Fixing Prisoner 13

 

Fixing Prisoner 13

On Sunday I ran Prisoner 13 - one of the adventures in the latest Dungeons and Dragons anthology Keys From The Golden Vault. To celebrate the book (and probably to get back some good grace after certain  recent controversial things from WotC/Hasbro) they published the Prisoner 13 adventure on DnDBeyond for free!

The adventure is for level 4 characters and set in the ever freezing Icewind Dale; specifically the high security prison known as Revel's End. In an interview Chris Perkins, a game design architect for D&D said “I worked with the writers, directors to come up with a location in the Forgotten Realms that would serve the needs of the movie,” which I guess is why this is the second time we've seen it (the first being IceWind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden). Unfortunately this very cool location is not used particularly well in either adventure. In RotFM Revels End is just sorta "there" to visit someone with sod all happening.

If you are a DM running I highly recommend checking our Rogue Watson who done an Aliens inspired take on the Prison: https://roguewatson.com/2022/09/12/icewind-dale-rime-of-the-frostmaiden-session-59-recap/

Our second appearance of Revels End in the adventure Prisoner 13 at least has something for players to do but sorely lacks guidance and is still a bit light on stuff to do.

Enter GameBlast23 (raising money for the amazing Special Effect charity) and me wanting to run a game of D&D. So I'll say upfront I ran/streamed the adventure with with donations coming in to help or hinder players triggering Inspiration or random Guards or NPCs as complications but a DM can easily add that stuff in at any point. Below is the details and extra bits I added to make it a viable adventure.

Oh I'll add as well the maps are horribly empty - coloured but no details.

Adventure SPOILERS BELOW!

Fixing the Adventure

Whilst there is details on all the rooms and important NPCs there's very little on how things run when the NPCs get in and little complications. Prisoner 13 is the one real complications in that she doesn't want out. The party simply need to steal a ledger from the Wardens office and let Prisoner 13 have a look at it outside her cell.

The party goes in undercover as guards or cooks that have been kidnapped until after the heist.

Several sections of the adventure give some info but then don't detail other parts:

Doors 

So how secure is the prison doors? From the adventure:

"Each door and rooftop hatch is made of reinforced iron held shut by an arcane lock spell. Prison personnel can open these doors and hatches normally."

Sounds good right? But if every door can be opened by personnel the question is how? Is it a password? Is it a key card?  Does every door need Arcane Lock recast and new staff designated as ok? 

Enter my solution; The Sentinel Crystal. All staff attune to this crystal which is built into the prison wall R18 which is the Surveillance Hub. By making it something they attune to it means people leaving the Prison lose access (by being over 100' away for 24hours).

Sentinel Crystal

This large crystal magically connects to every door and hatch within Revels End. Up to 100 people can attune to the crystal and once attuned a character can open the doors as if they were a designated target from the Arcane Lock on the doors. The crystal is built into the floor and impervious to damage. 

The Schedule

The adventure does mention shifts so we can deduce its 25 guards on in 3 shifts. No other NPCs are mentioned beyond the Warden, Councillors, Tiny and Dargeria who our undercover Guards report to.

So I planned it out (plus to give guidance to the PCs) making the below rota as a handout using details from the adventure. I also made Sergeant NPCs to cover the other shifts.

Finally I decided the guards rotated through 3 jobs:

Day 1: Guard Rooms (R3) & Patrols

Day 2: Guard Towers (R9)

Day 3: Surveillance Hub (R18)

Repeat.

Prison Guard 8 hour shifts

6am-2pm Sergeant Hozil Busk

2pm-10pm Captain Dargeria 

10pm-6am Sergeant Garvot Zikante

Guards would be on the same shift for a 10 day before rotating to the next (Early/Late/Night).

As for the cooks they are introduced to Tiny Toulaine then get stuck in a prepare meals, serve to prisoners/guards and clean loop. Tiny normally delivers the Wardens meals to her office but can be convinced to let the PC do it. The cooks would also ferry supplies from the main Storeroom (R13) to the Kitchen store - giving them a chance to visit the storeroom and also insert a chance to spot the Kitchen staff member Helmon that smuggles things in for Gallia.

My idea here is that PCs posing as Guards see the Prisoners in the Yard or when escorting them and the Cooks can interact with Prisoners during meal times.  

I also planned a general timeline:

Timelines

Day 1: Induction tour and shadowing staff

Day 2: Attunement to the Sentinel Crystal 

Day 3: Training day

Day 4: Kidnapped guard arrives - suspicion goes up

Day 5: Final day of map magic

The PCs arrive day 1 and have to shadow a staff member for the day. This get's them into the routine and gives you 1 day of them in the Prison with no free movement (and extra suspicious if they go wandering!). One of their first tasks is to help search the supply crates for contraband (eg. their own contraband if they smuggled anything in crates). Day 2 is a pretty standard day with them getting attuned and official free access.

Day 3 is Training Day giving the party an opportunity where a lot of the guard are distracted/lower numbers in the static guard positions. To add a complication I planned that a kidnapped guard escapes and brings word to Revels End on Day 4. 

Armoury

The Armoury is guarded by a Spectator - I'm not a fan of these as guards despite them being good at it with all the eyes and them being guards in their big brothers appearing as guards in one of the movies.
I borrowed RogueWatson's idea of a construct called Guard-209 (though reduced its power a bit to work with a level 4 party.

The Prisoners

This a bit that was almost developed into something but then just left as a sidebar. I took the suggested extra prisoners and added some notes:

Gallia Strand [Prisoner 272] (neutral evil human, Spy), convicted of smuggling contraband luxuries, has served 3 years of a 10-year sentence.

Gallia continues her smuggling through one of the kitchen staff (Helmon) - bringing in contraband to the prison.

Barlo Rageblade [Prisoner 286] (chaotic good human, Gladiator), a famous adventurer convicted of reckless endangerment, has served 2 years of a 5-year sentence.

Barlo lured a giant into a trap that was incredibly close to a village. So much so several buildings were ruined. 

Quillion Sardo [Prisoner 269] (lawful neutral halfling,Bard), convicted of using magic to influence others, has served 4 years of a 5-year sentence.

Quillion is nearly finished his sentence so won’t do anything to jeopardise that and likely to rat out conspirators. 

Pirouette [Prisoner 240] (chaotic evil tiefling, Assassin), a thieves’ guild leader convicted of multiple crimes, has served 7 years of a life sentence.

Pirouette is a cunning and deadly Prisoner. She will listen in on any conversations the party has with Prisoner 13 held at her cell and try bargain for help escaping if she realises that may happen.

Ishar [Prisoner 8] (chaotic evil elf, Evoker), convicted of conspiracy to murder members of a noble family, has served 18 years of a life sentence.

Ishar is intelligent and patient. Her spellbook was confiscated and stored in the armoury.

Balin Crackstone [Prisoner 292] (neutral dwarf Veteran), convicted of assault on a noble, has served 1 years of a 10-year sentence.

Balin is permanently grumpy and annoyed at being given an extra long sentence which he’s sure has been manipulated by the noble he attacked all just to defend his daughter.

The below are extras to bulk out the cells (particularly handy on a virtual tabletop so the place doesn't look empty). 

Prisoners 241-245 These are Thugs that were a part of Pirouettes crew and arrested at the same time. Their names are Zashlan, Agar, Groth, Pue, Mesq. They have served 7 years of a Life sentence.

Prisoners 276-278 These are Cult Fanatics who were stealing and sacrificing goats from Ten Towns for Levistus. They have served 4 years of a 7 year sentence. Their names are Ragam, Esse, Shara.

Prisoner 13

The final thing I changed was to make Prisoner 13 demand a few more things.

First she asks for a beat down delivered to Gallia and for her to know it came from Prisoner 13. Next she asks for the ledger as normal. Finally she wants you to retrieve Ishar's spellbook from the armoury to hold over the Elf as leverage (potentially giving you a good boss fight in the armoury). After that she lets the PCs copy the key as normal.

How my game went

How did my game go? Well the session took about 9 hours but that was with some breaks and a lot of banter plus running a stream and plugging GameBlast. I reckon it coulda been done in about 6 hours but as with any RPG session and plan it only survives expectations until it meets the players!

2 went in as guards (Cleric & Fighter) and 2 as cooks (Drunken Monk & Bard). They spent a lot of time fluffing about and not interacting very well with Prisoner 13 until one of the guard PCs finally got her to talk. I added in some Dex Cooking checks for the cooks (with Tiny smacking PCs getting results under 10) - incredibly the Monk had Cooks Tools & Proficiency!

The guard PCs laid a swift punch to Gallia while working the Surveillance Hub and the Bard convinced Tiny to let them take the Warden a meal.

They took Prisoner 13 to the Privy to look at the ledger and a guard walked in. A fight started and after that 1 guard nearly killing the Cleric I had Prisoner 13 intervene and kill the guard. The had to dispose of the body in a crate next door in the storage room.

As my game had ran on so long I decided to have Prisoner 13 say those 2 tasks was enough. The party decided to sneak out that night but the body was found and High Alert was started. I went with the cooks being implemented and what ensued was a high alert huge combat with guards chasing the cooks, our PC guards pretending to help and opening all the cells then the night shift Sergeant unleashing Guard 209 chasing them. The Bard nearly died but survived with the Monks help and the Fighter and Cleric snuck out in the chaos with the guards running to contain the unleashed prisoners!

All in it was a fun adventure with tense moments and from what I hear one of the poorer examples so curious to see the other ones in Keys From the Golden Vault.