The Mystery of Maeralon's Tower, A Waterdeep: Dragon Heist Faction Quest

I am running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for my regular Sunday group. This group is all online and dispersed around the country. However, I organized an in-person Dungeons and Dragons weekend in early November, and a couple folks from the online-only campaign were able to attend in person. So I wanted to run a hybrid game for them...and use my miniatures and terrain!

I'm planning three blog posts about this:

1. The adventure I wrote (with the help of ChatGPT).
2. A blog about running the adventure hybrid, and the tools, technologies, and toys I used to do it. 
3. How to use ChatGPT to create adventures quickly, and what generative AI does well and does poorly when it comes to adventure design.

First, here is the adventure, The Mystery of Maeralon's Tower.

The Mystery of Maeralon's Tower

Call to Action

Barnabus Blastwind of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors approaches the party with an urgent request. The Watchful Order has lost contact with Maeralon Silvercord, a reclusive yet respected wizard living in the Field Ward. His tower has activated unmanned defenses and launched attacks on passersby. No one has been able to approach the tower safely. The Watchful Order has attempted to set up a quarantine around the tower but fears it is too loose and innocents may unknowingly walk to their deaths if the tower isn’t shut down swiftly. Barnabus offers the party 500 gp to investigate, disable the defensive magic, and determine what happened to Maeralon.

Barnabus can provide the following background about Maeralon Silvercord: 

• He is known as an enchanter and artificer, especially interested in defensive magics. 
• Much of his work in recent years involved imbuing items with low-grade sentience that will never cross purposes with the item's wielder. 
• Maeralon has always been considered a good person, but Barnabis notes he has become increasingly paranoid about external threats as he ages. 
• His son Arastin Silvercord is a budding wizard studying with the Harpells in Longsaddle. He has been sent a message via sending stone but won’t arrive in Waterdeep for several days.

Alternatively, you could have several different factions give this quest:

• The Lord’s Alliance or Gray Hands would view it as a threat to the peace in Warterdeep.
• The Order of the Gauntlet might have contracted Maeralon to create a defensive item for them.
• The Emerald Enclave is active in the Field Ward and could be working with the Watch to secure the tower.

Approaching the Tower

• The Animated Ballista: The animated ballista at the top of the tower fires bolts that contain explosive magical energy. The entire top of the tower is encased in a prismatic sphere that the ballista can fire through. It can shoot bolts out to its range of 120 ft but is difficult to damage in return due to the sphere. The ballista always has a readied action when the characters first approach. Characters can identify the prismatic sphere with a DC 15 Intelligence (arcana) check.

• Wild Magic Zone: A 50-foot radius around the tower is suffused with unstable magic. Casting a spell of level 1 or higher potentially triggers a Wild Magic effect. Roll a d20 each time a spell of first level or higher is cast within the zone (including inside the tower).

  
  
  

• Tower Door: The tower’s door is reinforced with an arcane lock. It cannot be picked, but a knock spell will open it. Alternatively, the characters can look for a password hidden under a rock nearby with a DC 14 Intelligence (investigation) check. The password is “sentry”. Lastly, they could chop the door down (50 hp, damage threshold 5), but that will attract the living burning hands in area 1 who will be able to attack the characters through the holes in the door with no penalty while receiving three-quarters cover (+5 to AC) while the door has greater than 25 hit points, and half cover while it has less than 25 hit points (+2 to AC).

• Running the Encounter: Have characters roll initiative once they enter within range of the tower (120 feet). The first character who moves into range triggers a readied attack from the ballista. At that point, the characters need to get within 10 feet of the tower to get out of the ballista’s range. The small river is 60 feet wide, and 6 feet deep and serves as difficult terrain to cross. Characters can avoid the ballista’s fire by hiding under the bridge. If there is no target available to the ballista, it readies an attack.

Inside the Tower

T1: Entrance and Reception

• Summary: Upon entering, the party is greeted by a Living Burning Hands spell—a defensive conjuration designed to dissuade intruders. The room appears to be a study, scattered with papers and books on enchantments and defensive magics. A small reading desk and chair sit in the middle of the room. The living burning hands has scorched many of the papers and books.
• Threats: A Living Burning Hands.
• Secrets: Among the papers are notes about "binding limited sentience" and a half-finished rune sketch that suggests a project to animate or empower an object with a fragment of consciousness. A DC 17 Intelligence (investigation) check turns up a small, burned piece of paper with the letters “ord: Aras” with both the front and back of the note burned away. This is a clue that Maeralon’s son’s name, Arastin, is a password that will let the characters get past the stone cursed in T2.

T2: Library and Workshop

• Summary: This level contains shelves of books on magical theory, elemental magic, and lore from various realms. At the center of the room, two Stone Cursed stand still. The constructs will animate and attack anyone who moves within 5 feet of a statue who does not first say the password, “Arastin”. These statues were crafted by Maeralon as a tower defense mechanism. The workshop has an alchemist’s lab and a magic circle etched into the floor, surrounded by candle stubs and scorched runes. Here, Maeralon had been testing containment spells, hinting that he might have bound an entity to one of his creations.
• Threats: Two Stone Cursed. Add another stone cured if the APL (average party level) is 4 or above.

T3: Maeralon’s Quarters

• The party finds Maeralon’s body on the floor, his face frozen in shock. A Clockwork Iron Cobra, his guardian construct, hides under his body, and a Mimic disguised as a chest lurks in the corner.
• Threats: The Clockwork Iron Cobra is a new creation of Maeralon’s that went rogue when he activated it and attacked him. Its poison bite killed the wizard. The Iron Cobra hides under Maeralon’s body (stealth +7) and attacks the first creature to move adjacent to the body. The mimic is a pet Maeralon keeps as further protection. He feeds it regularly to keep it content. It will attack the first creature to move adjacent with its pseudopod until they are grappled, then use its bite, attacking with advantage since the target is grappled. Both creatures fight to the death.
• Secrets: Maeralon was experimenting with soul fragments, attempting to infuse one into a weapon. Among his belongings are letters from Arastin, suggesting his son was concerned about his father’s deepening obsession with protecting himself. On his desk is a half-finished manuscript on binding spirits. His final notes reveal he was trying to enchant a weapon with limited sentient awareness, referencing an item called The Watcher’s Edge.
• Rewards: The mimic conceals a small locked chest built into the floor. It can be opened with a DC 14 Dexterity check using Thieve’s tools. Inside is an ornate, edged weapon (Watcher’s Edge), 3 spell scrolls of the DM’s choice, and five 100 gp gold trade bars. There is also a note from Maeralon to Arastin in the box indicating he wished his son to have these things should something befall Maearlon.

T4: Roof and Power Orb

• Summary: The top of the tower houses the Animated Ballista and an orb on a pedestal. The orb functions as the control core, projecting a prismatic sphere around the ballista and maintaining the wild magic zone around the tower.
• Threats: The animated ballista will execute a readied attack when someone exits onto the roof.
• Secrets: A character adjacent to the orb can make a DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana) check to disable the control orb. This will deactivate the sphere, the wild magic, and neutralize any remaining constructs (except for the mimic). Failing the check causes the orb to fire a magic missile (1d4+1 force) at each creature on top of the tower, excluding the ballista. Failing the check by 5 or more leads to each creature being targeted by 3 magic missiles each (3d4+3 force damage). The check can be repeated until it is successful.

Wrap-Up

• Barnabus’s Payment: Barnabus gives the party the 500 gp reward and any member of the Watchful Order gains 3 renown.

• Arastin’s Gratitude: If the party leaves the tower’s items untouched, Arastin provides the party with a Potion of Healing, a Wizard’s Spell Scroll of up to third level, and a +1 Weapon with a unique enchantment:

  The Watcher’s Edge

  Weapon (any edged melee), uncommon (requires attunement)

  This sentient weapon was Maeralon’s final project. The Watcher’s Edge is a longsword (or other edged weapon of the DM’s choice) that grants +1 to attack and damage rolls. As a sentient weapon, it provides its wielder advantage on initiative rolls once per long rest and has a limited form of telepathy, capable of sending warnings to its bearer about nearby dangers. However, it also has an overly cautious personality, sometimes alerting the wielder to harmless things.