Magic-User 9 HP 28 AC 14 XP: 325,000 Morale 11
Str 17, Dex 17, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 16
Wargear: dagger +2 (Winterthorn), the Helm of Heroes, ring of regeneration, cloak of protection, pearl of power II, ring of shooting stars
Spells Prepared
Charm Person, Shield, Sleep
ESP, Phantasmal Force, Web
Dispel Magic, Haste, Lightning Bolt
Charm Monster, Polymorph
Conjure Elemental
Helm of Heroes
Combines the powers of a Ring of Protection, 5ft radius and a Staff of Healing (usable by characters of any class). Despite the name, the Helm of Heroes is more like an ornamental gold cap than a true war-helm and does not provide an armor bonus.
Ring of Shooting Stars
The ring has 6 charges, which are renewed each night at midnight. A charge may be expended to produce one of the following effects:
Dancing Lights, as the spell
Light, as the spell
Shooting Star
Shower of Sparks
Shooting Stars function as the spell Magic Missile, except that they burst on contact. All creatures adjacent to the target suffer half damage.
The Shower of Sparks deals 2d6 damage in a 20 ft cone.
She goes everywhere with her familiar, a winged tabby named Firespark.
Firespark
Winged Cat
HD 2+9 (HP 17), AC 13, Attacks: claw/bite (1d2/1d3), Movement 120 (40) on foot or flying, Morale 11
Poison Immunity
Magic Resistance 40%
Senses: detect invisible, detect poison 90 ft
Familiar: Firespark can communicate empathically with Lady Winter at a distance of up to one mile, and can speak with her (Intelligence 10). When he is nearby she is only surprised on a roll of 1, and he can use either his or her saving throws, whichever are better.
If Firespark is ever killed, Lady Winter permanently loses 8 HP.
When hunting or going to war, Lady Winter rides her warhorse, Snowbell, and is accompanied by a matched pair of long-haired blink dogs named Larks and Selen.
Background
Eveningstar’s current ruler, Lady Tessaril Winter, is King Azoun’s former lover and was installed here as a form of soft exile from court. She and the king were adventuring companions in the days before Azoun won his crown. At that time Lady Winter was still travelling disguised as a man, “Tessar the Mage,” and the relationship could be safely dismissed as a more-or-less open secret or simply “the bond shared by sword-brothers”. After she shed her disguise and Azoun married Faeru Selazaer to secure the support of the Archmage during the Succession Wars, however, things became more complicated. Queen Faeru considered the relationship to be something of an embarrassment, especially as she and Azoun remained childless for the first several years of their marriage, and demanded that Tess be sent away from court.
While the gift of Eveningstar as fief was presented as a reward, Lady Winter finds country life and the responsibilities of governance to be somewhat dull. Fortunately for the people of Eveningstar, she fills much of her time designing new magical plants and animals, and has transformed her domain into a garden on the edge of the wild waste. Aided by her spells, the valley is full of flowers, fruit trees, and magical animals. The most notable of these are Eveningstar’s famous winged cats, but most of Lady Winter’s designs are less ostentatious, such as helpful bees, livestock that rarely sickens, and cold-resistant fruit trees that graft easily.
With such a powerful character hanging around a place as small as Eveningstar, one naturally wonders...
Why Is Lady Winter Too Busy To Help?
Dragon Hunt
War in the Stonelands
Hunting in the Briarwood
Out for a Ride
Closeted with Her Ladies
Melancholy
Diplomatic Visit
Wizard’s Council
Magical Research
Maintaining the Orchard-Spells
Holding Court
Off with the King
1) Dragon Hunt
A dragon was spotted and Lady Winter and 2d6+3 of her knights will be in the Stonelands for at least a week.
2) War in the Stonelands
A goblin chief or upstart wizard-lord has been gathering their warband too near the border. Lady Winter and all of her knights will be occupied for the duration of the war. Use Coins & Scrolls’ Medieval Stalemate Simulator to determine the outcome.
Adventuring parties in Eveningstar may be able to find work in the warband. Payment is 1gp per level per day (paid monthly, only d00% actually received on time), plus a share of the plunder (if any).
At the conclusion of the war Lady Winter holds a feast and redistributes treasure to her supporters in the form of gifts. Attendees at the feast receive XP for any gifts that they receive.
Lady Winter, along with 1d6+1 of her knights and a suitable contingent of the rest of her household, are off on a hunt. They will be back in 1d6 days.
The Quarry
Lady Winter is looking for a leisurely ride with her ladies. They are hawking for blackbirds with their winged cats.
Lady Winter is feeling piqued. She has gone stirge-shooting with crossbow and magic missiles and intends to stay there until she feels better.
The Briarwood’s boar have a particularly fine taste, and Lady Winter wants one for her table.
Lady Winter has a great desire to add some more wolfskins to her bedchamber. She and her pack of blink-hounds are hunting the Briarwoods’ reclusive wolves.
Lady Winter is hunting spiders. She wants to experience the thrill of dangerous prey.
A truly exceptional beast, such as an owlbear or a wood-wyvern, has been spotted, and a grand hunt has been organized. Roll the hunt duration twice, taking the higher result.
4) Out for a Ride
Lady Winter and 1d3 knights are out for the day. A swift rider could catch up to her in an emergency, but otherwise you’d better check back tomorrow.
A birth, a death, an engagement, or a visit from a female friend or relative is occupying Lady Winter’s time this week. The women spend the next 1d6 days embroidering, reading, playing cards, music, and talking.
6) Melancholy
Lady Winter has suffered some black mood or personal setback and spends the next 2d4 days in her room. All visitors are firmly turned away. If a dire emergency forces Lady Winter to come forth before the mood has passed she will only be able to force herself to memorize 1st level spells.
At the end of this period she emerges and spends the next 1d4 days in a flurry of activity. Supplicants who catch her during this time will have their concerns addressed swiftly and decisively.
7) Diplomatic Visit
Lady Winter is hosting visiting dignitaries. Supplicants have a 50% chance of being summarily turned away, and a 50% chance of their case being turned into entertainment for the benefit of the guests.
Distinguished Guests
The Master of Molehill, here to discuss trade
Dwarves from Greydelve, Toadmarket, or Firedeep
A delegation from the Riverlands to the East: Lord Otto of Otterhall and his pack of unwed daughters, councilors from Bogrest, or an envoy of the lizard-king of Deep Den
Petty lords from the Dalelands to the West: the Master of Starford, old Lord Lambton, perhaps even the Knight of Ravenstone
A ragged wizard, wild elf princeling, or goblin chief out of the Stonelands to discuss some inevitably short-lived trade, truce, or alliance
A High Lord of the Realm, out touring the periphery
8) Wizard’s Council
Lady Winter will be away for 1d3 weeks discussing matters of import at a Conclave of the Wise. Roll again on the table immediately after she returns, to see how she decides to blow off steam afterward.
9) Magical Research
Lady Winter is developing a new spell or innovation this week.
Research Results (2d6)
2) Something dreadful occurs: a summoned monster, a blight on the crops, an injury to the Lady
3–5) The spell didn’t pan out. 50% chance that Lady Winter suffers Melancholy next week.
6–8) Lady Winter produces a minor innovation or novelty: a fruit with an unusual taste, an oddly-colored plant or animal, a purely entertaining spell. There is a 1-in-6 chance that the novelty catches on.
9–11) Lady Winter produces a genuinely useful but non-adventurous innovation: a hardier or more productive strain of crop, an animal with a useful feature, or a labor-saving device.
12) Introduce a new spell, magic item, or animal that a player-character would find useful, such as a talking bird, fruit that produces a potion effect, or a fanciful variation on a magic item. She’ll probably get bored before producing more than a few of them (not being interested in adventuring), but you can get one if you’re lucky or have the Lady’s favor.
10) Maintaining the Orchard-Spells
Lady Winter is riding the bounds of her domain, reinforcing the spells that keep Eveningstar such a lust and bountiful land on the borders of the waste. She traditionally holds court at each of her stops, for the benefit of those who live on the outlying farms and do not have ready access to their Lady’s justice, so the procession is both important and time consuming.
11) Holding Court
Periodically the burdens of rulership require Lady Winter to hold court so that the folk of Eveningstar may air their grievances and have her rule on their disputes. During this time you may have your case heard if you are willing to wait for 1d12 hours.
12) Off With The King
King Azoun flew in on his griffin Silverbeak, or rode into town disguised as a commoner, or perhaps sent a message through the magical mirror that Lady Winter keeps behind a lavender-scented curtain in her chamber. Whatever the case, the pair of them have vanished and won’t be back for 3d6 weeks. The castle is in an uproar but everyone is trying to keep it hushed up.
Behind the Scenes
From the very small amount that I’ve seen of it, Ed Greenwood’s Forgotten Realms seems to have some Gender stuff going on. “Lord” appears to be a gender-neutral term, and Elminster has apparently both been a woman for a while and gender-swapped other people. In the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar module “Lord Tessaril Winter” is the local authority figure. She’s got busted stats, a flying cat, and as a level 21 fighter/mage with custom spells has the distinct feeling of having once been somebody’s PC. She’s also got a blow-dried 80s hairdo, is six feet tall, has 17 Strength, and once adventured in her “male disguise” as Tessar the Mage. It feels more natural to me to say “Lady Winter is trans” rather than “Lord Winter is a woman,” so that’s what I’m going with. It’s unlikely to come up, but I think my version of the Realms will be basically open-minded about this but lack any specialized terms for it. When people talk about Tessaril’s gender they say she was “raised as a boy” or adventured “disguised as a man”. Listening in it would be unclear if they were talking about transition or some kind of Shakespearean situation, and the speakers themselves may not know that those are different things. People without the full context might draw conclusions like “natural for a girl raised with three brothers on a country estate to be something of a tomboy in her youth,” or “well a woman traveling alone among mercenaries and freebooters may have had good reasons to go about in disguise”.
Despite being comparatively progressive on gender theory, the Forgotten Realms (as it appears in The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar, at any rate) reads like a hideously oppressive police state – the result of trying to control rowdy player-characters, I suspect. Patrols of soldiers “pass any spot” every four hours, and endless troops of high-level knights and spellcasters are ready to teleport in at the drop of a hat. Tessaril Winter, “one of the kinder lords,” constantly monitors her domain with ESP and scrying spells, as well as regularly using mind control magic to interrogate people or enforce her decrees. She even spies on peoples’ dreams periodically, just in case. Somehow this town has a dungeon full of kobolds and owlbears on its doorstep, which the locals seem to maintain as a form of tourist attraction. The module treats adventurers like they're seasonal tourists at Disneyland, which I guess makes sense, since as-written Tessaril and her bodyguard could scour the entire place clean in an afternoon if it presented any real threat.
To fit my personal taste, I’ve dialed back the organization and state capacity of my version of Cormyr pretty significantly. Battles are fought between relatively small warbands, occasionally supported by local levies. It’s a world of feuds and cattle-raids rather than large-scale magical-industrial wars. Eveningstar’s “army” consists of the warriors from Lady Winter’s household, who she maintains out of her personal wealth, and a handful of fighting men who hold manors in the outlying farms. Lady Winter herself is semi-disinterested in ruling her domain. Rather than the micro-manager and active mentor of the module, I wanted her to be powerful but preoccupied with her own interests. The Haunted Halls haven’t been fully cleared because they’re a pain in the ass – too big to garrison, too hard to supply, and of little strategic value. Lady Winter and her men deal with anything that makes a nuisance of itself outside of the dungeon and leave the kobolds, undead, and living statues to themselves. The monster clans in the Caves of Chaos would represent a significant threat to Eveningstar if they were ever unified under one banner, but inter-tribal fighting and periodic patrols of the Gorge keep raids to a minimum, and things have settled into a rough stasis. The farms too close to the Gorge are all in ruins from monster attacks, and the clans are all led by guys who were smart enough to avoid catching a 9d6 lightning bolt for raiding too aggressively.
Under this framework even a 1st level adventuring party represents a notable fighting force, and securing the service of a 3rd-level fighter like Trigg is useful simply because he can be counted on to follow orders and stand his ground during a pitched battle.
Incidentally, I have also scaled Lady Winter's power level back by quite a bit. A level 9 magic-user is pretty significant, she doesn't need to be a level 12 mage / level 10 fighter with 114 HP. At this level she is powerful and dangerous, but her knights still serve a useful function and aren't just there for decoration. The Helm of Heroes is now merely an extremely useful magic item, rather than an Artifact capable of limitless Raise Dead spells.
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