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  • What Is Phandelver And Below The Shattered Obelisk?
  • What Happens In Phandelver And Below The Shattered Obelisk?
  • Special Conditions In Phandelver And Below The Shattered Obelisk
  • How To Run Phandelver And Below The Shattered Obelisk As One Shot Adventures

Phandelver and Below The Shattered Obelisk is a unique adventure book for Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition. If you're familiar with the popular starter adventure Lost Mine of Phandelver from the D&D starter set, originally published in 2014, you'll recognize Phandalin and the start of this epic adventure.

Related: Dungeons & Dragons – Every Adventure In Phandelver & Below The Shattered Obelisk, Ranked

What happens after Phandalin, though? There's so much more to look into regarding The Shattered Obelisk and the rest of the adventures for you and your party. From the mind flayer plot underneath the surface to protecting the citizens above and everything in between, here's your complete guide to Phandelver and Below The Shattered Obelisk.

What Is Phandelver And Below The Shattered Obelisk?

Illithonic Denizens by Brian Valenzuela

Phandevler and Below The Shattered Obelisk is an adventure broken up into two parts. You'll probably be familiar with the Lost Mine of Phandelver portion, and that's how this adventure begins. The second half is a new adventure that continues where the original ends.

Adventure

Level

Description

A Lost Mine

1-5

The Lost Mine of Phandelver has been remade. You'll still run the same adventure for the most part, but you'll notice a few improvements and changes along the way. This portion of the adventure is also self-sustainable, and you can choose to end the adventure here if you'd like. This is suggested if you have players not necessarily interested in body horror or mutation elements of the following adventures.

The Obelisk

5-12

This section encompasses uncovering a sinister plot, continuing the adventure, and potentially saving the town of Phandalin. It's an all new adventure for the Phandalin location and deals with some pretty dark themes. It'll allow your players a chance to save the town and deal with a mind flayer cult bubbling underneath the surface. Whether the plot is thwarted and the town is saved is up to the party.

The entire adventure is meant to run your characters from level one to level 12, as more of a continuation of the original than a sequel. It enhances the original Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure and allows you to stop the adventure there or continue it into a new plot line.

What Happens In Phandelver And Below The Shattered Obelisk?

While this guide won't spoil the entire plot, it's preferred that you know an outline of what's to come so that you and your players can prepare for what they may encounter in the adventure.

This is especially useful for session zero, as you'll need to establish what type of content your players want and what they're comfortable with.

The adventures in the second half of the book are culminations of workings that have been going on in the background during your journey in the first half.

The first few adventures have your party dealing with low-level threats, as your average goblin ambush leads the party to the town of Phandalin. Once there, they'll encounter the Redbrand ruffians and learn the secrets of the lost mine and the gang terrorizing the town.

This portion is your standard affair; however, while this is going on, another plot is unfolding. The town will be ambushed by goblins, but these goblins have psionic powers, clearly alluding that something isn't right. As you find out more about them, you'll discover they're searching for portions of an obelisk.

The obelisk is a powerful magical item. You can learn more about what exactly an obelisk is and how you can use it in our article here.

Take time to learn exactly what an obelisk is and its purpose. Not only are they central to this adventure, but they can be used to completely change the trajectory of this adventure or your own custom homebrew adventures.

The next part of the adventure uncovers the mind flayer plot underneath Phandalin. This is where you'll need to discuss with your party how comfortable they are with certain aspects of the story.

The mind flayer fanatics who serve the god Ilvash are attempting to turn the townsfolk into mind flayers through a ritual, using the ancient powers of the shattered obelisk. The Far Realm hosts mind flayers leading this charge, and it's up to the party to save the town and everyone in it from becoming mind flayers and falling to the fanatics.

Special Conditions In Phandelver And Below The Shattered Obelisk

Ilvaash Fanatics by Claudio Pozas

To showcase the urgency of this adventure, your players will go back and forth between Phandalin and notice how the setting constantly changes.

When they return, they'll see how not only the town has changed, but its citizens have also begun to transform. There are some special conditions for transformations in the adventure and how to handle them.

To help understand and enact these transformations, we've created a DM's guide to character transformations.

If you so choose, you can also have your players affected by these changes enacted by the Far Realm mind flayers. The same transformations happening to the NPCs can happen to your players.

You'll need to let your players know and decide whether they're comfortable with the body horror mentioned in this adventure. While it's not extended to grotesque situations for the most part, you can still adjust it as you see fit to work at your table.

If you're looking for what exactly these Far Realm transformations are and how to make them work in your game, you can check out our explanation on everything involving Far Realm mutations for this adventure and your own.

Transformations are a great way to not only keep your group involved in the story and its evolution but can also provide fun moments for roleplay and give your players an advantage if you allow them.

Creating Characters For Phandelver And Below The Shattered Obelisk

If your players make characters specifically for this campaign, remember that it's set in the Sword Coast. Feel free to encourage them to use resources and books referencing the Sword Coast, such as the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

It's a perfect way to tailor the average character backgrounds in the Players Handbook to this setting. They can also use theoptions provided in Phandelver and Below The Shattered Obelisk to make personalized backgrounds of the Players Handbook options.

How To Run Phandelver And Below The Shattered Obelisk As One Shot Adventures

Triboar Trail by Klaus Pillon

Any good D&D campaign can comprise bits and pieces of other ideas. Phandelver and Below The Shattered Obelisk present many great ideas and story beats that can be used in a one-shot or your homebrew campaign.

Because these adventures are continuations in each chapter, it's better to take certain elements, ideas, and story beats and use them in your campaign. This means looking into some of the following:

Behind The Scenes Action

Part one happens as usual; however, part two happens simultaneously with part one, allowing things to evolve naturally without the group's knowledge. This is a great idea for resolving plot points in your own campaign.

Allow certain actions to happen behind the scenes, but make it known early enough in your adventure that players feel like it's happening to them.

If you choose to do this, have hints of things going on underneath the surface. Talking to the townsfolk should make your players aware that not everything is as it seems, even with a current quest going on.

Player Transformations

A great option for whether you're running a plague or undead infestation in your own campaign. Taking cues from how the transformations happen to NPCs and players in stages perfectly displays the beginning of a devastating plague in your campaign.

Importantly, having players notice as NPCs they've interacted with start to change (and even having them change themselves) in stages really makes things feel dynamic and also provides a sense of urgency.

Revisiting the town and seeing its slow degradation every time adds depth to the player's situation. It's a great system that can be used on important NPCs that may become villains or characters the party cares about and will want to rescue.

Using Obelisks

With the ability to rewrite time, an obelisk can be an essential item to any story. Creating a shattered obelisk similar to the one in the adventure and having the party track it down to avoid or rewrite some tragic historical moment creates a campaign all its own.

If you were to tie this into events from a previous campaign that was played, you can make two stories converge. This is especially fun if the players made memorable characters in that campaign and created impactful history.

Returning to a previous campaign setting with new characters and a magic item as powerful as an obelisk invites plenty of fun opportunities.

Next: Dungeons & Dragons: Best Monsters From Phandelver & Below The Shattered Obelisk