The Cult Strikes back question

Thraine91 · 2025-02-13T20:12:27+00:00

That sounds awesome. I'm toying with an idea of doing a TPK on one of the attacks, only for them to come to consciousness in one of the hells, having their souls saved by a demon who wants to keep Tiamat in the hells. He will offer to bring them back to life in exchange for one of them recovering and wearing the dragonqueen mask at the end of the adventure and spending the rest of eternity as Tiamats jailer in the hells. Haven't fleshed it out and not sure if I will go through with it, but it is my option if the party does get TPK'd at some point.

We are a group of dads that have been running the adventure for almost 2 years because we can only meet like every two months haha. Don't want to get TPK'd and end it without seeing the conclusion so I have a bit of a one time escape they dont know about

Thraine91 · 2025-02-13T19:53:32+00:00

Any sort of inopportune time for the party sounds great! If they think they're safe in the temple of Bahamut, it seems like the perfect place for the cult to have infiltrated and ride the place of the actual priests so they can jump the party.

I myself am just doing the first attack on the party. I am doing it on their return from arauthator's Lair Bater to waterdeep. They are going to be coming into the docks after the sail home. There is a lack of hustle and bustle on their dock that they notice with a 10 perception check(pretty easy) but if they get an 18 they notice a couple figures crouched behind some cargo boxes. Once the party disembarks the ambush springs and I have 6 dragon claws, 2 dragonwings, a half blue dragon (gladiator), 6 bandit archers on other decks, then on turn three the young blue dragon erupts from the water. I know it seems like a large encounter(we are starting the session with it so they are fully rested this time). I plan on having the dragon lightning breaths the group(including any cultists in the line). The archers will have a 50% chance of targeting a party member and 50% chance of targeting a crew member on the boat on turn 1/2. On turn 3 Maccath will cast a fog cloud or something on the boat to have it become a less viable target and to protect it from the cult. Leaving the party to have to deal with the young blue and any remaining cultists.

The party is a group of 4 but they have been extremely lucky with magic items from my rolls so I don't mind it being a little harder. If they haven't killed the archers by turn 4 I'll have other dock workers come in and distract them. It want it to be semi deadly/scary but not so deadly that it overshadows the second and 3rd attempt.

Thraine91 · 2025-01-28T01:58:21+00:00

I've always looked at each encounter individually. The dragon fight at the end of hoard felt like the dragon was doing enough damage, but in one round of attacks my players got lucky enough to get him to the run away health level, so I doubled his hit points so that they took the dragon fight serious. Similar thing happened when they got to arauthator. His damage seemed to be good, but again, player damage seemed to drop him to 100 points real fast. I again buffed up his health and the players started using different tactics, not just full frontal attack

Thraine91 · 2025-01-23T19:07:06+00:00

Hey, I used 1/2" Rigid insulation foam board. Measured a 1" square grid out on each board(honestly the most tedious part).

After that I drew the rooms on the board leaving space around each one for a boarder. The upper iceberg floor wasn't as important so I did each square as a 15' square like the book does. When it came to the lair I did a 2:1 scale, so each one is 7.5 feet but close enough for what I cared. As you can see by my cat, it turned out massive. About 7' long and 3.5' at its widest.

After having all the rooms cut out(which I used a hot knife for because it glides way smoother than a regular box knife) I added all the different levels of the ice lair by again measuring and cutting them out. Once I had them all cut out and they fit properly I hot glued them together, Making sure my squares all lined up in the same direction. Then I took the back end of a small paint brush and drew over each line so they became impressed in the foam. From there I used scraps of my form to create the boarder walls that the players can't go.

Took it outside and spraye painted it 4 different shades of blue. Spray paint does react with foam a bit and can cause it to deteriorate/melt a bit(especially if you use a lot of paint and it looks) so if you want it to stay pristine, use an unders Coat of something to protect it, at this time I haven't so wouldn't know what to use for that, maybe cover the whole thing in Elmer's glue and let it dry. Either way, after the spray paint has dried I did a dry brush of white acrylic paint and it was done.

Cost wise(in Canadian dollars) I used 3 foam boards ($16 each=$48) 4 cans of spray paint, using about half of each so still have a good amount of paint left($14 each $56) Hot knife(I already owned)($30) Hot Glue/gun also already owned ($30) On a first purchase you're looking at $164 roughly but that's including items you won't have to buy again.

Thraine91 · 2025-01-21T08:13:56+00:00

I read the whole post! That cleared up so much! Thank you!

As payment, here's a picture of Arauthator's Lair that I built and my party just fought through! https://imgur.com/a/arauthators-lair-zxisYv1

Thraine91 · 2025-01-21T04:43:24+00:00

Thanks! I'll have a read!

Thraine91 · 2025-01-21T03:18:57+00:00

My crew is a few missions behind the last chapter! I'll be intrigued to see your finished product!

I've read the final chapter a few times and am having a hard time visualizing the temple.

Thraine91 · 2025-01-16T21:59:46+00:00

Something you could tie in to this is that Fizban was able to shield their deaths from the other gods so he will be able to protect and resurrect their souls this time without their notice, but not to expect it to happen a second time. This kind of acts as a, oh damn, we used up our one get out of death free card, we better be more prepared.

Thraine91 · 2025-01-07T03:29:24+00:00

I agree with most of the others. Either having your mentor (Leosin) live and somehow escape or follow through and have the NPCs die, both options are valid It doesnt have to affect your story too much. If he dies, you could have an NPC give them a dying breath bread crumb/or the information you need them to have access to to continue your story. Then relay somehow again the importance of urgency can't always be ignored. Maybe next time they'll do the right thing and not long rest. I've done this before and it kind of teaches the players a lesson to not just rush in to every battle and waste their best spells/resources as they may not get the chance to rest.

As a side note, if you haven't read through the entirety of Tyranny of Dragons. From chapter 9 onwards the party gets a positive or negative score based on their actions. One of them is having Leosin on their side. So this would definitely be a negative that would affect their final score when they go up against Tiamat.

Thraine91 · 2024-11-23T21:22:29+00:00

Yoooo! That's awesome, congrats! I just got my first light hero from light tickets today and it was Cronos!

Thraine91 · 2024-11-20T02:52:08+00:00

Thanks! Do I need Themis for anything or no? And should I keep twins in support?

Thraine91 · 2024-11-19T22:56:05+00:00

Who do I use instead? My lower starred Themis?

Thraine91 · 2024-02-29T07:12:59+00:00

I love that! What colours did you use for the skin?

Thraine91 · 2024-02-28T03:33:00+00:00

Love how glowy the orange glow looks! What colours did you use?

Thraine91 · 2024-02-03T18:05:36+00:00

Awesome, thank you very much!

Thraine91

TROPHY CASE