Cragmaw Castle

The party leaves Thundertree and heads for Cragmaw Castle to find and save Gundren Rockseeker

## Synopsis

After successfully chasing away Venomfang, the party now inspects the treasure left by the dragon for a jade statuette. In it's place, they do find a sunstone fox statuette, amongst other valuable things. Happy with their findings, they head back to the druid. On returning, they see that two more people have joined the druid, two monks named Leona Erlathar and her student Nesim Waldara. They are investigating the cults activities (mostly raiding villages and amassing a treasure), and have followed the cultists here. Since the party slew the cultists, they now ask them if they could find out anything about them. After some discussion wheather to trust them or not, they showed Leona the letter they found on the leader. Leona recognized the name Castle Naerytar, saying it is in the Mere of Dead Men, maybe a few days travel to the south. Baited by the notion of possible treasure, the party agrees to join Leona on her expedition, but also says that they first have some business to conclude. Leona, first wanting to research Castle Naerytar anyways, is fine with that and they agree to meet up in Neverwinter in a tenday, at an inn called The Beached Leviathan. Then, Caelynn tells the party that the whole adventuring business is not what she wants; she needs to get back to what she set out to do and help people in need. With that, she leaves the party.
Now knowing where Cragmaw Castle is, the party sets out in the hopes of finding and rescuing Gundren Rockseeker. Brottor sets out at a full sprint, and even manages to keep it up for a full mile, before eventually tiring and waiting for the rest of the party. Moving on, the characters watch the forest and particularly the skies, fearing retribution from the dragon they kinda pissed off. In the evening, as they lay down to rest, they got surrounded by a goblin hunting party on Brottor's watch. The goblins want to take them prisoners. The ensuing battle is quickly won by the characters, and with the weapons from the party Droop gets armed and armorerd.
The rest of the night passed eventlessly and the characters move on, still watching the skies. In the afternoon, they come across a Hobgoblin patrol, and find a crudely drawn sketch of Nate with the comment "25gp for this one" and a black spider drawn beneath. They then continue on and and eventually find Cragmaw Castle shortly before sunset. After debating for a while what to do (e.g. sending in Droop to spy, which Brottor didn't want in fear of the little goblin's life), they decide to pull back for the evening and approach the castle tomorrow. Droop however was able to provide the party with the information of a secret entrance to the side of the castle. So they pull back a safe distance and stay the night.
The next morning, they carefully approach the castle again, and in the beginning just wait and observe the castle. They see a sentry on top of the castle, watching over the clearing. After some time, a hunting party of four hobgoblins leaves the castle. After some discussion they decide not to go after the hunting party and focus on the castle instead. Akemena manages to successfully kill the sentry without raising an alarm, and the party enters the castle via the secret entrance. Droop shows them the quickest way to the boss of the Cragmaw Tribe. They blast into the room and seemingly interrupt a discussion between the bugbear leader and a female drow. They also find an unconscious dwarf. After overcoming the surprise, the bugbear calls for reinforcements. In the following battle, goblins and hobgoblins keep arriving in waves, as the party tries to subdue the bugbear and the drow. The drow attempts at an escape but is finally caught up by Brottor and hit unconscious. After a successful usage of a Fireball scroll, which dispatched of the majority of goblins, the attacking waves recede. First, Caldarion heals the dwarf, waking him up from unconsciousnesss. It is indeed Gundren Rockseeker. Then they slap the Drow awake and start questioning her. She says her name is Vyerith and that she works for the black spider. The black spider is a mage who is seeking the Spell of Forge. She came here to collect the map to Wave Echo Cave from Gundren, but the leader got greedy and wanted to earn some money with it. So they were negotiating a price when the party interrupted them. As the party did not find a map on the bugbear, they start searching the room and eventually find a leather bag under the mattress, which contains the map. Deciding that they want to continue investigating the castle, they tie up Vyerith and the still unconscious bugbear.

## Featured Characters

### **Adventuring Party**

* Nate Westerland
* Akemena
* Brottor
* Caldarion
* Caelynn

### **Returning Characters**

* Droop
* Reidoth

### **New Characters**

* Leona Erlathar
* Nesim Waldara
* Vyerith
* Gundren Rockseeker

## Quests

* Finding Cragmaw Castle
* Investigating Cultist Activities I