Lost Mine of Phandelver is an adventure module for the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, released on July 15, 2014, as part of the 2014 D&D Starter Set. The adventure module was the first-ever released for the non-playtest version of the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons (then known as D&D Next during its playtesting stages), predating even the three basic rulebooks (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual).
The adventure primarily takes place in Phandalin, a small frontier village in the Forgotten Realms setting, where adventurers have been hired to deliver some mining supplies to there by the dwarf Gundren Rockseeker, who spoke of some great find he and his brothers made in the mountains just east of the village. The adventure kicks into gear when, during said delivery, the adventurers find Gundren and his bodyguard's horses lying dead on the road, pierced by goblin arrows. And as they look into their employer's disappearance, the adventurers will soon find out that many parties are also interested in Gundren's find, and not all of them are friendly...
This adventure module is widely considered as one of the best adventures for the 5th Edition, and has won three awards: A Golden Geek Award in 2014 for "Best Supplement" and two 2015 ENnie Awards for "Best Production Values" and "Best Family Game". On August 2022, it was announced that a full campaign expanding on and extending the original module, titled Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. It was released on September 19th, 2023.
Tropes that may be found in the lost mines:
- Advertised Extra: The cover art for Lost Mine of Phandelver features adventurers fighting the green dragon Venomfang. Although in the actual adventure, it's not much of a huge threat with regards to the story, and serves only as an Optional Boss.
- An Adventurer Is You: The straightest example in 5th Edition. Each of the five pregenerated character sheets is an element of a typical party, and each designed to be a typical member of their class and race. It's not exactly groundbreaking, but it's exactly what you'd expect.
- The first Human Fighter is a fairly straightforward Melee DPS, getting into the thick of it to dish out damage with a high Strength modifier.
- The second Human Fighter is a Ranged DPS, with a high dexterity score that lets them utilize ranged weaponry effectively, but leaves them wanting in close quarters.
- The Dwarf Cleric doubles as a Stone Wall and The Medic. Heavy armor and natural resilience lets them take all but the strongest hits, while their God-given magic keeps their party alive.
- The Elf Wizard is a fairly standard Utility caster, with both powerful damaging spells and utility-focused trickery.
- The Halfling Rogue is your typical Jack of All Trades skill-monkey, with enough damage output to still be useful combined with a lot of skill proficiencies to be used outside of combat.
- And the Adventure Continues: Encouraged by the final pages of the adventure, which lists a number of potential story hooks. Nezznar's reason for seeking the Forge of Spells are unknown, the players may have found a mysterious map in Wave Echo Cave, and Venomfang is still out there. It's also quite common for it to be used to springboard into other modules due to how low stakes it starts.
- Bandit Clan: The Redbrands, led by a mysterious figure known as Glasstaff, are a local bandit gang that took up residence in Phandalin recently.
- Barrier Warrior: Glasstaff (real name Iarno Albrek) can cast Shield and Mage Armor from his Magic Staff. Players can loot it from him, becoming this themselves.
- Big Bad: Nezznar, the Black Spider.
- Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Wave Echo Cave, a legendary mine that contains no less than four bossfights. If you make it past the poisonous fungus, you get to contend with a spectator and a wraith in short order. If you go the other direction, there's the Flameskull and the Black Spider himself.
- Continuity Nod: A few. The adventure is entirely self-contained, but there are a few mentions of old lore. The eruption of Mount Hotenow is mentioned as the reason Thundertree is abandoned, Neverwinter appears on the map, the name of the elven empire Illefarn is used as a password, and the players can visit the ruins of a Netherese outpost.
- Disc-One Nuke: Glasstaff's Magic Staff, a staff of defense, can drastically increase the survivability of any character who possess it. By combining its various bonuses, the wielder can get +9 to their armor class (+6 if they're already wearing armor) even before accounting for dexterity bonuses, and it has enough charges that there is little danger of running out unless you're fighting 3 or more encounters every day.
- Due to the Dead: The wraith in Wave Echo Cave refuses to raise the dead as specters. The flavor text says that this is because he has some respect for the dead, while the mechanical reason is simply that a fully powered wraith would be way too powerful for the adventurers.
- Dungeon Crawling: Of course the iconic adventure features some of this. There are several parts of the adventure that qualify as dungeons, including the Goblin Hideout, the Redbrand Hideout, Cragmaw Castle, and Wave Echo Cave.
- Early Game Hell: The tradition in the 5th edition adventures started here.
- The first encounter should be perfectly balanced in theory, pitting four goblins against four player characters. However, the goblins have a number of advantages that the players will have to overcome. They start out attacking from afar, requiring melee fighters to spend a turn or two rushing to their positions, and they have partial cover, negating any advantage ranged characters have.
- The next part sends the players through a goblin hideout. Not only do the goblins have the time to set up traps, but there are a lot of them, often large groups fought at once, and the boss of the dungeon is a very tough bugbear. All of this is at level 1. It's negated somewhat by the adventure encouraging DMs to let players solve the dungeon through negotiation.
- First Town: Phandalin serves as a Hub Level for the adventure, with every Sidequest taking you no more than a day or two away from it. It also contains all the typical traits you'd expect from a starter town; A tavern for news, a bandit problem for the players to solve and ingratiate themselves with the villagers, shops for supplies and lots of NPCs to hand out sidequests.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: The Black Spider. Like most NPCs in the adventure, he's a bit of a blank slate simply fulfilling the requirements and stereotypes of a villain (Drow, Necromancer, Evil Overlord), so first-time players can familiarize themselves with the game without anything too intricate, and long-time DMs can expand on him as they want.
- Face–Heel Turn: Iarno Albrek, an agent of the Lord's Alliance, abandoned his noble mission to form the Redbrands and terrorize Phandalin for two months. It's soon revealed that his betrayal stemmed from a deal he had made with the Black Spider.
- Hate Sink: Phandalin has two:
- The most immediate is the current Townmaster, Harbin Wester. Described as an old, fat, pompous fool, Harbin is too easily intimidated to do anything to stop the Redbrands running roughshod over his town, not even when they a week before the adventurers' arrival murdered a man and kidnapped his family to sell them into slavery (at least in the original version). This makes him indirectly complicit in every crime the Redbrands commit against the people of Phandalin. He's more concerned about a POTENTIAL orc attack than he is about the immediate threat of the Redbrands' reign of terror. When the players defeat their first Redbrands, he'd prefer to let any captured Redbrands go free out of fear of retaliation from the rest of the gang unless the players explicitly browbeat him into locking them up, and is the only person in town to act negatively to any resistance against the Redbrands' tyranny. Due to Sildar's more pressing concerns about Gundren and Phandalin's safety, Wester receives zero punishment for his incompetence save for Sildar and the players' ire. This gets Downplayed in the rewrite, where he's well-liked and more cooperative with the players, but still intimidated by both the Redbrands and the Sawplee goblins' raids.
- Iarno Albrek, a.k.a., "Glasstaff", is the leader of the Redbrand Ruffians who have terrorized Phandalin for two months. He works directly under the Black Spider to suppress the town and either run out or kill any adventurers, betraying his original mission in the process purely to line his pockets and obtain power. He has the Redbrands commit crimes such as extortion, robbery, murder, kidnapping, and even slavery with at least a dozen victims. He also, for the Halfling Rogue starter character, tried to have them killed at the word of another Redbrand, running them out of town. But the biggest negative quality is his high survival instinct at the first sign of trouble, turning his boss fight into a chase and potentially denying the players high-quality loot if the DM forgets to include him in later. If caught (and that is a very big "If"), Glasstaff will put on a gentlemanly air while downplaying his crimes as "unpleasant business", and only cooperate with the authorities on the belief the Black Spider will save him, firmly believing he's too valuable to the villain's operation to let rot in prison while the heroes need his information to thwart the Black Spider. Sildar is thoroughly disgusted with him once he finds out how far his former coworker fell.
- Magic Staff: The Glasstaff, Iarno Albrek, wields a staff of defense, which is made of glass and can spend its 10 daily uses to cast Shield (2 uses) or Mage Armor (1 use). It can, however, only be used by mages.
- Magic Wand: In Wave Echo Cave, the players can loot a wand of magic missiles from a corpse.
- Mayor Pain: While not really a mayor, Townmaster Harbin Wester serves as the closest thing... and he's done nothing to stop the Redbrands during his tenure out of fear.
- Mêlée à Trois: There are a bunch of factions active in Wave Echo Cave, none of which get along. Aside from the players, there's the Black Spider, the Flameskull and its undead, the Wraith and the Spectator.
- Oculothorax: Wave Echo Cave contains a spectator, a lesser beholderkin.
- Our Zombies Are Different: There are normal zombies in the adventure, not to mention some ghouls, but the eruption of Mount Hotenow spawned a new breed of undead known as Ash Zombies, who are coated in sticky ash and explode when slain.
- Sequel Hook: A map can be found in Wave Echo Cave which shows the location of dungeon of the DMs own creation. The DM guide encourages it to pave the way for further adventures.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Venomfang will abandon its lair in Thundertree if the adventurers reduce it to half of its total hit points, deciding that its new lair is not worth the effort.
- Glasstaff will, should his familiar detect the players and realize they're after him, sooner attempt to escape than attempt to fight the adventurers, taking with him some super-valuable loot if given the chance.
- Spared by the Adaptation: One of the very first changes The Shattered Obelisk makes is that Gundren and Sildar's horses, who were shot dead by the Cragmaw goblins under Klarg in the original version, are spared. Instead, there are enough signs of a struggle around them and the two horses are left as roadblocks that will hint to the players where to go to save Sildar. The adventurers can even take the horses into their care with minimum effort!
DISCLAIMER: Wizards of the Coast is not responsible for the consequences of any failed saving throws, including but not limited to petrification, poison, death magic, dragon breath, spells, or vorpal sword-related decapitations.
