Anthony Winter
Explorer
Dupe
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Skyreach isn't the dragon's lair. Why wouldn't it just flee to save its own life when it got hurt bad enough to think its life was in danger?
However, if the players are having fun it hardly matters.
Thanks for the tip about that! Here's a link:To add to what @jayoungr said, you can actually purchase Volo’s Waterdeep Enchiridion (the fluff piece at the end of Dragon Heist) separately on the DMs Guild.
She becomes Open Lord during Rise of Tiamat, so if that's the only problem, it could still be contemporaneous. (Haven't finished reading it yet myself.)It’s worth noting, however, that it assumes the Tyranny of Dragons storyline has already taken place as Laeral Silverhand is Open Lord of Waterdeep.
LC [Langdedrosa Cyanwrath] just wants to poke the defenders in the eye and gain more personal glory. It’s also very unlikely that a PC could win this fight alone at 1st level, and there’s a good chance he could beat a team of four or five 1st-level characters together. I mean, 4d10 breath weapon, good game – with average damage on a failed save, that’s an instant kill on anyone with 11 maximum hit points or fewer. He even sticks around long enough to inflict one failed death save. So there’s a pretty strong chance that a PC bites it in the opening Episode, which leaves a lasting mark on PC expectations in a campaign. It also establishes LC as a major grudge target for the players. Villains who go for pure showboating? Oh yeah.
As a side note, I feel like this Episode [chapter 4] wants to build a lot of tension with unresolved questions, but it underestimates the potential information-gathering strength of PCs. Be prepared to do a lot of ad-libbing here, if your PCs are nobles, mystics (good lord, but a telepath can waltz through a lot of this), anyone with detect thoughts, and so on. I wouldn’t exactly call these encounters red herrings, but I see a lot of potential for them to expand to fill whole sessions, if the DM doesn’t step in early to redirect the PCs.
Talis is a pretty well-sketched character, with understandable motives that the PCs will nonetheless find utterly unsympathetic. She’s still on board with “summon Tiamat, murder everyone, profit,” which the PCs have probably known about in detail for most of the adventure series to date. Anyway, she wants to screw over higher-ranking cult members to secure her own advancement. If this encounter works and the PCs form an alliance (but don’t force Talis to come with them to Skyreach), she stands to be a recurring villain on into RoT. If the PCs refuse, she can potentially present a decent climactic fight, but with her tiny number of hit points (58? Seriously?) and only three guards in the room at the start of the encounter, she’s probably dead before the rest of the adds shows up to support her. She might be dead before taking a turn, given the damage output I’ve seen from 6th level PCs – to say nothing of what a good silence could do.
When she was very young, Frulam Mondath's village was attacked by a black dragon whose acidic breath melted the flesh from villagers and tore the city assunder. Most who survived told the tale in horror and revulsion, but Frulam's troubled heart knew only pleasure at the sight of her hated abusers being destroyed. That day, Frulam Mondath pledged her heart to Tiamat, though she didn't understand what that meant, at the time.
In the twoscore years since, Frulam has learned much about what it means to devote herself to the Dragon Queen, and she has risen far in the Tiamat's service. When Severin Silrajin seized control of the Cult of the Dragons, Frulam saw an opportunity to serve her queen, and quickly rallied to Severin's call. Now, she is charged with the care and safekeeping of the several clutches of black dragon eggs entrusted to the cult.
As a wearer of purple, Frulam commands extensive respect from the cult of the Dragon, and has an entire cell of devoted cultists at her command. She reports only to Rezmir, and even Rezmir gives the aging priestess a great deal of leeway in the execution of her duties as the keeper of the clutch.
In addition to keeping the eggs of the black dragons, Rezmir has charged Frulam with collecting loot from the Green Fields to be used in the ritual of summoning Tiamat, and the Wyrmspeaker has presently made a stop in Frulam's camp to check in on her activities. It was this visit which prompted Frulam to call on the aid of Lennithon, in an effort to impress the Wyrmspeaker as they assaulted the town of Greenest.
Thanks! I've been trying to figure this out for a while. As a new DM with a group of brand new players, we are all learning on the fly!For future reference: According to the MM (pg 11), "You can assume that a monster has 2d4 pieces of ammunition for a thrown weapon attack, and 2d10 pieces of ammunition for a projectile weapon such as a bow or crossbow."