Phandelver ( Part 3 )

Okay, a recap of the characters motivations to start the session. And with six players that takes awhile!

Ander the rogue, 'Best served cold', out to get Windharrow
Tumbleweed the rogue, 'Best served cold'
Lucian the druid, 'Ominous dream' - a dream of the elements of the world falling out of harmony
Murden the Dwarf noble and fighter, 'Shatterkeel' - hunting down Shatterkeel for nearly drowning him and drowning a bunch of others by sinking the boat they were on.
Rickarian the paladin, 'Ominous dream'

And the note they found in the Redbrand hideout, the one signed with a black spider, refered to dealings with Windharrow, Shatterkeel and working from Cragmore castle (a place shown in the ominious dreams as being the start of the trouble). This black spider guy is tied into everyone!

But Sildar does seek them out, in regards to finding missing people from town that he suspects are in the Redbrand ruins. He also gives a tip about the Wyvern Tor job that the townmaster offered - that there might be quite some orcs and perhaps even an ogre as well. It could go poorly for them if they take a frontal approach.

Sildar also talks about Cragmore castle, as he thinks the bosses of the goblins are there and offers 400 gold to find the castle and defeat or drive off the goblin chieftan.

Background info, the module has him offer 500 gold - but as adventure league wont let me add treasure to the game (and give no budget for me to add anything, because they want to be throwbacks to the 1990's) I reduce it to 400 for Cragmore, using 50 gold as the offer to find the lost towns people and the other 50 gold simply in case I need it for some other reward.

So they have an option of find the people, travel to Wyvern Tor or start looking for Cragmore castle.

Really I'd like the choices to be more thematic - not just 'do you follow your motivation or...do something else for the time being?'. But in a way the modules are set in just one direction and so it takes some work to do anything else, otherwise the motivations have to tie into the main direction OR you do something else/ignore the character motivations. I'll have to see if I can figure some choices that actually hinge on motivations next time.

In the end they decide to take up the cause of finding the lost people. So back to the Redbrand ruins they go!