The Zhentarim

A shadow organization involved in organized crime and politics, identified by Hamish from Thornton’s dragon-symbol pin (Session 4).

The party’s entanglement

• Guildmaster Holia Thornton of Phandalin’s Miner’s Exchange wears the Zhentarim dragon pin. Hamish recognized the mark (Session 4).
• Her guard — the strange figure who watched the party at the inn back in Session 1 — is one of her people. The Network had eyes on the party from their first night in town.
• At crossbow-point, Thornton pressed the party into an information-sharing pact: all dragon intelligence flows to her, and she pays for updates (Session 4).
• Dax completed his original contract and traded further intelligence with Thornton. After her threats and the infiltration, the party chose to keep away from her and warn Harbin (Session 9).
• Bean holds Harbin’s stolen private notes on Thornton — contents so far unexamined at the table.

What Session 8 exposed

Thom and Bean heard Thornton declare her intention to replace Harbin as townmaster. She told her people the adventurers had brought her everything she needed. She did not explain how their information would secure the office.

The Network’s footprint in town is bigger than one guildmaster and one watcher at the inn:

• Thornton and three guards in the Exchange that night. Whether the man the party tailed there was one of those three or a fourth, nobody can say — they dress alike and the party has never seen a face. Thornton speaks of setting “our entire troop” on people.
• A trap door in the floor behind her desk, which she and three guards went down and which then sealed flush — no seam, no handle, nothing to say it had ever been there. She calls what is down there their recon point, and said they had a lot of work to do that evening.
• Standing orders on the party: caught around the building at night again and they all die, starting with Thom.

Dax sold her the orc band’s position and heading for 50 gold the same night. What she wants with a large orc force moving west is not clear.

The returned infiltrators (Session 9)

Thom and Bean shared their account with the whole party: traps along the old mining passage, an occupied hall with roughly twenty to thirty people, and Thornton’s private office. The chests and loose gold were left untouched. They escaped through a second ladder and hatch, whose surface position is not recorded. These are two known routes, not a complete map of the tunnels.

Bean saw what looked like orc movements on a map. Thom glimpsed document headings and inferred plans for a foothold along the Sword Coast and a base in Phandalin; he also suggested smuggling. Their impressions do not establish an orc alliance or the purpose of every operation underground.

Dax disclosed and shared Thornton’s 50 gp. Harbin received the party’s intelligence and entrance information for 300 gp. Three hooded figures searched the inn that night, but whom they sought was not established.

Thom later accused Don-Jon Raskin of being Zhentarim. Don-Jon did not confirm it; his employers remain unidentified.