Phandalin

The frontier town at the center of the campaign, living in the shadow of the white dragon rumors.

Known locations:

• The quest board & Quest Master — where the work comes from.
• Harbin Wester’s house — the townmaster pays out here, behind many locks.
• The inn — limited gnome intel, and at least one Zhentarim watcher among the patrons.
• The Miner’s Exchange — run by Guildmaster Holia Thornton, who is more than she appears. There is a trap door in the floor behind her desk that closes flush into the boards and cannot be found from above; she and her guards go down it at night, to what she calls their recon point.
• The Lionshield Coster — arms and armor. Never yet open when the party has had time to shop.
• The burned houses — several buildings still standing open to the weather from a raid the town has not repaired. One of them makes a serviceable hiding place.

Regional concerns: rising orc activity (Adabra’s warning, the tracks and encampment near the excavation), and the white dragon, which stopped being a rumor when it destroyed Umbrage Hill — taking with it the windmill Phandalin’s entire supply of healing potions depended on.

Who runs the town is now in question. Harbin Wester is the townmaster and the banker both. Guildmaster Thornton intends to have the office, has told her own people so, and is using the party’s dragon intelligence to get it.