Thundertree Ruins: Recovering Reidoth

A plague upon thee!

Thundertree has seen better days

 [10 min read]

THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE LOST MINE OF PHANDELVER

After adventuring for close to two tendays, there finally came the time for our heroes, Wick, Terach, Wiggity and Alucard, to take a pause in Phandalin and reacquaint themselves with the town they are looking to defend. 

The local business owners, such as Grista, Linene, Toblen and Barthen, are newly freed of the tyranny of the Redbrands and on the path back to prosperity thanks to the party. And some of the region's more remote inhabitants, such as Adabra, Big Al, Dazlyn and Norbus, have been convinced to come into the town's relative safety. Mirna, the woodcarver's wife, has seen her husband properly buried and is able to grieve with her children in their home after being rescued from the cellars of Tresendar Manor.

The party are now heroes of Phandalin, and with the news that bands of orcs are massing for war in the region, the town needs them more than ever. 

The party have made numerous friends in the frontier

What do we do with the prisoners?

With many paths head of them, the heroes discuss and deliberate on the best course of action with their patron, Sildar Hallwinter of the Lord's Alliance! Having two dangerous captives in the makeshift prison of the Tresendar cellars, the party feels they need to be dealt with first, lest they be freed by their Zhentarim allies.

If you think this is creepy, imagine a bucket with eyes named Wilson placed on its head
Image by Wizards of the Coast

The doppelganger is deemed the most risky captive, and so they send their high-stakes interrogator into the room, Alucard. What follows is a tense back and forth in Undercommon between a changeling adopting the menacing 'shark face' and an alienoid with a bucket on its head (to prevent it reading thoughts). Alucard prevails once more, deceiving it into thinking he would turn on his friends, and extracting the connection between the Black Spider, the Cragmaw Tribe and the Redbrands. It seems that the Black Spider already knows the location of Wave Echo Cave, and is desperately trying to remove any chance of other would-be prospectors finding the Forge of Spells.

After the doppelganger is summarily dispatched by Wick's Eldritch Blast, up next is Glasstaff. Knowing him to be Lord Iarno Albrek of The Lord's Alliance, bringing him to justice for betraying his position and working with the Zhentarim is of utmost importance. The party resolves that he must go to Neverwinter for trial.

A night in Neverwinter

Unbeknownst to the party, Carp, the teenage halfling they liberated from the Redbrands service and recently come back to welcome them in the cellars, was actually spying on the proceedings! Fleeing the scene in gaseous form, Carp leaves to presumably alert allies of Glasstaff, changing the party's plans.

With this unsettling turn of events, escorting Glasstaff to Neverwinter is deemed the priority. From there the party can make their way up the river to Thundertree to try and find the venerable but powerful druid Reidoth, and convince him to help defend the town.

Of course, shortly after leaving a show-trial of Glasstaff for the inhabitants of Phandalin, the party are ambushed by four bugbears on the trail. Alucard is immediately crit and downed by the one of the skulkers, who picks up Glasstaff and tries to carry him off. Wick's Healing Word brings the arcane trickster back into the fight, which then degenerates into a game of 'who can keep hold of Glasstaff and not get dropped'. The bugbear leader proves to be another tricksy doppelganger, and when recovering the captive is no longer possible, turns invisible and flees the combat.

Oh Neverwinter, how we've missed you
Image by Wizards of the Coast

The rest of the trip to Neverwinter is uneventful, and Wick, Terach and Alucard greet the city upon whose rough streets they cut their adventuring teeth. Wiggity is off-put by the sheer number of people, and his aptly named companion 'Bear' turns a few heads as they head into the noble quarter to meet Sildar's boss, Sir Edmund Boulderdown.

Handing over the drugged and bound sack of potatoes that is Lord Iarno Albrek draws a huge sigh of relief from the heroes. Sir Edmund is authorised to reward them, and to send back supplies to the town as reparations for the damage caused by the traitor. The party avails themselves of the lord's fine whisky, before killing time in the markets as they wait for their overnight barge up the river. Terach's criminal contact comes back with some very limited information on the Black Spider of the Zhentarim. He is, in fact, a drow.

The ruins of Thundertree

Even the twigs are against you in Thundertree

Spending the night on the wide river atop a large barge, the party is dropped off near Thundertree at dawn. As they draw closer to the ruins, they see the decay of the wood on the buildings, smell the rot of the abundant vegetation, and hear the squelch of their horses' tentative steps on the waterlogged path. Thundertree is indeed now a ruin, overgrown and ominous in the wan light of the grey sky.

Their first forays into the buildings uncover a strange corruption affecting the flora and fauna. As they step into one ruin, piles of wood animate into small, malevolent beings that attempt to overwhelm the party. In a burned out old tavern and brewery, the corpses of presumably the most devoted patrons rise up and lurch forward to attack. When the party land blows on their fetid flesh, they emit a puff of yellow spores, poisoning those in close proximity. Even the zombies are corrupted! 

With several party members not feeling well, and Droop, their goblin ally having been struck down in his overzealous estimation of his combat abilities, they take the time to rest. Unable to fully relax with the smell of stale beer and empty ale barrels tormenting him, Terach responds to a whinny of alarm from the horses outside. A giant spider emerges from the trees, and the party's repose is interrupted. Terach's superior animal handling skill allows him to keep hold of the horses and hurl a hand-axe at the spider, who also has a strange yellow pattern on its black carapace and dripping yellow poison from its fangs. The axe one-shots the spider, and the group is able to rest enough to head deeper into the ruins.

Meeting Reidoth

The venerable druid is found awaiting his demise
Image by Caiomm

Making their way through the town, the party finds a well-maintained house from which the faint sound of whistling can be heard. It is a melancholy tune, for its performer is an old man, body wracked with pestilence, awaiting his death with a defeated demeanor. Sensing no danger from the party, and with Wiggity's obvious druidic accoutrements, the old man introduces himself as Reidoth, and explains that the yellow pustules on his face and body are from one too many contacts with the corrupted denizens of the ruins.

"I am in no condition to away with you to Phandalin, and would not leave anyway until the source of the corruption is cleansed. Thundertree is close to the river, of which many settlements, including Neverwinter, are connected to. The plague is getting ever closer to the water even now as we talk".

So the party resolves to find the source of the corruption and destroy it, hopefully stopping the spread and restoring Reidoth in the process if they can.

Cleansing the corruption

The heroes methodically move from building to building, clearing them of any corrupted denizens, or hidden treasures, including the heirloom from Mirna's family, a valuable emerald necklace. In the process, Terach, who especially identifies with the 'The Hammer' moniker, busts through walls and rips doors off hinges with his trusty crowbar, also discovering its usefulness as a handy improvised thrown weapon. Alucard finds out that giant spiders are especially stealthy, and also especially deadly. He gets his own back on a zombie with a critical sneak attack that does 36 damage (the highest in the campaign so far!). Unfortunately the zombie had one hit point left. Wiggity becomes a one man menagerie by summoning a honey badger and transforming into a dire wolf. And finally Wick provides ranged support with judicious uses of Eldritch Blast and Healing Word.

In one part of the ruins, the stench of decay is almost overwhelming. Alucard circumnavigates a boarded-up building looking for a way in, while Terach 'knocks' on the the front door. The party soon discovers the source of the plague - a zombified half-orc, half-boar shaman with huge yellow pustules covering its body and a plague cloud following its lurching gait. The shaman, found in a ritual circle surrounded by foul concoctions and the skulls of animals, seems to have been messing with powerful forces of nature, corrupted to a destructive purpose. Luring it away from its foul-smelling den, the party goes into beast mode (Wiggity literally) and brings it down in a huge cloud of spores. Both Alucard and Terach go down in the fight, so Wick's Healing Word is called upon multiple times to great effect.

As the party heads to the final unexplored location, a tall, unfinished tower on a hill in the centre of town, they notice the effects of the plague retreating on the corpses that remain. With the source of corruption gone, surely sweeping the tower of treasure will be a banal experience?

The Tower of Thundertree

After standing hesitantly outside the entrance to the tower's adjoining cottage for seemingly an age (there is a giant pile of corpses that seemed to have been drained to husks after all), the party moves inside with a modicum of stealth. The rotting remains of a decadent home greet them, but the ground floor of the tower does not yield said treasure. Heading up the stairs, they see a large pile of fresh corpses, covered in leaves and flower bulbs, slowly rise up on its roots to greet them. 

The prettiest pile of corpses you'll ever see. And the deadliest.
Image by Wizards of the Coast

The Corpse Flower climbs up the side of the tower to get out of range, animating and dropping the corpses on to the ground to occupy the party, all the while lashing out with its tendrils. Wiggity assumes Giant Spider form in order to climb after it, while Alucard, Wick and even the courageous Droop the goblin pepper it with arrows and spells. Terach is able to get some strong hits in as it maneuvers in and out of range, as well as clean up the zombies, whose feeble attacks cannot breach his newly acquired breastplate.

A war of attrition follows, since the Corpse Flower is able to sustain itself on the other corpses trapped in its mass, and occasionally explodes one into a poisonous gas to render those affected less able to hurt it. But finally the last corpse is consumed, and the flower is vanquished. Having thoroughly explored the town and confident any remaining threats have been dealt with, they return to Reidoth triumphantly, finding him in a much improved state with the corruption having subsided. They rest in his shack, and the two druids talk long into the evening about the state of affairs of Phandalin and the region.

What's next?

Rested and recuperated, the party is ready the next morning to bring Reidoth back to Phandalin. Their plan is to return to Neverwinter and see if their contacts could learn anything more of the Black Spider. Then, they plan to head south down the High Road, and then see if they can find the Tower of Storms mentioned to Terrach by the mysterious half-orc shapechanger met outside Butterskull Ranch. He is connected in some way to the orcs that are threatening Phandalin, so following his suggestion might yield valuable information to help defend the town.

Will Terach continue to deny the strength of his heritage and choose life?

Has Alucard learned that 'hit and run' roguish tactics really do include running?

Which wild shape form will Wiggity choose to learn from Reidoth? The honey badger?

Will Wick challenge Terach to a one-on-one duel for ownership of the breastplate?

Is Gundren finally ready to mount an expedition to Wave Echo Cave to find the Lost Mine of Phandelver?

Find out next time on Frontier Forays, featuring Phandalin's Finest, the Hammer of the Lord's Alliance, Friends to Goblins, and Fellers of Flowers.