Mysteries_of_the_Moonsea.pdf

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Mysteries of the Moonsea
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T ABLE OF C ONTENTS
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T he Moonsea is rich, indeed . . . gold and jewels,
Roughly half of the quests are set in or very close to one of the
four main cities, and the other half are located farther away.
The quests have a lot of overlap in terms of character level,
which allows you to pick and choose appropriate adventures for
your PCs based on their abilities and interests and what sort of
campaign you want to run. For example, if you’re planning a
city campaign you can just use the in-city quests, while a group
of heroes consisting of barbarians, druids, and rangers might
enjoy all of the outlying quests and only rarely enter the cities.
The overlapping quests and the many links allow you to build a
nonlinear adventure that responds to the actions the PCs take. It’s
possible to run an entire campaign using only half of the included
quests, and run a later (or simultaneous) campaign using the other
half, with each sets of PCs hearing about the other’s activities
and sometimes helping or hindering each other. You can also plan
to use all forty adventures in one campaign, particularly if the
PCs deal with plot elements quickly or prefer combat adventures
rather than themes involving diplomacy, intrigue, and mystery.
Because the quests are self-contained, you can also use them for
stand-alone “side treks” in campaigns set elsewhere in Faerûn—for
example, a Dalelands campaign might divert into the southern
Moonsea area and deal with one of the quests there, an Anauroch
campaign might make use of one of the Zhentarim quests in
the western Moonsea, and so on. Some city quests might fi t well
in another city entirely. Finally, with so many portals all over
Faerûn, it’s quite possible for the PCs to stumble across a Moonsea
quest through a portal, either returning to their original location
when they’re done or sticking around to follow up on the links
to other Moonsea quests.
—Khelben “Blackstaff” Arunsun
“Dare—and beware!”
—Moonsea battle cry
How to Use This Book
Mysteries of the Moonsea takes a different approach from other
regional F ORGOTTEN R EALMS books; it’s a box of ready-to-use
campaign pieces rather than an instruction manual on how to
make those pieces yourself. Instead of you having to read an
entire regional book and then come up with your own campaign
based on that region, this book gives you the basic background
information you need to run a campaign in the area and provides
you with a large number of completed adventures from which
to pick and choose.
Rather than a comprehensive description of every person,
place, and thing in the Moonsea region, Mysteries of the Moonsea
focuses on four main cities and provides scores of miniadventures
(sometimes called “quests” hereafter) for a Moonsea-based cam-
paign. Each quest is tied to a particular part of the Moonsea,
and some have links to one or more other quests in that area or
another area, allowing you to string them together into a long
campaign starting at 1st level and ending around 18th level.
Book Organization
After the remaining short explanatory text at the beginning
of this introduction section, the book gives an overview of the
territory around the Moonsea, expanding on the information
presented in the F ORGOTTEN R EALMS Campaign Setting. The
remaining four chapters cover one of the four rough quadrants of
the Moonsea, starting with low-level adventures and culminating
in high-level adventures: North (focusing on Melvaunt), south
(focusing on Hillsfar), east (focusing on Mulmaster), and west
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valuable pelts, and old ruins ripe for plundering.
But it is a hard place to live—cold, brutal, and
dangerous, and it makes the men who live there into something
much the same, tempering the soft iron of their spirits into cold,
sharp steel. The people of the Moonsea are hard and unforgiving
because if they weren’t they’d be dead at the hands of monsters,
tyrants, or the cruel turns of nature herself.”
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I NTRODUCTION
(focusing on Zhentil Keep). The expanded Moonsea map on page
7 shows the general borders for each of these quadrants.
Each chapter starts with a short geographical overview of
the quadrant, then follows with several pages of more detailed
information on its primary city-state, giving you key locations,
city demographics, infl uential groups, and full game statistics
for several level-appropriate villains. Following the villains is a
list of rumors the PCs can overhear using skill checks (some of
which are false or red herrings, some of which are plot hooks to
various quests or other quadrants). Next are location-based quests
set within or immediately nearby the city, followed by another
set of quests that take place in outlying areas of the quadrant.
(such as protecting a village from raiders), and the like, whereas
many evil parties have no interest in such things, unless there
is a profi t to be made. If your campaign’s PCs tend to be on the
evil side, you’ll need to modify the quests to suit their interests.
In some cases the “villains” of each major city might end up as
potential allies, or you could change the “villains” to be more
neutral or good so as to remain obstacles for the PCs.
Moonsea Primer
Before continuing in this section, familiarize yourself with the
description of the Moonsea region provided on pages 159–165
of the F ORGOTTEN R EALMS Campaign Setting .
DM Navigation Tips
The easiest way to navigate the book is to determine what adven-
ture levels you’re looking for and jump to that chapter. The north
quadrant (Chapter 1) is for PCs of 1st–7th level, the south (Chapter
2) is for 6th–12th level, the east (Chapter 3) is for 9th–14th level,
and the west (Chapter 4) is for 12th–18th level. If you plan to
run a long campaign using this book, you’ll start at the beginning
and work your way back as the campaign progresses. The events
in and around these adventures take place in the last half of the
Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR).
Facts to Keep In Mind
Weather: Moonsea is located in the northern part of Faerûn.
While not as cold as the Silver Marches, it is much cooler than the
Dalelands or Waterdeep, and people dress warmly all year round (a
fur cape or cloak is a common article of clothing in the Moonsea).
Anyone who walks around in light clothing during cold weather
is obviously either a fool or someone who is using magic to stay
warm and doesn’t care if people know it (and thus a fool). Minor
magic items that protect against the cold, such as rings or potions
that give resistance 3 against nonlethal damage caused by cold, are
in common use among the wealthier people of the Moonsea, who
enjoy not having to wear bulky clothing all the time (and these
people are the ones who can afford bodyguards to protect them
from robbers who would take such luxuries from them). The lake
itself is fed by glacial meltwater and even in summer it can be cold
enough to kill a swimmer. Because of this, most people who make
their living on the water can’t swim, since they’ve never had the
opportunity to practice; instead, they have learned more practical
skills such as fi re building and how to not fall out of a boat.
In the winter months much of the sea freezes over, making
travel across the ice possible but (due to the great distances
involved) not very common. The larger cities sometimes use
icebreaking ships, summoned monsters, or fi re magic to keep their
dock areas somewhat clear of ice, though this is impractical on
a large scale. Ice fi shing is common, with fi shermen walking to
their favorite spots rather than boating. The fi rst snow usually
falls in early to middle Uktar, and the land is consistently snowy
from Nightal to Alturiak, with occasional snowfalls happening
through Tarsakh.
The frequent cold and limited technology means that Moonsea
inns usually have a small number of large rooms rather than a
large number of small rooms; this reduces the number of indi-
vidual fi replaces needed and the overall risk of fi re. Some inns
have just one large common room heated by a large hearth. This
means these places have less privacy than a typical adventurer’s
inn but attacks are less likely because there are so many witnesses.
The places with smaller rooms tend to use closed metal braziers
full of hot coals to offset the chill.
Refer to Cold Dangers, DMG 302, for more information on deal-
ing with cold environments. Summers usually are not cold enough
to be considered a cold hazard (with highs about 60°F, 16°C). Spring
and autumn are routinely in the cold weather category (40°F, 4°C
Where to Start
If you’re planning on running a campaign in the Moonsea, read
the Moonsea Primer later in this introduction. Once you have a
grip on the background material, fi gure out where you want to
start the campaign or at what level you want the PCs to start
(one greatly infl uences the other, at least if you don’t want to
modify the NPCs and monsters to suit a different party level),
then pick the chapter appropriate to your answer and read up on
that quadrant and its quests.
If you’re going to pick and choose material from this book
for an ongoing campaign outside the Moonsea, you can skip the
Moonsea Primer and jump right to the chapter that has quests
for the target levels you need (see DM Navigation Tips in this
introduction).
Work You Have To Do
This book is not a super-adventure with one common plot linking
it all together. It’s not a detailed adventure path with comprehen-
sive answers for many possible actions. It’s up to you as the DM to
help create solid links for the quests in this book so the PCs can
go from one to another in the order you want. You’ll also need
to fi ll in some details depending on which aspects of the cities
and quests they want to explore. You’ll also need to watch what
the players are doing and read up on the future quests to push
the connections they might be interested in and deemphasize the
ones that you don’t want to pursue or are inappropriate for the
party. This book provides a lot of component pieces that you can
easily assemble, but you have to do the assembling—here are the
bricks, you provide the mortar and the elbow grease.
Mysteries of the Moonsea assumes the PCs are good or at least
neutral. Some quests expect that PCs will want to get involved
to fi ght an injustice (such as freeing slaves), defend innocents
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