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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Peni Griffin" data-source="post: 3374758" data-attributes="member: 50322">Lord Zardoz, we're very much in the same boat!  I already had a Big Bad and rumors of another.  Bram the Chosen is a bureaucrat who's organizing the duergar into a corporate-style empire dependent on a war economy.  Their battle cry is "Full employment!"  They conquer and enslave other races, and when they enslaved hobgoblins - well, what are hobgoblins good for, apart from fighting?  Also, there's some aesthtics I knew my players would have trouble with.  Ninjas with breath weapons would make them fall on the floor laughing.  So I'm changing all the warlords to duergar and all the religious references to Luduergar, and dropping the Fane of Tiamat, though if the Companions of the Claw decide to bring the war home to Bram I'll probably raid that section for usable stuff.Trust me, that view of the gathering Horde, with its ettins and dragons and chimerae, will give them all the "holy crap" you need.  I even gave them a glimpse of a slaughtered trading caravan cut off as it tried to come down the Dawn Way, with piles of corpses and trade goods, and two small figures - halflings?  gnomes? children? - being led into a tent.  And they couldn't do a thing about it.Yeah, the adventure will feel railroady to them if you can't let them take care of their personal stuff.  The module as written makes railroading too easy.  I suggest scouring the town descriptions for NPCs who can be popped out and replaced with more convenient people, or hooked up to existing subplots.  I'm afraid I don't know how Weapons of Legacy work, so no help from me there.When you read the encounters in detail, you'll find that, until you get to the Fane or deal with dragonblooded hobgoblins, most of the Tiamat worship is window-dressing, easily swapped out.  Since I already had an established Luduergarian villain set, I just decided that the conquered hobgoblins had been forcibly converted, and this was the second generation who knew no other god, so I wouldn't have to convert all the hobgoblin priests and monks to duergarian ones.  This required a change in the relationship between the Horde and the dragons, too. The dragons are all youngish and looking to establish themselves in lairs.  They help the Horde take Elsir, the Horde helps them take the Hammerfist Holds for starter lairs.Since you have a goblin-led uprising and want to introduce draconians, you don't need to get that complicated.  You can keep the core idea of the dragonblooded goblinoids, but introduce a political rift.  The bulk of the Horde consists of traditional goblins with traditional goblin goals.  The dragonbloods, draconians, and dragons wish to spread Tiamat worship.  Both factions use each other, jockeying for position, perhaps taking opportunities to use their military foes (i.e., the PCs they just captured) against their political ones.  The party could have a good time with that, and it would give you options in situtations that might otherwise by TPKs.Any reason you can't just plug in your existing keystone idea on top of the Fane?May I suggest Miha Serani?  This character is a lovely concept, but I'm having to completely rewrite her.  She's a spy with no Gather Information check, fercryinoutloud. Since my party lacks spellcasters, I hope she can attach herself to them, probably by vamping the rogue.  Anyway, that missing Gather Info skill means you'll probably want to rewrite her if you want to use her prominently at all, and you might as well vile her up at the same time.Also, check out the Kulkor Zhul mindbenders.  Those things are freaking nasty and Vile is a good fit with them.  The module underutilizes them IMHO.  I'm going to put them on wyverns and use them as scouts.On the missing player front - I think you should tell them going in that this is a tough, deadly module that will kill them if they're careless.  Encourage them to assign people to play their characters in their absence and to pick up NPC aid.  A shorthanded mission could be sold to them as a scouting trip only.  There's fewer x.p., but more security, in small-group reconnaissance followed by a large-scale raid using local resources.</blockquote>

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