Waterdeep Has The Best Villains 

Xanathathar: *they want my stuff* Laurel: *I want my Husband back* Castelanters: *we want our kids back* Jarlaxel: *I want my kingdom free* Manshoon: Why are you all touching *MY STUFF*

I'm amazed how nobody ever points out how Xanithar is the only recorded Beholder to ever show genuine love for any being other than itself.

I wanted to suggest "Basically Gnolls" since theres just no love for my angery hyenena bois. But in lieu of that, maybe a video on Underrated D&D monsters?

I honestly don't see Silverhand as a villain (because, well, she is actually not a villain in the book). While she may be worried bout Blackstaff, she is trying to keep her city together while dealing with the shit storm Neverwinter left her.

The Stand is actually just a story about Purple Haze going rogue So it is about stands

Jarlaxle, is the a legend. In the books he is a champ

"History is just different Kids fighting over different Toys." - Logan the Runesmith After you're done with The Stand read Swan Song, it has a cool take on the effects of Nuclear Radiation.

"History is just different kids fighting over different toys." I can almost hear every history and literature professor I ever had scream in the distance.

I love how in depth each villain is. I like how they have Jaraxle from the Drizzit books as one of the big players of this city of crime. The villains is what makes dragon heist shines and I'm glad Runesmith made a great video that these characters deserve

I just want a Heist about a group of Kobolds who got their Baby Dragon egg stolen. And now they need to venture across the known realms to find their Bebe boi.

With Tasha's Cauldron of Everything coming out, a video on the characters that spells are named after would be cool. Tasha, Bigby, Aganazzar, Snilloc, Otto, Mordenkainen, Tenser, Melf, Nystul, Otiluke, Leomund, Evard, Rary, Drawmij, Maximillian, and Abi-Dalzim. Could do Agathys and Hadar too even though they aren't people.

Just wanted to click to help with algorythm. Am currently 3/4ths (ish) the way through this as a player (according to my dm) and while im not good at mystery and such ..i am having an enjoyable time. A lot of it is being tweaked and added onto by my awesome dm. Has been a great journey so far.

Waterdeep is such a good game If players stop playing CoS >_> I really want to play and run this

One interesting way to run this campaign would be to use three of the four villains. Start with the Cassalanters, but have them approach the party and spin a sob story about their children to form an alliance. Obviously, they won't mention the part about the mass human sacrifice, that's a fun surprise for later. Once the party forms an alliance, to secure the gold, they'll have to skirmish with either Xanathar or Manshoon. After the Cassalanters have the gold and the party thinks they've saved the day, Jarlaxle shows up at the tavern to tell them the truth about what is going to happen at the party. Cue a team up with Jarlaxle.

*Everyone minding their own Business* Manshoon: *Bippity Boppity your stuffs my Property*

I can relate to Jarlaxl in a way, and I guess that's part of why I was willing to work for him when my first A.L. group played the module. I feel that you could literally change the surrounding area, and some names, making it one of the best campaigns to help establish a world you made!

I’d love to see another Basically Subclass video

The book has Jarlaxle as one of the main players that automatically makes it best. Check mate, Curse of Strahd. Strahd WISHES he had that level of style.

The city of Waterdeep is one of my absolute favorite D&D locations, and stuff like these characters is exactly why. It feels a lot like D&D Mos Eisley, really.

Yeah, this man convinced me to buy this book.

Excellent video. I've run DH 3 times now (2 still in progress 20 and 40 sessions in) it's my forever module. I add plenty and tweak the setting, but it's these villains and the power plays they attempt, which make the world absolutely hum, that keep me coming back.

+15 to initiative for gettin here this early haha

I just started setting this up and I’m hyped. It looks awesome.

I just finished a year long campaign of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, but my personal favorite part about my campaign was how directly its events can be traced back to the Ruining of Neverwinter among other awesome events of R.A. Salvatore's Gauntlgrym. (which you can read for free with Runesmith's audible plug haha) It really made the events of the campaign feel like they belonged in the world, and the fact that the events of the campaign were so historically precedented really made me, at least as a dungeon master, feel like I was really running a campaign in the very same Faerûn I've read so much about. The campaign was great, the only one I've finished as well, and although we started it in-game Summer, Xanathar ended up being the big bad of the campaign, and Jarlaxle ended up being the party's on again off again frenemy. It was especially good because the rouge of the party was actually a Xanathar guild member, that really upped the ante and provided me with a way of introducing Xanathar himself to the group before the time actually came to try and kill him, he's truly one of, if not the best villain of all Faerûn.

Great video but one question. How do they show these personally traits to the players in game? I understand creating well rounded characters but how they represent it is just as important.

That's probably the most aptly accurate description of Jarlaxle Baenre I've ever seen. Thank you. As much as I'm a sucker for Drizzt, I've always had a relatability to Jarlaxle. It's created this juxtaposition duality. And I suppose that was what Bob eventually tried to do with the new direction he has steered his characters. One abides by morality to guide his evergrowing experiences, while the other lets his experiences shape his morality. And somehow, they work very well together.

"History is just different kids fighting over different toys" never before has the thing I want to study for a living been summed up in such a brief and accurate way. that I've seen at least. also this video makes me want to run something similar to Dragon Heist but in Gloomwrought. Good 4e supplement definitely recommend.

I still love the extra version of the adventure that WotC put out on the DMs guild...multi-villain pile up. Only thing that annoyed me is that the Dragon Heist AL season was ruined by their insistence on excising the majority of the treasure rules, which made it very odd to be trying a heist when you know, from the beginning, there wouldn't be anything from it.

My group has just arrived in Waterdeep in my homebrew campaign and man, I'm loving the setting. So much stuff, so many characters, so much lore. If I ever get to DM again, I'll probably run Dragon Heist.

guess you could say your in deep with these villains

This has been arguably my favourite of your videos (the 3 examples of villains being the other one). I never thought to use Laurel as a villain to be honest, and in my homebrew remix of this module that I'm currently running, that might make it tricky. But it also makes it WAY more robust and exciting. So I've basically combined Laurel with an adult silver dragon, who also acts a bit like Miv Nizzet from Ravnica. Honestly, your videos in general are some of the best on RU-vid. They are quick, funny, insightful, and make me want to rewatch them. Which is saying a lot because I have the same short attention span that everyone who watches RU-vid has. I look forward to more of these deeper videos my dude!

Logan you always present things in such a great manner which inspires me to write characters in my own stories, thank you man.

Wait Xanathar has a pet goldfish And hes after gold So his goal(d) is to go(ld) and get words with gold in their name. Then he'll be golden (that's slang for good incase you didn't know)

The hardest part of this campaign was getting my players to really understand why their characters wanted the money beyond blind greed. Also my players loved the tavern management part more than actual combat.

I'd enjoy seeing a segment about the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon and how it can be used as inspiration.

I decided to go with the Cassalanters as the villains for my group and it was amazing! Something that took it to the next level is one of my players took the Waterdhavian Noble background and when I introduced them (I made them much more present by being investors in the party’s tavern) he asked if he knew them, I told him to roll Cha, and he got a Nat 20. That made us incorporate them into his backstory and it was amazing when the twist came that they were the villains

This is such a good round up of the story as well as the villains

Reading the Drizzt books and immediately recognizing Jarlaxl from dragon heist instantly made me very happy because that means I’ve officially sold my soul to gygax

Dragon Heist is so much fun, I’ve been running it for about a year now, I added some stuff but the bones are so compelling it keeps you going

Dragon heist has been my favorite module to run, I'd love to play through it some time!

Waterdeep is an amazing setting for a campaign! There are a couple of great novels set in Waterdeep as well

Watching this as I'm waiting for the book to arrive. Any day now it's being delivered!!

I’ve ran it twice and love it. Both times continued on after the books content for months because there is so much to lean off of. If you can get a hold of ADnD forgotten realms City of Slendor, there is over 100 pages of lore to glean off. My brother was a player for both runs and he enjoyed the second run through because it can be sooo different based on villian and pc choice. By far my favorite book

This is great! This has motivated me to buy the book and perhaps try at a campaign with my friends!

honestly i didn't even realize there was villains i was just trying to run a tavern and get cash

"It's the British and therefore correct spelling of grey and I will fight anyone who disagrees" Runesmith is the Chosen One.

Running it in a few weeks. Hyped and nervous.

I'd love to see your opinions on Homebrew races in standard modules

Dragon Heist is such a great campaign book and really works as a scenario set-up if you don't want to follow the path laid out. The premise is just so damn compelling as a starting point and can be really open ended. My group got into a situation where all four of the villains have a big part to play, but their biggest rivalry has been with the mindflayer Nihiloor (who I keep calling Nilihoor but it doesn't matter cause THEY just call him squidward).

ah yes good ol' reliable Jarlaxle. my primary dps in idle champions. anyhoo, nice vid as usual. doubt that ill ever get to play a game of dnd but i appreciate these lore videos of yours and other creators as it helps me enjoy idle champions more

What, we aren’t talking about that dude who’s life you ruined because he tried to sabotage your bar?

I'm running this now, it's my first time DMing and it's freaking dope.

Im running 4 games of this simultaneously (for each season) with 4 different groups and I wish I knew this before one of them finished!!! I didnt use some villains because I didn't understand them, and I also played Silverhand way too nice to my force grey players. Love the video! Will adjust accordingly to my next games

as someone who knew nothing about waterdeep before this video i was really hoping the fish was xanathar

I played in a Dragon Heist game. We got to skip the villan encounter because we got the stone away from the Asmodeus worshippers when the devils were summoned. Calithildir, my Drow Light Cleric, was able to shoot down the devil carrying the Stone of Golorr off with Guiding Bolt, which bought enough time for the party to do a rooftop and sideroad chase to catch up to the devils.

Literally just finished my Dragon Heist campaign today. One of my favourite campaigns to run so far

Waterdeep was my first time diving into the DM pool - I had a blast, and so did my group. Since it was my first time, and I'm also a relatively new and don't know all the older lore in general, I cut a bunch of stuff out of the book and focused on the Cassalanters - I had Jarlaxle around as a backup baddie and as a potential friend, but the Cassalanters and their train dilemma were my favorite plot hook in the book - especially once one of my players picked a poor pickpocket from the Field Ward as their character - some of her friends were going to be at the ball! I absolutely LOVE what they did in the end though - when they discovered what was happening, and foiled the Cassalanters' plot, they didn't want to doom the children either still, so instead of switching the train tracks, they laid down a new path - they promised Asmodeus a favor, with the children's souls still as collateral. He bargained for 5 years time to cash in the favor. If they refuse, the children are his. But, if he doesn't cash it in, or if they fulfill the favor, the children are free from any devils for the rest of their lives. Funny enough though, they managed to piss off Jarlaxle when said poor pickpocket tried to... well, pickpocket Jarlaxle! He pledged to get them back for taking the treasure that he wanted for his goals. And then the party made the super smart move to use their new wealth to buy a boat and GTFO of Waterdeep. Yes, let's leave on a ship when the most famous pirate ever is now your sworn enemy.... Good plan guys! ;)

Super fun to run into this right after DMing this exact story for my players tonight.

i friend finished playing this and he played manshoon as "medieval dr doom"

Hard agree. We just finished this, after a very long time and a lot of missed sessions, a couple months ago. We're heading down into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage now after having this glorious module to figure our characters out. It's nice to hit a more combat-heavy book with PCs who really feel like a team.

I'd really like a video on how to make environments more interesting! I feel like people are always talking about dungeon designs or overland travel, but I've never seen anyone talk about how you can make that random hut in the forest memorable without combat or anything

Oh shit, ideas for next video.. uh.. could do more basically videos? I used the Genie and Lycanthrope videos you did recently, but it'd be interesting to learn about things like the Deities. It's really daunting to have to go researvh every single deity when you're looking for one for a specific aspect, and your videos make them into easily understandable, bite size tidbits of information rather than 30 sources and walls of text.

The Alexandrian Remix is a must for this module.

Dragon hesit was really fun to run, but I found that for certain play groups, it's hard to get them to care about the villains motives

I'm really curious about the elemental planes, the cities/people there, and how you might run an adventure with them

The very first time I played through this was in AL, it ended in a near TPK because two of our players were drunk, but we still technically won, getting the Stone to the right people in the hopes they would be able to succeed where we failed

The first time I ever played at Adventurers League, it was when the Waterdeep adventures had just come out and we played Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage back to back. My DM was a genius, our table's villain for the season was Jarlaxle, but he integrated some of the other villains into the adventure as minor antagonists in really fun ways. Laeral Silverhand was working with both us and Jarlaxle, but presided over our criminal trial at the very end of the game when Jarlaxle framed us for the embezzlement and money laundering; the Cassalanters were reskinned into these old film detectives and we decided to do a heist on their house because they sent a Nimblewright to kill us; we were constantly being ambushed by Zhentarim thugs; and everybody wanted the Stone of Golorr for their own purposes, passing from hand to hand (but we ended up being the ones to get and accidentally use it). I think at the end, Jarlaxle ended up siding with us at the trial because he got what he wanted and didn't really want us dead. The only villain we never encountered was Manshoon, but I think we had such a complex web of intrigue and danger that I never minded. It's a campaign I'll never forget!

There was a separate adventures league created villain, a mix between a mindful layer and a doppelganger, that wanted to rule water deep from the shadows using intellect devourers, subterfuge, and general evil stuff. I think he had a complex involving his identity.

You convinced me. I just ordered it!

I loved the video it's nice to know you read the comments, can you make more adventure module related content please.

I literally just opened this to start reading it to run for my new group!!

Excellent video! I'm allergic to buying prewritten campaigns, but I may pick Dragon Heist up just for villains to loot. On the topic of what to base future videos on: any chance of you looking into what settings could be officially brought back for 5e? I'm champing at the bit at the possibility of seeing Spelljammer come back. I'm also curious to see what other subclass videos you do next.

I accidentally went down the rabbit hole with the Cassalanters in one of the sandbox campaigns I DM. Took a quest from a list I found of 100 ideas which was that there was a costume party where everyone became what they were dressed up as. Picked a noble villa randomly and it happened to be the Cassalanter's, so I did some research on them and decided to stage it as their younger children being kidnapped by devils sent by a different archdevil (don't remember which), a few weeks before their 9th birthday (when they were scheduled to be taken by Asmodeus). I've got a few crazy stories from that one, which ended up taking around 5 sessions to finish the mission since they couldn't figure out who the real devils were. Would have been a LOT shorter if the paladin realized she could use divine sense to locate them. 🤣

I was like "1 more Videos before i sit down and prep for the next group to play waterdeep" and then i see this. Lord Logan must've heard my prayers

just casually doesn't mention manshoon leads the zhents 🤣🤣

Regarding video ideas: I think you mentioned not being super into D&D in a tweet once? Maybe dip into some other systems or even more general writing/worldbuilding topics? Maybe even the world of Tesseract, with its strange construct gods.

maybe make a video about slaads in general, they are rarely used monsters in D&D but have really unique and interesting lore, not to mention they can be extremely lethal even if they die kind of easy. Getting infected by one will put the party on a race against time to get the eggs out or permanently lose one member of their party. Really high stakes.

I know it’s new but could you do one of Icewind Dale. At least for the winter theme. Either way great video and can’t wait to see more.

I'm so excited to show this world to my players! We are very slow so I hope we stick with it such an amazing story (though the faction missions are a bit lacking in my opinion)

I just wrapped up the Dragon Heist campaign with my group. Xanathar was the enemy. We had a Drow player that teamed up with Jarlaxle to steal the money, give that money to Silverhand. Because the money was given, she gave Jarlaxle a position as a Hidden Lord of Waterdeep and made the PC a top officer in his Bregan D'aerthe. But because Jarlaxle now needs to remain in Waterdeep he gave the party a mission to quash the unrest in Luskin, thus keeping his power in that region too. That's where we left off. Oh yea, the party opened the dungeon, investigated it and then convinced the Dragon to give up the treasure to Renaer Neverember, the now rightful owner of the treasure, after his father died (a convincing lie).

I would love a video about YOUR favorite story tropes and why.

Xanathar never acts out of malice... except when he released a bunch of trolls on the streets, because he thought it's funny.

So, our game of Dragon Heist went well of the rails, to the point that the only villain not involved was Manshoon, because aside from some stuff he was doing in the background he was too intimidated by the fluster cluck of the situation that he more or less decided to sit out and try and steal the gold from the victor. One highlight of the game was that the party ended up in a legal battle with a pit fiend regarding the Cassalnter contract, and after a fight we convinced them to let us kill them since their contract ensured them a "long life". We also cut a deal with Jarlaxel to take credit for finding the gold to strengthen relationships between Waterdeep and Luscan, since in out game's timeline it was becoming a hub for Drow refugees on the surface (and to get the heat off of out back, since now he has to deal with Manshoon). So we saved the kids and got their brother's soul freed, but now they're orphans and their family is broke, so we're going to have to deal with the fallout of that at some point. Another highlight was our DM had Jarlaxel babysitting Drizzt and Cattie-Brie's kid after they stowed away on his ship, with them blowing his cover during our initial meeting with him. That was adorable

You know what kind of video I would like more of? Tall Tales!

Anyone who's run this campaign or interested in running it should look up the Alexandrian Remix for it. Works around some continuity issues and modifies the campaign to have more than one villain. Turns it into more of a Westeros Free-For-All and makes it less linear. Great campaign either way.

I highly suggest reading Mechanical Failure on Audible

Bruh the only villain I ever remember even coming close to in my playthrough of dragon heist was xanathar and i guess the cassalanters when we broke into their house. Still a great adventure though, my party generated enough conflict among ourselves honestly

Maybe have come up with some randomish ideas for character's to play as? I personally have always been in love with a halfling rouge, can't touch this!

Leave it to Runesmith to release a video on Waterdeep right as Im about to start the main plot of Waterdeep as a DM. I don’t know how you always do this

I'd love to see "Basically oath of treachery" It's gotta be my favorite paladin subclass

Laeral Silverhand is like a lvl 20 Wizard - Chosen of Mystra. She is as powerful as it gets, being an immortal demigod and all...

I've played through this module and I thought we did all of the side quests, but we apparently missed a lot

I have a big problem as a DM that is about to start the campaign - I really want to use Castelanters as main villains, but I can't! 4 of 5 players were in my previous campaign, and one of their personal enemies was noble family of van Tassels, that tried to sacrifice one of the PCs as a child, in similar manner to Castelanters, to Grazz't.

Bit of a mischaracterization on Laeral. She's not afraid of Vajra, she thinks she's an inexperience person (the literal words are "insecure child", which from her perspective as a god-queen wizard, is not entirely unfounded) to be in what is a significant position of power. If anything, Vajra is intimidated by Laeral, Vajra herself holds doubts about her position and having one of the few people above your seat in the city know about your job intimately (having been married to the former blackstaff) sets clear expectations. It's noted that Laeral doesn't want to confront Vajra on her use of force grey without authorization, but the other perspective is that Vajra is hiding her actions from Laeral out of fear of being denied. Laeral herself most likely chooses not to confront Vajra because it would be undermining her dead husband who chose Vajra personally. She's one of the most approachable allies you can have... unless you plan on being the villain, running off with the embezzled city funds. The only way you can maintain a life as a law abiding citizen after playing this campaign is to get the money back to the city where you receive a substantial cut. She doesn't have to offer you *anything* as she has every legal right to reclaim what is actually her money to oversee for the city. The upsides is that you make *fewer* lasting enemies. If you choose to attempt absconding with the money for yourselves (which is in itself a tall order) you make enemies of *ever faction* and the city of waterdeep. It's especially beneficial for you to actually turn the money over if your DM is planning on running straight into Dungeon of the Mad Mage, as being actual recognized heroes can draw you a lot of favor with how much dying you might be doing later. So you could characterize her as an "antagonist", but if you're either a lawful or good person, it's unlikely that she will be.

completely unrelated but i love that Laurel replaces Xanathars fish whenever it dies. Thats an actual thing she does, and it makes me love her

„It probably still is...I hate it here“ No worries buddy, you can come to Europe, where you can draw a ton of inspiration from batshit crazy folktales.

ok ok, lets take a moment to look at Manshoon's name _what a fucking great name, its a good villain name, i want it_

We love your fish too

So my campaign is all over the place. let me give you some context, we are currently a lv7 party consisting of lv6 tempest domain cleric of Valkur lv1 druid part of the emerald enclave (me), a champion fighter with a super-powerful demon sealed inside of them (*CR 24*) part of force grey, his brother which is a hexblade warlock who previously had half of the super-powerful demon sealed inside of him and has most likely made a deal with Manshoon, the noble prince dragonborn sorcerer part of the lord's alliance, the super old ratfolk monk part of Order of the Gauntlet. we are allied with the castle lanterns and lady Vajra. The stone of Golorr was taken by Manshoon and that is where we are now.

I loved running Dragon Heist. Neither my players or myself loved the ending though.