| Media Type | Online Article |
| Source | Dungeons & Dragons Beyond |
| Date Published | Dec 2, 2019 |
| Author | James Haeck |
| Ruleset | Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition |
| Canonicity | Non-Canon |
Article
This encounter is designed for use in the Eberron campaign setting, described in Eberron: Rising from the Last War, though you can adapt it to any setting as long as it has a pulpy, swashbuckling tone. Rising from the Last War describes the war-torn continent of Khorvaire, as well as other regions of the world of Eberron. Additionally, it contains monster statistics for dozens of new creatures unique to this world, as well as magic items, mystical Dragonmarks, and other supernatural elements that set Eberron apart from other D&D settings. Indeed, Eberron is a world where magic has been used to create technology somewhat analogous to the real-world era of the First World War—with some additional fantastical elements, like the living constructs known as warforged.
This encounter series, called Around Khorvaire in Fifty Days, is a whirlwind tour of Khorvaire, the thematic heart of the Eberron campaign setting. It’s a perfect place for new players to enter the campaign setting, as it introduces and highlights many of the elements that make Eberron stand apart from other campaign settings, like the Forgotten Realms. This series elaborates on all the immediate details you need to run this adventure.
The background of this encounter series is described in greater detail in the first encounter, Departure from Skydock Six. Captain Angelica Estrella d’Sivis, her dragonmark, and her purported mission are described there as well. More information about Angelica, her mission, and her true identity were revealed in Gathering at Gatherhold.
Progression
This is the ninth and final encounter along this journey, and a party of five characters should be at least 4th level when they begin this encounter. The previous encounters are:
- Departure from Skydock Six
- Storm over the Howling Peaks
- Friendship in the Wilderness
- Espionage in Grellreach
- Sabotage over Lake Cyre
- Gathering at Gatherhold
- Dragonmark of the Dwarves
- Shortcut through Dal Quor
Command of the Celeste Noir
At the end of the Gathering at Gatherhold, the characters gained information and allies that could inspire them to mutiny against the Celeste Noir’s captain, Angelica d’Sivis. That encounter includes one way that mutiny might lead to a battle which will change the course of this story.
This encounter assumes that the characters mutinied and took over the Celeste Noir. If Angelica is still in command of the Celeste Noir when the ship reaches the landing pad of the House Cannith facility in the Labyrinth, she lands it without a problem and orders her first mate and personal assassin, Aubrey Galatea, to eliminate the characters as she reports to her employer. (See Espionage in Grellreach for Aubrey’s statistics.) Now that the journey is safely concluded, the characters have outlived their usefulness and can be disposed of. While this happens, Angelica leaps from the deck of the Celeste Noir and uses a feather token (as described in chapter 5 of Eberron: Rising from the Last War) to float down towards the landing platform below. Once there, she runs to the gold-plated airship called the Lune d’Or to speak with the founder of this experimental airship program.
The Mastermind: House Cannith’s False Heir
A changeling warlock has infiltrated House Cannith, and has taken the identity of Avhexa d’Cannith, a so-called lost granddaughter of the great Merrix d’Cannith the senior, creator of the warforged. This opportunistic changeling, cursed—or blessed, from her point of view—with an aberrant dragonmark, wants to turn the incredible power of House Cannith to her own whims. She longs to enrich herself by reigniting the Last War and selling weapons of cataclysmic power to the highest bidder. She cares little if all of Khorvaire is destroyed in the process, as long as her own personal whims are met.
In order to do so, she has posed as a credible leader of House Cannith and used her charms to wrap some of House Cannith’s most powerful diplomats and artificers around her finger. With her newfound allies, she established a secret base in the Labyrinth and set some of the greatest artificers in Khorvaire to constructing airships that can travel at unthinkable speed, allowing them to launch devastating attacks unannounced. She plans to keep the Lune d’Or as her personal flying mansion, but the other ships of this class will go to anyone who can afford them—and Khorvaire’s leaders will be scrambling to buy once the first arcane bombs of the new war are dropped.
Variant: Campaign Play. Avhexa is a simple villain that gives this encounter series a satisfying mastermind with few repercussions for the world at large. If you want to use this encounter series as the beginning of a larger campaign, you can give her the following additional motivation. Avhexa sees the cataclysmic destruction of Khorvaire as a sad but unavoidable side effect of her desire to enrich herself. Little does she know that her warlock patron, a kalaraq quori of nigh-unstoppable eldritch power, is using her to weaken the world so that it might be taken over by the Dreaming Dark. If Avhexa is killed in this encounter, she is revived at another time, in another place, continue her master’s dark work—making her a recurring villain that can lead into a plotline surrounding the quori, the kalashtar, and the Dreaming Dark.
Avhexa is haughty and self-absorbed, but gives out false compliments like candy to ingratiate herself to others. Beneath her smiling exterior is the cold heart of a narcissistic sociopath. She is a warlock of the Great Old One with the following traits:
- As an action, Avhexa can change her appearance and voice. She determines the specifics of the changes, including her coloration, hair length, and sex. She can also adjust her height and weight, but not so much that her size changes. She can make herself appear as a member of another race, though none of her game statistics change. She can’t duplicate the appearance of a creature she’s never seen, and she must adopt a form that has the same basic arrangement of limbs that she has. Her clothing and equipment aren’t changed by this trait. She stays in the new form until she uses an action to revert to her true form or until she dies.
- Changeling Instincts. Avhexa is proficient with the Deception and Insight skills. Her bonus to Charisma (Deception) checks is +7, and her bonus to Wisdom (Insight) checks is +4.
- Aberrant Dragonmark. Avhexa possesses an aberrant dragonmark that allows her to cast thaumaturgy at will and inflict wounds once per day.
Combat Encounter: Finale in Fire
This combat encounter is suitable for a party of 4th-level characters. However, its airship combat portions can be adapted to suit a party of nearly any level. If the characters are seriously wounded or low on resources after the previous encounter, consider allowing them to take a long rest before beginning this encounter.
When the Celeste Noir arrives at the landing pad outside House Cannith’s compound in the Labyrinth, read or paraphrase the following:
Below you is a landing pad with two magnificent vessels resting upon it. The first has a silver hull and is bristling with cannons. The second seems to be made of gold, and has a sleek, elegant design. A group of people are milling about both vessels—it’s unclear if they haven’t yet noticed you, or if they have noticed and aren’t paying you any mind.
A trusted member of the crew, or an ally like Nero or Grixe, approaches the characters and asks if they want to land. If they start to descend, or if they spend more than ten minutes in the air above the landing pad, the golden ship begins to soar into the air. When this happens, read or paraphrase the following:
The sound of an elemental ring roaring to life disturbs the still air of the Labyrinth. The golden vessel rises from below to meet you, and within moments it is hovering in the air alongside you, some fifty feet away. On its hull is written the name Lune d’Or, and standing upon its deck is a long-haired person in a sapphire-blue coat that flutters in the wind. Her voice booms across the sound of both airships, reaching your ears despite the distance.
“The Celeste Noir, returned at last! How happy I am to see that night-black hull. Captain Angelica, come aboard, and tell me of your travels.”
This woman is the changeling calling herself Avhexa d’Cannith, and she is using thaumaturgy to project her voice. As she finishes speaking, the Lune d’Or begins to close the gap between it and the Celeste Noir. Characters with a passive Wisdom (Perception) score of 16 or higher notice that, while this is happening, the elemental ring of the silver, cannon-adorned airship below has also flared to life. It slowly and surreptitiously rises over the next minute to flank the Celeste Noir with its golden sister ship.
If Avhexa doesn’t see Angelica come to the deck within one minute (or the characters tell her that Angelica is no longer the captain), she demands proof that the characters are loyal agents of House Cannith. If they provide proof, they must succeed on a Charisma (Deception) check to convince her. Highly convincing proof of loyalty to House Cannith sets the DC of the check at 14. Flimsy proof sets the DC at 24. Proof that falls somewhere in the middle is left to your discretion, with a DC of 19 being average. If this check fails, Avhexa clicks her tongue and says, “You can’t out-lie a liar. I don’t know who you are, but you’re a loose end. Soleil d’Argent! Eliminate them!”
The silver ship flanking them opens fire as the Lune d’Or begins to peel away. Roll initiative!
Aerial Combat
The Soleil d’Argent enters combat with its arcane guns blazing. As soon as their cannons fire upon the Celeste Noir, your ship’s gunner runs to the characters and declares that the ship’s cannons are ready to return fire. By default, this gunner is Brunhilde Kheldeburn, as described in Friendship in the Wilderness. She is more than capable of describing the ship’s armament to the characters. The best way to disable an airship is to attack and destroy its elemental ring. Without it, the ship plummets to the ground. If the characters don’t attack their enemies’ rings in the first round of combat, the Soleil d’Argent shoots one of its heavy cannons at the Celeste Noir’s ring. If the attack hits, a crewmember cries out that the ship will be unable to move if the ring is destroyed.
All of the Cannith-made experimental airships use warship statistics (as presented in appendix A of Ghosts of Saltmarsh), with the following changes:
- The ship can fly.
- The ship has one movement component: Elemental Ring, rather than oars or sails. It is described below.
- The ship’s Ballista attack is replaced by an otherwise identical light arcane cannon that deals 16 (3d10) fire damage.
- The ship’s Mangonels attack is replaced by an otherwise identical heavy arcane cannon that deals 27 (5d10) force damage.
| Movement: Elemental Ring Armor Class: 15 Hit Points: 200 (–10 ft. speed per 50 damage taken) Speed (air): 35 ft.; 25 ft. while soaring into the wind; 45 ft. while soaring with the wind; if reduced to 0, the ship doesn’t fall but can’t move |
All three ships begin combat with a crew of 40, allowing their captains to command their crew to take three vehicle actions each turn. The Lune d’Or has a full crew, but none of its weapons are activated. Preparing the ship’s weapons takes 60 seconds, until which time the golden vessel can’t attack with its arcane cannons. The opulent vessel can still use its Naval Ram attack, but only does so in the most desperate circumstances.
Variant: Exploding Panels. In combat, ships batter each other with cannon fire, causing timbers to shatter and sparks to fly within the vessel. Whenever a ship takes a hit that deals at least 20 damage, roll 1d4–2. A number of crewmembers equal to the roll are killed by the blast. If an attack deals at least 40 damage, roll 2d4–2, and so on. It’s assumed that generic, unnamed crew (“red shirts”) are the first ones killed by these blasts, and that main characters and even minor named NPCs won’t be indiscriminately killed in this way.
Victory or Defeat
The Soleil d’Argent is defeated if its elemental ring is destroyed, if all of its weapons are disabled, or if the ship is destroyed outright. Thanks to its high hit points, the latter outcome is unlikely, but consider rewarding characters for clever tactics, such as boarding the vessel and detonating jury-rigged explosives in its hold. If the ship’s helm were to be infiltrated and secured, and the helmsman incapacitated, the Soleil could be taken over completely—and perhaps rammed directly into the Lune d’Or.
Though the Soleil is the most dangerous vessel, the encounter isn’t over until Avhexa is defeated. Once the Soleil is incapacitated, Avhexa once more uses thaumaturgy to amplify her voice and taunt the player characters. If you want this encounter to be less straightforward, she could even try to appeal to their darker sides, trying to get them to join her. Or, she could try to play the victim, asking them why they have come to destroy her—and if they have even had any free will this whole time, or if they have just been mindlessly following orders.
The expected solution is for the characters to pursue the Lune d’Or, board her, and try to defeat Avhexa on her own vessel. If they avoid confronting her, she confronts them instead. She may attack the Celeste Noir with her ships own weapons until it’s been disabled, and then leap onto the deck and fight them herself. Or, she may sneak on board and launch a surprise attack. The right method is different for each group; by this time, you may know your players well enough to gauge what approach is best.
No matter what, Avhexa is accompanied by two veterans. (Her game statistics are presented under “The Mastermind,” above.)
Crumbling Ambitions
Avhexa’s defeat will not cause the House Cannith shipyard to crumble on its own. It has too much momentum, and has attracted too many greedy would-be war profiteers. The only way to shut down the operation is to destroy the base. This could be done by setting the Lune d’Or on a full-speed collision course with the landing pad, or by a few hours of sustained fire from your ship’s arcane cannons. Help your players find the most explosive and exciting conclusion to this encounter series that you can. Once the Cannith base has been consumed by a beautiful, action movie-worthy fireball, it’s up for the characters to decide where they go next—and how they go there. If you plan on turning this into an ongoing campaign, let the players narrate where they take the Celeste Noir.
If this is the end of your Eberron adventures, you can cap it off with this closing narration:
The Cannith compound is shattered by a series of tiny explosions, one after another, then is utterly consumed by one massive, final fireball. By the time the base explodes, you and your allies are already flying at full speed away from it on the Celeste Noir. Where your journeys will take you next is anyone’s guess—but one thing is for certain: wherever you go, adventure will never be far away.
This adventure is over, but your journeys can continue in Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Set out today by ordering it now in the D&D Beyond Marketplace.