Hello fellow DMs! I need a little bit of help with rewriting chapter 8 for Rise of Tiamat. Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one to set up. TL;DR- I need some help fleshing out a jaunt in Thay that includes looking for a fugitive that's in possession of a potentially important artifact, dealing with a massive slave uprising and challenge from the Cult of the Dragon, and helping to influence Thayan politics in their favor to gain the support of Thay for the final battle in Chapter 9. All of which should be done within 3 days game time.
I have a general idea of what I want to do, but I need some help fleshing it out because I've got some pretty bad writer's block lol. So to start off with, I didn't like the book's original chapter 8. It's too short and doesn't give the players a real chance to do anything in my opinion, so I'm scrapping it completely and letting them explore Thay a bit. I did buy someone else's homebrew for Mission to Thay off of DMsGuild, but I'm really only using it for setting, so this will take place in Nethwatch Keep in the Lapendrar Province and the closest city of Thuvena according to the map I have. Let me give some background!
First thing that's important, one of my players has a background feature that gave them a contact early on and we decided that it would be interesting to eventually have this contact be a Red Wizard that supports Szass Tam (and therefore opposes the Cult) just in case they need some help trusting the Red Wizards that reach out to them. (surprise surprise they don't trust Red Wizards lol which is fair) So I've named this NPC Vorya and she's an apprentice to Eseldra Yeth, soon to be Tharchioness of Lapendrar. I'm playing with canon here a bit, so essentially the new quest is to help Eseldra gain the Tharchioness position and she'll convince the other Red Wizards to support the Sword Coast against the Cult. Easy peasy right? WRONG! Because why should anything be straight forward right?
So second, they would have just left Xonthal's Tower (we're starting that chapter next week) and I plan on sneaking in some extra stuff to spice up Chapter 8. So I'm going to have letters as evidence between Jorgen Pawl and some unnamed Red Wizards loyal to Szass Tam to secret away 8 dracolich gemstones that act as phylacteries into Thay so they can be retrieved later and Jorgen and take over the Cult himself and return them to the old ways. There'd obviously be no agreement other than to house the gems on his behalf, so here's the second little story hook here. There will be a name of the Cultist who will take one of the gemstones that they can find that they'll need to track down once they're in Thay if they decide to follow this story thread. I get the feeling they will because who doesn't want a dracolich gemstone??? In the meantime, some of these letters had been intercepted by a 3rd faction of Red Wizards that support neither Szass Tam or the Cult and instead want to rule Thay themselves but without the Cult. I believe they're called The Opposition in the official lore. Anyway, one of these Red Wizards has successfully gotten the gemstone off of the messenger and is finding a way to exit Thay with it and continue operations in a safer environment, but for the next 3 days (once the party gets there of course) will be spent in hiding, I'm thinking of sticking her as a pretend acolyte for a temple to Bhal or Myrkul or something. Maybe Shar because why not. What happens in 3 days you ask? Well Moonfest of course!
So I've tried to keep rough track of the seasons in our game and it's currently winter, and in my research so far, I've found that Thayans don't really revere the gods, but they respect them. Holidays aren't really celebrated except the 4 main ones for the seasons, so Moonfest or Feast of the moon would be next. However, they do allow all slaves, regardless of age, a day of rest on these major holidays to worship in private. Most Thayans hate it, but it's the law so they begrudgingly allow it. This is where Vorya's request comes in to help Eseldra. They've gotten word that the Cult plans to hold a "demonstration" on Moonfest within the city of Thuvena, but have no idea what they plan on doing. They can't find the cultists and they have no idea who's leading them. I'm throwing in the book encounter of Power of the Cult I think it's called with Cheela Flegsteel. She's going to have a beefed up company with her and plans on demanding tribute in the name of the Cult or face their wrath. She doesn't genuinely expect anything and just plans on ransacking the city for a while before leaving because what are they gonna do on a holiday? However, the whispers of this "demonstration" has reached the slaves ears, and hundreds of them plan on offering themselves to the Cult if it means they can leave Thay, even if they die trying. So if the party can stop the demonstration, Eseldra can claim their "heroic" deeds as her own essentially and cement her bid for Tharchioness. Bonus points if they can also capture the Red Wizard fugitive and hand her over along with Cheela for interrogation. The dracolich gemstone is sort of up in the air on whether they'll actually turn that in, I get the feeling they'll want to keep that.
So the main points I need help with, where would this other Red Wizard be hiding for 3 days and what would she do to keep hidden? She'll be at the temple for the most part, but I need a reason for the players to search there in the first place. I don't have any rumors to give them or anything that's not a blatant "hey look for your fugitive here" type of clue. Second, I need to know how to hide a company of roughly 20 ish cultists for 3 days. They're a group of 6 with a local NPC to show them around. He's going to be part of the local law enforcement so I figured that would be how they're getting the "official" news but I like the idea of hearing things from the underground and back alleys. But he should know whether or not his city has been compromised right? So how am I hiding cultists for so long? And third, how should this be scored for the final scorecard that determines whether or not Thay will assist the Sword Coast?
I appreciate everyone who's hung out with me for this long, I know it's a lot! I appreciate any input or feedback on how to rewrite this Chapter 8 for my players.
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Hello fellow DMs! I need a little bit of help with rewriting chapter 8 for Rise of Tiamat. Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one to set up. TL;DR- I need some help fleshing out a jaunt in Thay that includes looking for a fugitive that's in possession of a potentially important artifact, dealing with a massive slave uprising and challenge from the Cult of the Dragon, and helping to influence Thayan politics in their favor to gain the support of Thay for the final battle in Chapter 9. All of which should be done within 3 days game time.
I have a general idea of what I want to do, but I need some help fleshing it out because I've got some pretty bad writer's block lol. So to start off with, I didn't like the book's original chapter 8. It's too short and doesn't give the players a real chance to do anything in my opinion, so I'm scrapping it completely and letting them explore Thay a bit. I did buy someone else's homebrew for Mission to Thay off of DMsGuild, but I'm really only using it for setting, so this will take place in Nethwatch Keep in the Lapendrar Province and the closest city of Thuvena according to the map I have. Let me give some background!
First thing that's important, one of my players has a background feature that gave them a contact early on and we decided that it would be interesting to eventually have this contact be a Red Wizard that supports Szass Tam (and therefore opposes the Cult) just in case they need some help trusting the Red Wizards that reach out to them. (surprise surprise they don't trust Red Wizards lol which is fair) So I've named this NPC Vorya and she's an apprentice to Eseldra Yeth, soon to be Tharchioness of Lapendrar. I'm playing with canon here a bit, so essentially the new quest is to help Eseldra gain the Tharchioness position and she'll convince the other Red Wizards to support the Sword Coast against the Cult. Easy peasy right? WRONG! Because why should anything be straight forward right?
So second, they would have just left Xonthal's Tower (we're starting that chapter next week) and I plan on sneaking in some extra stuff to spice up Chapter 8. So I'm going to have letters as evidence between Jorgen Pawl and some unnamed Red Wizards loyal to Szass Tam to secret away 8 dracolich gemstones that act as phylacteries into Thay so they can be retrieved later and Jorgen and take over the Cult himself and return them to the old ways. There'd obviously be no agreement other than to house the gems on his behalf, so here's the second little story hook here. There will be a name of the Cultist who will take one of the gemstones that they can find that they'll need to track down once they're in Thay if they decide to follow this story thread. I get the feeling they will because who doesn't want a dracolich gemstone??? In the meantime, some of these letters had been intercepted by a 3rd faction of Red Wizards that support neither Szass Tam or the Cult and instead want to rule Thay themselves but without the Cult. I believe they're called The Opposition in the official lore. Anyway, one of these Red Wizards has successfully gotten the gemstone off of the messenger and is finding a way to exit Thay with it and continue operations in a safer environment, but for the next 3 days (once the party gets there of course) will be spent in hiding, I'm thinking of sticking her as a pretend acolyte for a temple to Bhal or Myrkul or something. Maybe Shar because why not. What happens in 3 days you ask? Well Moonfest of course!
So I've tried to keep rough track of the seasons in our game and it's currently winter, and in my research so far, I've found that Thayans don't really revere the gods, but they respect them. Holidays aren't really celebrated except the 4 main ones for the seasons, so Moonfest or Feast of the moon would be next. However, they do allow all slaves, regardless of age, a day of rest on these major holidays to worship in private. Most Thayans hate it, but it's the law so they begrudgingly allow it. This is where Vorya's request comes in to help Eseldra. They've gotten word that the Cult plans to hold a "demonstration" on Moonfest within the city of Thuvena, but have no idea what they plan on doing. They can't find the cultists and they have no idea who's leading them. I'm throwing in the book encounter of Power of the Cult I think it's called with Cheela Flegsteel. She's going to have a beefed up company with her and plans on demanding tribute in the name of the Cult or face their wrath. She doesn't genuinely expect anything and just plans on ransacking the city for a while before leaving because what are they gonna do on a holiday? However, the whispers of this "demonstration" has reached the slaves ears, and hundreds of them plan on offering themselves to the Cult if it means they can leave Thay, even if they die trying. So if the party can stop the demonstration, Eseldra can claim their "heroic" deeds as her own essentially and cement her bid for Tharchioness. Bonus points if they can also capture the Red Wizard fugitive and hand her over along with Cheela for interrogation. The dracolich gemstone is sort of up in the air on whether they'll actually turn that in, I get the feeling they'll want to keep that.
So the main points I need help with, where would this other Red Wizard be hiding for 3 days and what would she do to keep hidden? She'll be at the temple for the most part, but I need a reason for the players to search there in the first place. I don't have any rumors to give them or anything that's not a blatant "hey look for your fugitive here" type of clue. Second, I need to know how to hide a company of roughly 20 ish cultists for 3 days. They're a group of 6 with a local NPC to show them around. He's going to be part of the local law enforcement so I figured that would be how they're getting the "official" news but I like the idea of hearing things from the underground and back alleys. But he should know whether or not his city has been compromised right? So how am I hiding cultists for so long? And third, how should this be scored for the final scorecard that determines whether or not Thay will assist the Sword Coast?
I appreciate everyone who's hung out with me for this long, I know it's a lot! I appreciate any input or feedback on how to rewrite this Chapter 8 for my players.