Lost Mine of Icespire Peak

About the adventure

This adventure is designed for four to five characters of 1st level. During the course of the adventure, the characters will advance to 5th level. The adventure is set a short distance from the city of Neverwinter in the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms setting. The Sword Coast is part of the North — a vast realm of free settlements surrounded by wilderness and adventure. You don’t need to be a Forgotten Realms expert to run the adventure. One Shot This game will be run as a series of “one shots”, meaning that players will be able to drop in or out without too much trouble, and complete small missions or story beats as appropriate. If the group is awesome and I like the dynamic, we will continue and schedule additional games for the future. New Players Welcome This module is designed for new players, and as such, I would prefer that if you find another game if you have run this module before, or if you have more than 100 hours of play time. Lost Mine of Phandelver More than five hundred years ago, clans of dwarves and gnomes made an agreement known as the Phandelver’s Pact, by which they would share a rich mine in a wondrous cavern known as Wave Echo Cave. In addition to its mineral wealth, the mine contained great magical power. Human spellcasters allied themselves with the dwarves and gnomes to channel and bind that energy into a great forge (called the Forge of Spells), where magic items could be crafted. Times were good, and the nearby human town of Phandalin (pronounced fan-duh-lin) prospered as well. But then disaster struck when orcs swept through the North and laid waste to all in their path. A powerful force of orcs reinforced by evil mercenary wizards attacked Wave Echo Cave to seize its riches and magic treasures. Human wizards fought alongside their dwarf and gnome allies to defend the Forge of Spells, and the ensuing spell battle destroyed much of the cavern. Few survived the cave-ins and tremors, and the location of Wave Echo Cave was lost.

Additional Details

How to prepare

Players will need to have a discord account and a DnD Beyond account. The game will be run virtually over discord and using DnD Beyond for combat tracking and rolling. I would appreciate having a basic knowledge of what a skill check is and how to roll it, but that's not strictly necessary. As long as you are basically tech literate and can listen and learn, we will try to to keep the game moving as much as possible without getting bogged down in the nitty gritty of the rules.

What I provide

I will bring my love of the game, and hopefully enough knowledge to see us through to having wonderful adventures.

Gameplay details

# RULES ## racism / sexism / classism / fascism / sexual harassment - Racism, classism, sexism, or any other -ism you can think of is strictly forbidden. This is your one and only warning. - Actual or in-game sexual harassment is strictly forbidden. This is your one and only warning. - If anything you say makes me feel uncomfortable, you are way over the line for polite society and you will immediately be expelled from the group. ## in-game racism / sexism - We've all seen Lord of the Rings, how Gimli and Legolas start off trading barbs and wind up being best friends. - If your character is racist as a character trait, the one and only character arc you are going to have is "I learned that racism is wrong and that women and men should be treated fairly and then I studied law and became the champion of the National Association for the Advancement of Little / Pointy-eared People (NAALP). The End." - It comes too close to the line, and I have found it makes a poor story arc. - The one and only exception to this is the Ranger's "Favored Foe" trait. ## Do not be disruptive - I will try to keep the game moving as best I can, but if you are constantly not paying attention, talking over other people, interrupting anyone, or generally being inconsiderate, you will be asked to leave. - feel free to use your phone/computer while not taking your turn, but if we are having to constantly reorient you as to what is happening, that is disruptive. ## Do not ruin other people's fun - If the party encounters an NPC and one party member says "I attempt to communicate that we are friendly using gestures" and another player says "while he's distracted, I sneak attack him from behind and stab him in the butt", unless everyone is on the same page with that plan, you are ruining other people's fun. and you are going to feel the swift retribution of the long arm of the law, and at the very least, have to roll a new character, but more likely have to find a different group - it's a game... if you aren't enjoying it, what is the point? If you are ruining other people's fun, they will stop playing with you. - If you are explaining why everyone else's fun is wrong, then this isn't the group for you. ## Do not act like a murder hobo / psychopath - Acting psychotic is frowned upon, unless it explicitly makes sense in the context of the scenario, which will be decided on a case-by-case basis. if the party encounters an NPC who says "Please brave adventurers! Our village is constantly threatened by bandits!" and anyone's response is "I draw my sword and slash his throat", that is not ok. See above "being disruptive" and "ruining [my] fun" - *Torture is strictly forbidden. Feel free to intimidate any NPC you want in any way you wish, but if you stray into what I would consider "torture", you will be asked to leave the group. We are not here to hash out serial killer fantasies. * ## We are all people - act accordingly. - Try to be considerate - if you ever say "...but my character would do it." after doing something mean, you're going to have a bad time. #### Setting - The game is set in the Forgotten Realms in a small town of Phandalin and surrounding area. - This adventure is a classic example of a dungeon crawl, and as such, there is going to be mostly caves and halls. - There is a a lot of variety, but the main line is going to be "go into a dark place and fight things." #### Cursing - I tend to swear more than I should. I try to keep it professional, but sometimes I get swept up and blue words come pouring out of my mouth. - If you are uncomfortable with language, please let me and everyone else know so that we can all try to reel it in and not curse so dang much. #### Combat Ratio - A female player I knew loved D&D and always loved the idea of playing a hopeless romantic/emo rockstar Bard with a specialization in performance, sleight of hand, and persuasion... but was often frustrated as those skills rarely (if ever) proved useful in a game where the SOP was "shoot first... questions later." - I, personally, love the idea of out-thinking or coming up with a more creative solution to problems than "I hit it as hard as I can" and I have found this adventure to be a good mix of combat and creative problem solving. #### Humor - Like most humans, I tend to get nervous and self conscious when I'm talking in front of a group of people, and my coping mechanism has always been humor. - I enjoy a lot of humor at the game, and a lot of the enjoyment I derive from the game is the humor the game situations lend themselves to. - I try not to be inappropriate or do jokes that people would find offensive, but in the right settings, I love dark humor. - That said, I do not tolerate roasting/mean spirited humor, and making fun of another person is not ok. #### Immersion - I love being drawn into a story and the sense of breathlessness I get imagining characters performing heroic feats or braving danger or suffering grief at loss. - However, touching on the point about humor above, I also occasionally appreciate absurd references that tend to shatter immersion and make me laugh. #### Role Playing - I get pretty self conscious when I am trying to role play, unless I am doing it for comedic effect. - As a DM, I don't have trouble with role-playing NPCs or the like because I can step into the scene and don't really have to worry about the consequences, but when its a character I care about, I tend to try to play them straight. - Do whatever you are comfortable with, and have fun with it. It can be intimidating and make you feel self conscious, but I would say that the only way to get better and to lessen those feelings is by practicing. I don't want anyone to feel self conscious or uncomfortable, but I don't expect everyone to adopt a voice or accent or way of talking. ## The Pirate's favorite letter - I love when people play in character but try not to be irritating. - Please don't try to incorporate things like mumbling, antisocial bleeding edge-lord tendencies, unintelligible accents, intractable shyness, or screaming into your character. - If you treat every day as "talk like a pirate day", that's going to get tedious, - if you are unable to be understood in a game that is literally based on verbal communication, that is disruptive. - If you are doing toxic things like only honking as a form of communication using a bike horn, I will ask you to find another group to annoy. - And the answer is "He enjoys the R (Arrr) but he prefers the C (sea)" #### House Rules - Fun > Story > Rules - Creativity and Laughter will be preferred to what is going on for the story which will beat out mechanics. - I like to play "rules as intended" but if something is funny or fun to do, it will probably fly #### “Unfair” rules - Sometimes people don't understand a rule or get frustrated that a rule is consistently applied against them but never applied in their favor. If there's anything about the game that you don't like, then we can talk about how to compromise. - Ex: Attack of Opportunity - “if you are within 5ft of an attacker, and you attempt to move out of range, that will provoke an "attack of opportunity" from that attacker UNLESS you take the "disengage action" on your turn.” - The rule is designed to mitigate the turn-by-turn nature of the game and prevent "kiting" (moving away to stay out of melee range and attack using a ranged weapon) - But the way it ends up in practice is that ranged players keep getting attacked for doing that, so it seems like the rule is only ever a disadvantage to them. - If there are any rules like that or things that you don't like or think are unfair, bring them up and we can talk about how to make that less frustrating. It may be that rule is really unfair and discourages the way that you want to play. - It may be that there is a misunderstanding of the rule, what it is designed to do, and once explained how to work around it or use it to your advantage, it is ok.

Content warnings

(none)

Safety tools used

(none)

How will character creation work

# Creating Your Character Character creation will happen in the beginning and players will have the option of playing one of the "pre-generated" characters from the starter set or creating their own. I will allow content from the player's handbook, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. In DnD Beyond, create a character, follow the link to be given in the Discord server, and attach your character to the created campaign. If there are any questions or problems, we will trouble shoot them as best we can. As far as story and background for your character, we can stick to the basic Traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws system. These are suggestions for how you want your character to think and act. Its a nice shortcut way of the brass tacks of your character. These questions help round out a character and help guide actions, and are a lot more detailed. If you are interested, there is a great youtube video called “6 Questions You Should Always Ask When Creating a New Dungeons and Dragons Character” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgVPxDgukTA The questions are: 1. Is this character a hero? Why or why not? 2. Who is this character’s parents? 3. Why is this character an adventurer? 4. What are this character's immediate goals? 5. is this character religious? 6. Is this character merciful?

Players can expect

• Find a game to join solo or search for a professional game master for you and your friends/coworkers/family.
• Book your session and wait for the Game Master to approve you.
• If you don't have a blast with your first game, your next game is on us.