So the group finally went to Thundertree, and that's where the campaign ended! Because of the dragon!
..but not because of a fight!
So one issue we'd been having is we didn't feel the characters had a ton of motivation for completing the main Wave Echo Cave quest, as-written. They had also short-circuited a number of bigger encounters and so were hanging out around halfway through level 3, and the adventure suggests level 4 for WEC. They decided to check out Old Owl Well and dealt with that pretty quickly, as well as the orcs at Wyvern Tor. Which left just Thundertree. We were using the pregens, and the Folk Hero - who had been going on about how it was his destiny to reclaim the town (I actually liked how the player just went full-on for this character trait) - convinced the rest of the party to check out this dragon. Just look around, you know?
The twig blights I played as stationary creatures that could be roused by fighting, but since there wasn't any fighting, they just swayed and looked awful (I imagined them as thin tree bark people with what looked like a face in agony). The ash zombies I didn't even bother with a combat; they went into the tavern, found them, dispatched. It worked more as "hey this place is
weird" ambiance than an actual encounter, which I think is fine.
The party found Reidoth easily enough, and chatted with him a bit. I'd decided that Reidoth wants the dragon gone, but also doesn't want the town to be reclaimed; he wants the forest to re-take it. He tried to get the party to just give up and go home, but Folk Hero was having none of that, and decided to treat with the dragon.
At which point FH has a kind of.. psychotic break? He's back in his hometown, after all these years, he's got this impression that he has a capital-D Destiny riding on his shoulders.. he doesn't need the dragon to leave, he's trying to convince the dragon to join with him. Dragon can be mayor if he wants! Et cetera. I played the dragon as manipulative, cunning, intelligent.
I don't have the MM but I was running with the "green dragons collect people" angle, and figured that there would be subtle enchantment magics going on, influencing people who came to the town, granting the dragon control over them. The dragon convinced FH to bring the druid to him; dragon wants to collect the druid, who's been soaking up this enchantment magic for awhile. RP and persuasion rolls later, the druid agrees to speak with the dragon the next morning.
This was at the end of almost 4 hours of playing late in the evening and we were all pretty tired, so this didn't go off quite as smoothly/interestingly as I'd hoped, but I had the dragon and the druid play a strategy game (decided on go), during which the dragon's magic would be making its final push to ensnare the druid. Which succeeded! And since FH's whole motivation was Thundertree, it made the most sense that he would stay there at this point. The wizard stayed as well - probably learn a lot from the dragon, could study the monsters in the area. The noble decided he wouldn't stay in the town - this was too weird for him - and the thief was unsure what she'd do next. (yes, no cleric through this whole adventure, amazingly. lots of stealth and
charm person and some healing potions)
Anyway! Thundertree has the potential to be pretty interesting and cool, and a different sort of introduction to dragons beyond "kill dragon, take golds". I'm kind of unhappy with the adventure as-written but I guess it was a good exercise in DMing anyway.
