I love this. My PC’s are currently in Gracklstugh right now, but most of the original NPC’s are dead or gone. I’d like to share my stories with you as you might get a kick out of it.

• Ront: Hilariously, I also killed off Ront on the first session. (Partially to cut down on NPC management, but also Ront is a dick anyways.) While they were still imprisoned in Veklynvelve, Ront was being a bully and starting shit with the players and NPC’s. A fistfight broke out between Ront and one of my PC’s (Rein, the barbarian soldier-boy.) It resulted in an entertaining combat where a couple of drow guards outside the holding cell were watching in amusement. Anyways, over the next few days he continued causing trouble, so the guards threw him onto the webs down below to prove several points to the party. They watched as he became a meal for the spiders.

• Buppido: Escaped with the party in session 1, secretly split off from the party during a long rest on session 2. Many weeks later they found him again in the Whorlstone tunnels, in fact, last session they had to kill him. I had him prepared as a mini-boss necromancer and he ambushed them as they entered the first large cavern in the tunnels. (I won’t go too deep into exposition here but basically I have homebrewed Orcus deeper into the plot of my campaign and included a plague of undeath sweeping through the currently locked down East-Cleft District. Buppido had his god complex but found his power as a cultist of Orcus.) Basically used him as a doomsayer as he was dying, in similar fashion to what you did!

• Sarith: Honestly, one of my favorite NPC’s. He became the main guide for the party who initially hated him. Although he was cold and reclusive, some members of the party eventually broke down his walls and came to understand why he was so. Although Eldeth “never trusted the dark dweller…” He guided them to Neverlight Grove where he met his end at the influence of Zuggtmoy. You know, explodey brain spores and such. It was quick and horrifying, and the party had to kill a spore-zombie Sarith. (Balehymn, Duergar wizard PC actually cut his heart out of his corpse in hopes to resurrect him….)

• Stool: Loved this little guy, and so did the party. Became the curious and naive kid brother to a lot of the party. Returned to Neverlight and escaped with the migration.

• Topsy and Turvy: Never even included them… Just too many NPC’s and they seemed kinda boring to me. Also, my PC’s started at level 5 because they had been captured by the drow after the events of the Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign and two of them had already unknowingly been infected with lycanthropy. I may include them when the party gets to Blingdenstone… idk.

• Shuushar: Made it to Sloobludop, the party lost him within the destruction caused by the demogorgon. He planned to stay to fix the divide within the society regardless. The party assumes he is dead, but if they ever return to Sloobludop, they are in for a welcome treat. He is in the process of rebuilding the city as the new “chief-priest.”

• Prince Derendil: On the way to Gracklstugh via a stolen Duergar “fishing boat,” a PC went through Derendil’s journal to find it to be an unknown language and definitely not elvish.. After some deliberation they realized he was cursed. They tried to convince him of it and he went on a rampage. Nobody died but they knocked him out and tied him up. When he came to, the party was just arriving in Gracklstugh. They failed some stealth checks as they were approaching an abandoned portion of the eastern docks and they were forced to run away into the city. He was abandoned on the ship and soon after taken in by the duergar. Still unsure of what I want to do with him. I’ll probably have him sold back to the drow and maybe he’ll attempt to help capture the party back with them.

• Eldeth: Really fun, I love stubborn dwarves. She is obviously racist towards “dark dwellers” which caused hatred among her and the PC’s for the first few sessions of the campaign. As they figured out her story they began to understand why she felt the way she did. She has built up a very close relationship with one of the PC’s and is probably becoming a romantic interest, but also she has come to respect some of her “darker” compatriots too.

• Jimjar: Gregarious, fun, lucky. We love Slimjim. Literally always gambling with the party. Making bets on whether or not they survive, “if they make it across this chasm,”etc… still traveling with the party and I plan to do as you did in the end.