D&D 5E Enhancing "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)

jayoungr said:

Frulam Mondath's Poetry

The book says that the papers on Frulam Mondath's desk in the dragon hatchery are mostly "bad poetry about dragons." When my group heard about this, they all laughed hysterically and proceeded to improvise the poems. I present them here for your entertainment.

Roses are red.
Dragons are red.
They breathe fire,
And then you're all dead.

Violets are blue.
Dragons are blue.
My love for them is true.
They breathe lightning,
And then you're dead too.

Black as a dragon.
Black as night.
I don't know the rest,
So I'll end it right.

Snow is white.
Dragons are white.
They're the opposite of night,
And that's all right.
​

They didn't do a poem for green, so I'll add that one now...

Dragons are green,
If you know what I mean.
When they breathe on the forest,
They make it quite clean.
​

And here's Frulam Mondath in a more emo vein:

Black!!!
Black night.
Black dragon.
Black acid.
Black me.
Black like my tormented soul.​

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I made up my own. I didn't want to say "its mostly bad poetry about dragons," cuz I know they would have just said "like what?"
I went out of my way to make it sound cheesy, so here goes:
A white sound shivers
Cascading snowfall soars
A Death into the frost

Fang and wing
Above is beautiful death
Searing death, beautiful flame
Choking death, rising cloud
Icy death, frozen flesh
Sizzling death, raging storm
Raining death, burning swamp
Her majestic agony of five

Wing’s blue beauty
Soar of the Fang
Crackle in the desert

The dragon wings beat
up in the air, like a bird
that can devour you

Deepest deserts where suns forever fly
burn to dust nearly everything,
but their eternal heat cannot hope to dry
the malicious, insidious azure king.

akr71 said:

I made up my own. I didn't want to say "its mostly bad poetry about dragons," cuz I know they would have just said "like what?"

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If I'd had more time, I would have liked to work up actual papers for them to sort through at the table. But I ran up running chapter 3 sooner than expected, because my players completely blew chapter 2.

I went out of my way to make it sound cheesy, so here goes:
A white sound shivers
Cascading snowfall soars
A Death into the frost

Fang and wing
Above is beautiful death
Searing death, beautiful flame
Choking death, rising cloud
Icy death, frozen flesh
Sizzling death, raging storm
Raining death, burning swamp
Her majestic agony of five

Wing’s blue beauty
Soar of the Fang
Crackle in the desert

The dragon wings beat
up in the air, like a bird
that can devour you

Deepest deserts where suns forever fly
burn to dust nearly everything,
but their eternal heat cannot hope to dry
the malicious, insidious azure king.

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Awesome!! *applauds* I hope your players liked it?

I think so. I didn't get any open laughter or rolling of eyes... which is what I was aiming for. However, Frulam escaped (I gave her a potion of Invisibility) and I hope to have her 'meet' the party in Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep. She heard them coming and actually bumped into one of them after quaffing the potion and fleeing. They also caught a glimpse of her in the raid on Greenest - I like for the PCs to have frequent run-ins with the bad-guys before an ultimate show-down.

DM's Guild Resources

The DM's Guild has a few interesting items that can be used to enhance Tyranny of Dragons. Here are some that could be useful with HotDQ:

"DM's Kit: On the Trail of Tyranny"
Man, do I ever wish I'd had this while I was running HotDQ. Here's what it offers for that part of the adventure (it has more for RoT):

• A table of random traits for NPC healers, in case your group needs one.
• An extended adventure for using Frulam Mondath, in case she gets away.
• Rules for chasing Rezmir's palanquin through the streets of Baldur's Gate!
• A catty letter from Talis for the group to find.
• A handy roleplaying chart to help you keep all the NPCs in the caravan straight.
• Ideas for souping up the Hunting Lodge, including an alpine chase!

"The Frozen Castle"
It looks like this was probably an actual chapter of Tyranny of Dragons that was cut from the books! It's the perfect transition between HotDQ and RoT if Skyreach Castle crashes at the end of HotDQ. It's a sandboxy mini-adventure in which the PCs must negotiate between various hostile groups to get the castle repaired and then fight off an attempt by the cult to reclaim it. Although it's listed as being for levels 10-11, it shouldn't be too hard to scale it down for a level 7-8 group; there's very little combat, and you can provide your players with some gear to help them deal with the cold-weather hazards. (My group didn't crash the castle, so I'm inserting it into Rise of Tiamat at the recommended level.)

"Springboard Adventures for Tyranny of Dragons"
By the author of "On the Trail of Tyranny," this supplement has ideas on how to reuse maps, stat blocks, and other elements from the adventure. Includes tips on how to reskin things to fit a whole new campaign, as well as hooks for sequel or side quests to fit into the regular Tyranny of Dragons campaign.

"The Tournament at Scornubel" (Pay What You Want)
This would be very handy to insert between chapters 3 and 4 of HotDQ while PCs are traveling from Greenest to Baldur's Gate. It's a mystery mini-adventure and tournament scenario, with unique magic items as prizes for the competitions.

pukunui said:

As fun as Evard's black tentacles can be, I think I might just leave it out. What do you guys think?

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We got caught in the Tentacles. (I was still a Paladin at the time.) We decided that the "Magic Knight" was too tough to handle - I had the only magic weapon in the group and did not seem to be getting anywhere with it - so I led my group in the best remaining option: I Disengaged, moved across the room, and jumped through the not-open window calling "Follow me !"

I almost landed on the Troll.

More DM's Guild Resources

Note: I haven't purchased or read any of these, but people running Tyranny of Dragons may be interested in adding them to your campaigns!

Hoard of the Dragon Queen Chapter 1 maps (Pay What You Want)
Not the ones from the book; this appears to be third-party maps for the encounters in Greenest.

Heroic Backgrounds: Cults of Faerun
Backgrounds (with Bonds, Ideals, Flaws, and Traits) for various cult organizations, including the Cult of the Dragon. Could be useful for PCs or for fleshing out NPCs.

The Reaching Woods (adventure)
Explicitly designed to fit into HotDQ between chapters 3 and 4, this adventure has the Cult of the Dragon attacking the Reaching Woods. It culminates in a large battle using the mass combat rules from Unearthed Arcana.

Sword Coast Side Quests Volume 1: The Lair of Kragnoroth the Drunk (adventure)
Suitable for characters of levels 1-3, this could be a side quest after chapter 3 or a lead-in to the campaign, if you'd like to start at level 1 but fear that the Greenest attack is too deadly. Looks like a beat-'em-up with a bandit gang. It has 15 encounters and several potential adventure hooks.

Sword Coast Side Quests Volume 2: The Laboratory of Raoul Footpad (adventure)
For 3rd level characters. Looks like it would fit nicely between chapters 3 and 4 also. This one seems more horror-themed, with a laboratory where a magical experiment went awry now full of monsters and undead.

Under the Barrow (adventure) (Pay What You Want)
A side quest designed to take place during chapter 4. During the journey from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep, Green Imsa wanders away from the caravan and is abducted. The PCs must rescue her.

I'm about to transition from LMoP to HotDQ (after expecting my PCs to be wanting to role their own characters but apparently they've become too attached). My plan is to have Nezznar be a member of the cult and the raids he's been running have been to gather tribute for Tiamat (the mine being a potential jewel in the crown.) when the PCs have their final confrontation he'll teleport away to join Rezmir (if he gets a chance) in any event they'll find a letter connecting him to the cult. When the PCs return to Phandalin I'll have Sildar fill them in a bit but also point them to Leilon where they should meet Ontharr Frume (moving him there to make the geography make sense). There he'll give them more background on the cult and speak of an agent who's gone missing (Leosin) and say his last known destination was the roadhouse on the high road. And thus the transition is achieved and the major characters introduced.

I intend to have Leosin imprisoned at Castle Naerytar where they'll also encounter Nezznar again (if he managed to escape) where he'll be tasked with defending Rezmirs escape.

Thanks to @MerricB for recommending that connection point. I think this is going to work well and after running away from the dragon in Thundertree I know my players are looking forward to another chance to encounter them.

@jayoungr thanks for starting these threads for ToD as a collection of awesome ideas for DMs.

Still early days for us as we are somewhere between chapters 3 and 4, except my group decided to travel to Baldur's Gate via a cargo ship, along the coastline, and I'm getting to sneak-in side adventures along the way. Our backstory is very different as the group started HotDQ being level 9 and they are originally from Mystara and in an attempt to escape a scouting party of Githyanki they used an unknown teleportation circle at a Way Point and found themselves in the basement of the Temple of Chauntea during the Cult's assault of Greenest. So they began HotDQ with the Santuary - being with the people trapped inside the Temple.

In Greenest I made one of the acolytes an undercover high-level Abjurer assisting the Cult in setting up the attack, ensuring the Bishop of Greenest was away at the time. The Abjurer destroyed the Teleportation Circle under the Temple of Chauntea fearing that more 'strangers' would come through and upset the Cult's plans - so the party found itself temporarily trapped in Faerun.
Once they rescued Leosin and returned to the town, the Abjurer (still undercover) under direct instructions by the cult via Message organised an ambush at the Mill with some mercs. Things went bad for the party and one of them died and another was captured for interrogation.
The captive PC was rescued in Episode 3: Dragon Hatchery - with Frulam and Langedrosa getting away, however the party uncovered the location of the Abjurer's hideout and were successful in defeating him.

The Abjurer had ties to Rath Modar - placing protective spells on Rath to hide him from the Red Wizards, especially from Szass Tam who is aware of is plot to overthrow him.

So the reason for the party travelling to Baldur's Gate is three fold:
1. Ressurect a friend as they have heard it might be possible to ressurect in this world (not in our Mystara setting), using one or two of the dragon eggs for payment.
2. Catchup to the Cult and seek vengeance
3. Find a way back home to Mystara if possible - its a large city there is bound to be a Teleportation Circle.

The added complication being that they have not heard the last of the Githyanki...having stolen one of their silvered weapons. Furthermore an alliance between the Githyanki and the Cult could make for dangerously powerful enemies - and their alliance is natural given the Tiamat/Dragon/Githyanki connection. It would make sense that the Githyanki would seek to assist the Cult in unleashing Tiamat.

Keep up the great work!

So that Evard's black tentacles proved to be the undoing of my party. The PCs rejected Talis' deal, so she shouted for her guardians, and along came the helmed horror ... and since Talis' hall isn't very big, the tentacles filled almost the entire space (she'd already escaped out a window at this point). Two PCs died from the tentacles. A third would have as well if the fourth, a moon druid, hadn't managed to escape out of the room, which resulted in me having the horror chase after him and stop concentrating on the spell in the process. I suppose you could also argue that the fourth PC would've died as well if he hadn't been a moon druid with virtually limitless hit points.

Anyway, so he eventually circled back around and rescued the still living PC, and at the end of the session, I suggested he could look for some druids in the mountains to see about getting the two dead PCs reincarnated. That'd undoubtedly take a bit of time, and Rezmir is already several days ahead of them, so I'm struggling to think of a reason why I shouldn't have the castle be long gone if/when the PCs ever end up going to Parnast. Yes, I know I'm the DM, and the adventure even says it's up to me to decide when the castle leaves, so I could just have it hang around because reasons ... but seriously, by the time they get to Parnast, it'll have been about a tenday since Rezmir left Naerytar for Skyreach.

Should I just skip chapter 8 and go right into The Rise of Tiamat? If yes, should I have the PCs start at level 7 or bump them up to level 8? (They technically defeated Talis by forcing her to flee, so I'm going to let them get to 7th at the very least.)

pukunui said:

Should I just skip chapter 8 and go right into The Rise of Tiamat?

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My two cents? No, for two reasons, one in-game and one out-of-game.

The in-game reason is because you've already seeded hints about Skyreach. You had the prophecy from the golden stag about the "castle in the sky," and the rumors about cloud giants at the Well of Dragons.

The out-of-game reason is because Skyreach Castle is fun; why withhold fun from the players just because they had the misfortune to die?

I can think of a couple of ways to patch it over. One is to let them get their resurrection more quickly than expected. Is there anyone left in the castle who might know exactly where some druids might be? Or what if a cult-aligned cleric/druid happens to come in through one of the portals--could they bluff a cultist into doing the spell for them?

As for why the castle might not have left yet: The first idea that occurs to me is that it's a trap. Rezmir wants to make sure these pesky adventurers are actually dealt with, so she's keeping everything looking "normal" until they show up. Maybe she's decided that she's only going to give them one more day. Maybe she even wants to lure them onto the floating castle, where she can deal with them personally.

Or it might not be deliberate. Rezmir could be waiting for one more shipment, or she could be quarreling with Blagothkus over the terms of the use of the castle. Just a lucky break for the PCs. I think they're entitled to a few lucky breaks given how badly things went for them at the hunting lodge.