Since chances are high that I’ll be running a combined Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak campaign set in Greyhawk in the not-too-distant future, I figured I’d share some of my work. Which, of course, is built on the shoulders of giants. A Fifth of Greyhawk posted about this very same thing back in 2018, so I’ve borrowed from that, created player and DM hex maps, and made a few tweaks. Check it out below.

Phandalin Regional Maps

Below are the DM and Player versions of the hex maps I created using Inkwell Ideas’ Worldographer program. Labeling was done in Photoshop. (As you can see, I still haven’t bothered to learn how to do coastlines in the program, even though it’s painfully simple.)

Phandalin Region PC map – right click to save

Phandalin Region DM map – right click to save

The Story

Here’s a quick rundown of things I’ve updated on the backstory and adventure background side.

• The Stone-Cold Reavers and the Redbrand Ruffians both were born from the same mercenary company. This doesn’t change much, but provides a reasoning for why these villains aren’t all that tied to the community. It also explains why the Reavers would send someone back to town for supplies somewhat randomly: he’s there to provide news or recruit extra sellswords for the raid of Cryovain’s lair.
• The campaign begins with Gundren hiring the PCs to escort him to the dwarven excavation site (see “Dwarven Excavation” in Dragon of Icespire Peak) to warn his brothers of the recent dragon sightings and see what they found. One of the things they’ll find in the treasure cache at the excavation site is the information about Wave Echo Cave, though they’ll likely not understand it until after they’ve had time with it (i.e. after they are no longer in the direct company of the PCs). This can be followed by either of the Umbrage Hill or Gnomengarde quests, of which the latter is a quest that will be given by Gundren again, rather than the beleaguered townmaster, Harbin Wester. This gives the players lots of opportunity to make friends with Gundren.
• Both Cryovain (Dragon of Icespire Peak) and Venomfang (Lost Mine of Phandelver) are active in the region (see below: Duel of the Dragons). Cryovain’s a big bully that just wants to eat all the time. Venomfang is searching for his progenitor’s treasure (Dragon Barrow) and wants to create several well-guarded lairs; Venomfang’s much more treacherous and social.
• Ogremeet (an encampment of berserk ogres) and Ogremound (a village that withstood assault from those same ogres in days gone by) are on the map, but won’t feature prominently within the storyline. They are just diversions if I need some breathing room to build my own encounters and spice things up.

Duel of the Dragons

I’m using this reddit thread‘s ideas on having Venomfang and Cryovain both active in the region. Here’s the table for figuring out where they are:

Changelog

• Neverwinter = Hardby in most cases, sometimes Free City of Greyhawk (such as the Logger’s Camp and Glasstaff’s origin)
• Leilon = Fishtown
• Old Owl Well = name’s the same, but it’s an ancient Suel refugee watchtower
• Shrine of Savras = Shrine of Istus
• Mount Hotenow = removed; simply refer to the Plains of Greyhawk
• Starmetal Hills = the hilly region near Greysmere, a dwarven enclave
• Daran Edermath is a member of the Church of St. Cuthbert
• Talos is a proxy (see Planescape) of Baghtru, the orc god of might and strength
• The Shrine of Luck in Phandalin is dedicated to Rudd rather than Tymora
• Halia Thornton is a member of The Guild faction rather than the Zhentarim, which essentially has the same operation (The Guild refers to the Thieves’ Guild of Greyhawk)
• Sildar Hallwinter is a member of the Knight Protectors faction, which includes the Knights of the Hart, rather than the Lords’ Alliance
• Sister Garaele works for the Seekers of the Arcane faction instead of the Harpers, making her interests less outright good
• Glasstaff is a member of Greyhawk’s Wizard’s Guild but comes to Phandalin for the same reasons as discussed in Lost Mine of Phandelver

Greyhawk Factions?

I’ve made mention of some Greyhawk-specific factions. I’d written these up on my old site neuronphaser.com, but that site’s mostly gone now. I’ll re-post the factions (with some tweaks, and possibly some new ones) over the course of the coming days/weeks here on timbannock.com.

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