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Fishbowl town | My 1 month review of Asheville

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Serpy visits the Biltmore | Who is Serpy?

This is the fifth in a series of seven articles about my 9 month trip through the Southern US.

Thoughts about Asheville, NC after spending a month there.

A little fishbowl of a town

Downtown asheville

Asheville is a small place, but one with an expertly curated image. It’s a fishbowl with the imitation coral placed artfully in all the right spots–so artfully you might even be fooled to think that the coral was real. There’s a small but charming downtown area that has your usual assortment of bougie restaurants as well as a surprisingly great art museum. In addition, there were a seemingly interminable amount of touristy activities available: you can go ziplining, fly over the smoky mountains in hot air balloon, and even ride a “pubcycle” which is essentially a mobile bar pedal-powered by the 10 or so beer drinkers positioned around the sides while the presumably sober guide steers the lumbering vehicle through downtown. In addition to this, there’s the ridiculously opulent Biltmore estate and the various trails that wind their way through the Smoky Mountains. Let’s just say that Asheville’s visitor’s guide has a bit of heft to it.

Asheville Art Museum

The Biltmore

Biltmore dining room

It’s surreal to see a palatial chateau–the largest private residence in the US–nestled in the hills of North Carolina, a place whose previous claim to fame was probably that the moonshine had a good kick to it. The Biltmore is nothing short of breathtaking, and it’s a testament to the obscene wealth that the robber barons of the gilded age managed to hoard. As a I toured the grounds and estate I felt conflicted. There was a part of me that felt repulsed by the fact that no one should have this much wealth, but I could also not help but appreciate how tastefully the wealth had been applied. It’s breathtaking, and definitely worth a detour if you find yourself within driving distance.

Biltmore library

Sleepy town

The neighborhoods in the inner portion of Asheville are quiet, idyllic rows of of brightly colored homes. Everything is quirky in a muted and tasteful way. It’s almost as though someone took a Thomas Kincade painting and decided to dial back the saturation a bit in order to be idyllic but not over the top.

Housing

The housing market in Asheville is slim pickings, at least near the center of town. I only found 1-2 homes in my price range where I’d be willing to live.

The weather

For a southern city, the weather in Asheville is temperate. I was there in April, and was surprised to find that I needed to scrape ice off my windshield one particularly frosty morning. Most afternoons got into the 70s, but it was nowhere near the kind of heat you’d see elsewhere in the South. As someone seeking out warmer climates and sunnier winters, this was not really a mark in the plus column for me though.

Blue dot in a sea of red

Asheville is a bastion of liberal politics–at least the center of it is. From what I observed, the town’s center seems very blue and the outskirts seem very red. Nearly every other house near the city center has some iteration of the “All are welcome” yard sign (A little ironic considering the wave of gentrification that pushed out many people of color in the 70s). It’s a little white yuppie/hippie haven. Hope you like muesli.

You don’t have to drive more than a mile from the center though to see large pictures of a grinning Trump with the words “Miss me yet?” in bold text underneath. Trump 2024 and “Let’s go Brandon” flags fly proudly here. Priuses give way to 4×4 trucks rather quickly. It didn’t seem like these two parts of town blended much, and I imagine that this is a source of no little tension.

Roadkill

I’ve seen more roadkill in North Carolina and Tennessee than all the places on the rest of my trip combined. Not sure what that means but it’s a weird thing I noticed.

The Food

A “cat’s head “biscuit at Biscuit Head

The airbnb that I stayed in was practically a treehouse in the woods, so I didn’t eat out much. From what I saw, Asheville had a reasonable assortment of very good restaurants. The thing is–it’s a pretty small place, so you’re lucky to only have 1-2 of restaurants of any type of cuisine.

Hiking and nature

The Dam at Lake Powhatan

Perhaps I’m spoiled as a pacific northwesterner, but I found the natural environment of Asheville to be rather bland and monotonous. The main features I’ve seen on most hikes are slow moving creeks and hikes up hills that never get past the tree line. As someone used to climbing up mountains high enough to be able to make it to a grand ridge that seems to divide the world beneath one’s feet, I found it a little underwhelming to get to the top of a hill and to see that nothing had really changed from where I had started. It’s pretty and peaceful but not particularly unique or interesting. I saw a black bear though. That was cool.

This juvenile black bear was on the other side of a river, so it seemed pretty chill.

A staycation destination

Asheville Botanical Gardens

No place is truly disconnected from the world, nor is it completely resistant to change, but the extent to which Asheville has curated their image as a staycation destination, as a place to “get away from it all” surely makes it feel that way. I can’t help but feel a bit stir crazy in places like these. Asheville might be a beautiful fish bowl, but it’s still a fish bowl. It’s a great place to visit, but as a place to live it’s not for me.

I give Asheville, NC three stars.

Previous Stop: Atlanta

Next Stop: Memphis

A city in search of its soul | My 1 month review of Atlanta

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Serpy the Wombat poses in front of Martin Luther King’s birth home | Who is Serpy?

This is the fourth in a series of seven articles about my 9 month trip through the Southern US.

I lived in Atlanta for one month in March 2022. These are my thoughts.

Bubble Neighborhoods

A weathered house in a well-to-do neighborhood in Atlanta

While I haven’t visited all the neighborhoods in Atlanta, the ones I did visit seemed like self-sufficient bubbles. Candler Park, the neighborhood I was in, had a trendy assortment of cafes, bars, restaurants and grocery stores all within walking distance from each other. While it was all very pretty and peaceful, there was also a feeling of insularity that I just couldn’t shake. It was almost as though each neighborhood was its own feudal realm and while the overlords of these neighborhoods might pledge allegiance to the greater realm of Atlanta, each neighborhood really felt like its own polity.

A gaudy neoclassical McMansion in Atlanta

This feeling of insularity became more pronounced when my regular jogs took me through the extremely well to do neighborhoods, where every other McMansion had gaudy neoclassical columns adorning them, a style which to me can’t help but evoke visions of the estates of slave plantation owners. In most cities I had visited so far it didn’t take long for me to stumble upon impoverished neighborhoods, I’m sure they exist in Atlanta as well, but from Candler park I could run 5 miles in any random direction and never come across any. Atlanta is a big city, and the neighborhoods are big too. You need to get into your car and set an intention to drive somewhere where people live differently than you. I’m certain that rarely happens.

A possibly haunted Atlanta home guarded by its faithful familiar

The Beltline

Street art on the beltline

The beltline is a paved jogging, biking and running path that encircles the center of the city. Parks, restaurants and funky art installations cluster around it. Of all the urban paths I’ve found on my trip here, this would be my second favorite next to the San Antonio riverwalk. The Beltline also appears to be the one thing that connects all the disparate bubble neighborhoods of Atlanta in any meaningful way.

A bicycle weathervane on the beltway

Social Scene

Friday night in Atlanta

Maybe it’s the warm weather. Maybe it’s the “post-COVID” (Heaviest possible quotes here) euphoria that incited people to socialize more, but I feel as though I had met more people over a weekend in Atlanta than I had on my whole trip. I’ve been using meetup to meet with locals in each place I visit, and Atlanta had more interesting meetups than in any other city I had visited.

An ecstatic dance gathering in Candler Park

Food

A rather ridiculously large breakfast at the Flying Biscuit Café in Candler Park

I had the best biscuits and the best grits I ever had in my life in Atlanta. I also had some incredible tikka masala curry with buffalo mozzarella. The number of restaurants are unfathomable here, and while I’d say the food in New Orleans is better, the food in Atlanta has more variety. One innovation I found particularly interesting were these yawning complexes that I can only classify as “Yuppie Food Courts”. These were very large buildings with food stalls serving Sushi, Cuban Sandwiches, Falafels, and like. Some of these complexes were less food focused and more booze focused and because it was sunny Atlanta and not rainy Seattle, there was a generous amount of outdoor seating. These places were packed, and it wasn’t unusual to see the dedicated parking structures for these complexes completely full.

A City in Search of its Soul

When I talk to people who are critical of Atlanta, or who compare it to other cities they’ll say that that Memphis, or Asheville, or Seattle has a soul, which implies that Atlanta doesn’t have one. I think this is overly harsh, but I also think there is some truth to it.

A city has soul when there are defining characteristics of that city that sets it apart from other places. There is a human energy to the place that transcends the humans who created. It makes it more than just a place where people congregate and live.

One of the most important ingredients of a city’s soul is the reason that people decided to settle there in the first place. In Ancient Egyptian cities the floodplains on the Nile provided a reliable source of grain. In New Orleans it was the shipping gateway from the ocean to all the many tributaries of the Mississippi river reaching deep into the heart of the North American continent.

Atlanta had no such reason. It just so happened that Atlanta was the spot where some major railroads intersected. It’s almost like a child grown in a test tube from two parents who had never met.

As cities go, Atlanta is still very young, and I get the sense that it doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up yet. As the birthplace and home of Martin Luther King Jr., it has distinguished itself as a important place in the history of Civil Rights–work that continues to this day, and while the birth home and Tomb of MLK are very special places, they almost feel as though they are removed from the city–as though the Atlanta of today can’t lay claim to them just yet. Perhaps it’s because the work he stood for is so far from being completed.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Corretta Scott King’s Tomb

There are other elements to Atlanta that hint to a burgeoning soul: the vibrant rap scene, the very active media and film industry, and the ongoing fight for equity that we can see spearheaded by those who have carried on MLK’s torch. All of these have the potential to leave an indelible mark on the soul of Atlanta. We will have to wait and see.

I give Atlanta 3 stars–at least for the moment.

Previous Stop: New Orleans

Next Stop: Asheville

This city won’t ever drown | My 1 month review of New Orleans

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Serpy the Wombat poses in front of St. Louis Cathedral | Who is Serpy?

This is the third in a series of seven articles about my 9 month trip through the Southern US.

Some thoughts about New Orleans after living there for a month

The Food

A crawfish boil at a NOLA home with Gochujang and Gochugaru to add a korean twist

Of all the cities I visited, New Orleans has the best food. The food is greasy, flavorful, spicy and comes in generous portions. While I did have a few mediocre meals here and there, they were few and far between. For the most part, the cuisine in NOLA is legit. I imagine that in a place that has more bars per capita than any other city in the US, there is fierce competition. Perhaps the only complaint that I have about the food was that nearly all the good breakfast spots had a line out the door.

A Benson Boogie from Heard Dat Kitchen: Blackened fish with grits and shrimp with “crawdat” cream sauce

French Quarter

I didn’t like it. Some of the old buildings were beautiful but for the most part it was swarming with drunk tourists. This irritation might have been exacerbated by the fact that I had quit drinking last year. I think that maybe if I visited in a less busy time of year I would have liked it more. The buskers in the French Quarter are top notch though. They’re really great.

The worst driving experience

In my month there, I could count at least 3 busy intersections where the traffic lights were essentially not working. GPS is unreliable as a form of navigation in this city because you’re more likely than not to turn into a road completely blocked—turning around a corner to see a wall of traffic cones and an 500ft long stretch of dirt with an idle backhoe is an all too common experience. Potholes are a perpetual fact of life in the city, and I can only laugh when I hear Seattleites complaining about potholes in my feed. NOLA roads are like swiss cheese, not to mention the fact that some of them are peppered with glass and rubble. I’m sure Discount Tire makes a brisk business in this city.

Magic

The Tree of Life near Audubon Park

To me, magic is a two part cocktail consisting of equal parts beauty and mystery. And I am almost certain that by this measure New Orleans has more magic than any other city in the US. It’s really hard to come up with another word that ecompasses this feeling. When you see Mardi Gras Indians swagger through the streets blocking traffic as they waved their befeathered and rhinestone studded costumes that they had spent the whole year sewing just to show off on a single day—that’s magic.

Track by Dr. John celebrating the Mardi Gras Indians

As each tribe encountered the other on the streets they proceeded to engage in mock battle which some historians think might derive influence from mock battles from certain tribes in the Kongo. No one really knows though. All you can see is the result of cultural alchemy—ancient traditions blending in such a way to create something new and breathtakingly beautiful, but also still ancient and venerable. The legendary and quintessential New Orleans song “Iko Iko” seems to have a nonsensical chorus but some historians have attempted to map the syllables to Louisiana Creole French, while others believe it may be West African in origin. No one knows for sure though and it’s this sense of mystery that I find pervades the whole of the city.

Members of the Mardi Gras Zulu krewe

Unhealed wounds

For a city that is majority African American, the very center is marked by a monument to Andrew Jackson, an owner of over 300 slaves. He is lionized here because he kicked the ass of the British during the war of 1812 thus “saving” the city. But really he was saving it for the rich slave owners who ran the place. Even now there are tours of plantations where one can pay to see magnificent southern estates built off the backs of slaves as well as to gawk at the slave quarters. While I do think it’s important to remember the horrors of the past, paying a private tour company to visit these places strikes me as morally dubious.

Stark inequality

I arrived in New Orleans one year after the destruction of hurricane Ida. I was in the central city, a predominantly black neighborhood lined with shotgun houses. I was on one of the main streets, Jackson St (seriously, his name is everywhere here). As soon as your turned on to one of the side streets from Jackson, it was obvious that the destruction hadn’t been completely dealt with. Street corners were piled with rubble.

Rubble piles were still everywhere a year after Ida

Many houses were abandoned and others had their roofs replaced by a stretch of blue tarp. However, as soon as I stepped out of the neighborhood I could see that some places were cleaned up quite nicely. The garden district, with its flamboyant southern mansions built in the style of the old plantation estates were not far. Their roofs were intact and the street around them were pristine.

Anne Rice’s former home in the Garden District

Neighborhood Music

Mural of New Orleans Legend Dr. John

The first thing I noticed about new Orleans is how everyone loves to play their music loudly here. In several cases I’ve seen folks bring their stereo system out on the front porch to blast their curated selection into the streets. Additionally, it seemed like 1 out of every 5 cars did the same as they cruised on by. You’d think this would be irritating but the music was often so good that one could hardly complain. I’m certain that loud noise complaints are a rare thing in most neighborhoods.

Disaster and Decay

New Orleans has no shortage of missing roofs, buildings with peeling paint, and twisted iron fences. When hurricanes and floods sweep through the city with increasing regularity I can understand why one might let things go. Why rebuild and repair when chances are you’ll be doing the same thing in another 5 years?

“Love Your City”

When walking through the streets one day I saw a sign that said “Love Your City”. To me, this sign was an admonition. New Orleans can’t survive without people loving it as much as they do. The city is beset with a staggering number of problems, from the swiss cheese roads and power outages, to the displacement of folks who have lived in NOLA for generations. To cap it all are the projections that the only portion of the city that will not be underwater by 2050 will be the French quarter—meaning that the majority of places where people live will be underwater. In spite of all these problems people stay, even if “staying” means clinging to the fringes of the suburbs outside of New Orleans proper where they can still afford rent. They stay because they truly love their city. And how can you not? I think the fact that so many people still stay in spite of all of it is an incredible testament to how precious it is.

While staying here I heard a song, “This City” by Steve Earle that sums up the spirit of “Love Your City” incredibly well:

This city won’t wash away
This city won’t ever drown
Blood in the water and hell to pay
Sky tear open and pain rain down
Doesn’t matter ’cause come what may
I ain’t ever gonna leave this town
This city won’t wash away
This city won’t ever drown

Although I’ve been giving star ratings for each city I visit, I found it difficult to give one to New Orleans. It’s a place of contradictions and there are as many beautiful things here as there are ugly. Should we just add up the good and bad and come to an average? If so, I give New Orleans 3.5 stars. However, I wouldn’t disagree without you if you gave it five stars. In fact, I think you might be right.

Gallery

I probably took more pictures in New Orleans than anywhere on my trip. Click to see full size.

Some coneheads lawn art. A sign nearby reads “Beldar for Supreme Leader”
A “Jewish Space Laser” float at the Krewe de Vieux parade
Big bird pulls a float for the Mardi Gras Krewe de Vieux parade
Brightly colored houses are everywhere in NOLA
How haunted is this house?
One room cut in half?
These colors are everywhere
A weathered but still beautiful New Orleans home
Mardi gras tree painted gold green and purple
A majestic NOLA kitty takes a pose
A mardi gras toilet paper parade
A “Meowdy Gras” House
A homegrown soup kitchen
Feral Gnome
A “friendly officer” mural with some conspicuously removed text right beside it
A Mardi Gras Mobile
The back of a veterinary practice building
“Press for Champagne”
Family vault in Greenwood Cemetary
Greenwood Cemetery
Greenwood Cemetery

Previous Stop: San Antonio

Next Stop: Atlanta

A city that found me | My review of San Antonio

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Serpy the wombat poses in front of the Alamo | Who is Serpy?

This is the second in a series of seven articles about my 9 month trip through the Southern US.

I spent one month in San Antonio in January 2022. These are my thoughts.

The Riverwalk

This had to be my favorite feature of San Antonio. On hot days, you can descend downstairs and walk along the San Antonio river winding its way through the city as you pass by cafés and restaurants. Palm trees arch overhead providing shade, as do the the tall buildings that embrace it from both sides. I could probably spend half a day in a cafe watching the riverboats and passersby.

The Pioneer Flour Mills on the San Antonio River

If you head south and away from the the heart of the city, the river grows wider, and you can actually follow it for miles to places like the Spanish missions. It’s also less crowded, so you can bike or run for miles as you follow the river through the many parks along the path.

In homage to a Paris tradition, couples commemorate their love by placing a “love lock” on a bridge over the riverwalk

The Weather

The San Antonio riverwalk in January. This day was roughly 70 degrees.

It was not what I’m used to coming from Seattle. It ranged from near freezing to 75 degrees in the same day. That said, most days I could expect to enjoy a sunny day in the afternoon and go for a run by the riverwalk. I understand the summers are rather brutal, so I’d probably have to run in the morning and take shelter during most of the day. At night it’d cool down enough to go downtown in short sleeves. All in all, I think I’d be cool with it.

Housing

I went on Zillow and from a cursory look I saw housing prices are definitely going up here (as they are everywhere), but it’s certainly nowhere near as crazy as it is in Seattle ( or nearby Austin, for that matter).

Cats

I didn’t see many neighborhood cats in Arizona where I had traveled from (perhaps they were all indoors because of coyotes?), so as a cat lover it was nice to see many friendly neighborhood kitties where I happened to be staying.

A kitty greeting I was fortunate to capture as I was walking through the neighborhood

Road Mattresses

After a month of driving around, I found the roads easy to navigate and rarely stressful. I was told Texas drivers were aggressive but I don’t remember getting tailgated or honked at once.

While the roads are generally pretty navigable, there does seem to be a trend of people dumping mattresses and other furniture by the side of the road. Anecdotally I’ve heard there are lots of issues with drunk drivers, meaning the later you go out the less safe you might be. Also, San Antonio really needs to get on repainting its traffic lines.

The Food

Chilaquiles at Panchos And Gringos, a great breakfast spot near where I stayed in San Antonio

You can’t turn a corner without finding a Mexican restaurant, and all of them I went to were above average by my reckoning as a Northwesterner. I especially loved that I could get chilaquiles, huevos rancheros and breakfast tacos practically anywhere.

Rooftop cocktails at The Moon’s Daughters. San Antonio can do swanky too.

While the restaurants in Seattle are wonderful, it’s increasingly started to feel like the dining experience in many places, from the lighting to the fonts on the menu have been meticulously crafted by a marketing team, resulting in a strange uniformity where one swanky cocktail bar seems interchangeable with the next. Although there are some places like this in San Antonio, I feel like many dining spots have retained their humility and their souls—places where the focus is on the food alone and not an overproduced “dining experience”.

On the bougier side of things, here’s a chicken and hong kong style waffle at Best Quality Daughter

Purple Town

San Antonio is moderately liberal, with 58.2% voting democratic in the last presidential election. I saw as many “Refugees are welcome” yard signs as I did trump signs and “Thin Blue Line” flags. Something interesting happens when your neighbor has completely different views as you—it becomes increasingly difficult to dehumanize them as the “Other”. In a purple town, it is easier to recognize the humanity of those who think differently from you.

Close to Austin, but not too close

Austin is less than an hour and a half from San Antonio, so I paid the city a visit over the weekend. To me, Austin felt a lot like an over-the-top amusement park where every restaurant and music venue goes out of its way to express some form of quirkiness. I had fun while I was there—but it didn’t feel like home to me. That said, it’s a nice perk that Austin is nearby. It’s a place that I wouldn’t mind visiting often, but not a place where I’d like to live.

History

Mission San Jose

In San Antonio, reminders of its history are everywhere, and lovingly preserved. It’s hard not to feel delighted to walk through a neighborhood full of brightly colonial revival houses. In fact, many houses in the neighborhood I was living in were over 100 years old. This means that if you move into one of these houses, prepare to spend your life maintaining them. Also, you’ll need to get a permit for any external changes to your home, otherwise you’ll be slapped with a fine.

In Seattle, where development proceeds at a blinding pace, it’s easy to feel untethered. That cafe or dive bar where you used to hang out are gone: replaced by a high rise condos and office buildings. The places where you used to make memories have vanished, leaving you to feel as though the world is passing you by.

The inside of the old Pearl Brewery, converted into a gorgeous cocktail bar

San Antonio, a city that radiates from the Alamo at it’s very center, is all about preserving its history. This can be a source of comfort, as it gives you a sense that time isn’t just racing past you and will forget you after you die. However, it can also be a source of pain, as I imagine it would be for a person whose ancestors were slaves who sees a beautiful homestead house perfectly preserved and the only thought is: someone who looked like me was forced to work there against their will.

Texans love their history, but it’s a history that is, at its center, jingoistic. It’s dedicated to perpetuate the mythos of their state’s greatness, while ignoring the racial violence and genocide that is very much a part of the state’s history too. So I feel both comforted and uneasy when I find myself in these historic places. If anything I am reminded that the comfort I enjoy now is due in no small part to the suffering of those who came before me.

Revisiting San Antonio in Summer 2022

Of all the cities I had visited on my trip through the southern US, San Antonio felt the most like home to me. It most certainly has its problems and I’m certainly concerned about climate change and impending water scarcity (San Antonio gets its water from the Edwards Aquifer, a limited resource).

Fresh tortillas at HEB are a wonderful thing I discovered when returning to San Antonio

After visiting several other cities, I decided to revisit San Antonio in the summer of 2022 to see if I could handle the heat and I found that I could handle it pretty well. I’m not sure what it is but 90 degrees just hits differently here. I walked downtown for about 30 minutes in mid summer and found that the slight breeze and drier air made the heat all the more tolerable. Also, shaded areas are perfectly comfortable for someone like me who prefers warmer weather, even in midday. Mornings are cool enough that I can go running by the river, and the evenings are cool enough to enjoy a warm evening on a bar’s terrace or patio.

A summer evening in San Antonio at the Paramour

The riverwalk is still my favorite feature of the city but my enthusiasm is tempered by the mediocrity of most of the restaurants that line it. Many of them are chains and seem to provide the lowest common denominator of a dining experience. They mostly churn through tourists who likely just stop by these spots for the sake of convenience. I still enjoy walking along the river in the mornings and evenings though.

After wandering the country for the better part of a year, I chose San Antonio as a place to live because it just clicked for me. The city has its problems, to be sure, but as someone who has chosen to live here, I feel more motivated to get involved and help fix those problems in what small ways I can.

The funny thing was, I almost didn’t visit this city at all. I had an airbnb booked in Austin and the lady who rented out the place asked me if I was sure I wanted to visit Austin in January as it’s “too cold” and there was “nothing to do here”. I decided then to try a city I knew nothing about and that was San Antonio.

Saint Anthony of Padua, the city’s namesake, is the patron saint of lost people and things. Perhaps I didn’t find the city, but instead the city found me.

I give San Antonio, TX four out of five stars.

Previous Stop: Tucson

Next Stop: New Orleans

A guest in the desert | My 3 month review of Tucson

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Serpy the Wombat intrepidly climbs a saguaro cactus in Tucson | Who is Serpy?

This is the first in a series of seven articles about my 9 month trip through the Southern US.

I lived in Tucson from October 2021 to January 2022. These are my thoughts.

Suburbs in the Deep Desert

These saguaros were just 10 feet behind the guest house where I stayed

I spent most of my time in the a Western suburb of Tucson near Saguaro National Park. Although it was a suburb, it felt like I was deep in the quiet of the desert. There must have been nearly a mile of desert from my backyard to the next house I could see. Coyotes, javelinas and mule deer often passed by my window in the mornings.

Javelinas

Two juvenile Javelina trotting by my window in the early morning.

It was hard not to get excited every time I saw a javelina trot across the road, as they were definitely a novelty for me. I learned, however, that the locals like them a lot less than I do. These boar-like creatures can get rather aggressive, and will attack dogs and the owners of dogs. Indeed, I did have a encounter with a very large adult Javelina when I was jogging and the creature gave me the “you better not mess with me” look as it crossed the road. So perhaps my enthusiasm for these cute deer pigs might get tempered over time should I have decided to live in Tucson longer.

Neat looking houses

A house in the common Pueblo Revival/modern hybrid style in the suburbs of Tucson

Oftentimes in place of a green lawn and a McMansion you’d instead see a mob of cacti standing guard in front of a boxy, whitewashed one story house in the pueblo revival style or some variation thereof. There’s something about these houses that can capture both humility and grace in a way that seems appropriate to the starkness of the desert.

We are the interlopers here

This area outside my window was very busy in the mornings. (Also before you ask, I don’t know what the bucket is there for)

What strikes about the desert is that it can’t be displaced by human settlements as easily as other environments. The desert is so extensive that even in the suburbs there are square miles of uninhabited desert between houses. This is not to say that humans don’t affect the desert in many harmful ways through climate change and poor water conservation, but they can’t displace the the creatures from the land as easily.

Never in all the places I have lived have I had so many encounters with the local wildlife. After a while you get the sense that you’re not really living in the suburbs but permanently glamping. Sure you have water and electricity and refrigeration, but you are a guest here. You’re the interloper.

A “teddy bear” cholla cactus known for its rather deceiving cuddly appearance

Welcome to Arizona, Please Roll for Initiative

Yes. This is a real BABY RATTLESNAKE that appeared in my airbnb.

In most places in the US, you rarely need to roll for potential combat encounters. This is not the case here. In fact, one day when opening my door I saw a baby rattlesnake sidewinding its merry way across the floor of my Airbnb. Because of its size and the fact that it didn’t seem to have a rattle, I figured it was some some harmless non-poisonous snake. In one of my less brilliant moments, I tried to get it out of the house using a dustpan and broom. I was lucky I didn’t get bitten. Since sidewinders are apparently rather cowardly, it coiled up into a little ball in response to my provocations instead of lashing out to bite me.

Not wanting to bother my Airbnb hosts late in the night. I went to bed and informed them first thing in the morning. I learned that it was in fact a baby rattlesnake, and we upended the entire guestroom looking for it. We couldn’t find the little guy and assumed he left from where he came in (probably a gap in the back door). We sealed up the gap with a towel and I tried not to think about it after. I’m usually a shoes off indoors kinda guy but I left my shoes on for the rest of my stay in Tucson.

When I shared this story with locals, they were quick to inform me that baby rattlesnakes were more dangerous than the adults because they can’t control their venom. This is apparently a myth, but every every time I mentioned that I’d get raised eyebrows in response as they likely didn’t believe me.

The weather

After having suffered the interminable gray of the Pacific Northwest for most of my life, I found the nearly consistent 70 degrees of the winter midday sun to be an incredible boost to my wellbeing. In spite of having taken regular vitamin D supplements, I could never shake the seasonal depressive disorder brought about by the damp gray winters in Seattle. It was a wonder to go on a run on a sunny day in the winter months and feel happy and energized for the rest of the day. There’s just no substitute for sunshine.

Sun rising over Pontatoc Ridge

I did get a sense of the the oppressive heat in late September, though. Even a casual walk to a restaurant a block and a half away felt like an ordeal. As much as I enjoy sunshine, I don’t think I would be able to tolerate that much sunshine.

The Food

Tucson is apparently recognized as a UNESCO city of gastronomy. While there might be enough great restaurants here to make the city worthy of this title, my personal luck of the draw had been mixed as best. Most of the food I had in Tucson could be classified as “decent but not memorable” with two notable exceptions: Tumerico and Mi Nidito.

Tumerico

A Sonoran Dog from Tumerico

As someone who’s mostly vegetarian (I eat meat on rare occasions) Tumerico was just a place that I had stumbled upon when ordering on Postmates. I didn’t have high expectations for the place as often vegetarian substitutes for meat (with some notable exceptions) can be underwhelming. This was not the case with Tumerico, whose verde enchiladas with marinated jackfruit in tomatillo verde sauce is a must try should you be in town. All the sides: the broccoli salad, the black beans, and the rice had a robust yet subtle flavor. Highly recommended.

Mi Nidito

Mi Nidito’s “El Presidente” plate combo: A bean tostada, birria taco, chile relleno, chicken enchilada and beef tamale.

Mi Nidito, or “The Little Nest” is a Mexican restaurant that has been in the same family since 1952. Seeing as Tucson boasts 23 miles of the best Mexican Food, I had to try at least some of it. I chose Mi Nidito because it seemed like a Tucson institution, so much so that Bill Clinton had once dined there–the combo plate that they served him is now forever enshrined on the menu as the “El Presidente Plate”.

I did the touristy thing and ordered the famous combo and found it exceedingly mediocre. It was essentially on the same level of many Mexican chain restaurants that I had frequented in the Pacific Northwest. The combo was swampy mess of cheese with some generic sauces and flavorings that barely differentiated it from most Mexican chain restaurants. Perhaps Mi Nidito had been special at one time, but it’s obvious they’ve been coasting on their reputation for a while now.

Since Bill Clinton is now a vegan, perhaps he should try Tumerico the next time he’s in town.

Limescale

The first time I boiled water in Tucson I thought there was something wrong with it–I saw unsettling particles floating in the surface, making me think that it was contaminated. A quick google image search made me realize that it was just limescale: an oversaturation of minerals in Tucson’s unusually hard water. It leaves behind a chalky residue on everything. It’s not harmful at all, but it looks really gross. Limescale is not filterable using a conventional Brita filter and will leave an unsightly white crust in electric kettles. If I lived here long term, I’d probably end up getting a reverse osmosis filter.

Harrowing Left Turns

Of all the cities I had visited on my trip Tucson had the second worst driving experience (the worst was New Orleans). For a city spread across a desert valley, you’d think the roads would be laid out in a straightforward manner. Instead, you get a byzantine tangle of four lane roads and highways where more often than not I found myself just missing a turn or an exit I needed to take, which invariably resulted in a 5 to 10 minute adventure just to get back where I had been. Making left turns across several lanes without the aid of a traffic light is a common and harrowing experience. Most times I chose not to take these turns and opted to go with the traffic to take a u-turn down the way.

Miniscule Downtown

While living in the desert suburbs certainly is peaceful, I’ve always been more partial to living in a place with more activity. So I spent a weekend to investigate downtown Tucson to see what it had to offer. I started my day at the Pima County Courthouse, which could arguably be called the city center. From there I wandered through downtown, 4th avenue, and went all the way to the University of Arizona campus, poking into bookstores and random shops along the way.

A 25-ton tiki head I noticed on my downtown walk

Downtown is alright, but it’s pretty small. It took me about half a day to see all there was to see in the walkable area. Once you get out of downtown proper Tucson gets ugly pretty quickly and there’s really nothing to see but strip malls and parking lots. I enjoyed exploring it but after my one visit I didn’t really feel compelled to visit the downtown area again.

Saguaros

Saguaros at sunset in the sweetwater preserve in Tucson, AZ

To the Tohono O’odham, or “People of the Desert”, Saguaros are a symbol of life. They are the bringers of the monsoons which flood and bring refreshment to the the dry land. Once a year, as part of a ceremony to ensure that the rains will come as expected, the fruits of the Saguaro are collected in jars, mashed and then boiled into a syrup. The people would then sing to the jars as part of a ceremony that transforms that syrup into wine. There’s a poetic symmetry to it: if wine makes someone want to sing, then song must be the missing ingredient in syrup to transform it into wine. When the wine is made they would gather as a community and drink and sing and dance and in response the rains would come to replenish the desert.

That the saguaros would stand strong against the relentless heat of summer seems like a promise from their creator that the rains will come. This must have been a source of great comfort to the people of the desert, a reassuring symbol of the resilience of life.

The Saguaro bring a sense of vibrancy, majesty, comfort, and whimsy to the desert and the city of Tucson, and to me the presence of this one plant adds more to the character of the city than any other feature. The Saguaro is iconic, and any depiction of the city of Tucson without one would simply be incomplete.

Tucson National Park

The Día de los Muertos “All Souls Procession”

Many cities, even those that don’t have a large hispanic population, have a Día de los Muertos celebration commemorating the day when one’s lost relatives come to visit one’s families. The one that I had a chance to attend in Tucson was special and something that I won’t forget. After years in quarantine and much loss, it was in 2021 that we could truly gather and commemorate those whom we had lost over those two years. This celebration felt especially solemn and also especially joyful.

Here’s a video I stitched together of the procession:

Although this was a primarily hispanic tradition, I appreciated that other traditions were represented here as well. As a half Japanese person, I was particularly touched by the Japanese taiko players at the vanguard of the procession who were there celebrating the day much in the way they would celebrate Obon, a series of three days in August where dead relatives would come and visit their families.

The Verdict

Sunsets in Tucson were invariably gorgeous

Tucson is an expansive checkerboard of urban blight and patches of dry dirt surrounded by a beautiful saguaro forest. In an increasingly cosmopolitan world, Tucson still retains a lot of its provincial character–which to me is a mixed blessing. I enjoyed the time that I spent out in the desert guest house as it felt like a wilderness refuge while still having worldly conveniences nearby. I didn’t find myself going downtown often as driving there was a bit of an ordeal, and after visiting once I didn’t really feel compelled to go again.

Overall I felt Tucson that was a mixed bag. I didn’t hate my stay there, but the city seemed too remote and less connected to the world than I would have prefered. Perhaps some day in my later years when I just want to live in a quiet place I may go back, but I knew that I had to continue my journey and see what other cities had to offer.

I give Tucson, AZ three stars.

Next stop: San Antonio

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Further Reading

I highly recommend this paper on Traditional Saguaro Harvest by members of the anthropology by the university of Arizona. Their findings on the Tohono O’odham and the saguaro wine rain dance ritual greatly informed my writing on Saguaros above.

A DM’s Guide to Wave Echo Cave

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Crystal Caves
Image Source: “Crystal Caves” by JoshEiten

As a dungeon, Wave Echo Cave poses three challenges to GMs: The immense size of the dungeon’s map, the underwhelming nature of the Forge of Spells, and the lack of challenge that Nezznar the Black Spider presents to a 4th level party.

This post will focus exclusively on the first challenge, as I have already written separate articles about The Forge of Spells and Nezznar the Black Spider. In addition to that, I’ll add some encounters for the journey to Wave Echo Cave as well as suggestions for effectively running some of the areas of the dungeon.

Before Getting to Wave Echo Cave

Since Wave Echo Cave is deep in the Sword Mountains some fifteen miles East of Phandalin, we should probably make it feel like it’s a difficult place to reach. This way, arriving at the Cave feels more like an accomplishment. Here are some potential encounters to use as the party makes their way to the Cave:

Encounter: The Lake God

To set up this encounter, read the following flavor text:

“There are little more than deer and hunter’s trails leading into the foothills of the Sword Mountains, and it’s certainly slow going as you crest the first ridge and descend into a green valley with streams from the surrounding range filling into a silver lake.”

The PCs can choose to avoid the lake if they wish (This is what the Rockseekers had done). If they get closer to it, however, they notice that there’s a rudimentary altar built by kobolds covered in spatters of blood. This is where kobolds would capture mountain goats and leave them as a sacrifice to what they think is the god of the lake, a giant plesiosaurus.

Should the PCs investigate the altar, the plesiosaurus will emerge from the lake, expecting an offering from the party. If the party offers no beast for the dinosaur to consume, it will attack the party and attempt to drag one PC into the water.

This creature might be a bit too easy for a party of level 4 PCs, so consider using this beefed up stat block:

Or, if you want to create your own custom creature, you can use this 5e statblock generator.

Obstacle: The Broken Bridge

As the party emerges from the valley, they start to notice the remnants of a centuries old road, which, although it has deteriorated quite a bit, it’s far better than the deer trails they were following. Also, this should be an encouraging sign that they’re on the right track, as this is likely the road that once connected Phandalin to Wave Echo Cave.

As they crest the next peak, however, they find themselves facing a large ravine. A massive bridge built by talented Dwarven engineers used to span this gap. Almost all of it, however, has fallen to the depths below. All that’s left is a giant chain nearly 2 feet in width.

Gundren will mention this bridge, saying that his brother used a grappling hook gun to secure a lifeline. When the party arrives at the gap, however, the lifeline has been cut, most likely by servants of the Black Spider.

The DC for crossing the chain is normally a DC 10 dexterity check, but occasionally a fierce wind will rush through the ravine. Should that happen, everyone on the chain will need to make a DC 13 strength check.

Falling from the chain and hitting the ground is fatal. However, we don’t want to make a PCs life depend on a single skill check. Should a party member fail their check, they will fall, but they will also be “rescued” by a roper who manages to grapple the falling PC before they plummet to their death. This roper happens to be on a ledge on the other side of the ravine, some 30 feet below the bridge chain.

Give the Party a Long Rest

If you choose to use these encounters, we want to make sure the party enters the Cave fresh. After the party makes it past the broken bridge, it starts to get dark. They can take a long rest and arrive at the Cave first thing in the morning.

Managing the Size of the Dungeon

While you might have been able to purchase images of the previous dungeon maps, download them, and then print them to scale, you’ll find that for Wave Echo Cave it will be most likely be unmanageable. I did a little napkin math for printing Wave Echo Cave to scale and I got dimensions of roughly 9 x 8 feet, which means it would be larger than most dinner tables! For those who have been printing out their dungeons until this point, Wave Echo Cave forces you to consider other solutions.

Using a “mini-map”

One of the simplest ways to run wave echo cave is in theater of the mind. Really all you need to do is read the flavor text for each area and you’re done. When running the dungeon in theater of the mind, however, you do run the risk of having players losing track of where they are in the sprawling network of caverns. This problem can be mitigated by drawing a “mini-map” as the party progresses.

A “mini-map” is exactly what it sounds like: it’s a “miniature map”. This map doesn’t necessarily need to match the Wave Echo Cave map square by square. I’d probably go nuts trying to draw an accurate miniature version of all the twists and turns in the Mine Tunnels (Area 2). Instead, I’d probably go with a more abstract approach like this:

As you can see, the Mine Tunnels aren’t a 1-to-1 copy of the Mine tunnels from the book.

In this example, the party has already encountered the stirges as well as unwisely opened the door to where the ghouls had been lying in wait in the South Barracks (Area 6). They decided not to move towards the green glow of the Fungi Cavern (Area 8) and having spied the ghouls in The Great Cavern (Area 9) with a familiar they decided to try their luck at the maze instead. After going through the winding maze (making a few survival checks along the way), they ended up at the large cavern again, the Ghouls pounced on them and after winning the battle they noticed another green glow (the FLAMESKULL!) to the north in the Smelter Cavern (Area 12).

As you can see, a mini-map can make dungeon navigation much easier for players by giving them a rough idea how all the areas they’ve been to in the dungeon are connected.

Optional: Give Map Making Duties to one of the Players

It should be mentioned that a GM doesn’t necessarily need to draw the minimap. Indeed, one of the party members could have a job drawing the map as they go and the rest of the party could consult that party member if they decide they want to double back and try one of the paths that they had previously ignored.

The Hybrid Approach: Only Print Areas Where Detail Matters

When I ran Wave Echo Cave, I decided that I would only print out a few areas:

  • Area 9: The Great Cavern
  • Area 12: Smelter Cavern
  • Area 18: The Collapsed Cavern

The reason I chose to print these areas rather than other areas was for the following reasons:

  • Combat is likely to happen in these areas.
  • There are complex features that would take longer to draw on a dry erase battlemap like cliffsides and rivers.
  • The original map has evocative details like skeletons and forge bellows.

While most of the rooms in the official Wave Echo Cave Map are pretty bare bones, there are many fan made maps (here’s a great one) that flesh out areas like the Temple of Dumathoin (Area 19) and the Forge of Spells (Area 15). If I was using a fan made map with more added detail. I’d probably print out these areas too.

For battle encounters in rooms that don’t have much detail, like the Ghouls in the South Barracks (Area 6) or the bugbears in the North Barracks (Area 11) it shouldn’t take you longer than a few minutes to draw the room on a battlemat. Most of the rooms are just rectangles, after all.

Wave Echo Cave: General Suggestions

Before going into the room-by-room suggestions for Wave Echo Cave, here are some general suggestions:

  • To add more immersion, play the audio for this Youtube video in the background. This will provide both music and booming sounds at regular intervals.
  • Being aware of the strategies that monsters will use when encountering PCs will be very helpful to make your combat encounters feel more dynamic. I highly recommend reading articles about each of the monsters in Wave Echo Cave on Keith Amman’s site, The Monsters Know What They’re Doing. Just do a site search for the monster you’re looking for and you’ll be good to go.

Wave Echo Cave: Room by Room Suggestions

Many of the rooms in Wave Echo Cave really don’t require much tweaking. However, since many of the rooms are rather generic and don’t give us a real idea of what kind of place Wave Echo Cave happens to be, we should take this opportunity to inject some lore about the cave in these rooms (Thanks to Mathew Perkins’ video on Wave Echo Cave for this great idea!). I’ve provided some ideas for each room to get you started. You can also use my AI Powered Location Description generator tool to come up with some interesting ideas for each room.

Area 1: Cave Entrance

When PCs make it down into the open pit to the northeast of the cave entrance, there’s really no reason for them to go towards area 2 or area 3. Because no details are provided, one choice is as good as the other. To make it feel more like a choice, you can add these details:

Peering around to the north you can see the beginnings of a maze of tunnels, most likely exploratory prospecting tunnels. The tunnel to the east seems to open up to a large natural cave with a much higher ceiling than the tunnel itself.

Area 2: Mine Tunnels

The Mine Tunnels is an area that’s much better to do in theater of the mind than on a battle map. As a GM you can narrate the twists and turns of this maze and ask for a DC 15 Survival check to see if the party gets lost. For every failed Survival check, the party needs to make a random encounter roll.

After the party succeeds on a single survival check, whoever made that successful check will notice two important details: an ammonia like smell (this is the ochre jelly) to the north, and a shuffling sound (these are the ghouls) to the northeast. A high DC18 nature check will tell party members that the smell is likely the leavings of a slime creature.

If the party decides to head towards the ochre jelly, characters with a high enough passive perception will notice that the ceiling is moving. This is the ochre jelly lying in wait for some tasty prey.

Area 3: Old Entrance

  • Among the remains of the Orc bodies are wooden shields crudely painted with the crest of Uruth, a legendary Orc warrior who devastated the Sword Coast centuries ago. If the party visited Wyvern Tor, they will have noticed the crest looks very similar to that of the orcs they encountered there.
  • The emblems of three major families: one Dwarven (Rockseeker), one Gnomish and one Human (Tresendar) appear on the mural to symbolize the Phandelver pact.

Area 4: Old Guardrooms

  • Inside a tattered satchel carried by one of the skeletons is a letter from a relative from Waterdeep. This letter would mention the orc uprisings ravaging the Sword Coast and warn the guard that a small town like Phandalin just isn’t safe, no matter how powerful he believes the high Mage Mormesk might be.
  • A box full of earplugs. How else could these guards get some sleep when the cave was booming all the time??

Area 5: Assayer’s Office

There’s a small shrine to Tymora in a recess in the north wall. This shrine looks like it may have been carved by the same individual who carved the Shrine of Luck in Phandalin. Any PC who leaves a gold coin or more upon the shrine gets the benefit of the bless spell for 1 hour. Any additional contributions will not result in a blessing.

Area 6: South Barracks

  • Mining implements are found here, as this was the barracks where the miners lived.
  • A Dwarven rune has been painted on the entrance to the south barracks to ward off evil. It has almost completely faded and since there were Ghouls in here, we can assume it no longer works.
  • A small shrine to Dumathoin is at the end of the wall. If one is perceptive enough, one can notice the leavings of gemstones ground to dust. This makes sense as Clerics to Dumathoin would grind gemstones as a form of sacrifice.
  • There is one set of Dwarven armor in this room. A dwarf in the party might recognize the armor design to be similar to that of Mirabar. Perhaps some Dwarven families managed to flee Phandalin and went north to Mirabar?
  • There is also a box full of earplugs here, just like in Area 4.

Area 7: Ruined Storeroom

  • Although there is no food left in the storeroom, there are many barrels labeled “Phandalin Cider”
  • A book of recipes can be found on top of the barrel. It appears as though this book was written by several individuals; each of them contributing Dwarven, Gnomish, and Human recipes to the book. One of the recipes for shepherd’s pie seems awfully close to the shepherd’s pie served in taverns along the Sword Coast today.
  • Inside the recipe book is a note about poisonous fungal spores in Wave Echo Cave. Instructions are given to minimize the exposure of food to these spores.

Area 8: Fungi Cavern

There are bodies left over from the battle of Wave Echo Cave here, but they have been subsumed in fungus. A high (DC18) perception check will reveal a skeletal hand reaching out from the fungus. On the skeletal hand is a ring of protection +1. The ring is of gnomish craftsmanship, and upon the inside of the ring are the words “Friend of Garl“. Whoever puts on this ring will also receive flashes of the former owner’s life, as a miner with family living in Phandalin.

Area 9: Great Cavern

If you have read the article I wrote on the Orcs of Wyvern Tor, and want to include the suggestions I added for the Orcs, Brughor Axe-Biter and his orcs would arrive at Wave Echo Cave slightly before the PCs if the orcs hadn’t been dealt with at Wyvern Tor. They would most likely be in the Great Cavern (Area 9) in search of the hand of Uruth.

Area 10: Dark Pool

In my article on the Forge of Spells, I suggested that the Forge may be connected to the Elemental Plane of Water or the Shadowfell. If this is the case, anyone who dives deeply enough into that pool could find themselves on that plane!

Area 11: North Barracks

  • Since we already have barracks for the Human guards and the Dwarven miners, this is likely where the Gnomish goldsmiths and jewelers lived. Because of this, the beds are far too small for the poor Bugbears to sleep in.
  • In the corner of the room is a small shrine to Garl Glittergold, one of the main gods of the Gnomish pantheon.
  • A careful inspection of the room will reveal the remnants of jewelers tools.

Area 12: Smelter Cavern

  • Dwarven runes are engraved upon each brick that makes up the smelter. These runes ensure that the metal smelted from the ore can better absorb magic when taken to the Forge of Spells.
  • The zombies under the command of the flameskull all have the Tresendar family crest embroidered on their tattered armor.

Area 13: Starry Cavern

  • Anyone who makes a DC12 perception check will notice that tiny runes have been carved all along the cave walls to focus the ambient magic of the Cave on a particular point–this point being the Forge of Spells.
  • Any cleric or paladin who inspects any corpses left behind from the ancient battle will have a flashback to the battle itself. In this flashback they will see Mormesk as he was in life fighting desperately to hold back the orcs.

Area 14: Wizard’s Quarters

As the Lost Mines book describes Mormesk the Wraith as a “powerful mage”, he was likely the wizard who created the Forge of Spells in the first place. While it’s tempting to have Mormesk attack the party as soon as they enter his quarters, Mormesk may play an important role in the future. For example, Mormesk may be the only one who knows how to properly operate the Forge of Spells and he’s only willing to give away that knowledge for a price.

It’s likely that the very process of harnessing the energies of Wave Echo Cave to create the Forge of Spells was a dangerous task, and an accident transformed one of the Wizards of the Pact into the Nothic who happens to now live beneath Tresendar Manor. It’s possible that the Nothic’s hoard contains clues to who Mormesk was and what the relationship between Mormesk and the Nothic might have been.

According to the Monster Manual, Nothics are usually wizards who, having devoted their lives to “unearthing arcane secrets, are reduced to creeping, tormented monsters by a dark curse left behind by Vecna” 1. This fits well into the idea that the power of the Forge of Spells originates from the Shadowfell, as Vecna happens to be a resident there. The connection between the Forge and the Shadowfell is an idea I explore in more depth in my article about the Forge of Spells.

For more ideas on connecting Mormesk to the Nothic, check out this excellent video about the Nothic by Lutes and Dice.

Area 15: The Forge of Spells

If you plan to use a printed or digital map for the Forge of Spells I highly recommend using this fan made map, as it makes the forge seem like the powerful MacGuffin that it’s hyped up to be. As understanding the properties and origins of the Forge are a crucial part to the campaign, I wrote a separate article about it.

Although the module hints at the fact that the monstrous spectator in the Forge is not hostile to the PCs, I think it’s fun to have it be downright friendly and cordial. It will still try to kill any PC that tries to steal magic items or use the forge, but it may also give a warning. It may say something like: “Uh, I wouldn’t try to do that if I were you, because then I would have to kill you. I wouldn’t want to have to do that. You seem nice.”

Area 16: Booming Cavern

As using the Booming Cavern path is a way of getting around the Flameskull, there should be some risk involved in it.

The text says that “The ledge that hugs the south wall is 15 feet above water level. However, when water surges into the cave every 2 minutes, it raises the water level by 10 feet.”2

Why not have the water surge up beyond the ledge to make it more interesting? Allow players to make DC15 Nature checks to realize that the surges are happening at regular 2 minute intervals. As the ledge is slick and narrow, each PC who traverses it must make a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw. Finally, should players get caught up in the surge, they need to make at DC15 Strength (athletics) saving throw in order to stay on the ledge. Finally, if you want to really crank up the tension, there may be a Giant Octopus lying in wait for any PC unfortunate enough to fall into the depths.

Areas 17-18: Old Streambed and Collapsed Cavern

As the PCs progress along the Old Streambed toward the Collapsed Cavern, they should hear the sounds of the bugbears laboring below on the rift floor.

Masquerading as a Drow, Vhalak will be supervising their work and none of them will be watching the PCs should they be approaching from the streambed. Although it’s tempting to use the doppelganger’s ability to read thoughts to spoil the party’s attempt at an ambush, the ability seems to only work if there’s a target the doppelganger is aware of.

Although the Bugbears will attack the PCs without any thought to strategy, Vhalak will be smarter than that. Immediately after the PCs arrive, Vhalak will try make his way to area 11 to summon more bugbear reinforcements. Although these bugbear reinforcements will want to charge into battle Vhalak will direct them to attack the party from above with their Javelins.

If you read my article about Vyerith and Vhalak, the doppelgangers, I suggest that Nezznar doesn’t know Vhalak is a doppelganger, and that Vhalak is really his own free agent. In this case, Vhalak has no sense of loyalty to the Black Spider. Once he sees that the battle is not going their way, Vhalak decides that his time serving the Black Spider is over and does his best to run from the battle, leaving Wave Echo Cave behind, perhaps to torment the PCs some other day.

Area 19: Temple of Dumathoin

This is it. The final epic showdown that your PCs have been waiting for. Unfortunately, four giant spiders and a Drow wizard is a bit underwhelming for a final encounter. As a GM, you can and should beef up this battle to make it the boss battle it deserves to be. For more on how to do that, skip to the third section of my article on Nezznar the Black Spider.

Roleplaying Nezznar

The Lost Mines module suggests that Nezznar should be curious about the PCs, and even suggest surrendering or cooperating with them in order to catch them off guard.3 Nezznar could give the party a convincing reason for why the Forge of Spells is needed for good: like stopping a group of drow from summoning demons from the abyss (this is explained in more depth in my Nezznar article). We still want a boss battle with Nezznar though, so if the party does cooperate with him, he’d likely turn on them as soon as he gains control of the Forge of Spells.

When Nezznar reaches the Forge, he’ll begin the ritual needed to harvest its power. Have the party make intelligence or arcana checks here so that they know that it’s a good idea for them to interrupt Nezznar before the ritual completes. Otherwise, they’ll likely be facing a much more powerful foe, a drow empowered with the magic of the Forge.

If none of the PCs attack Nezznar before he completes the ritual, Nezznar will turn on them. Consider giving Nezznar additional spells from the Mage stat block double his HP. After Nezznar’s initial defeat, he can transform into a more terrifying monster (more on that here).

While the module’s suggestion for having Nezznar try to pretend to work with the party is interesting. I would personally choose to have Nezznar attack the party right away. At this point the PCs should be ready for a boss battle, and having Nezznar try to trick the party feels like it may drag the story on longer than it needs to.

After the party defeats the Black Spider, make sure to leave some clues behind in Nezznar’s possessions to give the PCs a better idea of who he is (or was) and what he wanted to do with Forge of Spells.

Area 20: Priest’s Quarters

By the time the players reach the room where Nundro has been held prisoner, they will have likely defeated the Black Spider. At this point, the adventure is nearly over. The party can return Nundro to Phandalin and a celebration can be held in their honor!

Wave Echo Cave: A Challenging Dungeon to Run for New GMs

Wave Echo Cave is a challenging dungeon to run for new GMs. The map is huge, and can either take up a ridiculous amount of physical space or be confusing for players going through the dungeon in theater of the mind. Mini-maps can provide a good solution for mitigating any potential confusion that would come from a theater of the mind approach.

Wave Echo Cave is also pretty light on lore, and the onus is on the GM to fill in details about the Phandelver Pact, the Forge of Spells, and Nezznar the Black Spider. Hopefully the this article, and the articles on the Forge and The Black Spider will be helpful for you to fill in the gaps.

What details have you added to your version of Wave Echo Cave? Please share them in the comments!

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Liked this article? Check out more like it in the Lost Mines of Phandelver DM Guide!