I need a bit of advice creating character hooks to transition my players to follow the Tyranny of Dragons storyline when they complete the Lost Mines of Phandelver starter set adventure, which is pretty soon...
I know this topic has been brought up before, and I have read those threads. There's some good interesting advice, but I'm looking for something more specific....more personalized hooks for my individual characters, instead of the ones presented in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, as they seem to be written for beginning level 1 adventurers.
I understand that the events in HotDQ take place a few years after LMoP, but for shits sake in the new 5e tradition, I'm gonna just run with it because the players (all newbs to D&D are excited about it).
The players will finish LMoP at level 4, on the verge of level 5. I don't mind adjusting the challenge ratings of the encounters, and have already started writing the encounters out, to where they'll eventually catch up with the level actual level of gameplay possibly by the time they are ready to start the Rise of Tiamat sequel.
With that out of the way, here's what I'm looking for...a really good reason to seek out the monk (I forget his name) in Greenest, which is far as f!ck from Phandelver.
I was originally going to have Sildar Hallwinter of the Lords Alliance ask the group to deliever the traitor Iarno Glasstaff Albrek to the Lords of Waterdeep (Neverember) for trial and sentencing for treason against the Lords Alliance. Thereafter, I was thinking of running into complications with the Cult of the Dragon in the Mere of Dead Men (but then they would have to start out at chapter 4 of HotDQ and miss out on half the adventure, which is something i dont want to do).
The players also did complete the Thundertree side quest in LMoP and killed several members of the Cult of the Dragon at the request of the green dragon Venomfang, who felt annoyed by the Cultists constant begging to undergo the Dracolich ritual. (Hey, they wouldn't be able to kill Venomfang, and the Cult was an easier target for them)
In my group I have a halfling cleric of Brandenois and a moon elf sorceress of Corellon both members of the Lords Alliance (Invited by Sir Sildar Hallwinter for rescuing the dwarf prospector Gundren Rockseeker). I also have a half elf ranger of Neverwinter Wood who is a member of the Emerald Enclave (invited so by the Druid Reidoth in Thundertree). I also have a female dwarf fighter, with the Soldier background from local dwarf clan, and no real ties to any faction, and without a patron deity. Lastly, I have a bronze dragonborn warlock of Asmodeous (who is my only evil player in the game) who joined the Zhentarim (so he can "use them" for unknown reasons).
Ok so let's have at it.
I Did something similar, with transitioning from LMOP to HODQ. I knew I was going to do it when I started running LMOP, so sprinkled liberally in hooks and references to link the 2 together.
Examples of what I changed:
1. The cultists at Thundertree were there to recruit Venomfang for the cult. I dropped hints about Frulam Mondath in their belongings.
2. The Many Arrows tribe at Wyvern Tor were a scouting party for a much larger force that is attacking the Mithral Halls of the dwarves in the north. The leader of these orcs is actively allying with the Cult to try and gain territory in the Sword Coast.
3. Hamun Kost I made a member of the Red Wizards, and had him be in the area because he is working for Szazz Tam, and is looking for the Red Wizards Rath Modar and Azbara Jos (renegades).
4. Rezmir hired the Black Spider to find and secure the mines, because Mormath the wraith was the last known owner of the Black Dragon Mask. The party learned of the Cult connection, and that Rezmir had recovered the Mask here, which lead them to follow leads to the south.
5. Given the location of Phandelver and Greenest, I decided the best way was to place Greenest along the road to Leilon, so that the characters are heading south to greenest, and then onwards from there to Carnath Roadhouse (this has the benefit of making the cults plans of trucking the loot all the way to Naerytar from the far south, just to bring it back to the south again....Kinda moot. Its travelling in one direction, south towards the Well of Dragons).
6. So I ran the Cult Camp and Greenest as written, but I had Sister Garalee from Phandelver be Leosins protege/assistant person, rather than some random monk, to tie it together. I also had Escobert be a friend of Sildar, to reinforce the connection there, and give the characters some patrons that could ease the transition to into the new areas.
7. I skipped the On the Road stuff, but made sure to introduce Azbara Jos and Jamna earlier. Jamna pointed the characters towards the Carnath Roadhouse and Bogluck lead.
I'm sure i'm missing stuff, but this is what I did. Incidentally, for individual characters, I worked with my party to have some leads (some made up, some taken from backgrounds in HODQ appendix). These are, if you are interested:
1. A halfling brother and sister (wizard and cleric) duo. Their village was attacked and suppressed by Cragmaw under the direction of the Cult. They fought back and became heroes (folk hero). The wizard is a diviner, and has nightmares about Tiamat breaking loose. The Cleric is a good friend of Ontharr Frume, who also happens to be her mentor.
2. A Tielfing rogue assassin. Jamna once saved his life, and he owes her. His family was killed, and he has a hit list that includes Bog Luck, Frulum Mondath, and Rezmir.
3. A dwarf fighter. Retired soldier of the mithral halls, he yearns to help his people. His brother was killed by Pirates, with a strange Dragon flag (this will come into more focus when the characters finally go north in Rise of Tiamat)
4. A Dragonborn Paladin of Bahumut...nuff said for motivation. She was once a real dragon, but due to sins her father committed, she was cursed in a "lesser" form of a Dragonborn. Trying to attone for her families sins.
5. A Bard from Candlekeep. His childhood friend was Talis, who i've morphed into a more symapathetic pseudo-ally of the party. She joined the cult before Severin took over, and wants to see a return to the Draco-lich loving ways...because she has a magical curse that is slowly killing her, and she is seeking ways to keep her self alive. Now she is a bit of a "double-agent". Still evil tho, and perhaps her childhood frind can convince her to help!
6. Finally, a Barbarian warrior. His family was wiped out by the Many Arrows tribe, and he was raised by Elven Rangers. This will be more explored when the party goes after Neronvain in Rise of Tiamat.
Hope this helps!
Pinwarp
JasonCampos wrote:
Thanks for the response, I will definitely use the one that connects the Black Spider to Rezmir and Cult of the a dragon.
But I have a question about changing Greenest to Leilon:
I thought that Hoard of the Dragon Quuen was supposed to be some sort of "grand tour of the Realms" kinda thing where they needed to be in Greenest so that they can travel north and hit places like Baldurs Gate and Waterdeep? How will that work?
Well, IMO, that section was not fleshed out well at all, and with no other information to go on, I figured months of random road travel could be skipped, so long as I took the main story elements (Carnath Roadhouse, Azbara Jos, Jamna Gleamsilver etc). Of course, I'm sure there is info out there in previous editions if you want to flesh out those cities (probably heaps of info), but the adventure itself has none (or next to it), and nothing of note REALLY happens on the road. I also found it rather repetitive. Go to city, talk to guy who tells you to go follow caravan. Follow caravan to Baldur's Gate...then nothing happens, so....get hired on a caravan! Travel north to waterdeep (nothing really happens of note on the way)...Waterdeep! Then nothing happens so...get hired on a caravan! Travel north to Carnath roadhouse. Seems pretty pointless, and WHY would the cult spend MONTHS trucking this loot from Greenest all the way (Months of travel, mind you, with I would assume MULTIPLE inspections/waystations at city gates etc), so that they can truck it through a swamp, to a castle, and teleport it all the way to the greypeaks...and then load it onto a flying castle to take it back south to the Well of Dragons...which by the way, according to the adventure map is probably maybe 2 weeks tops from Greenest in the first place. so about a 3 month loop (I know that people will say that they are trying to conceal the well of dragons location...but literally the next thing that happens after this whole deal, is the cult blows the Draakhorn and alerts everyone to where they are...so seems like a giant waste of time. As written, the adventure doesn't give the party a lot of time to explore these locales, or they risk losing the cults trail.
This is avoided by just having them start in the north, and ship everything south. It makes sense from a plot perspective, and skips some of the tedium of travel. The campaign does feature opportunities later on to feature these areas, so I think you can still get the "Grand Tour" feel as the adventure unfolds through Rise of Tiamat.
Just my thoughts 
JasonCampos wrote:
Pinwarp wrote:
Use Port Lhast instead of Greenest. (Which is a good target for the Cult because "everybody knows that old port city is just a den of pirates these days".) The PCs went there trying to dig up an underworld contact - they are already in town when the Cult shows up. The Cult is hauling their loot from the North towards that castle in the swamp. They still have to pass by Waterdeep because that is where THEIR contact who knows the way to the castle stays. Everything that happens between Balder's Gate and Waterdeep can equally happen between Neverwinter and Waterdeep.
Need Realmslore? Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide for v3.5 and earlier hardback books provide Realmslore and history for you to riff off. Also Grand History of the Realms takes you from "prehistory" up to the 3.5e / 4e transition point. Consider Elminster's Forgotten Realms for a more fluffy (vs crunchy) view of the world, not tied to any rules edition.
BRJN wrote:
Hey, me again!
I've done exactly this, starting with LMoP and into HoDQ. In my opinion, you could definatly replace Greenest with either Phandalin or Leilon, and it would make perfect sense. My thoughts is to do the following outline:
1. Run Episode 1 as normal, but change it to Phandalin or Leilon (or just drop Greenest Wholesale in the middle of the 2 on the road. Greenest never comes up again, so it REALLY doesn't matter if you move the town. For NPCs, have Sildar either be friends with, or replace, Escobert. All you really need is a tie to the Lords Alliance wherever the cult attacks, to forshadow the need for the factions later on. You could use Garalee in place of Leosin (both are Harpers, so it works just fine), or have Garalee be a close friend of Leosin and provide the 'hook' to lead the characters into episode 2.
2. My thoughts are, combine episode 2 and 3 together, rather than have the party go to the camp, go back to greenest (or your subsitute), and then back to the camp again. Just have a bunch of Cult forces up and leave throughout the night, leaving bare bones behind for the characters to enter the Dragon Hatchery. Important NPCs in this section are Cyanwrath and Frulum, and then Leosin (the monk does show up in Rise of Tiamat as a kinda liason of the party to the council of waterdeep, but with some work you can sub Garalee in for that, or even Sildar). Onthar frume is also important to introduce the Order of the Gauntlet, and you can use Reidoth the druid to introduce the Emerald Enclave. Personally, I also had Jamna Gleamsilver show up in this episode to introduce the Zhentarim a bit more.
MAJOR NOTE: I would stress the importance of the Decision on what to do with the Dragon Eggs. It doesn't mention ANYWHERE in HODQ that this is a major factor and dividing point amongst the first council meeting in Waterdeep during Rise of Tiamat. I would have the NPCs drop hints about what they would prefer to happen with the eggs. I think most groups will appreciate the foreknowledge that the facitons differ on what to do with the eggs, and that will make the discussion and consequences during the first council more meaningful (as the characters will feel like they made an important decision, and not be blindsided by how strongly the factions feel about it).
3. Skip most of episode 4. The only important NPCs are Jamna (who I suggest introducing earlier anyhow), and Azbara Jos (Minor character to be honest, I just stressed him more at Naerytar later. I mostly just stressed the importance of chasing down Rezmir and bringing her to justice for the cults activities, and this led the characters to travel south (i placed Carnath roadhouse just south of Leilon on the northern edge of the Mere.
4. Glossed over episode 5 a bit, Bogluck is the only npc of note, and he is a cronie with no ties to anything else that happens later, so a throw-away. My party went pretty quick into the Mere. I like exploration, and the Mere has some neat history and backstory with the Cult, so I fleshed out some stuff and made the journey a bit longer to Naerytar.
5. Once at Naerytar, I played it pretty straight from the book, not a lot of changes, other than to have Azbara Jos take a more active role so that the characters could learn a bit more about the Red Wizards involvment. The other NPCs are throw-aways, just mini-bosses (Pharblex and Borngray exist just to die basically ).
6. Episode 7, I made Talis more sympathetic and a bit more helpful (see my previous post regarding this as I linked her to my bards backstory), but otherwise ran this episode stock from the book.
7. We just started Episode 8, but I wanted it more exciting, so rather than moseying around a dinky town, I had the castle start to take off, and my party had to make quick decisions. The only NPC of note in Parnast is Captain Othelstein, and he's another throw-away. His only purpose in my campaign was to try and slow down the party so the castle could take off (they managed to get on before that, but if not, I was gonna have the wheelwright help the characters with mounting wyverns to give chase.
The key to episode 8 is that the Morgia (the Vampire), and Blagothkus (the cloud giant), have reasons for not liking or siding with Rezmir. IMO, it would be best if Rezmir died here (due to arrogance in thinking she can win), as well as Azbara Jos. Make Sure Rath Modar escapes, he can be a great villain during Rise of Tiamat, and is pretty important to Severins plot and ritual. Morgia can live or die as fate decrees, she isn't important to the plot after this episode.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Again the adventure is poor at laying this out, but another major decision point here that affects Rise of Tiamat (and the first council), is how the characters deal with Blagothkus and the castle. Remember that if the cult starts losing, Rath Modar will kill Blagothkus (thus enraging the spirit of his wife), and crash the castle before fleeing. I wouldn't have Rath directly engage the characters. He has powerful spells and should easily be able to evade them. (handwaive the fact the apparnatly he can solo a cloud giant, just have enter the tower and "plot kill" him, if needed.
Anywho, hope this helps!
JasonCampos wrote: