Eliasias 25, 1491
It is a blisteringly hot summer day in Neverwinter Wood with a light breeze and the sky is overcast. The thick tree canopy above provides shade from the sun, although the effect of which is a humidity that quickly makes you feel soaked with perspiration with the smallest of exertion. You and your group are travelling north-east through the deep wood. You have just finished a reconnaissance of the ruins of Cragmaw Keep. It is more than a couple of months since Ara, and the group he was with at the time, had cleared out the ruined keep of its infestation of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears. It was once the seat of power of King Grol of the Cragmaw tribe, a particularly ugly bugbear as far as bugbear’s go, who had kidnapped a certain dwarf friend of the party's. It was reassuring to see that after this much time had passed, no new threat has moved into the ruin.
You are now travelling to Falcon’s Hunting Lodge to check in with Falcon the Hunter. He maintains this hunting lodge to cater to nobles from Neverwinter and offers his services as a guide to those nobles, most of whom would not last long in the forest without his protection and survival skills. Falcon abhors city life, preferring a rustic existence and simple pleasures. He is a great contact for the harpers and is always a good source of information. He has always been more than willing to help the cause in any way he can.
You can see the smoke through the trees in the distance coming from his homey lodge and soon you find yourself approaching the west bank of the river and the bridge crossing it. A thin fog surrounds a fortified compound standing in a clearing on the east side of a narrow river. A ten-foot-high log palisade surrounds the compound, whose main building is a two-story stone-and-wood affair with a high-pitched roof, gables, window shutters, and a stone chimney. Attached to the main building is a blocky tower of gray stone, its high roof lined with battlements. Other structures include a two-story stable house and a gatehouse whose flat roof is enclosed by iron railings. A stone bridge spans the river, ending before an oaken door set into the gatehouse's outer wall. Mounted next to the door is a bell with a short rope hanging from its clapper.
Approaching, you ring the bell as you had on previous occasions, and after some shuffling sounds on the other side you hear Corwin’s familiar voice say “Eh wot? Oh, it’s you fine folks. Just give me a minute, eh?” You can hear him grunt from the other side of the strong wooden door and hear a bar slide out of the way. The door opens and shows Falcon’s aged retainer Corwin, a slender, elderly man in his 60’s who is a master cook and his meals are not to be passed up. He has a kind face and the weathered hands and tanned skin of someone who is familiar with a hard day’s work in nature.
“I’ll let him know you’ve arrived, yeah? You folks can take rest in the great hall. It won’t be but a moment” Corwin says as he starts to lead you across the grounds to the door leading into the hall. Before you get far, he turns to the last of you and says “Oh, ey, you wouldn’t get that fer an old feller would ya? Yeah thanks”. He vaguely motions towards the sliding bar for the door. Soon you find yourselves in a fine dining hall with a wide staircase leading to a second-floor trophy gallery. All of the walls are adorned on the first floor with various rustic keepsakes from his many travels. A large oak dining table surrounded by tall-backed chairs are on the main floor. Two iron chandeliers hang from the high rafters of the vaulted ceiling above. You can see many of the animal head trophies hanging on the walls in the gallery above.
Corwin heads up the stairs, leaving you to your own devices for a few moments.
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Soon enough Falcon came down from the balcony above to greet his guests with fine drink, a delicious meal and some good conversation. It turns out that a Harper agent passing through had left a message, for anyone such as themselves who came along, to head to Phandalin and see what was going on there. There were rumors of aggressive orcs in the area as well as sightings of a great dragon.
Falcon beseeched the group to take care of a more local problem he was having first and offered them magical boots of elvenkind as payment for their slight inconvenience. There were a group of half-orcs not far from his lodge that were in league with a group of orcs who were causing problems in this neck of the woods. They had taken over an old wizards manor located about 10 miles from the hunting lodge.
The adventurers agreed and soon they were off following an overgrown trail that should lead to their location. They waited a bit before leaving so that they would get there at night fall. Young Pell, Corwin's mute assistant, watched as the adventurers moved down the path.
Just over halfway there, they encountered a strange burned tree that had strange wicker dolls tied to it's blackened branches. A quick inspection of the dolls revealed that each one, impossibly, had the still beating heart of a pig within it.
The decision was made to burn the tree down and try to destroy whatever queer magic was going on in the clearing. Ara set a magical fire at the base of the tree and immediately a series of rippled rushed through the ground towards the group and long, grasping tree roots erupted from the earth to grapple with them. The two barbarians remained in melee while the rest backed off to attack at range. Slicing the thick grasping roots seemed to be the only thing to affect the roots, while the ranged attackers attacked the tree itself and the burning twig dolls.
Soon enough the fight was over when the last of the twig dolls fell into the great fire at the base of the tree and the last root was sliced. The tree was blasted with magic force bolts and lightning until it was burst to fall in two. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to this evil tree and they were soon on their way. They reached the edge of the trees looking out upon the old mansion, whose walls were almost completely covered in thick ivy. There were thick pumpkin patches dotted around the perimeter of the structure and many boars were in these patches.
They did a scout around the building and only saw two entrances, a small northern door which looked smashed in, and a main double door atop a short, wide set of stairs on the west. They decided that the best route to stealth into the building would be the broken, north door. They came up with a unique idea to use message spells to try and scare off the boars from that side of the manor and their trick eventually worked! They moved into the doorway into an old kitchen. From there they found a ruined pantry, a hall with doors leading to an inner courtyard and a archway leading into the front foyer area with stairs leading up.
Looking out into the courtyard, they saw some doorway across the way and in the center was an aged well with a great swath of thick, green vines growing out of it and overtaking a good portion of the yard. They decided to head upstairs and unfortunately set off a trap. The stairs had been purposefully weakened and collapsed upon a series of upright spikes which severely damaged the front ranks of the party. They continued up to the second floor and could hear the sounds of orcs on the other side of the building. The found a connecting hall and listened at the door at the end and confirmed that a fairly large group of orcs were in the area beyond. They barred the door to that area and spiked shut another door leading there just to be safe. There was much more to explore using stealth.