We played our fifth session of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, October 9th, 2023. After our previous session, the group was now aware of where Cragmaw Castle was and were keen to find and explore the location where Gundren was meant to be held captive.

I have a very inconsistent approach to random encounters these days. Typically, when there’s story-based adventuring to be done which has some urgency, I ignore them. But for this session, I made the rolls for the journey there, and what do you know, an ogre threatened them one evening.

By this stage, an ogre wasn’t too much of a threat to them. I got out one of my generic Roll20 forest maps, placed them and the ogre on it, and saw what happened. My instincts for comedy encounters kicked in when Syzoth (yuan-ti artificer) burnt the ogre – it took a full round for it to realise it had been hurt! The ogre was hungry, but its stomach led it into a situation from which it did not return. (3 rounds, 10 minutes). The party were grateful for the long rest following, though – it had gotten a couple of hits in!

Exploring the Castle

Once the party reached the castle, they did a quick reconnoitre of the outside and – rolling well for perception – discovered a back way in. Not every dungeon has a hidden entrance, but it’s always worth asking the DM if you can check the surroundings. Don’t want to miss anything that may give you an advantage!

It didn’t take long for them to discover the kitchen and its very noisy goblins. But, not wanting to alert everyone just yet, they backed off and continued exploring.

And they blundered into some hobgoblin guards! This time, there was a fight!

The adventure text notes that one of the hobgoblins runs to alert the leader. There was one problem – the leader was in the direction that the party were coming from! However, the dungeon had a loop, so the hobgoblin ran in that direction, making it all the way behind the party, who by now had pressed forward, and banged on the leader’s door.

That drew the attention of the party, and they slew that brave and smart hobgoblin. And his friends. ()

But now the leader was alerted? What were the party to do? (3 rounds, 15 minutes)

Rescuing Gundren

They rushed into the room. There, the leader of the Cragmaw Goblins, a big bugbear, threatened the life of Gundren. But the party was not interested in negotiating and rushed him. From behind the door, an emissary of the Spider rushed Nymia (satyr cleric) and attacked.

This was a long battle, lasting 6 rounds/30 minutes. Vel’rari (tiefling divine sorcerer) was having incredible luck with guiding bolt, but not so the other characters. And facing a dire wolf, doppleganger and bugbear was hard work.

But eventually they were victorious – the bugbear being the last to fall. And so, they revived the unconscious Gundren, and looked around for the map to Wave Echo Cave and the treasure.

Except they weren’t there. I paged through the adventure. No treasure for the leader. I went to the original copy of The Lost Mine of Phandelver. Yes, there was a description of the treasure and the map. Somehow, Wizards had removed one of the key items from the adventure. (This did not impress me. I reinstated the treasure).

Gundren was rescued! Upon awakening, he was worried about his brothers. The party agreed to find them – as both were meant to be at the Lost Mine. Gundren was certainly not in any state to accompany them into the mine (especially as he has the stats of a commoner). Everyone managed to return to Phandalin without incident.

Thundertree Diversion

However, the slightly avaricious Syzoth and Nymia first wanted to find the valuable necklace in Thundertree that they’d learnt about when rescuing prisoners from the Redbrands. So, it was another trip into the wilderness before they went to the Lost Mine.

The wilderness did not approve, and the group managed to set up camp near a nest of stirges. Adventurer fun does not include waking up to find stirges feeding on you! (2 rounds, 5 minutes)

In Thundertree, they met the druid Reidoth (another gender-swapped character). She warned them about the threats in town – a dragon, various cultist, and blighted plant creatures. The players promised to only get the necklace then leave.

Of course, they were then ambushed by Giant Spiders. The fighter of the group took a lot of damage, but the party were successful in defeating the spider. They found the corpse of one of the spiders’ victims, wearing a suit of +1 leather. Guess who wears light armour in the party? That’s right, no-one! (They plan to sell it. As of this writing, I don’t think they have!) (3 rounds, 7 minutes).

They found the old herbalist shop and retrieved the necklace! Treasure!

With that, we ended the session. (about 3 hours of play). Next session, on to the Lost Mine! Unless they get more distracted in Thundertree?

One note: The leader of the Cragclaw Castle forces no longer has any treasure – that entry has been omitted. Unfortunately, it also describes where Gundren’s map is. If Gundren gets killed in the standoff, does that mean the party can’t find the Lost Mine?