D&D 5E RoT: Metallic Dragon Council

[pukunui]

OK. Here's what I'm thinking:

Leosin will arrange to have Elia and the PCs use the Harper teleportation network to get them from Waterdeep to Everlund. (See the "Inner Circles" bit from Storm King's Thunder for details). In Everlund, the PCs will learn that a) they're famous and b) the cult is on the move and may attack the city soon.

Perhaps the city is already under siege and Elia has to smuggle the PCs out during the night. Elia insists that the dwarf wizard travel in a basket so she doesn't have to touch him. She flies east into the Nether Mountains, past the still-smoking ruins of Jalanthar. She takes them to a hidden vale with a waterfall. Passing through the waterfall, she uses her wings to keep the PCs from getting wet, except she makes the dwarf wizard go last and then pulls her wing away so he gets soaked.

On the other side of the waterfall is an idyllic glade full of beautiful plants and the like. This space may be a demiplane of the dragons' creation or some such thing. Elia leaves the PCs to wander the glade for a bit while she goes on ahead to meet with the other dragon councillors. The dragons keep the PCs waiting in order to test their patience. However, Nymmurh shows up in humanoid form in the glade and chats with them for a bit, giving the PCs a few clues about each of the dragons.

The PCs are then ushered into a colossal chamber within a mountain, where they find themselves standing in a small circle of light at the bottom, while the five dragons are perched in alcoves overlooking the PCs' platform. The intent is to make the PCs feel like they're being judged (which they are).

The dragons hope that the more impatient and intimidated they can make the humanoids, the more willing the humanoids will be to make concessions.

After the meeting, Elia will drop them off on the road back to Everlund and tell them they have to make their own way back since she has lots to do notifying the rest of her kind and the like. Along the way, the PCs will meet up with dwarves who've captured a cultist. When they get back to Everlund, they find the cultists gone. While the city is mostly intact, it has suffered, and the people aren't happy because they thought the PCs were going to be there to help but instead they disappeared in the night.

Or maybe the city wasn't under siege before but gets attacked as the PCs arrive. Maybe they have to fight off cultists as they make their way back to Moongleam Tower in order to teleport back to Waterdeep - while the people of Everlund beg them to stay and fight. Or something. I might be getting too ambitious here.


EDIT: Or, perhaps instead of just Nymmurh appearing in disguise, all of the dragons do so they can test the PCs in secret before they are called into the meeting. They can put the PCs off their guard this way, you see, and get a good look at them. Tazmikella can figure out that one of the PCs has her stolen item, as well, so she can surprise them with the knowledge that she knows they've got it when they enter the council chamber.

 

[Charles Rampant]

Lots of good ideas here.

Our outline for this adventure was way too big to fit in 96 pages. Some chapters were culled entirely while others, like this one, had to be shorter than we liked. Two factors weighed heaviest in that decision. First, no matter how we staged the encounter, it would disappoint people by either being too majestic or not majestic enough. Second, some groups live for this sort of encounter, but others are bored to distraction by them and would rather skip over them entirely. So rather than expend a lot of pages for little gain, we opted to present the bare bones and let DMs frame the encounter to suit their players.

If I had it to do over, I'd try to squeeze two more pages for this chapter out of somewhere else--I think two pages would just about do it justice--though I have no idea off the top of my head where they'd come from.

Steve

Fun to see the designer pop in! Out of curiosity, do you think that the Tyranny of Dragons storyline would have worked better as one 256-page book, like the other APs? As I mentioned above, I find the political parts of the AP to be the most interesting - especially since the other storylines have much less in the way of politics - but it is obvious that it takes a lot of words to do justice to that sort of playstyle.

As for your overview, [MENTION=54629]pukunui[/MENTION], I like it! The waterfall and tribunal are nice elements, and drawing in stuff from SKT and SCAG certainly seems like a solid way to expand the storyline. I'm also thinking that the new Kobolds in VGtM would be excellent for spicing things up. I would suggest that you play up the problems in Everlund some more - have it that the town's (non-Harper) leaders request the party's urgent aid, but the Good Dragons are only going to wait for so long. It gives them a really tough decision - walk away from the humans in need, or insult and perhaps lose the aid of the Dragons? That should be good for at least a 20-minute argument in character, giving you plenty of time to have a cup of tea and smile politely from behind the screen

My main concerns with this - and the Council of Waterdeep, and any event with lots of NPCs, is trying to give each NPC an identifiable presence in the meeting. Like, I'm running Curse of Strahd right now, and the players had a meeting in Rictavio's tower with him, Ezmerelda, Ireena and Ismark (and, uh, two children they rescued from some Hags). Trying to give the impression that there were four important and driven NPCs in the room, rather than one with a changing accent, was tough!

 

[pukunui]

My main concerns with this - and the Council of Waterdeep, and any event with lots of NPCs, is trying to give each NPC an identifiable presence in the meeting. Like, I'm running Curse of Strahd right now, and the players had a meeting in Rictavio's tower with him, Ezmerelda, Ireena and Ismark (and, uh, two children they rescued from some Hags). Trying to give the impression that there were four important and driven NPCs in the room, rather than one with a changing accent, was tough!

Yeah, I've struggled with that too. I made cards for each NPC on the caravan trip and for each member of the council. I would hold the relevant card up whenever a given NPC was talking or doing something. I don't know if it helped or not, though.

For the dragon council, I'm hoping to be able to focus on one dragon at a time really.

I'm also thinking that maybe I'll just have Ileuthra appear to the PCs in human form, since a) he's the one truly undecided dragon and may want to get a feel for the PCs ahead of the council and b) he's a brass dragon, and brass dragons loving talking! He can ask the PCs loaded questions and give them hints about what each dragon (including himself) might want.

At the same time, I can have Nymmurh hanging around in the form of a cat or something, snuggling up to each PC in turn to see how they react. If anyone is mean to him, he might start out as neutral instead of friendly. And then I could have Tazmikella appear as a curious monkey and go all Yoda on the party. She'll try to "playfully steal" the item she regards as hers, and she might even hiss at the rogue in the party.

 

[Steven Winter]

Maybe cut the Thay chapter (also suffers from lack of space) entirely and put the whole page count into the Dragon Council, doing a robust job on it? One well-done highlight of the campaign, instead of two anemic under-formed ideas competing for limited resources.

Not a bad option at all. These kinds of calls are hard to make when you're in the middle of a daily scramble to hit your word outputs.

do you think that the Tyranny of Dragons storyline would have worked better as one 256-page book, like the other APs?

WotC originally wanted two 128-page books. Wolf wisely negotiated them down to 96 (and I agreed with his decision), because the deadlines were too tight to produce all the text, maps, and illustrations for that many pages. We had a hard enough time reaching 192. Trying to hit a mark 33% higher would have been impossible.

Excellent ideas being proposed here. I love 'em all. The best one is whichever one your players will get most excited about.

Steve

 

[Sloblock]

I am glad the Thay chapter wasn't cut as we had a load of fun with it.

I expanded it slightly

1. A location with the teleportation circle Pcs needed to travel to and then I had a fight scene with Red Wizards loyal to Rath
2. With some maps of a keep from a Pathfinder module ( google "pathfinder brinewall castle" ) I pimped up location.

Then after a brief scene of fluff we got down to the pre-written part of the "questioning"

My Players had it down as a good nights entertainment, I am happy to share my notes if people do want to run it.

Thanks Steve for your replies


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[Douglas Mora]

Age of the dragons defin the size

Hey guys,
Are all the dragons in the council ancient? Any great wyrm? This will defin their stats so i would like to know more info about it.

Thanks

 

[jayoungr]

It doesn't say because they assume the PCs won't be fighting them. But I would think the council is made up of ancients at minimum, and there might be some great wyrms among them.

 

[Scott Graves]

I've read through as best I can and I told a select player or two about the council sessions and the guy groaned. WE talked a bit and decided we need to work something out because these guys get a little Murder Hobo like if they don't kill something within the first hour of play. Then bad things happen... I think I will have them show as witnesses to explain what they have seen and have a few council members ask questions. Then I will turn a lot of it into favors the council wants done to secure their forces join the fight. Something like that. Not certain. It looks about as weird as the first one.