character’s actions have no immediate consequences.

Success or Failure. The characters’ ultimate goal is to find Ziggy Arcingwind. If the characters win a number of successes equal to the number of characters in the party (not counting NPC allies), they find Arcingwind’s house. If the characters accrue three failures first, their cover is blown, and combat breaks out (see “Wise Beak’s Judgment,” below). However, if the characters fail this skill challenge before finding Arcingwind, it takes the people of Grellreach time to organize a force to detain them. This gives the characters time to keep searching for Ziggy—and allowing the story to move forward.

Variant: Sometimes, You Fail. If it feels a bit too easy to let the characters find Ziggy, even if they fail this skill challenge, let accruing three failures start combat right away. This option may break the straightforward plot of this encounter series, so be warned that you may have to improvise future adventures in order to get things back to normal.

Finding Ziggy

Once the characters succeed on the skill check (see “Success or Failure,” above), they find Ziggy Arcingwind, a goblin artificer that uses mage statistics, but only has 20 maximum hit points and only has 1st and 2nd-level spell slots. He is in a thatched-roof cottage with a weathervane shaped like an airship on top. He has his door open, unsuspecting of any danger in this far-flung village. If he spots the characters trespassing, he nervously asks them to leave, then demands to know who sent them and who they are if they refuse to leave.

If Angelica or the Celeste Noir is mentioned, he (truthfully) remarks that he’s never heard of them. Angelica’s story was a lie! He willingly explains to them the information in “Ziggy Arcingwind and the Arcane Sundial.” He concludes that Angelica must somehow be working with a House Cannith mastermind on something truly terrible. It would be best if they betrayed Angelica—and the best way to do that would be to pretend to capture him and spy on Angelica for the rest of the voyage. Learn more about her mission and sabotage her operation, whatever it is, from the inside.

Leaving Grellreach

Once the characters find Ziggy, count how many successes they have and how many failures they have. The skill challenge begins again, keeping their current total of successes and failures. In order to escape undetected, they must succeed on two more ability checks before accruing a total of three failures. If the characters failed the skill challenge before finding Ziggy, the people of Grellreach have gathered Wise Beak and its protectors, and confront the characters outside of Ziggy’s house. Advance immediately to the optional combat encounter below.

If the characters fail the skill challenge here, give them one final chance to escape before Wise Beak can be summoned. One character makes an ability check with disadvantage. On a success, they manage to escape the crowd of villagers and flee Grellreach. On a failure, they are hemmed in by goblinoids and the grell is called forth to dispense judgment.

Optional Combat Encounter: Wise Beak’s Judgment

If the characters fail the skill challenge and can’t escape, read or paraphrase the following:

A gong rings out, and two spear-wielding hobgoblins with gray beards corner you in the village square. Each has a limp and countless scars that mark them as veterans of the Last War. Between them floats a hideous creature. Its body is a pinkish humanoid brain the size of a large dog, with a bird-like beak protruding from it. A tangle of barbed tentacles dangle beneath its wrinkly body. It appraises you with its eyeless visage for a moment, then squawks a horrible command. The hobgoblins raise their spears and the crowd screams and scatters.

Wise Beak is a grell, and it’s flanked by two hobgoblins. Wise Beak passes its judgment the moment it sees the invaders: they are a threat to this village, and must be destroyed! They fight to the death.

However, if the characters are allies with Ziggy Arcingwind (rather than his kidnappers), Ziggy holds up his hands on his turn in combat and pleads with Wise Beak to let them go. He makes a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check. On a success, Wise Beak relents and allows the party to go free. On a failure, the grell and its guards continue attacking. Ziggy repeats this check on each of his turns.

Conclusion

The characters flee Grellreach and return to the Celeste Noir with Ziggy Arcingwind in tow. On the way, they’re joined by other members of the crew, who were lurking around the outskirts of town—in case any Darguunian soldiers came through town. Upon returning to the airship, Ziggy stares at Angelica with a look of mistrust and confusion, and he is whisked away to the brig.

Treasure and Progression

Angelica thanks the characters for undertaking this dangerous mission, and pays them 10 gold each. In the week of travel between this encounter and next week’s encounter, the characters receive their weekly stipend of 2 gp each. Successfully completing the skill challenge is worth a total of 1,500 XP, and failing the skill challenge is worth 500 XP. Depending on the size of their party, this XP may allow the characters to advance to 3rd level.

This adventure will continue next week! Where else do you want to visit along this journey? Let us know in the comments!

Eberron: Rising from the Last War releases on November 19th, 2019. Preorder it now on the Marketplace!

Did you like this encounter? Check out the other encounters in the Encounter of the Week series. You can also pick up the adventures I've written on the DMs Guild, such as The Temple of Shattered Minds, a suspenseful eldritch mystery with a mind flayer villain. My most recent adventures are included in the Gold Bestseller Encounters in Avernus, a collection of over 60 unique encounters created by the Guild Adepts, which can be used to enhance your campaign in Avernus or elsewhere in the Nine Hells. Also check out the Platinum Bestseller Tactical Maps: Adventure Atlas, a collection of 88 unique encounters created by the Guild Adepts, which can be paired with the beautiful poster battlemaps in Tactical Maps Reincarnated.

 James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.