This is part of a series about my DMing Princes of the Apocalypse, a D&D 5e adventure by and copyright Wizards of the Coast.

Table of Contents. The Party.

There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. If you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!

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GM Recap

Session 1 (Day 2-9): The party journeyed north on the Long Road in a caravan led by Lela Linber, into the Desserin Valley. After fending off an attack by bandits, the party arrived in the quaint village of Red Larch, picking up accomodations at The Swinging Sword, a place to worship at the Allfaiths Shrine, and discovering some tasty ale at the Helm at Highsun.

Player Recap

Morning of the first day:

Faith and the Feather Bed: Faith has never slept in a feather bed. It brings her odd dreams. She decides that she needs to make sure the master of the house is still in his coffin..

Breakfast and shopping: Moony heads to the market for some last minute shopping.

Nala stays at the house and sharpens her sword and then thinks to check in with Captain Gervain, the captain of the watch. After some polite conversation, Nala brings up the missing delegation. Upon hearing that she is investigating on Gemvocs’ behalf he gives her more information on the delegation. Also refers her to Helvur Tarnlar, the tailor in Red Larch, and to the Waterbaron of Yartar, Nestra Ruthiol.

Theren returns the book he borrowed and converses with Valkh about the upcoming trip. Valkh did not make the arrangements and couldn’t add much info. 

Faith joins William as he heads to the market to do some last minute shopping. While Faith is distracted at another booth, an elf from the Emerald Enclave turns out to know of WIlliam’s plans to find the delegation. The elf offers no direct help, but does mention a person in Red Larch who is friendly to the enclave.

Theren enters the magic shop, where an elf engages in high-minded conversation, ending with a request to help locate a dwarf scholar who may be delayed or lost; they have manuscripts for the local library. 

The Delegation: 

• Teresiel, a Silvermoon elf
• Rhundorth, a dwarf from Mirabar
• Deseyna Majarra, a Waterdhavian noble

Contacts in Red Larch:

• Harburk – Constable of Red Larch – Recommended by Gemvocs
• Helvur Tarnlar 
• Haeleeya Hanadroum

Other Contacts:

• Nestra Ruthiol – Waterbaron of Yartar
• Bruldenthar
• Darathra Shendrel, the Lord Protector of Triboar

The Caravan:

Departure: We are passengers with food and conveyance paid for already. Not fancy, but we have our choice of seats. Warm welcome 

Day 5 – Amphail: Well known for their horses and the heroic deeds of their founder. Boring town but decent food and friendly people. Some conversation about the vagaries of the weather. Faith visits the shrine and chats with a priest staying at the shrine. He has heard talk of strange weather and the moving of the earth to the North.

Day 6 – Attack: The caravan stops to collect water. Ambush by bandits while stopping for water. We manage to kill several and the rest flee. At Lena”s preferred camping site once again has water in the well.

Day 7 – Weather: Travel begins with cloudy skies followed by a short rainstorm.  After about 15 minutes the clouds clear and the lovely spring weather returns. The caravan will be camping south of Red Larch tonight. Lena gave a good introduction to the town and the surrounding lands.

Red Larch

The Swinging Sword: We are met at the door by Kaylessa Irkell, the matron. The group takes a large bunk-room for the night. The room is large and clean if not luxurious. The kitchen is not available, but the Helm is the best choice for food in town.

Faith and Moony stop by the Allfaiths Shrine. There are some people talking behind closed doors and later Lymmura comes out of another door and chats with Faith. They later join the group at the Helm.

Justrin the cellarer comes by and checks on the group. Tharan says the house ale is OK. He has a glass of the “Branch” which is much better. 

Game Notes

Factions

So the previous session I’d done a bit of this and that to try and get the party all on the same track toward the Dessarin Valley and the overall campaign. 

It occurred to me that I might do a bit more. So while everyone was out and about doing shopping with their newfound spending money, I had some of them encounter appropriate representatives of the various Factions, pursuing their interests in the Mirabar Delegation.

William was visited by an Emerald Enclave ranger, asking him that, as long as he was off looking for the Delegation members, Teresiel was particularly important to the EE folk because of the magic seeds she was transporting to Goldenfields.

Nala was approached by her former boss in the City Watch, asking her to keep an eye out for the Delegation as a whole, due to the urgency of the diplomatic mission they were on and the importance to Waterdeep (and the Lords’ Alliance)

Theren met a Harper — appropriate, given his fears over his own magic. She asked him to look into Bruldenthar and the books he was transporting down for the Great Library. 

Everyone passed on to the individuals the names of folk in Red Larch and elsewhere who might help, and further warnings about how some creepy magic stuff was going on off in the Dessarin Valley.

Again, the idea was to give some individual motivation to the players (not just the group motivation from Gemvocs), as well as pass on some contacts, and bump up the sense of worry over the area. It also let me establish the bigger picture of the Factions of Faerun (even if that never really goes far in this campaign) as well as explore some of the player backgrounds.

Other hooks

Faith, I decided, would Have A Dream. I tend to lean heavily (maybe too heavily) into using dreams to convey clues, moods, concerns, or opportunities coming up specific to a player. In her case, as she thinks of all the odd things she’d seen that day (her first out of the orphanage, and already on a quest!), and the white carriages in the streets …

… and how they curled around the odd house up the hill in the Street of Groves like wisps of smoke, and the very odd man who answered the door there, with his ugly face and polite manners, and the man who appeared from the smoke, despite (or maybe because) of how hard you prayed, and the strange story he told of a lost delegation up north, and a rising evil, and an eye opening, and you’re seeing an eye in the darkness … 

… except the darkness is all around you pull back from the eye of another old man, except his irises are triangular which is very odd,and his beard looks to be of smoke, like the smoke from that incense 

… and the old man is at a table, writing a scroll that looks like the message you got, with a golden quill like a gorgeous feather, but the words are all wrong, but that’s okay, it’s a dream, right …

… and he is looking at you and smiling, “One I have touched to one I have touched, the chain is forged another link, another volume, to end the rising destruction, and you go on a journey” …

… and you’re flying through the window across river and dell, field and forest, approaching a high series of hills lit by flames and lightning, gusts of windswept rain, and there is a hall, castle, on a high hill … flying over the walls, around a tower, through a great stained glass window … and a group of knights gathered in a circle, heads bowed, over … an empty casket.

“Something is missing. Find it. Tyr would have it restored. I would have its story concluded aright.”

The old man is smiling at her again. “Knowledge is power,” he says and winks and it’s morning and you’ve never slept in a featherbed before.

That’s Deneir, the god Faith was shifting away from, starting to point her toward the “find the lost body of the young Samular knight which was being transported back to Summit Hall with the Delegation” subplot. The character, a cleric, very much took that direction to heart.

I ran out of creative gas with Moony, so I asked him about his dreams. When in doubt, players can provide colorful detail about this kind of thing, and it gives the GM more hooks to use later to provide satisfying story.

The Road to Red Larch

So it could have been an easy thing to simply FF to “you arrive at Red Larch,” but I was still getting a feel for the tools and the system and the campaign, and I wanted the players (esp. the ones still feeling their way into 5e) to have a chance to do the same before the Real Story started.

Thus the caravan, which would serve a couple of purposes:

1. For me to get a feel for how the players would operate.
2. For the players to get a feel for the combat system.
3. For me to pass on some further background about the Dessarin Valley, etc.

So Valkh the half-orc majordomo bid them a hearty farewell. “I’ll be here on your return. If you return. The Master was a bit vague on that. But I’ll be here.” And they headed off to their reserved seats on a caravan going up the Long Road.

The Dessarin Valley, as laid out, is kind of an interesting place. There’s thousands of years of history (a lot of it defined in this campaign), but for the most part it’s small villages, a couple of large towns/small cities on the northern end, and the Long Road running up its left side, carrying the land trade between Waterdeep and the areas further to the north.  

I’ve seen write-ups of the campaign which basically make Red Larch the back end of nowhere, but a better analogy is a small town along the Interstate. There’s a lot of travel that goes through town, and that allows for rumors and news to be passed along.

I sort of made up from whole cloth (the game really doesn’t discuss Waterdeep, even though it’s implied as a big city nearby the action, and a place where the party can go if they need to buy stuff or get resurrections, etc.) the vast caravansary outside Waterdeep’s city walls, as well as the caravan, its captain (Lela Linber), her crew running the wagons, and a couple of other travelers trailing along for mutual safety. I wanted it to feel real, part of the campaign, with the opportunity to start engaging with the mystery around them. 

I actually probably wrote up too much, but I was getting my creative juices back flowing. So they never learned the story of Gimble Gerrick, the gnomish elixir salesman returning home to Conyberry where his husband and their three kids (fostered from his sister) lived. Or what was going on with the two mysterious dwarves in their own wagon, who always ate by themselves and never socialized. It was a start to creating that layered verisimilitude that makes the players feel like everything around them is real, not just the rails taking them to the next destination.

Lena was fun — a take-charge woman that, as long as it didn’t interfere with driving the caravan and keeping it safe, was happy to chat with paying passengers along the way. A friendly face, to make it clear as well that not everything was automatically going to be a threat. And she was part of Gemvocs’ web as well:

She knows Gemvocs from a letter she received five years ago to the day, suggesting she take the coastal route from Mirabar to Waterdeep, and mentioning what she was eating for breakfast. Being no fool, she did so, even though it added two tendays to the journey. She later found out that hill giants in the Crags, south of Mirabar, were attacking caravans on the Long Road, and she’d avoided getting embroiled in a great battle around Xantharl’s Keep. When she received word on arriving back in Waterdeep five days ago that she’d be taking five passengers with her to Red Larch, she assumed accordingly, and bought some extra provisions.

The trip was to take 7 days. Is that how long it actually is meant to take? I recall, as researching, that the travel time between Red Larch and Waterdeep was estimated quite differenetly in different places. Seven seemed a good compromise. 

The trip gave the party a chance to learn a bit about the geography — as the players watched the Dessarin Valley map, and the characters got stories from Lena about each of the places they passed through. After five days, they were passing through Amphail. The next day saw some low hills to the east that Lena said she didn’t like to camp near (laying the groundwork for Rundreth Manor, if they ever went down that side quest, which they didn’t).

And, of course, at some point in the woods they were attacked by bandits, while some of the wagon crews were off with a big barrel down by a known creek. That battle wasn’t meant for much, just to blood the party — let them see how combat worked, mechanically, as well as, for the team, tactically. 

(Besides, it was the second meeting and there hadn’t been any battle. That seemed near-blasphemous for a D&D game.)

I did try to tie things into the story — Lena had told them that banditry was on the rise, in part because of disruptions to the economy due to Bad Things Afoot in the Dessarin, in part because more evil / cranky / crazy folk seemed to be showing up over the last few years. That info would, like the weather, be repeated often. 

Experience

PotA gives the option of tracking Experience through normal XP rewards or through Milestone Levels. We’d used Milestones in the Tyranny of Dragons game, and they’re awesome — a tonne less work for the GM, and a removal of penalties for missing a game, not being part of the main action, etc., while also not incenting Search & Destroy missions through every dungeon level. 

The game provides clear guidelines of when leveling should occur (or what level people should be for different areas).

That said, Milestone Leveling is a little problematic in as sandboxy a campaign as PotA. Sometimes (as happened for us), missions / dungeons just aren’t properly completed, but as the party moves on to the next zone, they really need that bump. The result can be awarding things too quickly in some cases, too slowly (or with too long an interval) in others. And, without that XP counter, there’s no way for the players to anticipate that next ding.

It’s also a major criticism of PotA that there are no guard rails to keep players from wandering into a much harder zone than they can handle. I am not in favor of killing characters if it can be reasonably avoided, and TPKs are something I’ve managed to avoid during my entire GMing (and playing) career. 

I ended up instituting some guard rails later on. For the moment, though, it was bothering me.

So we had a battle with bandits.

Weather

So Lena the next day tells them about how wonky the weather has been in the Dessarin Valley. Which is something the book is clear enough over and over. I found a fun discussion about a Random Weather Table for the game that I adapted, and tried to very faithfully to roll first thing every morning.

GM rolls 1d8 + roundup(partylvl/2) – 4 (min 0, max 8). This was my way of having the weather escalate; when the party reached 7, the full table would be in play.

0 Pleasant / Normal

1 Pleasant / Looming:  Tomorrow, if you roll a 2-6, there is chance you will treat it as a 7 (Extreme Weather) instead (that chance is 25% per Pleasant day in a row). There is a sense of vague disquiet during the day.

2 Pleasant / Shaky: but several minor tremors throughout the day. The tremors are not severe enough to damage creatures or structures.​

Each round of combat, there is a 10% chance of a tremor. All creatures standing on the ground must make a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or fall prone. Creatures with more or fewer than 2 legs have Advantage on the saving throw.​

While traveling overland, PCs have a 10% chance of encountering a landslide in hills or badlands, or a 20% chance in the mountains. Spotting the landslide ahead of time requires a Passive Perception of 15 or success on a DC 15 Wisdom (Survival) check. If successful, this provides Advantage on the following save, and no damage on success. Each character must make a DC 10 Dexterity Save, taking 6d6 bludgeoning damage on a failure or half as much on a success.

3 Pouring rain: Overland travel speeds are halved, and everything is lightly obscured.​ The DC of all tracking attempts increases by 10.​ 

Characters near a river, lake, or swamp have a chance of encountering floodwaters equal to 20% per day of rain. Noticing an impending flood requires a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check. Noticing allows characters to make a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to flee to higher ground before the floodwaters hit (the DC is between 10 and 20, based on how close the group is to higher ground). Characters swept up by the flood must make a series of DC 15 Strength (Athletics) checks to keep afloat.

• • • After 1 failure, the character takes a level of Exhaustion.
    • After 3 failures, which need not be consecutive, the character begins to drown.
    • After 3 successes, which need not be consecutive, the character swims out of the floodwater, unless they find some other way to escape the flood sooner (such as being helped out by an ally).​

4 Sunny, hot, and dry (or humid, if it rained yesterday): Every 4 hours that a character travels overland, they must succeed at a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer a level of Exhaustion. Characters in heavy clothing or medium or heavy armor have Disadvantage on the saving throw. Characters resistant or immune to fire automatically succeed.​

5 Cold and windy: Wisdom (Perception) checks based on hearing are at disadvantage.​ Overland flight speed is halved.​

Characters without warm protective clothing or resistance or immunity to cold must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw every 4 hours they are exposed to the wind. Characters engaged in vigorous activity, such as overland travel, have Advantage on the saving throw On a failure, they take a level of Exhaustion.

Each round of combat, there is a 50% chance of strong winds, or 25% if the characters are in a protected environment such as a box canyon or dense forest. During a round of strong winds, ranged weapon attacks are at Disadvantage. Flying creatures must land at the end of their turn or fall.​ 

6 Overcast and Thunderous: Rumbles of thunder and strikes of lightning: Magnetic disturbances cause compasses to malfunction.​

If a creature takes lightning damage in combat, the DM randomly selects 1 creature within 15 feet (including the creature that took the initial damage). The selected creature takes a further 1d10 lightning damage, which doesn’t trigger this effect.​

7 Extreme weather: It will occur during the day at time 1d4 (1=Morning, 2=Mid-Day, 3=Afternoon, 4=Night). Roll 1d4 for result. 

1 Snowstorm or Hailstorm (summer): The storm lasts 2d4 hours. Predicting its onset requires a DC 10 Wisdom (Survival) check.​

Snowstorm: Use the rules for Extreme Cold (DMG p.110). — end of each hour DC10 CON check or 1 lvl of Exhaustion. Each hour produces 6″ of snowfall; ground with 1 foot or more of snow is difficult terrain. Snow melts at a rate of 1 foot per day, or 4 feet per day when it is hot out.​

Hailstorm: Characters out in the open are pelted by hailstones, and each round must succeed at a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or suffer 1d4 bludgeoning damage. When caught out in the open, characters can improvise a shelter with 1d4 rounds and a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Survival) check. Waiting out the storm in such a shelter still requires a DC 15 Constitution saving throw; on a failure, the character suffers a level of Exhaustion.​

2 Tornado: PCs have an 80% chance of encountering a tornado in plains or badlands, a 20% chance in the mountains or on a lake or river, and a 50% chance elsewhere. Predicting the tornado’s arrival requires success on a DC 15 Wisdom (Survival) check and gives the characters 10 minutes to find shelter.

Spotting it requires a Passive Perception of 15 or success on a DC 10 Wisdom (Perception) check and gives the PCs one minute to find shelter. Shelter can be located with a DC 10 Wisdom (Perception or Survival) check, with disadvantage if you only have 1 minute to get there; or the PCs may already be near obvious shelter, such as a stone building. PCs under shelter when the tornado strikes must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer a level of Exhaustion. 

PCs out in the open take a level of Exhaustion and are pelted by debris for 2d6 bludgeoning damage. They must then make a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw to evade the tornado. On a failure, they must make a DC 15 Strength saving throw to avoid being swept away. On a failure, the character takes 3d6 bludgeoning damage and is flung 3d6x10 feet up into the air (see Falling damage). On a success, the character takes half damage and is not flung.

3 Earthquake: The earthquake is severe enough to destroy buildings and cause avalanches. 

Characters outdoors on relatively level terrain are safe from these effects. Otherwise, characters must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw. On a failure, characters in stone buildings or mountainous terrain take 10d6 bludgeoning damage, and characters in wooden buildings or hilly terrain take 6d6 bludgeoning damage. On a success, characters take half damage.​

There is a 20% chance of a fissure opening beneath the characters (whether or not they were caught in an avalanche or building collapse). Anyone standing in the area of the fissure must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or fall 2d6x10 feet into it.​

4 Wildfire: PCs have an 80% chance of encountering a wildfire in grassland or forest, a 20% chance in swampland or near a river or lake, and a 50% chance elsewhere. Use the rules for Extreme Heat (DMG p.110).​ Exposure without access to drinking water means rolling a CON save each hour or take 1 Level of Exhaustion — DC 5 the 1st hour, +1/hour after that. Medium or Heavy Armor, or in heavy clothing, means Disadvantage. Fire Resistance or Immunity, or adaptation to hot climes, means automatic save.

The wildfire moves 50 feet per round and is 2d4x100 feet wide. Spotting it more requires a Passive Perception of 15 or succeeding on a DC 10 Wisdom (Perception) check. Characters who spotted it ahead of time have 3d4 rounds to escape; otherwise the wildfire appears only 1d4x50 feet away. A character in the area of the wildfire must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw: (1) Taking 2d10 fire damage and a level of Exhaustion on a failure (2) Taking half damage and no exhaustion on a success. (3) Taking half damage and a level of Exhaustion if they have Fire Resistance. (4) Taking no damage but a level of Exhaustion if they have Fire Immunity.

8 Same as yesterday (for Extreme weather, re-roll 1d4)

Overall it worked pretty well, despite looking kind of complex. It always gave NPCs something (the weather) to talk about, and the increasingly radical results escalated the tension about what the Elemental cults were up to. The main goal was to emphasize that whole ‘Tain’t Natural aspect of the Dessarin Hills.

Red Larch

As the session was coming to a close, the wagons reached the caravansary (here basically a raider-burnt barn and a muddy parking lot) south of Red Larch. They got some final travelogue from Lena about where the roads go from there (laying the groundwork for later adventures, including warnings about the Sumber Hills, and a tourist recommendation to visit Lance Rock), and about the town itself.

Red Larch is an amazing resource in this game. Half the buildings and seemingly half the residents are fleshed out to some degree. You could base a homebrew campaign out of Red Larch, easy. 

Unfortunately, neither the campaign nor Roll20 make it all that easy.

The Roll20 Conversion of PotA

In the book, the material on Red Larch is scattered, in keeping with the whole What Level Are You Starting At? Question. 

• There’s a huge chunk in Chapter 2 (on pp. 18-29), which talks about the place in general, important people, groups, summaries of the 1st Level Adventures, summaries of the 3rd Level Adventures. Then there’s  a lengthy section about each of the marked locations (shops, inns, etc.) in town, with more stuff about people in it (and sub-notes for the 1st Level vs 3rd Level shenanigans).
• There’s another short section in Chapter 6 (p. 148-149), about key places and people. The rest of Chapter 6 details the 1st Level adventures around and in Red Larch (plus also some side quests once at Level 3).
• But there’s also a small bit in Chapter 3 (p. 41) that summarizes the Level 3 clues in Red Larch, before going on to all the stuff you do once you leave town.

In other words, the information management here is an unholy mess, hardcopy or electronic, hampered by WotC’s inexplicable tendency to completely ignore the radical idea of having an index to the book, but also by key bits of information for a given spot or person being given in multiple places (usually, though not always, consistently).

In adopting the campaign to Roll20, in some ways, WotC has made it worse, because it’s lumped things together into journal entries that are far too long. That “lengthy section” in Chapter 2 about each of the marked locations in town? All one journal entry, which makes it nearly impossible to cross-reference everything needful.

I ended up myself breaking out every building and every person in Red Larch into their own journal entry, so that if I needed to walk into the Swinging Sword, I could do that and not worry about the notes in four other journal entries that I would have to manually scroll to. It was a lot of work — but by the time I was done, I knew the town, and people, of Red Larch a lot better. 

I put all the Red Larch locations, and Red Larch people, into their own subfolders. This also gave me the opportunity to pull up some artwork for the locations and, even more important, create tokens for everyone. It is, frankly, shoddy work for a named person in the book not to even have a token on the screen, or have it be a generic “commoner” token, or even just a token with a name written on it. I wouldn’t have it.

(Which also gave me an opportunity to diversify the looks and genders of the folk being encountered. Just saying.)

I would ultimately end up breaking out a lot of the other large-chunk journal entries into smaller pieces for easier look-up and management. I never did it with a dungeon, but ultimately needing to make the info spread out into Chapters 2, 3, and 6 coherent and usable for me required a lot of extra work (which all paid off). 

I also ended up creating a lot of new tokens, a lot of broken-out journal entries for named characters or places that didn’t come in the package.

One other thing I ended up doing: the Roll20 implementation had a bunch of material for monsters or major characters that consisted of two journal entries:

1. A character sheet that had all the info for that race and some notes from the game (in the bio page), the character sheet, and the attached token.
2. A handout that had a picture of the thing, to show to the players.

That makes little sense for Roll20. So I usually just used the main character sheet entry, moved all the secure info into the “GM Only” section, pasted the handout picture into the bio image (if not already there), and could then just share the character sheet journal with the players when I pulled it up for myself — I only needed to pull up one document, and they could only see the bits I wanted them to.

(I also tried to update locations and character sheets / journal entries with information as the party learned things. My goal — which mostly worked — was to avoid, “Hey, I don’t remember what Bob told us back at Feathergale Keep before we killed him. GM, what was that again?”  They can look up Bob themselves, and the info is there. (Hell, I can look up Bob if I forget.)

In short, I did a lot of extra labor in reassembling the Roll20 implementation of this game. But it was worth it, and I learned a lot about the campaign it would have been easy to miss.

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