D&D 5E I feel all of the modules are following a theme... kind of... (potential spoilers)

[Slit518]

The theme is Royalty!

Hoard of the Dragon Queen
Rise of Tiamat (part of same story as HotDQ)
Prince of the Apocalypse
Curse of Strahd (Strahd is a count, and lives in a castle)
Rage of Demons (had to deal with demon princes, dukes, dutchesses, etc...)
Storm King's Thunder

And they all seem to share a secondary theme, cults!
In HotDQ, there was the Cult of the Dragon.
In CoS, the villagers or at least some of them kidnap children so that they may be turned into meat pies and then sold as food.
In SKT, there is the Zentarim cult of the Snake.
I am not sure of the others (PotA & RoD), do they have cults as well?

 

[Lanliss]

Well, PotA is about elemental cults.

 

[robus]

Well fantasy worlds are all about royalty so it seems like it's a given, surely, that those terms would appear in the titles?

Royalty (or pretenders to thrones) are the prime actors in these worlds.

 

[Slit518]

Well, PotA is about elemental cults.

Really? So now I wonder if in RoD if there are demon summoning cults or worshipers or something...

 

[Lanliss]

Really? So now I wonder if in RoD if there are demon summoning cults or worshipers or something...

I think it might be less that there is a theme of cults, and more that cults are just so convenient. Have something heroes need to stop from happening? There are villains that want it to happen, and they are a cult. It's like saying there is a theme of Oxygen when you look at a map of Earth.

 

[pukunui]

OotA doesn't really have any cultists in it, and I wouldn't call the Zhentarim a cult either. SKT does have the Kraken Society, though, which is something of a cult.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

And they all seem to share a secondary theme, cults!
In HotDQ, there was the Cult of the Dragon.
In CoS, the villagers or at least some of them kidnap children so that they may be turned into meat pies and then sold as food.
In SKT, there is the Zentarim cult of the Snake.
I am not sure of the others (PotA & RoD), do they have cults as well?

The Zhentarim are not a cult. They are a criminal origination. There were no cultists in Curse of Strahd ether (Well their was some dead ones in Death House but I don't count them because they were dead.) There is a hag coven that is turning children into meat pies. But Hags are not cultists.

So only the only adventures that have cults as a focus are Tyranny and PotA. The rest don't have them or they are in very minor roles.

 

[Charles Rampant]

OotA doesn't really have any cultists in it, and I wouldn't call the Zhentarim a cult either. SKT does have the Kraken Society, though, which is something of a cult.

The Derro guys definitely count as a cult, in my book.

To the OP: I feel that the connections are tenuous at best. Those are not themes, those are just generic fantasy things that each book happens to have. Plus, "royalty" and "count" are not the same thing.

 

[pukunui]

Perhaps. But they're not a major part of the adventure.

 

[Jester David]

Y'know, I came into this thread all dismissive. P'shaw, the adventures are totally all different in theme and tone and adversaries, and I was ready to argue...

But the OP isn't wrong. There are a lot of royalty: dragon queen, elemental princes, demon lords, a count, and a king (plus princesses and a duke).

What will be in the spring adventure? A duchess? A baron? Maybe a maharaja.

-edit-

I know... An update of Desert of Desolation with a pharaoh!!