'Tyranny of Dragons' with 'Fizban's Treasury of Dragons'.

[Rhocian Xothara]

My friends and I have a running joke that I'm a (closet?) Scalie. Dragons and Draconic creatures in general are by far my favourite creatures in D&D. They have amazing lore and whilst Dragons themselves have actually felt a bit 'lacking' in power at higher levels, they have an enigma about them and a reputation for being the Paragons of the Material Plane.


I'm excited by Fizban sourcebook because as well as offering more variety (and the re-introduction of the Brainstealer Dragon Elder Brain Dragon), it seems they're offering Dragons with a little more... firepower, so to speak. Greatwyrms in particular.

Also the Aspects of Tiamat and Bahamut. I don't believe the latter currently has an official statblock in any 5e sourcebook, but I'm hoping the pair of them are a lot stronger than Tiamat's lacklustre statblock offered in ToD.

Speaking of which: One of the things I'm working on is a revamp of 'Tyranny of Dragons' as a 1st-to-20th-level campaign. I'm kinda holding back on the prep a little until Fizban's is released.

I'm curious though: With what we know already of the sourcebook, and given the known strengths and weaknesses of the 'Tyranny of Dragons' campaign, what would you change?

Most (not all) of my players are experienced players who have a good 10-20 years of play under their belt, and I want to make this campaign into something that offers them a serious challenge. At the same time, I don't want to completely demoralise the newer players who aren't as strategically-minded or experienced - especially at lower levels. So the challenge for me is to find a difficulty curve that fits just right.

I know the bulk of the ideas will have to wait until the book's release, but I'll welcome any suggestions people have at this time.

[KorvinStarmast]

Speaking of which: One of the things I'm working on is a revamp of 'Tyranny of Dragons' as a 1st-to-20th-level campaign. I'm kinda holding back on the prep a little until Fizban's is released.

I don't share your love of the mind flayer dragon fusion, but I do share your appreciation for dragonkind.

Stretching ToD beyond Tier 3 strikes me as a big ask, and I think needs to take an approach that I've seen in some Earthdawn material (unpublished, I think, supplemental material about dragons and their interior conflicts between Ancients/Great Wyrms of varying sagacity) and the "what is it that Ancient Dragons do with their time?" musings that our current DM is pulling off rather well in his homebrew world. (link to the earthdawn stuff). Dragons have been around so long, for so many centuries and millenia, that their concerns reach far beyond the material plane and normal mortal concerns; they are primordial creatures of magic, destruction, and creation whose very essence is bound up in the worlds where they live. The ancients have periodic (every few centuries) conclaves where they discuss matters of overarching concern to dragonkind, regardless of any disagreements between individuals --- of which there are plenty.

First thing I'd do is have Elminster die a horrible death, his brain eaten by a mind flayer or something related to it, even the mind flayer elder brain dragon thing. Embed that into your version of FR.

Secondly, the lore of FR will include many reports of Acererak's demise - someone found his phylactery and fed it to {cosmic horrible thing that consumed it, licked its lips, and belched}. And the reports will be truthful.

These are hints that something really big is going on, at the cosmic level.

Thirdly, since Tier 4 adventures include actions and quests that have an impact on the multiverse

Spoiler: what it says on the tin, PHB

Show

At the fourth tier (levels 17–20), characters achieve the pinnacle of their class features, becoming heroic (or villainous) archetypes in their own right. The fate of the world or even the fundamental order of the multiverse might hang in the balance during their adventures.

it seems that you need to make a substantial portion of the end game take place on other planes, acting both in concert with various ancient dragons and against them...and their minions.

The purpose for your campaign can't be the fading of dragons from the world: you like dragons too much.
The purpose of your campaign becomes, more or less, to prevent the fading of dragons from your world, which is what the world is confronted with if the heroes don't nip it all in the bud.

This puts a bit of a twist into Tiamat's designs: she's been punked.

Her plot, and her cult's plot, is a segment of a much larger cosmic strategy by {some nefarious someone somewhere} to throw dragons into such disrepute in Toril/Fearun/whatchamacallit that the backlash/blowback gains momentum in the formation of a crusade against all dragonkind. (It's cool for the giants to be involved in this, and it's also cool for them to be pawns in the game).

Treachery, deceit, and blatant falsehood run rampant. And, if Asmodeous isn't running this con he's at least got a little bit of skin in the game.

[Eldariel]

SlyFlourish's rewriting (or rather, specification of problem spots) does a lot of good things to point out many of the loose ends and inconsistencies and stitching it into something workable (though it leaves a lot to the DM). PowerScore RPG also had some good ideas. Overall, the first three chapters - Greenest-Hatchery - are actually pretty cool with some minor revision (Langdaderosa obviously does not get replaced if it dies). And suitably challenging straight out of the gate, to the point that you should be prepared for casualties - which is fine for low level characters (but depending on the amount of work, you might of course want to write some encounters with the chance of the PCs going unconscious and being able to escape after a deal with the devil or whatever).

The big problem is, the next really deadly part is actually the final chapter (where, if you rework the Red Wizards to have sane spell loadouts, they will wipe the floor with most parties unless they specifically have Globe of Invulnerability as a trump card or are otherwise highly efficient). The parts in-between are honestly largely not very rewarding nor challenging: the travel needs more engaging content to be interesting (plots, locations of interest, something you can steal from many other modules) or it should largely be handwaved with few special encounters picked out. I think if you want to rewrite it into 1-20 adventure, the travels and the stops in-between are parts where you can easily add a lot of meat. Specifically, more stuff related to the actual movers around the campaign would add to the verisimilitude: by the end of the campaign you've got pretty much the who-is-who of FR gathered, but somehow the PCs are the ones going in for the main showdown, which doesn't really make any sense. One way around that is to make many of the other parties active doing some potentially more important stuff: showing some of it on-screen while you're trekking around the Sword Coast, and perhaps enabling the PCs assist in one part there-of, would help there. Especially since the travel goes through Elturel, Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep without really doing much with any of them.

Given all the wyrms around the North, I feel like they should feature more heavily in the adventure too (particularly since the party walks right through some of their haunts - Voaraghamanthar is the wyrm in the Merdelain for example, and Daurgothoth has influence in all the major cities, Gaulauntyr is a Waterdeepian dragon). They bring a lot of background and wyrms are great opponents both on a strategic and a tactical level in that they're something that can engage the PCs, fail to kill them, and get out alive with reasonable chances especially when you make them spellcasting. And Giants should definitely be more involved. It's almost absurd they aren't given they are the foil to Dragons. Steal from SKT and go from there.

[Rhocian Xothara]

I don't share your love of the mind flayer dragon fusion, but I do share your appreciation for dragonkind.

Ehh. I do love the Brainstealer Dragon just because it's such an interesting monster, but I'm not sold on it having a role in ToD. I can shoehorn an Underdark machination into the game somehow, but it will look and feel shoehorned.

Stretching ToD beyond Tier 3 strikes me as a big ask, and I think needs to take an approach that I've seen in some Earthdawn material (unpublished, I think, supplemental material about dragons and their interior conflicts between Ancients/Great Wyrms of varying sagacity) and the "what is it that Ancient Dragons do with their time?" musings that our current DM is pulling off rather well in his homebrew world. (link to the earthdawn stuff). Dragons have been around so long, for so many centuries and millenia, that their concerns reach far beyond the material plane and normal mortal concerns; they are primordial creatures of magic, destruction, and creation whose very essence is bound up in the worlds where they live. The ancients have periodic (every few centuries) conclaves where they discuss matters of overarching concern to dragonkind, regardless of any disagreements between individuals --- of which there are plenty.

I agree, and my approach to a ToD revamp is to borrow from other module books (as you allude to in your post).

Storm King's Thunder is - underneath the surface - broiling tension between Giants and Dragons. Giants are throwing their weight around, still somewhat scarred by their defeat at the hands (claws?) of the Dragons. Their activity in SKT piques the interest of the Dragons, as they cannot and will not brook a resurgence of the Giants.

Similarly, the Giants can't abide the Cult of the Dragon. I can homebrew a whole chapter or two where the players ask the Giants for their help, should they need it.

The other module I'd borrow from is Descent into Avernus. Partly for obvious reasons (Tiamat's imprisonment, for starters), but also the machinations of the Cult of the Dragon will very much matter to Arkhan the Cruel. As someone who can traverse the Material Plane much more discretely than the Dragons themselves, I can imagine him resurfacing as a 'Wyrmspeaker' for the Cult, stepping up if/when Langdedrosa Cyanwrath fails. If necessary, there can be an entire arc that is basically the Descent into Avernus module. Really depends on what the players choose to do. Because they might well decide "**** the natural order of things; lets help the cult succeed and cosy up to Tiamat Herself!"

I have a plan for that, too. After all, the Cult of the Dragon is mainly aligned with Tiamat and Chromatic Dragons...

Thirdly, since Tier 4 adventures include actions and quests that have an impact on the multiverse

Spoiler: what it says on the tin, PHB

Show

At the fourth tier (levels 17–20), characters achieve the pinnacle of their class features, becoming heroic (or villainous) archetypes in their own right. The fate of the world or even the fundamental order of the multiverse might hang in the balance during their adventures.

it seems that you need to make a substantial portion of the end game take place on other planes, acting both in concert with various ancient dragons and against them...and their minions.

The purpose for your campaign can't be the fading of dragons from the world: you like dragons too much.
The purpose of your campaign becomes, more or less, to prevent the fading of dragons from your world, which is what the world is confronted with if the heroes don't nip it all in the bud.

I do like dragons too much, but my players might not. The way I'm intending to run this is give players the agency to decide how to do this, and so far I have three 'paths' in mind:

• The Dragons are a blight on the world and need to be thwarted. This might turn into a 'kill all dragons' kind of Campaign, in which case I wish my players the very best of luck 'cause they're gonna need it.
• The Cult of the Dragon needs to be stopped, and Tiamat cannot be allowed to return. That's pretty much ToD as written, but I will have them potentially ally with metallic dragons and of course, Bahamut Himself. If **** hits the fan hard enough to involve two opposing dragon-gods, you can't tell me that's not Tier 4 territory!
• The players decide to support the Cult. This essentially becomes an 'evil' campaign that pits the Party, the Cult, Tiamat and Arkhan the Cruel against pretty much all of Toril plus Bahamut Himself. A trans-planar war.

The inclusion of Bahamut means I get use out of Fizban's 'Aspect of Bahamut', but to be honest I'm gonna need to see what that looks like first. Worst-case scenario I'll take the 3.5e infodumps and homebrew him to be roughly similar in power to Tiamat.

This puts a bit of a twist into Tiamat's designs: she's been punked.

Her plot, and her cult's plot, is a segment of a much larger cosmic strategy by {some nefarious someone somewhere} to throw dragons into such disrepute in Toril/Fearun/whatchamacallit that the backlash/blowback gains momentum in the formation of a crusade against all dragonkind. (It's cool for the giants to be involved in this, and it's also cool for them to be pawns in the game).

Treachery, deceit, and blatant falsehood run rampant. And, if Asmodeous isn't running this con he's at least got a little bit of skin in the game.

I have to admit, I absolutely love the idea of Asmodeus running a long-con; allowing Tiamat's minions to do Her bidding, in such a way that eventually ends up tightening the noose around Her five necks.

And if he knows that Bahamut is sniffing around, hey: If he plays his cards right he might even be able to net two Dragon-Gods in the process. I'm undecided as to whether or not Arkhan would be consciously on-board with that plan, given his loyalty to his Queen.

[KorvinStarmast]

I have to admit, I absolutely love the idea of Asmodeus running a long-con; allowing Tiamat's minions to do Her bidding, in such a way that eventually ends up tightening the noose around Her five necks.

And if he knows that Bahamut is sniffing around, hey: If he plays his cards right he might even be able to net two Dragon-Gods in the process. I'm undecided as to whether or not Arkhan would be consciously on-board with that plan, given his loyalty to his Queen.

I love where you are going with this, I hope you and your players enjoy the final result.

[Rhocian Xothara]

Apologies, Eldariel. You made a wonderful contribution and I never did respond to it. Mostly because I was replying whilst you wrote yours. ^^;

SlyFlourish's rewriting (or rather, specification of problem spots) does a lot of good things to point out many of the loose ends and inconsistencies and stitching it into something workable (though it leaves a lot to the DM). PowerScore RPG also had some good ideas.

Thanks for the shout. I know that there are websites saturated with module re-writes by the community, and it's often difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, so I'll always welcome some recommendations. Thank you. :)

Overall, the first three chapters - Greenest-Hatchery - are actually pretty cool with some minor revision (Langdaderosa obviously does not get replaced if it dies). And suitably challenging straight out of the gate, to the point that you should be prepared for casualties - which is fine for low level characters (but depending on the amount of work, you might of course want to write some encounters with the chance of the PCs going unconscious and being able to escape after a deal with the devil or whatever).

Yeah, I spent the night thinking about Arkhan the Cruel's role in this campaign, and came to the conclusion that whilst an organisation as large as the Cult of the Dragon absolutely would replace a dead Wyrmspeaker like Cyanwrath, it wouldn't be Arkhan the Cruel. His personality is such that if he were to join with the Cult, it would be as the absolute head of it. His negotiation with them would be to lead them in exchange for the Mask of the Dragon Queen, at the very least. But in any case I'm not convinced he'd join them at all. Just an independent figure who wishes to see Tiamat's return to the Material for his own reasons.

Also: "Deal with the Devil". Given I'm leaning towards the fascinating idea of the Cult's project being part of a long-con by Asmodeus, I can absolutely see him making that deal: Help the Cult in exchange for saving your life. I especially like it if the deal isn't even sold as "helping the cult", but just a request to deal with a problem that indirectly helps them, like keeping the Giants busy.

The parts in-between are honestly largely not very rewarding nor challenging: the travel needs more engaging content to be interesting (plots, locations of interest, something you can steal from many other modules) or it should largely be handwaved with few special encounters picked out. I think if you want to rewrite it into 1-20 adventure, the travels and the stops in-between are parts where you can easily add a lot of meat. Specifically, more stuff related to the actual movers around the campaign would add to the verisimilitude: by the end of the campaign you've got pretty much the who-is-who of FR gathered, but somehow the PCs are the ones going in for the main showdown, which doesn't really make any sense. One way around that is to make many of the other parties active doing some potentially more important stuff: showing some of it on-screen while you're trekking around the Sword Coast, and perhaps enabling the PCs assist in one part there-of, would help there. Especially since the travel goes through Elturel, Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep without really doing much with any of them.

You're absolutely right, and I specialise in 'side quests'. I like campaigns that offer a lot of downtime because it allows players to explore their characters (and their backstories) a little more. Between that and the roles that powerful NPCs like Vajra Blackstaff; the Giants or even other 'bad guys' like Manshoon would have during this crisis, there's a lot to be done. One example that immediately comes to mind is that - canonically - Waterdeep has a Bronze Dragon nest just off the coast, and the Adult Gold Dragon Aurinax resides deep below the city. If the party decides to ally themselves with Bahamut to deal with Tiamat's return, those are two immediate allies that can be called upon to help.

Given all the wyrms around the North, I feel like they should feature more heavily in the adventure too (particularly since the party walks right through some of their haunts - Voaraghamanthar is the wyrm in the Merdelain for example, and Daurgothoth has influence in all the major cities, Gaulauntyr is a Waterdeepian dragon). They bring a lot of background and wyrms are great opponents both on a strategic and a tactical level in that they're something that can engage the PCs, fail to kill them, and get out alive with reasonable chances especially when you make them spellcasting. And Giants should definitely be more involved. It's almost absurd they aren't given they are the foil to Dragons. Steal from SKT and go from there.

Yeah, one of the things I want to explore in Fizban's Treasury is the higher-level stuff - Greatwyrms specifically. I want them in this campaign (because if you're not going to have them in a ToD campaign, then when are you going to use them?) and I'm considering where I'm going to put them.

Also the role of Gem Dragons. There are Aspects of Tiamat and Bahamut, but I might also homebrew (using the same sort of template) an Aspect of Sardior, the Gemstone Dragon-God. As quite literally a neutral party, this campaign is a crisis that both does and doesn't concern him. It'd be interesting to explore what his role in all of this is, and if there's any way the party can influence that one way or another...