LMoP DM Blog IV: Phandalin Election

This session took place on 10/9/2019

This was one of my best sessions so far, and I'm excited to share what happened.

Recap Previous Session:

Wave Echo Cave was finished up when the players killed the Black Spider. They traveled back to Phandalin to find the town set for an election.

Some of the group met with Daran Edermath, one of the candidates, and learned how much of a cool honorable guy he was. The other two broke into Halia's house, anxious for some dirt. The players had not rested yet and were very low on resources, and the session begins with a Ratform Druid (Aeras) and a Halfing Rogue (Garron) inside of Halias house.

Breaking and Entering

They two explored and found the house in a strange state, with furniture moved around and piled up according to value. The house was otherwise empty, and upstairs they found Halia's pristine bedroom. One player started opening drawers and searching behind them, so (after I crushed him once by finding a hidden furniture bill of sale), I had him find some Dwarven Dankmoss (a homebrew drug). This was some pretty good dirt, but they were expecting something much more sinister.

Suddenly, they hear the clank of keys and a door opening. They both panic and start looking for windows to jump from, but they delay long enough that I made the scene progress. Whoever came inside downstairs closed the door behind them and traveled only a short distance before passing out on the couch.

They discover the person who came in is the female Elven Bard Jelenath, piss drunk and snoring in Halia's home for some reason. Jelenath is a player character that my old DM played in this campaign a few times, but he since hasn't been able to make it to sessions, so we discussed how to keep his character in the story. The players eventually drag the drunken Jelenath across town, "Weekend At Burnies" style so as not to attract attention.

Reunited and Substance Abuse

This is what I imagined
for Dankmoss

Back at the inn, the players are reunited and intrigued to talk to Jelenath as the last time they saw her, she jumped into a teleportation circle after Halia and hasn't been seen since. The players were eager to find out where the teleporter went and what Halia was up to.

They decided the best course of action was to wake Jelenath up with their newfound Dwarven Dankmoss.

I renamed the item from a list of fantasy drugs on dndspeak.com. 

Dwarven Fury: When smoked by a dwarf, this sour smelling underground moss renders the dwarf immune to gaining exhaustion for the 2d4 hours, after which they must make a DC 8+(number of hours)+(levels of exhaustion) Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, they gain all levels of exhaustion they would have taken during the period. If a non-dwarf attempts to use it, they must make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw to gain the effects. Otherwise, they are poisoned for the duration instead.

I had the rogue Garron immediately recognize the drug for what it was, a substance used to avoid exhaustion, and also that it had to be smoked. His plan was to cut an apple (which he did have in his inventory) into a makeshift pipe, smoke the drug, and exhale it into the sleeping Jelenath.

cue rousing laughter around the table

Garron took a puff and failed his CON save, but was able to blow the smoke at Jelenath before falling to the floor poisoned and gasping for air. Jelenath, in her drunken slumber, somehow MADE THE SAVE and immediately bolted upright, awake and alert without a sign of a hangover.

Interrogation and Deception

In their shared inn-room, late at night, the players discuss with the wide awake Jelenath. She explains what happened in the teleportation circle: She followed Halia through and found herself in a cold room, and was immediately beset upon by Zhentarim thugs who beat hear up. Hearing the commotion, Halia turned back, recognized Jelenath, and called off the goons.

Jelenath and Halia have some, lets just say, 'history' in the campaign.

She further explains that she was sleeping in Halias house because they had become 'more than friends' after first meeting. Time for the surprise (which my players don't really know yet!): Halia is long dead, and Jelenath spends her days using a magical disguise to act as Halia in order to swindle the whole town. 

Jelenath, with a charlatan background, is mostly concerned with running the biggest scam possible and getting as rich as possible along the way.

The players then happily go to sleep, unaware of the overall situation, and Jelenath freely takes her leave. They go to sleep in great anticipation of the election tomorrow.

Election Festival

The group awakens to the potato farmer campaign manager Edith, bright and early with breakfast. She has a very nice golden tunic and shiny new black boots for Phoenix to wear, and also mentions the hired bard wants to speak before the days' events.

The group meets the halfling bard Tarbin Tul (who will become important later in the Storm Lords Wrath sequel adventure) and he is interested in facts to sing about. He writes down a list of things the players want him to sing about, and also asks if they have any dirt on the other candidates. The players decline against any foul play, staying honorable.

Outside, the magistrate sent from Neverwinter uses his magical PA system to call everyone to the election kickoff ceremony! Every gathers, and he explains that the election takes the form of an all day festival where the candidates are free to campaign as they choose. At the end of the day a debate will be held, followed by a vote, and finalized with a new mayor before midnight tonight.

And then the cool freeform election part of the session started! 

Election Mechanics Interlude

So I'm planning to write a full article about the election I ran, but I will give a quick rundown here because that article doesn't exist yet.

I broke the town up into 4 groups and assigned each group a specific NPC leader:

• Miners
• Traders
• Innkeepers
• Farmers

Next I came up with a list of 'issues' that I thought made sense given the current situation, and decided that each group cares about some subset of the issues.

Here are the groups, issues, leaders and debate questions
(have a glimpse at my notes)

For each group, I tracked how impressed they were with each candidate. And for each candidate, I tracked a general "renown" number that went up or down based on events in the game. I took a lot of inspiration from some homebrew I found called "Elections in Phandalin" on dmsguild, but I added the whole idea of groups, issues and tracking groups impressions.

I think I got way into the mechanics here, so that's all for now, look forward to the article that'll get more in-depth.

Freeform Election Time

As part of the election day, I went around the table and asked each player how they would help campaign. Some chose to chat with commoners, but there were other interesting ideas too.
The druid Aeras had stolen a Zhentarim book of loan records previously, and she anonymously handed out pages from it, inciting rage against Halia in the crowds.
The paladin Brise decided to talk with Daran.
For each encounter, I gave some short RP or description then had them roll some dice; the result was a plus or minus to a candidates overall renown score.

The rogue Halfling Garron decided to act like a baby and get kissed, then later act like a farmer and cheer Pheonix. I had someone in the crowd shout "ISN'T THAT THE BABY FROM BEFORE?" and rolled a dice. The player immediately responded "NOPE THAT CANT BE A BABY, HE HAS DIRT ON HIS FACE!", good times!

Eventually, I had Halia approach and begin a discussion about the Manor.

Home Ownership

Recall from above that Halia is really Jelenath trying to run a big scam. So of course Halia wants to finish out the 'loan' on the manor in return for a key to the place. Pheonix owes 2500 out of 3000 gold still, and if he can make payment in full now, the manor is his.

I drew out a map of the manor, and the players scramble to count their money. I knew they had enouch to pay for it together, but they went on a little sidequest here to sell barrels of gold ore obtained previously. They worked up the money and bought the manor to cheers around the table.

My players are interested to get some time to check the place out and intend to build it back up to an income stream going forward.

"Oh Yeah We Never Killed That Nothic Did We?"

Waaaay back at the start of the campaign, the players cleared out the basement of a ruined manor in the town of Phandalin. Tresendar Manor (the same place they purchased above), as the place was known, was ac omplete ruin with nothing left aboveground and only a basement remaining which was infested with Redbrand bandits. As part of that dungeon the players encountered a Nothic. Instead of fighting, they came to an agreement and fed the creature almost a dozen corpses of dead bandits. They then proceeded to forget all about the monster.

"Ooooh yeaaah! Thats the guy we never killed!"

Later in the campaign, I offered them the deed to the ruined manor as a quest reward. They obtained a shady loan from the Zhentarim, and re-construction got underway. This has been an ongoing thing in the campaign with payments being made every once in a while. I was sure to keep mentioning the thing in the basement; how one of the builders had been injured and they decided to board up the basement. They kept getting hints but never acted.

Until they were in the middle of an election! When 4 Nothics bust from the basement and start killing townsfolk! The combat only lasted 3 rounds, but there was enough RP in there to make it great. Aeras the druid summoned 8 (!) giant badgers and crushed all the badguys. The players took some damage, and they used it to show off to the gathering crowd and earn votes. It was good to throw a combat in the middle of such a long RP session and I think it went well enough.

(I may also use the "basement is still spooky" plot hook later for a Halloween spooky special session.)

After the combat, the crowd was woo'd and the injured were cured. And from the town square's magical PA system they heard the magistrate beckon:

"All candidates please come to the town square for the start of the debate!"

And I still jammed a debate into this session

So for the debate, I made a index card for each of the town groups above. I wrote down the group, the NPC leaders name, and a short question about the issues that group is concerned with. I then passed these cards out to my players, and asked them to step out of their characters and into these NPCs for a short time. This turned out to be really good, some players loved turning into a vicious trader and blasting their friend with a tough question, whereas others couldn't turn against their friend so easily.

I rolled for random order, and allowed each player to ask their question to two candidates (Halia, Daran, or Pheonix [the player]). This went pretty quickly, and I had made up a table for each of the NPC candidates about their views on each opinion.

Have some more unformatted notes.
The bottom part is the candidates responses to issues.

I added +1 or -1 depending on how the questions appeased each group and tracked it on a big table.

The notes get worse!
This tracks how well each candidate is favored by each group. The circled numbers at the bottom are part of the final vote math.

The players really seemed to enjoy this part. I was worried that the debate would suck if it was just me roleplaying two candidates, 4 factions, and only engaging one player, so this was a great way to sidestep that. 

Ring Of the Grammarian Bites Again

Before the debate, the players decided to buff Phoenix with some magical assistance. He got Guidance from the Druid, and the Sorcerer got funky. A session ago, I gave her a reward, "The Ring of the Grammarian" which I thought might engage the player more, and oh it did.

Apparently, three of the players had been discussing in private all week what to do with this, and they came up with something that has kept me smiling for two days.

They changed the spell "Major Image" into "Mayor Image" and wanted the spell to make everyone view Phoenix as a capable mayor. Super creative use, I gave that player inspiration and summed it all up mechanically as a +3 to renown.

This was definitely the highlight of the night for me, super unexpected but really fun.

Voting and Results

The voting was pretty uneventful, but I did ask each player to write me a private note on who they voted for. They all voted for Pheonix (the player) but I made a big act of "HMMM INTERESTING RESULTS!".

I rolled a bunch of D20's, added modifiers, did some addition, and announced the winners in reverse order.

Last place: Daran Edermath with 37 votes

Second place: Halia Thornton with 41 votes

First place: Pheonix Falconflight with 51 votes

So it was pretty close after all! At this point it was 10PM and my group had to disband, but everyone agreed that it was a very fun session. I felt really good about how it went, probably one of my best sessions so far but it did take like 12 sessions of buildup to get here.

Tune in next week when they either go re-supply to fight the dragon, or just go fight the dragon Cryovain!