Candlekeep.com - Home of Northern Journey

Candlekeep.com is the sole authorized distributor of the Northern Journey adventure.
The material contained on this site is not to be distributed from any other site or location. If you have any questions, please contact the webmaster.

 

Further Support

There is a Yahoo! group, within which are members of the NJ development team. You can access this group through the following link:

Click to join NJDiscussion

 

Furthermore, for those running the NJ campaign, the following website may be of use. Please note that this site is not directly associated with the NJ project.

www.nj-pbem.com is maintained by an enthusiastic DM of the Northern Journey game, who has been running both a face to face as well as a PBeM version of the campaign for the last six years.  His web-site has a huge amount of history on the two parallel games, as well as other interesting information on the Realms and the North in particular.  He encourages visits by other Northern Journey DMs so they can see how some of the individual scenarios and plot points were/are played out.

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Important!  What do I need to know before downloading?

 1.  All who download:

Our products are packed with WinZip 9.0 to shorten download times.  If you are unable to unpack our files, download the trial version of WinZip 9.0 at:

 http://www.winzip.com

 

2.  Reading the books and getting the original maps:

All of the Northern Journey books are in the PDF-Format of Adobe Acrobat® 5.0.  If you have no program that can read PDF files, you can download the Adobe Acrobat Reader® free at:

http://www.adobe.com/

You need nothing but the books.  All of Northern Journey including the maps is contained in the PDF books.

However, many game masters who use the programs Campaign Cartographer 2 Pro™ or Campaign Cartographer 3 from ProFantasy Ltd. prefer to use the original CC2 maps because of their higher quality and the ability to modify them easily.  If you want to customize NJ and you have CC2 or CC3, we suggest that you also download the original CC2/CC3 maps.This is not necessary, however, as all of the maps already are in the books in high PDF quality.

http://www.profantasy.com

 

3.  For all downloads:

For all of the individual parts of Northern Journey, you must have the Northern Journey Campaign Guide, and you need to install the Forgotten Realms Fonts Set.  The latter is a collection of public domain and freeware fonts suited for the Forgotten Realms.

 

4.  The Core Essential Downloads:

Item	Download	Size	Format
Northern Journey Campaign Guide Version 8.01, January 1, 2007	guide8.zip	6.4MB
The FR Fonts Set:	frfonts.zip	500KB

 

5.  The Supplement Book Downloads:

Item	Download	Size	Format
Northern Journey West Parts 1-4, Version 1.0, November 1, 2005 Silverymoon, Moonwood, Backlands, Tale of 2 Liches	njwest.zip	10MB
Impiltur Part 5, Version 4.0, November 30, 2005	impiltur.zip	6.2MB
The Great Dale Part 6, Version 2.0, November 30, 2005	gdale.zip	13MB
Bloodstone Part 7, Version 1.0, February 1, 2005
Book 1 – The Bloodstone Story.  Book 1 contains the history of the Bloodstone Kingdom and all of the information game masters need to Campaign in the Bloodstone Kingdom.	blstone1.zip	4MB
Book 2 – Damara.  Book 2 contains the details, maps and dungeon plans for all locations in Damara.	blstone2.zip	14MB
Book 3 – Vaasa and Beyond.  Book 3 contains the details, maps and dungeon plans for all locations in Vaasa.	blstone3.zip	8.5MB

 

6.  The CC2 Map Downloads:

Item	Download	Size	Format
The maps for Northern Journey West – Parts 1-4 For Silverymoon, Moonwood, Backlands & Tale of 2 Liches (71 maps)	njwestfcw.zip	12MB
The maps for Impiltur – Part 5 Contains 33 Maps and Dungeon Plans	impilfcw.zip	7.5MB
The maps for The Great Dale – Part 6 Contains 88 Maps and Dungeon Plans	gdalefcw.zip	27.5MB
The maps for Bloodstone – Part 7 Contains 127 Maps and Dungeon Plans	bstonfcw.zip	50MB

 

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Frequently asked questions

 

Where do I go for help and answers?

The authors of the Northern Journey adventure, the Vintyri Project members, can be reached at: info@vintyri.com

There is no charge for handling inquiries.

 

The Project Group:

Project leader:  Trevor Cooke, Scotland
Editor:  Carl Nielsen, U.S.A.
Webmaster:  Mark Oliva, Bavaria (Germany)
Illustrator:  Joan I. Guardiet, Spain

 

System Requirements

Your system must be able to read electronic books in the PDF format of Adobe Acrobat 5.0 or higher.  If you do not have a program that can read PDF files you can download the Adobe Acrobat Reader in a version for your operating system (i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) free at http://www.adobe.com/

  

What is it?  A set of modules?  Something else?

Northern Journey is a combination adventure and campaign setting expansion in seven parts with a campaign guide.  It is for the Forgotten Realms setting of the game Dungeons & Dragons from Wizards of the Coast Inc.

NJ was designed intentionally to serve a wide variety of needs.  Our correspondence suggests that more than 50% of the Game Masters who've downloaded and used all or parts of NJ ignore the adventure and use the material to flesh out their own versions of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

If you plan to run the NJ adventure (see below), you can ignore the following.  If, on the other hand, you have your own adventure ideas, you should understand what best serves your needs:

Warning!  If you are a player and you read the information listed below, you will know too many details to be able to play properly in a Northern Journey campaign!  You should not read this material unless you are a Game Master!

 

Parts 1-4 in the book Northern Journey – the West go from Neverwinter in the northwest of the Realms to Silverymoon, through the Moonwood and then to southeast through the Delimbiyr Valley to Loudwater.  From there the trail leads past Dekanter and through the Backlands of the Sword Coast, across northern Cormyr and on through Daggerdale to Dagger Falls.  The last leg of the journey takes the players to Zhentil Keep, Myth Drannor's ruins and Scardale.

Up to this point, the individual segments are written in module style with narratives for the Game Master.  In Parts 1-4, the PCs in the NJ adventure are being drawn eastward by the magic sigylls on their arms.  These first four segments of NJ follow a path.  Things that are on the sides of the past but a dozen miles removed from it are not described in detail and often are not described at all.

A Game Master wishing to use Northern Journey – the West as a campaign setting expansion for his or her own adventure will find this material useful as long as the adventure follows pretty much the same path.  When the adventure deviates from the main path, the Game Master will need to improvise.

That situation changes completely once the PCs leave Scardale Town and cross the Dragon Reach.  Beginning with Segment No. 5, Impiltur, the remainder of Northern Journey has little in common with conventional modules.  Instead, the last three segments are more comparable with campaign setting expansions, something like the FR series of products released in the late 1980s and early 1990s by TSR, combined with the Volo's Guides from the early 1990s.

This radical change in text structure does not reflect a change in goals by the NJ design team; it is a direct result of the course taken by the NJ adventure itself.  In the first four parts of NJ, the adventurers have low to middle levels.  They can attempt to resist the magic of the Sigylls of Contagion and the Coins of Binding, but they will succeed only occasionally and temporarily.

Once the PCs sail out of Scardale Town and cross the Dragon Reach, the factors of the adventure become considerably different:

• In Parts 1-4, the PCs deal with four of the five targets of the Sigylls of Contagion.  Only the sigyll of Harbet Gall in the Great Dale and the 6th symbol, which is intended to draw the PCs to their masters in Castle Dragonblood, still remain.  As long as they continue in the direction desired by Kargmelchina, Sammaster and Grafvitnir, they are free to do whatever they wish and take whatever reasonable path they choose.  The Game Master no longer can steer them through the magical sigylls and coins.  The PCs (or perhaps NPCs) will decide, for instance, whether the PCs dock in Lyrabar or Hlammach.  But the Game Master will have to prepare for what is there and what happens in the city where they go upon land.
• The PCs will have reached levels 9 and higher.  They will be able to resist the magical pull more often and for longer periods of time.  When they succeed in resisting the magic, they are free to do whatever they wish.  The Game Master has no way of knowing in advance what those actions might be or where they may lead.

 

• Once the PCs leave Scardale Town, situations change in the enemy camp.  Kargmelchina and Sammaster will have formed an alliance with the next target, Harbet Gall, in the Great Dale.  They will begin using the magic in the Sigylls of Contagion to draw the PCs away from Gall and toward them in Castle Dragon blood.  However, Grafvitnir (of whom Kargmelchina and Sammaster are unaware) will continue to attempt to draw the sigyll-bearers to Gall.

 

• This conflict can result in a strange and twisting journey that neither the Game Master nor the game designers can anticipate.  On many days, the PCs may resist the magic and choose their own path.  On others, the may be overwhelmed by the magic from Castle Dragonblood and begin moving northward.  On still other days, Grafvitnir's magic may prove stronger, drawing the PCs back toward Gall.  What kind of path these circumstances will cut is anyone's guess.

 

• The journey from Scardale Town to Nighthawk Tower on the eastern border of the Great Dale is a long one.  The PCs will have a plethora of options open to them that can lead to help and knowledge, to considerable trouble or to a combination of both.  The Game Master needs to prepare for whatever can be found or can occur on the trail the PCs choose.

 

For these reasons, a standard module design no longer is feasible in Parts 5-7 of NJ.  As game designers, we had no choice but to define almost every destination the PCs might reach and every kind of encounter the PCs might found there.  The result – because no other is possible – is that the last three segments of NJ are campaign setting expansions rather than modules.  As such, they're every bit as useable by a Game Master who runs NJ as they are by Game Masters who choose to ignore the NJ adventure story line.

 

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The villains

Behind the tale of Northern Journey are three key villains:

Grafvitnir

Grafvitnir - an unofficial Forgotten Realms creature - was perhaps the greatest and mightiest red dragon ever to fly over Faerûn.  He lived some 4,000 years ago.  In his final days, Grafvitnir found a cache of ancient dwarven magic not of the weave, and he used this magic to put himself into a rejuvenating sleep in a cave in the Galena Mountains over Vaasa, a sleep that would last several thousand years.

 

Kargmelchina – Tiamat

Kargmelchina - an unofficial NPC - was a mage of the Dragon Cult and the secret mistress of Sammaster.  After Sammaster's destruction she fled into the East, first to Thay and then to Vaasa, where she allied herself with Zhengyi the Witch King.  Kargmelchina discovered the cave above Vaasa in which Grafvitnir's sleeping body was hidden and began working magic together with Sammaster's phylactery to restore Sammaster to a third existence.  A decade or so after Tiamat's avatar was destroyed in the abyss by Sir Gareth Dragonsbane of Damara and his allies, Tiamat took over Kargmelchina's body and spirit and turned her into an avatar.  Tiamat-Kargmelchina is steering the revived Sammaster to destroy those members of the Dragon Cult who would impede her attempts to bring the cult within the fold of her church.

 

Sammaster

Sammaster, an official Forgotten Realms NPC, is a former Chosen of Mystra who was driven insane by the power the goddess placed within him.  He was destroyed, rose again as a lich, and was destroyed a second time.  He now waits with Tiamat-Kargmelchina above Damara and Vaasa in their Castle Dragonblood atop Suncatcher Mountain, where the Galena and Earthspur Mountains meet, for the day when they will strike forth.  Together with Tiamat-Kargmelchina, Sammaster has created a line of dragon vampires and draconians.  These are similar to but not identical to the Dragonlance® draconians from WotC.  Units of draconians are abroad in Faerûn, trying to assassinate key members of the Dragon Cult, and an apparent agent of Sammaster - who really is an agent of Grafvitnir - is also at large, infecting victims with the red Sigylls of Contagion, intended to destroy Sammaster's five key enemies and then bring his agents to Sammaster, to be rewarded for their deeds by being converted into dragon vampires.  Unknown to Sammaster and Tiamat-Kargmelchina, Grafvitnir's servant also is infecting the victims with Coins of Binding.  These are intended to draw the sigyll bearers to Castle Dragonblood to destroy Sammaster and Tiamat-Kargmelchina.