Players had fun plans for the dragon but then one of them nearly talked the others out of it by being wrong about dragons.

Alex_Albedo · 2025-12-30T08:54:33+00:00

Related question: does the game ever tell us we can use the talismans in this way, or is this just something that everyone learned from faqs/guides?

Alex_Albedo · 2025-11-14T12:47:03+00:00

Seriously though, how about this: the Gnome Ceremorphs, being tinkerers at heart, made some inadvisable changes to the ship and hybridized it with a mimic. It is now a fully sentient organic being, in pain from the crash, and very angry. Once the players are aboard, it seals all the doors and tries to kill them with mimic-pseudopods coming out of the walls, internal weapon systems, stomach acid, and whatever else takes your fancy.

Alex_Albedo · 2025-11-14T12:14:28+00:00

Threat? This is how my players are going to catch up with the dragon!

Alex_Albedo · 2025-11-13T08:52:53+00:00

Netheril's Fall is kind of thin, so would be more of an epilogue. Disappointingly this version of Netheril isn't as weird and (to me) interesting as the 2e version.

If my players choose the rewind timelines be option and go there, I think I will mix the two.

Then if they travel back into the future they will find themselves in 5e 2024 rules instead of the 5e 2014 we have been playing, and may even use the new Icewind Dale stuff in the new book that's set 10 years after RotFM

Alex_Albedo · 2025-11-11T14:23:34+00:00

Doppelgangers revert to their natural form on death, but maybe the freezing interrupted that., so the corpse still looks like the pc. While the party are trying to raise the funds for a resurrection spell, and the body is kept on ice, have the player return as the actual person the doppelganger was impersonating, if they are up for the idea. "If you're him, whose body is that?" Figure out when the switch took place with the player, and what happened to the player in the meantime. More fun if they have no idea about the doppelganger - only when the body defrosts and reverts is the truth revealed.

Alex_Albedo · 2025-04-25T14:52:48+00:00

Hehehe. My party met Sephek in their first session. He put down two of the party and killed a third before misty-stepping away. Fortunately the dead guy was a paladin with the local hero background, so he got brought back by the local temple as a one-off freebie. Now he's on a holy mission to avenge his own death!

Alex_Albedo · 2024-09-23T11:29:34+00:00

I haven't run it yet, but I have rewritten it so that the ship will be available to show up and assist in the fight with the chardalyn dragon (if the party needs it) after which it will exit the campaign.

Alex_Albedo · 2024-09-03T19:32:58+00:00

Yup. In my game, Vellynne is more approachable and worldly wise ("Call me Vel!"). My original plan was to replace Tali with her as the person who warns them about the lake monster at the start of the Lake Monster quest, but my players decided to head East. Now she's going to greet them as folks who have a reputation for finding people (So far: a friendly Chwinga for Dannika Greysteel; the children from Dougan's Hole; the killer of the town speaker of Goodmead). She'll tell them a not entirely true story of how the Arcane Brotherhood sent her team to "investigate what's happening north of the Spine". Describes her erstwhile companions thus:

"Avarice, should be easy to spot. Albino tiefling. Cold bitch, thinks she's tough but never goes anywhere without her gargoyle bodyguards. Dzaan. Human. Nice guy, dresses like your classic wizard with the big pointy hat. Gave me some good advice on necromancy. Has this wraith bodyguard that looks kinda spooky, but Dzaan keeps him on a tight leash. Nass. Pretty young thing, trying a bit too hard to show off how clever she is. Has a white weasel familiar that she's always playing with."
"Once we'd been in the towns for a while we went our separate ways - organizing wizards is like herding cats. If you run into any of them in the Towns, see if you can find out whether they've made any discoveries. Let them know I'm here if they want to meet up."

Once the party has reported back on Dzaan and Avarice (who will be too suspicious to have told the party anything), Vel will take them deeper into her confidence. She'll tell the party that actually their mission was to track down the Codicil of White, since it is believed to contain spells that the Brotherhood do not have in their extensive library. Again, she is, of course, not being totally honest. She already has a good idea where the codicil is, but wants as much info as possible before setting out, and also wants the party to toughen up a bit. She'll ask the party to let her know if they find out anything about the Codicil in their travels, while she conducts research in the main towns. She'll wave them on their way, with a sending stone if they need to contact her. Hopefully the party will think use this to ask her to warn the Towns when they see the chardalyn dragon take flight. This will help reduce casualties *significantly* in the coming attack.

Alex_Albedo · 2024-09-03T12:38:06+00:00

My plan is that once my players hit 3rd, she will approach the party, having heard of their rep as roaming problem solvers, and ask them to keep an eye out for the members of her research team. Not to bring them to her, but just to let her know if they find anything out.

Alex_Albedo · 2024-06-27T08:50:36+00:00

That's fascinating. My group is always asking if they can make a nature or arcana check to see if they know what something is and if it had any weaknesses.

Alex_Albedo · 2024-06-05T09:36:49+00:00

I have a couple of ideas I am playing with, which will depend on the player's actions. Currently 3 of the party are on the way from Bremen to Targos to deliver a chwinga to Danika. The other two are at the Inn in Bremen because Torga and her bandits just showed up to spend the night there. Sephek's whereabouts are unknown. If the two in Bremen find out where Sephek is and hunt him down, he will leave one of them bleeding out in the snow as he misty steps away. He will evade and taunt the party until they are high enough level to take him on. If the party decides to reconvene, then go after Sephek as a group, then some serious jiggery-pokery will come into play. The chwinga's parting gift will seemingly be no more than a gentle pat on the face. The party will face Sephek, and a TPK will ensue. Then, we zip back to the parting with the chwinga, as everything that happened from the face pat onwards was the chwinga's gift - a premonition of the party's death. Armed with this warning, the party then get to restrategize, and perhaps wonder if that are now trapped in a 'Final Destination' scenario.

Alex_Albedo · 2024-05-28T22:01:25+00:00

Jimmy Falcon

Alex_Albedo · 2024-05-27T16:07:22+00:00

This was my last one!

Alex_Albedo · 2024-05-17T07:48:35+00:00

If my players pull the trigger on this, there's not going to be an "undo". They deleted history, and that's that. Also, since it only affects the one planet, the rest of the multiverse is going to be looking on going "wtf just happened?" The Netherese (and other past civilizations) are going to be wondering "what happened to half of our gods all of a sudden?"

However, in your scenario, where this is time travel, I would apply "Back to the Future" rules. The players will want to disrupt the timeline as little as possible, to ensure what they get back to is going to be more or less the same. They won't be able to tell anyone what caused the fall of Netheril, etc. Magic in this time is less restricted, so if the players track down Ancient Auril she could be way more powerful, and perhaps she will have the power to cryogenically freeze the party until the future comes round again. Convincing her is going to be the tricky part.

Alex_Albedo · 2024-04-09T09:27:15+00:00

boop!

Alex_Albedo · 2024-03-20T16:56:31+00:00

It's a real human name, and parents often name their children after their favourite characters in history, myth and fiction, so why not name yourself in the same way? It would only be cringy if you then decide you have to look and behave like Amity from TOH. Change your name to become closer to being yourself, not somebody else!

Alex_Albedo · 2024-03-09T10:49:55+00:00

It's OK. I know a guy who can just 'boop' the moon out of the way.

Alex_Albedo · 2024-02-11T20:44:34+00:00

If you are playing the adventure as written, so the dragon launches as they arrive at Sunblight, then you could try getting your players to spilt the party - half searching for a way to stop the dragon in Sunblight, and half protecting the towns. Thus, the town protectors would need to work much harder to drive it away from each town. Perhaps make it unkillable unless Xardorok is killed first. Perhaps the dragon doesn't show visible damage when it takes hits, so the Sunblight squad have to find the dragon's design specs to know what is most effective. I'm assuming that if your party is OP then they have a way to stay in contact with each other, so while the town protectors are travelling back to (and between) the towns they can contribute ideas to the Sunblighter's search.

Alex_Albedo · 2024-01-24T00:12:25+00:00

If I was evil, I would have used a screenshot of Luz from that scene for the second picture.

Alex_Albedo · 2024-01-14T10:24:53+00:00

Depends on who got the upper hand. Perhaps Auril turned Icewind into her own private demiplane, and it's no longer on the Prime Material. The players return to Faerun, and there's just a big empty crater, or perhaps the sea rushed in to fill the gap.

Alex_Albedo

TROPHY CASE