Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 paulstrait Mar 24, 2015 15:13:42	Background -- my group has not played through any of the Hoard of the Dragon Queen except for the last two episodes, because I really liked the idea of the cloud castle and it fits in nicely with some other things going on in our campaign.  Since we've ignored most of the module, we may have mangled some of the context here, and I'm certainly not committed to any particular outcome.  Anyhow, last night we had a session in which the following events happened:   The PCs entered the castle disguised as members of the cult.  They visited Rezmir's chamber and explained that they were sent by Talis the White to assist in the efforts and then to bring back further instruction to her.  Rezmir seemed a bit suspicious, so they decided to go ahead and kill her.  An alarm was sounded, and the fight was shortly joined by the two stone giants and the red wizards, and 5 rounds later by 10 ogres.  The PCs killed Rezmir, the drakes, the giants, one red wizard (Rath Modar escaped), and all the ogres.  They then quickly ransacked the rooms in the keep area.  A few minutes later, more cultists showed up wanting to know what happened, and not too long after Captain Othelstan showed up on the back of a wyvern with an entourage of cultists.  The party explained that they were sent by Talis the White with urgent news that the red wizards were planning on betraying the cult, and that after informing Rezmir, she confronted them and the red wizards killed her, the giants, many ogres, and badly injured the party.  They presented Captain Othelstan with a selection of the letters found in the red wizard chambers indicating that there was some dissent among red wizards and that many do not support the cult.  Before the captain arrived, they told a set of increasingly complicated lies to the cultists and then ordered them around to man battlestations in case Rath Modar returned, and rolled quite well on their Charisma (intimidation) and Charisma (deception) checks, and again rolled well on their Charisma (deception) check with the captain (the final roll being a natural 20).  The captain took the letters and flew up to the upper level to confer with Blagothkus.  The party bridled the wyverns in the stables and took flight, ordering the cultists around as if they were some kind of authorities (hoping to separate them a bit in case things get messy and they have to fight their way out.  A few minutes later, the castle took flight, and that's where we stopped for the evening. Our next session is in a week so I've got some time to brainstorm.  Given the set of events that have transpired thus far, what are the possible outcomes?  I'm looking for ideas & suggestions for ways to keep things interesting and tense and to challenge the PCs.  I'm not really sure what their plans are (they are somewhat surprised that their ruse worked) but I imagine they might try to sneak into the tunnels at some point before they are outed, (*if* they are outed).
#2 Durn Mar 24, 2015 21:46:10	That's funny I'm doing the same thing most likely.  I realized that most of the module seemed like kind of a slog so I never got into it but now the campaign I'm running is about the right level so it looks like they are going to head up to the Hunting Lodge next session.   Great write up!  I can imagine my group doing a similar thing.  What happened in the Lodge for you? As for your game, the biggest question to me is, what's up with the Cloud Giant?  I don't really understand why he is helping the Cult. What does he think of the dragon in his cellar?  I've started to imagin him as kind of like Crom on his Mountain, glum and brooding with a voice like a deathmetal band.  Maybe he's deeply depressed since the death of his wife and kinda wants the world to end.   Anyways, it's very likely they'll end up negotiating with him isn't it.  Maybe they can snap him out of his melancholy and the finale could be a battle royal with the the Giant on their team vs the Red Wizard, the Cult, the Vampire and the Dragon...
#3 paulstrait Mar 25, 2015 21:29:59	Yeah, I wasn't super impressed with the full module, but I liked the end.  So, first of all, the party has been exploring several sites in the Mere of Dead Men, the last of which was Castle Naerytar, though they found it inhabited by a bunch of humans who had set up an arcane school.  However, I kept the basement basically as it is in the module, full of bullywugs, the former inhabitants of the castle who had been fought off by the humans and were now trapped below the castle and unable to get back to the swamp surface.  So, the bullywugs attacked the party when they were exploring, but Pharblex (who I decided was not affiliated with the cult of the dragon) surrendered to them after all his minions were killed.  The party made a deal with him to escort him back to the swamp, but they inadvertantly triggered the portal to the Graypeak mountains.  So now they've got a chaotic evil bullywug shaman npc tagging along with them (and it is already a big party with seven PCs).    Once they arrived, they made short work of the Hunting Lodge inhabitants, and Talis surrendered after a couple of her veteran pals went down.  I had her basically pitch the idea to the party that they could let her go, and she would help them steal this dragon hoard and it would be a win-win, basically as per the module guidelines.  I was sort of surprised that the party went for it (I've gamed with this same group for the last 11 or so years and they are generally of the take-no-prisoners / judge-jury-executioner mindset) -- they just conditioned the deal on the release of the captives / former employees of Lord Marsten.    One thing that I should mention is that every time the PCs gain a level, I let them each draw one card from Paizo's 'plot twist' deck and one from the 'plot twist - recollections' deck, that they can use at any point to make a minor change to the plot (I highly recommend these cheap storytelling/rp aids; they are awesome).  Two of these cards got used in the last session.  One, "Sloth" was used to give Rezmir a level of exhaustion, on account of all the hard work and long hours he must have put in as he was getting the castle ready for this trip.  That helped them a bit.  Another, "Moment of Glory" was used to convert a miserable abortion of an attempt to mount a wyvern into a glorious success.  I know that the PCs have a few cards that they might use to help them in subsequent negotiations: one called "Kept Secret," which thematically allows a secret of some sort to be maintained -- presumably they might be able to use this to maintain their deception a little bit longer than they otherwise would be able; and a "Rock and a Hard Place" card which they might use to get someone to agree to betray their comrades because the alternative might be worse.  As an aside, what I think is particularly cool about these cards is that they very well might be able to do these things anyway, but the full range of possibilities might not have occured to them without thinking about how they might be able to twist the plot to their advantage. As for Blagothkus, I'm really sort of confused about his motivation.  He clearly is deeply depressed bereaving his wife.  That he doesn't hate dragons seems hardly a reason to team up with the cult-- and given some of the suggested dialogue, he seems somewhat hostile to their objectives, even though he supposedly also is motivated by a desire to further those objectives, at least as a means to a greater end.  And I'm not sure how much I buy that whole 'giants have become complacent and the rise of dragons would be good because then giant-kind will have a worthy opponent' story.  I mean, given how many powerful worthy opponents there are in the Realms, what is so special about dragons, which are already there anyway?  And what is he, a giant version of Nietzsche crossed with Charles Manson?  And why is the cult oblivious to his desire to start a genocidal race war between giants and dragons (which he doesn't even particularly hate??)?  Or are they not oblivious but just see him as a means to an end?  And why is there a white dragon in his castle?  Has it always been there, or is it a recent addition?  Also, other than the stone giants, and the ogres (who, in my view, hardly count as legit giants), the castle seems to be kind of lacking in giants (I'm not even sure how the humanoids are supposed to operate the doors -- I decided that at least some of them were retrofitted with human-sized, reachable handles).  Since the PCs dealt with the challenges on the lower level so easily, I thought perhaps of replacing some of the ogres on the second level with other giants, though that still requires a good answer to the motivational question.  The vampire is also an interesting case.  I don't understand how she was 'forced' to work with the current cultists instead of say splintering off long ago.  She's certainly powerful enough to hold her own, and has some vampire spawns to help her out.  I'm still not sure who exactly Captain Othelstan went to confer with.  I figure it was either Blagothkus or the vampire, unless perhaps he has the means to communicate with cultists who aren't present.  It seems to me like the death of Rezmir might give the vampire the opportunity to exert authority, though it seems like it will depend in large measure on how the party interacts with her, and with the giant.  How might she see the PCs?  How might Blagothkus react to a change in ideology & plans?  Of course it will make a difference how they deal with the dragon (and whether they deal with the dragon first or not).  Maybe if they kill the dragon, the vampire might raise it as a dracolich?  One thing is for sure:  I feel like I have as much uncertainty about what is going to happen during the next session as my players probably do.  That makes it pretty interesting by itself.  It is certainly an interesting scenario, and in all my years of gaming I don't think I've seen anything quite like it.
#4 Durn Mar 26, 2015 19:01:29	Maybe the Giant is like the King of the Rohirrim in LOTR.  The Vampire has been feeding him sorrow and despair and he can be awoken from his apathy if she is slain and mighty words are spoken.  Then he will be super pissed about the dragon in his cellar. I agree about the lack of giants.  Also, why Ballistae?  Giants throw rocks.  There should be Hill Giants with rocks.  The ballistae could be something the cult set up maybe.
#5 Durn Mar 26, 2015 22:45:36	I've run with this a bit.  At the risk of making the castle SUPER dnagerous, I'm thinking of replacing all ogres with Stone Giants.  They are a cult of their own, only they venerate the Cloud Giant.  The maintain the castle and despise the cult, though they tolerate it because their master tells them to.  They don't know he is under the control of the vampire.  On the other hand, the Cult of the Dragon isn't that well stocked in the castle.  There are Rezmir, Sir Othalstain, some Wyverns, a dozen Dragonclaws and 20 ice goblins (I don't really care for kobolds) who just serve who ever.  They spend a lot of time polishing giants, but a Wyvern keeps them cooking for the Cult lately.  This means that the Cult really is at the pleasure of their host.
#6 paulstrait Mar 28, 2015 13:43:49	Durn wrote:
#7 Durn Mar 30, 2015 20:24:03	Yeah, it gives the Vampire a reason to be there doesn't it.  And it avoids the whole "Wait what is this giant logic?!?" problem.  Another thought I had would be that if the Castle crashes it could crash into the Cloud Giant's old stomping grounds so there would be angry cloud giants wanting to know what happened to their old buddy?
#8 BRJN Mar 31, 2015 15:36:32	Durn wrote:
#9 paulstrait Mar 31, 2015 15:57:34	So, an update.  Our session last night was quite interesting.  I almost thought we would get through the entire 6 hour session without a combat, which is peculiar for our group to say the least.  The captain never returned, and so after bossing the cultists around, the PCs eventually started to explore the ice tunnels, where they found the dragon.  They continued up, and then starting poking around, and met with the cloud giant.  They had some banter with him for a while -- I figured he would have a difficult time understanding why little people would go to so much effort to bring about an outcome so obviously bad for them, so he questioned each of them closely about how they came to join the cult and why they believed such peculiar beliefs.  That was interesting.  Then they left, and after holing up in guest chamber for a while trying to figure out what to do, they decided to explore the towers in the center of the glacier.    At this point, they found the vampire's coffin, and having had some bad experiences with vampires in the past, they prepared some holy water and a stake and tried to open the coffin and ambush the vampire -- but the vampire was watching all of this from above in bat form.  She then came down and talked to them, found out that Rezmir was dead, and decided this was an opportunity to make her move.  She explained her theological position to the party, and gave them the option to help her rid the cult of all the 'blasphemers' or be killed.  The party opted for the former, and so she tasked them with attempting to recruit the white dragon to be converted to a dracolich.  This led to an interesting RP encounter, though at the end, the dragon was still somewhat ambivalent, and told the party that they could revisit the conversation if they could kill the giants and ogres as a demonstration of their power, figuring they would either succeed or die trying and either way he could go back to sleep. Finally, the party returned to the cloud giant's tower to kill him.  At this point, however, the party had split up and got confused about the 'plan,' whatever it was supposed to be.  So, in a comedy of errors, some of the party went to the cloud giant to warn him about the treachery of the vampire and vampire spawn, while the others showed up with the vampires and attacked the cloud giant.  This led to a bizarre three-way battle, which we had to pause after the fifth round b/c we had been playing for 6 hours and were exhausted.  So, that's where things will pick up next week.  I still am not really clear on how this will all end...
#10 Durn Mar 31, 2015 18:17:10	Wow, that's wierd.  Another one to ponder.  Having had Talis Whitefang offer a similar deal I'll probably avoid having the vampire do the same so as to avoid the "this cult hates itself" vibe. I think I'm gonna make the dragon a black or blue dragon, just to mix things up.
#11 paulstrait Mar 31, 2015 20:04:26	Yeah, I'm definitely going for a 'this cult hates itself' sort of vibe.  Of course, in my campaign, the cult isn't the centerpiece, but I thought it was interesting to play it as deeply factionalized, especially given how opposed the cult formerly was to the Church of Tiamat -- the Church of Tiamat was one of the Cult's most hostile enemies.  So I find it difficult to imagine that resistance to the Church of Tiamat and general resentment wouldn't be deep-seated.
#12 Durn Apr 01, 2015 20:54:17	That's a good point.  So, new, Dragonborn/Half-dragon type Cultists would be Tiamat worshippers, but older especially undead types would be Anti-Tiamat Cult of the Dragon guys, who follow adventurers around and try to bring back to life the dragons they slay.
#13 paulstrait Apr 01, 2015 22:10:44	Yeah, that's the idea.  I've got this other plot arc going surrounding some old artifacts associated with the church of Myrkul, so the plots may integrate depending on what my players seem psyched about
#14 Durn Apr 05, 2015 18:20:19	Updates?  How'd the session go?
#15 paulstrait Apr 06, 2015 0:24:32	We play on Mondays, so the March 31 update was about our last session.  The next session is tomorrow.. will report back after.
#16 paulstrait Apr 07, 2015 21:44:25	Update from our last session   So we left off in the middle of this three-way combat between giants, vampires, and PCs.  The battle was extremely dangerous for the PCs, and although no one died, one of the PCs lost nearly 60 hp from his max hp (another lost like 10).  The party was eventually victorious, killing all non-PCs (except their bullywug ally), and then flying up to the vampire's lair and staking/executing her.  On her body, they found a journal describing a like-minded cell of the Cult known as the Followers of the Scaly Way, based in Leilon (this hooks in to an ongoing arc in the Mere of Dead Men).  In any event, after the battle, there was understandably some concern from the remaining ogres.  The party continued their general strategy of lying through their teeth.  There were about 25 ogres, plus a Biclops (a monster from the excellent "Fifth Edition Foes" supplement published by Necromancer Games) who could speak a halting common.  So the party explained that the vampires attacked and ultimately killed Blagothkus, using the most drained PC as evidence, showing the wounds on his neck, the pale skin, etc.  This deception wasn't really a viable long term strategy since Blagothkus's battle wounds would reveal he was killed by a sword, but the ogres and biclops were quite concerned about the sudden change in direction and flight stability that took place after Blagothkus's death, and so the party convinced the biclops to come with them to the steering tower to see if they could figure out the deal before checking out Blagothkus's remains.  The deception largely worked until they got to the steering tower, at which point Blagothkus's soul announced in an eerie, deafening noise, that the PCs were liars who had betrayed and killed him, and that his death should be avenged.   This set off a rather epic battle against a biclops and 25 ogres.  With 7 level 7 PCs and one NPC ally, this worked out to 1693.75 xp per party member, 6.25 points shy of 'deadly.'  And the party had not had a chance for a short rest, was nearly out of spells, and one PC's max hp was down like 85%.  The party was victorious, but there were a few touch and go moments, and at the end, one of the players played a plot-twist card called 'phobia,' when the ogres were down to 6 or 7 left -- the player suggested that at this point, the ogres would be terrified by having seen so many brethren fall and by the situation the castle was in, and would flee.  This seemed reasonable to me.  During the combat, Blagothkus's rage led him to call a storm and periodically strike the PC that slayed him with lightning.  After the ogres fled (and the party used this opportunity to kill about half of them as they were fleeing), the castle began spinning counterclockwise and descending to a height barely above the mountain peaks below.  During this time, when two of the religious PCs prayed to their deities, they received brief visions, each of which were plot hooks, though they referred to things very far away from one another, so that the party will have to deliberate and decide which to follow up with (or which to follow up with first).  They also debated how they were going to escape the castle before it crashes, which presumably would instantly kill them all.  They only have two wyverns, though one PC has an amulet of the planes, and one PC is a druid so could wildshape into a hamster or something -- but even in that scenario, the two wyverns wouldn't be able to carry the entire party.  The remembered the griffon on the first floor, and there is obviously still the dragon to deal (or not deal) with .    And that's basically where we left things.  So we've now had three sessions involving this castle, each one a bit more crazy than the last.  It has been a lot of fun, and I'm still excited to see what the players will do with this as they debate their options via email or whatever between now and next week's session...
#17 Durn Apr 09, 2015 10:13:06	Heavy duty.  I like that the players used their plot card to force essentialy force a morale check! It might take you out of your planned campaign region, but this might be the opportunity to have the Castle crash land in the homeland of the giants, as is hinted at in the book.  Or, if you have Rise of Tiamat, the castle might crash on the Glacier of the White Dragon.  The heroes could be nursed back to health by the eskimos, only to discover that the dragon has taken up residence nearby.
#18 paulstrait Apr 09, 2015 15:06:41	Yeah, one of the players remarked upon reading this thread "wow, yeah, we are really kind of badass."  Metal, as Bawylie might say.  Definitely a good outcome.  Depending on how they escape from this flying deathtrap, they may very well revisit the site later to try to plunder anything from the hoard itself that is still accessible.  Though they didn't get any of it, they are pretty happy with the sentient greatsword and the 20k in silver and gold they found...   As for the eskimos, it is an interesting idea and potentially connects with the backstories of two of the party members.  One PC is a halforc from somewhere around the Spine of the World, and another is a human Uthgardt barbarian.  So it might be an opportunity to explore the histories of those characters (which are more or less currently undefined beyond a sentence or two).
#19 Durn Apr 09, 2015 21:22:30	It might be nice to cannabalize that scenario from Rise of Tiamat if you have it.
#20 paulstrait Apr 09, 2015 21:38:17	Durn wrote:
#21 paulstrait Apr 14, 2015 12:02:03	Final update, as the party finally more or less finished dealing with Skyreach Castle...   The party decided to try to escape from the castle.  They went to a guest room and made a plan.  In a (now becoming typical) strange turn of events, the party suffered a strange miscommunication, both in game and out of character, that basically left one of the PCs in the castle by himself with no way to escape.  This led to a legitimate real life argument, but tempers calmed and we played it out.  It was kind of amusing because my players had an email chain that was litterally 85 emails long in which they extensively discussed their possible options to escape from the castle, but the plan broke down in the execution.  The castle was throwing lightning bolts at them, and they decided to leave via flight.  They had two wyverns, so that took care of three PCs and the NPC ally, plus a fifth, the druid, who wildshaped into a mouse.  A sixth party member has a mop of flying.  That  just left the barbarian and the monk. The barbarian's escape plan was basically to hold on to the underside of the wyvern for as long as possible.  The wyvern's carrying capacity was two, so this was an unstable combination.  After a skill challenge (involving animal handling for the PC driving the wyvern, athletics for the barbarian and the wyvern, acrobatics for the barbarian), the barbarian was able to slow his descent so that he effectively fell only 100 feet.  He was raging, so he didn't get terribly wounded in the fall.  He didn't land super well, and further fell down the mountain another 50 feet or so before being able to stop any further descent.  The monk's escape plan involved using a rope to rappel down the castle, but it turned out he only had 150 feet of rope, and he was trying to descend from the upper floor of the castle.  The bottom of the castle was about 100 feet above the peaks, and the castle itself is more than 350 feet tall, so he would have had to fall prohibitively far.  With various monk abilities, he still might have been able to survive, but for the fact that he was extremely drained by the vampire, his max HP temporarily reduced to 21.  So this didn't seem safe.  By the time this was realized, the rest of the party had left, and the castle was hurtling itself through the air at 30 miles per hour, so at that point the wyverns would not have been able to catch up.    The monk then decided to plead with the giant's soul to give him a break, but after a few miserable attempts at persuasion, during which he was repeatedly forced to dodge lightning bolts, he decided to go down to the dragon.  He informed the dragon of the situation, still under the guise of a member of the cult of the dragon, and then successfully persuaded the dragon to fly with him in his clutches, following the castle.    The party then decided to try to rescue the monk and figure out where the castle went.  The castle did not in fact crash over the Graypeak Mountains, but instead continued for another 15 hours or so before eventually crashing in the Spine of the World near the Icewind Dale.  The rest of the party spent a few days travelling, looking for where it might have crashed.  They made their way over to the Lost Peaks (in the High Forest) to see if they could see any evidence of a crashed glacier.  I checked my references about the area, and noted that the Lost Peaks contain the Fountains of Memory, a unique body of water that reflects past events instead of the current surroundings.  The party focused on the water and saw the castle flying northwesterly overhead.  Two party members, a PC (the warlock) and the NPC bullywug ally, decided to jump into the water to see if it would transport them to the past and perhaps into the castle.  I assigned them a 1 in 8 chance of actually landing in the right place at the right time, which they succeeded at, and landed in the castle the night before, placing them right next to the monk.  All parties involved were somewhat mystified by that result.   That night, the two religiously minded party members (a paladin and a cleric) again were visited by the visions that plagued them in the castle, this time even more extreme.  This reiterated the details of two distinct plot hooks, one in the Mere of Dead Men and one in the North at Kelvin's Cairn.  The cleric cast a divination spell to see which direction the castle went, and the rhyme he received in response was "the direction that is best, is certainly the northwest." (Coming up with a responsive rhyme on the spot is not always easy...)   At this point, the remaining 5 party members decided to head due west to Iniarv's Tower by the Mere of Dead Men, where the paladin's Helmite comrades had taken up residence and about which he had seen a disturbing vision involving a black dragon.  At the same time, the other three party members in the North left the dragon where they landed, close to the border between the Spine of the World and Icewind Dale.  The dragon decided he would stay there and guard his hoard, and instructed the three party members to go bring some powerful cult necromancers if they wanted to revisit the question of converting the dragon into a dracolich.  They made their way to Mirabar, very close to where the halforc monk character had trained (and where his human father still lives).  After a few days of travel, both groups made it to their destination.  At Mirabar, the monk paid for a sending spell and sent a message to the the paladin informing him of his situation.   Arriving at Iniarv's Keep, the party found that a battle recently occurred there, though no bodies were found.  Eventually, an adult black dragon made himself visible and thoroughly taunted and ****ed with the party.  His demands were, by all rights, absurd:  he wanted the party to travel to a place in the Mere called the Mausoleum of the Ebondeath to retrieve the bones and relics of the ancient black wyrm Chardansearavitriol, as well as whatever remains of his hoard.  Furthermore, he demanded that the party swear an oath to not seek any assistance from any allies, and to not attack the dragon after the affair is over.  He further wanted the paladin of Helm to swear an oath on behalf of his fellow Watchers of Helm that the church of Helm will not hold the dragon accountable for their imprisonment and any harm that comes to them during their imprisonment.  For all of this, the dragon promised to return the Helmites (and two former PCs that started living at the keep when their players decided to make new characters) unharmed, though he promised that they were exceedingly uncomfortable at the moment and mentioned torture. The party was not super thrilled with this and decided to attack the dragon.  The barbarian's new sentient sword Hazirawn, seeming to have some sort of affinity with and knowledge of black dragons, was a bit reticent, but ultimately urged the barbarian to try to kill the black dragon.  The dragon for his part welcomed the challenge, but warned the party that it would be harder to complete the task if he were forced to kill one or more of them.  The party fought valiantly for a round, but the dragon's acidic breath was pretty powerful and ultimately the party reconsidered the battle, though not before the barbarian used his Boots of Striding and Springing to leap 60 feet in the air to strike the dragon.  The dragon was willing to negotiate on the terms, and allowed them to forgo swearing on behalf of the church of Helm.  The dragon also seemed to know each party member (except the rogue/arcane trickster that had joined the party after a teleportation mishap that landed him at the lodge in the Graypeaks), and claimed to have been following the party around invisibly for several tendays, planning this entire thing for quite some time.  (Before the party went to the Graypeaks, they had been exploring several sites in the Mere of Dead Men. Finally, though extremely begrudgingly, submitting to the dragon's demands, the party agreed to set off for Uthtower, the ancient tower that at some point became a temple dedicated to Myrkul, and under which sits the Mausoleum of the Ebondeath.  That is basically where we left things.  It remains to be seen what the various groups will doin their separate locations.  Because of work schedules, it is possible that the two players who have PCs in the North currently will have to sit a session or two out anyway--if they don't, we will have to have a contingency plan either for their characters to return or for them to play alternate characters.  At this point, my campaign notebook is full of different possibilities, so the players have a pretty wide range of options in how they want to proceed.  It remains to be seen whether and to what extent they will follow up on the cult of the dragon happenings, but the cult is also involved in this seemingly separate plot in the Mere, so there are many ways they might revisit the organization, and I'm currently going through Rise of Tiamat to see what material if any I might want to incorporate.  Given the twists and turns and surprises that I've seen in the last four sessions, I'm basically letting the players go whatever direction they would like and trying to adapt...