D&D 5E What is Iymrith's full plan? (spoilers for Storm King's Thunder)

[dropbear8mybaby]

My best guess is he's writing these things with Adventure League in mind. The kind of groups where DM's rotate, new players keep showing up, and the sessions are so short that the focus really is more on getting your 6-8 encounters in for the night than attempting to setup plausible RP or story sets. I wish he'd start writing higher quality stuff again, but I suspect this isn't happening because he suddenly became a crappy designer; he's just pandering to a niche in the community.

Nah, like I said in my review, I don't think he had the time or resources to do anything more. It really looks like this book wasn't really meant to be a campaign but rather a sourcebook for the north and then later someone said, "We need a campaign book, stat!" It has all the hallmarks of adventure being tacked on as an afterthought without a team to actually review and playtest it through a proper product cycle.

I've read whole sections 8-9 times, trying to make sense of it, and yes, it's bewildering. I'm just hoping that my players don't try to delve too deep. With any luck, they're charitably assuming that, behind the scenes, it all makes sense.

What annoys me is that I have to do so much work for it to make sense. Like this section I'm going through now, I'm rewriting half of it. That was work I specifically didn't want to do, which was the entire reason why I wanted to run a campaign from a book in the first place.

 

[tardigrade]

The gods aren't able to just turn up and explain things anymore. Ao stopped all that with the Sundering. (Hence why Tiamat needed the Cult of the Dragon and the Red Wizards to summon her. She could no longer manifest on her own.)

Ah, I somehow missed that - thanks (I'm a recent refugee from 2e; still catching up on the bit in between....)

I assume there are still ways for the gods to indicate really important things to their worshippers other than physically manifesting, though - visions, strange portents, etc...

 

[tardigrade]

In my campaign Imryth is sowing chaos to cover for the Cult's Tiamat summoning activities. The Draakorn of RoT will sound around the time the PCs get out of Maelstrom.

Now *there's* an idea - thanks, I think I'll try that. I may even see if I can splice Hoard of the Dragon Queen together with SKT, although I haven't read it so don't know if that would work (so any thoughts on that would be very welcome too).

 

[tardigrade]

Remember that she has been consulting with Yuan-ti mystics who are "translating" to her knowledge of how to defeat her foes from their god. Depending on how the final chapter plays out, there could be a rather funny scene where she demands to know if she can defeat the adventurers that have invaded (or something to that effect) and they basically lie and tell her yes out of fear of suffering her wrath if they passed on what their god really said.

I'd be surprised if that was the first time the mystics fudged on the translations, so who knows how much questionable Snake-God advice Imyrith's been operating on over the years. As a result, it's easy to explain whatever irrational behavior or decisions she's made.

Good catch - I'd completely forgotten that. But from the way that's written (p227 of SKT, "Because she has become desperate,") it sounds to me like that's something that happens in the later stages of the campaign, not something she based her original plan on.

 

[tardigrade]

It makes a lot more sense if you combine it with Tyranny of Dragons. Iymrith is distracting the giants so they don't help the small people against their mortal enemy the dragons. I can't imagine my players doing a 180 after ToD and suddenly trusting a dragon cult for access to an airship?!

Yeah, I was already planning to replace these guys with a crew of enthusiastic kobolds; I'm pretty sure my party wouldn't trust the cult either...

 

[Jester David]

I'm sure that's part of it. But my guess is that SKT was actually a victim of a writer's worst enemy: deadlines.

Deadlines and having to write for two AI conventions as well as Force Grey: Giant Hunters. And, apparently, not being able to write at his desk at work.

In this podcast, he does specifically talk about design choices like the randomness intended to make the game different each time you play it. That personally sounds like a nod to the AL, but I could be wrong. I just can't think of many reasons why a DM would want to have an adventure like that unless they made it a habit of running with different groups or something. Just seemed weird (although highly useful for him).

Has Perkins ever been involved in Organised Play? I don't think he's ever done work for that side of the company.
I think he just assumed people would play it twice...

 

[flametitan]

Has Perkins ever been involved in Organised Play? I don't think he's ever done work for that side of the company.
I think he just assumed people would play it twice...

I seem to recall from his panel at Gamehole in 2015 that CoS and SKT were written to be shorter so that people could either complete it in a more timely manner, while those that do complete it in a timely manner could run it with another group. I wouldn't be surprised if they were also trying to aim these adventures as things you'd run again and again, like how some people have a yearly I6 one shot on Halloween.

Likewise, there's also the possibility it was aimed at the "communal experience". It could be to help generate further conversations about how their campaigns differed alongside how they were similar.

EDIT: That said, even if Perkins wasn't directly involved with AL, it's not unreasonable to assume that the people in charge of D&D marketing would want to make sure the hardcovers run smoothly when used in AL contexts.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

I guess I'll be the lone voice of support for how this adventure/campaign is written: it's MY Forgotten Realms and MY campaign (well, mine and my co-DMs and players) to run how I (we) want to run it, and the fact that there's not too much detail and expected storyline/outcome is perfect. I love the fact that there are dozens of semi-related encounters for a wide range of play levels that we can pick and choose to use as suits our interests, needs, and the story that the PCs cause to happen at our table. There's far less railroading in this campaign to get to an expected end.

In our game the breaking of the Ordning is one of several results of a "cosmic alignment" that is happening (another is the arrival of several demon lords in the Underdark a la Out of the Abyss).

The "great races" (giants, dragons and elves) as well as other entities (demon lords and far realms entities) are either victims of the cosmic alignment or working to take advantage of the situation or both.

Iymrith wanted to mess with the giants because "dragons hate giants and vice versa" and is actually a victim of Slarkrethel's manipulation in its efforts to achieve godhood during this cosmic alignment.

 

[Motorskills]

One important thing to do when trying to avoid spoilers is to not put a spoiler in the thread title.....

 

[tardigrade]

One important thing to do when trying to avoid spoilers is to not put a spoiler in the thread title.....

Would you consider that a spoiler? I'm happy to change it if you're serious but I don't say anything about what the plan is (or even whose 'side' Iymrith is on). Most of the major NPCs have plans, including the giant lords, the daughters, the dragons and Slarkrethel. And Iymrith doesn't even change her name when she's disguised as a giant, so any player who thinks "oh, *that* Iymrith!" will immediately work out the twist during play anyway.