Oh wow...I didn't know that. I mean that makse sense, when I was reading it, it seems to start so...abruptly? suddenly?...not really sure how to really put it. it doesn't explain in Yawning portal how it actually all starts, just that you are there dealing with this Red Wizard of Thay to take down Szass Tam with no explanation as to why they are doing it lol. It's actually one of the reasons that I am using it as part of a bigger campaign, because it really had no beginning lol.
Yeah.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
In
Scourge of the Sword Coast, the PCs are summoned to Daggerford to investigate who is stirring up trouble in the region, resulting in an influx of refugees overwhelming the town. The investigation ultimately leads to the discovery that the Red Wizards of Thay are building a magic portal so they can teleport their armies over to the Sword Coast with the aim of conquering it. Unfortunately, the adventure ends without the PCs getting to confront the Red Wizards in their hidden lair.
The original
Dead in Thay picked up where
Scourge left off with the assault on the Red Wizards' fortress with the aid of some anti-Szass Tam Red Wizard rebels. A predecessor to the Adventurers League Epics series, where multiple parties play through the same adventure simultaneously, the original
Dead in Thay involved closing four elemental nodes (one for each party perhaps) powering the Red Wizards' magic portal. (The nodes - along with Baazka, the disembodied pit fiend - are a nod to
Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, which involved the Red Wizards obtaining elemental keys with which to establish their nodes.)
Once the nodes are closed, the PCs come together in the portal chamber to stop the Red Wizards and shut down the portal. If/when they succeed and the portal starts collapsing (and the fortress around it), the Red Wizard rebels tell the PCs they can teleport them out ... but instead of sending them home, the rebels trick the PCs and teleport them into the Doomvault to force them to aid in the fight against Szass Tam.
Several of the main NPCs encountered in
Scourge of the Sword Coast can be encountered in
Dead in Thay as well - some as enemies, some as captives to be rescued.
As an aside, WotC put out surveys for several of the D&D Next organized play adventures, including
Scourge of the Sword Coast, to determine the most common outcomes of those adventures. They then used those survey results to determine the status quo of their respective regions for the 5e adventures that revisited them. (This is why, for instance, in
Storm King's Thunder, you will find that Daggerford is ruled by a succubus posing as the duchess, while Duke Ulder Ravengard is the big boss in Baldur's Gate from
The Rise of Tiamat onwards.)
Given that
Dead in Thay does not take place on the Sword Coast, I don't think they bothered to do an outcomes survey. Plus, based on how Szass Tam is still in control in later 5e material, it would appear that the rebellious Red Wizards have not yet succeeded in their quest to get rid of him.
I will have to take a look at these and purchase then, because the daggerford one I actually have an idea for it on something else I'm working on. I'm all about having things like this so that I can add them to main campaigns and whatnot lol. That's why I love Yawning Portal. I want to get Candlekeep and I'm stoked to save up for Infinite staircase. All those classic modules will absolutely bring nostalgia to my players lol. I actually love the look of the alt cover to Candlekeep, it reminds me of the massive book Bastian Bux carried around to read in The Neverending Story for some reason lol!
Are you aware that
Candlekeep Mysteries is all original adventures? It's not a collection of updated classic adventures. I also wouldn't bother with it, to be perfectly honest. Many of the adventures in it aren't all that great.
Aside from Yawning Portal and the upcoming Infinite Staircase book, the other anthology that updates classic adventures is
Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
It might be lol, but still, going to just have distinct ones just to make it easier for me and other players that might have the same problem. I would rather go through the confusion and figure out a way to explain it, rather than just go and have my players confused and then have no fun lol. I DM for a massive group, so the more I have figured out and an easy way to explain, the better lol!
Is it massive enough that you could split them up into separate teams and run the dungeon as originally intended (or closer to it)?
I have Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle but haven’t read through it thoroughly. I’ve tried a few times and it just never really grabbed me. But since you praise it so highly maybe I just need to give it another chance.
I have only run the first adventure ("Fane of the Sun Swallower"). It was a lot of fun. Obviously adjustments will need to be made for the whole thing if you're going to run it with the final 5e rules, but overall I really like the first four adventures. There are some fun, old school elements in them - some whimsical, some not - that are missing from most of the 5e material.
For instance, in "Fane of the Sun Swallower", the PCs can find a magical shield that has a picture of an apple tree emblazoned on the front. Once per day, a character can magically reach into the shield and pluck an apple, which, when eaten, functions as a healing potion. However, the item description also states that if the shield is wielded by an undead creature, the tree appears dead and the healing potion apple feature doesn't function. I took that and ran with it - so the PCs found the shield in an encounter with some skeletons. When the PCs took the shield from the dead warrior, the tree on the front blossomed into a living tree again.
There's also some fun encounters in a Feywild-touched glade, including a possible meeting with Prince Alagarthas, son of King Melandrach of the Misty Forest. Alagarthas shows up in
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. In
Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, he is being hunted by Chuth, the green dragon working with Alagarthas' sibling, Neronvain (the green dragon speaker), in
The Rise of Tiamat. There's a fun encounter with Chuth during a rainstorm; the dragon is invisible, but the PCs can see his outline in the rain. The glade gets burned down during the adventure, which is how it appears in
Scourge of the Sword Coast should the PCs travel that way to reach Julkoun.
EDIT: A while back, I toyed with the idea of a Daggerford trilogy whereby I would run the old
Hordes of Dragonspear adventure, followed by
Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle (possibly featuring the original party's descendants), then
Scourge of the Sword Coast ... as there are obvious narrative throughlines there. But I subsequently learned that
Hordes isn't much of an adventure at all and it would be better to run something like the old
Under Illefarn instead, as
Ghosts and
Scourge also draw heavily from that adventure.
