Saturday nights are game night in here in Kuo Manor and last weekend was no different. I ran a Session Zero for my gaming group’s Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign we’ve been planning for a while now. I’ve been playing a combination of D&D 5E and Pathfinder for about five years now, but this is the first campaign I’ll be running for experienced players. I am excited, but also a little nervous because I know the sorts of ridiculous things this group of people can come up with.
This will be a powered-up version of Dragon Heist, so things will be a bit different from the original published adventure. The characters are starting at level 5, and I’m also utilizing some third-party adventure content to make the story more interesting for my group. (I’ll make sure to mention where I’ve made big changes, and link to any extra content I utilize.) I will almost certainly loop in races from different settings for some NPCs because Loxodons are the best. I’m not particularly familiar with Forgotten Realms lore, so this is definitely a campaign that is happening in “my version” of Waterdeep rather than the exact cannon setting. Also, in this world races like tieflings and drow are uncommon, but not inherently evil. Because I have about a million better things to to put in my game instead of fantasy racism. With that said: here’s the cast of characters!
Dr. Toot is a half-drow College of Lore bard who was born in Waterdeep and currently operates a private investigator business on the seedier side of the city. His main weapon is a pan flute and he took a feat so he can cast spells and fight with his returning boomerang at the same time. He is a member of the Harpers.
Geldrick Flinteye is a deep gnome divination wizard who has lived in Waterdeep for decades after he retired from a smuggling career. He now makes his living as a forger. Deeply paranoid, he does not have a permanent residence. Instead, he is a permanent guest at various inns throughout the city. He is acquainted with Dr. Toot and occasionally acts as a source when the investigator is on a case.
Quay is a tortle path of the storm herald barbarian who is fascinated by the world and desires to seek out as many unique experiences as she can. A nomad through-and-through, she met Geldrick Flinteye during his smuggling days and the two have traveled together regularly since then. She arrived in Waterdeep about two years ago after Geldrick suggested that she should come explore the city.
Pomorra Tolme is a tabaxi Arcane Archer fighter who came to Waterdeep 5 years ago seeking adventure on a whim. She makes money as a competitive archer and likes to spend her free time practicing woodworking and relaxing in taverns and inn taprooms listening to the stories that people tell. It was in one of those taverns that she met and befriended Dr. Toot. Shortly after she came to the city a tale of a local master smith caught her interest. She tracked him down and discovered that he was a dwarf by the name of Orin Tolsar. The two became friends and eventually they worked together to combine Pomorra’s woodcraft and Tolsar’s metalworking to create a masterwork bow that she named No Strings Attached. She is also a Harper.
Eris is a Eladrin swashbuckler rogue who came to Waterdeep from the Feywild a decade ago and simply never left. She seeks out interesting experiences and tends to value style over substance. She makes her living through thievery, although she prefers to call it “item liberation.” She and Geldrick met shortly after arriving in Waterdeep because they used the same fence to offload stolen items.
This is the first time that our group has done an official session zero, but it ended up going really well! I asked questions about the characters’ backstories which served both to help me get to know them and also to help the players who have less practice with the role-playing aspect of D&D flesh out their backstories. I told the group that I wanted every Player Character to know at least two other the other PCs, but they went one step further and ended up coming up with an entire scenario that had them gathering together as a party to take down a human trafficking ring. It was so awesome to see that story come together over the course of the evening, and it also makes it really easy for me to come up with a way to gather the party together at the beginning of an adventure! Our story will open to our rag-tag group of adventurers sitting down to a celebratory dinner in the dining room of the Yawning Portal Inn, just in time for shenanigans to ensue.
Below the cut are super-spoilery DM notes for the future of the campaign. Definitely don’t read them if you are playing or will play in a Dragon Heist campaign, or if you just don’t like spoilers. Otherwise, read on! I’d love feedback on some of my partially formed ideas.
My plan right now (assuming that it’s not instantly negated by the choices my players make) is to run the Cassalanters as the primary villain leading into a final battle with a green dragon who is guarding Dagult Neverember’s stolen gold in a lair deep beneath the city. There are a couple of changes I’m planning to make and a few character backstories I want to weave into the plot.
The Cassalanter Contract
First, I want to change the terms of the Cassalanter deal with Asmodeus to read that the souls of the Cassalanter heirs are forfeit if they don’t pay the gold and souls. Osvoldo’s human body is going to be in the attic room affected by a version of the Soul Jar spell since his soul is not technically forfeit until his younger siblings’ birthdays. Then in the Cassalanter crypt there will also be the ghost of an older brother that Victoro murdered years before the deal so that he would inherit the family title. If the characters are able to resurrect him thenhe will be the rightful lord of House Cassalanter and Victoro and Ammalia will technically be his heirs. Their souls will be forfeit per the contract, and Osvoldo’s soul will be freed. (If my players come up with something else clever that could conceivably work, I’ll go along with that too. Two of them are lawyers IRL, so I suspect that they’ll come up with something.) I know that the Cassalanter storyline is supposed to be a no-win trolley problem by design, but messing with kids is a bit of a trigger for me so it’s important that it’s possible to save them. Also, the concept that a villain can trade away someone else’s soul for wealth and power seems a bit OP and I’d like to nerf that a bit.
The Epic BBEG
The campaign will ultimately end with the party fighting a green dragon who is guarding the embezzled gold. In this version she tricked Dagult Neverember into believing he was making a deal with the good, gold dragon that the book describes so that she could make her lair in Waterdeep in a place where no other dragon can reach and then begin amassing political power by inserting her own minions into the most powerful groups. I’m toying with an idea where the dragon’s chief minion is a Changeling NPC who interacts with the characters through a couple of different guises – because a level 6 Changeling rogue with the Mastermind archetype and the Charlatan background has the tools and the skill bonuses to pull something like that off. But maybe that’s a bit too convoluted and I should just stick to a normal group of minion enemies.
Dr. Toot’s Cassalanter Connection
As part of Dr. Toot’s 50’s-noir backstory, his mother (with whom he was close) was killed several years ago and he has yet to solve her murder. I want to make her one of the people who have been murdered by the Cassalanters’ cult to give the party another reason to want to go after them. Now I just need to figure out how to insert that thread into the story.
Orin Tolsar
I also want to work in Pomorra’s mentor Orin Tolsar into the story more as well. The player got really exited when I prompted him to name his mentor, and so I’d like to work that into the story for him. I’ve decided that he will be the Harper who recruited Pomorra, and he’ll also be a forge cleric to give the party access to divine magic if they need it and to partially explain how he could craft Pomorra’s fancy longbow.
I think that’s all of the interesting information for now. Tune in next week to hear about my first session behind the screen!