Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Episode 4, Round 1 - Following the Cultist Loot

The rat pack is back in full. In which they had their fill of the cultists raiding camp. They go back to Greenest with the loot they found at the 5 Headed Dragon Shrine. Governor Nighthill is very apologetic to the group. They receive gold pieces for the items they retrieved from the camp.

Then he tells them that Leosin Erlanthar has given them horses and riding gear. Asking that they meet him in Elturel. The group grudgingly goes to Elturel and meet with him.

Once they get to Elturel they meet Ontharr Fume, in his large tavern 'A Pair of Black Antlers'. He acts like Benny Zadir from the movie 'A Night at the Roxbury'. Always asking 'Did you grab my ass?' to Shae and Cory. He is the life of a continuous party at the tavern, in which he hosts a slew of fun activities all day long. They party attends the events and has a good time. Even though Crosis isn't happy with being around so many humans. Brynn finds a cute 'Order of the Gauntlet' paladin to sneak off with and have some fun.

That evening they meet in Fume's private meeting room. In which he offers them to join The Order of the Gauntlet. Erlanthar is there as well, offering the party to join 'The Harpers' as well. Crosis and the party don't seem too interested in being coersed into such rogue factions, so they refuse. Ontharr leaves the meeting upset, stating "This isn't the group I thought they were..." Leosin then begs the party to at least continue to follow the cultist wagons, offering a 1200 gp large ruby if they do the job. Which they grudgingly accept...

Map showing tavern and were the other events take place

The following day their horses and gear are put onto a ship that is headed to Baldur's Gate. They then head to Baldur's Gate. Told to meet Ackyn Selebon in the northern Blackgate region of Baldur's Gate. The name is a hard name to pronounce, so they just call him Mr. Cinnabon. The group has a quick trip down the river to Baldur's Gate.

Old map of the sword coast

They finally find Selebon's large estate, which is filled with scruffy looking vagabonds looking for work. Selebon asks them to privately meet him in his meeting room. Which is lavishly ornamented with carpets and tapestries from all over the Sword Coast. Crosis isn't happy with being forced to support these anti-cultist groups, so he proceeds to urinate all over the nice rugs. A small girl that was hiding being a tapestry is shocked and runs out of the room after seeing what he did.

Selebon finally enters the room after commanding his employees to coordinate the next group of wagons to leave the area. He ignores the smell of dragonborn piss to inform the group that he will contact them as soon as he sees any cultist wagons planning to leave Baldur's Gate northward.

The group hangs out in a bar across from Selebon's estate waiting for the cultists.

Map of Baldur's Gate, which shows the north part called 'Blackgate'

Finally the cultists arrive at Blackgate and Selebon's estate. A squire of Selebon goes to the dive bar the group has been waiting at and tells them to come back to the estate. They come back to the estate and see the cultists, as well as the finest palanquin they have every seen. Which has ornately carved dragons on the corners of the palanquin.

There are 3 cultist wagons, as well as 3 regular travelling wagons. Each of the party members are hired on to be elite bodyguards, getting paid 10 gp per tenday for escorting their wagon to Waterdeep.

Badger and Crosis is assigned to Achreny's wagon, who is a unfriendly, smelly, vulgar man. Who isn't nice to his horses and other hired staff.

Cory is hired by Noohar and Selvek Serelim. Who he later finds out are Moon Elf merchants from Cormyr. They are exporting a large collection of wooden carvings made by the elves of Cormyr.

Shae and Brynn are hired by Lasfelro the Silent, a human male merchant. He appears somewhat senile because he will sometimes break into merry songs and short stretches of joke-telling. No one knows what he transports in his wagon, which is guarded by a gargoyle. that is tethered to the wagon by a slim, silver chain.

The six wagons head off immediately for the 40 day trek to Waterdeep. The first two days are somewhat uneventful. Then on the third day they fight two large spiders and three Ettercaps.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Episode 3, Part 3 - The Party Meets 'Blender'

Summary

The party meets Badger in this session. After Badger assists in killing 3 winged kobolds the party then enters a room that has notes regarding why the raiding camp is deserted. In which they packed up and went northwest to 'Naerytar'. They find a hidden pit that leads to what appears to be the main room of the cavern, a shrine to a 5 headed dragon. Here Shae meets her nemesis, the blue half-dragon that she had died from in Greenest. The party fights him and his cronies and defeat them! Getting the following loot:

• 40gp from the kobolds barracks
• 4 dragon talismans worth 50, 60, 70, and 100 (280gp)
• String of Pearls (NOT a Pearl Necklace!)(300gp), Gold-and-Sapphire Ring(900gp), Pouch of precious Stones (600gp)
• 16gp in the room with the drunk cultist
• Nice purple cultist uniform that fits well for a woman, Shae tries it on

The Party Meets 'Blender'

After the party has decimated a large group of cultists and guards that are starting to recover from the fight. They walk into what appears to be a treasure room, or at least it once was. In the middle of the room is a drunk cultists that is snoring loudly from too much wine. Which is obvious given the number of bottles lying around him. There are remains of boxes and other items that were in the room. It appears that a lot of valuable items had been in this room, but had been removed in a hurry fairly recently.

As they collect the gold and gems, a scruffy looking halfling walks into the room and starts to inspect the man lying on the ground. He picks up the half eaten leg of meat and starts chewing on it.

After a brief set of introductions, the party is interrupted by a group of Winged Kobolds! They had a surprise round and started attacking the halfling. Something about scruffy looking halflings...

Anyway, I digress, the halfling proved resourceful in quickly disposing of the Kobolds. In which with a quick flick of his great-axe, one kobold turned into a spray of blood and gore. If someone had their smart phone out to record the event, it would have a number of page views on youtube.

Cory yelled 'Blender'! After seeing the event, and now the name has somewhat stuck to the halfling of not that many words.

The party decided to continue their investigation of the caverns. So Cory lead the group into the next room, slowly investigating the floors for traps.

They entered a room which appeared to be a nice office like room. It has a nice desk with numerous papers scattered on the desk. As well as nice rugs covering the stone floor. As Cory searched the back of the room he found a hole under one of the rugs! He almost fell into the rug, but then at the last second he swiftly dodged the hole. 'Blender' quickly came up and removed the rug from the hole.

The party looked down the hole into darkness. From roughly 50 yards away down the hole the party heard faint chanting.

The party then goes down the tunnel and enters a very nice room in the cavern, in which the walls have been polished smooth, with etchings of dragons as art. As they walk into the room, a blue half-dragon turns around and yells at Shae! Battle begins!

Blender throws alchemist oils at that puts the half-dragon into flames. After each party member does a number of rounds of attacks, they kill the half-dragon and his two dragon cultists.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Episode 3, Part 2 - The Party Meets Laerath

Our rag-tag group of adventurers are in the middle of a serious cavern. They fought a few cult guards to get in. Then had to deal with a crazy fungal garden. And tip-toe through a large cave area full of bats.

They were at a crossroads, in which they could go in a multitude of directions. They choose the path that they heard a large group of kobolds talking. As they entered the room the kobolds noticed them and started to advance. Seeing Crosis they felt he was a new group of cultists that had entered the cavern unannounced.

Cory send an arrow through the throat of one of them told them otherwise.

Crosis advances into the room boldly, demanding the kobolds lay down their arms. The kobolds, after seeing one of their own killed, ignore his demands and draw out their daggers.

Then Crosis notices a half-elf on the ground that appears to have been beaten and starved. He goes up to him and cuts his bonds. Making a rude remark of his condition.

Then a group of 4 kobolds, and a winged kobold attack the party. They mostly crowd around Crosis, attempting to stab him to death with their daggers. As they attack the winged kobold lets out a loud howl, which causes the party to hear down a flight of stairs some stirring of additional kobolds!

The party makes short work of the kobolds, but then another large group are noticed ascending the stairs. Crosis goes into the stairwell and uses his breath attack, being a dragonborn does have its privileges! Many of the kobolds are incinerated instantly, with only 1 out of the 5 hit surviving. The remaining group attempt to rush past the party to unleash the guard drakes that are below the party.

After defeating two groups of kobolds and winged kobolds, Laerath provides background information regarding how he had been captured and imprisoned in the caverns.

I was living in a nearby village named Iriabor. In that village I had stood up for a poor family that a group of cultists were harassing. They then knocked him out and I woke up in these caverns. I think I've been here for a couple of days. Watching the Kobolds, Cultists, and others debate when to kill me...

Then the party finds the barracks of the kobolds. Dirty and filthy, but the do find a bunch of gold, silver, and copper pieces. As well as 4 talismans that have monetary value.

The see there is an additional stairwell leading from this room that looks dark and dangerous. Instead of going down this stairs they back track to the beginning of the cave to pursue a tunnel they hadn't explored yet.

Going back to the beginning and checking out the side tunnel, they find a group of cultists and guards that were resting between shifts. Lereath and Crosis rush in and kill a number of them before they can respond. The remaining cultists and guards put up a pitiful defense against the parties onslaught.

Now the party is roughly half way through exploring the Dragon Hatchery, but they haven't found any dragon eggs, nor any real defense of these caverns!

Here we are playing online and the setup I currently have.

The gaming area!

Player Findings
Kobolds are craven reptilian humanoids that worship evil dragons as demigods and serve them as minions and toadies. Kobolds inhabit dragons’ lairs when they can but more commonly infest dungeons, gathering treasures and trinkets to add to their own tiny hoards.

Final GM Notes

The party has been able to quickly kill many of the creatures in this dungeon. Making me wonder if they should have been more powerful. The true determination of this will be the final combat situations were they must fight higher level creatures.

Also, it was still the first time for a few players using roll20.net application. So there was some setup time and review of each characters advancement that used up a lot of time.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Episode 2, part 3

Korosis (dragonborn sorcerer) struts into the Cultist camp with a cloak he stole from a straggler cultist he had killed on the path the cultist camp. The kobolds and humans automatically bow to him in recognition. Anything dragon related they adore, and dragonborn are worshiped by these evil cultists.

And Korosis isn't happy, these cultists ruined his friends village. He walked in, looking for his friend Leosin Erlanthar. A Monk who had been studying the cultists.

Brynn (wood elf cleric) was closely following Korosis with her own cultist cloak she took from the same stragglers. She had spent a lot of time in Greenest and was upset that some of the villagers she held in high regard had been kidnapped.

Cory (halfling rogue) is on the run since his father is a well known dragon killer. Some of the mediocre cultists had found out about it and had beat him up. But what is odd is that during the onslaught he had endured, a drow elf with wicked looking weapons had sat and laughed at the beating.

Shae (human fighter) had personally been killed by a half dragon leader of the camp. Which she had been resurrected by Greenest Clerics, but now she didn't like the half dragon. In which when she was young her family had been killed by Dragon Cultists.

As they investigate the camp, then hear a large commotion from the middle of the camp. They can see smoke and fire billowing from a circle of white tents. As they pass the tents to get to the kidnapped villagers they can see what is causing the loud drum beating sound and fire. A group of Drow Elf are doing some kind of ceremonial dance in a circle. As they chant and beat drums, the cast powerful cantrips into the middle of the circle, creating a very bright statue of light, fire, electricity, etc.

Finally they find the monk, who doesn't want to leave. So they knock him out and take him back to Greenest. With the cultists not really paying attention and don't notice the theft.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Episode 2, Part 2

The adventures come up to the cultists raiding camp. Cory (Rogue) being the sneaky rogue through the rough terrian, crawls up and looks down at the camp.

He can see that there are numerous tents and activity in the valley below. He sees that they have 2 towers quickly constructed for aerial defensive monitoring. The camp is broken up into Kobolds and human cultists.

The party goes back to the stragglers and takes their clothes. Fortunately the clothes don't have too much blood on them. And Brynn's mending spell helps get the clothes to fit well for Cory and others.

They went into the camp and found Leosin, as well as a friend of Brynn's. They save them and get back to Greenest safety.

But then that douchbag Governor Nighthill asks them to do one more task for them...

Hoard of the Dragon Queen Episode 2, Part 1

The unruly band of adventurers are really tired and fed up with Governor Nighthill. He seems like a charlatan that is just posing as the elected leader of Greenest. How could an old man ask so much from the party? Does he have no backbone?

It is almost morning and the adventures are very tired. They have only had an few hours of rest when Nighthill comes up and asks for more assistance from them. They are not happy with his request, but begrudgingly they listen. He informs them that he would like them to track the raiders of Greenest to their camp. Then determine who their leader is, how large of a raiding camp do they have, etc. He offers them 250gp per person if they do this for him.

After some complaining they accept, he then provides them provisions for the trek to follow them.

Bottom of the map shows Greenest

Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Episode 1 - Part Deux

The rag tag band of crazy adventurers are at it again. But this time they have the help of the villagers and priests of Greenest. They don't like Cultists and Kobolds, especially when they are busy destroying their village! So they see the adventurers are tough, and they reward them with masterwork weapons and potions of cure light wounds!

And the Adventures sure did need them! Because as soon as they are healed up, the great big evil adult blue dragon comes back for more pillaging! He or she (???) fires lightning bolts into the crowd of guards and archerers that have assembled on top of the Keep.

Shae (female human fighter) with her bad-ass abilities throws a couple of lances at the dragon. One lance simply falls to the ground, never to be seen again. But another lance hits the dragon hard! Sticking into its side. Cory fires a volley of arrows at the dragon, which causes it to leave the village.

Crosis (male dragonborn sorcerer) yells at the dragon in Draconic, asking him/her to leave us alone, but the dragon appears to have not heard him. What a bitch, but were not sure of the sex...

Anyway, Egbert the red haired dwarf calls for the adventurers to help him save the Flour Mill. Which they can see from the parapets of the keep is on fire. He escorts them down into the cellar and gives them a big bronze old key that will lead them through a secret passageway. Once they get to the end of the tunnel they can then sneak over to the flour mill undetected.

Cory (male halfling rogue) uses the key and they open the old rusted door. As they go single file into the tunnel they discover a couple of swarms of rats! These rats bite hard! And they are difficult to hit, so the adventurers simply ignore the swarms and run though the tunnel. Cory is able to successfully open the locked door at the end of the tunnel quietly.

They then dispose of a group of kobolds that were lighting fires around the flour mill. Once the area is clear of baddies they notice that the fires appear to have been faked. But they go into the flour mill anyway, only to discover an ambush! Which Crosis decides this is a good time to use his badass force spell, which kills 2/3 of the ambushies. The remaining cultists hide and stay quiet!

After ensuring the flour mill isn't on fire anymore, the adventurers go back to the Keep. They spend a couple of hours resting. But then a half-dragon challenged the remaining forces in the keep to one final battle before the pillagers will depart. Shae realizes it's her chance to shine, so she goes out for battle. Which she realizes was a bad idea when the half-dragon opens its mouth and electrifies her for double her pitiful pool of hit points. The priests in the keep hearl her up however. Now the party is considered heroes of Greenest!

Map I used with roll20.net to provide combat

used for top of keep while dragon was attacking!

Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Episode 1, Part 1

The group of adventures have banded together on the road to Greenest. Each with their own background stories as to why they are going to Greenest. As they reach a vista summit above Greenest they see that it is under attack! Crosis is dragon-born, and sees that it is an adult blue dragon, which is tied to his same lineage. He tells the group about the dragon.

Oni, who is a half-orc male cleric grew up in Greenest. His family had been massacred when he was a child from a band of Orcs. So he has a deep hatred for that part of his lineage and loves the town of Greenest. So as soon as he sees what is taking place he becomes very impatient and asked the group to hurry to see if they can save anyone.

Cory, halfling male rogue, is apprehensive about getting to the village. But he was assaulted earlier by a group of thugs stating they were part of the Cult of the Dragon. So he is trying to make as much distance as possible from them encase they are still chasing him.

Shae is a female human fighter. Her family was killed by dragons and so has a deep hatred for them. So as soon as she sees the dragon she wants to find a way to kill it.

As they approach the village a group of humans rush past them. In hot pursuit is 8 Kobolds. Crosis takes almost all of them out before a couple were able to flee.

Oni recognizes the women and immediately rushes up and heals her. Using his bandages and salves.

The group notice that the remaining villagers are rushing to the keep, so they decide to follow them. Once they get inside the keep the guards barricade the doors so none of the Cultists can get in.

Governor Nighthill finds the group and immediately asks them for their assistance, taking them to the top of the keep to look down as he asks them to get one of the cultists for interrogation.

Here they complete ‘Prisoners’ mission for the Gov. And now they have ‘The Old Tunnel’, ‘The Sally Port’, ‘Dragon Attack’, ‘Save the Mill’, ‘Sanctuary’, and finally ‘Half-Dragon Champion’ to compete for the first episode.

Welcome!

Just made this blog to track progress with the work I plan to do for GM'ing DnD 5.0 adventures.

Good websites I have found that discuss Hoard of the Dragon Queen:

http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=2514