Introduction

This book is written for the Dungeon Master. It contains a complete Dungeons & Dragons adventure, as well as descriptions for every creature and magic item that appears in the adventure. It also introduces the world of the Forgotten Realms, one of the game’s most enduring settings, and it teaches you how to run a D&D game.

The smaller book that accompanies this one (hereafter called “the rulebook”) contains the rules you need to adjudicate situations that arise during the adventure.

Running the Adventure

Lost Mine of Phandelver is an adventure for four to five characters of 1st level. During the course of the adventure, the characters will advance to 5th level. The adventure is set a short distance from the city of Neverwinter in the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms setting. The Sword Coast is part of the North—a vast realm of free settlements surrounded by wilderness and adventure. You don’t need to be a Forgotten Realms expert to run the adventure; everything you need to know about the setting is contained in this book.

If this is your first time running a D&D adventure, read “The Dungeon Master” section; it will help you better understand your role and responsibilities.

The “Background” section tells you everything you need to know to set up the adventure. The “Overview” section describes how the adventure is expected to run and gives you a broad sense of what the player characters should be doing at any given time.

The Dungeon Master

The Dungeon Master (DM) has a special role in the Dungeons & Dragons game.

The DM is a referee. When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and keep the story going.

The DM is a narrator. The DM sets the pace of the story and presents the various challenges and encounters the players must overcome. The DM is the players' interface to the D&D world, as well as the one who reads (and sometimes also writes) the adventure and describes what happens in response to the characters' actions.

The DM plays monsters. The DM plays the monsters and villains the adventurers battle against, choosing their actions and rolling dice for their attacks. The DM also plays the part of all the other characters the players meet in the course of their adventures, like the prisoner in the goblin lair or the innkeeper in town.

Who should be the DM for your gaming group? Whoever wants to be! The person who has the most drive to pull a group together and start up a game often ends up being the DM by default, but that doesn’t have to be the case.

Although the DM controls the monsters and villains in the adventure, the relationship between the players and the DM isn’t adversarial. The DM’s job is to challenge the characters with interesting encounters and tests, keep the game moving, and apply the rules fairly.

The most important thing to remember about being a good DM is that the rules are a tool to help you have a good time. The rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM-you’re in charge of the game. Guide the play experience and the use of the rules so that everybody has fun.

Many players of Dungeons & Dragons find that being the DM is the best part of the game. With the information in this adventure, you’ll be prepared to take on that role for your group.

Rules to Game By

As the Dungeon Master, you are the final authority when it comes to rules questions or disputes. Here are some guidelines to help you arbitrate issues as they come up.

When in doubt, make it up! It’s better to keep the game moving than to get bogged down in the rules.

It’s not a competition. The DM isn’t competing against the player characters. You’re there to run the monsters, referee the

rules, and keep the story moving.

It’s a shared story. It’s the group’s story, so let the players contribute to the outcome through the actions of their

characters. Dungeons & Dragons is about imagination and coming together to tell a story as a group. Let the players participate in the storytelling.

Be consistent. If you decide that a rule works a certain way in one session, make sure it works that way the next time it comes into play.

Make sure everyone is involved. Ensure every character has a chance to shine. If some players are reluctant to speak up, remember to ask them what their characters are doing.

Be fair. Use your powers as Dungeon Master only for good. Treat the rules and the players in a fair and impartial manner.

Pay attention. Make sure you look around the table occasionally to see if the game is going well. If everyone seems to be having fun, relax and keep going. If the fun is waning, it might be time for a break, or you can try to liven things up.

Improvising Ability Checks

The adventure often tells you what ability checks characters might try in a certain situation and the Difficulty Class (DC) of those checks. Sometimes adventurers try things that the adventure can’t possibly anticipate. It’s up to you to decide whether their attempts are successful. If it seems like anyone should have an easy time doing it, don’t ask for an ability check; just tell the player what happens. Likewise, if there’s no way anyone could accomplish the task, just tell the player it doesn’t work.

Otherwise, answer these three simple questions:

• What kind of ability check?
• How hard is it?
• What’s the result?

Use the descriptions of the ability scores and their associated skills in the rulebook to help you decide what kind of ability check to use. Then determine how hard the task is so that you can set the DC for the check. The higher the DC, the more difficult the task. The easiest way to set a DC is to decide whether the task’s difficulty is easy, moderate, or hard, and use these three DCs:

• Easy (DC 10). An easy task requires a minimal level of competence or a modicum of luck to accomplish.
• Moderate (DC 15). A moderate task requires a slightly higher level of competence to accomplish. A character with a combination of natural aptitude and specialized training can accomplish a moderate task more often than not.
• Hard (DC 20). Hard tasks include any effort that is beyond the capabilities of most people without aid or exceptional ability.

Even with aptitude and training, a character needs some amount of luck-or a lot of specialized training-to pull off a hard task.

The outcome of a successful check is usually easy to determine: the character succeeds at whatever he or she set out to accomplish, within reason. It’s usually equally easy to figure out what happens when a character fails a check: the character simply doesn’t succeed.

Glossary

The adventure uses terms that might be unfamiliar to you. A few of these terms are described here. For descriptions of rules-specific terms, see the rulebook.

Characters. This term refers to the adventurers run by the players. They are the protagonists in any D&D adventure. A group of characters or adventurers is called a party.

Nonplayer Characters (NPCs). This term refers to characters run by the DM. How an NPC behaves is dictated by the adventure and by the DM.

Boxed Text. At various places, the adventure presents descriptive text that’s meant to be read or paraphrased aloud to players. This read-aloud text is offset in boxes. Boxed text is most commonly used to describe rooms or present bits of scripted dialogue.

Stat Block. Any monster or NPC that is likely to be involved in combat requires game statistics so that the DM can run it effectively. These statistics are presented in a format called a statistics block, or stat block. You’ll find the stat blocks needed for this adventure in appendix B.

Tenday. In the Forgotten Realms, a week is ten days long and called a tenday. Each month consists of three tendays—thirty days total.

Magic Items and Monsters

Whenever the text refers to a magic item, its name is presented in italic type. For a description of the item and its magical properties, see appendix A.

Similarly, whenever the adventure text presents a creature’s name in bold type, that’s a visual cue directing you to the creature’s game statistics in appendix B.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in this adventure:

Background

More than five hundred years ago, clans of dwarves and gnomes made an agreement known as the Phandelver’s Pact, by which they would share a rich mine in a wondrous cavern known as Wave Echo Cave. In addition to its mineral wealth, the mine contained great magical power. Human spellcasters allied themselves with the dwarves and gnomes to channel and bind that energy into a great forge (called the Forge of Spells), where magic items could be crafted. Times were good, and the nearby human town of Phandalin (pronounced fan-duh-lin) prospered as well. But then disaster struck when orcs swept through the North and laid waste to all in their path.

A powerful force of orcs reinforced by evil mercenary wizards attacked Wave Echo Cave to seize its riches and magic treasures. Human wizards fought alongside their dwarf and gnome allies to defend the Forge of Spells, and the ensuing spell battle destroyed much of the cavern. Few survived the cave-ins and tremors, and the location of Wave Echo Cave was lost.

For centuries, rumors of buried riches have attracted treasure seekers and opportunists to the area around Phandalin, but no one has ever succeeded in locating the lost mine. In recent years, people have resettled the area. Phandalin is now a rough-and-tumble frontier town. More important, the Rockseeker brothers—a trio of dwarves-have discovered the entrance to Wave Echo Cave, and they intend to reopen the mines.

Unfortunately for the Rockseekers, they are not the only ones interested in Wave Echo Cave. A mysterious villain known as the Black Spider controls a network of bandit gangs and goblin tribes in the area, and his agents have followed the Rockseekers to their prize. Now the Black Spider wants Wave Echo Cave for himself, and he is taking steps to make sure no one else knows where it is.

Overview

Lost Mine of Phandelver is divided into four parts. In part 1, “Goblin Arrows,” the adventurers are on the road to the town of Phandalin when they stumble into a goblin ambush. They discover that the goblins (who belong to the Cragmaw tribe) have captured their dwarf friend Gundren Rockseeker and his escort, a human warrior named Sildar Hallwinter. The characters must deal with the ambushers and then follow their trail back to the goblins' hideout. They rescue Sildar and learn from him that Gundren and his brothers discovered a famous lost mine. Sildar knows only that Gundren and his map have been taken to somewhere called “Cragmaw Castle.”

In part 2, “Phandalin,” the characters arrive in Phandalin to find it terrorized by the Redbrands, a gang of miscreants led by a mysterious figure called Glasstaff. A number of interesting NPCs can also be found in Phandalin, laying the hooks for short adventures in part 3. The Redbrands try to run the characters out of town, so the characters return the favor and storm the Redbrand lair. In a hidden stronghold beneath an old manor, they find that Iarno “Glasstaff” Albrek, the leader of the Redbrands, is taking his orders from someone called the Black Spider-and that the Black Spider wants the adventurers out of the picture.

Part 3, “The Spider’s Web,” provides the characters with several short adventures in the region around Phandalin as they search for more information about the Black Spider and the dwarves' lost mine. The clues the characters picked up in Phandalin can lead them to spy on a mysterious wizard at the ruins of Old Owl Well, seek the advice of a dangerous banshee, oust a band of orcs lurking at Wyvern Tor, and investigate the ruins of the town of Thundertree.

Several of these leads point to Cragmaw Castle, which is the stronghold of King Grol, leader of the Cragmaw goblins. Here the characters discover that the Black Spider is a drow adventurer named Nezznar, and that the Cragmaw goblins work for him (drow are elves who hail from a realm deep underground). More importantly, they recover Gundren Rockseeker’s map to the lost mine, or learn the mine’s location from one of the other leads they unearth during part 3.

Following the map or the directions to the lost mine brings the characters to part 4, “Wave Echo Cave.” That lost underground complex is now overrun by undead and strange monsters. Nezznar the Black Spider is there with his loyal followers, exploring the mines and searching for the legendary Forge of Spells. The adventurers have the opportunity to avenge Gundren Rockseeker, to ensure the prosperity and security of Phandalin by clearing the rich mine of its monsters, and to put an end to the troublemaking of the Black Spider-if they can survive the dangers of the Lost Mine of Phandelver.

Adventure Hook

You can let players invent their own reasons for visiting Phandalin, or you can use the following adventure hook. The backgrounds and secondary goals on the character sheets also provide characters with motivations for visiting Phandalin.

Meet Me in Phandalin

The characters are in the city of Neverwinter when their dwarf patron and friend, Gundren Rockseeker, hires them to escort a wagon to Phandalin. Gundren has gone ahead with a warrior, Sildar Hallwinter, to attend to business in the town while the characters follow with the supplies. The characters will be paid 10 gp each by the owner of Barthen’s Provisions in Phandalin when they deliver the wagon safely to that trading post.

Roleplaying and Inspiration

One of the things that you can do as the DM is reward players for roleplaying their characters well.

Each of the characters included in this set has two personality traits (one positive and one negative), an ideal, a bond, and a flaw. These elements can make the character easier and more fun to roleplay. Personality traits provide a glimpse into the character’s likes, dislikes, accomplishments, fears, attitude, or mannerisms. An ideal is something that the character believes in or strives for above all else. A character’s bond represents a connection to a person, place, or event in the world-someone the character cares about, a place the holds a special connection, or a treasured possession. A flaw is a characteristic that someone else can exploit to bring the character to ruin or cause the character to act against his or her best interests.

When a player roleplays a negative personality trait or gives in to the drawbacks presented by a bond or flaw, you can give that player one inspiration as a reward. A player with inspiration can use it in a situation where his or her character’s personality traits, ideal, or bond relate to what’s happening. Spending inspiration gives the character advantage on one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw. A character can have only one inspiration at a time.

The Forgotten Realms

Just like a fantasy novel or movie, an adventure is set in a larger world. In fact, the world can be anything that the DM and players can imagine. It could be a swords-and-sorcery setting at the dawn of civilization, where barbarians battle evil sorcerers, or a post-apocalyptic fantasy where elves and dwarves wield magic amid the wreckage of a technological civilization. Most D&D settings are somewhere between those two extremes: worlds of medieval high fantasy with knights and castles, as well as elven cities, dwarven mines, and fearsome monsters.

The world of the Forgotten Realms is one such setting, and that’s where the story in this adventure takes place. In the Realms, knights dare the crypts of the fallen dwarf kings of Delzoun, seeking glory and treasure. Rogues prowl the dark alleyways of teeming cities such as Neverwinter and Baldur’s Gate. Clerics in the service of gods wield mace and spell, questing against the terrifying powers that threaten the land. Wizards plunder the ruins of the fallen Netherese empire, delving into secrets too dark for the light of day. Dragons, giants, demons, and unimaginable abominations lurk in dungeons, caverns, ruined cities, and the vast wild places of the world.

On the roads and rivers of the Realms travel minstrels and peddlers, merchants and guards, soldiers, sailors, and steel-hearted adventurers carrying tales of strange, glorious, faraway places. Good maps and clear trails can take even an inexperienced youth with dreams of glory far across the world. Thousands of restless would-be heroes from backcountry farmsteads and sleepy villages arrive in Neverwinter and the other great cities every year in search of wealth and renown.

Known roads may be well traveled, but they aren’t necessarily safe. Fell magic, deadly monsters, and cruel local rulers are all perils that you face when you travel in the Forgotten Realms. Even farms and freeholds within a day’s walk of a city can fall prey to monsters, and no place is safe from the sudden wrath of a dragon.

The regional map shows just a tiny part of this vast world, in a region called the Sword Coast. This is a region of adventure, where daring souls delve into the wreckage of ancient strongholds and explore ruins of long-lost cultures. Amid a wilderness of jagged, snow-capped peaks, alpine forests, lawlessness, and monsters, the coast holds the greatest bastions of civilization, including the coastal city of Neverwinter.