Phil's Contact at White Lantern Shrine

Phil’s Contact at White Lantern Shrine is the active quest, given by Phil Flowerforge in session 15, to meet Hett Varn — a red-headed dwarf with forehead goggles — at the half-ruined White Lantern Shrine, a wayshrine on the freight road approaching Aurelia ^[1]. The code phrase is “Phil sent us.” Hett is described by Phil as a tinkerer who lives in a safe house in the Ashward of Aurelia and can help the party with safe entry to the city. At the end of session 16 the party is three days’ sail south on a small skiff from the Eldwythe Sewers outflow, headed toward the shrine with a written note from Phil in hand. The rendezvous is the first scheduled scene of session 17.

Overview

Phil gave the party the lead at the sewer mid-point in session 15, just before parting ways with Briochebane. He scribbled a short note for Hett Varn and described both the rendezvous and the contact: “Give this to Hett outside Aurelia. The way you should probably meet him is in the White Lantern. It’s a half-ruined way shrine on the freight road, a few miles from Aurelia’s outer approaches. You’ll mostly see labor weapons and supply carts that stop there sometimes before entering the city. He has a tendency of stopping by there. He’ll be a dwarf with red hair. And he usually wear goggles on his forehead” ^[1]. The code phrase to use on arrival is “Phil sent us.”

The party has not yet met Hett. At the end of session 16, after the Eldwythe Sewers crawl and the chamber-trap ambush, they exited the outflow on a small skiff and chose to sail south toward the shrine rather than west to Velkris or back to Umbrafall. The DM frames the arrival as roughly three days’ sail. The session ended on open water, the meeting still ahead.

The quest is the party’s currently-active entry route into Aurelia for the recovery of The Egg and the pursuit of the Risa’s Sister Conspiracy / Mira Hale thread.

Where this comes up

• Tracked as an active quest in 08_quests/active.md under “Phil’s Contact at White Lantern Shrine”.
• Listed as new/active in the session 15 recap and as still active in the session 16 recap.
• The geographic terminus that determines the s16 ending: the party is sailing toward the shrine when Sevryn’s telepathic voice — “Everything is happening the way it’s supposed to” ^[2] — closes the session.

References

1. ^ Session 15, line 693 — Phil writes the note and names the White Lantern Shrine as the meeting point — "a half-ruined way shrine on the freight road, a few miles from Aurelia's outer approaches".
2. ^ Session 16, line 1753 — Inline citation.