Attention fantasy world-building enthusiasts! The next adventure of Dungeons and Dragons awaits! Explore the seedy underbelly of Waterdeep, the City of Spendor, and unlock the secrets of the walking statues, the black staff, and the dragon heist!
"Laid back! With my mind on Waterdeep
(and Waterdeep on my mind)!"
First off, it’s important for me to mention that this blog is for the love of fantasy storytelling in general. While some of that comes from books and movies, I’ve taken a deep passion in the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons, because they have been specially crafted for the enjoyment and wonderment of readers and gamers alike. No matter how much authors steer away from their sources of inspiration, its a famous source for modern fantasy authors, just as a great books series would be for any writer (Harry Potter, Mistborn, Discworld, Kingkiller Chronicles, etc.)
There is a connected relationship between realms of fantasy which can’t be ignored. Fantasy is as much a collaborative think-tank as any collection of art. It’s for this reason, as both a budding fantasy writer and a Dungeons and Dragons nerd that I am deeply excited for this new season of the Dungeon and Dragons hard-covers / Adventurers League.
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist provides a lower level adventure for all players, released as a precursor to Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely adore many of the previous adventures within the grandeur of Tolkien-esque landscapes filled with wonders of the familiar motif. However, there is something truly unique about playing within a deep cityscape setting.
It seems appropriate that after a wide range of published, hard-book adventures where Wizards of the Coast has virtually gone everywhere in the setting of Forgotten Realms, the next step is to narrow in on a smaller part of the world, where the chance of encountering adventure and excitement is much more compact, and danger lucks behind every corner!
Introduction to Waterdeep
One of the central hubs of the sword coast, Waterdeep – City of Splendor – is a vast metropolitan area within the fantasy continent of Faerun.
Not only is Waterdeep itself a center of exploration, underneath its stonework construction is a massive, multi-level dungeon known as the “Undermountain”. It is a continuous dungeon crawl. Many levels are undiscovered. All of which are dangerous to wandering adventurers!
A city filled with so much to do means opportunites to embark upon side-quests, small jobs, and money-making ventures! While many of these provide a distraction to the main quest, it creates a broader world within the smaller space that Waterdeep inhabits.
Players can provide regular help to communities by cleaning up their streets of baddies, provide protection for shops and bars, investigate murders, apprehend criminals for the town guards, make deals with shifty crime lords, engage in the local commerce, negotiate with guilds, provide entertainment for patrons, practice their craftsmanship, and even run their own business!
(Tavern owner? Entertainment venue? New guild? Famous artist/musician? Protection business? It’s all possible!)
Also, the emergence of Waterdeep as a fleshed-out location for adventuring combats one of the main tropes found in so much fantasy games; “everyone is an adventurer”.
In a city setting, the opposite notion follows: people live here! … Children, urchins playing in the street, families tending to their daily lives, children, traders and business people working during the day, festivals and celebrations occurring, commoners abound (did I mention children?).
With this, a heavier emphasis on order. Town guards walking the beat, keeping an eye out for anyone breaking the law. … Needless to say, there is plenty to keep adventurers in line as well as busy, since it is no longer a countryside where they can descend into their free range murder-hobo habits. If a character acts out of line strongly enough, the guards are called. The offenders are put down. Jail time is served.
It’s ideal for a Dungeon Master who wants to provide interwoven parameters for the rules, just like any city, in any civilization. This also raises the stakes. The presence of people and the need for order increase the gravity of how even the smallest event can affect others. This gives players and dungeon masters more incentive to play in more nuanced ways.
Therefore, players are encouraged to play less brutish, barbaric types, and instead play characters that are more at home in a bustling metropolis. Obviously, a bloodthirsty Conan who has no concept of stealth or patience would be ousted in a moments notice, while a skilled sleuth with nimble fingers and a sly tounge fits just fine into this setting.
Finally, given the open reception of 5th Edition DnD into the media mainstream, it is the perfect setting for players and DM’s to portray characters of diversity, socio-economic status, race, and a spectrum of political identity (for those who want to paint some current events or social justice into their game).
Black Staff, and the Walking Statues
One key feature to Waterdeep’s history is the “Walking Statue”s, 90-ft tall colossal stone beings known for being able to animate and provide protection for the city.
As legends go, they were built as a last line of defense against a catastrophic disaster or a siege. For the longest time, only one of these stood within the material plane as a local attraction. The others are hidden away in the ethereal plane, which could be brought out of the material plane to defend the city. Animating and summoning these statues require an important relic known as the “Black Staff”, which the high court wizard posessed for such a purpose.
Which brings us one of the central plot points of this season!
Due to the “Magic Plague”, the threads of magic became so strained that the statues became stranded in Waterdeep, disconnected from the ethereal plane. They have remained inactive ever since!
As time went on, many had forgotten about their initial purpose and considered them harmless monuments. Citizens began to build around these statues, incorporating them into the archetecture, and living their lives in content, unknowing of the powers that these statues were once known for.
These “walking statues” are directly inspired by the Colossus of Rhodes, a real such statue that existed, and was once labelled as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
The deep mystery behind the conception of this structure translates well into the fantasy that Waterdeep (and Faerun) provides. A loremaster in-game would be able to describe the names and the stories of each of these colossi as they translate of the mysticism of the city’s history (“honorable knight” and the “god catcher”). Some even have the features of animals (the “hawk man” and the “griffin”).
Since these structures are no longer functional, the protection of the city lies with the city guard, and the order of mages. The current “Black Staff” (weilder of the staff) Vajira Safahr herself believes that the statues are part of a bygone age, although considers that she can animate one in the event of a great enough threat.
Such threats include conventional siege, a bombardment by an enemy navy, a magical attack, the extra-planar invasion,…
Which begs the question. … What would happen if someone were to steal the Black Staff, and turn the city’s defenses against itself
What sort of damage and destruction could a villain do against the best efforts of the guard, the mages, and the adventurers in the city?
This might just play a major role in the overarching story! There is certainly more to come in the following adventure after Dragon Heist, Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
The Dragon Heist
While the seasons of DnD 5th Edition have been on a grander scale with much more worldly events, Dragon Heist narrows the scope to the seedy underbelly of Waterdeep.
The cheif currency in the realm are known as dragons (coins). Each are pressed in various metals (copper, silver, gold), giving their instrinsic value. … To set the tone of the theme, Dragon Heist does not present you with a fantasy epic of unfathomable stakes. Instead, it asks a simple, yet evocative question for its prospective players which is designed to stir the criminal imagination:
“What would you do with 300,000 dragons?”
A large sum of gold is hidden away by a powerful lord. Many people are out to get their hands on it! Stalwart adventurers. Greedy criminals. Villains who wish to use it for their own machinations. … The motivation of the players is not simply joining the hunt, but to keep the gold out of the hands of those who might do grave evil with it.
This setting presents a number of possible villains (five) depending on the season of gameplay, and Dungeon Masters can weave them into the narrative up front, or behind the scenes. Multiple villains is a new concept for DnD hard-covers. It allows the Dungeon Master to choose which ones to set against the players. They could be replaced, made allies of each other, enemies, business partners, underlings,… whatever they choose!
Its a realistic take on villainy considering the inner-city setting! There is never just one bad guy to contend with; many with competing interests out to gain something for themselves!
The Takeaway: A Fist Full of Adventure!
What makes books, games, and table-top adventures so attractive is the conflict, the characters, and the drama. So much of this is accomplished within a massive continent filled with discoveries, but there is a certain “intrigue” (pun intended) to the conflict density that a city-scape setting can provide.
The idea of a heist, in its very concept, is a thick breeding ground for intrigue! There is a built-in magnetism that pulls from various sources of inspiration, such as crime noir/thrillers, and heist stories (Oceans 11).
As a budding fantasy writer who is working on his own book taking place mainly within a congested urban environment in a post-Tolkien, late-reniassance setting, Dragon Heist is precisely the type of thing I could hope to DM for a group of players!
I hope you are as excited as I am!
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is out on September 18th!
This article was inspired by the podcast episode DragonTalk: Chris Perkins and Kate Irwin on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist … By Greg Tito, and Shelly Mazzanoble
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