Easthaven

Walking into Easthaven is like stepping into Icewind Dale’s past—the place is a living example of the boomtown way of life that gripped all of Ten-Towns centuries ago. In the generations since, as other towns have settled into a predictable pattern of existence, Easthaven has continued to grow and reinvent itself. After the Eastway was paved, Easthaven evolved into a frontier traders' paradise, fueling the jealousy of its neighbors.

Easthaven’s founders were thieves from the Duchy of Cape Velen, on a peninsula far to the south. They refused to kowtow to a powerful thieves' guild and were driven out. To this day, Easthaven honors its shady founders by declaring pickpocketing legal within the town limits—which explains the “Watch thy pouch!” signs posted in various local establishments.

Duergar have infiltrated the town of late, scouring Easthaven and the surrounding tundra for chardalyn fragments to bring back to their hidden mountain stronghold. The leader of these duergar is Durth Sunblight, the oldest living son of Xardorok Sunblight. Durth and his gang have turned the frozen Easthaven ferry into a temporary base. Using their innate invisibility to move about unseen, the duergar betray their presence only by the footprints they leave in the snow.

Another occurrence of note is the recent capture of a Red Wizard of Thay who has been found guilty of killing a handful of dale-folk he had hired for an expedition. Speaker Danneth Waylen has issued a decree that the wizard be tied to a stake and burned alive—an event that a lot of Easthaven residents are looking forward to.

Easthaven in a Nutshell

Friendliness ❄❄Services ❄❄❄Comfort ❄❄❄

Available Quest

“area Toil and Trouble”.

• Population 750.

Leaders

Speaker Danneth Waylen (chaotic good human commoner), respected for his humility and forthrightness. Captain Imdra Arlaggath (lawful good half-elf veteran) commands the town’s militia.

Militia

Easthaven can muster up to 150 soldiers (use the tribal warrior stat block) and 12 Veteran.

• Heraldry A snowflake at the top center of a steel-gray field, above a horizontal brown field that forms the left-hand base, and a dark blue field that forms the right-hand base; where they meet is a thin white tower. The brown field represents the Eastway, the tower represents the town, and the blue field is Lac Dinneshere.

Sacrifice to Auril

Humanoid (see “area Sacrifices to Auril").

• Rivals Caer-Dineval, Caer-Konig.

Overland Travel

The Eastway stretches between Easthaven and Bryn Shander. Snow-covered paths branching off this road lead to Caer-Dineval and Good Mead. Travel times in the Overland Travel from Easthaven table assume that characters are on foot; mounts and dogsleds can shorten these times by as much as 50 percent.

Overland Travel from Easthaven

Locations in Easthaven

The following locations, marked on map 1.9, are a few of the places the characters might visit during their time in Easthaven. Another important location—Easthaven’s Town Hall—is described later, in the “area Town Hall Capers” section.

Easthaven Ferry

Ferry service (halted)

A letter found in a secret duergar outpost (see “area The Unseen") might lead the characters to this location. Delivering the letter to Speaker Waylen or Captain Arlaggath prompts these NPCs to meet and determine an appropriate course of action. Together, they ask the characters to search the ferry and slay any duergar they encounter aboard it. If the characters request backup, Captain Arlaggath accompanies them.

Use the following boxed text to describe the ferry to the players:

Easthaven’s ferry, a keelboat, is trapped in the ice at the end of a wooden dock. A small cabin is situated toward the aft end of the hull.

When the lake isn’t frozen, this keelboat transports people and cargo to the towns of Caer-Dineval and Caer-Konig for a modest fee. But the boat and much of Easthaven’s harbor is trapped in ice, and Speaker Waylen has declared that ferry service must cease until the ice thaws—which, given Auril’s temperament, seems unlikely to happen soon. The ferry’s tiefling owner and operator, Scython, spends his idle time at the Wet Trout (described below). In Scython’s absence, the ferry has become a base of operations for a duergar mind master (see appendix C) named Durth Sunblight. He and three other duergar named Klaska, Ossyl, and Zublorr are using the ferry’s aft cabin as a lair, but only Durth is present when the characters first arrive at the ferry. The other duergar are searching Easthaven for chardalyn.

The duergar are cautious enough to turn invisible while moving through town and on the docks, but not smart enough to cover the tracks they make in the snow. Characters who search for tracks on the snow-covered dock and succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom (Survival) check can discern 1d4 distinct sets of dwarven boot prints leading to and from the ferry. These tracks were made within the past 24 hours.

Aft Cabin

The ice covering the cabin door has been chipped away, and the door is not locked. The space is roughly 10 feet square and contains four sleeping bags, packs of stolen rations, and a rolled-up map of Icewind Dale that marks the location of every Ten-Towns settlement, as well as the locations of the duergar outpost near Kelvin’s Cairn (see “area Outpost Locations") and Sunblight, the fortress hidden in the mountains (described inchapter 3). All of the place names on the map are written in Dwarvish.

Lurking in the cabin is Durth Sunblight. He knows when someone else boards the ship by the creaking of the deck. As a precaution, he turns invisible and stands in an empty corner at the back of the cabin. If an intruder detects him or tries to steal his map, he attacks. If he’s reduced to 20 hit points or fewer, he shrinks to Tiny size and flees through a 4-inch-diameter rathole, exiting outside the ship 5 feet above the frozen harbor and 5 feet away from the dock. If he escapes, Durth returns to his father’s fortress in the mountains (see chapter 3), abandoning his duergar companions.

Development

Durth’s companions have been scouring Easthaven for chardalyn. Their latest search has borne no fruit, and they return to the ferry 30 minutes after the characters board it. These three duergar attack any non-duergar they encounter onboard the vessel. If they find Durth’s dead body or no signs of him at all aboard the ferry, they abandon the ship and don’t return to it.

If the characters capture Durth, he warns his captors that he’s the son of Xardorok Sunblight, who will soon claim Icewind Dale as his kingdom, and it would be unwise for them to earn the wrath of so powerful a figure. Durth doesn’t give up any other information. His companions are similarly tight-lipped; however, threats to Durth’s life or the clever use of a suggestion spell or similar magic can persuade one or more them to reveal the following additional information:

• Xardorok has a fortress hidden in the mountains. (The route to this fortress is marked on Durth’s map aboard the ferry.)
• Xardorok’s fortress has a forge powered by the still-beating heart of a red dragon. In this forge, Xardorok is crafting a dragon made of chardalyn, with which he plans to destroy Ten-Towns. The chardalyn dragon is close to being finished.
• Xardorok has another son, Nildar, who commands a secret outpost on the northeast side of Kelvin’s Cairn (see “area The Unseen").

The Wet Trout

Popular tavern

The Wet Trout, located near the docks, is the largest and loudest tavern in Easthaven, known for its ribald atmosphere and rumor-mongering. A great chimney squarely in the building’s center has hearths on either side to warm the tavern’s two common rooms. The tavern’s current owner and proprietor is Nymetra Myskyn, a chaotic neutral dragonborn berserker of white dragon ancestry. Although she can be crusty and full of complaints, Nymetra is not discouraged by the Everlasting Rime, which she regards as a test of Ten-Towns' mettle. An unapologetic worshiper of Auril, she supports Easthaven’s attempts to appease the Frostmaiden with sacrifices (see “area Sacrifices to Auril").

Scython

One of the Wet Trout’s regular patrons is Scython, a neutral good tiefling bandit captain who owns a small house a few blocks away. Scython is also the owner and operator of Easthaven’s ferry. A talkative, happy-go-lucky fellow, he knows rumors that might interest the characters. Roll three times on the Ten-Towns Rumors table (see “area Ten-Towns Rumors") to determine what Scython knows.

Although he’s well informed, Scython doesn’t know about the duergar stowing away aboard his ship (see “Easthaven Ferry” above).

The White Lady Inn

Inn

This musty old inn is named after a local legend known as the White Lady—a ghost rumored to walk on Lac Dinneshere, haunting the spot where her rich husband drowned. Rinaldo (lawful good strongheart halfling commoner), a self-styled bard kept around to entertain guests, is fond of plucking his fiddle while recounting his tale: that the White Lady’s husband was a miser who kept his treasure in a heavy, locked chest that never left his side. Perhaps it was this heavy chest, suggests Rinaldo, that capsized his boat and sent the man to his sunken grave, or perhaps it was the fright of seeing his dead wife that caused him to capsize the boat and drown. Either way, Rinaldo is certain that the man’s treasure lies at the bottom of the lake, waiting for some intrepid explorer to find it. The inn’s sullen, elderly proprietor, Bartaban (neutral good human commoner), has heard the halfling’s rambling far too often to be humored by it.

Séance.

Rinaldo is planning to conduct a séance in a back room of the inn and has invited half a dozen other guests (Commoner) to join him. Characters who spend one or more nights at the inn are invited by Rinaldo to join his séance. If the characters decline, Rinaldo is disappointed and tries to get them to change their minds by saying, “We live in dark times. Perhaps the spirit of the White Lady can help. Aren’t you curious to hear what she has to say?”

If one or more characters are present when the séance begins, read:

Smoke from burning incense clouds the room. Multicolored lamps and silks are hung from the rafters, and the light from several candles illuminates a circle of uncomfortable-looking guests sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Rinaldo pushes back the sleeves of his robe, raises his hands, closes his eyes, and intones, “Lady who watches from the lake, come to us in our darkest hour! Tell us what you’ve seen!” After a moment of silence, thick frost forms on the inside of the room’s windows, turning them opaque, and the candles go out one by one.

Rinaldo senses that the White Lady’s spirit is close and urges the characters to reach out to it. Ask the players in turn what their characters say or do. The characters who try to help Rinaldo must make a DC 12 Charisma (Persuasion) group check. If the group check fails, the White Lady’s spirit manifests as a poltergeist and attacks the party, frightening away the other participants. This poltergeist uses the specter stat block, with the changes outlined in the “Variant: Poltergeist” sidebar that appears with it in the Monster Manual.

If the group check succeeds, Rinaldo can sense that the spirit is receptive and urges the characters to ask it questions. The spirit replies truthfully by tracing short, two- to five-word answers on the room’s frosted windows. If doing that becomes too cumbersome, the spirit uses Rinaldo as a vessel to whisper the answers. If the spirit doesn’t know an answer or thinks a question is foolish, it shatters a window instead. Once it answers three questions, the spirit departs, and Rinaldo can’t try to summon it again until he finishes a long rest.

Here’s what the White Lady knows about the recent happenings around Lac Dinneshere:

• The castle in Caer-Dineval has become a base for a devil-worshiping cult.
• Gray-skinned dwarves have been stalking the streets of Easthaven, Caer-Dineval, and Caer-Konig while invisible. Their intentions aren’t good. They hide aboard the town ferry (see “area Easthaven Ferry” above) and in the ruins of Dinev’s Rest (see “area Dinev’s Rest").
• A magic cauldron is hidden in some frozen, lakeside caves. The cauldron is guarded by an evil hag named Maud Chiselbone and can conjure enough stew to feed a starving town indefinitely (see “Toil and Trouble” below).

The White Lady doesn’t remember the details of her own death or the fate of her lost love. Once her spirit departs, the frost on the windows dissipates.

Toil and Trouble

The quest in Easthaven begins at the same time as the burning of the Red Wizard, Dzaan, who is described in the “Arcane Brotherhood” section of area appendix C. Whether the characters are starting the adventure in Easthaven or have just arrived, they are present during Dzaan’s fiery execution. They’re too late to save Dzaan, but they might encounter a magical copy of him again in chapter 2 (see “area Lost Spire of Netheril").

The captain of Easthaven’s militia, Imdra Arlaggath, takes notice of the characters during the burning and offers them a quest. Some fishers have gone missing on Lac Dinneshere, and she wants the characters to take a boat and search for them. She knows where the fishers like to fish and urges the characters to search that part of the lake first. If they heed Imdra’s advice, they find the fishers' boats pulled up on the ice within short walking distance from a frozen cave previously hidden under snow and ice. This cave, the characters soon discover, is the lair of a hag named Maud Chiselbone.

Characters who explore the cave complex find the bodies of the fishers, as well as Maud’s cauldron of plenty). The cauldron is a stunning discovery and a welcome one for the people of Ten-Towns, if the characters choose to part with it. If news of the cauldron spreads, the characters will quickly find themselves the center of attention as various towns strive to obtain it. With no end to winter in sight, the cauldron might be the last thing standing between one town’s survival and another’s extinction.

Public Execution

Events begin to unfold when the characters find themselves in the vicinity as Dzaan’s execution takes place:

A crowd has gathered in front of the Town Hall to watch the public execution of Dzaan, a human wizard who, despite efforts to disguise himself, was recognized and arrested for the crimes he has inflicted upon dale-folk. He has been bound to a stake and gagged. Members of the militia use torches to light the straw tucked around his feet. Fanned by the wind, the fire catches quickly. Dzaan does not struggle or scream as he is quickly engulfed in flames. Bundled-up spectators move closer to the human bonfire, eager to feel its warmth.

A woman bedecked in a tailored coat and a fur hat approaches the characters as people huddle around the burning wizard. She introduces herself as Imdra Arlaggath, captain of Easthaven’s militia. Captain Arlaggath (lawful good half-elf veteran) speaks curtly but is not unfriendly. If any of the characters ask about Dzaan, she tells them that he coldly murdered some adventurers who had aided the people of Icewind Dale in the past; his public execution isn’t an act of vengeance but is meant to deter others from engaging in similar behavior.

Getting the Quest

Captain Arlaggath asks about the characters' hometowns and reasons for being in Easthaven before asking if they can assist in an investigation. If they express interest, she shares the following information:

“Four fishers went missing on Lac Dinneshere a tenday ago. The coastline is hard to sail along because of the ice floes, but savvy anglers prefer it—there are fewer competing fishers from the other lake towns there. We need someone to scout the coastline and search for them.”

If the characters need a boat, they can borrow one from the angler docks and drag it across the ice to the open water. A rowboat can hold up to four Medium characters, while a single-masted skiff can hold up to eight. A skiff requires at least one crew member who has proficiency with water vehicles.

If the characters request a reward for their services, Captain Arlaggath says she’s not authorized to give one. But she did confiscate two items from Dzaan that might interest the characters: a spell scroll of fireball in a copper tube and a gray bag of tricks. They can have one or the other if they find the missing fishers.

The Search Begins

Much of Lac Dinneshere is covered with ice. Only the hardiest anglers venture out to fish for knucklehead trout. To wrangle such a catch, fishers must drag their boats across the ice to open water and wait patiently out on the lake in the freezing cold for hours at a time. To fend off the chill, they often bring bottles of ale to keep warm. Imbibing too much is dangerous, for it makes the anglers more susceptible to being pulled overboard by stubborn knuckleheads. Too much ale also leads to foolhardy decisions. Such was the fate of four old anglers from Easthaven, who abandoned their trusty boat, Bunch o' Knuckleheads, to follow a tantalizing scent emanating from the mouth of a lakeside cave. Inside, they encountered a hag named Maud Chiselbone and a spicy concoction she prepared using her cauldron of plenty. Maud took the opportunity to season her stew with the ale-soaked anglers before adding their bones to her growing collection.

Abandoned Rowboat

The characters find the Bunch o' Knuckleheads along the coast:

A rowboat bobs untethered in the water amid some small ice floes, not far from the eighty-foot-high cliffs that abut the shoreline. The mouths of four caves dot the snowy cliffside. One of these caves is at water level, and the others are elevated twenty to thirty feet above the frozen lake. The wind tearing through these icy caves sounds like moaning.

Characters who search the abandoned rowboat find four oars, four sets of fishing tackle, and a dozen empty bottles lying in it. Characters can also see faint tracks on the ice leading from the boat to the southernmost cave, which is where the four missing anglers went. The spicy scent that lured the fishers into the cave is not present when the characters arrive.

As the characters conclude their search of the rowboat and make their way toward the caves, two Harpy fly over the coastline. Like many creatures in this region, the harpies are starving and eager for anything they can eat. If one is killed, the other flees.

The Cauldron Caves

A cave network extends into the snow-swept cliffs along the shore of Lac Dinneshere. This complex once contained a sacred hot spring where elderly frost giants came to end their lives in a drowning ritual. Now, the waters have frozen over.

The caves have long been home to a lake hag named Maud Chiselbone. Maud has amassed a collection of bones and trinkets taken from wayward explorers who blundered into her lair. Maud once shared her caves with two sisters, but the coven had a falling out. The bones of Maud’s dead sisters are among those on display in her home. Maud is always hungry and likes to lick clean the bones of her “guests.” The four fishers from Easthaven are her latest victims.

Features of the Caves

The caves have the following recurring features:

• Moaning Wind The howling wind that blows through the caves sounds like a moaning crone, which is bone-chilling enough to deter most would-be explorers. The wind blows out candles and other small flames but is otherwise harmless.

Ice Everywhere

Slippery ice covers every wall, ceiling, and floor (see “Slippery Ice” in the Dungeon Master’s Guide). Characters with crampons strapped to their boots can traverse the ice without impediment.

• High Ceilings The caves have 50-foot-high ceilings. The tunnels connecting the caves are 30 feet high.
• Moonlight Infrequent, naturally occurring breaks in the ceiling allow moonlight into the caves, causing areas of the complex to be dimly lit on clear nights.

Areas of the Cauldron Caves

The following locations are keyed to map 1.10.

U1. Cave Mouths

The characters must climb icy cliffs to reach the three northernmost caves, which are above water level. No ability check is required to do so, given the abundant handholds and footholds on the cliffs.

Water used to flow out of the southernmost tunnel and feed into the lake. That water is now frozen solid, creating a floor of ice several feet thick. The fishers entered the cave complex by this route, as evidenced by tracks in the snow that clings to the ice. With a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Survival) check, the characters can follow these four sets of human tracks as far as area area U7, where they disappear. The fishers made it all the way to area area U9, where they met their doom.

U2. Dire Wolf Den

A hungry dire wolf haunts this dark cave, the uneven floor of which is strewn with animal and humanoid bones. Unless the characters offer it fresh meat, the dire wolf attacks them. It’s too mean-tempered to be befriended. The wolf has no trouble scrambling up or down the 20-foot-high wall at the mouth of its den.

U3. Cave Drawings

This cave has ancient, stick-figure drawings carved into its northern wall.

A character who makes a successful DC 15 Intelligence (History) check can correctly interpret the carvings, which show frost giants wading up a river to a cavern that contains a hot spring, in which they drown themselves.

U4. Moaning Cavern

The cave is empty except for three ice-covered pillars composed of mineral deposits.

U5. Icy Bridge

A natural stone bridge spans the frozen river 20 feet below. The top of the bridge is covered with a slippery, icy glaze. Crossing the bridge safely requires a successful DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. A creature that fails the check falls off the bridge and lands prone on the frozen river below, taking 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage from the fall.

U6. Old Camp

This cave contains an abandoned campsite.

Characters who search the charred remains of the campfire can find three torn-out pages, only partially burned, from a journal written in Dwarvish.

Written on the loose pages are an anonymous dwarf’s musings about the cave complex. Characters who examine the pages find a couple of noteworthy passages:

• “These caves are sacred to the frost giants. The carvings on the wall suggest that the giants came here to drown themselves. Did they use the hot spring as a sacrificial pool?”
• “The wind truly sounds like a wailing woman. One could easily go mad in this place.”
• “I think there’s someone living in these caves. Shortly after discovering the hot spring, I heard what sounded like a granny singing. When the song ended with a shrill laugh, dread sunk its teeth in me. Ye gods, that horrible cackle! I shall leave these caves in the morning and never return.”

U7. Waterfall

The river used to tumble over a small waterfall in this area, following the current west toward Lac Dinneshere. The waterfall now takes the form of a 10-foot-tall sheet of ice that can be climbed with a successful DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check. The ice is thin, however, and easily broken: the first creature of Medium size or larger to fail the check causes the ice to crack and fall, releasing a dormant water weird. After the ice breaks, enough ice remains that characters can still climb it, but the DC of the check increases to 15.

Lodged in the rocks behind the waterfall are items that were caught in the river, including an explorer’s pack and a miner’s pick. After the water weird is released and dealt with, these items can be safely recovered.

U8. Sacred Spring

An underground river once spilled into a pool in this area, filling it with steaming mineral water and overflowing to the west. The river and the pool are now frozen and will remain so until the Everlasting Rime ends.

On clear nights, moonlight shines through an opening in the ceiling and illuminates the pool. The minerals in the ice have turned it a cloudy, bright blue. Entombed in the ice are the remains of four frost giants, the faint outlines of their forms barely visible.

U9. Ossuary

This cave is higher in elevation than the tunnels leading to it, but it’s easily reached by climbing one of two flights of crudely carved stairs.

On clear nights, moonlight enters the cave through natural fissures in the ceiling. Fresh blood paints the icy floor, indicating that one or more creatures were butchered here recently. (This is where the fishers from Easthaven met their end.) More obvious than the blood are all the bones: knucklehead trout spines, humanoid skeletons in pieces, and bones of small animals and birds, along with scraps of clothing and armor and a few rusty weapons.

Sitting among the bones in the middle of the cave is a frost giant skeleton (see appendix C) partially encased in ice. It remains inanimate until it takes damage or until an intruder enters the ossuary. Instead of rolling initiative for it, have it act on initiative count 1. The skeleton spends its first two turns in combat doing nothing other than breaking out of the ice and getting to its feet, which gives the characters time to flee or get in a few hits before the skeleton attacks.

This creature killed the fishers from Easthaven, and Maud is the only one who can control it. The skeleton tries to kill anyone else who enters this cave and pursues fleeing prey as far as it can without leaving the cave complex.

U10. Cauldron of Plenty

The lake hag, Maud Chiselbone (use the sea hag} stat block), and her will-o'-wisp companion await characters in the middle of this cave. Maud stands between her cauldron of plenty (see appendix D) and a stone block atop which she butchers whatever meat is destined for her stew. Heaped around this block are rusty hatchets and the flayed corpses of the four fishers from Easthaven. The will-o'-wisp is normally invisible when its light is extinguished, but it brightens when it wants intruders to behold Maud’s true, hideous form.

Maud disguises herself as a decrepit old woman. In this form, she wears tattered furs to stave off the cold. In her natural form, Maud has sickly grayish-purple flesh, bulging eyes that seldom blink, and stringy black hair interwoven with fingerbones. If her disguise is pierced or the characters threaten her, Maud summons the frost giant skeleton in area U9 to fight on her behalf, but it takes two rounds to arrive. If the skeleton is destroyed, Maud assumes her true form and takes on the characters herself. She won’t give up her lair or the magic cauldron without a fight.

If she is reduced to 9 hit points or fewer, Maud tries to make a deal. She agrees to surrender the cauldron and promises to deliver a chest filled with gold coins that lies in the muck at the bottom of Lac Dinneshere. If the deal is struck and the characters release her as promised, Maud returns to the lake to make good on her end of the bargain. As she departs, she tells the characters to wait in the caves until midnight, then head north along the shore for a mile. If they follow her instructions, they find a waterlogged wooden chest on the icy shore, its lock broken off. See “Treasure” below for information on the chest’s contents.

Treasure

The piping-hot stew created by the cauldron of plenty is too bland for Maud’s tastes, so she has added skinned meat and fresh human organs to the latest batch. Characters who examine the stew see lumps of flesh and organs floating in the spicy broth. Characters will need to dump the stew before trying to move the cauldron. Even empty, the cauldron requires some effort to transport, given its awkward size.

If the cauldron is hauled back to Ten-Towns and its magical properties become known, the characters won’t have trouble finding an interested buyer for it (see “Concluding the Quest” and “Town Hall Capers” below).

The chest that Maud pulls from the depths of Lac Dinneshere contains 600 gp. Buried under the gold coins are four Crawling Claw that leap out and attack if the gold is removed, dumped, or otherwise disturbed.

Concluding the Quest

Captain Arlaggath is saddened by the news that the missing fishers are dead, yet eager to hear a full account of the characters' visit to the Cauldron Caves.

Claiming the Reward

Having completed their quest, the characters are entitled to either the spell scroll of fireball or the gray bag of tricks, both of which Captain Arlaggath has in her custody.

Selling the Cauldron

Characters who try to sell the cauldron of plenty in Easthaven get more than they bargained for (see “Town Hall Capers” below).

Town Hall Capers

Easthaven’s Town Hall is the setting for two possible capers, one involving the theft of the cauldron of plenty and the other involving the theft of a ship’s figurehead made of chardalyn. These capers occur under the following conditions:

• If the characters try to sell the cauldron of plenty in Easthaven, run “The Cauldron Caper.”
• If the characters haven’t dealt with the duergar threat aboard Easthaven’s ferry and aren’t likely to do so, run “The Chardalyn Caper.”

You can run one caper or the other, or use both of them at different times in the adventure.

The Cauldron Caper

If the characters bring the cauldron of plenty to Easthaven and its properties become known to Captain Arlaggath or other townsfolk, word gets around that the characters possess a magic item that could help feed the hungry in Ten-Towns. This news quickly reaches Speaker Danneth Waylen, who invites the characters to a private meeting at the Town Hall. During this meeting, Danneth tries to buy the cauldron, offering five 500 gp gemstones for it. No one else in Easthaven will pay more for it or bid against him.

Any character who barters with Danneth and succeeds on a DC 12 Charisma (Persuasion) check can convince him to sweeten the deal, in which case he offers up to ten 500 gp gemstones. If the characters accept his offer, Danneth needs 48 hours to call in some debts and acquire the gems, during which time he insists that the cauldron remain in Easthaven’s Town Hall, under guard in area area T17. The characters can either let four members of town militia (Tribal Warrior) watch over the cauldron, or they can protect it themselves. Danneth is satisfied either way.

Zhentarim Thieves

News of the cauldron reaches Speaker Naerth Maxildanarr of Targos within a day, thanks to a Zhentarim spy named Prudence Tarkwold, who works as a clerk in Easthaven’s Town Hall and owns a small cottage nearby (where she keeps a flying snake that serves her as a messenger). After Prudence notifies him of the cauldron, Naerth sets into motion a plan to steal it. He dispatches three human Thug in cold weather clothing to meet with Prudence at the Town Hall as night falls. These thugs bring with them a domesticated axe beak, which they tie to a wooden post outside the Town Hall’s north entrance.

Barring the characters' intervention, the Zhents corner Speaker Waylen in his office (area area T3) and use him as a hostage to force the guards watching the cauldron to drop their weapons and surrender without a fight. After locking Speaker Waylen and the guards in the jail (area area T18), the Zhents remove the cauldron from the Town Hall, lash it to the axe beak with rope, and toss the keys to the jail cells into a snowbank. The axe beak is strong enough to drag the cauldron through the snow behind it as the Zhents lead it back to Targos. The Zhents don’t stop until the cauldron is delivered to Speaker Naerth Maxildanarr at the Luskan Arms (see “area the Luskan Arms"). Any tracks they make in the snow are obliterated after 1d4 hours by blowing wind. Although they are lawful evil, the Zhents have strict orders not to kill anyone. Enemies they reduce to 0 hit points are knocked unconscious rather than slain.

Development

Characters at the Town Hall can attempt to thwart the robbery. If no characters are present during the robbery, the theft becomes apparent when the characters return to the Town Hall to close the deal with Speaker Waylen. If they arrive in the early hours of the morning, they hear loud banging coming from the dungeon, where the speaker and his guards are locked up. Otherwise, they arrive to find Captain Arlaggath and a small retinue of town guards trying to break open the cell doors.

Speaker Waylen is stung by Prudence’s betrayal, as she worked closely with him for nearly three years. He had no idea she worked for the Zhentarim. If the characters don’t know where the Zhents took the cauldron, Waylen recalls that Prudence offhandedly mentioned having family in Targos. (Her “family” is the Zhentarim.) He suggests they search for the cauldron there. Characters can find Prudence Tarkwold at the Luskan Arms, where she has a private room to herself. As for the cauldron, Speaker Maxildanarr has it and won’t give it up without a fight.

The Chardalyn Caper

The duergar hiding aboard the Easthaven ferry attack the Town Hall in the dead of night, determined to steal pieces of a ship’s figurehead made of chardalyn. This theft occurs while most townsfolk, including Speaker Waylen, are asleep in their homes. For more information about the duergar and what they know, see the “area Easthaven Ferry” section.

Duergar Thieves

If he’s still alive, Durth Sunblight, a duergar mind master (see appendix C), leads three duergar named Klaska, Ossyl, and Zublorr to the Town Hall under the cover of night, making their way inside through the north entrance. Barring the characters' intervention, the duergar use their weapons to shatter the chardalyn figurehead in area area T6. The guards in area area T17 interrupt the duergar but are no match for them. After killing the guards with their war picks, the duergar finish breaking apart the figurehead.

Each duergar carries one sack that can hold up to five 20-pound fragments of chardalyn. After filling their sacks, the duergar exit the Town Hall and travel to their hidden fortress in the mountains (described in chapter 3). Any tracks left by the duergar are obliterated after 1d4 hours by blowing wind.

If too much time has passed to track the duergar, the characters have no way to know where they went—just as well, given the perils of the duergar fortress. A search of the Easthaven ferry yields no clues, as the duergar took all their belongings (including Durth’s map) with them.

Development

Unless they happen to be inside or near the Town Hall when the duergar arrive, the characters won’t know about the theft until word reaches their ears the following day, when Speaker Waylen asks them to find the thieves and return the missing fragments of chardalyn, so that he can lock them up with the other pieces that the thieves left behind. Waylen is willing to pay 50 gp for each stolen fragment that is returned to him. If the characters aren’t already aware of the properties of chardalyn, Waylen warns them about the demonic magic suffusing the crystal and urges them not to come in direct contact with any of the fragments.

Characters who are determined to find the stolen chardalyn fragments can question Easthaven’s townsfolk to see if anyone saw suspicious activity on the night of the robbery. Any character who spends an hour knocking on doors and inquiring about town can make a DC 14 Charisma (Investigation) check at the end of that hour. On a failed check, no useful information is obtained. If the check succeeds, the character is urged to speak with Scython, the tiefling ferryman, who spends most of his free time in a tavern called the Wet Trout. Scython is widely regarded as a font of useful information. Although he doesn’t know anything about the duergar or the stolen chardalyn, he knows several rumors that might steer the characters in new directions (see “area The Wet Trout"). Once the characters are 4th level, the adventure steers them toward the duergar fortress in chapter 3, where the stolen chardalyn fragments can be found (see area area X26).

Easthaven Town Hall (T1-T10)

Information about Easthaven’s Town Hall is provided here, along with a map. You can use map 1.11 to represent other town halls in Ten-Towns, as needed.

Easthaven’s Town Hall is a two-story, wattle-and-daub building where townsfolk come to renew licenses, pay fines, settle petty claims, file complaints, and gather to discuss important issues. The flag of Easthaven flutters atop a cupola on the Town Hall’s steeply pitched rooftop.

All above-ground levels have wooden floors, with framed oil paintings by local artists mounted above the wainscoting. The doors on these levels are made of sturdy wood and have no locks, though the outermost doors can be barred from within. The dungeon level is hewn out of solid rock and has sturdy iron doors throughout. Low-burning lanterns hang from iron brackets or the rafters, dimly lighting all interior locations.

The following locations are keyed to map 1.11.

T1. Reception Hall

This chamber is decorated with oil paintings depicting life in Easthaven, including a large painting of the town itself on the north wall. Mounted on the south wall is a five-foot-long, stuffed knucklehead trout. Its wooden plaque bears an engraved copper plate that reads, in Common, “Big Knuck, caught by Easthaven fishers during the summer of 1479 DR.”

A secret door in the northeast corner is partially concealed behind a tall, slender oil painting of fishing boats on Lac Dinneshere. It pulls open to reveal the speaker’s office (area T3) beyond. Any character who searches the wall for secret doors finds it automatically.

T2. Administrative Office

This room contains rows of desks and filing cabinets. A few overstuffed lounge chairs are set aside for visitors.

T3. Speaker’s Office

Tapestries and painted landscapes decorate this room, in the middle of which is a large table surrounded by high-backed wooden chairs.

The speaker’s chair has Easthaven’s heraldry worked into its backrest, whereas the other chairs don’t.

A secret door in the northwest corner is concealed behind a tapestry depicting a snow-capped mountain. It swings open into area T1. Any character who searches the wall for secret doors finds it automatically.

T4. Coat Closet

This is the speaker’s personal coat closet. A full set of Clothing, cold weather is stored in the wooden trunk.

T5. Privy

This room contains a toilet, a bucket and mop, a simple wash basin, and a towel rack.

T6. Chardalyn Figurehead

Provided the duergar haven’t destroyed it, a startling discovery awaits characters in this room:

Low-burning lanterns cast a gentle glow upon a tall, black object in the center of this room. Although one could easily mistake it for a statue, this object is actually the figurehead of a ship and is carved in the likeness of a winged demon. The demon-shaped figurehead stands eight feet tall. Shards of wood jut out of the demon’s back at the points where the figurehead once attached to the hull of a ship.

If the figurehead is intact and the characters participated in Rinaldo’s séance (see “area Séance"), they see something else as well:

Lashed to the figurehead with rope is a scrawny woman who is dripping wet. Her long, white hair hangs over her face, obscuring it.

Other features of the room include a wooden staircase that climbs to a balcony, mounted atop which is a small crane with a manual winch, and a staircase that leads down to the dungeon (see area area T16).

Demonic Figurehead

Characters familiar with chardalyn can tell that the figurehead is made of the substance. Those who succeed on a DC 20 Intelligence (History) check realize that the figurehead depicts Errtu, a balor demon that terrorized Icewind Dale over a century ago. Characters who grew up in Icewind Dale have advantage on this check. The figurehead is a Large object with AC 13, a damage threshold of 5, 50 hit points, and immunity to poison and psychic damage. It weighs 1,000 pounds.

A band of adventurers used a telekinesis spell to raise the figurehead from the depths of Lac Dinneshere a few months ago and hauled it to Easthaven, hoping for a reward. What they got was hardly worth the effort, and Speaker Waylen doesn’t know what else to do with the figurehead except store it here, out of the public eye. He fears the figurehead is tainted by demonic magic and has warned his staff not to touch it. A detect evil and good spell or similar magic reveals that it’s a desecrated object. Any creature that comes into contact with it must succeed on a DC 13 Charisma saving throw or gain the following flaw, which supersedes any conflicting personality trait: “I suspect most Ten-Towners are members of a secret cult devoted to the Frostmaiden.” This paranoia can be ended on a creature by any spell that removes a curse. Prolonged contact with the figurehead might have other ill effects, at your discretion.

White Lady of Lac Dinneshere

What looks like a woman tied to the figurehead is actually the White Lady of Lac Dinneshere, which manifests here as a chaotic evil ghost. If the characters keep their distance, the woman begins sobbing. If the characters leave without confronting the woman and return later, the ghost is gone (along with the ropes that seemed to bind it).

The White Lady rarely manifests on land, and her ghost can be seen only by those who dared to summon it (as the characters did when they participated in Rinaldo’s séance). If one or more characters come within 5 feet of the ghost, it throws back its head to reveal a bare skull with a rictus grin, catching characters by surprise with its Horrifying Visage. Once the ghost’s true nature is revealed, the ropes binding it to the figurehead fade away as it attacks the nearest character. If the ghost is reduced to 20 hit points or fewer, it tries to possess a character on its next turn. A possessed host will attempt to leave the Town Hall by the northern exit and drown itself in Lac Dinneshere by walking out onto the ice until it breaks, attacking anyone who gets in its way.

If the ghost is reduced to 0 hit points, it fades away with a scream as the White Lady’s spirit is forced back to the lake, where it remains thereafter.

T7. Chair Storage

Stacked neatly against the walls of this room are dozens of wooden chairs used for town meetings.

T8. Records Room

This room contains records for the town, stored in boxes that lean haphazardly against the walls.

T9. Event Venue

This room is used for parties and other special events. It contains wooden tables and chairs, and colorful streamers hang from the rafters. A curtained window looks down on area T6.

T10. Small Claims Court

Residents of Easthaven come here to settle claims for petty crimes. Rows of wooden chairs face a large, cloth-covered table, behind which the speaker sits while presiding over small claims court cases. Next to this table is a small writing desk for the court clerk.

Easthaven Town Hall (T11-T19)

T11. Fishing Permits

Three desks stand side-by-side in the room, the backs of their chairs facing the outside wall. Pinned to the east wall is a large, hand-drawn map framed with old fishing poles. One of the poles is rigged with a lime green fishing lure carved to resemble a tiny flumph.

Easthaven fishers come here to apply for and renew their fishing permits. The map on the east wall shows Lac Dinneshere, with boundaries to mark the fishing territories of Easthaven, Caer-Dineval, and Caer-Konig.

T12. Employee Breakroom

This room contains several cozy chairs, a snack cabinet, and a wooden staircase leading up to area T14.

T13. Supply Closet

Supplies and provisions are stored on wooden shelves that line the walls of this room.

T14. Town Library

Easthaven’s meager library contains a mostly unremarkable collection of books stored in dusty bookcases. Other furnishings include padded chairs and footstools. Wooden stairs lead down to area T12.

Treasure

Characters who spend at least 10 minutes searching the bookshelves discover a worn book with a red leather cover and yellow pages. The edges of the pages are stained with dry blood. The writing inside suggests the book is nothing more than a poetry anthology. However, it’s actually the spellbook of a Red Wizard of Thay named Dzaan. The book’s true contents are hidden by an illusory script spell that ends 5 days after Dzaan’s execution (see “area Public Execution").

After the book was confiscated by a member of the town militia, it was brought to the Town Hall, where a clerk saw fit to place it in this library for safe keeping. Casting dispel magic on the book ends the illusory script spell placed upon it. When the illusory script spell ends, the book’s true contents are revealed. It contains the following spells: animate objects, arcane eye, arcane lock, blur, confusion, conjure elemental, detect magic, disguise self, fireball, hallucinatory terrain, illusory script, invisibility, knock, levitate, magic missile, major image, mirror image, mislead, phantasmal force, phantasmal killer, seeming, sending, silent image, and slow.

T15. Office and Storage Space

Residents of Easthaven can rent out these small rooms for personal storage or office use. Of the six available rooms, only two are currently in use; the rest are empty.

The first room in use contains several storage crates and barrels. If the characters investigate further, they discover all these containers are empty.

The second room in use has been converted into a cozy office. Two overstuffed chairs and a wooden desk are crammed into the space. Inside the desk’s unlocked drawer is a half-finished romance novel titled Lost in Lavender Orbs.

T16. Stairs to the Dungeon

Stone stairs covered with wooden planks lead down to the dungeon, which is hewn out of solid rock.

T17. Jailers' Room

Unless they have been called away by a disturbance elsewhere, four guards (Tribal Warrior) sit around a circular wooden table, playing Three-Dragon Ante with a well-worn deck of cards. Characters who listen at the door before entering can hear these soldiers complaining about the cold and wondering when the next lottery will be held (see “area Sacrifices to Auril"). One of the guards carries a ring of eight iron keys; these keys unlock the cell doors in area T18.

T18. Jail

Individuals arrested for crimes in Easthaven are detained here. Each cell sports a locked iron door with a 5-inch-square, iron-shuttered window built into it so that guards can peer into the cell without opening the door. One of the guards in area T17 carries the keys that unlock all the cell doors. The doors are too sturdy for the characters to force open using brute strength alone, but a character with thieves' tools can use an action to attempt to pick a door’s lock from the outside, doing so with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check.

T19. Interrogation Room

Prisoners are brought here when Speaker Waylen has a mind to question them. The room contains a sturdy oak chair fitted with iron manacles, a mop, and a wooden bucket.