RHoD Settlement - Drellin's Ferry

 RHoD Masterpost

Captain Soranna

Howdy folks! Today, I'll be going through my writeup of Drellin's Ferry, the party's launching point for Part 1. You can find a Settlement Stat Block, Stat Blocks for various NPCs, and various shopping info here. And here is just the stat block! I'll talk about them briefly below, as well as some ideas for sidequests that I never ended up fleshing out fully because I never ran them.

The Basics

Drellin's Ferry is only Level 3! It's a small town, without a lot going on. The party will be pretty limited in terms of available work, and the various merchants only have very limited stocks available (though might be able to work on commissions if the party is in town long enough). Feel free to change up their inventories, of course, but I'd try to keep that feeling of a small town without much available.

In terms of stat blocks, most of the townsfolk are fairly easy targets for the Red Hand. As per the module, there are only 30 total town guards, and only 3 are above level 3. Probably another dozen townsfolk could handle a single Red Hand soldier on their own. That being said, there are a fair number of more experience fighters in town. Soranna herself is no slouch, nor is the Town Speaker, and several of the other important NPCs can handle themselves as well. As it's such a small town, however, all such warriors have other responsibilities that prevent them from delving into the Witchwood.

Making A Town A Home

One problem that I ran into with my party is that the players weren't all that invested in the town itself. The scheduling issues didn't help, but mostly I think they just didn't spend enough time there! I think there's absolutely a world where you start from level 1 in Drellin's Ferry, and just run the whole first bit of the campaign from that central location, but even if you don't do that I highly recommend spending a level or so in town, getting to know folks, going on side quests, and becoming entrenched in the town.

There are no official sidequests baked into the module, but including them can be a great way to get the party invested in the town. Here are a few ideas based on tidbits from the book - I highly recommend mining p16-19 for more info!

• Jarett Nurth is a secret murderer! (more below)
• Bandit troubles! Probably the Black Knives of Brindol. Is Jarett (Lady Dagger) involved?
• Fetch quests to get specific items crafted
• Avarthel is incensed at the over-logging of certain portions of the forest, and wants blood
• Kellin Shadowbanks steals something important!
• Iormel and Jendar are feuding, and it escalates
• Jorr needs help to take down something particularly ferocious that killed two of his dogs
• An old foe of Delora Zann is in town, and surely up to no good

If you are running any sidequests, I recommend at least Lady Dagger (below), but it will work better if the party encounters the bandits beforehand and has time to develop relationships with some NPCs in town (so that you can have Jarett target them for maximum drama!). The ultimate evacuation (or hopeless last stand!) will also hit a lot harder if the party has really built up those relationships.

Lady Dagger

At first every year or so, but now closer to every month, townsfolk have disappeared into thin air, only for their ritually scarred corpses to be found days later. Little do they suspect that the killer is one of their own! Sweet as sugar southern belle Jarett Nurth is actually Lady Dagger, a follower of Dahak, god of destruction. Can the party uncover her dastardldy plot in time to save someone they love?

Note: I never actually ran this, unfortunately! This post goes into why a little bit, but basically that means this side quest isn't ready to go, and is still very much in the outline stage. It definitely seems like a great time though, so if the opportunity arises (i.e. they spend a lot of time in the various towns as the Hand approaches), I might finish it up.

Setup

Jarett Nurth runs 11. Jarett’s Sundries. She dresses very simply for the most part, but always has on her sturdy white gloves and white hat. She is extremely friendly, curious (especially about religion and finance), and forthcoming with town gossip (especially where it might cause trouble for other folks in town). She always has great deals on alchemical crafting materials and general goods.

She is also a cold-hearted murderer, sacrificing the souls of those who have slighted her to the dark god Dahak.

If the party ask around town, they will hear rumors of people going missing every so often — for a while it was every year or so, but as the Red Hand raids have increased, so have the disappearances (to about once a month). By the time the Red Hand is moving out, if not dealt with by then, the murders increase to once per day. Everyone thinks they are connected, and that the goblins are kidnapping people, but every so often a body shows up with strange patterns of scarring that seem… unnatural.

The best time to run this side-plot is as things start to heat up with the Red Hand, but feel free to pepper the setup aspects throughout if the players are spending a lot of time in Drellin’s Ferry before things get bad. I made Jarett a lv. 8 assassin, but if you run this before your party is level 5 then consider either the weak adjustment or a different stat block altogether.

The Pattern

Jarett is a cultist of Dahak, The Endless Destruction, who commands his followers to never forgive a slight or spare a foe they have chosen to kill. Jarett is patient, however, and, rather than ruin the perfect life she has built for herself, writes down those slights in her book of grudges (she got the idea from a dwarf from Hammerfist Holds) and patiently plans out their demise. Shen then slips them Addlebrain, waits for them to be alone (often planning out routes based on their schedule) and brings them to the woods to ritually “cleanse” them and sacrifice their souls to her dark master.

Each time a body is found, any PCs that examine it can make the following checks to uncover aspects of this pattern:

• Religion 15 it is ritual scarring (crit: related to the dragon god Dahak).
• Crafting/Medicine 20 The victim was subjected to some sort of alchemical substance that dulled the senses (crit: it’s Addlebrain)
• Medicine/Warfare Lore 15 a whip made the cuts

From there, the party might go in basically any direction! The first body the party is present for will be that of one of the local bandits, Jeb, who ran away from town to join them less than a year ago, so they very well might head to talk to them. Or they might ask around town, scope out the crime scene, etc. Try to reward creativity, and be permissive with clue finding as much as possible.

The Investigation

This mystery is based on the Alexandrian's Three Clues Rule. As such, there are three ways to identify her as the killer:

1. Through social investigation, uncover Jarett's grudges against each of the victims.
2. Identify the alchemical aspects of the killings, and trace this back to Jarett.
3. Uncover the ritual killings for what they are, and identify the signs that Jarett is Dahak's devotee.

Rather than listing the location of each possible clue leading to these, below is a Revelation List that should help you adapt to whatever direction the party chooses to go in. Each revelation basically has two parts, so I've broken them into two revelations each, with various clues pointing to that revelation below. Feel free to come up with your own, though, and try to be permissive in allowing PC plans to find out more to work. And, of course, if the party ever search her house, then (unless she has time to hide/destroy the evidence) they should find everything they need to pin the crimes on her.

Revelation 1a: Jarett held grudges against each of the victims for perceived slights.

• If the party go to see the bandits, and get them to talk, they will tell the party that the dead bandit pissed off Lady Dagger - this is what happens.
• In the home of one of the victims, the party might find (among other documents) a half-finished letter of apology to Jarett.
• Brother Derny (or other town pillars) know the nature of at least some of the slights, but likely won't connect the two on his own.
• The party might witness a conversation between Jarett and a soon-to-be victim and notice tension (unless the evacuation of Drellin's Ferry has begun, it will likely ber fairly subtle).

Revelation 1b: Jarett is Lady Dagger

• The party can stake out a meeting with the bandits (she meets with them relatively frequently to supply sleep darts, healing items, and recreational hallucinogens)
• Two members of the bandit crew (the leader and the one who usually picks up the drugs) know her identity
• The party can examine various journals (inc. those two and Jarett's)

Revelation 2a: The victims were drugged with an alchemical hallucinogen

• The party can attempt a DC 20 Crafting/Medicine check when examining any recent bodies to determine that they had been drugged prior to death. If they critically succeed, or extract some of it to analyze with a further DC 25 Crafting check, they learn it was Addlebrain specifically.
• If the party examine the victim's last known location, they might find a hastily discarded alchemical vial. They can determine it held Addlebrain with a DC 25 crafting check.
• In some of the victims, the drug took a while to take hold and was slipped into food/drink - the party might see them acting super high, or hear reports of such. Captain Soranna might tell them that this had happened to some of the previous victims.

Revelation 2b: Jarett is the only one in town capable of such a complex alchemical creation

• She is the only one in town who harvests and sells alchemical reagents - even Sertierren and Avarthel buy most of their ingredients from her, other than easy to find ones.
• The bandits get their supply of sleeping darts, healing goods, and drugs from Lady Dagger (see 1a).
• The party might encounter her collecting hallucinogenic lichen (the key ingredient in Addlebrain, as well as great recreationally) from the riverside at night

Revelation 3a: The murders were ritual sacrifices to the dark god Dahak

• Anyone trained in religion can make a DC 15 check on any of the bodies to identify the pattern as ritual scarring, recognizing it as part of a ritual to Dahak on a critical success.
• Several of the bandits have lesser versions of the scars (as they're essentially part of a "cleansing" ritual), and will identify them if friendly
• Brother Derny will recognize the cuts if prompted

Revelation 3b: Jarett is a devotee of Dahak

• Symbols of Dahak: she keeps an ornate Whip (his favored weapon) behind the bar in case of danger, and wears his holy symbol (a flaming comet) on a necklace (though tends to keep it hidden)
• The scarred bandits identify Lady Dagger as the one who performed the ritual of cleaning on them (see 1a)
• If the party study up on the rituals of Dahak and make a DC 25 religion check, they can identify the specific forest grove that the killer must be taking them, and catch Jarett in the act! If he's been involved for a bit, Brother Derny might come to the party with this information when someone goes missing.

Wrapping Up

That's all for this week! Hopefully, you should now have a solid foundation to run Chapter 1, and really bring Drellin's Ferry to life. Next time, I'll be going through the first half of Part 2: The Elsir War. See y'all then!

Next - Part 2A: The Elsir War