For many players new to Dungeons & Dragons, learning the mechanics of the game and endeavoring into that very first adventure can be daunting. Both players and Dungeon Masters who started adventuring in 2014 with the original D&D 5e Starter Set no doubt found themselves delving deep into The Lost Mine of Phandelver, the set's accompanying starter adventure. Designed to see Level 1 players through to Level 5, The Lost Mine of Phandelver was an adequate taste of the game, but there was always the potential for so much more adventure.
Since then, newer versions of the Starter Set have gone on to include an entirely different adventure: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. Those itching to go back to the place it all began for them in 2014 can do just that in D&D's latest adventure module. Available September 19, 2023 from Wizards of the Coast, Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk does more than just revisit the original adventure. It expands upon it in ways that will actually take players out of this world in the creepiest (but best) way imaginable.
What You'll Find In Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk
Considering that the original adventure booklet for The Lost Mine of Phandalin was just a mere 67 pages, it's no surprise that there have been some major upgrades to this adventure. Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk re-explores the original adventure, with the first four chapters dedicated to getting players to Wave Echo Cave and the encounter with an evil wizard named Nezznar the Spider. After rescuing Nundro Rockseeker, there wasn't much left for players to do from an official standpoint in Lost Mine. However, escorting Nundro safely back to Phandalin provides the adventuring party some insight into further trouble brewing that stretches far deeper than anyone might have guessed.
While they were gone, strange goblin criminals began wreaking havoc in town, and when asked to get to the bottom of it, the perfect opportunity for the adventure to grow arises. The thing about these goblins isn't just that they're robbing people and marking up the town with nasty graffiti. They seem to have mysterious psionic powers that make them a little more powerful than the standard goblins the party would have faced in previous excursions. As players begin the hunt for clues relating to the goblins' true purpose, they'll start hearing rumors about overlords and mentions of a search for lost shards, giving the first hints at the titular Shattered Obelisk.
The adventure continues to inch into some very dark territory by the time it shifts toward new material in Chapter 5. The interesting thing about this shift is that it doesn't happen immediately. It's a gradual reveal that introduces some potential dangers lower-level players likely wouldn't have considered when they set out on this adventure in the first place.
Phandalin Feels Like Home
As both challenges and players grow, the extension of this module's brilliance lies in Phandalin slowly starting to feel like "home" to the party. No matter how far they take this adventure, which can potentially be stopped with the completion of certain elements in each chapter, no party forgets the place where their first adventure began.
A growing sense of protection is imminent in this type of campaign. Between the missing people of Phandalin and the introduction of a dangerous mindflayer cult with a horrifying plot to turn the people of Phandalin into mindlfayers with a bizarre ritual from the Far Realm, the adventuring party has no choice but to follow the heroes' path for the sake of the people, their town, and potentially the world. There are plot hooks aplenty to maintain the players' interest in getting to the bottom of the trouble there, especially as they begin to care about the NPCs.
One of the great hallmarks of a powerful and memorable D&D adventure is how easy it is to expand, and there is so much potential to keep this story going for the long haul. An intriguing thing about this adventure is that the opportunity for failure is one of its most powerful motivators. The final chapter's notes offer insight on how catastrophic failure might affect not just the town, but the world and possibly even other Planes of Existence.
As the danger grows, it becomes very real that the entire party might not make it through alive. But those who do survive will be motivated enough to carry on the fight. Perhaps they'll call on Neverwinter or some other powerful military force for aid. The opportunities for extending this eight-chapter adventure into a full-fledged campaign are endless, providing DMs looking to homebrew a continuation for the story with so much inspiration.
Why Phandelver and Below Stands Out
Phandalin is a small town with just a little over 1,000 residents. Compared to big cities like Waterdeep or Neverwinter, both of which have hundreds of thousands of residents, it's a cozy place to start an adventure. The population of Phandalin is primarily human, with a small number of gnomes and dwarves, and an even smaller number of D&D's other races. It offers a slow introduction to the different cultures of the Forgotten Realms, allowing both new DMs and players to get comfortable in a fantasy setting with the potential to expand as the game does.
For seasoned players, this might not be as appealing, as the cultural overload often found in D&D's bigger cities can be the most exciting point to explore. But it's hard to turn down an opportunity to explore The Far Realm. Phandelver and Below offers a lot of great dungeon crawls, as well, and dungeon crawls are opportunities to present the players with trinkets and treasures, like the twelve new magic items featured in the appendix. While the original short adventure brought players to Level 5, the extended adventure will see them to Level 12, assuming they survive the horrors laid out before them, which include 22 different monsters from the book's bestiary.
Every so often, WotC adds a new module or sourcebook that rises up to stand beside must-haves like The Monster Manual, The Dungeon Master's Guide, and The Player's Handbook. The fact that Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk was born from that short adventure in the Starter Set speaks volumes about its sustainability. The gorgeous artwork, another hallmark of an outstanding D&D tome, sets the tone and further adds to inspiration for adventure expansion. It's the perfect story for planting seeds of adventure, which then become roots players want to protect from the twisted horrors that would see them corrupted and distorted into something unrecognizable.
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk is available now in digital format on DnDBeyond, and the hardcopy edition can be purchased from online stores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as brick-and-mortar bookshops.
Review copy provided by Wizards of the Coast.