No matter what hook brings the characters into the adventure, any research into Kwalish’s lost laboratory—or any NPC familiar with the inventor’s failed expedition to the Barrier Peaks—establishes that seeking out the gnome known as the Cartophile is a crucial first step for their mission.
The Cartophile
Anaxi Zephries is a wealthy gnome merchant and sage. He is well known for his vast collection of maps, which cover the known world, pocket dimensions, routes across the planes, and more. In this role, the Cartophile has served as patron for numerous expeditions of exploration, sending adventurers to all corners of the world—both to draw new maps and to verify the authenticity of others already in his possession.
The gnome’s collection contains notes and an initial map from the early stages of Kwalish’s expedition into the Barrier Peaks. In exchange for allowing the characters to use that lore, he asks only that any further journals, notes, maps, and other documents from Kwalish’s earlier expedition be returned to him.
The Cartophile has no interest in adventuring, talking of how he once stood too close to a
If the characters develop an especially close relationship to the Cartophile, the gnome might reveal that his professional career commissioning expeditions and maps has been background research for a personal obsession. One of his ancestors took part in Kwalish’s lost expedition to find Daoine Gloine, the mythical city of the Barrier Peaks inhabited by “people of glass.” The gnome has long sought to learn the truth of the expedition’s demise.
Hirelings
Any of the following NPCs can join the party as custodians and translators of the materials loaned to the characters by the Cartophile. Each hireling is also charged with chronicling the party’s progress along the way, in the hope of finally mapping the route to Daoine Gloine, and has specific value to the party in certain areas of expertise. However, each hireling also has one or more secret agendas that might work against the characters' interests.
You can let the party’s size and the players' interest in bringing NPCs into their group determine whether more than one of the Cartophile’s hirelings join the expedition. Or, instead of front-loading hirelings at the start, these NPCs can be set up as independent explorers not connected to the Cartophile. You can stagger their introduction throughout the course of the adventure (as suggested in each NPC’s description below), with each one able to provide a useful next step to help the expedition along.
Ctenmiir the Vampire
LE male vampire
Once a dwarven warrior, Ctenmiir was transformed into a Vampire and hidden away within White Plume Mountain (see Tales from the Yawning Portal) until captured there by an Emerald Enclave ranger. The vampire has long been imprisoned within a magical iron coffin mounted atop animated golem legs (an early Kwalish design), forced to atone for his evil deeds by working for the Cartophile.
Ctenmiir’s coffin has a speed of 30 feet and a climbing speed of 10 feet, and protects the vampire from sunlight even as it prevents him from escaping his servitude. Though Ctenmiir is able to speak from within the coffin and help guide the expedition, the coffin obeys only the commands of the party members. Cold, calculating, and manipulative, the vampire aids the party as long as he believes he can earn his release from the coffin along the way—by any means possible.
Value to the Party
Originally native to an area near the Barrier Peaks, Ctenmiir has much experience with the initial route into the mountains, and can provide warnings of early encounters through the fey woods and foothills (see “area Reaching the Peaks,” below, and appendix A). The vampire’s coffin can also serve as a makeshift
Secret Agendas
Get out of the coffin. Feed on at least one character.
Alternative Entry
If Ctenmiir does not start with the party, he might instead be found in the foothills, in the possession of outlaws seeking the monastery who use the vampire as their guide.
If he joins the expedition from the start, the vampire might lead the characters to the foothills, then claim to no longer recognize the route ahead. He asks to be released so that he can scout more easily. But if he is, any promise of obedience he makes to the characters is ignored as he attacks them.
Garret Levistusson
CN male tiefling bard/rogue
The Cartophile’s first choice to join the characters' expedition, Garret is an untrustworthy bon vivant and magpie. His mapmaking skills are first rate, though, and the Cartophile trusts him to accurately detail the route to Daoine Gloine and sketch images of things discovered along the way. Garret claims that his infernal lineage goes back to Levistus (see Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes), and he keeps his horns adorned with rings, coins and other charms, some of which he claims are powerful magic items ready to be called on. See appendix C for Garret’s stat block.
Value to the Party
Garret can draw the maps requested by the Cartophile. He also knows several rumors (both true and false) regarding the Barrier Peaks, and provides advantage to any characters' ability checks made to interact with the monastery’s Grand Master.
Secret Agendas
Steal the highest-valued object from the party without getting caught; convince as many characters as possible to sit for a sketch; and relay a secret communication to the Grand Master. This message takes the form of a written note from Garret’s infernal patron, ordering the Grand Master to return to Stygia in the Nine Hells to complete a service required by Levistus. A forged addendum adds that the bearer of the note should be rewarded handsomely.
Alternative Entry
Garret can be found as a prisoner in area M6 of the monastery. If he does start out with the party, he might choose to leave them at the monastery, joining with the Grand Master.
Gearbox
LN monodrone
A simple and kindly Monodrone modron, Gearbox has been sent as an agent of Mechanus to investigate Kwalish’s works and experiments. Its mechanical body has been programmed with several unique utility powers (see below) that make the modron a perfect cartographer’s assistant. If both Garret and Gearbox join the expedition, Gearbox assists the tiefling with his work, even as Garret delights in referring to the modron as “Doohickey”, “Contraption”, “Thingamabob”, and so on.
Value to the Party
Gearbox’s unique programming allows the modron to function as an
Secret Agendas
None as such. Gearbox genuinely wishes to help the characters, but he will be tempted to connect with the monastery control room.
Alternative Entry
Gearbox can appear with Garret whenever the tiefling first appears, or he could be found in the monastery’s control room. The modron might choose to remain at the monastery, integrating with its control room to become the site’s new integrated mind.
Mary Greymalkin
N female eladrin warlock
Mary claims to be part of a legendary lineage as granddaughter of the vampire Drelzna—herself a descendant of Iggwilv and Baba Yaga. Her warlock pact has been made with those ancestors' spirits, but she manages her relationship with them carefully, lest she fall too far under their dark influence.
She also claims past tutelage by Thingizzard, a witch dwelling in the fens near White Plume Mountain. In addition to her work for the Cartophile, Mary is eager to accompany the expedition so that she might search the Barrier Peaks for rare ingredients for her potions.
Mary strikes an eerie, witch-like figure, surrounded always by swirling magical-mechanical trinkets of her own devising. She is often seen shuffling a
Value to the Party
Mary’s expertise as a diviner can grant advantage on any characters' checks to determine correct passage through the caverns leading to the monastery. Her magical knowledge also provides advantage on interactions with the enhanced sphinx guarding the monastery entrance (see area area C2) and on any negotiations for ferry passage with the merrenoloth (area area C3).
Secret Agendas
Mary’s biggest secret is that she is actually her cat familiar, polymorphed from human form, and using magic to create and direct the human simulacrum of “Mary” as a helpful decoy. (Readers of Dragon+ might alternatively make Mary one of the intelligent cats of Adam Lee’s “Herding Tahra’s Cats” in issue 12). But of more potential peril to the party is Mary’s long-term relationship with Ctenmiir, whom she first met when he would fly out of White Plume Mountain at night to meet with her near Thingizzard’s hut. Her goals are to keep the knowledge of her true form and her relationship with Ctenmiir a secret; to free the vampire if she can, without incriminating herself; and to convince characters to draw from her deck of several things.
Alternative Entry
If Mary does not start the expedition with the party, she might instead be found in the company of the enhanced sphinx (area area C2), where she offers to guide the characters to the monastery’s Grand Master. If she does start with the party, she might choose to remain with the enhanced sphinx, discoursing the secrets of the multiverse with her.
Rumors and Legends
Countless legends have arisen regarding the mysterious Barrier Peaks, and those tales circulate constantly among adventurers, explorers, and bards. Rumors specific to Kwalish and his lost expedition are more difficult to come by. But for each day spent talking to knowledgeable travelers, a character can attempt a DC 12 Charisma (
Also see appendix F for even more potential rumors of the Barrier Peaks.
Barrier Peaks Rumors
| d100 | Rumor |
|---|---|
| 1–15 | The Barrier Peaks have long been damned, ever since a craft of some kind crashed there ages ago. A ship that could navigate the very planes, it was. Things that should not exist escaped from its hold and now populate the mountains. |
| 16–25 | Kwalish did not perish on his expedition. He alone survived, taking shelter in some complex he found in the peaks. |
| 26–30 | Fey woods surround the foothills of the Barrier Peaks. A dryad queen once ruled there, and her grave is now hidden among the trees. Beware, for those trees remain guarded by sprites that still honor her. |
| 31–45 | Aye, most folk know of Kwalish’s most famous realized design, the apparatus that bears his name. But sages and arcanists know of other designs he drafted, including one for a mechanical container that could keep a brain alive long after a creature’s death. |
| 46–50 | Kwalish never really existed. The inventor who went by that name was really a construct, created by Ioun to walk among mortals and study our ways. If you want to find the Kwalish construct, you need to first find a temple to Ioun. |
| 51–65 | A monastery is hidden somewhere in the Barrier Peaks, though its followers care little for piety. Criminals, they are, using the peaks as a secure hideout. It’s said that markings carved into the mountains have been left by these criminals to help point the way to their lair. |
| 66–70 | The Barrier Peaks are unstable. The city of Daoine Gloine was destroyed in an |
| 71–80 | Daoine Gloine was found in the Barrier Peaks, all right, but it’s long been deserted. Its last residents left ages ago, though a few of their descendants are said to scratch out a meager existence along the old mountain passes. |
| 81–86 | The way to reach Daoine Gloine isn’t through any pass in the peaks. You’ll need to access the right combination of controls on the Machine of Lum the Mad_, and only then will a portal to the city open_. |
| 87–95 | Daoine Gloine took its name from the monster kept there by the city’s priests. They would sacrifice victims to the medusa Gloine Nathair-Nathair, using the bodies of those poor victims as the city’s statuary. |
| 96–00 | Kwalish’s grand experiment? I’ve heard tell of a suit of armor as powerful as it is cursed. Whoever dons the suit channels powerful magic, but must fuel its capabilities with their own body’s vitality. |
Reaching the Peaks
The Cartophile’s maps and notes guide the characters from their starting location into the Barrier Peaks, leading them as far as a series of caverns that Kwalish’s original expedition believed would provide a shortcut to Daoine Gloine. From wherever the characters start, it takes a journey of several weeks to reach the foothills of the peaks. You might consider adding a few wilderness encounters along the way, especially within the thick band of woods that surrounds the pass leading up and into the mountains, and which is infused with elements of the Feywild. See appendix A, “Random Encounters,” for more information.
If you don’t want to incorporate random encounters into the journey to the Barrier Peaks, read the following:
The mountains of the Barrier Peaks have grown steadily closer as you near the end of weeks of travel, making use of the old notes and maps of Kwalish’s failed expedition. Traversing a thick band of woods over the past several days, you’ve dealt with troublesome sprites by day and swarms of blood-sucking stirges by night. But finally, the trees begin to thin out as you enter the rocky foothills of the range.
Exactly as indicated on the original expedition’s map, you find a cleft in the rocks that leads to the start of a twisting tunnel complex. As you prepare to enter, you bid farewell to the world of life and light as you leave it behind you…
Trinkets from the Barrier Peaks
See the