I am very happy with how it turned out! I spent forever on this bad lady and it's so good to finally be done with it. Can't wait to put it on the table eventually :)
The captain had a typical minor reason to go to Baldur's Gate. He was taking goods made in the farming regions to the south and delivering them to BG. In doing so, he used the last of his savings to buy the goods in an effort to make a minor profit when he arrived. No insurance, of course. During the travel, it went extremely smoothly and the group even made friends with him. Upon arriving he mentioned that the priority was dropping off the livestock as they aren't allowed deeper in the city. The goblin mentions that he is worried about his merchandise on the vessel, so the group offers to take the livestock to the butcher and recieve payment for him. Well, they take the livestock and do neither. They unleash them in the streets and docks of BG. Effectively, ruining this goblin.
Now, they continued their journey and are doing a side quest in the city. While this is occuring, I'd love for the goblin to look for a way to make some money. So, there happens to be this Dragon Cult moving a hoard of gold through the city. I'm having them hire on this goblin. In his hatred of the group, I want him to offer himself up to one of their transformative rituals. What would be the best creature/dragon hybrid to turn this guy into? I'm looking for something that would give a group of six level 5 or 6 (it'll be a bit until they run into him) players a tough time.
Hi. I've never DMed before. We just started and one of my players (Cherry is the name of their character for clarity's sake) decided to initiate the first fight when everyone else wanted to try to avoid the encounter, which for another of my PCs (Sourania) was strike number one. Then later in the fight Cherry (who was at full health) decided to hide behind the other party members (most of which were not at full health) which was strike 2 and 3 for Sourania. So after Cherry got a critical hit rock from a sling to the dome (and was downed) Sourania decided to try to pick up and chuck Cherry's body at the enemy kobolds which I had her roll a strength check for... which was a nat 1 (side note there was like 35% crits in this session it was crazy) so Sourania dropped Cherry's 300 lb body on their own head. Then after the fight the entire party basically sprinted away from Cherry (who was stable) because the only one who could heal was Sourania (who refused to do so.) This left Cherry to wander the town on his own until he eventually came across a couple cultists who were raiding a building (Cherry decided to start looting the houses which is how he came across these guys. (He avoided everyone else.) And he managed to convince them to let him join. (I made that persuasion check very high and my guy rolled a nat 20 25... at level one. (He's a wizard btw. His stat spread is WEIRD.)) Anyway point is I'm humbly asking for help for what to do now. Tbh I really should have just not let that check pass happen at all but I did and here we are. (Also I'm not great at improv (really storytelling/writing in general) and only really took the dm position because my entire friend group (including me) wanted to play dnd and noone else was willing to dm :/ )
I am trying to prep for episode 2 of rise of tiamat, and I can't find a stat sheet for an Ice hunter, may i have some help in finding either a ice hunter sheet or a replacement?
***If you recognize the coat of arms on this post, read no further***
(This was given to the party by the people of Greenest as a humble thank you)
I’m running a heavily modified Tyranny of Dragons campaign that began with Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, and we’ve just reached the transition into Elturel / Chapter 4. My group really enjoys mystery, exploration, and character development, so I’ve been trying to turn the adventure into a conspiracy they slowly uncover rather than simply moving them from chapter to chapter.
Very abbreviated lore dump of the campaign so far:
The King-Killer Star passed during Stormwreck Isle and stirred up ancient draconic power. The party stopped Sparkrender from exploiting dragon spirits, traveled south, arrived in Greenest during the Cult’s attack, defended the town, infiltrated the raider camp, rescued Leosin, returned to the Hatchery, killed the remaining Cult leadership there, destroyed the dragon eggs, and discovered that the stolen hoard is being shipped north toward a mysterious place called Naerytar.
They’re now leaving Greenest for Elturel.
Behind the scenes, I’m expanding the Cult’s plan considerably.
The summoning of Tiamat is eventually going to turn out to be part of a much larger mythal-scale ritual rather than the entire objective. I’m tying this into the old Dracorage/King-Killer Star lore: essentially, the Cult is rediscovering the magical principles behind the original Dracorage Mythal and attempting to create something new that would allow Tiamat to exert control over living chromatic dragons on a massive scale.
One PC’s Archfey patron, the Host of Verdant Tables, is connected to the ancient origins of some of that mythal knowledge. The Host’s magic revolves around hospitality, reciprocity, bargains, gifts, and the idea that great power always requires something to be given in return. Eventually, I want the party to discover that the Cult has made its own bargain with this same entity.
Meanwhile, Orcus has a separate vested interest in what is happening. I don’t want him secretly responsible for the Cult or Tiamat’s plan; rather, he’s another major power watching events unfold and potentially positioning himself to take advantage of whatever happens. That thread is already connected personally to one of the PCs and is intended to grow into something much larger later.
So the long-term campaign is gradually becoming about dragons, mythals, bargains, death, renewal, and what happens when powerful beings start interfering with natural cycles.
But the PCs know almost none of that yet.
Barbarian: He has a demonic presence connected to his past and carries a cursed talisman associated with Orcus. He once destroyed his own home while possessed, but defending Greenest gave him his first real experience of using that same strength to protect a community instead. I’m thinking Elturel could be where he first learns more about who Orcus actually is, while Baldur’s Gate gives me room to deepen that mystery later.
Wildfire Druid: Last survivor of an isolated druid circle. At the end of DoSI, he became Circle of Wildfire and gained a fire spirit companion. His emerging theme is destruction versus renewal. He destroyed the Cult’s dragon eggs without hesitation, but later refused to participate when the others brutally finished off helpless enemies. I’m especially interested in developing him during the journey—damaged wilderness, other druids, Emerald Enclave connections, ecological scars from draconic activity, etc.
I want to explore the question of whether he’s genuinely learning that fire can destroy so that life can begin again, or whether repeated violence is simply hardening him.
Archfey Warlock: His patron is the Host mentioned above. He carries a supernatural Ledger that records strange debts and exchanges, and he recently started using blank pages as a private illustrated journal. The book absorbs his drawings, potentially allowing the Host to observe events through his very whimsical interpretation of them.
I’m also thinking Chapter 4 could give him stronger mortal connections. I could see him fitting surprisingly well with either the Harpers or the Zhentarim depending on who he meets and how those relationships develop.
I really don’t want On the Road to become a slog like so many people make it out to be, but I also don't want to miss this chance for better character exposition.
I’d rather make it a traveling character-development chapter with the Cult investigation quietly advancing in the background.
The PCs finally have time to talk, meet people outside Greenest, see the consequences of what's happening elsewhere in the Sword Coast, and begin developing personal reasons to stay involved instead of simply following Leosin’s next assignment.
So I’d love ideas from other DMs:
I have the broad destination of the campaign mapped out, but this middle section feels like the perfect opportunity to let the characters themselves determine how we get there.
So please give me your weird NPCs, moral dilemmas, faction hooks, druid ideas, caravan stories, or shamelessly stolen side plots. 😄
TL;DR: I’m running a heavily modified Tyranny of Dragons that began with Stormwreck Isle. The party has finished Greenest and the Hatchery and is heading toward Elturel/Chapter 4. Long-term, Tiamat’s summoning is part of a larger Dracorage/Mythal plot tied to an Archfey patron, while Orcus has his own separate interest in the outcome. I want On the Road to focus less on random encounters and more on character development, faction connections, moral choices, and slowly uncovering the larger conspiracy. Looking for ideas to flesh out Elturel and Baldur's Gate before joining the caravan
I started running ToD about 4 weeks ago now (coming up on our 5th session this Thursday) and I changed some stuff so Chapter 2 came before Chapter 1. They arrive to Greenest and do the quests until the Dragon shows up, the module states to show its wrath before turning it on the players and I do so. Due to a combination of unfortuante positioning, a very unfortunate Tortle shell defense (disadvantage on DEX saving throws), and almost max damage roll on the dragon breath two out of 5 characters bit the dust. Happens I thought, D&D unfortunately has character deaths.
So they return to the camp for Chapter 3 and show up to the cave. They easily dispatch of the 2 dragonclaws + find the secret passageway into areas 12 and 13. They clear house and run into Frulam who retreats into area 11 through the chute. Langdedrosa calls out the character he dueled in Greenest and as the PC is losing the party jumps in to his rescue. 4 bersekers + Langdedrosa + Frulam seemed challenging but nothing the party couldn't handle I thought. The party survived by the skin of their teeth with one additional character death (very unfortunate positioning and unlucky death saving throws).
I heard this module was awfully balanced but is it actually this bad? Are my players getting unlucky/am I being too harsh? There have been 3 character deaths over the span of 2 sessions, I do hold back quite a lot (Frulam only used spiritual guardians when Langdedrosa had already died, and 2/4 berserkers were half health) and I even made Leosin a level 5 monk to counter this alledged awful balance.
This leaves me with the following question: How many character deaths are too many before I make some sort of change? Story wise I do not know how many times I can bring new characters as prisoners, or friends of an NPC before it gets to repetitive and ruins the immersion. The party are 6 in total, 1 player will join in about two weeks and 1 will leave for 2 months due to irl issues, should I consider bringing someone else in?
I’ve come to dub the group “tactical aggressors”. Not quite murderhobos, but they seem to think that violence is, indeed, the first answer, regardless the question.
As the title says. I try to give e moments and beats. I thought it’d be interesting to meet Rezmir on her way to the portal under Naerytar, and believed she could make it. She didn’t. They took Hazirawn and the mask. And her head.
I thought it’d be a tense negotiation scene with Talis in the lodge, where she offers information on the cult and the castle in exchange for the mask. They didn’t think so. Even more deliciously, they suffocated Talis as they were trying to restrain her for interrogation. Now they have her dead body in the bag of holding, and a mission to find a 5th level cleric for Speak with the Dead.
They rolled incredibly well in survival, used feats etc so now they’ve made it to Parnast. They’ve seen the castle. The villagers give away nothing. They got drunk in the tavern.
So come next session, they will be awakened with a massive rumble as the giant castle floats off above their heads….possibly with Glazhael lazily flying next to it as rearguard. Mostly because I want them to fight a dragon.
After that, we’ll see. Maybe they fight the dragon. Maybe they chase the castle. Maybe they shrug and try to make it back to Waterdeep. As long as they enjoy meeting every week.
I just cannot figure out a logical reason why they would take the Greenest loot all the past the sword mountains. They have a hidden flying castle which makes better time than any oxcart and doesn't involve hiding important resources from multiple city customs. Dead Mire isn't even the fastest way to get to the Well from Greenest.
I'm planning to have the castle land outside the hatchery camp, and then have them track the castle and rezmir up the trade way from Greenest as skyreach stops at various rural areas to pick up loot. The castle being a carrot to bait the PCs the right way. Over a month of in game time, I cannot imagine my players not interacting with the slow carts at some point/not chafing at being told they must silently and slowly track some boxes over several leagues. I'd rather it be an investigation/man hunt touching on the ways the cult has infiltrated baldur's gate, daggerford, and waterdeep. And have them discover rezmir's castle on their own.
Would this royally screw anything up? I like the idea of being at the top of a tower rather than a dungeon at the bottom.
I recently bought Tyranny of Dragons Bundle on Roll20 and i loaded it up to find that the world map has tons of areas but the maps mainly generic battle maps
Am i missing something?
So, I am DMing a group through Tyranny (using 5.5e), and I am adding in side quests and such to flesh out sections and just make my own. We started with 4 players initially, but one dropped out due to out of game responsibilities. I have repurposed an area/quest that was intended for where he would have gotten his custom leveling item (Using Ancestral Weapons form DMsGuild to let them have something that grows with them, 2 players have theirs and 3rd getting theirs in Elturel, just common adding a cantrip so far). It is a temple that they got a side quest sending them to from a town they stop at between Greenest and Elturel.
When they attacked the Hatchery, they ran into Cyanwrath first, and playing off the adventure saying he is more loyal to Frulam than to the Order, had him yell in draconic when near death for Frulam to escape, the cave is lost (set up later that Rezmir had okayed abandoning the eggs to prevent capture, as having Rezmir believe the adventures are part of a more organized resistance and so doesn't want information spilling out). So Frulam and her guards bug out.
The Side quest is that the PCs were hired by the innkeeper of small town (if you're in the US, think those small towns that spring up by Highways that are just a hotel or two, and a couple fast food restaurants, and not much else), under pretense that a pack of wolves being led by an owlbear have become more bloodthirsty, having attacked the town and killed a resident and cows, and even attacked a trade caravan. In reality, Frulam arrived, killed the resident for resisting, kidnapped the towns kids (innkeeper just said they were being kept inside when PC asked) and told the town to send any adventurers that come through town to the temple on the "quest".
I decided to set up that maybe Frulam is a Death Cleric (to me seems logical that a Cleric of Tiamat could be Death Domain, given Cults old methods) and that while she is on board with the new plans, used to help with the old undead approach so has some spells and spell scrolls. For narrative reasons custom to our campaign and pulling from our previous campaign, there was fighting at this temple and a dead young green dragon.
PCs are all lvl 5, with an Assassin Rogue, Life Cleric, and 4 Genie Paladin/1 Warlock. Cleric this is their 2nd campaign (other than some back in the 80s, rogue was back in 80s some as well, and paladin was 3.5). This is my 2nd campaign as a DM (recently started playing in another one for first time) so still getting a hang of balancing, and trying to account for how party comp effects how reliable CR is.
On arriving to the temple, they had a first encounter of 6 zombies and 3 ghouls. The Cleric did use Turn Undead (only used 1 Channel Divinity Charge, so still has rest) and that trivialized the fight with 2 ghouls and 3 zombies failing their checks. Rogue got beat up a bit, used a health potion so is still down a few HP. P/W used 1 spell slot, not sure if pact or regular, but not time for rest anyway. Frulam called them into temple, tried to interrogate them, realized they were lying, and so decided to just "question them when dead". She then raised the dead dragon (using a Young Zombie Dragon stat block I found on SRD website) and 4 more zombies, to back Frulam (using the Tyranny statblock, but had planned to up her health till started worrying about if I made this fight unfair) and 2 guards (Had planned Dragonclaw statblock, but wondering if needing downgrade).
A Moderate encounter has an xp budget of 2250, and deadly 3300, this falls inbetween at 2600 if use Dragonclaws, 2500 if guards. But I am wondering if I have failed to account for something. Obviously the Cleric can use Turn Undead again, and potentially trivialize the Dragon, but if it passes its save, I am wondering if I have failed to account for this group. As a just in case I have set up a narrative note that the cleric could tell whoever the diety associated with this temple was (Selune) was still paying attention to it in a small way, and can give them the ability a few turns in to pull a few things from them (thinking a heal, couple spiritual weapons, that sort of thing). But just keep second guessing myself.
Thanks for any insights!
TLDR: Using 5.5e rules, is a Zombie Dragon, Frulam Mondath, 4 zombies, and 2 Dragonclaws a balanced difficult encounter for 3 PCs at lvl 5: Assassin Rogue, Life Cleric, 4 Genie Paladin/Warlock
I was considering having the merchants have their destination be waterdeep and the PCs continue north with the laborers to just break up some of the monotony of traveling with the merchants. Is it a bad idea to change this?
Our DM expected us to fight the Cult of the Dragon. We accidentally founded a multinational corporation instead.
Our group is currently playing Tyranny of Dragons, and our party consists entirely of four evil alignment characters.
Instead of trying to become JUST murderhobos, we decided our characters would be far more dangerous if they were competent, charismatic, and business-minded. Rather than simply serving the Archdevil Bel through violence, we asked ourselves: "What if we spread his influence the same way real corporations spread theirs?"
That one joke snowballed into Belmont Holdings, NLC., a holding company whose long-term objective is to bring capitalism to Faerûn.
The plan isn't to conquer kingdoms overnight. It's to make ourselves indispensable.
Our current subsidiaries include:
🌾 Belshire Farms — "From our hands, to your home." A farming and food company producing everything from fresh produce to baked goods. Everyone loves Belshire. That's the point.
Our Elysian Wheat comes from only the best soils south of here.
🚚 Belair Express — "Oh, we're here. And there. And there." A logistics company making trade faster and more reliable. If you control the roads, you control commerce.
🕯️ Smokey Bell Candles — "Light it. Love it. Believe it." A luxury candle company whose products just happen to serve as subtle offerings to Bel. They're also genuinely high-quality candles.
We're still waiting for our fourth player to decide what industry they'll dominate.
Our long-term business strategy is simple: Build trusted brands. Expand into every major city. Buy out competitors. Influence guilds and merchant councils. Encourage laws that favor Belmont Holdings. Replace the influence of nobles with the influence of commerce.
The funniest part is that every one of these businesses is legitimate. They create jobs, improve infrastructure, and sell quality products. They're also slowly helping an Archdevil build the most successful conglomerate in Faerûn.
Our DM prepared for dragons.
He wasn't prepared for shareholders.
I did use an image generator to produce business logos.
Hey all, my party just started Xonthal's Tower last session and they've already gone through most of the Hedge Maze rooms (I don't think they understand the sundial puzzle) and I think I'm gonna need more rooms. The book says to reuse rooms or make your own and I prefer the later. What are some more room ideas that have worked for your tables?
Due to how I've tweaked the game and choices players have made, Talis the White is now in Arauthator's lair, replacing Maccath who now is a pile of bones and a diary, RIP her. She has the White Dragon mask (the whole quest to the mummy dungeon being a fakeout just felt boring to me) which gives her a boost, but otherwise she's a chapter 7 NPC in a chapter 10 dungeon. I also plan to give Jamna Gleamsilver and Rath Modar bigger roles, and especially poor Jamna was statted out to be a match back when the PCs were level four.
How do I give them some love to make it clear they've also been level grinding behind the scenes and make them fit whatever chapter the PCs fight them in?
