Currently we are on the "On the Road" chapter and starting at the beginning of the campaign I read through the entire campaign and picked up pain points. One of the obvious pain points was the blandness of "On The Road" So I've been sowing foreshadowing throughout the first few chapters.
I really like the character of Jamna Gleamsilver, so I actually made her a story hook that met the party at the beginning of the campaign. The Black Network knows something is up, but doesn't want to yet reveal that. So what better way then to throw adventurers that have no realization that they are being used by the Black Network at a problem?
You can promise them a 100 G each and if they die then you don't even have to pay!
I also did this because I don't like how she "disappears" after Chapter 5... so I have plans to use her later in the campaign as well :-)
One of my players wants to be a Totem of the Elk Barbarian, he is multi-classing, so he hasn't yet gotten to level 3 Barbarian. So I plan to "turn" the Random road event "Golden Stag" as a story point for him. The Golden Stag is actually an Elk Lord of the Summer Courts that traveled through a Fey Crossing to reach him and grant his blessing to him.
Also, within Volo's Guide to Monsters, it talks about the process of creating Drakes, which I highly recommend everyone read. It gives some great ideas.
One of my characters is a Silver Dragonborn, and Rezmir is a decidedly cruel and vindictive True follower of Tiamat. She captured the Silver Dragonborn during the Greenest in Flames episode (the player couldn't make it for a few sessions)... and (with the player's permissions) while the party was trying to rescue both Leosin and the Dragonborn... Rezmir was expirementing on the Dragonborn... seeing if Dragonborn scales has even a fraction of worth compared to Dragon scales... Unbeknownst to Rezmir, this Dragonborn had taken the Hoard of the Dragon Queen Background "You have a secret" (the one where he was once a dragon)...
So his dragonborn scales aren't normal dragonborn scales. So now Rezmir has an enormous Silver Drake and has the (incorrect) idea that dragonborn scales are a cheap alternative to making a drake army... They arrived in Baldur's Gate to find a string of dragonborn abductions. They haven't yet figured out why, or that Rezmir has a Silver Drake yet... Should come towards the end of the "On The Road" if the players get nosey and peak into the giant crate that the cultists keep mysteriously shoveling meat into.
Hmmm... if the characters are still Level 2 by On The Road, they may have some difficulty coming up. The adventure is suggested to be one level per Chapter except 5 (see Introduction).
Gotta admit... silver Drakes sound cool... and scary. Nice work there. And mysterious abductions to derail the chase are a good addition!
Hmmm... if the characters are still Level 2 by On The Road, they may have some difficulty coming up. The adventure is suggested to be one level per Chapter except 5 (see Introduction).
Gotta admit... silver Drakes sound cool... and scary. Nice work there. And mysterious abductions to derail the chase are a good addition!
Oh, sorry, I think I did a poor job explaining, they are level 5 at the moment. They actually started the campaign out at level 2 to give them a "little" breathing room because of the brutal Greenest in Flames episode. The Barbarian is multi-classing, so he is 3 levels Rogue and 2 levels Barbarian at the moment and hasn't gotten his Barbarian's Path yet.
I also plan on having addle-brained abominations from all the failed experiments Rezmir has been doing on the regular Dragonborn scales... Trying to reproduce the same affects that the Silver Dragonborn's scales made. I'll be using Mongrelfolk stats from Curse of Strahd for them.
They already came across a cultist shanty within the Blackgate district of Baldur's Gate that contained hanged and quartered dragonborns with their scales missing from their bodies.
Let's just say we are running Hoard of the Dragon Queen to be a lot darker than what is written in the book.
Ahhh... that makes more sense. Dark is awesome. Ours has not been that dark, but still fun. Of course, we bring our own brand of darkness with my Raven Queen Hexblade and the Necromantic Priest (Copper Dragonborn). I'm looking forward to 6th level and seeing how things fall when I summon my first specter. Not everyone realizes how "Neutral" some of us are... and how much 7 years in Shadowfell will warp a human's perspective.
One of the problems I had with the beginning of this adventure was justifying the raiders' presence. How much gold and treasure could there possibly be in the Greenfields? Before Greenest, the Cult has been attacking small settlements. And though It says Greenest is prosperous, is it all really enough to justify commanding a small army? You have to keep troops fed, especially the mercenary ones. So, my answer was to say that Dharva Scatterheart was a halfling adventurer who founded Greenest with her share of a slain red dragon's hoard, and that her treasures were given as gifts to those families who founded the town with her and then handed down as heirlooms over the next hundred years or so. Some of her adventuring companions stayed there for some time, and their wealth also passed into the surrounding settlements. Scatterheart was rumoured to have hidden a large portion of her treasure somewhere in town, however - it's in a walled up tunnel in the cellar of the Hollow Oak, the town's inn and tavern. Rezmir knows this and Leosin Erlanthar has finally put the pieces together and thinks that the Dragon Cult will soon strike Greenest.
My group of four players had a hard time in the Dragon Hatchery. I severely nerfed most encounters, but the traps alone really took their toll. I knew going in that they may need some help so I had to introduce an NPC to help. I made it so Cyanwrath had taken a prisoner from one of the raids. His reason for challenging people to one-on-one combat is really a way for him to find suitable subjects. He needs strong resilient people who can survive transformation into a half-dragon.
He has discovered a ritual to do this (I cribbed this from someone else). It involves using the blood from newborn dragons, and this is the real reason behind the hatchery. Cyanwrath made a deal with the black dragons, Voaraghamanthar and Waervaerendor (really considering changing those names :). I am changing their gender to female - they are Rezmir's half-sisters. Rezmir was created from an egg from the same brood they were born from. This is how the bargain works: A dragon will let the cult hatch their eggs for them. The cult gets to use one egg for its ritual to make half-dragons, and any others must be cared for. Chromatic dragons are not sentimental about their offspring and only grudgingly give them life - they are competition after all. The half-dragon pledges to serve its parents and loyalty to its half-siblings. Cyanwrath is half-sibling to Lennithon, the blue dragon that attacked Greenest. Rezmir and Cyanwrath believe that half-dragons are the truest and most faithful of the Cult, and they secretly believe that only they will survive what's to come, that humans and other folk are doomed.
Anyway, I have a 3rd-level Path of the Bear Totem Barbarian as Cyanwrath's prisoner. I figure he'll really help them through the final stretch. They free him only after taking a beating from Cyanwrath. Then they get into with the fire bombing kobolds, and then the guard drake in the hatchery. Then decided to take a short rest in the dragon shrine area. After the short rest, they trigger the acid trap, then quickly decide to get out of the caverns. But they've taken a short rest and have let kobolds flee from battle. Frulam Mondath is ready and waiting for them! She assaults them at the cave entrance - her entourage is nerfed btw - but still my group is overcome and I have to sacrifice my barbarian NPC, to hold them off while they retreat back into the caves. Anyway things get worse and they end up in Mondath's study, everything is on fire, and PCs are dropping, until it's one of them left against one fanatical cultist (Mondath is down). I know he's likely not to make it, so I have to send in a deus ex machina of Lineth Swift, Sargent Markguth and other grateful Greenest fighters, who came to check on them. They show up at the very last moment. It was rough going, and I really didn't want it to be so hard, but adversity is good for character growth, right?
So my group is currently "On the Road." I am trying to use most of the suggested encounters. Fungus Humungous was a pretty good episode since my players were quite scared of the mushrooms - it occurred the morning after some characters had decided to find and sample some wild mushrooms. Two of them had an intense trip with some lasting after effects.
The Stranded encounter with the hobgoblins was okay just for a little combat.
The Golden Stag is probably the most memorable encounter so far. I included a banshee in the ruined tower where the stag retreats to and is revealed as an ancient elf prince. The banshee is the spirit of the woman he spurned - her father placed the stag curse on him.
Only one character decided to join the hunt and was dropped to 0hp by the banshee's wail. At the same time, perytons attacked the caravan (Bane of the Mountains). I tried to tie in the perytons with the banshee story (they were created when carrion birds feasted on the remains of the woman who became the banshee - she had performed a ritual to win the elf prince's love by eating the heart of the woman he truly loved - anyway, the characters didn't pick up on that so no matter).
Anywho, the character who dropped to 0 failed their first two death saves, so I had the elf prince save her - but at a cost. His curse also became hers. I asked the character what her spirit animal would be and now she is a lynx. With silver fur and much like the stag has everyone wanting to kill her for her coat.
The players heard the banshee wail and followed and defeated her. They then agreed to help the elf and were rewarded with some elvenkind items that used to be his and had survived the centuries.
Now we are in Dragonspear. It is a small settlement with a garrison that guards against threats from Dragonspear Castle. I was a little stumped on what to do in Dragonspear. It appears on the map as a town. Anyway I've decided to combine the No Room at the Inn encounter with Roadside Hospitality encounter. The twins are the ones behind getting the veterans to act like such jerks. They wanted to be alone with them - they've heard rumours of treasure being transported on the Trade Way and think this group may be part of it...
So my group is currently "On the Road." I am trying to use most of the suggested encounters. Fungus Humungous was a pretty good episode since my players were quite scared of the mushrooms - it occurred the morning after some characters had decided to find and sample some wild mushrooms. Two of them had an intense trip with some lasting after effects.
The Stranded encounter with the hobgoblins was okay just for a little combat.
The Golden Stag is probably the most memorable encounter so far. I included a banshee in the ruined tower where the stag retreats to and is revealed as an ancient elf prince. The banshee is the spirit of the woman he spurned - her father placed the stag curse on him.
Only one character decided to join the hunt and was dropped to 0hp by the banshee's wail. At the same time, perytons attacked the caravan (Bane of the Mountains). I tried to tie in the perytons with the banshee story (they were created when carrion birds feasted on the remains of the woman who became the banshee - she had performed a ritual to win the elf prince's love by eating the heart of the woman he truly loved - anyway, the characters didn't pick up on that so no matter).
Anywho, the character who dropped to 0 failed their first two death saves, so I had the elf prince save her - but at a cost. His curse also became hers. I asked the character what her spirit animal would be and now she is a lynx. With silver fur and much like the stag has everyone wanting to kill her for her coat.
The players heard the banshee wail and followed and defeated her. They then agreed to help the elf and were rewarded with some elvenkind items that used to be his and had survived the centuries.
Now we are in Dragonspear. It is a small settlement with a garrison that guards against threats from Dragonspear Castle. I was a little stumped on what to do in Dragonspear. It appears on the map as a town. Anyway I've decided to combine the No Room at the Inn encounter with Roadside Hospitality encounter. The twins are the ones behind getting the veterans to act like such jerks. They wanted to be alone with them - they've heard rumours of treasure being transported on the Trade Way and think this group may be part of it...
That's a really cool way to incorporate an early PC death and still make the player not feel like they got too little time with their character. My group is in this episode now. Having two kids in the group, they're not big on the RP stuff so I'm trying to move the episode along at a good clip. I'm throwing in a dungeon just to spice it up and since the kids like the dungeons more than any other aspect of the game. That'll be at Dragonspear Castle itself. The rest of the encounters may or may not happen, depending on player choices after the castle. We've got a lawful good ranger in the group so I really do want to throw the golden stag encounter at them and see what they all do. Adding a banshee to the encounter would be a good way to increase the challenge of it since our group is almost to L6 on XP. (We started at 4 because we went straight into tyranny of dragons from lost mines.)
Currently we are on the "On the Road" chapter and starting at the beginning of the campaign I read through the entire campaign and picked up pain points. One of the obvious pain points was the blandness of "On The Road" So I've been sowing foreshadowing throughout the first few chapters.
I really like the character of Jamna Gleamsilver, so I actually made her a story hook that met the party at the beginning of the campaign. The Black Network knows something is up, but doesn't want to yet reveal that. So what better way then to throw adventurers that have no realization that they are being used by the Black Network at a problem?
You can promise them a 100 G each and if they die then you don't even have to pay!
I also did this because I don't like how she "disappears" after Chapter 5... so I have plans to use her later in the campaign as well :-)
One of my players wants to be a Totem of the Elk Barbarian, he is multi-classing, so he hasn't yet gotten to level 3 Barbarian. So I plan to "turn" the Random road event "Golden Stag" as a story point for him. The Golden Stag is actually an Elk Lord of the Summer Courts that traveled through a Fey Crossing to reach him and grant his blessing to him.
Also, within Volo's Guide to Monsters, it talks about the process of creating Drakes, which I highly recommend everyone read. It gives some great ideas.
One of my characters is a Silver Dragonborn, and Rezmir is a decidedly cruel and vindictive True follower of Tiamat. She captured the Silver Dragonborn during the Greenest in Flames episode (the player couldn't make it for a few sessions)... and (with the player's permissions) while the party was trying to rescue both Leosin and the Dragonborn... Rezmir was expirementing on the Dragonborn... seeing if Dragonborn scales has even a fraction of worth compared to Dragon scales... Unbeknownst to Rezmir, this Dragonborn had taken the Hoard of the Dragon Queen Background "You have a secret" (the one where he was once a dragon)...
So his dragonborn scales aren't normal dragonborn scales. So now Rezmir has an enormous Silver Drake and has the (incorrect) idea that dragonborn scales are a cheap alternative to making a drake army... They arrived in Baldur's Gate to find a string of dragonborn abductions. They haven't yet figured out why, or that Rezmir has a Silver Drake yet... Should come towards the end of the "On The Road" if the players get nosey and peak into the giant crate that the cultists keep mysteriously shoveling meat into.
Hmmm... if the characters are still Level 2 by On The Road, they may have some difficulty coming up. The adventure is suggested to be one level per Chapter except 5 (see Introduction).
Gotta admit... silver Drakes sound cool... and scary. Nice work there. And mysterious abductions to derail the chase are a good addition!
Oh, sorry, I think I did a poor job explaining, they are level 5 at the moment. They actually started the campaign out at level 2 to give them a "little" breathing room because of the brutal Greenest in Flames episode. The Barbarian is multi-classing, so he is 3 levels Rogue and 2 levels Barbarian at the moment and hasn't gotten his Barbarian's Path yet.
I also plan on having addle-brained abominations from all the failed experiments Rezmir has been doing on the regular Dragonborn scales... Trying to reproduce the same affects that the Silver Dragonborn's scales made. I'll be using Mongrelfolk stats from Curse of Strahd for them.
They already came across a cultist shanty within the Blackgate district of Baldur's Gate that contained hanged and quartered dragonborns with their scales missing from their bodies.
Let's just say we are running Hoard of the Dragon Queen to be a lot darker than what is written in the book.
Ahhh... that makes more sense. Dark is awesome. Ours has not been that dark, but still fun. Of course, we bring our own brand of darkness with my Raven Queen Hexblade and the Necromantic Priest (Copper Dragonborn). I'm looking forward to 6th level and seeing how things fall when I summon my first specter. Not everyone realizes how "Neutral" some of us are... and how much 7 years in Shadowfell will warp a human's perspective.
One of the problems I had with the beginning of this adventure was justifying the raiders' presence. How much gold and treasure could there possibly be in the Greenfields? Before Greenest, the Cult has been attacking small settlements. And though It says Greenest is prosperous, is it all really enough to justify commanding a small army? You have to keep troops fed, especially the mercenary ones. So, my answer was to say that Dharva Scatterheart was a halfling adventurer who founded Greenest with her share of a slain red dragon's hoard, and that her treasures were given as gifts to those families who founded the town with her and then handed down as heirlooms over the next hundred years or so. Some of her adventuring companions stayed there for some time, and their wealth also passed into the surrounding settlements. Scatterheart was rumoured to have hidden a large portion of her treasure somewhere in town, however - it's in a walled up tunnel in the cellar of the Hollow Oak, the town's inn and tavern. Rezmir knows this and Leosin Erlanthar has finally put the pieces together and thinks that the Dragon Cult will soon strike Greenest.
My group of four players had a hard time in the Dragon Hatchery. I severely nerfed most encounters, but the traps alone really took their toll. I knew going in that they may need some help so I had to introduce an NPC to help. I made it so Cyanwrath had taken a prisoner from one of the raids. His reason for challenging people to one-on-one combat is really a way for him to find suitable subjects. He needs strong resilient people who can survive transformation into a half-dragon.
He has discovered a ritual to do this (I cribbed this from someone else). It involves using the blood from newborn dragons, and this is the real reason behind the hatchery. Cyanwrath made a deal with the black dragons, Voaraghamanthar and Waervaerendor (really considering changing those names :). I am changing their gender to female - they are Rezmir's half-sisters. Rezmir was created from an egg from the same brood they were born from. This is how the bargain works: A dragon will let the cult hatch their eggs for them. The cult gets to use one egg for its ritual to make half-dragons, and any others must be cared for. Chromatic dragons are not sentimental about their offspring and only grudgingly give them life - they are competition after all. The half-dragon pledges to serve its parents and loyalty to its half-siblings. Cyanwrath is half-sibling to Lennithon, the blue dragon that attacked Greenest. Rezmir and Cyanwrath believe that half-dragons are the truest and most faithful of the Cult, and they secretly believe that only they will survive what's to come, that humans and other folk are doomed.
Anyway, I have a 3rd-level Path of the Bear Totem Barbarian as Cyanwrath's prisoner. I figure he'll really help them through the final stretch. They free him only after taking a beating from Cyanwrath. Then they get into with the fire bombing kobolds, and then the guard drake in the hatchery. Then decided to take a short rest in the dragon shrine area. After the short rest, they trigger the acid trap, then quickly decide to get out of the caverns. But they've taken a short rest and have let kobolds flee from battle. Frulam Mondath is ready and waiting for them! She assaults them at the cave entrance - her entourage is nerfed btw - but still my group is overcome and I have to sacrifice my barbarian NPC, to hold them off while they retreat back into the caves. Anyway things get worse and they end up in Mondath's study, everything is on fire, and PCs are dropping, until it's one of them left against one fanatical cultist (Mondath is down). I know he's likely not to make it, so I have to send in a deus ex machina of Lineth Swift, Sargent Markguth and other grateful Greenest fighters, who came to check on them. They show up at the very last moment. It was rough going, and I really didn't want it to be so hard, but adversity is good for character growth, right?
So my group is currently "On the Road." I am trying to use most of the suggested encounters. Fungus Humungous was a pretty good episode since my players were quite scared of the mushrooms - it occurred the morning after some characters had decided to find and sample some wild mushrooms. Two of them had an intense trip with some lasting after effects.
The Stranded encounter with the hobgoblins was okay just for a little combat.
The Golden Stag is probably the most memorable encounter so far. I included a banshee in the ruined tower where the stag retreats to and is revealed as an ancient elf prince. The banshee is the spirit of the woman he spurned - her father placed the stag curse on him.
Only one character decided to join the hunt and was dropped to 0hp by the banshee's wail. At the same time, perytons attacked the caravan (Bane of the Mountains). I tried to tie in the perytons with the banshee story (they were created when carrion birds feasted on the remains of the woman who became the banshee - she had performed a ritual to win the elf prince's love by eating the heart of the woman he truly loved - anyway, the characters didn't pick up on that so no matter).
Anywho, the character who dropped to 0 failed their first two death saves, so I had the elf prince save her - but at a cost. His curse also became hers. I asked the character what her spirit animal would be and now she is a lynx. With silver fur and much like the stag has everyone wanting to kill her for her coat.
The players heard the banshee wail and followed and defeated her. They then agreed to help the elf and were rewarded with some elvenkind items that used to be his and had survived the centuries.
Now we are in Dragonspear. It is a small settlement with a garrison that guards against threats from Dragonspear Castle. I was a little stumped on what to do in Dragonspear. It appears on the map as a town. Anyway I've decided to combine the No Room at the Inn encounter with Roadside Hospitality encounter. The twins are the ones behind getting the veterans to act like such jerks. They wanted to be alone with them - they've heard rumours of treasure being transported on the Trade Way and think this group may be part of it...
That's a really cool way to incorporate an early PC death and still make the player not feel like they got too little time with their character. My group is in this episode now. Having two kids in the group, they're not big on the RP stuff so I'm trying to move the episode along at a good clip. I'm throwing in a dungeon just to spice it up and since the kids like the dungeons more than any other aspect of the game. That'll be at Dragonspear Castle itself. The rest of the encounters may or may not happen, depending on player choices after the castle. We've got a lawful good ranger in the group so I really do want to throw the golden stag encounter at them and see what they all do. Adding a banshee to the encounter would be a good way to increase the challenge of it since our group is almost to L6 on XP. (We started at 4 because we went straight into tyranny of dragons from lost mines.)
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