D&D 5E Combining LMoP, ToD, PotA & SKT

[robus]

I've been mixing the Tyranny plot into my running of Storm King. It's been great. The whole part about the depressed giant how has been tricked/coerced into working for the dragons in Skyreach Castle is weird and great. I'm in the middle of the Imryth battle now. I've set it up to go on to the Tiamat stuff but I'm realizing I probably would want to move on directly to the Well of Dragons battle. Not interested in the council of Waterdeep part.
I like your interwoven backstory for it. I haven't used the Apocalypse stuff. Maybe you could start with that instead of the Lost Mines? The Feathergale keep is my favorite part. It might make for a good intro to the area before giants start going crazy. Also those dungeons are a good back up if the players want to do some crawling, or maybe if you want to have them find legendary weapons instead of raiding barbarian burial grounds.

Yep - my players didn't find the council meetings interesting at all. They left the council to do the rallying of the troops while they went off to find out what's up with the giants.

We're in the middle of fighting Tiamat right now. I'm not sure how it's going to go. The players don't seem to be making very smart choices...

 

[werecorpse]

Apart from the stuff written into the modules (Blagothus, the Klauth sponsored airship etc) what foreshadowing or crossover stuff would be good? Ie Harshnag can make a potential appearance in the attack on the White Dragon during RoT. The Weevil could go hide in Red Larch. Any thing else than springs to mind from those who have run it? What NPCs/events deserve more screen time?

Also has anyone heard of a better way to integrate the "forces rallied to attack the temple of Tiamat" than the pure hand wave? Like "if you get only mild commitment from the good dragons an extra red dragon will be in the temple to battle the players " of "if you ally with Thay a lich will appear and attack the Thayan wizards until it kills one wizard to help you out" ?

 

[robus]

Apart from the stuff written into the modules (Blagothus, the Klauth sponsored airship etc) what foreshadowing or crossover stuff would be good? Ie Harshnag can make a potential appearance in the attack on the White Dragon during RoT. The Weevil could go hide in Red Larch. Any thing else than springs to mind from those who have run it? What NPCs/events deserve more screen time?

Also has anyone heard of a better way to integrate the "forces rallied to attack the temple of Tiamat" than the pure hand wave? Like "if you get only mild commitment from the good dragons an extra red dragon will be in the temple to battle the players " of "if you ally with Thay a lich will appear and attack the Thayan wizards until it kills one wizard to help you out" ?

I ditched the Thay and Metallic dragons chapters and swapped in SKT. I jumped straight to the Oracle chapter and had Blagothkus take them instead of Harshnag.

The characters were a bit over-levelled but it worked out.

And yeah I hand waved the martialling if forces, my players were bored by the politics.

 

[Sadras]

@werecorpse

I have bled the timelines of the Sundering (MiBG and LotCS) into ToD.

This accomplishes a few things
1. Elminster primarily concerned with assisting Mystra's return and the Weave's safety of the weave which explains his absence from ToD.
2. A division in the Lord's Alliance with Sir Isteval and Ulder Ravenguard on the one side versus the rest over what is of primary importance - for Isteval its the Chosen, for Ulder it is trying to save Baldur's Gate, while the rest are concerned with the ToD storyline.
3. The Emerald enclave is concerned over the growing cold and disturbances in the Icewind Dale.

Bleeding LMoP into ToD
The Spider is essentially a Cultist. The Wave Echo Cave was perhaps one of the hidden locations of the Dragonmasks.

Bleeding SKT in ToD
At the first Council Meeting it is suggested an alliance with the Giants (this also depends on the party's interaction with Blagothkus and if you intend running Frozen Castle) would be helpful. This gets to the Cult's ears which leads to SKT.
SKT in the background creates turmoil amongst the giants and keeps the organisations such as the Harpers, Lord's Alliance and the Emerald Enclave very busy.
PCs are then forced to prioritize missions. The Council Meetings now become even more interesting as parties furiously debate and disagree on what is critically important.

Oota bleeds into ToD
Meanwhile, the Zhentarim have their own issues as they have been losing agents within the Underdark as Oota now bleeds into the campaign. They make a secret and rather generous plea to the PCs requesting their assistance.

Githyanki involvement
During the ToD you need to introduce a scouting party of Githyanki. They too have now become involved, given the historic Githyanki alliance with Dragons and Tiamat. With the effects of the Spellplague reversed and the returning of things to normality, the Githyanki have once more returned to Toril but this time at the bequest of Tiamat to assist her arrival on the Prime Material Plane.
Essentially the heroes need to defeat a few elite Githyanki in their quest to stop RoT (see below why).

Church of Tiamat
Severin, along with a few other top officials within the Cult, is secretly in the service of the Church of Tiamat, which explains how the Cult of Dragons core belief has become subverted. This could explain much of the in-fighting between the Cultists (Wearers of the Purple and some Wyrmspeakers).

ToD leads the PCs to Palace of the Red Pasha module where the Church of Tiamat is exposed as the true culprit behind Severin.

Advice
The trick is to draw up a timeline and as the PCs make choices about quests to pursue throughout this multi-campaign/moduled saga things just begin unfolding in the background which keep all parties and organisations busy and essentially second-guessing themselves every step of the way as more issues rise up.

Campaign End
After the ToD storyline, run The Lich Queen's Beloved
The module specifically states that Zetch'r'r solicits aid from a group of non-githyanki heroes who have effectively opposed his people in the past = the Githyanki elite in the ToD storyline.

 

[zingbobco000]

I've tried to construct a megacampaign of sorts here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oA_Kw_Mw-zfSZaxShH0hx0cypJvbZQ3lDlMBv8MnQAY/edit?usp=sharing

Maybe that'll help?

 

[Eltab]

When I ran Tiamat, I described Waterdeep as if it were WW2 Britain. Lord Neverember was Neville Chamberlain's not-very-war-ready government; Lady Silverhand steps in (with help that the PCs didn't care about because there wasn't any fighting involved) and begins marshalling all resources.

I wish I had had SKT at that time, because of the ex-Griffon Rider in the far North. I ran a module from 3e Waterdeep: City of Splendors that involved locating some griffon-riding gear.
Stopping off along the route to Arauthator to beg the ex-Griffon Rider to 'come to the aid of his country' would have been a neat tie-in.

edit: In order to explain how the PCs get into the Well of Dragons without getting tangled up by the (huge!) fight outside, I was going to have the Griffon Riders 'parachute them in'.
So in my campaign, the Griffon Riders of Waterdeep were going to be a big deal.

 

[robus]

So it looks like we’re continuing on into my OotA remix for levels 15-20. Hoping it’s fun. I think the varied settings and peoples for the different battles will make it interesting. At least we’re done with dragons and cultists!