WHISPERS IN THE MAZE, VOL. 2 - DARKNESS GIVEN SHAPE
Hail adventurers and welcome back to…..The Maze!
You’ve stumbled upon another dark corner, but this one seems darker than the others, almost as if just thinking of light this deep in the maze is forbidden, scorned by some eldritch evil…
Luckily, upon slipping into this shift in reality, it seems somewhat familiar…the very air smells like home…you’re in The Forgotten Realms! This time you take on the persona of Baldur’s Gate native Theren “Trix” Calloway. A failed Candlekeep scholar turned amateur prop magician, adept knife thrower, and professional barfly.
“Theren and the Second fall of Phandalin”
You know this region better than most others ever will. You find yourself in a brisk stride walking down Triboar Trail like you’ve done at least a dozen times before. You look up at the imposing outline of the Sword Mountains in the distance and start to feel a sense of confidence. “The Maze took it easy on me today,” you think to yourself. “I may just stick around here longer than usual. Who knows, I could head back to Baldur’s Gate and visit Lyssandra if she’ll have me.” You stop and ponder your options. The closest city is probably Neverwinter, which is about a three to four-day ride back down the trail that you appear to have been walking on for some time. Normally, a hike of that length would be an easy task for you. In your pack, you have some nice camping supplies, but you’ve run out of provisions. The water you collected from the Mere of Dead Men a couple of days ago is freshly out as well, you discover, shaking your canteen hoping for one last sip. The biggest issue, however, is that you’re short a horse. Making the journey back to Baldur’s Gate on foot before The Maze inevitably calls you home would be next to impossible. “I’m sure someone in Phandalin can lend me a mare and some provisions to make the trek back to the Gate,” you say out loud to yourself. The only issue left to solve then would be sneaking back in past the guards, which wasn’t a problem. As a matter of fact, it came about as easy to you as walking through the front gates.
You see a road sign up ahead. The feeling of safe harbor at the town border brings a smile to your face. The smile only gets bigger when you think of a nice rest on a sheepskin-topped stool, drinking a hearty ale at the Stonehill Inn. “Ahhhhh,” you let out with a relaxed breath. “I’ll just grab an ale, wash off this trail dust, and get some sleep before I start prodding the locals for a cheap mount and some salted pork.” Another thought creeps into your mind as well. Maybe before heading back out on the trail, you should trade some of these camping supplies you happen to have in your pack for a dagger or two at Barthen Provisions. You never know what you may need on the open road.
As your daydreaming slips back to weary consciousness, you get the slightest sense you’re being followed and spin around quickly. Your eyes dart back and forth, looking for the slightest bit of evidence to explain your uneasiness. The Orcs that raided this area not long ago were mostly dissipated by now, you think, but who knows who calls these woods and neglected trails home these days. Though they are sparse, Orcs around here are still disenfranchised by the townships of this region; it will be a generation before people forget their raids here. Hell, most traveling merchants won’t even deal with them, let alone the town markets. Maybe there is a band of them out here? Or worse yet, bandits and brigands who had all the promise and opportunity of the common man yet have decided to make coin the easy way… yeah, that’s probably it! You ready yourself, your grip tightens around the hilt of your only dagger left in your possession. The other two you normally carry must have been lost in the last scuffle you had. You try to recollect exactly where and how, yet somehow that conflict and its details are now hiding in your mind, lost in a faint memory. It’s almost as though you can feel something pulling your memories away, like a predator taking a kill to a den. You can’t shake the feeling that something here wants you to forget how to fight back, to lose the ability to even wield the very daggers you have come to know as well as the back of your hand. You shake your head violently to try and refocus on the task at hand.
The way you came is now significantly darker than you recall…looking back to the road sign, now that you are closer you can see it was covered in a greenish white substance, you wiped it away to read “Phandalin - 2 miles.” What caught your eye though was some etching out of the sign, as if someone scraped into it with a sharp object. You keep pushing away the substance to reveal that someone had cut what seemed to be a warning into the wood “The Sun has gone, as have we.” You wonder what this could mean, or what this ooze was that covered the sign. But before you could utter a word to yourself, you were made frightfully aware…
It was now so dark that the only light you saw was what you figured to be the moon, very far above you in the sky. It seemed so orange that it was red, but you thought nothing of it. What alerted you more presently was the multitude of purplish red beams of light moving closer to you. It was only when they stopped you realized it wasn’t light at all, but the eyes of large spiders. One scurried down the middle of the road straight ahead of you, as you draw your dagger you also hear the tree branches crack on all sides of you, a hurricane without wind that you knew was a countless brood of nightmares.
“Why would giant spiders be above ground” you muttered quietly to yourself. You knew this could very well be the end, but you also knew something else, and slightly more helpful at the moment, “spiders don’t like flame.” You think you had a spell scroll in your pack, maybe something that could create some light to signal for help or scare off these monsters. You find a Burning Hands Scroll in your pack, speak the incantation and point your hands at the patches of grass to your sides and a burst of flames erupt at your fingers, so scorching hot it singes the ends of your sleeves completely. You then quickly shift back towards the spider at your front, hands still outstretched. “Leave you foul thing, or I’ll incinerate you” you bark with admittedly fake confidence. The spider stands its ground and you cast your last bit of the magic, the scroll disintegrating as you continue to shout. Your very survival hinges on this, but to your horror, the spider opened its mouth and swallowed the flame entirely.
You drop to your knees as you see the flames around you get consumed by the living darkness that is the horde of arachnids, so many that the quietness of what you perceived to be the nighttime world is blotted out by chittering of fangs, limbs and an almost musical chime of what you can only assume is their unholy language. The spider in the road walks forward, almost human like in its approach. “We are above ground, wanderer, because SHE has returned.”
You recoil at the sound of its voice, it’s a sick and twisted imitation of the common tongue. The beast spoke it as if it hated the very sound of the language. “What is this you speak of creature, what have you all done to the people of Phandalin” you shout as you dig in your pockets for anything that may get you out of this.
“The people of what you call “Phandalin” dug too deep in the ruins of the old world under their feet…our brood has been here longer than any human. Our right is more ancient, more supreme. We waited and watched as they dug deeper…deeper until they found the chamber. We let them breach it, bringing about their own end, and assured our dominion of this realm.” “Why are you telling me this, you snarl. Just come for me if you will, I’ll take as many of your scum kind as I can. I had friends in that town, you monster.”
“Oh...we don’t consume until we are allowed” the spider said in almost a whisper as it seemed to slide away from you without moving its legs, almost as if it was pulled away by something willingly. The eyes of it, and of all of the arachnids in your peripherals vanished simultaneously. You finally found something, a piece of flash paper you stole from another hack magician you met months ago passing through (and once again being escorted out of) Baldur’s Gate. You grab it, scrape it with your dagger and toss it upright as hard as you can as it implodes in a blinding light as it hits the canopy of trees on either side of the trail. You then realize just how dire your situation is.
It seems as if the whole sky moves as the paper erupts, but then you see it. The sun. It never set as you once thought. It was still day, midday from the looks of it…but didn’t you see the moon? Then in a flash a shadow that seemed to be the size of the sky returned, washing out the sun again. It starts to dawn on you, what you believed to be a moon before was one large eye that belonged to an apparition of a spider so large it consumed the horizon.
In a voice that seemed to echo from the very fibers of the world spoke in a shaky voice “I am Nyss’krae, The Weaver of Darkness, The Spider Who Eats The Light as the old gods called me for even they feared my name. I was locked away for eons in a chamber that contained my spirit but it was breached by fools looking to uncover riches lost to time. What they found was me, The Unshaper, the Devourer. Witness me and despair, Faerûn is first, the world next, and anywhere where darkness is cast asunder shall have its avatar again.”
The feeling you have was a new one. It was a fright so pure you should be petrified, but instead you felt sure, a frightening certainty. You knew this being was so immensely powerful nothing in the known world would be able to stop it. The ancient powers that locked it away abandoned man long ago. You now realize your memories that were fading before are all but gone. You don’t remember your name, where you’re from, you don’t even know fear anymore. All you understand now is that you’re in the presence of something so terribly powerful that you are but a witness, and anything that is not this being is on the losing side of a cosmic struggle man could not comprehend. This being took the form of a spider, but its true form was darkness incarnate, and its minions were every shadow in the world and outside of the world. Doom had come, and it had been here all along, we just hadn’t plucked its web yet. The spider’s eyes light up and the ground beneath you opens. You fall what seems to be forever and as you look around countless other beings of Faerûn fall too into this unending void opened by the sheer will of this being, millions cry out as their plane is unmade, like a plaything by the “Spider Who Eats The Light.”
You wake up in a cold sweat, on a mossy and cold cobblestone floor. “Theren?! Are you ok? You were screaming in your sleep! You look to a woman in robes of blue and silver. “I…I think I’m ok…I’m sorry do I know you?” You say as you rub your eyes. “Theren it’s me….Lyssandra?! Gods, what’s happened to you?” This wasn’t right…you start to remember where you are….you’re back in The Maze. The laws here were simple. Each turn in the Labyrinth was to be taken carefully, one false step may throw you into a plane where you could assume the identity of any being there. How could Lyssandra of Baldur’s Gate be here? How could you still be Theren back in The Maze…who even were you here? Maybe this demonic power, this being Nyss’krae had devoured everything, all of Faerûn and Abeir-Toril like she vowed! If she was truly the avatar of all shadow, what would stop her from consuming everything, why would one plane be enough?! You frantically pull out your dagger and start to try to scratch into the floor. Lyssandra (or the person claiming to be her) walks over to see your dagger chipping to pieces as you use your nails to scratch a faint message into the moist stone, a final warning.
“The Sun has gone, as have we.”
Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoyed the above story. I want to dedicate it to Rose and Daniel Estes. The Endless Quest books shared by my Dad shaped my creative nature in a huge way. These stories and the characters who call them home are as much yours as they are mine. Thank you so much for all you have given us.
——————
*Notes to add this setting to your game and some info about the characters below. Always remember - watch your step and always carry a torch in The Maze, some corners of it are best left untouched and in the dark for all time…
Setting:
Phandalin
Phandalin is a notable village near Neverwinter in DnD 5th Edition setting. It’s situated approximately three days’ travel southeast of Neverwinter, Phandalin lies just off the Triboar Trail in the foothills of the Sword Mountains.
Originally a prosperous mining town, Phandalin was destroyed during orc raids in 951 DR. In recent years, settlers from Neverwinter and Waterdeep have begun to reclaim the ruins, rebuilding the town into a modest frontier settlement. The town is now home to farmers, woodcutters, fur traders, and prospectors drawn by stories of gold and platinum in the nearby hills.
Phandalin features several key locations, including:
Stonehill Inn: A modest inn run by Toblen Stonehill, offering lodging and meals to travelers.
Barthen’s Provisions: The largest trading post in Phandalin, supplying adventurers with basic necessities.
Lionshield Coster: A merchant company and supplier of weapons and armor.
Phandalin Miner’s Exchange: A trading post where local miners have their finds weighed and sold.
Townmaster’s Hall: The center of local government, where the town master oversees administrative duties.
Shrine of Luck: A small shrine dedicated to Tymora, goddess of luck and good fortune.
Phandalin serves as the starting point for several official D&D adventures, such as Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak, making it a central hub for adventurers exploring the region.
If you’re interested in other nearby locations, here are a few:
Leilon: A coastal town southwest of Phandalin, currently undergoing reconstruction efforts.
Conyberry: An abandoned village east of Phandalin, now in ruins.
Thundertree: A ruined village north of Phandalin, overrun by ash zombies and other dangers.
These locations offer various opportunities for adventure and exploration in the Sword Coast region!
Characters:
Theren “Trix” Calloway
Race: Human
Class: Rogue (Arcane Trickster fits perfectly)
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Background: Urban Bounty Hunter / Charlatan / Guild Artisan (failed student variation)
Backstory
Theren Calloway was once a promising student at one of Baldur’s Gate’s lesser-known arcane academies. Bright, curious, and a little too obsessed with flash over substance, he failed out of the program not for lack of intelligence—but because he simply couldn’t resist modifying every spell into something that involved cards, colored smoke, or “theatrical flair.”
With formal study behind him (and a few unpaid tuition debts), Theren fell into the city’s underbelly. He became a tavern fixture, performing sleight-of-hand for coins, and developed a remarkable talent for dagger-throwing during drunken games with mercenaries. Over time, his flashy illusions and precision throws earned him a reputation as “Trix,” the prop magician who might actually be dangerous if you caught him sober.
Despite his scoundrel aesthetic, Theren lives by a personal code: never cheat someone who can’t afford to lose, never strike the first blow unless someone else is about to, and always tip the bartender. He walks the fine line between showman and sellsword, and he’s surprisingly effective when the chips are down.
Personality Traits
“Magic is just show business with higher stakes.”
“I don’t lie—unless it’s for a punchline.”
Drinks like a dwarf, throws knives like a drow, and keeps a deck of marked cards hidden in his sleeve for luck (and tricks).
Appearance
Wears a patched-up longcoat that looks like it once belonged to a stage magician—or a swindler. Hidden pockets everywhere.
Shirt is half-unbuttoned, always a bit rumpled, usually stained with ink, drink, or something flammable.
Keeps an assortment of worn playing cards tucked into a hatband or up his sleeve, along with trick coins and fake wands.
Hair is tousled and unkempt, as if it’s been styled exclusively by wind and hangovers; usually brown with a streak of dye that changes weekly (he insists it’s magical, but it’s just chalk).
One eye is slightly bloodshot more often than not; the other twinkles with mischief.
Has a leather bracer on his throwing arm, etched with faint sigils (half real, half decorative).
Dagger holsters built into his boots, belt, and sleeve. There’s always one more than you expect.
Despite the chaos, he moves like someone who could be deadly if he actually stood up straight.
Plot Hooks
A magical con gone wrong has someone important hunting him.
He’s trying to get back into the arcane world—not through schooling, but by proving he can master magic his way.
A mysterious “real” magical item got mixed into his bag of props—and now it’s whispering to him.
——————
Professor Lyssandra Vale
Race: Human
Class: Wizard (School of Conjuration or Illusion — or a multiclass hybrid)
Alignment: Lawful Good
Background: Sage (with a specialization in magical theory and arcane ethics)
Backstory
Lyssandra Vale was the pride of her cohort at the Candlekeep Collegium Arcanum. She excelled in illusion and conjuration not just because of talent, but because of tireless discipline. Where other students chased spectacle, Lyssandra focused on purpose: understanding how arcane manipulation could reshape the world for the better. She co-authored a respected paper on extra-planar ethics before her graduation—at age 19.
But among all her achievements, one thing always gnawed at her: the disappearance of her childhood friend, Theren Calloway. They had studied together at a local academy in Baldur’s Gate—he with talent and a heart full of jokes; she with rules and ambition. She hadn’t laughed as freely since he left.
When Lyssandra finally completed her teaching tenure at Candlekeep, she returned to Baldur’s Gate. But what she found was… not what she expected. Theren hadn’t become a lost genius or a failed tragic tale—he’d become a drunk tavern magician throwing daggers for copper and running card cons. And yet… he was happy. Or pretended well enough.
Now Lyssandra is torn between pulling him back into the arcane world he abandoned—or understanding why he left in the first place.
Personality Traits
“The arcane is a responsibility, not a trick. Use it wisely.”
“Theren, one of these days you’re going to run out of charm—and I will not clean up the mess.”
Proud but deeply caring.
Keeps a conjured quill hovering behind her at all times, jotting down field observations and lectures—often with a note: “Addendum: Theren did something dumb again.”
Appearance
Elegant robes of deep blue and silver, embroidered with arcane sigils.
Wears spectacles enchanted for magical detection, and carries a spellbook that auto-organizes itself with color-coded bookmarks.
Eyes like polished amethyst, intense and observant.
Plot Hooks
Candlekeep has sent her on a retrieval mission: an artifact or person (maybe even Theren himself).
She may have a secret: she broke one of Candlekeep’s rules to protect someone—or something—and fears discovery.
Theren may hold the key to a magical mystery she’s now unraveling.
——————
Nyss’krae
“The Spider Who Eats the Light“
Obviously a lot of this being/creature is HEAVILY based on Lovecraftian cosmic horror but in this case is based on a very cool and criminally unknown Tolkien creature named Ungoliant, basically Shelob’s (the popular spider from LOTR) ancestor and a creature born of pure darkness outside of the music of the Ainur/Eru. Some background and flavor text/story I used to create “Nyss’krae”:
Backstory
In the shadowed hollows of the Sword Mountains, where even the bravest rangers dare not tread, there is a glade that knows no sun. Not because the trees are thick, nor the clouds heavy—but because something hungers.
Long ago, before the cities of the Sword Coast had names and before the gods warred for dominion, there came a spider that was not born of this world. It did not hatch from egg nor crawl from crevice. It arrived, woven from strands of something older than time—something outside the weave of magic. It came in silence, wrapped in the stillness between stars, carried on threads that shimmered like oil and shadow.
The first to disappear were the birds. Then the wolves. Then, even the light began to wane.
Locals in scattered hamlets whispered of the Lurkweaver, a shadow with too many legs, a thing seen only in glimpses when torches failed and lanterns guttered without wind. Livestock would be found desiccated, eyes sunken and flesh pale. Travelers emerged from the woods speaking of cold dread and paths swallowed by an unnatural gloom. One child—only one—survived an encounter. She said only this:
“It spun the moonlight into thread. And then it ate it.”
Sages who studied the aberrant and forbidden texts suggest the creature may have ties to Tharizdun, the Chained Oblivion, or perhaps a splinter from the Far Realm—a shard of anti-light given thought. Others say it is an ancient servant of Shar, goddess of darkness and loss, feeding on illumination to bring the world closer to her eternal night. But no god has claimed it. No demon has named it. And perhaps that is the greatest terror of all.
What is known is that wherever the spider dwells, shadows thicken unnaturally, daylight dims, and even fire burns lower. The very weave of magic becomes cold and brittle, like webbing under strain.
Rumors place it now near the edges of Neverwinter Wood, perhaps drawn by the ley lines that cross beneath Phandalin or ancient ruins buried beneath the rock. The townsfolk dare not name it. But they’ve begun lighting lanterns in pairs, praying to Lathander, and watching the treetops.
And still, the darkness deepens.
Stat Block
Nyss'krae
Gargantuan Monstrosity (Eldritch Horror), Chaotic EvilArmor Class: 25 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points: 600 (40d20 + 200)
Speed: 50 ft., climb 50 ft., fly 50 ft.
STR: 30 (+10)
DEX: 20 (+5)
CON: 30 (+10)
INT: 25 (+7)
WIS: 22 (+6)
CHA: 28 (+9)
Saving Throws: STR +19, DEX +14, CON +19, INT +16, WIS +15, CHA +18
Skills: Perception +15, Stealth +14, Intimidation +18
Damage Resistances: Cold, Necrotic, Psychic
Damage Immunities: Poison, Radiant; Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks
Condition Immunities: Charmed, Frightened, Paralyzed, Poisoned
Senses: Truesight 120 ft., Passive Perception 25
Languages: All, Telepathy 120 ft.
Challenge: 30 (155,000 XP)
Innate Spellcasting. Nyss'krae's innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 26). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
At will: Darkness, Detect Magic, Dispel Magic
3/day each: Plane Shift, Telekinesis
1/day each: Meteor Swarm, Power Word Kill
Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If Nyss'krae fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Magic Resistance. Nyss'krae has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Magic Weapons. Nyss'krae's weapon attacks are magical.
Actions
Multiattack. Nyss'krae makes three attacks: one with its bite and two with its claws.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +19 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 25 (3d10 + 10) piercing damage plus 18 (4d8) necrotic damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +19 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 20 (2d10 + 10) slashing damage.
Web of Darkness (Recharge 5-6). Nyss'krae exhales a 60-foot cone of shadowy webs. Each creature in that area must make a DC 26 Dexterity saving throw, taking 45 (10d8) necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. The area becomes difficult terrain and is heavily obscured for 1 minute.
Legendary Actions
Nyss'krae can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. Nyss'krae regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Detect. Nyss'krae makes a Wisdom (Perception) check.
Move. Nyss'krae moves up to its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
Bite (Costs 2 Actions). Nyss'krae makes one bite attack.
