My group arrived in Ank’Harel this week. A massive and new city that will encompass the next arc of the campaign. They all have magic item desires, but there’s not a lot of money in the book module itself, and a group of seven has lots of expenses. So, I’ve set up a chapter of the Slayer’s Take here, too. To give them a chance to earn cash to live their blinged-out magic dreams, between the faction missions. We haven’t even gotten to the the faction missions, yet. I want to talk about the city itself.
Call of the Netherdeep provides a Gazetteer for the city – describing the various sections, and tossing in notable locations. It’s a great resource and really helpful. The provided map is huge, and full of little tiny buildings and occasional foliage, but zero labels, beyond the names of the city sections. There are a few “streets of…” maps for specific encounters, so that can also help, but I’m sorta making it up on my own, as well.
This week, due to illness in the house we usually play at, we were on Discord. This helped with not having to point out locations on the map, though I did share a digital version with the players. We mostly used it for a general idea of where they wanted to go. I tossed in extra shops, because they are always buying (and selling) things. One of the players is really stuck on getting magical weapons, even though the artificer makes his weapons magical every day, and he specifically had his brother craft his main weapon, and has asked him to craft his off-hand, as well. I’m confused by him, but I put in a blacksmith extraordinaire that will have enchanted weapons of the type he wants. They haven’t gone there, yet, and may or may not have the money, depending on what all Take missions they do, but it’s there for the party to explore.
As previously mentioned, however, I love the characters in my stories, so let’s talk about NPCs. The module provides basic race, gender, class information for most of the stated NPCs given in the gazetteer. This is way less information than I generally have to RP an NPC, but this is an entirely new City, and I have to be realistic with my time.
So, I divided up the NPCs from the book, and ones I created myself (mostly business owners) into three main categories: Faction NPCs, Quest NPCs, and Business NPCs. I then linked them up with stat blocks in my Combat section of my OneNote, if they had one listed. Then, I went through the first section of the adventures in the city, and fleshed out the NPCs I would have to RP the most, starting with the line about them in the book, and considering how they were said to interact. For next week, I need to do another run at this as they will be meeting more people.
I mentioned business owners. The group likely won’t ever stay in an inn or tavern because I also put a Slayer’s Take chapter down in Ank’Harel, but I wanted there to be a variety available. Some were mentioned in the book by name only, so I had to create owners, and sometimes names to round out a district of the city. I had to add a couple more shops, as well, for my group who like to sell monster parts and buy all sorts of things. In their first foray into this new place, these also helped them to wander around the city and get used to the place.
I only had to create one new NPC for the Slayer’s Take clients, using already present ones for the others so far, though I might need to more fully flesh out Zala Keencutter before next week, as the party isn’t as keen on his contract, and might go try to talk him out of it. But that actually brings me to another interesting point of NPCs and monsters.
This particular contract deals with a medusa, a monstrosity by DnD standards, but sentient. The pacifist politician in my party wishes to negotiate with her, and if he actually attempts to do so, I need to honor that intent. I need to flesh her out as a fully realized NPC, not just an evil monster. I had already begun this process, given her motivation and intent, but I think I need to dig a little deeper to actually RP her well, should it come to a more in depth conversation. I could also lean the opposite direction, forcing him to try to negotiate during a rage-fueled battle. They will be invading her home, after all.
Always exciting to see what the next adventure holds.