D&D 5E RoT: Metallic Dragon Council

[pukunui]

Hi all,

The PCs in my Tyranny of Dragons campaign are headed in the direction of the metallic dragon council, and so I am starting my prep. Man, that chapter is sparse on detail. Not even a hint of a description of what the meeting place looks like, for instance.

I'm looking for some tips and details from DMs who have run The Rise of Tiamat already. How did you flesh out this council?

Where did the meeting take place - in a cave, in a building, out on a mountain prairie? What did it look like?

Did the dragons appear in their normal forms, or did they all shapechange into humanoid forms to make the PCs more comfortable?

How did you convey the information for each dragon? Did you have them just straight out demand concessions, or did the PCs have to work to figure out what the dragons wanted?


I have a week to sort this out. I would appreciate any amount of help to flesh this chapter out before then.

Thanks,
Jonathan

 

[robus]

I've not run it yet so I'm interested in seeing what others suggest too. This and the Thay chapter are very terse!

as far as the dragons go I plan for each have each have an objection (basically the past grievance) and an incentive (a desire for stability in the realms). Each has a 6 point score and starts at 3. If the PCs appeal to their incentive the score goes up by 1 point. If they remove the objection the score goes up by 2 points. Reach 6 and the dragon is onboard. Refuse to deal the objection score goes down by 2. Fail to appeal to their incentive score drops another 1 and the dragon leaves the council. I think the dragons start in dragon form and if their objection is removed they turn to human form?

Idea for the setting - a mountain aerie with nothing but a sheer drop behind the PCs and the dragons in front (within the aerie).

Anyway like you curious to hear actual play reports.

 

[Sloblock]

hi

the chapter as written was pretty sparse...I inserted a couple of bits...

so I had the players asked to go to the Dragon meet as ambassadors, and for them to meet Elia at barn outside of Waterdeep.

En-route I gave the Players a hand out that detailed each of the dragons this covered the types and I also put down the original status. This meant that I could fill in back ground and give the players something to ask at the meet.

So I inserted a dragon fight en-route that was pretty brutal, this was with red dragons which I hadn't used much up to this point. The PCs all fell to 0 as the Red dragon flamed them, I had the PCs wake up to the sound of the other Metallic dragons arriving to help.

Next the meeting, I used what Robus had which was the inside a large cave with the PCs on a raised platform.

The PCs then started with their introductions, for the copper dragon, I had it set the prisoners and hats puzzle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_and_hats_puzzle , this worked really well and threw two of my PCs off as they tried to work it out.

So we went through what the dragons wanted and the PCs said that they would help

I then wrote a couple of side quests so that the PCs could complete the dwarf and elf tasks. The dwarf one was around getting assistance from a younger more progressive dwarf helping to oust Braunanvil from power. The Elf one i added in around the background of one of the PCs who was a noble elf.

 

[Sloblock]

This and the Thay chapter are very terse!

yes this was very poor in comparison to other chapters I changed a bit for the Thay chapter and my players still remember this as one of their favourite interlude parts of the campaign

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=6790268]Sloblock[/MENTION]: Thanks for that. I like that you had the copper dragon ask the PCs to solve a puzzle.


As an aside, I find it too much of a stretch to accept that Elia can fly from Waterdeep to the Nether Mountains* in only two days, so I've decided that she'll make use of the Harper teleportation network (thanks SKT!) and teleport the group to Everlund, then fly them into the mountains to the meeting place.

I'm thinking about having them spot the dwarves with their captured cultist on the way. I will add in a red dragon of some kind to keep Elia occupied while the PCs deal with the cultists.

Then maybe on the way back I'll run the second "cult strikes back" episode. Maybe I'll have Elia just fly them down to the road to Everlund and let them make their own way back to the Harper portal. They can get attacked on the road.




*It's a distance of more than 700 miles. If she flies nonstop for the entire 48 hours, she'd have to be flying at 15 mph. If you add in some breaks, she'd have to travel even faster than that. According to the DMG, however, her normal flying speed of 80 feet translates to only 8 mph, and she can only fly for 9 hours a day. I suppose you could say that she flies for longer at the risk of exhaustion, but she'd still need to be moving a lot faster than she ought to be able to.

 

[Eltab]

The metallic dragons know that war is brewing, so they won't want to send their leaders someplace they can be ambushed. I like an alpine field with camouflage netting between trees. Not far from some metallic dragon's lair, so he can bodyguard the meeting. (Hmm, a mated pair, for extra security?) Caves / caverns would make sense too but gives me claustrophobia.

The ambassadors might travel part of the way in human form, to throw off any interception attempts. And all this might come up when Elia starts flying in a circular search pattern because she cannot find what she is looking for.

There could also be a planar portal (to the Feywild? a demi-plane?) which they know is secure.

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=6803337]Eltab[/MENTION]: Yeah, I was just thinking that this chapter is really begging for something magical. Like a path behind a waterfall that leads to a magical grove (that could very well be on another plane). Maybe it's Protanther's lair even.

 

[Sloblock]

@Eltab: Yeah, I was just thinking that this chapter is really begging for something magical. Like a path behind a waterfall that leads to a magical grove (that could very well be on another plane). Maybe it's Protanther's lair even.

Liking the idea of a magical grove for the meeting place, a sacred dragon place if you like.

 

[pukunui]

Liking the idea of a magical grove for the meeting place, a sacred dragon place if you like.

I was thinking about a secret mountain grove I vaguely remember from Neverwinter Nights 2. There was a dragon there too, although I think it was an evil one.

 

[Sloblock]

that sounds perfect