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.