D&D 5E The real reason the treasure in Hoard goes north...

I just noticed this (as I was writing my much delayed tips on running Hoard of the Dragon Queen, episode 5)...

There has been a lot of questions about why the treasure from Greenest goes all the way north up to near Neverwinter before it's loaded onto a flying castle and taken back south to the Well of Dragons. The standard answer is "misdirection", which has the advantage of working to a certain extent - certainly no-one would ever suspect where it was really going given its route!

However, the real reason may be to allow characters who have finished Lost Mine of Phandelver in the Starter Set an easy entrance point into Hoard.

Hoard Episodes 5 & 6 are for 5th level PCs. Where do they take place? In the Mere of Dead Men. Not 50 miles from Phandelver...

I don't know why I didn't pick up on it before!

Cheers!

Yeah, from an out-of-game / business perspective, that's as logical reason as any. Now granted that'll rub some people the wrong way (a company's business decision influencing design) but hey, sometimes business has to do that.

In terms of in-game story... although the book doesn't really talk about it, it's always seemed to me that Greenest isn't or wouldn't be the only town that they Cult has been sacking and getting treasure from-- there's probably all manner of towns up and down the Sword Coast and The North getting the same treatment. So not only are caravans travelling north with booty, there's probably caravans travelling south from like the Marches and such too. And perhaps having a hideout in the Mere of Dead Men was the safest location within an easier travel circle that allowed all of these caravans to converge before sending it all on to the hunting lodge and the flying castle?

There's all kinds of reasons why you could justify travelling north rather than just making a beeline from Greenest to the Well of Dragons. Are they specifically called out in the book? Not really. But that's something easily created by a DM if they feel like a more logical/interesting explanation is called for.

I really liked this comment in the "Enhancing Hoard of the Dragon Queen" thread:

Tommy Brownell said:

I find that a lot of the weirdness in the cult's plans gets explained away if you play up the rival factions and jockeying for power.

Why does Rezmir take the treasure waaaay out of the way? Because she takes it to *her* castle, where *she* can have oversight over the cataloging and appraisal of it. Who cares if there's a dwarf five miles from the Well of Dragons who can do it? Then the dwarf gets the glory, not Rezmir. And she justifies it by having a flying castle bring it in instead of using a ton of manpower to carry it over/through the mountains and into the Well.

Click to expand...