D&D Player Compendium

Tresendar Manor

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Tresendar Manor — The Ruin on the Hill

The crumbling stone manor on the wooded hill at the east edge of Phandalin. Long abandoned above; below, the Redbrand hideout — taken by the party over two nights, Sessions 6–7. One room still holds: four bugbears and a goblin.

What’s Known

Tresendar Manor was the seat of a minor noble family of the same name, abandoned for the better part of two centuries. Above ground, it is little more than crumbling walls, a collapsed second story, and a weed-eaten foundation. The original chapel still stands — barely — with a broken stained-glass window and the bones of a wooden pew or two.

The cellars are said to run deep. Local folklore claims the Tresendars built them as a defensive last redoubt, and that they include an old family crypt. Nobody alive in Phandalin has been down there.

Why People Stay Away

Two reasons:

  1. Superstition. Locals have always given the ruin a wide berth — there are old stories of strange noises and ill-luck for anyone who lingered there.
  2. The Redbrands. Several townsfolk have noticed Redbrand thugs coming and going from the manor at odd hours. Whatever the gang is using it for, it isn’t pleasant, and approaching the place is a good way to attract a scarlet-cloaked welcoming committee.

Approach

The path up the hill is overlooked from the manor itself — there is no way to walk up the front approach without being seen from the chapel windows. The manor sits on a low rise of grey stone ringed by old trees. The front gates are gone; only the hinges remain.

The east wing has collapsed entirely; vines have taken what’s left.

What’s Below (as of Session 7)

The cellars are real, and they run deep. What the party has found:

  • The cellar under the kitchen stair — a cold cistern (deeper than it looks), provisions, and the bodies of the barrack crew. A secret door leads down a tunnel to the cavern; another, at the end of a trapped hall, leads back in from the crypt side.
  • The Tresendar crypt — three sealed sarcophagi and six skeletons in rusted mail and rotting red cloaks, now destroyed. Why dead Redbrands guarded a noble tomb, nobody knows.
  • The holding cells — where Mirna and Nars were kept. Empty now.
  • The armory — spears, swords, crossbows, cloaks; its three fine pieces are in the party’s hands.
  • The crevasse cavern — a great natural cave split by a chasm, two plank bridges (the north one is safe), and Ssarnak, who is still there and still holds Newton. A storeroom at the north end, full of stolen goods, hides a secret door into the wizard’s quarters. A rough passage runs south out of the cavern — the back way into the hills.
  • The common room — the garrison’s tap room; its four occupants are dead, their coin is the party’s.
  • The wizard’s workshop and quarters — Glasstaff’s alembics, books, desk, and the Spider’s letter. The wizard himself is the party’s prisoner.
  • The guard barrack — four bugbears and one very frightened goblin, behind a door Grom has just kicked in.

Connections

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