he Cult of the Dragon is an organization of many ambitious members working on many diverse undertakings, some of them smoke screens to conceal core Cult business. We've already seen some of these distractions or maraudings (as they've been variously called), and a few of them concerned covertly co-opting noble families of Waterdeep to the Cult cause. Those missions are ongoing, and whether or not they succeed, there will probably be more cult attempts to subvert Waterdhavian noble houses in future; the potential gains are just too good to be ignored. The right noble families have wealth and property in the City of Splendors and so will both bankroll the cult and prove useful in an ongoing way. For example, it's easier to quietly establish a safe house to hide in, within Waterdeep, if you're in cahoots with someone who already owns thirty or forty city houses, than it is to start from having no properties at all, just a need. Co-opting the Powerful
The everpresent problem in winning control of, or at least substantial influence over, a Waterdhavian noble family is this: how? And more than that: how to do so without the attempt being noticed by the Lords of Waterdeep, their agents, or the many spies working for as many private interests in the city?
That previous glimpse of cult maraudings identified three noble houses having current weaknesses that make them promising cult targets: the families of Phylund, Snome, and Zulpair.
However, there's another way to gaining power over nobility in the City of Splendors—and it's already well underway.
More than a few heads of noble houses have become bored and jaded pleasure-seekers, who lack all enthusiasm for the cut-and-thrust of mercantile business, and who also happen to lack trusted relatives within their walls who are happy or eager or competent to oversee family business concerns. Now, as in the past, the usual solution is to hire "factors" (trade agents) to see to keeping the family coffers healthy and the family well-positioned for future market share, respected by guilds and wealthy non-noble investors, and aware of trends and coming short-term calamities and opportunities.
The perennial complaint of "One just can't get good servants, these days!" applies to trade factors as it does to chamberlains (butlers) and chatelaines. Younger generations of factors tend to be less loyal to their noble employers and more apt to cut corners or be prone to corruption—and it has become the norm for them to have hidden sideline personal businesses that profit from the work they do for their noble family. Or in other words, as Lord Halburton Silmerhelve grumbled recently, "I'm feeding, housing, clothing, and paying my own leech, empowering him to bleed me white—and not even behind my back, to boot! Why, the rascal has the gall to sneer at me!" Proxy Representatives
One possible solution, which would seem fraught with more potential for corruption unless the greater numbers of people involved are so deployed as to police each other, is gaining popularity. It also answers the needs of an increasingly numerous, powerful, and frustrated element of Waterdhavian society: wealthy non-noble families who can live like nobility, but lack the titles, privileges, and social status of the established nobles. Some of these "wannabe" nobles have undertaken to—for a flat percentage commission, that often seems to be around twelve percent—administer the trade affairs of noble houses. It is understood that they will use their position to further their own trade dealings and make their own side-profits; the opportunity to do so is advanced as an argument for trusting them, because if the noble family suffers reverses, so too will their non-noble employees. The Rising Sardolphyns
One of the most successful of these proxy families is the Sardolphyn family of Mendever Street in Sea Ward—and they include a brother of the patriarch, and three of the patriarch's five sons, who (unknown to their kin) are firm members of the Cult of the Dragon. So cult coins and cult expertise have subtly aided the Sardolphyns in mercantile success, making them seem worthwhile to many noble houses seeking to engage "representatives." More importantly, ruthless cult muscle has spied on rivals of the Sardolphyns and stymied sabotage attempts by some of those rivals that would have darkened the reputation and unbroken success of the Sardolphyns.
As a result, the noble houses of Cassalanter, Durinbold, Gundwynd, and Lanngolyn have all engaged the Sardolphyns to represent them. So the Sardolphyn family now runs the Lanngolyn fleets, the Durinbold farms, and the myriad investments and small businesses of the Cassalanters and Gundwynds. They have made some real improvements in efficiency, partly by themselves providing faster and larger-capacity shipping of goods and needed materials between the various locations of all of these business concerns. They are making good profits for their noble patrons, as well as themselves. In turn, the cult, through its Sardolphyn family members, is profiting steadily from the success of the Sardolphyns. Inside the Walls of Dolphynturrets
The Sardolphyn family mansion, Dolphynturrets, is a gaudy stone mock castle on westfront Mendever Street, the third door north of the moot of Mendever and Whim Street. It is expanding, the family having purchased the two adjacent properties immediately adjoining it to the north (that front on the south side of Zarimitar Street, which is mislabeled "Zarimtar" on most maps) and the property abutting it to the south, on Mendever. Right now, all those buildings are being renovated and aren't yet directly connected to the existing mansion, the plan being to pierce the walls and join them when they are "ready."
The mansion is more showy than comfortable, and several of the sons have rented their own small but luxurious apartments in North Ward or Castle Ward, the better to entertain both lovers and their dashing young friends. The Sardolphyns are energetic, politically and socially engaged folk, too busy with individual interests to watch each other very closely or get on each other's nerves. They come and go, showing up for family meals when it suits them, the only constant (and quietly watchful) being the family matriarch, Feldelmra.
The cult members in the Sardolphyns are Travvask (the brother of oblivious Sardolphyn patriarch Dolmund, whose chief aim in life seems to be building an ever-larger wine cellar), Belmeern, Adreth, and Lharant (the three sons in the cult; their younger brothers Chelandor and Parldar, and their sister Emrythra, are all thus far unaware of cult involvement). Their mother Feldelmra is a passive cult spy, keeping close watch over her family with an eye to calling on certain of the mansion servants (one doorjack and three maids) to do whatever's necessary to keep the oblivious family members unaware of the cult's presence and to keep the cult members from getting funny ideas of their own and doing things that might expose the cult's hand in everything.
One growing danger is the enjoyment Adreth and Lharant derive from participation in orgy-like cult rituals held secretly in a cellar somewhere in North Ward. Lharant is a sadist with a growing hunger for branding bared flesh, and it's only a matter of time before he causes a death or disfigurement that brings him to the attention of the authorities.
Although increasing "stiffstab" (arthritis) is making Travvask hobble and is restricting his former relentless energy, and Dolmund is a dilettante and a dreamer, all the other Sardolphyns are smart, swift-to-learn workaholics. Emrythra has had a personal problem of "growing a tummy" from childhood. She has built a tiny business that designs and makes stomachers and other stylish corsets and cummerbunds into a well-respected Waterdhavian success. She and her staff make good-looking midriff reshaping garments bought and used by Waterdhavians of all wards and walks of life (aging warehouse loaders swear by her support trusses) under the name "Dolpynar." The other Sardolphyn males are all forehead-deep in tirelessly running and expanding various family businesses (and now, handling client noble family business, too).
Travvask is discovering that he really enjoys being a spymaster, and the cult is increasingly using him in that role to oversee its various small networks of spies across Waterdeep; Travvask is becoming "the wily old watcher who watches the watchers" for them, though certain senior cult members resent his being chosen for this and are watching him closely for any pretext to discredit him or just slip a knife between his ribs. The Road Ahead
So whereas the attempts to directly subvert or seduce noble families are ongoing and in early stages, the Sardolphyn Gambit is well underway and charging ahead from success to success.
Certain cult members, however, see the wisest way onward in putting energies behind rival proxy representatives, so the Sardolphyns won't stand out and seem rivals to any Lord of Waterdeep or guild who might decide to thwart them or bring them down—and so that if the Sardolphyns do fall, the cult has two or three other controlled families they can profit from and use as their tools in Waterdhavian politics and society.
As a result of this thinking, the cult is currently spying on the wealthy, rising, "wannabe" noble families of Eskult, Tramnur, and Yeldred (all of North Ward), with an eye to co-opting any or all of them and creating a "new Sardolphyn."
What will happen, of course, lies in (as Elminster puts it) "the hearts and arms of humans, spiced with the whims and fancies of the gods."
Next[]
lthough many legends tell (tantalizingly little) about ancient and powerful dragon masks named for and associated with specific chromatic dragon colors (a White Dragon Mask, a Red Dragon Mask, and so on), many magical dragon-related masks have been crafted down the ages.
Some of them ward off dragon breath powers, some give a measure of influence over dragons, some attempt to duplicate draconic powers, and some merely evoke the looks and might of dragonkind in attempts to impress.
As the adventurer Avaerl Throneborn once said (speaking of spiders, but his words could apply to dragon masks just as well): "In the heat of the fray, when your sword cleaves away a trophy from the foe and you hold it up dripping in gore for the few instants you have before the next attacker charges you, it's hard to tell specific tiny details of what you're holding—it's all one dripping bundle of blood, death, and danger."
Or, to put it more bluntly, all these dragon masks are dangerous, because the Cult of the Dragon seeks all of them—and they want to eliminate anyone who might know the secrets of how to use them. In their eyes, this includes anyone who owns or has owned one. Be warned. Longsnout Masks
First seen by adventurers fighting their ways free of the clutches of many monsters in the beast-realm of Veladorn, these masks resemble the forward-swept-horned heads of black dragons, only with long teeth-lined heads like the upper half of a crocodile's skull (the lower half is missing, leaving the wearer's chin and throat on view). These masks are usually fitted with stout, wide, flexible chinstraps to hold them firmly on—and at least two have been seen worn with gorgets (throat armor plates).
The wearer of a longsnout mask can take on the shape of a black dragon of the smallest size—or a marble statue of that sort of dragon, of the same volume as their own real body or larger—but this illusion "curdles" and falls away the moment they move (in other words, it is a hiding tactic only). The effect is entirely illusory; beneath the illusion, the wearer is completely unaltered and cannot even see the illusion (they "see out through it" as if it isn't there at all).
This illusion appears to be a side effect of such a mask, as is its automatic and ongoing ability to mask the scent of a wearer, even if they are bleeding or reek from contact with dung or swamp mud or other foulness. The true purpose of a longsnout mask seems to be that it gives a wearer limited command of reptiles, allowing them to force reptiles away and to push them into moving in a specific direction (a power usually used to bring reptiles into conflict with other creatures in their way when such forcible movement occurs). The mask seems effective against all sorts of reptiles except those as sentient and strong-willed as a mask wearer, and it works against up to a dozen reptiles at a time.
Who first made longsnout masks and why can only be conjectured, but they are numerous; at least forty and probably twice that number are in current use and circulation. The Masks of the Master
Of old, in the then-new realm of Thay (circa 926–946 DR), there briefly flourished a Red Wizard (one Harglupt Thlarlamn by name) who called himself the Master of Dragons. He claimed to have tamed more than a dozen dragons, and, as proof, he often rode a large black dragon as his aerial steed. He sold several trained dragons as flying mounts to various powerful wizards. It's believed the first and most gigantic black dragon steed owned by Manshoon of the Zhentarim was sold by Thlarlamn to a little-known wizard named Varaunt, who was briefly Manshoon's tutor, and who in turn either gave or sold the dragon to the then-newly-confirmed First Lord of Zhentil Keep.
The Master of Dragons wore a full-head-covering mask that closely resembled the beaklike head of a white dragon (emerald eyes and all) whenever he was in public, and he owned multiple such masks (because one was blasted off his head and scorched in a spell-duel, and he replaced it "in the space of six breaths"—according to an awed witness—with some sort of summoning spell). Thlarlamn was widely rumored to have his dragon masks hidden in caches in various high places (caverns, ledges, or crevices within the tops of mountains) in and near Thay. After he perished in a duel with a rival Red Wizard in 946 DR, his tower was plundered but none of his caches were ever found—or at least, no public word spread of anyone finding any of them.
A mask of fitting plates that entirely enclosed the wearer's head in a "disturbingly lifelike, only smaller than the real thing" white dragon head was seen worn by a wizard in Raurin during a spell-battle in 1354 DR, and an identical mask—or the same mask—was offered for sale (for a fantastic sum, which was paid by an unknown cowled purchaser) in the summer of 1358 DR in an auction held by an impoverished noble in the countryside of Chessenta. Thereafter, several reports of such masks being seen around the Vilhon and in Innarlith and Scornubel surfaced over the next two decades—and, far less frequently, from time to time ever since.
The precise powers of the Master's masks are unknown, but they are believed to be capable of being imbued with several spell effects that can then be unleashed by a mask-wearer by act of will, as breath weapons—discharges of spell effects that differ from the natural dragon breath of all known sorts of dragon. The masks are also rumored to have protected wearers against cold-based attacks. The Masks of Maaril
The infamous Maaril "the Dragonmage of Waterdeep" was a mage deeply interested in dragonkind. An evil and eccentric recluse of the City of Splendors, Maaril long wielded the Dragonstaff of Ahghairon (retaining it in part because the Lord Mage of Waterdeep, Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun, wanted him to do so, for reasons as yet undisclosed). He was known to be ruthless in dealings with other wizards, slaying many who challenged him or had disagreements with him—but he went mad in the Spellplague, disappeared, and is widely presumed to have perished.
Recent mutterings state that it appears he went mad and died—insofar as he lost his body—but his deranged, malicious sentience lives on, lurking amid a dozen dragonface masks he crafted and enspelled, to be worn by his servants. Legend ascribes a series of beautiful, self-effacing female apprentices to the Wizard of the Dragon Tower, but he always had at least two apprentices at a time: a female companion and a male novice of fledgling powers. The males Maaril sent out into the city, often by night, to run his errands, picking up and paying for purchases they had arranged for on earlier forays, delivering messages (often ultimatums) from their master to various guildmasters and shopkeepers, spying, and sometimes doing dirtier work. While outside Maaril's tower, these agents were under orders to wear and never remove their dragon masks, which are "hardshell" (paste-hardened painted and sculpted leather over a metal layer) representations of a green dragon's barbed or spined head, but are slate gray in hue, with translucent ruby-red eye lenses, securely held on by an adjustable head harness with chin strap and collar the mask can dangle from—if removal is necessary.
The enchantments on these masks enabled Maaril to see through the wearer's eyes and speak his will as words heard only inside a wearer's head. He could also hear all a wearer said or heard. Reputedly, the masks gave him no greater influence than that over a wearer. Reports differ over whether Maaril could cast spells from a distance through his masks, but Elminster says records he's seen (observations written down by Khelben's apprentices) state that the Dragonmage could not cast spells through one of his masks, but could "preload" a mask with a lone spell that a wearer could unleash with a spoken command word or when preset conditions became fulfilled.
It is now rumored that Maaril survives as a deranged, powerful intellect that can dominate the minds of some wearers of his masks, forcing them to do his will, casting magic through them, and speaking through their mouths. What's left of Maaril is cruel, capricious, and apt to arrive and vanish abruptly, not caring a whit for the safety of mask-wearers.
The Dragon Tower has been looted more than once since Maaril's disappearance. His dragon masks were all taken, and they are now scattered across the Heartlands; at least two remain in or near Waterdeep, and one is at least as far away as Sembia. The Whispering Mask
This ivory-white, hollow mask seems made of polished bone, and it is the right size and shape to be part of the skull of a huge red dragon. Some sages believe it consists of many real red dragon bones, fused together to form an entire upper half of a red dragon's skull.
The WhisperingMask is sentient, has existed since at least the early 1200s DR, and has flown about Faerûn for all that time, pursuing unknown ends.
It can fly with great precision and utter silence, usually gliding from shadow to concealing shadow or moving by night. It floats quiescent for long periods, watching or lurking, and it usually shows itself to lone mortals when it desires to whisper to them—or to scare or manipulate. It speaks most human tongues and those of elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings, as well as the language of dragons, and most sages believe it contains the sentience of a dragon—or perhaps is the messenger of a dragon god, or the remnant of a dragon god.
Whatever the mask truly is, it seems to have a malicious sense of humor, and it delights in manipulating intelligent beings—in particular, rulers, nobility, and individuals who can work arcane magic. It gives them warnings about their enemies, hints of intrigues happening around them, and suggestions about undertakings that might benefit them. It avoids giving its own name or revealing its motives, parrying questions as adroitly as any veteran glib courtier. Whatever it's trying to achieve, it keeps to itself.
More than one ruler and Harper spy have teased Elminster that the Whispering Mask seems to operate very much as he does, but he denies any connection to it—or to have ever spoken with it, claiming it seems to not just avoid him, but to energetically flee and hide from him. "One more mystery of this world," he adds darkly, "that bids fair to continue."
Next[]
e Cult of the Dragon is an organization on the ascendant, rising to power and grasping for more with a haste and fervor not seen for a century.
Up and down the Sword Coast, the cult is chasing a great goal (that adventurers can learn more about in the Tyranny of Dragons). Yet that pursuit doesn’t consume the cult; it is by no means single-minded and unswervingly unsubtle.
Rather, the cult engages in many side missions that distract local rulers and those spying on the cult or actively working against it from learning more about, or effectively opposing, major cult goals. These distractions also serve to test novice or low-ranking cult operatives—so more senior cult members will spy on them, to judge their performance—and to give them valuable experience.
Harpers have dubbed these cult activities “maraudings” and have identified some of the cult’s current list of such missions, though not who’s working on them. What follows is from their spyings and scryings, and so is voiced from the viewpoint of cult members talking to other cult members. Dark Horizon
By attempting to blackmail, buy the loyalty of, or covertly slay and replace at least two independent ship captains in all major Sword Coast ports (Luskan excepted, as it’s considered not worth the danger to try to establish anything permanent in that den of strife), the cult wishes to establish a hidden fleet. These ships can serve to ferry cult agents and material up and down the Sword Coast at the cult’s convenience, rather than having to bribe or cajole shipmasters into altering their schedules. Cult-controlled ships will carry “cover cargoes” so as to minimize the risk of being exposed for what they truly are, and to enrich cult coffers in an ongoing manner.
Cult agents will spy on the doings and finances of independent ship owners who skipper their own vessels, looking for leverage (misdeeds that can be reported to authorities) or weaknesses (indebtedness, large loans coming due, recent losses) that can be used to “persuade” targeted shipmasters. The right manner of approach will be determined in consultation with cult superiors, in part because such consultation can lead to increased pressure through loans being called in, false (cult) customers buying hold space and then cancelling at the last instant leaving a captain with an empty hold and no income, when other valuable opportunities have passed, large warehouse thefts or fires, and so on.
Likely targets include Trasker Arraskran, master of The Storm Shark (a stout old cog berthed in Waterdeep); Holdrark Mrael, master of Holdrark’s Pride (a fast and spanking new caravel he could barely afford to have finished, and is stretched with large loans to pay off, berthed in Neverwinter); and Gustarlus Harounshar, master of the great galleon Wave Walrus, berthed in Baldur’s Gate (“Gusk” is a massively fat drunkard and gambler who makes good profits but lately loses them all at the gaming-table). Biting Blade
These undertakings include assassinating key hostile-to-the-cult border guards, caravan inspectors, and government and guild harbor spies throughout the Sword Coast—particularly in places such as Scornubel and Secomber, where cult agents or cult-subverted underlings are poised to step in as replacements. Wherever possible, such deaths are to be made to seem the result of skullduggery on the part of the murdered, either personal (vengeful husband of someone they seduced, for example) or illicit (they tried to double-cross smugglers or kidnappers they’d been working with, and paid the price). These deceits as to the reasons for the killings must be fashioned so as to divert attention away from possible cult connections—and ideally, toward rival organizations or government officials who’ve given the cult trouble in the past.
The first target to be taken down should be Drenneth Tragarl in Scornubel, a gruff, stolid old retired warrior who refuses all bribes and works diligently to collect every copper he can for his city, in duties on restricted goods, such as weapons and war helms, and fines for “frowned-upon” wares such as known poisons and the wine known as laethkiss (known to cause temporary paralysis in elves). The delay here lies in arranging strong and believable false evidence for corrupt dealings on Tragarl’s part.
The second should probably be the halfling Belsz Harramavur of Secomber, who has a spy network of his own and the sly mind of a swindler and smuggler, and seems almost to smell Cult deceits before they even reach him. He must perish in a way that admits no hint of the Cult having a hand in his demise—a fatal fall when escaping the bed of someone whose husband came home early, perhaps. The problem is that Harramavur seems to have no bed-partner at present, nor to be seeking one.
Another alternative is the laconic, horse-faced, veteran Harper agent Emryl Elarrask of the Upper City in Baldur’s Gate, who for too long has delighted in exposing or sabotaging cult activities in that city. The complication here is that Elarrask trains young Harpers by letting them spy on him and then report what they observed—and at any time, two or as many as six novice Harpers, not known to the cult, will be watching him. Stauntun’s Haunting
The cult also seeks to frighten a very rich but lowborn shipping merchant of Baldur’s Gate, Beltaegur Stauntun, into sponsoring the cult. Stauntun is bedeviled by the whispering ghosts of his dead wife and father, who both constantly criticize his investments and decisions, and give him “firm and fierce” advice, but often disagree heatedly with each other. These ghosts must be destroyed, but replaced by cult-controlled voices of the unseen that Stauntun will believe are his father and wife still haunting him—and will obey, however grudgingly, in making key investments and decisions that will benefit the cult. No cult operatives who have sufficient skills and power can be spared from more important cult activities, so third parties (presumably in Baldur’s Gate) must be found, and some means of subverting them decided upon and successfully deployed. Could the wandering-wits old wizard Armuld Gloathen of the Gate serve? He seems to spend much of his dotage trying to breed and train griffons, and reputedly knows a spell that allows him to temporarily take griffon shape; could this be of use to the cult? Balaedrith’s Mark
Named for an idea “marked” as to be undertaken next but left undone by Waterdeep-based cult agent Indurs Balaedrith at his untimely death, this is the Stauntun undertaking writ large: the subversion to the service or at least financial support of the cult of an entire Waterdhavian noble family.
The authorities of that city, and other nobles, must at all costs not even gain a hint of this, or all efforts expended will be for naught. No one outside the cult must know that the noble family has been recruited—which means that the fewer cult members who know of it, especially at lower levels, the better.
The obvious impediment here is how to gain influence over a noble family of Waterdeep, and the answer is inextricably linked to that of a second question: which noble family? The cult needs one that retains sufficient wealth and influence to be useful, yet has a weakness it can exploit. Preferably not a house already suspected of serious breaking of the law or corruption by the authorities, because if so they will already be under surveillance and regarded with suspicion, which will sharply curtail chances of subverting them undetected and decrease their utility once under control, since family members will be watched and so cannot be seen to do “unusual” things without attracting even greater scrutiny. A family with valuable property holdings within the city is desirable, for they can serve to enrich the Cult with rents or by selling off the holdings judiciously.
The most promising candidates seem to be the noble houses of Phylund, Snome, and Zulpair.
House Phylund’s traditional monster-selling trade has sagged due to recent disease-related deaths ravaging their stock, and the changing fashions; most noble houses no longer desire a menagerie of guardian monsters, and the rising rich “want to be nobles” largely haven’t embraced the practice of giving house room to monsters. In more recent years the Phylunds have turned to building and renting out new housing accommodation in the city, and to moneylending; the former with mixed success, and the latter disastrously. So they are nigh penniless and desperate. The current patriarch, Velmaeros, has a drinking problem and a weakness for spirited young ladies; his wife Mamaelra is an unbalanced many-maladies-embracer. There are three daughters and four sons, all of limited intellect and coarse, simple tastes. Ripe for takeover, but few holdings to exploit.
House Snome is wealthy, thanks to shrewd investments in the expanding areas of Waterdeep and the steady strength of their traditional brewing, distilling, and spirits importation business. The key here is the bullying, must-win-at-all-costs, enthusiastically feuding braggart who heads the house, Rorild “Rory” Raztaerart Snome. This brawling lion of a man is as much a fool as he is a blusterer, and he has steadily lost friends over the years; if he can be befriended by cult operatives who will have to be deft actors, to treat him always properly, he can be led into almost any foolhardy investment, stance, or activity—and where he charges, his house will follow. Should he fall, his wife Kalaerra and daughters Tamra, Hethildra, and Marlemoeve (the sole surviving son is a pewling infant) are all worn out, battered-down vessels cult agents can fill with any ideas it wishes embraced.
House Zulpair is the richest of the three families, but has suffered recent calamity: a fire at sea destroyed the newest and largest of their galleons, The Swift Hart, with the loss of all hands and the heir of the house, Paeradrus Zulpair. The grieving family is quarreling over who should direct the family’s property investments, with the ailing head of the house, Daerevvros, facing heated opposing demands from his twin “second sons,” Ulmord and Alethtan. Alethtan is a romantic fool, but principled, but Ulmord is an oily, urbane weasel of a man ripe for corruption. The wife and daughter are both sickly and have worked themselves to the bone doing the real daily work of administering the extensive Castle Ward and Trades Ward holdings of this family (constant warehouse expansions and repairs in particular), and would seemingly welcome changes. Ulmord is the road in, so long as the cult gets the wife Nornessa and the daughter Ilryth on its side.
The Harpers also report that the Cult of the Dragon is contemplating takeovers of some costers of middling size that actively run many short-haul caravans in the Sword Coast, but their plans are as yet so nebulous as to have no specifics at all—other than the fact that one constantly traveling caravan merchant, Flaeros Harthnel of Beregost, is a cult spy currently gathering information as to which costers might be the best targets, and more about their personnel.
Next[]
ere's the third part of our glimpse of some of the current spies working for the Cult of the Dragon in various Sword Coast settlements. These are the "small fish"—the watchers at the bottom of the cult ranks. Adventurers are warned that the cult members who contact these watchers to impart instructions and to receive reports are more secretive, more mobile—and apt to be more dangerous. Silverymoon
This bustling, cosmopolitan city is once more rising in wealth, population, and sophistication, becoming a favored destination and place to live. The cult moves agents in and out of “the Moon” frequently, but it has at least two long-term, skilled spies who are very much part of the city’s social fabric.
Dlaarvos Fyredram is a handsome, slender, but rather short (and sensitive about it) half-elf, who works as a repairer. In the first half of every day he sits in the front room of his small, untidy, crammed-to-the-rafters (with bits and oddments he can cannibalize for fixing things brought to him) home, working on repairs—fixing the loose grip of a tool or kitchen knife, for example, or sharpening blades—and waiting for folk to bring him new repairs. In the latter half of the day, he travels the city delivering repaired items (and often being hailed with fresh repairs as he trundles his handcart along the streets). His usual terms are “pay half fee up front, the other half upon delivery.” He is pleasant, sometimes jovial, handsome, and generally well-liked, but he would have to subsist on tea and the occasional root vegetable fallen from someone else’s cart if repair fees were the only source of his income; thankfully, the cult sees his lifestyle as an ideal cover for seeing specific places and people in the city, and giving anyone—very much including undercover cult contacts—an excuse to go and see him. Dlaarvos (“Duh-LARR-voh-ss”) is content with his life, because his Cult work gives him excitement and an inner sense of personal importance; he generally avoids violence, but isn’t above swift thievery if he comes across a drunkard and thinks he’s unobserved. He has several mistresses among older and lonely human and half-elf female crafters and shopkeepers in the dingier streets of the Moon.
Jethra Helcandle is a free-spirited “revel lass” (the local Realmsian equivalent of our real-world term “party girl”) who has been in and out of the arms and beds of literally hundreds of citizens of Silverymoon and visitors alike. She is tall for a half-elf, and she has huge, arresting emerald-green eyes and a liquid grace that led a Harper to once describe her as “purring sensuality gliding past.”
Jethra is genuinely kind by nature, enjoys the embraces of almost all genders and races, and can mother or be a competent, discreet maid or trade factor to anyone. She has no interest in doing violence to anyone (she will go as far as covertly slipping sleep-inducing drugs to a person, but became very upset on the one occasion that a cult contact deceived her by substituting a fatal substance for what Jethra believed was just a sleep potion). She frankly enjoys flirtation and seduction, including roleplaying, costumes, and “intrigues in the streets or on the rooftops by night,” and the cult often asks her to serve as a guide or contact for adventurers, sometimes to dupe or mislead them into situations where they can be framed for cult activities.
Jethra has a nigh-perfect memory, and she can read or view maps or symbols very briefly and then even days later perfectly recall what she saw; this has made her especially valuable as a spy and message-carrier. She is slowly and deftly building her own contacts ever more widely among those who hold political and administrative power in Silverymoon, which makes her more valuable to the cult but also increases her prospects for marriage and a prosperous retirement. Triboar
Yreskan Ammulk is a half-orc who (aside from two tusks that he often conceals behind a false bandage that covers the lower half of his face) can pass for a large-featured, burly man—except when he comes into contact with magic, whereupon a curse laid upon him years ago causes him to momentarily look like a towering, horned, black-haired yak man—and then flicker back to his real appearance again (often the two images will ripple and trade places several times). This is a powerful magical illusion, not a change in shape; Yreskan (“RESK-ann”) is always himself throughout, and his mobility, speech, and senses remain unaltered.
Yreskan runs a general hardware, secondhand goods, and outfitting shop in Triboar he calls “The Missing Wheel” because it began as a source of replacement cart and wagon wheels, for merchants who suffered breakdowns nearby on the bad roads of the Sword Coast North. The shop then expanded into selling rope, blankets, canvas tents, and tools.
Although he can be what locals call “growly,” Yreskan is well respected locally because he’s useful, anticipates needs, he orders in what will be most needed to deal with these needs, and has a watering-pond whose services he offers for free to all passersby (for the use of their beasts of burden or livestock).
A stout wooden palisade surrounds Yreskan’s establishment, and his office is on the top floor of his three-story ramshackle (former stone keep) shop-and-residence. From that vantage point, he overlooks his own stockade walls and sees all traffic passing through Triboar, since the main roads meet right underneath his view. He offers the shelter of his stockade yard to travelers in need (peddlers and lone-wagon merchants in particular), and this provides great cover for cult contact visits.
Yreskan has no close friends, has brawled with locals who’ve crossed him, and hires female companionship when he wants it. He trusts no one, but he has assembled a small staff he feels he can work with. His weakness is strong spirits—and cult members keep him well supplied. Waterdeep
Still the largest, wealthiest, and busiest crossroads city in the Sword Coast North, as well as “the” destination for traders hoping to exploit current fashion or start new ones, the City of Splendors is home to many cult spies, including three well-placed veterans whom the cult relies upon, and who therefore wield more influence and respect than any of the other eyes and ears described here.
Maelra Harzund is a novice wizard of very modest accomplishments in the Art, who ceased training when the elderly master she was apprenticed to died suddenly of winterchill. Ever since, she has made a living making and selling spell scrolls, fake but impressive-looking spell scrolls, and wands that glow with faerie fire upon command. The latter resist catching fire and are “suitable for greater enchantments” (that is, they do nothing else). She also has vials of “wizard’s blood,” drawing on a large stock of beautiful little perfume vials she bought when a warehouse was torn down, and filling them with the blood of the live chickens she buys for her own meals, mixed with ichor from boiled-down worms she collects by day in the City of the Dead, to alter the smell and look of the poultry gore.
Maelra dwells in dingy third-floor rooms in a ramshackle rooming house, Laethra’s Highhaven, that stands on the west side of Caravan Court in Trades Ward. She is a soft-spoken, rather timid woman of almost white blonde hair, shy speech and manners, and a romantic dreamer. Working for the cult carries a spice of danger she loves, and it makes her feel important and as if her life is going somewhere rather than just drifting along from day to day surviving—but she dreams of real romance and real importance, and may soon do something reckless if moved by either of those triggers.
Zathant Drorn is a young half-elf wizard of low mastery who discovered he could make more money drawing small and intricately detailed maps of Waterdhavian neighborhoods and interior layouts of particular buildings than by working magic on the sly (because his talents weren’t strong enough to manage the spells those too desperate or poor to go to the Watchful Order tend to need). However, the miscreants he was selling maps to recently disappeared (to feed the harbor fishes or to grace Castle Waterdeep’s dungeons), and the Watch seem far too interested in someone who draws such things for Drorn’s comfort.
Like many Waterdhavians aspiring to more wealth than they possess (and in the meantime pretending to have already attained that wealth and the lifestyle that goes with it), Drorn shares in the rental of a good third-floor suite of rooms in Castle Ward (in Stonegate House, westfront Snail Street nine doors north of Shesstra’s Street) with six others. The seven men uneasily share the rooms for bathing and wardrobe storage, and they use the kitchen, dining area, sitting room, and bedchamber for assignations and to entertain their various upscale clients and contacts. As far as Drorn knows, none of his six partners are cult spies or agents, and he never involves them or his Castle Ward premises in cult activities.
Drorn’s real abode is a damp, roof-leaking-when-it-rains fourth floor attic room in a rundown rooming house on westfront Bitter Alley in Dock Ward. From this dismal residence, he daily descends the outdoor stairs to hire on as a daily laborer, loading or unloading small shipments to or from various Waterdhavian businesses and homes and Dock Ward warehouses. In other words, he’s hired brawn—but his looks and behavior (pleasant mien and track record for honesty—that is, refraining from pilferage) have made him trusted enough to visit addresses in all but Sea Ward and North Ward. Drorn sees and overhears much and lets the cult know everything he deems important. He dreams of being hired on by a well-to-do household in Sea, North, or Castle Wards as a servant, even if it’s just being a doorjack. Drorn is handy at a variety of manual work, usually making swift and serviceable repairs.
Inneth Hulmshar dwells in Mistshore, but works on staff in the glittering Mermaid and Stars gambling house on eastfront Copper Street (three doors north of Sulmor Street) in North Ward. He’s a raven-haired, thin, handsome man of impeccable manners, being both urbane and alert, who fools most folk he meets into thinking he comes from a wealthy background and high breeding. Inneth rents rooms at various rooming houses, seldom staying in one place for more than a month at a time. He owns very few belongings, and he enjoys a lifestyle of attending many revels (often as the escort of ugly and disagreeable noblewomen) and dining and drinking well at such events—as well as, of course, seeing and overhearing all he can that is useful to him personally and to the cult. His cult contacts see him as “our man we can worm into meetings of nobles,” and pay him well for what he can learn and report back to them (particularly about the investments of noble families, and the timing and specifics of their caravan and waterborne shipments). Inneth is quietly banking his takings with certain guilds, with an eye to slowly and behind the scenes buying up city properties until he becomes a wealthy landlord. He won’t say no to marrying one of those ugly and disagreeable noblewomen if any of them happen to become rich widows, either. Yartar
Irdred Jahamalankh is a half-orc of fearsomely scarred appearance, broad shoulders and bulging thews, who is Yartar’s best wagon wheel maker, where he cuts wooden pieces, steams and bends them, forges and fits metal rims around them, and makes the grease, cotter pins, and even replacement axles for the wheels to be fitted to. He does a brisk trade, and he seldom leaves his cluttered work yard except when cutting wood or buying metal for his rims—but he sees and hears far more than he pretends to, when dealing with clients, and he reports all to the cult.
Cult agents operating in the area find Irdred’s yard and sheds (heaped with drying wood, rusting metal, broken old wagons, and fuel for his forge) to be a useful place to hide things, amid all the clutter. Irdred loves the payments the cult makes to him, and he will loyally lie for them and conceal anything they want hidden. Several cult agents have covertly tested him to see if he’ll steal from numerous stores of obvious valuables (such as gold coins or gems), and Irdred has passed all such tests; he’s not interested in jeopardizing this steady source of income, which allows him to do what he loves: make an endless stream of good, sturdy wagon wheels (and roast and devour the occasional ox, boar, or rothé).
The Cult of the Dragon is constantly seeking to recruit new watchers, to eliminate disloyal ones, and to relocate valuable but compromised spies, so those listed here may well have nearby understudies or rivals unknown to them.