Tyranny of Dragons - A Guide to Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat

This article contains notes and information for Dungeon Masters who are running the Tyranny of Dragons path for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. It contains links, errata and advice on how to run things most effectively and information to make it easier for you to foreshadow the story and make it feel more fleshed out.

This document will be updated as the season progresses. As I run more of this campaign I will add further notes. When this is article is updated I will post an alert via my twitter account. If you follow me I swear I will follow you back unless you spam my feed with pictures of dog butts or something.

Links:

Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules -Everything Players and DMs need to run the game, free!

D&D Adventurer's League Player's Guide - All of the rules for running an official game at home or in a store.

Tyranny of Dragons Council Scorecard

Hoard of the Dragon Queen Online Supplement - Monster Stats, Magic Items and Spells

Rise of Tiamat Online Supplement - Monster Stats, Items and Spells

My rundown of the Adventurers' League rules and the faction packet

My article on downtime and the first three epsiodes of Hoard of the Dragon Queen

This page is meant to aid DMs running the Tyranny of Dragons storyline. It contains notes on information you should know as you prepare each episode. Being able to foreshadow certain things will make your game come together nicely, but I understand that not everyone has time to read two hardcover books and prepare notes accordingly.

Errata:
 
The most important thing to check out is this list of clarifications by the author of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. There are a number of typos and misprints that can confuse you, particularly the encounter table in episode 4, which contains events that aren't actually in the book.

Backgrounds:

The backgrounds in Hoard of the Dragon Queen are good, but they do not link to Rise of Tiamat much at all. You might want to consider adding to or altering some of them.

For example, option 10 is awesome. The PC is a former gold dragon of Bahamut in mortal form as a punishment. There is a good chance this PC would at least be aware of the metallic dragons in episode 6 of Rise of Tiamat. It might be interesting to say that the PC knows "Elia" the silver dragon. And you definitely should think about incorporating Protanther, the gold dragon (Rise of Tiamat page 59). Protanther is a former "King of Justice" - royalty among gold dragons.

Background 6 can easily be changed to include Rise of Tiamat Wyrmspeakers like Neronvain for an elf PC, or Varram for a dwarf PC.

Having a PC want revenge on a dragon works out well. Black dragons feature prominently in HotDQ, so saying that Voaraghamanthar, the black dragon from Mere of the dead men (HotDQ page 48) would be a good fit. Lennithon the blue dragon is also a good choice, as he appears in the very beginning of the campaign and then shows up near the very end in Xonthal's tower in Episode 7 of Rise of Tiamat.


Episode 1:

In the battle with Lennithon the blue dragon, many DMs placed a ballista on the wall for the PCs to use to fire on Lennithon. This helps give the PCs incentive to actually engage the dragon. Otherwise they may feel (rightly) that they have no chance against it and will not even try to engage it.

Lennithon appears again in Xonthal's tower in Rise of Tiamat, so note any special scars or moments that occur. The dragon can seek revenge later if a PC shoots it in the eye.

In the duel with the half-dragon Langdedrosa, it is not important if the PC wins and kills him. The half-dragon appears again in Episode 3 simply as a monster in a room.

Episode 2:

You may want to have Asbara Jos, the Red Wizard, be in the camp. It is mentioned later that he is here. He is a red wizard and a liason to the red wizards. He will later join the caravan in episode 4. It is noted in the author errata that Asbara hands out in Rezmir's command tent.

The adventure wants you to make it impossible to affect the tent of the leaders which is here Rezmir, Frulam, Langdedrosa and Asbara Jos are. You may just want to not even call attention to it to avoid an awkward situation, if that matters to you.

The caves lead to the Hatchery, which is detailed in episode 3. You may want to make sure you are familiar with episodes 3 before running this episode, as there is a fair chance your PCs will try to sneak in there. Episode 2 is extremely short, depending on how your players handle it.

The text notes that Leosin will want to stay a prisoner in the camp. You may want to ignore this. The adventure assumes that he is rescued, and it might be a bit difficult or awkward to work around his absence.

Episode 3:

The PCs may want to keep a dragon egg (there's 3 total, each containing a black dragon). You should decide whether you want to allow that. The adventure states that if the PCs can keep the egg in warm conditions, it will hatch in a week. In my game, the PCs kept one. I ruled that for now the baby dragon can't fly, breathe acid, or do much of anything. The way they treat it will determine whether it grows up to become evil. Remember that if you are running an Adventurers' League game, this may not be legal. You may want to be clear up front that while you are allowing the dragon at your table, other tables probably won't.

In Rise of Tiamat, there is a paragraph describing how the factions feel about the dragon eggs. I posted an image of it here.

Where the eggs came from is never answered. There is a black dragon in the Mere of Dead Men named Voaraghamanthar who is discussed in episode 6. Perhaps he is the father.

If there are any Harpers in the party, you may want to have Leosin mention to them to keep an eye out for a fellow Harper named Carlon Amofel. He has a tattoo with the Harper symbol hidden in it. In episode 4, the heroes will encounter him buried up to his neck in the road.

Episode 4:
 
Don't forget to have the PCs roll charisma checks at the start of the trip as detailed on page 37 in the "Recognized!" section. The person who rolls the lowest will eventually be recognized by a cultist.

Speaking of cultists, you might want to use this cultist generator here.

Also, for some reason a few cultists that are on this trip aren't detailed until episode five. This may be to ensure that they survive the journey. You might want to include them now, as it doesn't really make sense otherwise. One is female, and is somehow related or involved with the cultist murdered by Jamna late in this episode. She is a veteran, and she will want revenge on the PC who was blamed for the murder.

Another cultist NPC who is briefly mentioned in episode 5 is a thief named Larion Keenblade. By episode 5, he wants out of the cult altogether. Maybe he befriends your PCs during the trip in episode 4.

Speaking of the trip, the caravan stops off in many iconic locations along the way. What follows is my outline on what happens when. It's just how I ran it, feel free to take it or leave it. I had to eyeball the distance between locations in some cases. I have included links to information on each of the settlements in case you want to flesh them out.

The trip is 750 miles long, 15 miles per day. 60 days total. 8 hours a day. The wagons stop every 6 days to let the animals rest.

Baldur's Gate
Day 1: Everything Has a Price (I used Losvius Longnose for this)
Day 3: The caravan begins passing through the Fields of the Dead
Day 5: Animal Abuse
Day 6: Bane of the Mountains
Day 8: Stranded
Days 9-12: Lots of rain and thunder to set up the fungus...
Day 13: Fungus Humongous
Day 14: Elturel
Day 18: Roadside Hospitality
Day 20: Scornubel
Day 23: No Room at the Inn
Day 25: Triel
Day 28: The Golden Stag
Day 30: Soubar
Day 33: Rainy Inn (watch out, the assassins are extremely powerful)
Day 38: Contraband
Day 40: Dragonspear (check out Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle)
Day 43: Payback
Day 45: Adventuring Life
Day 47: Spider Woods
Day 51: Recognized! (refer to the lowest PC Charisma check rolled at the beginning of the trip)
Day 52: Daggerford (detailed in Scourge of the Sword Coast. This adventure takes place 5 to 10 years after that one.) You may want to mention Duke Maldwyn Daggerford and his magic blade Lawflame, just to refer to Scourge a bit. You could also have the heroes meet Sir Isteval, who is part of the Council in Rise of Tiamat. Asbara Jos and Jamna Gleamsilver sign on to the caravan.
Day 53: Unwanted Attention
Day 56: Who's Your Friend?
Day 58: Murder Most Foul
Day 60: Waterdeep

You'll want to place the hobgoblin encounter from "Stranded" within the first 20 days or so, as that is when the caravan will pass through the Fields of the Dead.

Episode 5:

When the heroes arrived in Waterdeep, I added in a meeting to introduce NPCs that become important in Rise of Tiamat. I had Carlon Amofel bring the heroes to The Yawning Portal (a famous bar in Waterdeep that has an entrance to the legendary dungeon Undermountain int it). Carlon introduced the heroes to:

Remallia Haventree: A moon elf harper who will represent the Harpers in the council at the start of Rise of Tiamat.

"Elia": A mysterious silver-haired woman, friend of Remallia. She is a silver dragon assuming human form. This is a good chance for her to take stock of the heroes. She will end up taking the heroes to meet with the metallic dragons in Rise of Tiamat.

I will update this page as my game progresses and as things are discovered online. I am sure there are mistakes in here. If you catch any feel free to let me know.