I was wrong about the Lost Mine of Phandelver.md

Years ago, I gave some advice about the Lost Mine of Phandelver. I was wrong.

That's because they released this: it's a SEQUEL to that Starter Set called The Shattered Obelisk. The first half  of this book is mostly the same as the original Lost Mines adventure, but the second half is a brand new story about Mind Flayers.

Here's the problem: This book invalidates the most popular video series on my channel, and the most popular PDFs on my Patreon, because the advice I have given previously was not made to accommodate the new direction this book takes the story. So today we are fixing that, so my old advice remains relevant to this adventure.

Now: I've found ten major changes I would make to my original Starter Set advice. I looked for things which feel out-of-place in the Shattered Obelisk portion of the adventure, and I'll point at places earlier in the Lost Mines portion of the adventure where we can add foreshadowing to that out-of-place content. We'll start at the end of the book and work our way backwards.

The Main Villain, the Mind Flayers

The main villains are three polyamarous Mind Flayers working for an evil Mind Flayer god, who we'll cover next. (Check out their SICK character art.) They're called the Mind Flayer Fanatics in the module, and these are the people who direct their henchmen to interfere with the players. The issue is: these villains do not meet the players until the penultimate encounter.

Now: you know my rules for a good villain.

• The players should know the villain.
• The villain should know the players.
• They should hate each other.

But we're going to make two changes to the module here: 

1. Let's say those three Mind Flayers Fanatics are the ONLY natural Mind Flayers left in the region, and any others in the module are actually just people in various stages of aberrant transformation (because FYI, there's lot's of mutation in this adventure).

2. We're gonna mind-meld these three guys. Let's say they are one personality with three bodies. It will be difficult enough to make ONE personality into an effective long-distance villain, we don't need three personalities. They probably need a cool name for themselves, so maybe we call them the Fold — I am open to suggestions for better names, so let me know.

Do this foreshadowing!

So let's signpost these baddies:

• There's a quest in Chapter 6 called The Odd Cow, and I want to bring this quest forward into Chapter 2 or 3, when the players are initially exploring Phandalin. 

• This has two purposes: firstly, this will be one of the earliest encounters the players have with tentacles in this campaign, and it's a mysterious portent of things to come. And secondly, this such a strange event, we can use this as an excuse to bring in a Mind Flayer expert NPC named Gwyn Oresong in Chapter 5. 

• Here's what the quest is: There's a cow named Daisy who ate a corrupted clover, and now she is glowing green, and sometimes tentacles writhe out of her, and she spews oozes in combat. The players should hear about this creepy cow, then later encounter her, perhaps in a three-way confrontation with the Redbrands. The players will only be level two or three, you'll need to scale the fight down from four Psychic Grey Oozes to just one or two. 

• And I know this is outside the LMOP section, but: At the end of Chapter 5, in the goblin dungeon of Zorzula's Rest, the party will fight a psychic goblin with an evil gem lodged in their skull. This goblin is in psychic contact with these Mind Flayers, and Fold should directly address the players using this character.

• In the same manner, lots of NPCs are being transformed into aberrations or Mind Flayers over the course of the campaign, so at any point that's convenient to you, you should have The Fold hijack an important aberrant NPC and talk to the players. In particular, if you've been transforming a particular NPC who the party likes, it'll be be a real gut-punch when they become a mouth-piece for the Fold.

• And to make it personal, just once, as the players themselves are in the later stages of transformation, select one to briefly join the Fold, and they use this character's body to do something awful, but it will also give that character direct insight into the villain's plans.

The Briny Maze & Ilvaash

The last moment in this campaign is a confrontation with God at the end of Chapter 8. It's this brainy thing called Ilvaash.

Here's what we know:

• There is already an established Mind Flayer god named Ilsensine, but this thing Ilvaash is the sentient afterbirth of that being, and worshiped by a renegade group of three Mind Flayers Fanatics.

• This thing's goal is to transform the townsfolk of Phandalin into Mind Flayers.

• Ilvaash's domain is The Briny Maze, it's literally shaped like a brain.

For your information, like half of my list is just adding context to weird encounters in this stupid brain dungeon.

Do this foreshadowing!

This one is hard to foreshadow, because I DO want to preserve the dramatic reveal when the players get to see and fight this guy, but I want them to enter that situation with context about what's happening. So:

• Any time someone gets hit with a vision or a nightmare, that scene should happen in the Briny Maze. You want to first visions to murky in detail, but subsequent visions should progressively make clear that these visions are happening in a big stupid brain dungeon.

• To hint that we're dealing with a god, whenever one of these crazy things called Encephalons appears, the crazy zealots all call it an Angel.

• At some point, the players need these three bits of information: 1) they hear the name Ilvaash from someone in the Fold, 2) they find ONE ancient symbol Ilsensine which looks like this, and 3) from then on, they only find symbols that had the front pried off, so only the base circle behind is left behind.

• You'll have to rely on a scholar NPC like Gwyn Oresong to be a vector of exposition. This is someone who can say, "Ilvaash? That's no God I've ever heard of." And then, "This is the symbol of Ilsensine." And then, "They're defacing the symbols of Ilsensine? Have these Mind Flayers turned against their God?" And then at last, towards by by Chapter 7, so has a breakthrough and announces, "I've worked out the nature of this Ilvaash being!"

The Dragon Lowarnizel

In the Briny Maze is as an amethyst Gem Dragon named Lowarnizel who arrived in here by accident with a Plane Shift spell. That kind of sucks, and it's so out-of-place I would normally just cut this content, however, if we make some changes, I think this could be useful for us.

• Let's say this guy is a Radiant Dragon, whose scales literally look like starts from a distance. You could call this a cosmic dragon, or an astral dragon if you want.

• He's here on purpose! This is a good guy who doesn't want the Mind Flayers to succeed, and he's here to stop them.

• Hundreds of years ago, this dragon existed as a constellation above Phandalin, and his kind was somehow involved in the decimation of the Mind Flayers of ye olde times.  

Do this foreshadowing!

So let's lay some breadcrumbs:

• In Chapter 3, when the players meet Reidoth the Druid, he could mention that navigating the region is difficult by stars, because the sky has changed over the eras, and constellations come and go.

• In Thundertree, which is the domain of the young green dragon Venomfang, the cultists in U13 identify that draconic energies in the area are mixed, and although Venomfang rightfully claims dominion, it feels as though a more ancient dragon's will permeates the area. Mysterious!

• In Chapter 7, in the Mind Flayer dungeon whose name I can't pronounce, room X5 has a mechanical model of the solar system, something called an orrey (pronounced aw-ruh-ree). This model matches Phandalin's ancient sky, but a constellation in the shape of a dragon is missing! 

Shalfi the Bard

Again in the Briny Maze, there is an insane bard, a character who has no business being there. There are two reasons this guy is worth signposting:

• There is an awesome puzzle, where the players walk through an auditory section of the brain and it's playing music, and the players have to add to the music constructively to pass through.

• This bard is just a regular dude who got corrupted, transformed, and went mad, so his journey here is easier to plant in the more mundane parts of the adventure.

Do this foreshadowing!

So let's put this guy in the story somehow:

• In Chapter 2, when the players are farting around Phandalin, if anyone is a bard or a musician, you can have an older NPC approach and say, "Oh, we haven't had a bard in town for years! The last one was an odd duck! He wanted to write the world's most beautiful song, but every time he played, it just sounded silly, like random notes."

• In Chapter 3, when you run a confrontation with the Black Spider at a run-down saloon as I suggest in this video here, there is an old piano in the corner. When searching the piano, they can find sheet music for something called Shalfi's Lament. Literally send this audio file to your player to keep — you can get it on my Patreon right now. https://www.patreon.com/posts/shalfis-lament-139969055

• At any point the players have an eldritch vision during the campaign, one option might be to run their consciousness up against Shalfi's and impart more music.

• And finally, when they enter the Briny Maze dungeon and hear this music resonating throughout the room, the solution to the puzzle is that two of your players need to hit "play" on their phones to complete Shalfi's song.

The Hydra

In the Crypts of Talhund, Chapter 6, there is a hydra encounter! It's kind of silly, because this crypt is in a state of unrest, and part of the problem is this Hydra and a water-weird splashing too much can causing a disturbance. I am not joking; the ghosts are angry because there's too much splashing. But otherwise: this was one of my favourite encounters of the campaign.

Do this foreshadowing!

The Hydra is an aquatic creature, which means we need to look for a body of water someplace earlier in the campaign. So:

• In Chapter 4, in the Wave Echo Cave, in W16 The Booming Cavern, the players are standing on a high cliff, looking own on crashing waves from some underground sea. Let's say two things: 1) if the players mess up and get washed away by this water, they'll wash up in Chapter 6 if they survive. And 2) there are the skeletons of THREE massive snakes broken on the rocks below, which are ancient, severed hydra heads.

The Medusa

In Talhundereth, there is a medusa just kind of chilling out with her Galeb Duhr servants. She is completely unrelated to the adventure, but she is part of this dungeon's ecosystem. I think she's worth including in the campaign because turning a player to stone is an important D&D experience.

Do this foreshadowing!

This one's really easy to foreshadow - the players just have to find a petrified creature someplace. So:

• In Chapter 3, in the Cragmaw Castle, let's put one statue of goblin in some kind of tortured pose. If any goblins are asked, they say, "Oh that's a statue of Jerry! He ran away years ago, but then we found this great statue he'd made of himself in some tunnels underground. We never even knew he was a sculptor!" 

The Black Stones

The WHOLE point of this adventure is to collect these black stones, which are shards of the shattered obelisk, before the bad guys do. There are SEVEN total pieces, though the players will probably find three, and halfway through the adventure. 

This is such an important part of the adventure, I'm even going to the trouble of making this 3D-printed puzzle which I'll upload to Patreon — it's still a work in progress though.

The tricky thing is: we find out some of these stones were hidden in plain sight throughout Phandalin. If that's the case, I think we need give the players some experiences with these stones before they're stolen from Phandalin.

Do this foreshadowing!

• In Chapter 2, when the party meet with Bart, you need to establish that there's a well out back, and it works fine. Because later in Chapter 5, the baddies will destroy to steal one of its stones, and they'll dam the water source down below.

• Next, when the party visits the Sleeping Giant Taphouse also in Chapter 2, you should offer them a beer, because one of the taps is made of black stone. You don't need to make a big deal put of it, but give them a few options, describe the taps of different colours — maybe make a little menu handout if you're keen. But if anyone drinks from the black tap beer, you can give them an eldritch vision the next time they take a long rest.

• Then, in Chapter 3 at the Cragmaw Castle, draw your attention to this collapsed wall in C11. Let's say this wall collapsed in recent months because a Psionic Goblin stole a stone from the wall. FYI, this is a suggestion not from the book: I've moved one of these stones from Pandalin into the Cragmaw castle.

The Psionic Goblins

From Chapter 5 onward, particularly in a dungeon called Zrozula's Rest, we're encountering Psionic Goblins. They've been mutated by some kind of Far Realm energy and their leader has a magical rock lodged in his skull which lets him communicate with the Mind Flayer Fanatics. The book says these guys are a goblin clan called the Sawplees, but we already have a goblin clan in the story with the Cragmaws, so I'm suggesting we simplify and just say these guys are transformed Cragmaws. 

Do this foreshadowing!

• Chapter 1, Room H6: This is the encounter where Sildar is tied up, and the party fights a bunch of goblins let be Yeemik. We are making Yeemik mildly psychic; he can read the players minds. To roleplay this, let Yeemik have surface knowledge of the players' table talk. And if Yeemik survives or escapes and encounter with the players, we'll use him as a substitute for the leader of the Psionic Goblins in Chapter 5.

• In Chapter 3, the Cragmaw Castle: We want to illustrate that  some goblins are becoming corrupted and defecting. So you should describe the goblin ranks as depleted and have the goblins complain about too many runaways. And looking at the Psionic Brawler statblock, in one fight, give a regular goblin either the push ability or the explode on death ability.

The Gith, Drow and the Black Spider

There are two or three elements which seem unrelated, but I promise become kind of interesting when you connect them all. 

1. There's a group of Githyanki on a Mind Flayer-hunting mission trapped in the Briny Maze, but they can't continue because they've lost their weapons, which are special silver two-handed swords.

2. There are two parties of Drow in Talhundereth. One group is led by a man who is Obelisk-crazed and leads the Cult of the Obelisk, and the other is led by his son who's come talk some sense into his dad and take him home.

Do this foreshadowing!

We'll deal with #2 first, and then circle back to #1. 

• First, you need to reconstruct the way you imagine The Black Spider, who is the mini villain for half this adventure. Rather than an evil villain, you need to see this character as a rival adventurer. The Black Spider is not bent on world domination; they are pursuing their self-serving goals, and that path just happens to be in opposition to the players.

• In Chapter 4, when you're leading up to the final confrontation between the heroes and the Black Spider, you're going to undercut expectations by having The Black Spider attempt to parlay with the party. The Black Spider says, "In exploring the Wave Echo Cave, I have discovered it may not be in my best interest to solely take over this operation. So, I propose a partnership: the Rockseeker mining company may take a managing 60% stake in the mine, and I will own 40% and leave in peace." FYI, this is genuine offer, and if the Black Spider survives this encounter, you can move her to join her brother in Talhundereth.

• When the party queries what kind of discovery could spook the Black Spider in this way, she hands them a silver greatsword, and says, "This is the weapon of a Githyanki, a fearsome warrior from astral planes beyond our own. I found it amidst a violent scene, and in the gore, I found mounds of grey matter and cerebral fluid. These Gith were hunting Mind Flayers and their horrific minions. I am a denizen of the Underdark, and I have learned not to cross the path or interests of the Mind Flayers."

I don't know if that was 10 things, but whatever :)