D&D 5E Enhancing "Rise of Tiamat" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)

[GuardianLurker]

I'd love to hear more about this! Post it on the Enhancing Rise of Tiamat thread, maybe?

P.S. If you haven't decided yet what they can do for the Arcane Brotherhood, that seems like an ideal place to insert The Frozen Castle.

Well, as soon as I have it written, yeah. Those sentences were in the present tense for a reason.

What I can tell you right now is that the Thayan portion keeps a large portion of the "tour of the Realms", but tightens the focus to the Sword Coast. For instance, one of the Thayan Exiles knows the *full* details of the ritual being used to summon Tiamat - helpful when planning how to stop it. The Cult knows about this as well. The problem facing the cult assassination team, and the player characters, is that the wizard is now an Avowed Scribe within Candlekeep.

There are three other Thayan Exiles that know the full details of the Dragon Masks (as Tiamat has used them before, for different purposes, a long time ago). The cult *doesn't* know this. These exiled wizards all greatly fear retaliation from their homeland - one's trapped his tower 19 ways to Tenday, another has so many layers of indirection to contact him that sometimes *he's* confused, and the third has put an adventuring company under contract to guard him (and is loaded for demonic bear-tiger-elephants). The characters can offer the protection of the alliance, or the arcane brotherhood. The real problem though, is that by this point, the cult is watching the characters (and all of the Alliance's known agents very carefully). So once the characters start following the trail, the cult won't be far behind them. One wizard is in Neverwinter, another in Waterdeep, and I've been debating where to place the last. Right now, the leading contender is Silverymoon.

As for the Arcane Brotherhood, I haven't looked at Frozen Castle, but given how many cold environment quests are already part of Tyranny of Dragons, I'm leary of it just on that basis. I've debated cribbing something from Princes of the Apocalypse, but right now, I'm leaning towards a quest I'm calling "Rex Elementorum", where the players have to retrieve portions of the purest of each of the 6 elements (i.e. go **deeeep** into each of the Elemental Planes, past the point where genies and other elemental denizens live). And that's about all I have of that.

I'll cross-post this to the http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...rom-a-DM-spoilers-ahead&p=6843718#post6843718 thread as well.

P.S. Anyone interested in a Jotunmoot writeup or a Red Dragon/Maccath quest (replacing the White Dragon/Maccath quest)?

 

[jayoungr]

There are three other Thayan Exiles that know the full details of the Dragon Masks (as Tiamat has used them before, for different purposes, a long time ago). The cult *doesn't* know this. These exiled wizards all greatly fear retaliation from their homeland - one's trapped his tower 19 ways to Tenday, another has so many layers of indirection to contact him that sometimes *he's* confused, and the third has put an adventuring company under contract to guard him (and is loaded for demonic bear-tiger-elephants). The characters can offer the protection of the alliance, or the arcane brotherhood. The real problem though, is that by this point, the cult is watching the characters (and all of the Alliance's known agents very carefully). So once the characters start following the trail, the cult won't be far behind them.

That sounds really cool!

One wizard is in Neverwinter, another in Waterdeep, and I've been debating where to place the last. Right now, the leading contender is Silverymoon.

What about having one of them not in a city, but in some fortified location deep in the middle of nowhere? Just a thought, for variety.

As for the Arcane Brotherhood, I haven't looked at Frozen Castle, but given how many cold environment quests are already part of Tyranny of Dragons, I'm leary of it just on that basis.

I know what you mean, but I figure it will make my party feel smart for having bothered to invest in Rings of Warmth and White Dragon armor. Plus, I think I'm going to swap out the white dragon for a red one living in a geothermal cave underneath the glacier.

P.S. Anyone interested in a Jotunmoot writeup or a Red Dragon/Maccath quest (replacing the White Dragon/Maccath quest)?

But of course! Did you really have to ask? That's what this thread is for, after all!

 

[GuardianLurker]

What about having one of them not in a city, but in some fortified location deep in the middle of nowhere? Just a thought, for variety.

Already abusing the h*** out of that for other hooks, including most of the established quests. The only "urban" quests in the published material are The Tower, and Mission to Thay, and both of those are a stretch. The "Death at the Council" subquest would certainly qualify, but isn't detailed. (And yes, I'm planning on detailing that too.)

I should caution you though, that most of this is as Fantasy Grounds modules.

 

[jayoungr]

Already abusing the h*** out of that for other hooks, including most of the established quests.

Good point; it just struck me as a bit of a coincidence that every single one of the other wizards should have chosen to disappear in a large city, but maybe your players won't notice. Or maybe you could turn it into a plot point--say the three of them had a meeting and decided that cities were the safest place to lose themselves? I do like the way you've given each one a different strategy for staying safe.

The "Death at the Council" subquest would certainly qualify, but isn't detailed. (And yes, I'm planning on detailing that too.)

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on that. I'd like to run this one myself, but I'm not sure how to work it in. I was thinking of making the murdered guy be Rian Nightshade's predecessor as Lord Neverember's advisor, which would throw suspicion on Rian and the Zhentarim initially. I may add an extra Council session as well, so that there's more time to spin this out.

I should caution you though, that most of this is as Fantasy Grounds modules.

Meaning what? (I've never used Fantasy Grounds.)

 

[GuardianLurker]

Good point; it just struck me as a bit of a coincidence that every single one of the other wizards should have chosen to disappear in a large city, but maybe your players won't notice.

I suspect they'll notice. I suspect they also won't care. The primary reason they're in those cities is access to research materials. So I might move Neverwinter's to Luskan.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on that. I'd like to run this one myself, but I'm not sure how to work it in. I was thinking of making the murdered guy be Rian Nightshade's predecessor as Lord Neverember's advisor, which would throw suspicion on Rian and the Zhentarim initially. I may add an extra Council session as well, so that there's more time to spin this out.

Right now, I'm planning on just having it be a seduced/blackmailed secretary, not any of the actual council members themselves. But the detailing is yet-to-come.

Meaning what? (I've never used Fantasy Grounds.)

Meaning that it's (right now) in a FG-only compressed format, not a word or html file. It's not hard to break it out, even if you don't have FG, but it's a lot of tedious work. BTW, if you don't have FG, I strongly recommend checking it out. I won't rehash any of the *many* FG/Roll20/TT-only threads here (they're easy to find), but I will say that my investment has paid off in *SPADES* for me. It's easily the best GM aid I've *ever* run across.

 

[jayoungr]

I suspect they'll notice. I suspect they also won't care.

Oh, well, then there's no problem!

The primary reason they're in those cities is access to research materials.

That makes a lot of sense. So that's all you need if someone in your group does question it.

Right now, I'm planning on just having it be a seduced/blackmailed secretary, not any of the actual council members themselves.

Yeah, I haven't decided for sure how to handle it myself. And I really should have brought it up at the second council session, but I was running that rather by the seat of my pants and forgot about it. But I know it's the kind of story my group would enjoy, so I'd like to work it in if I can.

Meaning that it's (right now) in a FG-only compressed format, not a word or html file. It's not hard to break it out, even if you don't have FG, but it's a lot of tedious work.

Oh, I see! Well, whatever format you can manage would be great. I would definitely like to hear more about your versions of those quests, though. I'm especially interested in the Jotunmoot because I intend to re-start my group with The Frozen Castle, but both sound intriguing.

BTW, if you don't have FG, I strongly recommend checking it out. I won't rehash any of the *many* FG/Roll20/TT-only threads here (they're easy to find), but I will say that my investment has paid off in *SPADES* for me. It's easily the best GM aid I've *ever* run across.

Good to know, and I'll keep it in mind!

 

[Sloblock]

I agree with Jayounger that whatever format you could manage would be great

I am probably too far down my Realms trip to Thay to change much for my table but would love to hear about it

 

[Delazar]

Hopefully this belongs here! Two questions:

A) When you "weaken" Tiamat, book says "her attack and breath weapon damage is reduced by 15". Is attack referring to her Bite?

B) We're playing the last chapter, and the Rogue went ahead of the party, full stealth, and entered the Temple via the tunnel in area 5. He saw a mage performing a ritual, and he one-shotted him with an arrow. Then he retreated to where his friends were waiting, and they continued to explore the tunnels in the volcano. If I understand correctly, the 10 rounds countdown to have Tiamat appear begins as from the moment the Heroes enter the Temple... does this mean the rogue triggered the countdown?

 

[jayoungr]

Hopefully this belongs here! Two questions:

Yes, it's fine to ask here! And hello!

A) When you "weaken" Tiamat, book says "her attack and breath weapon damage is reduced by 15". Is attack referring to her Bite?

That's how I read it. It might possibly extend to legendary actions, but those aren't technically attacks.

B) We're playing the last chapter, and the Rogue went ahead of the party, full stealth, and entered the Temple via the tunnel in area 5. He saw a mage performing a ritual, and he one-shotted him with an arrow. Then he retreated to where his friends were waiting, and they continued to explore the tunnels in the volcano. If I understand correctly, the 10 rounds countdown to have Tiamat appear begins as from the moment the Heroes enter the Temple... does this mean the rogue triggered the countdown?

Ooh, interesting question! It's up to you to some degree; if you think it's really going to mess up the climax to have it start early, you can say the countdown starts when the whole group enters the Temple. But if I were running it, I'd say that since the rogue actually did something to disrupt the ritual, the countdown should start from either when he entered the tunnel or when he killed the mage.

 

[akr71]

My group is just starting HOTDQ, but given the amount of work I spent prepping that, I figured I had better get reading ROT...

Anyway, something jumped out at me on pg. 11 of ROT under the Giants section. It says "a frost giant named Harshnag lives on Mount Sar north of Waterdeep, and he is sometimes called upon when the Sword Coast faces dire threats." Dragon threat or not, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around why a frost giant would come to the aid of Waterdeep. I thought about turning him into a stone giant, but their reclusive nature doesn't feel right either.

How have others approached this?

I'm working on building Blagothkus's personality and character. My hope is that if I play him right, the party will leave HOTDQ with Skyreach Castle intact and in Blagothkus's possession. If they don't, I will probably use Frozen Castle to link the two books.