I'm loving Hoard. I've made a lot of changes, I'll try to remember them and add those I've forgotten later:
- additional notes, backstory, and art for some of the characters and villains can be found at the WotC site, for example:
https://dnd.wizards.com/dungeons-and-dragons/story/villains/rathmodar
- Another big plug for using the bonds at the end. All my players used them and it was quite helpful
- Read through the entire module, as well as rise of Tiamat, before running so you have a good handle on what happens and can adapt to PC decisions and enable them to do whatever they want while being able to gently steer them back on course. This addresses the railroad issue for me. I read both books through twice before running the first session. Very key for me as my players went WAY off the rails at the hatchery.
- Similar to the last point, I found that making a TIMELINE was enormously helpful. In other words, where is Rezmir? What is she doing? What about Leosin? What are they up to on a given day? When are the dragon eggs expected to hatch? When is Mondath expected to rendezvous with the rest of the cult after the eggs are hatched? This helps you to keep track of what the cult is doing if the PCs get distracted or captured. You can reference dates and times in journal entries left by cultists. For example my PCs found a journal in Baldur's gate wondering where Mondath was, because "she was supposed to be here by now". It makes the players feel like their actions have an impact, even at low levels. Feel free to revise and update your timeline as the situation evolves. I chose to start my campaign on Ches 1st, 1489 DR. It is now Tarsakh the 18th.
- I put some cult documents (strategic operations stuff) in different places that the PCs could turn in to gain influence with various factions. The documents might have cover identities for cult spies and the like
- Ed Greenwood had a few articles on WotC's site with writeups on cultist NPCs and spies in various cities. Good if you need a quick operative or if the PCs go off the rails and you need to reintroduce the cult outside of the established adventure locales.
- I made Escobert a drug addict who was coked out of his mind during the siege. He was deeply ashamed the next day and committed suicide. I wanted to communicate how traumatic the experience was. I think I got this idea from one of the remixes I read.
- During the Sally port attack, my party almost died. They had to retreat into the keep, the guards tried to help but mostly got killed, they left governor Nighthill alone with the cultist he was interrogating. During the Sally port combat, the cultist broke free and tried to strangle Nighthill. This put the PCs in a tough spot as they fought a rearguard action against the oncoming forces while racing to save the governor in time from the cultist. It was very dramatic and makes the encounter much better.
- if you use minis, the Star Wars yuuzhan vong minis from wiz kids are cheap and work great for cultists (black leather armor with spikes). I changed the flavor on the cultists so that they had dragon whips and dragon staves to match the weapons on the minis. The default cultist mini can be found in the tyranny of dragons icons of the realm packs from wiz kids but the vong are way cheaper.
- Put a ballista atop the keep and have Escobert load it, one PC aim it, and another fire it. I don't know. Honestly the dragon scene fell flat for my group. I'd eliminate it if I ran it again.
- If your party doesn't have a cleric (especially for the first couple episodes), give them an NPC life cleric to run. A cleric of Bahamut is an interesting choice. I created one using the "former gold dragon" bond. She became a favorite of the party. I feel that the church of Bahamut in general can be introduced as a helpful faction in this and the following adventure.
- The artist for most of the characters is Bryan Syme, I think. You can find his deviant art account and download character portraits and images. I run a wiki on obsidian portal and like to update the portraits for NPCs when they die so they're black and white and say RIP in bright red letters. The players love seeing the body count of cult leaders rise over time.
- I found it beneficial to download lots of purple-garbed portraits to represent various wearers of purple the party might encounter. Mid level leaders and the like.
- if you run the caravan, give the cultists more personality. I made the leader of the caravan cultists an insane true believer named Ivor Marvaldi. He had a dream where Tiamat spoke to him. In reality it was a devil manipulating him to get more information on cult plans (a servant of the bone devil referenced in Rise of Tiamat). He is an insane abusive psychopath. I put him in an abusive relationship with a masochistic priestess of loviatar named Merona who always has warding bond cast on Marvaldi (share the pain). Marvaldi becomes enraged when anyone but him hurts her (he's a veteran but gains the reckless trait when she is attacked). One could use these cultists as the murder victim/veteran from the caravan. As for my group, well, they left Marvaldi floating face down, dead in the indoor pool of a whorehouse in the red light district of Baldur's gate. Long story. Give him a Russian accent and make your eyes really wide when you play him for extra crazy.
- Introduce the Lord's Alliance when the party hits Baldur's Gate. I used a polite and well-spoken female half-Orc bounty hunter (Hagatha) who works for the Patriars. They aren't too serious about the cult, but they may have one operative who is monitoring the situation for national security purposes. The PCs may run into her as early as Greenest and she keeps popping up with her partner, a silent Dwarven diviner named Glimmer (a joke, since the dwarf is perpetually scowling and grumpy). She is aloof and never discloses too much information. She seems to be tracking Rezmir as well, and I found my party's curiosity about Hagatha was enough to give them additional motive to track the cult. I used the pathfinder portrait for a character named Imrijka to represent her. You can google it.
- Put a loved one or close friend in the dungeon at Naerytar. If a player is searching for them, drop hints as early as greenest in journal entries etc that hint about where the loved one is.
- I put another Harper in Baldur's gate, Bianca, Leosin's former lover. I felt it was useful to show the organization was large and had agents everywhere, especially in big cities.
- If any of your players are barbarians, I made a hook that one of them came from the Icewind Dale region, a reghed barbarian of the elk tribe, and unbeknownst to him, his family and tribe has been enslaved by a rival tribe that's in cahoots with the cult. The berserkers encountered with Cyanwrath in the hatchery are from the rival tribe, which should confuse the PC since they're far from home. The rival tribe helped the cult locate a dragon mask up north. The PC will have the opportunity to discover the fate of his tribe and save them in Rise of Tiamat when the party goes north.
- it was helpful for me to hex out the map of the sword coast to help with constructing a timeline.
- I put a merchant in the keep in greenest with healing potions. He turns out to have ties to the Zhents and allowed me to introduce that faction early on. He offers to pay the players or somehow reward them if they bring him a dragon egg from the hatchery. Zhent-aligned PCs get discounts on goods. Enough to make other chars seriously think about working for this shady organization.

His name was Lysander and I used the turban guy portrait from the cover of dead in thay (the portrait is available for download in the gallery section of the Wizards website)
- Level 2 is a great place to start the first episode, as suggested by slyflourish.
- Rezmir makes a good baddie to tie into a char background (murdered a lover or something) since so much of the adventure is spent chasing her. This is a good bond for neutral or evil aligned characters (revenge) since fulfilling it makes the character a major enemy of the cult and puts them in opposition for the rest of the campaign when they might otherwise say "screw it, I'm out of here, not my fight"
- My group got TPK'd in the hatchery when one pc was an idiot and ran off by himself, Mondath captured them. I gave her the ideal of greed based on her brief description. As a result, the PCs were able to convince her to leave the hatchery and take them to Baldur's gate where one of the PC's parents paid a ransom. This ended up turning into a big mini arc, I ended up running an abbreviated version of Murder in Baldur's Gate, and I put a secret cult safe house beneath wyrm's rock that was controlled by a dragon wing named Lazaro. He had messages and letters from Rezmir and a map to the roadhouse/Naerytar. The adventure in Baldur's gate wound up replacing the traveling chapters and worked really well. It introduced power players from the LA for use later in RoT
- Mondath is hated by the PCs since she TPK'd them, but she got captured by slavers while trying to evade them. Long story. I decided she was sold to the red wizard renegades and when they found out who she was, Rezmir demoted her and left her as property of Azbara Jos. She has basically been humiliated and experimented on with magic. She will return later on as a vampire, replacing sandesyl.
- I gave Azbara Jos a sister using the portrait of phaia from dead in Thay. She is a loyalist with szass tam and is looking for her brother. The pcs can either help her or kill her or ignore her. She becomes the liaison to the loyalists for the Thay section in RoT. This seemed appropriate since the text describes AJ as being curious about the PCs opinion of the splinter group's plan, telling me he has doubts.
- Use Rise of Tiamat style cult reprisals on the party if they are known to the cult, especially in large urban areas like BG or Waterdeep. This may not work well if the PCs did a good job maintaining cover. Mine didn't.
- Jared Blando's maps are available online at very affordable prices in high res for printing or use with VTT software.