D&D 5E Enhancing "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)

[vandaexpress]

Also, if you grab the filename from Bryan syme's deviant art account, you can plug it into google to get a high res version WITHOUT the ugly deviant art watermark on it.

I have a bunch of resources I've made (VTT tokens, Roll20 statblocks) but I'm reluctant to share them here since so many of them are made from copyrighted materials from the adventure.

 

[pukunui]

Yeah, I've managed to find a good chunk of the art from the books. Unfortunately, not all of it is available online, for free or otherwise. And not every NPC in the books has an image to go with them.

One thing I'll note is that Bryan Syme identifies one character as Dagult Neverember on his deviantart account, but that same image is used in the book to represent Governor Nighthill (see the image accompanying the HotDQ table of contents). Personally, I think it works better as Neverember than Nighthill, so I'm going to go with that. I'll find some other image to use for Nighthill.

 

[vandaexpress]

Yeah, I've managed to find a good chunk of the art from the books. Unfortunately, not all of it is available online, for free or otherwise. And not every NPC in the books has an image to go with them.

One thing I'll note is that Bryan Syme identifies one character as Dagult Neverember on his deviantart account, but that same image is used in the book to represent Governor Nighthill (see the image accompanying the HotDQ table of contents). Personally, I think it works better as Neverember than Nighthill, so I'm going to go with that. I'll find some other image to use for Nighthill.

Agreed. As written, Nighthill plays an extremely minor role in the grand scheme of things. Which NPCs do you need art for? I've found pictures that I've used for most of them, and I'm happy to share them if I have any good ones.

 

[pukunui]

Agreed. As written, Nighthill plays an extremely minor role in the grand scheme of things. Which NPCs do you need art for? I've found pictures that I've used for most of them, and I'm happy to share them if I have any good ones.

Well, Nighthill, for one.

For Escobert, I was thinking I'd just use an image of Jekk Ironfist from Scourge of the Sword Coast.

Bog Luck and Ardred Briferhew need images.
Any old image of a lizardfolk will probably do for Snapjaw.

An image of Talis' bodyguard, Kusphia, might be nice.

That's probably it for Hoard.

For Rise, I've managed to find an image of Laeral, and I'll use the Nighthill image for Neverember. I've got plenty of images of Sir Isteval. That just leaves Remallia Haventree, Delaan Winterhound, Ambassador Connerad Brawnanvil, Marshall Ulder Ravengard, King Melandrach, Taern Hornblade, and Rian Nightshade.

An image of an ice toad would be nice. Does such a thing exist?

Bryan Syme hasn't uploaded his images of Neronvain or Iskander. I'll have to see if I can scan them in from the book.

Are the images of the generic cultists (the one wearing a mask that's also in Lost Mine and the other one without a mask) available online anywhere?

 

[vandaexpress]

Well, Nighthill, for one.

For Escobert, I was thinking I'd just use an image of Jekk Ironfist from Scourge of the Sword Coast.

Bog Luck and Ardred Briferhew need images.
Any old image of a lizardfolk will probably do for Snapjaw.

An image of Talis' bodyguard, Kusphia, might be nice.

That's probably it for Hoard.

For Rise, I've managed to find an image of Laeral, and I'll use the Nighthill image for Neverember. I've got plenty of images of Sir Isteval. That just leaves Remallia Haventree, Delaan Winterhound, Ambassador Connerad Brawnanvil, Marshall Ulder Ravengard, King Melandrach, Taern Hornblade, and Rian Nightshade.

An image of an ice toad would be nice. Does such a thing exist?

Bryan Syme hasn't uploaded his images of Neronvain or Iskander. I'll have to see if I can scan them in from the book.

Are the images of the generic cultists (the one wearing a mask that's also in Lost Mine and the other one without a mask) available online anywhere?

I rushed through the roadhouse, so I didn't stress too much about Bog Luck and Briferhew since I figured they wouldn't play too big a role in my campaign, here are the ones I used, you can probably find better if you wanted, but eh. Not worth it IMHO, YMMV but I thought the roadhouse was a real drag.

Bog Luck

Ardred Briferhew - This guy is wearing plate, so I just bumped up his AC over what's in the book. I dunno, I'm just a big fan of this one as a veteran picture.

Kusphia I haven't gotten to quite yet. Eyeballing it, I would probably use any old female rogue with a mask.

Ravengard is easy to get, since he played a big role in MiBG. I googled his full name and got these:
Card Image
Cover Image

The others I haven't gotten far along enough in my campaign to get images for, I'm afraid.

 

[vandaexpress]

Are the images of the generic cultists (the one wearing a mask that's also in Lost Mine and the other one without a mask) available online anywhere?

I had to scan in the cultists. The ones I found online were pretty low quality, to put it lightly (someone had basically taken a snapshot of the page of the book), same with the Ambush Drake and Guard Drake.

There aren't any pictures of Dragonwing, Dragonfang, or Dragonsoul, either. I wound up using pictures of the Yuuzhan Vong or people in purple robes. I figure the farther up you get in the cult hierarchy, the less restricted you are to wearing a uniform (unless you're a wearer of purple, of course).

 

[pukunui]

I thought the roadhouse was a real drag.

I rather liked it when I read through it. What made it a real drag for you?

Ravengard is easy to get, since he played a big role in MiBG.

Ah! I didn't realize that. Thanks.

 

[vandaexpress]

I rather liked it when I read through it. What made it a real drag for you?
Ah! I didn't realize that. Thanks.

Let me revise that: the roadhouse was a real drag for my group, not because of the adventure, but because of some peculiar decisions they made earlier on that basically removed the roadhouse from the context it was intended for.

I think for me, it was because my group had seriously deviated from the rails when they hit the hatchery, as a result, we essentially skipped the entire caravan sequence, I had to improvise a small cult base in Baldur's Gate that they dealt with. I think it would be much more interesting in the context of having it follow the caravan episode, what with the cultists seeking revenge and all of that. For my group, because we deviated, there wasn't a lot to it. They waited until dark, searched the place, found the locked door, picked it, killed the lizardfolk in a handful of rounds and moved on to the next chapter. Granted, we had just segued from Murder in Baldur's gate which had a lot more intrigue at a broader scale than the spy mission at the roadhouse, I think that's why it fell flat for us, just because we had gone off the rails.

When I could see that they weren't really interested in what was going on there, I ushered them as quickly as I could into the swamp, where things have picked up a bit.

 

[pukunui]

Fair enough!

 

[MerricB]

My erratic posting of advice on running Hoard has reached Episode 6.

Cheers!