Storm Lords Wrath - Overview


Storm Lords Wrath is the first adventure released as a sequel to The Essentials Kit's Dragon of Icespire Peak. Its a direct sequel that starts at level 7 and takes place in the same general region of Forgotten Realms, south of Neverwinter.
The first adventure took place in Phandalin, this one is in Leilon.
The Town of Leilon is the main focus of the adventure; a place that has been destroyed and rebuilt many times in its long history. The players are tasked with helping an effort to rebuild the town and protect it from evil forces.

The adventure is the first of a larger 3-part campaign, all set in the town of Leilon. The sequels are "Sleeping Dragons Wake" and "Divine Contention", and the overall story arc concerns two different evil gods and their nefarious plans. This blog will focus only on "Storm Lords Wrath".

Story Summary

The players are hooked into helping defend and rebuild the town of Leilon. On the road there, they find the "Wayside Inn" and discover the first signs of the evil god Myrkul with some undead attacking the structure.

Myrkul is a spooky guy
Talos' symbol is way less cool


Once arriving in Leilon, the party find the town under attack and its evacuated occupants scrambling to come up with a defense plan. The group helps out by slaying a group of cultists that worship the storm god Talos and saving the town from attack.

The remained of the adventure is somewhat open ended and consists of a series of quests set in and around the town.
  • "Aid from Phandalin" (lvl 7-8) sends the players back to Phandalin to help sell a flock of goats. They eventually unearth more cultists of Talos and learn one piece of the overall story puzzle; a lens which when paired with a map, helps reveal some new locations.
  • "Foul Weather at the Wayside Inn" (lvl 7) sends the group back to the Wayside Inn, where worshipers of Talos have summoned a storm and attacked in hopes to kidnap a bard. This location has the second piece of the story puzzle, a map with Talos shrine locations.
  • "House of Thalivar" (lvl 7-8) is set in Leilon itself, and surrounds a mysterious ruined tower in the center of town. A wizard did experiments here and captured monsters from the ethereal plane, which were eventually the most recent source of destruction. The players try to dismiss a ghost and figure out how to help rebuild it.
  • "Missing Patrol" (lvl 7-8) Sends the group south, to the Mere of Dead Men (see map above) to find out what happened to a missing patrol. The players learn about the swamp and explore it before finding some lizardfolk escaping rot trolls.
  • "Thunder Cliffs" (lvl 7-8) Is the finale of the adventure, and its location is found with the map and lens from above. This quest starts with some boat-based adventures, then ends in a cave complex used by the Talos cultists to lure unsuspecting ships to their doom for profit. The group encounters a hag coven, and eventually destroys the cultists operation.

Leilon the Town


Leilon has been around for a long time in terms of DND editions, in general it was founded as a place for travelers to rest while travelling along the High Road between Waterdeep (to the south) and Neverwinter (to the north). If you want to learn more about the history of Leilon and the surrounding area throughout the various DND editions, I'd point you to "My Realms"' excellent article on it.

I'll give an overview of the town as explained in this adventure: Leilon was a mining town a long time ago, and exported ores via barge because it lacks a true harbor. 200 years ago a wizard named Thalivar made his tower in the center of town, creating a planar beacon to attract monsters from the ethereal plane for study. Eventually Thalivar disappeared the town was content to leave the mysterious tower abandoned, but the then Spellplague came along. It turned the beacons power into the material plane, releasing various monsters from other planes and paralyzing anyone who gazed upon it.
The wizard Thalivars' ruined tower

When the town was recently reclaimed by soldiers from Neverwinter, their first task was to demolish the tower to stop the planar beacon. And now the place is being rebuilt, and BAM you're along for the adventure.

There is a lot more to the town, like a set of locations that grows over the 3-part campaign as well as a list of NPCs. I am planning to add a lot of homebrew content to the town, and will likely document more of that here as I go. Stay tuned, smash that notification bell.

In My Campaign

My current campaign is quickly approaching this adventure. They have already wrapped up "Lost Mine of Phandelver" and the only thing remaining for them is the ice dragon Cryovain. 
After those events, I am planning some short downtime so as to give the players a chance to experience that side of the game, as well as a good chance to change characters if they like. I am planning to use the hook where the lord of Neverwinter asks the group to help establish Leilon, and this will also let me put in a cool Neverwinter town session.
Once this part happens, I will likely update this page with my experiences.


Comments

  1. Matthew RogersFebruary 10, 2020 at 6:19 PM

    This write is fantastic. just discovered it as my players are finishing up LMoP.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownApril 20, 2020 at 2:23 PM

    Nice write up, hope you do the same for Divine Contention and Sleeping Dragon's Wake.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMay 27, 2020 at 3:18 PM

    Hey just wanted to say thanks this post was extremely useful
    I have one question, anyone who knows plz answer.
    I found LMoP was awesome, but It set the bar high offering storyline progression after nearly every dungeon, DoIP Didnt really offer the same progression and was more a book chalked full of dungeons. I like the concept of this campaign but Im worried because this is a continuation of DoIP it will follow the same format. Yes? No?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VoltisArtJuly 26, 2020 at 5:05 PM

      It sounds like this one is a bit more cohesive, like Lost Mines, as opposed to the ala carte style of Icespire.
      As to it being a continuation, it seems like a sequel of both, which can evidently be combined into one bigger starter adventure, according to this blog. The levels also match to spring from Icespire @ 7th.

      Delete

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