✨Sign up for dScryb and get 10% off with the coupon code “BARON”:
https://dscryb.com/dungeonmasterpiece
Support me on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/dungeonmasterpiece
So you finished the box sets including the Lost Mines of Phandelver or the Dragon of Icespire Peak, but you don’t know where to go from there? Perhaps a geopolitical tour around the region around the famous starting town of Phandalin will help jog your mind for some adventuring ideas!
source
I don't get why caravans are more vulnerable in the plains. Bandits have always preferred ambushes.
I've never run Lost Mine or Icespire Peak and probably never will, but insight into the politics surrounding mining towns and their benefactors is always interesting. I also appreciate that picture-perfect example of Law vs Chaos at 3:10
Two considerations I'd add are, 1) foothills with plenty of grassland would be perfect for sheep, I feel like there would be a large amount of this industry in the high valley around the city. 2) create water is a first level spell any cleric or druid could have, this could make 10 gallons of water per casting per level per day. It's not a replacement for a full river but it could allow some additional farming in the region. Barley, rice, or amaranth would all grow well in foothills with some irrigation.
I feel like I just learned a real world lesson in international politics
Just wanted to say great video. It’s definitely given me some ideas I could use when I run my mash up of Lost Mines and Icespire Peak. Not sure if you’re aware, Claugiyliamatar appears in Sleeping Dragons Wake. It’s a expansion adventure for the Essentials box. It’s the second module in a three part adventure. I haven’t had a chance to run it yet but I’ve heard good things.
Great video, Baron. As always, your unique take on the discipline of Dungeon Mastering provides an tonne of inspiration.
You also have nested in here, it seems to me, a conflict of chaotic and lawful ideology waiting to be explored – I'll have to think further on the ways that could be highlighted, with religion being the obvious starting point. Always trust religion to add extra spice to whatever stew is being cooked on the political stove, as it were.
I'll echo the appreciation for more grounded threats in a fantasy setting. Though I do wonder what this same level of thinking would result in when applied to the Spelljammer setting. What happens when you factor in spelljamming speeds or the nature of the Astral plane?
My players never fully cleared Crawmaw hideout or castle. They managed to sneak in, stumble upon their objective, and slip out. They only ended up killing King Grol and left the Dark Elf that was there alive I'm going to have so much game in the post-module game… especially when they find out Glasstaff disappeared from his captivity somewhere along the road to Neverwinter…
Really appreciate commentary like this. I, like a few in this section, like to keep my worlds rooted in a measure of realism, and this helps me consider things that I am personally pretty weak on.
Such a good video
* subsistence
keep up the good work, I like your analyses on geopolitics; you're enabling a lot of more grounded and realistic world building
"History has no End Game"
Nice
This is one of the best DND videos I've seen. I'm gonna watch it again later.
Interesting that you should mention the poor agriculture in Phandalin. The first real dungeon in the module is the Cragmaw Hideout, a cave with a few goblins bossed around by a cowardly bugbear. The map shows a stream flowing out of the cave, and inside the cave is a pair of massive reservoirs controlled by collapsible walls that can be used to flood the main passageway and wash intruders out to the front entrance.
Since this hideout is near the road and in the middle of bald prairie, we can take mountain streams off the table. That means the cave must be getting its water from an underground aquifer. Its a wonder that the cave is surrounded by grassland, considering how much water is coming from this one location. And it could certainly be a good spot for farming only a couple days' travel from Phandalin. Villagers from Phandalin might use this spot as a way to gain more independence from Neverwinter.
Also the map of Wave Echo Cave shows a massive water source. What all this water is doing in the middle of a mountain range I don't know, but there it is. The whole region must have massive natural aquifers in the ground.
I was reaching for the subscribe button in less than 2 minutes. This is outstanding, thank you for this great content. Bonus points for a classy ending, if i had not already subbed, i would have after that. Great job!
"substinance farming"?
I'd be SO curious to see one of these for Icewindale!
Did you use an AI for some
Of your art?
Would love geopoltics of barovia
Wait! Leilon is not a ruin? Good lord, the quality control on that map / legend is as bad as an old Chaosium product. This goes into their boxed set, for heaven's sake. Sorry for the rant.
This is why our group strong-armed the Cragmaw goblinoids into becoming a puppet militia that can use their own knowledge of goblin scouting and strategy to foil other forest tribes from taking the castle and raiding the caravans, in exchange for human-quality resources that they would otherwise risk their lives to steal and a neutrality from civilized folks that allows them to direct their attention elsewhere. Phandalin proves itself a capable settlement worthy of further investment, and as such earns help from Neverwinter with relatively minimal oversight.
Similarly, in my Greyhawk game, evil doesn't stay stamped out for long, there usually being a power vacuum that's taken up by something else. Killing the goblins and orcs in the woods means that animals and monstrosities that would have been hunted for and by those tribes can rebound, making the place arguably less hostile but with fewer creatures to reason with if things turn bad. Unfortunately, because of this, they were unable to convince diasporic elves to return so quickly when threats still loomed.
At the same time, an entire dungeon getting cleared out becomes a perfect spot for all kinds of more local creatures to emigrate, like a Black Dragon or Bog Hag holing up in separate floors of a swamp dungeon that has since become submerged when the party destroyed its levees and draining equipment, with Mud Mephits and even a Water Elemental sometimes swimming around with little to no resistance, and the giant frogs and toads and local fish being able to expand into neighboring rooms and be a pseudo home-grown food source.
Whoooohooo, more geopolitics in Faerun.
They really do need to update these maps. There must be smaller streams in this area. This dry strip of land is in between two forests? And the northern forest has a major river going through it?
I would note the lord's Allegiance is also a factor here in being a law enforcement faction that ties the communities together. The lord's Allegiance was founded by Adventures but alot of the key members are also of the ruling class and enforce law in the territories of the sword coast. This means that phandalin is not as autonomous as they would surely prefer to be no matter how self governing they are they rely on the common law being upheld by a separate faction but also will be a factor in stopping mining disputes. I also believe the town is under the regional control of Neverwinter in the first place.
You ever do one on the politics of Whitewolf? I always use dnd to kick in the door, more or less, and vtm for politics. Was curious if you had a take on it.
Would Conyberry be a profitable investment for Phandalin food wise. Like a better alternative to depending on Neverwinter caravans
Do this for ghosts of salt marsh please
I wasn't quite sure what to expect here. This was a nice surprise and very thought provoking.
I always use LMoP when I am running with a new group.
It has given me plenty to think about.
Hmm, the population of Phandalin is very low. If we go by the premise that their farming operations couldn't be self-sufficient, where is all this food supposed to come from?
The food potentially produced near the Neverwinter river would go entirely towards Neverwinter, and then some (especially since Thundertree is abandoned and unsafe). Leilon seems unlikely to produce an excess, so Triboar would have to support awfully many towns that don't have a nearby river. Just looking at the map, I feel like the entire Sword Coast would be starving if we assume a town like Phandalin would need a lot of food import.
Currently running Icewind Dale. I would LOVE a video about the Ten-Towns on this topic to see what else I could throw into the campaign to help the realism set in for players.
Looks like someone has been playing with Midjourney..
I desperately wanna see this guys home game
The guard captain faces the pike hedge toward the opening of the mine and the abbot and his 5 priest attendents manage few aid spells and 4 blade barriers at the entrance itself. This should be a bad situation even for very strong enemies trying to escape the mine.
likes the vid im still running a lmop/doip mixed game along with some homebrew and this vid would make things much more interesting. Also what of the other factions though?
Isn't there a system of underground rivers that run under that whole area? Hence, the Wave Echo Caves? Couldn't that water be used for Irrigation?
I would like to mention, Lord Neverember has a lot of covert motives since his exile from Waterdeep. He likely exerts a lot of pressure on Phandelin.
Also, Leilon may be dangerous, with Dragon Cultist etc., and a black dragon has maurauded in the Mere of Dead Men to the South, making travel to Waterdeep along the High Road nigh inpossible.
Gauntlgrim isn't much farther. I wouldn't be surprised if competition between neverwinter and the dwarves.
Something to keep in mind with the whole geopolitics angle is that it's a fantasy world, which can expand the number of factors… Eg a teleportation circle is MUCH more disruptive than a telegraph line, and basically gives Neverwinter the potential to outright control phandelin in a way that just wasn't possible with IRL historical analogs. By the same token, phandelin also has potential access to other forms of food beyond the nearby subsistence farming… Fungus farms in the under dark mean a higher potential production of food per square mile than would exist in reality, or they could just hire wizards to continually cast create food spells and pay them in raw ore.
Pardon my ignorance but how exactly to you come to the fact that there cannot be enough farming to support a population in Phandalin?
I love how my current campaign is already doing most of this. Huzzah geopolitics!
essentially, Phandalin was a pipe dream from day 1 and everyone's causing havoc because they can't accept it.
Is there any book you would recommend to learn more about the concept behind this series, I would love to learn more about how different geographical terrain can determine the politics of an area?
Don't look for logic in fantasy role-playing games, folks. You're just spoiling everyone's fun.
.
7:59 "Gnowb one"? I thought it was pronounced "Gnow Bones" (Guh-naw-Bones), sense in the wiki it says she's "the Old Gnowbones"(with an 's' at the end). I'd like to know which one is correct, ik most of these are in-text names so there can be multiple ways to pronounce it, but still- I'm planning on using this Green Dragon on my campaign and I'd like to have the name set-in stone.
if the pronunciation varies, at the very least does anyone know wether it's definitively spelled 'Gnowbone' or 'Gnowbones'.
Like 70% of this video hinges off the fact that you don't see rivers near Phandalin on the map, so there mustn't be any rivers near Phandalin. That's not how maps work though. Only notable rivers would show up on a map. You know… Like rivers that lead to the major city in the region? You wouldn't see the hundreds of minor rivers and tributary rivers. So of course there are rivers near Phandalin or else people just wouldn't live there.