Phandelver's Geographic Problem, Explained! 

That's basically Lost Mines of Phandelver.

Right? He quickly eclipsed Colville in my opinion as the most inspirational D&D RU-vidr imo. Really solid useable stuff.

Forgotten Realms really makes no sense to a military historian and IP specialist.

​@@PalleRasmussen Care to elaborate? Some examples, maybe?

@@MedievalFantasyTVI am sorry. I cannot actually do so in depth without spending more time than I have. It just feels wrong, too volatile even compared to European history - which is one long bloodbath. There are too many world-ending threats. Not to mention the problem of firearms that has changed nothing in the world. I am sorry I cannot elaborate more, but it would take time that I do not have.

@@PalleRasmussen the most up to date canon we have is Baldurs Gate 3, 1492DR. I remember a lot of things but I have no recollection of shoving a flintlock down an Illithid's throat. You may be mixing it up with Eberron which is more advanced technologically. But lets assume Faerun has basic firearms. A flintlock .50 ball might kill someone instantly but will more likely kill them slowly. You'd probably need a double barreled weapon to have even a shot at killing a half-orc. On the other hand you have magic. Guns will never come close to the level of power a wizard can achieve. A militia all armed with basic .50 ball rifles would still be near instantly wiped out by a lich. Guns in large scale would definitely affect the world a bit but as of the latest timeline date? There's no shot. Also I feel like early European history would be different if there were a pantheon of very real gods and demons getting involved. But even still Faerun is a really hard place to be a commoner. But the people living there can't just leave. All in all it's really weird that you would make such a bold but vague claim and not even remotely try to back it up.

It has large interest in both fishing and mining

The maps legend would indicate both Leilon and Conyberry as ruins since both are marked by a black square

@@parttimehero8640 Leilon is in an in-between state, depending on when you're talking about. The follow on adventures to Dragon of Icespire Peak have the heroes helping to rebuild the ruins of Leilon and make it a viable fishing town again.

@@DungeonMasterpiece It does? Interesting. It makes sense given where it is. I just remember the fishing stuff from the adventures that come after DoIP. Their economic diversity would give them an advantage over Phandalin in disputes, I think. Along with being more secure right along the high road and closer to Neverwinter. A savvy entrepreneur would do well to combine various interests around Phandalin - like Butterskull ranch - with a new central town or fortress at Conyberry. This would give them leverage in deals with Neverwinter. Makes one wonder - did Neverwinter just ALLOW Conyberry and Icespire fortress to be destroyed by orcs on purpose?

The only thing that would put phandalin above it is if it was close too some sort of magic weapon forge@@alarin612

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, goodsir! Awesome ideas!

@pjotor869 I’m also about to run some friends through this campaign soonish. Your write up on what happened in your campaign was fun to read - how did things continue from there between Dagult and the party?

Not all that much has directly happened there yet. The party has been away on business first in Ampahil and then Waterdeep for the last month or so. But while in Waterdeep the player who is the Baron of Phandalin decided to go back home (he wanted to switch characters) because he received a sending spells of a bunch of problems cropping up, and Dagult sending soldiers to the area to secure it. My players never killed the Venomfang the green dragon you can encounter in Thundertree, so he is now causing all sorts of mischief there. When the players dealt with Cragmaw castle Venomfang moved in and has set up shop there, taking over the remaining goblins. He has driven the local trolls from their home in the hills to raid the roads in the area (which has caused Hamun Kost the necromancer the players can encounter in Old Owl well to experiment with creating rot trolls). He has also started to exert influence over tribes of Bullywugs and Lizardmen in a nearby swamp that I invented. And lastly and perhaps most interestingly he has essentially paid for a newspaper in Phandalin which sole purpose now is to stir up shit in the town. Mostly by pitting the human villagers of Phandalin against the dwarven settlers in Wave Echo cave (bla bla, we should get more of the riches bla bla). So lets just say that there is a nice little sandwich of mixed toppings for them once they get back home ;)

Venomfang is very intersting, beacuse you can essentially use the Dragon in a way where he exploits the power vacuums that the players leave behind whenever they deal with a situation.

@@pjotor869 Thanks for sharing! I’m definitely going to keep this in mind when my players finish the starter campaign and in case they want to continue (or if they want to start new characters in the same ‘timeline’).

I modeled Sildar after marshal Matt Dillan there were those in town that liked him and those that hated him. Harbin was the beurocrat who everyone put up with because he was "in charge" but nobody took seriously

Also Ian McShane stomps ass everywhere he goes.

they are brutal to make, but i love geopolitics, so it's fine. If they weren't so well recieved, i'd def slow down on them tho.

@@DungeonMasterpiece They make you stand out from the crowd of D&D youtubers

that's a fair point! I forgot wave echo cave was actually flooded!

If you look at the lore on the Netherese construction of Old Owl Well, it's like a 5-mile-deep aquifer that never runs dry, but was only possible to access through the efforts of the most magically-advanced (human) civilization to have ever existed on the planet. There's no way current (15th century DR, i.e. post-apocalyptic) powers in the area, even Neverwinter and Waterdeep, would be able to build something comparable. That's not to say that the plains of the northern Sword Coast are arid, but driving/digging wells is far from guaranteed to strike enough water to maintain a community of ~500 like Phandalin and its outlying populations, let alone countless square miles of agriculture. That being said, while the maps don't show any major watercourses through the region around Phandalin, it's worth noting that the northern Sword Coast generally has bitter winters with likely feet of snowfall annually. This means a lot of water on the plains in the spring and likely numerous small streams weaving through the rolling hills carrying snowmelt from the northern face of the Sword Mountains at least through mid-summer when the mountain glaciers start drying up. For agriculture, this likely means crops that overwinter (plant in the fall, dormant until spring, harvest in late spring to early summer, e.g. winter wheat) and spring-planted crops that are ready for harvest before autumn would likely have plenty of water to thrive, though without modern agrotech or the magical equivalent, it's still not going to look like the endless oceans of corn in the American Midwest, as that's just not manageable without combines, etc., or a whole lot of slave labor. The further from the Sword Mountains you go, the drier it likely gets, so the plains north of Phandalin might be more suited to grass- and scrubland ranching/husbandry while the plains to the southwest grow more staple crops. This leaves the regional ranchers more exposed to the threats posed by Neverwinter Woods, like Big Al Kalazorn's ranch getting raided by orcs in DoIP, while the burgeoning farmers to the southwest might gravitate toward a nearby, rebuilding Leilon* if they feel that Phandalin...(-ers? -ites? Phandalites?) are too concerned with the mining, logging, and ranching businesses. Where the two meet and mingle, are there conflicts between ranchers and farmers like those seen in the American West and Midwest, with farmers building fences to protect their crops and ranchers cutting down fences to let their herds graze, especially if barbed wire gets invented and starts injuring their cattle? This could lead to conflict between Leilon, the fishing town with farming interests, and Phandalin, the mining and logging town with ranching interests, all stoked by Neverwinter as described in the video. *Note that lore-as-written, both Conyberry and Leilon are basically ruins, with Conyberry nearly razed to the ground and abandoned, while Leilon is slowly being resettled and rebuilt, much like Phandalin but maybe a few years behind. This is in contrast to BdR's description in this video of both locations as noteworthy farming communities.

@@derekludwig3945 I always think that the powerful organizations would want some caster to do Plant Growth on the plants in areas like this too. Convince a druid to do that and their food output is doubled for the year

According to the box set and some information in Acquisitions Incorporated, Phandalin receives about 18 inches of rain per year, but also has three deep wells that provide a reliable water supply to the town.

Icespire Peak also confirms the area uses windmills, we see this in the infamous TPK quest with the manticore. You don't normally find a windmill in an area only at sustenance level agriculture. The famous dutch windmills for instance were developed b/c there was such a surplus of grain that it became necessary to find a more efficient way to grind it all into flour. In addition to snowmelt from the mountains, the region is also going to get sufficiently high rainfall b/c it's basically a funnel in between the mountain ranges; all the moisture from the ocean hits the Sword coast and much of it in the Neverwinter-Waterdeep corridor will come running right down that alley between the mountains towards Triboar. I really don't think lack of water is a debilitating factor. There's probably lots of small creeks and streams that are simply just too small to warrant mention on a map set in the scale of what, 10 miles to a hex? The whole area is probably crisscrossed in small streams and modest rivers just like the Ohio River Valley. It's a coastline adjacent region, not in the center of the continent hundreds of miles inland like most grasslands are. Geographically, I just don't see reason why there wouldn't be plenty of water access.

it will take a while, but that's the goal

Believe it or not, I usually am right there with you about the sword coast, but making this video actually made me want to run a dragon hunting campaign where my players tackle fighting off venomfang, cryovein, and caugillimauter, who are all mind controlled by an evil cleric from lielon

I agree! Great example of how to set up area dynamics in your home game. ...or just start your next campaign with Phandelver!

​@@DungeonMasterpiece The dragon's greed alone would be enough, no need for evil clerics... After word of a lost mine rediscovering got Neverwinter investors moving. Those 3 dragons could be working together to keep the mountains riches for themselves.

@@DungeonMasterpiece Our campaign is escalating in exactly that direction. It is a merging of LMoP & DIP. Venomfang was driven away and into the forest by Cryovain, so HE is behind current depredations on the western Triboar Trail. The orcs, likewise are driven into the more eastern reaches and are raiding that end of the trail and gearing up for battle (the party is potting the two against one another). Cryovain is breeding draconian children and seeking to use the power of the mine personally, so keeping possession of it is a dangerous proposition. Then throw in factions from Neverwinter and Leilon (cultists there stirring up the dragon of Kryptgarden), and the whole thing is a powder keg. Great video!! More like this, please!

@@DungeonMasterpiece Heck, you could even throw in some stuff from Stormwreck Isle. It's only a few miles off the coast of Neverwinter (not shown on the LMoP/DoIP maps but it would only be like a hex or two away).

In the LMoP, Phandalin has only been inhabited for a few years, at most a decade. There is no way anybody would have dug a canal to access what is barely more than a hamlet. But your point about the lack of rivers coming off the mountains is something to consider. You would expect a lot of rivers running East to West along the whole coast.

@@throwabrick I should have been more clear, I was thinking more of a canal to Triboar along the Triboar Road, not to Phandalin specifically.

Having watched the video, I can say I’m a big Phan

Spelljammer astropolitics is coming up soon!

Leilon is *technically* a port, though the map doesn't show it very well. They have some really poor docks, and though it is hazardous, they can transport goods to the coast along the edge of the Mere of the Dead Men, which is a swamp.

@@DrTenochtitlan And boom, questhook by establishing a "security" and shipping company and yes, that Leilon is supposed to be a port is not readable on that map at all

Another reason why there aren't many ports is that a good portion of the coastline is lined with rocks and cliffs. There just aren't that many good natural ports to be found. In this respect, it's a bit like the coastline of Italy, which does have ports, but many of them are not very good ports, and the great ones are few and far between.

Yeah, but you could still have a big ship anchor a little off the coast and bring the goods via smaller vessels. Loads of work but not unheard of. Also, thank you for giving those details and making me understand it a little more as I am not wellversed with the DnD worlds at all

Also, Neverwinter is known as the City of Skilled hands and aside from its technological marvels much of that reputation is due to its horticultural, botany and agricultural expertise. Another reason to think that the goldrush gateway that is Phandelin might stand a better chance of standing on its own two feet than we might think at first glance.

In a few weeks I'll be doing a Geopolitical analysis of moonshae islands, and that will likely answer a lot of questions you are thinking through!

Honestly not much. The number of caravans would be dramatically reduced, but exponentially valuable to brigands on the road. Outside of that everything still applies

Yeah.......

@@DungeonMasterpiece I highly respect your work, and I only commented out of a desire to assist in your ongoing pursuit of producing exceptional content. Wordsmithing is one of the few skills at which I am passably proficient, yet I dare not place myself before an audience or a camera. Bravo, sir!

If I recall correctly, Leilon originally mined silver, copper, and nickel. However, the Wave Echo Mine near Phandalin mined mithril and platinum, along with some gold. It seems that they were not directly competing with each other as they mined completely different metals.

In addition to the above comment, Leilon is also being resettled and rebuilt and doesn't focus entirely on mining like Phandalin does. Much more diverse economy, or at least potential for that being on the Trade Road and having sea access via the swamps. It's also populated directly by Neverwinter so is more a colony than a frontier, very supportive of Lord Dagult Neverember. The three dragons thing is easy; the big ancient dragon (Old Gnawbones) doesn't really care about two puny young dragons settling in the area, she could kill them both with ease. She also is much more interested in social manipulation in the nearby cities. Dragons sorta have a feudal hierarchy when it comes to age, the ancients dont share territory with each other but they're fine with young adults and young dragons making lairs in their domain, since an ancients domain is like at least 1000 miles across on average. Often times those younger dragons are the ancients children, so at least some of em are the heirs not competition. Dragons do eventually die of old age.

Oooohhhh I'd actually start with Peter Zeihan's disunited nations. He gives you a whirlwind tour of the world, Geopolitically, right after he primes you on the basics of Geopolitics

Wizards of the Coast has an official expansion of the original adventure coming out next summer, so we have that to look forward to. It's simply called "Phandelver Campaign".

@@DrTenochtitlan I've heard of that. I'm looking forward to running it for my group next year. Though, I really hope "Phandelver Campaign" is just a placeholder name, and it'll actually be called something much more interesting when it comes out.