The way I made this chapter meaningful was by replacing the uninteresting prisoners in the basement with a Copper Dragon Wyrmling, who was kidnapped by Talis in order to keep his mum, the Ancient Copper Dragon Tazmikella (who appears on the dragon council in Rise of Tiamat) on a leash, and prevent her from interfering with the Cult's activities in the area. The players freed the Wyrmling, and had a ton of fun roleplaying moments with him (copper dragons are pranksters and fun to be around), eventually returning him to his mum. This accomplishes several things. First, it makes the characters hate the Cult even more. Second, it shows how relentless the Cult really is (the wyrmling was chained, wasn't fed, etc.). Third, it gives the characters a chance to interact with a potential draconic ally, setting up the Council of Metallic Dragons episode in RoT. On top of all this, the wyrmling can return later maybe as a Young Copper Dragon to fight besides the characters at the Well of Dragons.
You're right, the whole structure of ToD is very convoluted. This feels especially bad as it's likely to be a lot of DM's first AP and the book really could help more!
Your guides have been extremely helpful in my combined lmop/doip >tyranny of dragons campaign. I took the information from chapters 1-5 and used it and modified locations to streamline the drudge and ambiguity that can be hotdq. Move a few things around, and by the end of doip, they gain information which leads them to the mere of dead men>chapter 6 of hoard. 7:18 I’m now leading them on a 3 day “stalking” encounter with the troll per your suggestion. Also going to use your suggestion of Talis being a double agent. I consider myself semi-lucky though; the pc’s backstories and choices left enough ambiguity to allow me to weave in dragon lore and cult activity to keep the majority of them consistently hooked. In regards to the lmop/doip connection, I used the greenest map but called it phandalin. Also, in the first cave of lmop, I added cultist (unknown to the party at the time) that were doing experiments and created Frankenstein, abberation-like flesh golems consisting of parts from different races - such as the head and arms of an elf, body of a dwarf, and serpentine yuan ti lower half: all tail. (Modified abberation stat block) It was super easy to just drop in cultist influence or activity in any quest from lmop and doip. Just create a line to a major thing in tyranny and boom you’ve got setup. Although there was a bit of extra work on the front end, it’s been a much more fun experience
Great video, and I enjoyed the points you brought up. I plan on doing a similar series for both books, and this has been a great inspiration to me. Thanks for putting this out, I'll be sure to link to your channel when my videos eventually go up!
I've just stumbled across your videos as I've started GM'ing Tyranny. I've changed a few things, like Leosin doesn't exist in my campaign, I switched him out for a powerful mage who tried fighting the dragon in part 1. It made more narrative sense from a player perspective, to see the dragon heavily wounded, so when it comes to it attacking the keep, having it flee after some small amount of damage was understandable. The mage had also brought a character to Greenest, they knew each other as the character was a friend of Escobert, so it also tied in that way, meeting the mage before the campaign started. Another of the characters was friends with Talis when they were both younger, and he heard she'd been kidnapped, so is looking to help her. I'm planning to keep this section at the Lodge, purely for that reason, he's been quite intent with his questioning cultists about her. I'm considering having her be a part of the cult, but becoming disenfranchised with the whole idea after Severin took over, not liking the idea of pulling Tiamat into the world and possibly destroying everything. While she likes the chromatic dragons, Tiamat is a step too far, even for her. I'm thinking of an emotional meeting with the two, where she asks for help to escape the cult, and I'll probably have her turn up at the council meetings in RoT. The cult will likely assassinate her at some point, giving the character a reason to seek vengeance.
Doing something similar where they were young treasure hunters with halves of a map to one of the masks. The cult found out she was on the trail while looking for the mask and kidnapped her, eventually her joining them. She becomes disillusioned because she wanted to be a wyrmspeaker but was passed up (like the text) but it’s more a dark obsession for her. The player will be getting breadcrumbs and depending on their exchange she will end up freeing the captives (I’m homebrewing a dragon baby as well and less prisoners) and helping the party or self sacrificing in a fit of madness.
I do like the blandness in part as you can really tailor this to your party needs. We are currently still in Mere of Dead Men as it was so short... But I brought the characters into a lich-dragon quest.
Funny enough, Talis is the closest thing my players have to a BBEG in this campaign ... they managed to take her hostage and she guided them to Skyreach, then she lead them to the Cloudchaser, where she kinda evened the whole situation and negociated their safety from the dragon for informations about Rezmir. Once the party dealt with the rest of the castle, they came back for her, and a fight broke out, she managed to escape alive with the dragon. And now that we're past the whole Varaam chapter, they scried on her and discovered that she retrieved the mask and is on the verge of becoming the white wyrmspeaker. Now they're on their way onto the Frozen Castle supplement, where you can bet Talis is gonna be, ready to throw down, claim the castle and her righteous place in the cult's hierarchy.
I love this series in terms of I just enjoy seeing what people change for the campaign. Love the idea of using Trepsin for a separate thing and I think I will do that. I've got so much planned for this in advance, swapping out Cloud Giants for Fire Giants with some variations on abilities, getting rid of the visit to Thay and the Red Wizards and instead having a different plot, involving Candlekeep more as a political piece on the board due to their neutrality and a characters investment there, etc. So much fun stuff XD
I was going to write that very thing: the chapter is going to be far more meaningful if party has bonds with Talis from the beginning, but you mentioned it. Who is Talis Kastelen now and what she became is the biggest plot question for our party. Their mission is like first and foremost rescuing her, or at least chasing her after they knew she is wit the cult now ;-) In this case I'm expecting a lot of drama here
I'm just starting to prep this campaign and one of my players wants to use this bond. Right now I'm researching to make sure I don't screw up this NPC!
I set Trepsin up months before the players met him. The party met a group of troll hunters who had recently suffered a great defeat at the hands of a 4-armed troll that proved to be much smarter than average. The hunters were obsessed with finding and killing it as revenge. So while the trade caravan that the party was in was resting, the party went troll hunting. Instead they caught a different troll and had a conversation with it about Trepsin. Then when they met the intelligent 4 armed troll at the lodge they had to pause and realize who they were talking with. They remembered the stories that the troll hunters and the captured troll had told them and were super scared of fighting him. So most of their interactions with Trepsin involved running and hiding from him or trying to trick him to leave the lodge by starting a fire in the forest which he went to put out. He is the grounds-keeper and that also involves dealing with fires, which he can totally handle because he's intelligent.
I have reworked this chapter a bit. If heroes are fooling around hunting house, the four-arms-troll Trepsin catches them and begin the interrogation process. Then Talis forces heroes to cooperate with her and kill Resmir (she probably teleport after Resmir`s death, for example). She gives them hints how to get to the castle, but secretly spies on the with some magic item thrown in their backpacks.
My players were not getting anywhere bargaining with Talis until a squad of mercs hired by Rezmir attacked the Lodge. Driven by necessity, the heroes, Talis and her two homebrew bodyguards worked together to repel the first advance, but upon being attacked by a recurring hit(wo)man NPC who does 25-50 hp PER round and two dozen mounted goons assaulting the Lodge, Talis and the heroes put on skis and ski down the mountain towards Parnast. The Warlock nearly gets chomped by a wyvern, Talis and her bodyguards are attacked and wounded by a Winter Wolf, the Warlock gets stuck in traps and pits every turn, and finally, at the end of the chase, the Shadow Monk casts Silence on Talis & co and teleports in front of her. Without magic, Talis is quickly stunned, and despite a brutal divine smite, her bodyguards are dispatched quite quickly. Talis is then killed, healed before true death, and handed over to a Wizard NPC who wants her for dragon research. In return the party got a Ring of Spell Storing to help their familiar survive a bit more. Now, the gang knows Talis and Rezmir hate each other, but IDK if normal cultists are going to be happy to hear they practically sold Talis into white slavery considering she was a high-ranking Cult leader. Time will show! They took two hours to rest in Parnast, so the castle is leaving, and Othelstan & co are blocking the heroes' path. Excited for the Varram chapter! If they survive that far (they will; they are VERY hardy).
Oh man, I'm having some problems with this chapter. Until now I was able to pilot all the previous chapters thanks to your advice, but this time I'm a little lost. I have multiple interesting plot points that could work, even more so with the ideas the comments gave me, but I'm not sure which one to use. It's like having a can of pressure springs and if I uncover it wrong it's going to burst in my face. Is there any advice you can offer a DM in trouble?
The way I made this chapter meaningful was by replacing the uninteresting prisoners in the basement with a Copper Dragon Wyrmling, who was kidnapped by Talis in order to keep his mum, the Ancient Copper Dragon Tazmikella (who appears on the dragon council in Rise of Tiamat) on a leash, and prevent her from interfering with the Cult's activities in the area. The players freed the Wyrmling, and had a ton of fun roleplaying moments with him (copper dragons are pranksters and fun to be around), eventually returning him to his mum. This accomplishes several things. First, it makes the characters hate the Cult even more. Second, it shows how relentless the Cult really is (the wyrmling was chained, wasn't fed, etc.). Third, it gives the characters a chance to interact with a potential draconic ally, setting up the Council of Metallic Dragons episode in RoT. On top of all this, the wyrmling can return later maybe as a Young Copper Dragon to fight besides the characters at the Well of Dragons.
I'm noting this idea down, I love it.
Although I am cutting out the hunting lodge, so I'll have the wyrmling as a prisoner in Castle Naerytar.
Ok definitely using this
You should have way more subscribers, your videos are amazing, VERY Helpful and inspirational. Keep up the amazing work!!
Thank you, Billy. I appreciate that.
I keep saying this in my head!
Nice to see you back. I like your points. The last chapter is the best in my opinion.
Thanks!
You're right, the whole structure of ToD is very convoluted. This feels especially bad as it's likely to be a lot of DM's first AP and the book really could help more!
The timing is perfect. We will reach the lodge next monday! Thank you so much
Welcome back. Nice to hear from you again.
Your guides have been extremely helpful in my combined lmop/doip >tyranny of dragons campaign. I took the information from chapters 1-5 and used it and modified locations to streamline the drudge and ambiguity that can be hotdq. Move a few things around, and by the end of doip, they gain information which leads them to the mere of dead men>chapter 6 of hoard.
7:18 I’m now leading them on a 3 day “stalking” encounter with the troll per your suggestion. Also going to use your suggestion of Talis being a double agent.
I consider myself semi-lucky though; the pc’s backstories and choices left enough ambiguity to allow me to weave in dragon lore and cult activity to keep the majority of them consistently hooked.
In regards to the lmop/doip connection, I used the greenest map but called it phandalin. Also, in the first cave of lmop, I added cultist (unknown to the party at the time) that were doing experiments and created Frankenstein, abberation-like flesh golems consisting of parts from different races - such as the head and arms of an elf, body of a dwarf, and serpentine yuan ti lower half: all tail. (Modified abberation stat block)
It was super easy to just drop in cultist influence or activity in any quest from lmop and doip. Just create a line to a major thing in tyranny and boom you’ve got setup. Although there was a bit of extra work on the front end, it’s been a much more fun experience
This is great commentary. So many thoughts while listening to this. Thanks for the Content!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank You so much for helping me as a DM!
Great video, and I enjoyed the points you brought up. I plan on doing a similar series for both books, and this has been a great inspiration to me. Thanks for putting this out, I'll be sure to link to your channel when my videos eventually go up!
I've just stumbled across your videos as I've started GM'ing Tyranny. I've changed a few things, like Leosin doesn't exist in my campaign, I switched him out for a powerful mage who tried fighting the dragon in part 1. It made more narrative sense from a player perspective, to see the dragon heavily wounded, so when it comes to it attacking the keep, having it flee after some small amount of damage was understandable. The mage had also brought a character to Greenest, they knew each other as the character was a friend of Escobert, so it also tied in that way, meeting the mage before the campaign started.
Another of the characters was friends with Talis when they were both younger, and he heard she'd been kidnapped, so is looking to help her. I'm planning to keep this section at the Lodge, purely for that reason, he's been quite intent with his questioning cultists about her. I'm considering having her be a part of the cult, but becoming disenfranchised with the whole idea after Severin took over, not liking the idea of pulling Tiamat into the world and possibly destroying everything. While she likes the chromatic dragons, Tiamat is a step too far, even for her. I'm thinking of an emotional meeting with the two, where she asks for help to escape the cult, and I'll probably have her turn up at the council meetings in RoT. The cult will likely assassinate her at some point, giving the character a reason to seek vengeance.
Doing something similar where they were young treasure hunters with halves of a map to one of the masks. The cult found out she was on the trail while looking for the mask and kidnapped her, eventually her joining them. She becomes disillusioned because she wanted to be a wyrmspeaker but was passed up (like the text) but it’s more a dark obsession for her. The player will be getting breadcrumbs and depending on their exchange she will end up freeing the captives (I’m homebrewing a dragon baby as well and less prisoners) and helping the party or self sacrificing in a fit of madness.
So helpful! Thank you for the video.
Thanks for stopping by!
I do like the blandness in part as you can really tailor this to your party needs. We are currently still in Mere of Dead Men as it was so short... But I brought the characters into a lich-dragon quest.
Funny enough, Talis is the closest thing my players have to a BBEG in this campaign ... they managed to take her hostage and she guided them to Skyreach, then she lead them to the Cloudchaser, where she kinda evened the whole situation and negociated their safety from the dragon for informations about Rezmir.
Once the party dealt with the rest of the castle, they came back for her, and a fight broke out, she managed to escape alive with the dragon.
And now that we're past the whole Varaam chapter, they scried on her and discovered that she retrieved the mask and is on the verge of becoming the white wyrmspeaker.
Now they're on their way onto the Frozen Castle supplement, where you can bet Talis is gonna be, ready to throw down, claim the castle and her righteous place in the cult's hierarchy.
A week late I literally just ran Talis. I made her a Zhentarim insider since the Zhentarim sent my players to the hunting lodge dodging Naerytar
I love this series in terms of I just enjoy seeing what people change for the campaign. Love the idea of using Trepsin for a separate thing and I think I will do that.
I've got so much planned for this in advance, swapping out Cloud Giants for Fire Giants with some variations on abilities, getting rid of the visit to Thay and the Red Wizards and instead having a different plot, involving Candlekeep more as a political piece on the board due to their neutrality and a characters investment there, etc. So much fun stuff XD
I was going to write that very thing: the chapter is going to be far more meaningful if party has bonds with Talis from the beginning, but you mentioned it.
Who is Talis Kastelen now and what she became is the biggest plot question for our party. Their mission is like first and foremost rescuing her, or at least chasing her after they knew she is wit the cult now ;-)
In this case I'm expecting a lot of drama here
I'm just starting to prep this campaign and one of my players wants to use this bond. Right now I'm researching to make sure I don't screw up this NPC!
I set Trepsin up months before the players met him.
The party met a group of troll hunters who had recently suffered a great defeat at the hands of a 4-armed troll that proved to be much smarter than average. The hunters were obsessed with finding and killing it as revenge. So while the trade caravan that the party was in was resting, the party went troll hunting. Instead they caught a different troll and had a conversation with it about Trepsin. Then when they met the intelligent 4 armed troll at the lodge they had to pause and realize who they were talking with. They remembered the stories that the troll hunters and the captured troll had told them and were super scared of fighting him. So most of their interactions with Trepsin involved running and hiding from him or trying to trick him to leave the lodge by starting a fire in the forest which he went to put out. He is the grounds-keeper and that also involves dealing with fires, which he can totally handle because he's intelligent.
Nice! New video!
i made talis a white dragonborn in my game, which had some interesting roleplay stuff for my characters.
I have reworked this chapter a bit. If heroes are fooling around hunting house, the four-arms-troll Trepsin catches them and begin the interrogation process. Then Talis forces heroes to cooperate with her and kill Resmir (she probably teleport after Resmir`s death, for example). She gives them hints how to get to the castle, but secretly spies on the with some magic item thrown in their backpacks.
My players were not getting anywhere bargaining with Talis until a squad of mercs hired by Rezmir attacked the Lodge. Driven by necessity, the heroes, Talis and her two homebrew bodyguards worked together to repel the first advance, but upon being attacked by a recurring hit(wo)man NPC who does 25-50 hp PER round and two dozen mounted goons assaulting the Lodge, Talis and the heroes put on skis and ski down the mountain towards Parnast. The Warlock nearly gets chomped by a wyvern, Talis and her bodyguards are attacked and wounded by a Winter Wolf, the Warlock gets stuck in traps and pits every turn, and finally, at the end of the chase, the Shadow Monk casts Silence on Talis & co and teleports in front of her. Without magic, Talis is quickly stunned, and despite a brutal divine smite, her bodyguards are dispatched quite quickly. Talis is then killed, healed before true death, and handed over to a Wizard NPC who wants her for dragon research. In return the party got a Ring of Spell Storing to help their familiar survive a bit more.
Now, the gang knows Talis and Rezmir hate each other, but IDK if normal cultists are going to be happy to hear they practically sold Talis into white slavery considering she was a high-ranking Cult leader. Time will show! They took two hours to rest in Parnast, so the castle is leaving, and Othelstan & co are blocking the heroes' path. Excited for the Varram chapter! If they survive that far (they will; they are VERY hardy).
Oh man, I'm having some problems with this chapter. Until now I was able to pilot all the previous chapters thanks to your advice, but this time I'm a little lost. I have multiple interesting plot points that could work, even more so with the ideas the comments gave me, but I'm not sure which one to use. It's like having a can of pressure springs and if I uncover it wrong it's going to burst in my face.
Is there any advice you can offer a DM in trouble?
Hey, you can reach me out on discord and I'll try to help!
@@LutesDice I'll go right away!
My dm used her for a final boss in the floating castle. Our Druid killed her in two turns so she ended up being bland anyways.