Building a Myste... Er... Manor

 

Hooooldin' on... Hooooldin' it in...

Sarah McLachlan is like a bard if a bard had no appreciable skills besides making me feel terrible and soliciting money for the ASPCA. 

-ahem-

During session seven, the players were offered the deed to Tresendar Manor, or the ruins thereof, in support of their services to the town and general bad-assery overall. For a mere pooled 500GP (of which, the party did 250GP up front, and will work on the rest), the party now has a small plot of arable land, a dilapidated manor house, and some ramshackle servants quarters.

Elspeth discussed the matter with the members of the town that had the appropriate skills required for the project to get an estimate on repairs and refurbishing, provided enough workers were brought in to really go with it - 12,500GP over the course of six months/18 tendays, not including any "special requests" I can almost guarantee the players will make. 

Thanks to Dragon Age: Inquisition (I haven't lifted any story ideas or world building from there until now), which I'm replaying, I really wanted to give the players something to invest their treasure into, whilst also rewarding them for pacifying threats to the town in between doing their questing duties.It also makes a lot of sense that, being in one area for a time, they're not going to keep spending their nights in an inn. With Phandalin a secure base of operations, the manor now becomes almost an extra character for the party, as well as locking in some recurring NPCs, including the Nothic in the basement and several "sidekick" characters that'll be able to travel with the team or round out the manor's staff as/after it is built. Functionally, the manor would count as as guildhall where the party can store their gear, relax & plan between sessions, and subcontract other adventurers for fun and profit.

This will become a "living entry" in that I'll regularly update it as the party plans uses for the manor. Maybe a music room for Lenneth or a sparring yard for Besiljka? A forest grove temple for Gabriel? An altar memorial for Rafeal and Laucian? Rooms for new party members? What will they grow on the arable land? Will they build an army and become a power in the Realm? Noble lords and ladies, all? The sky is the limit once the base repairs are completed. 

Once the ground floor has been rebuilt, the party will have an initial and expandable living space. By default (at no extra charge, ie as part of the original reconstruction), the manor's first floor features;

Armory - enough space to store weapons and equipment for five militia or soldiers
Bedrooms, Three - two bedrooms are designed for single occupancy, private quarters. The third is much larger, and designed for up to four to cohabit comfortably. Regardless of which style, the furnishings are rough, but they include a straw bed or beds on a low frame, two chests of drawers per bed, and a mirror hanging on one wall. The bedclothes are made of rough wool, and the blanket is a patchwork quilt made of whatever was available. The single rooms each contain a writing desk and chair, a privy and a closet, whilst the larger room has a small roughly hewn table and multiple chairs.
Bath - this standard, sparsely furnished room contains a simple wooden tub built for up to three at a time and multiple chamber pots, along with some rough wooden benches for seating.
Common room - this plain room features bare floors with a few benches and walls with uninspiring artwork or tapestries. It's a solid room for gathering the party and a few associates to discuss business, but little more.
Dining hall - long, rough, rectangular tables and benches line this main hall, both at the edges and in the middle. A fireplace sits at one end of the room, providing warmth for those seated closest to it. The walls are adorned with weapons and banners of the party's allegiances, races, or professions.
Kitchen - This rudimentary stone kitchen centers around a fireplace. It includes a pantry, in which basic foodstuffs are stacked on shelves or hung from the ceiling. The kitchen includes pots and pans made of tin. A scullery provides storage for brooms and rags, along with a basin for washing dishes and laundry.
Storage - a partially-finished room, most likely with a bare stone floor, the party can store large amounts of junk or "thinks we might need" here.

The default manor, assuming the characters aren't spending every moment of their lives there & are actually out adventuring, requires a staff for upkeep and general maintenance. To start, 3 skilled and 5 unskilled hirelings are required for the basic guildhall functions, at a daily cost of 1GP and 4SP each respectively. The amount of staff required increases as the manor is expanded or specialized per the below. These initial hirelings are assumed to be whatever the party specifically decides they need, such as an unskilled peasant girl to serve as a maid or a skilled man-at-arms to work as a guard captain, or what the expansion requires, such as a cleric for a shrine. The manor itself requires 5GP in basic supply and material costs per tenday, increasing by 1GP per expansion or upgrade. So the default manor, once repaired and staffed fully, would require 165GP per month to stay in prime condition.

Manor/Guildhall Upgrades	Construction Cost	Skilled Hirelings	Unskilled Hirelings
Alchemical Lab	3000GP	+1	+0
Artificer's Chambers	3000GP	+1	+1
Bedroom, Single	1000GP	+0	+1/2 (1 per 2 bedrooms)
Bedroom, Group	1500GP	+0	+1
Expansion, Armory	2000GP	+1	+2
Expansion, Bath	1000GP	+0	+1
Expansion, Common Room	1500GP	+0	+0
Expansion, Dining Hall	2000GP	+0	+1
Expansion, Kitchen	1500GP	+1	+1
External, Hireling's Quarters	2000GP	+0	+1
External, Practice Grounds	3000GP	+1	+0
External, Stables	1500GP	+0	+1
Jail	1000GP	+0	+1
Library	2000GP	+1	+0
Shrine	3000GP	+1	+1
Smithy	2000GP	+1	+1
Specialized Room	2000GP	+0	+1

Skilled hirelings would be treated as prominent NPCs and would be built via the Sidekick rules in Tasha's, at two levels below the party's APL. Unskilled hirelings won't have the same level of design, most likely just receiving a name. Named/class NPCs as skilled hirelings can also be taken by the party "into the field" as needed, again via Sidekick rules. When doing so, the party is limited to one NPC at a time, they'll be treated as two levels lower than party APL, and their "room feature" will be unavailable during that time. However, their daily gold cost will also be removed from the manor fees for however many days they are with the party.

Once so many upgrades have been achieved, not counting ones listed as external, the manor's second floor will need to be finished at a cost of 10000GP and taking three months/9 tendays. If upgrades also fill this floor, a smaller third floor can be added at a cost of 5000GP and a month/3 tendays of time. Ground floor can contain 15 rooms, the second floor can contain 10, and the third 5. The land surrounding the manor can have a total of 10 external upgrades.

Each type of room has a function beyond just aesthetics.

Alchemical Lab - Staffed by an NPC alchemist, possibly an Izzet goblin or a Golgari shaman, the lab can produce potions for the party to use at a rate of four per tenday. Party rolls a d100 for rarity of the potion: 1 - 60 generates a common potion, 61 - 85 an uncommon, 86 to 95 a rare, and 96 - 100 very rare. Party can also bring potions they find back for appraisal, and any potion they sacrifice to the alchemist will be added to the list. See below.
Common Potions
Potion of Lesser Healing
Potion of Climbing
Uncommon Potions
Potion of Poison
Potion of Water Breathing
Potion of Animal Friendship
Potion of Growth
Potion of Greater Healing
Rare Potions
Elixir of Health
Potion of Heroism
Potion of Mind Reading
Potion of Clairvoyance
Potion of Invulnerability
Very Rare Potions
Potion of Vitality
Potion of Superior Healing
Potion of Flying
Potion of Supreme Healing

Artificer's Chambers - More than a smithy, this individual can enchant weapons and armor to make them minor magic items, or take magic items and improve them further. This has a cost in gold and materials based on what the player's want, to be determined as the campaign progresses. Artificer NPC unlocked.

Bedroom, Single - Allows the party to have one more NPC/skilled hireling in their pool of sidekicks.

Bedroom, Group - The party can cram two more NPCs/skilled hirelings into the manor, but beware, for sharing space sometimes leads to conflict.

Expansion, Armory - Each armory expansion allows an additional five soldier or militia members worth of weapons and equipment. A new NPC master-at-arms will be available at this point.

Expansion, Bath - Improves the existing bath to be able to accommodate more individuals, and allows partitions for a modicum of privacy. Mostly a roleplaying enhancement currently, but may have a mechanical benefit later. Like advantage on any Charisma checks made within so many days of using. Being clean is nice, yo.

Expansion, Common Room - More people can gather, thus allowing better rolls for any checks involving groups of people, like Song of Healing to be more effective, or inspirational speeches or some shit.

Expansion, Dining Hall - Bigger and better feasts unlocked. May relate to health type checks.

Expansion, Kitchen - Better organized kitchen with access to more food storage and cooking. Again, mechanical benefit forthcoming. A cook NPC mayhaps?

External, Hireling's Quarters - Each expansion accounts for four more unskilled hirelings to be housed, without needing them to take up bedroom space inside the manor.

External, Practice Grounds - Will generate combat XP, allow for learning of different Feats maybe, and will give any soldiers or militia members a better combat score or something similar. Drill master NPC.

External, Stables - Allows the party access to mounts, whether horses or something more exotic.

Jail - A place to store prisoners, will give a bonus to interrogation roles and the like.

Library - Books and more books and even more books! Behold the wonders of the written word. Will give Advantage on Religion or Arcana checks. Magus NPC, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard.

Shrine - A religious place, which can be forest themed or sea themed or really any type of God that the party agrees to. Allows for a cleric NPC who can cast up to third level healing spells as the party needs and as the God wills it. Deus vult!

Smithy - Repairs the party's damaged weapons and armor, as well as crafting nonmagical metal items for the party. Comes with a surly blacksmith NPC/hireling.

Specialized Room - A room tailored to the party's skills and needs. For instance, a music room with instruments for the party can aid to Performance checks, but specifically for Lenneth, it can provide a boost to any bard-related spell.

***Special thanks to Reddit for starting the ball rolling on rebuilding costs, and further thanks to David Dias & his "The Guildhall" from DMs Guildhall. Recommended purchase.***

Session Seven: Lucky Breaks Aren't Always Lucky

 

Alternate Title - "Why, Dice Gods? Why?"

I was asked to not be specific on how bad the rolling was this session, so I won't be, but let's just say that no one is allowed to use longbows anymore... This was also a shorter session. Weather and whatnot had me aware that we wouldn't have nearly a full session's time, so I made sure to adjust a few things to keep the story going in the time we are able to utilize.

Things opened up where we left off last session, with the party on the grounds of Valeth Tower. We ran through a quick summary, stuff about the book and Analise Brokengulf and that everyone would eventually be returning from whence they came, whether going back north via Phandalin or heading west to Saltmarsh, or going to the various mines in the area. Lenneth earned some extra XP by using her Song of Healing (is that the name of the ability? I can never remember without looking) to heal up everyone within the sound of her voice, which was basically all of the noncombatants, the dwarves, the goblins, the elves, the party, the Dragonborn, etc. The Stoneshield dwarves reiterated their invitation to visit their excavation works any time, and the Golgari did functionally the same.

This is where the party also got to add their XP from the previous couple sessions. I've been tracking mostly combat XP as a group, which I'll continue to do, but players will now also gain extra XP for doing very in-character actions or solving puzzles or whatnot. Once the APL of a group passes 3, it doesn't really matter if someone hits 4 first or whatever since subclassing basically renders the difference of a level or two moot.

Once the formalities were out of the way, the party embarked on their trip back to town. I described how different the forest felt now, the lack of bird or animal sounds, the oppressive mist, the knowledge that the necromancer had come this way with his horde & that danger could be around the corner at any point. I made a note to have the party determine their march order, even though I knew what it would be, as I'd planned on having someone make a roll every game hour as they traveled. I also made notes in case the party decided to do a short or long rest before leaving, and how that'd impact the later portions of the session, but they soldiered right on.

However, with the session losing a couple hours or so, I decided to change the every hour of the eight or so hour run to every two hours. It lessened the amount of encounters and helped speed things up to the next portion. Rather, I took the result of the roll and determined which encounter I would use & where the party would be.

So, two hours in, and they hear sounds that remind Besiljka of a pack of raptors trying to chew through an armored knight. Little of note would direct them to the origin of the noise, and the party did a quick scout of the area, with Gabriel getting as high up a tree as he could. There was no sign of the source, and soon the party decided to move on.

Four hours after setting out, they stumbled across a half dozen zombies taking a leisurely stroll northward. Gabriel went into the trees to try and shoot the zombies with the elven longbow he snagged last session, aaaaaand did bad. Like really bad. But he didn't kill anyone with it this time, so as Besiljka ran up to smash, Lenneth demanded the bow be throw to her and really, when the blindsight Tiefling decides to take a shot, you know its going bad. And her roll was... Every bit not good, but my new thing with crit failures is to have the player roll multiple d20s for any target they -could- hit, and compare against AC. So, in the end, a different zombie got it. Also, these zombies weren't at full HP or fighting prowess, but they did some serious damage to the barbarian, until she whipped out a healing potion and drank deep. Between that and some Healing Hands from the paladin, the party succeeded in destroying some more undead & moved on.

Six hours in and this was an encounter I've been waiting to give the party. An unnatural darkness fell, limiting even darksight to see more than ten feet out. Honestly I figured Gabriel would pull out the Light cantrip since the party's spell slots were shot, but Lenneth ninja'd the process and wanted to cast Dancing Lights to form the shape of a handsome man. Her roll was, again, not good, and instead, she cast it in the form of an unattractive man. Who we called Danny DeVito. Then I described the beating sound of wings as the party prepared to be attacked by harpies! But no, no, it wasn't hostile harpies. It was mothcats that I call maulin, after an elvish word. Basically a cat-moth hybrid with six legs, a fat kitten shaped body, and wings like ghost moths. I dunno, I found images on the internet and thought it'd be cute for party pets or something. Lenneth did not do well on her rolls to entice one (see a theme here?) but Besiljka came to the rescue and was able to get her one, and will most likely return to the forest at some point to get one of her own.

Final check wasn't really a check per se, I already had an ending to the trail in mind, but because the party was able to get there not long after nightfall, it changed how the encounter went versus middle of the night (less hostile). Arrows rained down from behind barricades, but Elspeth was there and she called a fire hold, running out to greet Besiljka.

The big thing from here to the end of the session is that I wanted to communicate that the players are the most important part of the game, but the world exists no matter what.

So, Elspeth was overjoyed to see Besiljka, because they have a blooming romance going on, and the other villagers came out looking soot streaked, with the town appearing to have been hit by the undead as well. Elspeth relays to the party that she's fought before, but nothing like this, and that Sildar was at the Townmaster's Hall. The party didn't want to delay and headed straight there, so I described the battlefield feel of the town, the buildings being shuttered, the pyres for the zombies, etc. Armed folk patrolling the streets, just trying to get across that things were not sunshine and roses here.

They reached the hall aaaaaaand I got to pull out the Warlock Tiles building I slapped together for it, thanks to Lenneth's player. It looked super great on top of the dry erase grids and really lent a visual feel for what went on after that.

Sildar was leading a congregation of townsfolk and assessing the situation when the party arrived. He greeted them, then upon seeing their condition, he got the story of the Tower. After they finished, he went into what had happened in their absence - finding Harbin Wester's body in the Hall, his being assassinated by unknown parties most likely before Sildar and the party arrived in town, that Iarno "Glasstaff" had escaped, possibly with aid from the same assassin, the town being attacked, etc. I threw in some lines from Elspeth about equipping the townsfolk from the Redbrand's poorly kept weapons and how some of the townsfolk that went into the basement heard a voice in their head, ie the Nothic cackling and saying "naughty, naughty!" I'm not done with them yet.

Because I wanted the players to enjoy the interactions, I went on some stuff where Linene and Sildar went back and forth on running the town, with Elspeth getting encouragement from Besiljka about forming a three person town council with her and the two of them. This continues the line of running the town and thwarts a plan that -muffled sounds of intervention before this part can be completed-

With this decided, the party went back to Stonehill for the evening, to rest up, and regain their spells & HP. The next day, I had the describe what they were doing and how they wanted to spend their time. Besiljka wanted to get closer to Elspeth so they went off together. Gabriel went fishing with the intention of getting everyone together for a celebratory "hey, we didn't die!" feast. Lenneth also went down to the same stream, a little further down from him, to wash some clothes after everything that had happened.

As she was washing clothes, and everything is peaceful and serene and really just idyllic, I had a tentacle rise from the water and just sort of... wave... at her. She didn't know whether to wave back or run, and Gabriel was too far away to help. In the end, she waved, and that's when she heard laughter behind her. The tentacle was Sora's Fathomless Warlock ability, and she used it to announce that the Dragonborn, as well as some of the survivors from the tower, had made it back to Phandalin.

Gabriel continued fishing, and Lenneth & Grimfang went off together to help the farmers, since Lenneth had that as part of her background, and Grimfang is always willing to lend a hand for heavy lifting. Sora, lazier being that she is, went back to town proper to get a drink and chill. Eventually, Besiljka decided to see the blacksmith about forging an engagement ring for Elspeth, and Lenneth made her way there as well to get a circlet made. Both had plenty of gold for stuff like that. Lenneth also wanted the silken dresses she grabbed from the tower tailored to fit. A girl's gotta look good in a battle skirt, after all.

An appropriate amount of time later, everyone met back up and we did some stuff with a festival, goblin fireworks and some other stuff (I just wrote "bullshit here" on my notes, and stuck with it) that ingratiated them with the townsfolk. By this point, everyone has a really favorable opinion of the party, though Besilkja didn't do so well with her marriage talk to Elspeth, where we decided the subject just came up, not that it was an actual proposal at that point.

The next morning, Elspeth brought the party back to a frazzled but energized Sildar, who laid out some of the town plans, and then, under the authority of the Lord's Alliance, he offered the party the deed to Tresendar Manor. Keeping the party close for the time, and using the gold to strengthen the town, Sildar was already showing himself to be a competent administrator. I let the party have input in how the money was spent, whether they went more Infrastructure, Commerce, or Military, and eventually it was decided to put a little in all three rather than become really strong in any one thing.

Afterwards, Sildar laid out some news - Cragmaw Castle was still the party's best bet for dealing with the mine situation, plus his kidnapping, and addressing the Black Spider who may or may not be involved with the attacks. In addition, he relayed rumors of a necromancer spotted in the area. So next session, the party can meet with Daran "I swear my orchard isn't haunted, please buy some apple jam, I have kids to feed" Edermath to learn about his missing friend Reidoth, an individual that knows where Cragmaw is, or they can pursue the necromancer lead at the Old Owl Well, or even both, depending on what they decide.

Main takeaway from the session is something strange is afoot at the Circle K.