Thank you for the great summary. I bought the Candlekeep Mysteries book to start DMing for a group of friends who don't like huge campaigns but rather one-shot scenarios. These suggestions for encounters and effects really helped me.
Thanks for the tips and suggestions! ran this for my party recently and it went over great. the advice for having a captive in mid-transformation and for placing loot was especially useful and easy to implement.
Hey, been enjoying your videos! I'm about to run this book as a full adventure, so I'm trying to tie these "one shots" all together somehow. Have you added some kind of over arching plot to the whole thing, for your group? I flipped to the end and saw the "final boss" the druid lich, and was thinking that maybe the cursed town mentioned in Adventures 1 and 4, and maybe some other ones, could be tied back to her. Like there's bad plant or fungus stuff happening all over and the players sometimes get closer to figuring it out as they solve some of the mysteries. You know, just so there is a "big bad" pulling the strings from the start. Thanks!
I’m currently running the book as a full adventure and here’s what I did: First of all, reading the whole book in advance and writing a story to tie everything together seemed too daunting, so I did kind of a leap of faith, hoping everything would be allright. I kept Matreus from the first adventure, and made him establish a bureau inside of Candlekeep investigating odd cases caused by books, under the city rulers’ orders. In order to extend their stay inside Candlekeep and make some money, my players gladly agreed being part of the bureau. Using Fistandia’s Mansion as their base of operations, they are the FBI of Candlekeep now and are having an absolute blast. The only real challenge I’m facing as a dm is that some of the adventures need some plot hook adjustments to fit into this setting, but nothing you can’t handle. Hopefully this sparks some ideas!
@@keremyakutlu255 Thanks! Great idea, yeah I was trying to think of why the players are there, or why to keep doing these quests. I was thinking the players are at Candlekeep for some backstory reason, then at the tavern an NPC talks to each one about putting a team together to solve a mystery about a book and a cursed town. Then some myconids appear in the tavern and there's a fight which bonds the players. Then it's just what you described after that! I'll probs use Matreus there and not kill him off.
I have done something Similar. In mine, BookWyrm actually ran a covert strike force to seek out mysteries and be an offensive arm for the mysteries Candlekeep gets involved in. BookWyrm meets the players during the 2nd level mission. He states that he would task The Librarians with investigating the Gingwhatzits, but they have not yet returned. The players volunteer to investigate and BookWyrm pays them and sets them up with what they need, becoming their patron. The party later finds out that The Librarians have not returned for over a year and are presumed dead. They are now an investigative force for Candlekeep and also use the Mansion as their headquarters.
The final adventure does have a crisis that has been building up over the course of several months, so it would be easy to drop rumors of her effects throughout the earlier levels. What I decided to do was to tie Xanthoria to the eldritch creature Gaernoo from the Level 7 adventure, and use him as a recurring problem as he gives all sorts of villains information to help their vile schemes (as he's a god of doing evil things for knowledge and doing evil with knowledge). I added a fungal theme to his stuff (depicting his knowledge like fungi that require dead things to grow on) and made the druid lich his most powerful servant, spreading his corruption throughout the minds of the land.
I'm surprised you didn't touch on the module suggestion to have players or npcs captured then potentially turned into meanlocks. The adventure even suggests a process for it. I won't be including the guantamo bay type stuff. On the whole, it feels very out of place compared to the first three Candlekeep Mysteries.
I was trying to follow your advice, make this the cursed village from session 1 but... it doesn't add up! how can this be the village if they were just tasked with fixing the curse but it's 70 years since the meenlocks already whiped it. I'm planning on making it recent. It's not as haunting but hopefully it will work out just fine. I hoped you tied it in but you didn't :/
Here 3 years later to say this was a great help and my session ran super smooth because of your tips!!
This is helpful! I've found a lot of the Candlekeep adventures have SO MUCH empty space, it's nice to get an idea of where others have added things.
I was enjoying your comments. And then you mentioned the mayor's notes and made my day. You are genious!
Thank you for the great summary. I bought the Candlekeep Mysteries book to start DMing for a group of friends who don't like huge campaigns but rather one-shot scenarios. These suggestions for encounters and effects really helped me.
Thanks for the tips and suggestions! ran this for my party recently and it went over great. the advice for having a captive in mid-transformation and for placing loot was especially useful and easy to implement.
This is great! I'm planning this adventure as a bridge between my heavily modified Dragon of Icespire Peak and Red Hand of Doom.
Great advice here!
Really thoughtful tips and advice. Much appreciated!
It's so good throw it in LMoP for a fun side quest or a mine mission after
Beautifully concise. Thanks!
This was great! Please make more. :)
Hey, been enjoying your videos! I'm about to run this book as a full adventure, so I'm trying to tie these "one shots" all together somehow. Have you added some kind of over arching plot to the whole thing, for your group? I flipped to the end and saw the "final boss" the druid lich, and was thinking that maybe the cursed town mentioned in Adventures 1 and 4, and maybe some other ones, could be tied back to her. Like there's bad plant or fungus stuff happening all over and the players sometimes get closer to figuring it out as they solve some of the mysteries. You know, just so there is a "big bad" pulling the strings from the start. Thanks!
I’m currently running the book as a full adventure and here’s what I did: First of all, reading the whole book in advance and writing a story to tie everything together seemed too daunting, so I did kind of a leap of faith, hoping everything would be allright. I kept Matreus from the first adventure, and made him establish a bureau inside of Candlekeep investigating odd cases caused by books, under the city rulers’ orders. In order to extend their stay inside Candlekeep and make some money, my players gladly agreed being part of the bureau. Using Fistandia’s Mansion as their base of operations, they are the FBI of Candlekeep now and are having an absolute blast. The only real challenge I’m facing as a dm is that some of the adventures need some plot hook adjustments to fit into this setting, but nothing you can’t handle. Hopefully this sparks some ideas!
@@keremyakutlu255 Thanks! Great idea, yeah I was trying to think of why the players are there, or why to keep doing these quests. I was thinking the players are at Candlekeep for some backstory reason, then at the tavern an NPC talks to each one about putting a team together to solve a mystery about a book and a cursed town. Then some myconids appear in the tavern and there's a fight which bonds the players. Then it's just what you described after that! I'll probs use Matreus there and not kill him off.
I have done something Similar. In mine, BookWyrm actually ran a covert strike force to seek out mysteries and be an offensive arm for the mysteries Candlekeep gets involved in. BookWyrm meets the players during the 2nd level mission. He states that he would task The Librarians with investigating the Gingwhatzits, but they have not yet returned. The players volunteer to investigate and BookWyrm pays them and sets them up with what they need, becoming their patron. The party later finds out that The Librarians have not returned for over a year and are presumed dead. They are now an investigative force for Candlekeep and also use the Mansion as their headquarters.
i'm currently running some of my viewers so I don't want to spoil my plans, but yes I did tie in that final boss very early in the campaign
The final adventure does have a crisis that has been building up over the course of several months, so it would be easy to drop rumors of her effects throughout the earlier levels. What I decided to do was to tie Xanthoria to the eldritch creature Gaernoo from the Level 7 adventure, and use him as a recurring problem as he gives all sorts of villains information to help their vile schemes (as he's a god of doing evil things for knowledge and doing evil with knowledge). I added a fungal theme to his stuff (depicting his knowledge like fungi that require dead things to grow on) and made the druid lich his most powerful servant, spreading his corruption throughout the minds of the land.
Gotta stop halfway through, but good stuff Steely!
Great video.
I'm surprised you didn't touch on the module suggestion to have players or npcs captured then potentially turned into meanlocks. The adventure even suggests a process for it. I won't be including the guantamo bay type stuff. On the whole, it feels very out of place compared to the first three Candlekeep Mysteries.
Is there a vod for this session would love to see it
I was trying to follow your advice, make this the cursed village from session 1 but... it doesn't add up! how can this be the village if they were just tasked with fixing the curse but it's 70 years since the meenlocks already whiped it. I'm planning on making it recent. It's not as haunting but hopefully it will work out just fine.
I hoped you tied it in but you didn't :/