Hello reddit
I'm running Phandelver and Below for a mostly-beginner group and, like a lot of people here, I found the back half gets stapled to LMoP rather than connected to it — big-headed goblins everywhere, three more dead dwarven dungeons, a missed opportunity with the underdark, and a Far Realm finale that comes out of nowhere (with imho lot of weird new NPCs and laughable places), and the lore about the illithid colony that feels “plot-hole” to me. So I am trying to reworked Part 2 around a different Lore and rethink completely the dungeons and try to give the underdark the place it deserves. Before I commit, I'd love the community to poke holes in it and hear your comments 🙂
Note the party is composed of a knowledge domain Cleric, a college of Lore Bard, an archfey patron Warlock and a circle of the moon Druid.
About the lore first:
We know from LMoP that there was some Netherese presence in the Phandalin area. Let's say there were a few wizards that study the local Weaver-made black Obelisk in quest for more power (or else). ~1,800 years ago Ilvaash (the final boss) posing as "a god stranded in the Far Realm who just wants to come home" talked a Netherese archwizard into opening a gate with the obelisk. It went wrong, horrors poured through, and the mages sealed the gate, shattered the obelisk, hid the pieces (some given to the dwarves), and bound themselves to hold the last containment (that is gonna be the reworked Crypt of Talhund). Now Ilvaash is running the exact same lie on the broken mind flayers of Illithinoch.
About Illithinoch now. I find unsatisfying that there as been a mind flayer empire "centuries ago” that destroyed everything in the local underdark and then fell (no reason why?). Why didnt Ilvaash contacted the mind flayers then? Why didn't the mind flayer found the obelisk parts and used its power for something else during their golden age? Why didn't drows, duergars etc resettled there once the empire fell… not talking about why petty thieves and lore seekers are going to the most unwelcoming place to study some stones they bring with them… anyway. So Illithinoch has been a city on another plane, mind flayers living their dream mind flayer life. Some 2000 years ago Oshoondo leaves the plane to study arcane and inevitably spent some time with the netherese. ~100 years ago came the spellplague that messed with everything and a part of the city was “moved” to the material plane (NB I already introduced the Spellplague in part 1 to explain why nobody knows where the mine is and why no maps of its location exist: the geography was changed by the spellplague, the old maps are now meaningless, the few elves old enough to remember where it was also don't find the stones where they where before). The event drove the elder brain crazy, maddening the weakest illithids of the colony etc… then came Ilvaash’s voice asking the illithids to use the same obelisk that the nethereses successfully used 1800 years ago to open a portal to the far realm for it to come on the material world, promising to create a new empire for them. After the spellplague, Oshoondo goes back to where Illithinoch was to find it torn apart and spent a century looking for it everywhere, following spellscars, eventually finding it some month ago, doing what he does as per book, studying how the plague affected the elder brain, and helping the other illithid finding out about the netherese obelisk.
The practical changes:
The three retrieval sites become three different genres instead of three dead ruins.
-Talhundereth is a living Dumathoin temple the party arrives at during an illithid attack to recover the fragment (they could transport a big brain resonating with dwarvenkind, turning the dwarves there against each others, while the illithid “task force” goes through the complex unbothered).
-Gibbet Crossing is a living trading post — get the shard by negotiation, theft, or exposing the illithids' hidden buyer. The place have a strong milicia to prevent open fight, so the local illithid task force might as well ambush the players on the way out.
– The Crypt of the Talhund becomes a standalone Netherese crypt, physically disconnected (and far) from Talhundereth. Mostly puzzle+construct guardians, home to the fooled archwizard's tomb and lore on the netherese and ilvaash first time named. No live rival in there; instead the illithids' failed first wave lies dead at the entrance and an elite team is incoming, so you get in, recover the shard, and get out before they arrive.
-I want to run the Underdark as a mix hex/point-crawl (mostly a hex map but only made of caves of a few hexes connected by a few hexes of tunnels). The far-realm corruption starts to show in the deeper layers closer to Illithinoch, with small settlements or myconid colonies at escalating corruption stages, refugees fleeing upward etc…). Phandalin stays mostly untouched but the players get a clear idea of what is coming if they don't stop the ritual soon..
-no more Sawplee goblins. I replace them totally by commoners (humans, gnomes, dwarves etc) being captured and inserted tiny pieces of obelisk in the neck (this happens at zorzula's rest). That way the illithids can give them order and they get faster affected by the far realms that leaks through all shards since the mind flayers started playing with Obelisk (before player arrival in Phandalin). The cultists walk bare-chested as to show proudly the changes their body experiences. They use Cragmaws to scout the field, but remove from the goblins memory that they have been there. Even the Orc Bruhgor at Wyvern Tor has been mind controlled by the cultist to capture prospectors and merchants on Triboar Trail to feed the cultists rank. (NB: orcs and goblinoids are not worth of the ceremorphosis, so they are just mind puppets and not “shard implanted cultists”). The Players have a few chances to see the cultists from far and get to inspect a body during part1.
-underdark Fast travel = a sparse network of Netherese waygates (relics of the survivors' campaign to hunt the escaped monsters). One gate would be in the Redbrand Hideout that is turned into Mormesk (the wraith) former Manor. There is an additional hidden workshop with more lore about the mine and who Mormesk was, and a nethereese portal that Mormesk never succeeded to use.
– The final Far Realm chapters are cut entirely. The ritual happens at Illithinoch (reassemble the obelisk → open the gate fully→ pull Ilvaash through), and the climax is stopping it there, with all the shard cultist and other captured villagers there being used for the ritual, most of them already turned mutated — with an optional endgame where the party goes into the Far Realm to kill Ilvaash for good, so it can't just find the next dupe. Then probably using the link of the obelisk with some divine intervention to cure all the mutated cultists and have a happy ending.
– ah yes, and there is a sealed Vault in Wave Echo Cave, where the players are invited to store safely the recovered shards (well they mutate you fast, so you don't want to keep that with you for a long time), and the players will get in part 1 a nethereese box of anti-magic they can use to carry one shard at a time). Eventually, the illithids would raid the mine and try to force the vault…
Et voilà!
Any feedback on this is more than welcomed! (I also made many changes to the first half of the campaign, but that's maybe for another post maybe) Thanks in advance!
Source: r/LostMinesOfPhandelver · by /u/ClubMundane8698