I’ve mastered a couple of short campaigns (20-25 sessions) in dungeonworld but we didn’t like it in the long term.. Two years ago we started with an homebrew campaign that after some sessions “derailed” into the tyranny of the dragons campaign as homebrewing everything was too much for me at the time.
The following will contain all the spoilers from tyranny of the dragons.
I’ve also added lot of things (that I think I’m not allowed to link because they are paid), but the 3 main resources are those (free) three:
The party
– Elf druid that made a deal with a demon to gain power
– Half-orc warrior that left his tribe
– Halfling bard that stole something too much valuable to be safe
– Dragonborn Barbarian former soldier
– Tiefling Sorcerer that had his village raided by the cult of the dragon
Sessions
This is a very condensed summary: you’ll need to read hoard of the dragon queen and rise of Tiamat to understand it fully.
Sessions 0-3: The party investigates an old orcish temple that reappeared after getting covered by the vegetation of the forest, they clear it and join the Arcane Brotherhood by giving them an artifact found there. In the temple there were forces of the warrior’s father and the father itself gets killed
Sessions 4-6: The forest was withdrawing because the ancient green dragon that lived there died. They investigate the lair and found the cult of the dragon trying to make a dracolich. Severin appears and harangues the cultist about the new cult direction
Sessions 7-10: The party is now sent to Greenest by the brotherhood and plays chapter 2 and 3 of the hoard of the dragon queen, where they meet a human barbarian (a friend guest for a session)
Sessions 11-13: During a night’s rest, the party is mentally abducted by a demon related to the druid backstory: he sends them to a terrible nightmare and we played “Amidsts the ancient trees” from Call of Chtulhu 7th edition
Sessions 14-17: The parties follows the cultists to Waterdeep, playing chapter 4 of hotdq
Sessions 18-19: The party arrives at the Carnath Inn. Between the cultists, lies the mother of the Tiefling Sorcerer. In the night, they decide to kill every one of them, leaving his mother alive.
Sessions 20-23: Episodes 6 of hotdq: Castle Naerytar. During the raid, they found a Deck of Many Things and the sorcerer gains 2 wishes and 2 mortal devil enemies. The dragonborn then leaves the party
Session 24-25: The devils tampers the portal to Talis’ house, and the party is teleported to Avernus instead. Fortunately, the imp that watches over them is a changeling that needs help to escape from there: the party is safe back to the material plane thanks to the same portal used by the devils in the first place. The changeling wizard joins the party: she was pushed into Avernus by her former master, many many years ago and she doesn’t know why.
Sessions 26-28: Talis’ house is explored and a pact is made: the player will help her getting rid of Rezmir in exchange of the password to enter the castle (episode 7)
Sessions 29-30: As per episode 8, the party goes to Parnast and assault Castle Skyreach, convincing Blagoktus to join them. The warrior gets Rezmir’s sword.
Session 31: As the final act of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the party defeats and kills the white dragon and proceed to go to Waterdeep with the castle
Sessions 32-33: Before reaching waterdeep, the party is flanked by a city airship, carrying the tiefling’s father and his cultist slaver. The slaver is executed by the tiefling, but it was all an illusion: the slaver was in fact the true father and the tiefling killed him. The two devils laughs and attack the party, saved by waterdeep guards.
Sessions 34-36: The party is approached by another devil that doesn’t want Tiamat to be fred: he sends the party to the 4th layer of the dungeon of the mad mage, to kill a friend evil trapped there and free him from Halaster by sending him back to avernus
Session 37: First council of waterdeep (chapter 1 of rot) with all the Lords and factions, with the addition of the old man head of the Arcane Brotherhood and a very young girl kenku cleric of bahamut, that joins the party as NPC.
Sessions 38-39: The party goes to a cave searching for an artifact (This is a rot filler bought on dmsguild)
Sessions 40: Back to waterdeep, the party makes a ritual to loosen the connection between the druid and the demon, because he was controlling her every now and then
Sessions 41-42: “Devilish demands” filler: the party investigates a murder-suicide of the head of waterdeep’s guard caused by a succubus. The warrior has a dream: Hazirawn, the sentient sword once owned by Rezmir, asks him to collect soul for him by killing enemies. He needs them to tow a wagon inside the sword semi-plane (from the malazan book of the fallen) but doesn’t say why. The warrior accepts and he’s now also a warlock
Sessions 43: Ambush in the city market by the cult. The party sails to the tomb of diderius (chapter 3 of rot) with an elf, a bladesinger former pirate. The bodyguard of the elf is the human barbarian they met in session 7.
Sessions 44-46: Tomb of Diderius exploration and retrieval of Varram the White
Sessions 47-48: A group of very muscolar kobolds attacked a nearby village asking for the adventurers. In the village, the ex-pirate elf stalks a lady elf and her child. The party follows the track of the kobolds and found a cave with orcs disguised as kobold with props and a bit of magic. The head of the orcs is an undead-demon orc: the father of the warrior. He dies and the party heads to a village marked in a letter on the undead’s body
Sessions 49-50: I don’t want to spoil anything about another super cool adventure, we played “the false hydra” and the main character was the bard, I’ll just say this. Oh, and at the end they used a wish to resurrect someone.
Sessions 51-52: Back to Waterdeep for shopping and back to the elf’s ship, heading to the Sea of the Moving Ice. Filler adventure with water elementals and a lighthouse from dmsguild. Talis contacts the party: she wants to get rid of a cultist in Skullport and in exchange she will lure Arauthator from his lair for some days. The party accepts.
Session 53: The party stops in Luskan, where the changeling searches for the head of the wizards school. Turns out that she was the one that pushed her to Avernus! But it was to save her: the head wizard felt the death of Mystra and teleported randomly the changeling on another plane to save her, but failed to find her afterwise. After reconciliation, the changeling stayed there to help rebuilt the school and the player left the campaign
Sessions 54-55: The party arrives to the Iceberg, rescue Maccath and use one of the wish to save the population there, teleporting all the village to Waterdeep. The warrior extracts another card and obtains 2 wishes. (chapter 2 of rot)
Session 56-57: Second council of Waterdeep and library research to find all the informations about metallic dragons.
Sessions 58-59: The friendly devil knows how to obtain informations about Tiamat’s ritual: he sends the party to an alternative world where they’ll find the information. We played Crimson Letters from Call of Chtulhu 7th edition
Sessions 60-62: Mission in skullport to find and kill the vampire cultist enemy of Talis the White
Session 63: Mission to rescue the elf pirate that went to the Anauroch Desert searching for something. Finally he’s free from the curse and he can say to the party that he was never a pirate. He was cursed to be forgotten by his family (the lady with the child) and he disguised himself as a pirate because his child loved them and he wanted to try to have him remember.
Sessions 64-66: Death to the wyrmspeaker, green chapter (episode 4 of rot)
Session 67: Council with the metallic dragons, ambush in the library when they are back to waterdeep. Two party members die from the enemy devils and 2 wishes are used to ress them
Sessions 68-69: Third council of waterdeep and trip to avernus to avenge the deaths: the enemy devils are now dead forever
Sessions 70-72: Mission for the friendly devil to an old Temple of Bahamut to retrieve a magic chalice. They can use it to enhance their weapons but after the battle the devil will have it
Sessions 73-75: Mission to the Xonthal’s tower (episode 7 of rot). The party fails to pass the maze and is driven back to waterdeep by an ancient dragon
Session 76: Side quest with another party to retrieve something the metallic dragon wanted
Session 77: Mission to Thay (episode 8)
Session 78: Last council of waterdeep and last ambush. Teleport in the Lord’s army camp.
Session 79: Final battle! The party assaults the temple, kill the 1.5/5 chapels of it, then manages to cast a Meteor Swarm and totally annihilate 99% of the cultists. Severin is near death and the ritual is quite finished, so he decided to sacrifice himself to complete it! Tiamat appears. The warrior then stabs and kill the kenku cleric under the incredulous eyes of the party. The kenku’s soul is brought to the sword. After some seconds, the sword shatters and the old man head of the Brotherhood appears and proceed to attack the ancient dragons (with the aid of the other souls and his canaries) in his platinum dragon form! Tiamat is then easily killed by the party because the ritual was completely shattered and she was weakened as hell (no pun intended).
Session 80: Epilogue, the party find itself in Bahamut’s castle in Celestia. There are a lot of points still open in their background, I guess we’ll finish everything in one-shots now!
Thoughts
This was awesome! We could have gone to 100 session by using all the fillers and ideas that I found and had, but I wanted to save them to the next completely homebrew campaign that we’ll do
Don’t be afraid to have your player lose: They went all unconscious against the devils, it’s just that the devils’ objective was to humiliate them, not kill (until a certain point). Also, they failed the maze mission but it was still epic, because loads of cultists and an ancient dragon were waiting outside of it for them: so don’t be afraid to change your plans. It’s your world, but it’s not your history
Recurring NPCs are super cool, especially if they have cool backstories, or they are cute little girls that you attach to but you have to kill her at the end of the campaign
Secrets are OK, I think that all characters should have secrets. Minor or major, it doesn’t matter, but it adds reality to not say everything about your life to the other characters that you’ve met yesterday
Hosts are cool, if you have players that want to play but can’t attend at every session, just make them guests. You won’t find difficult in explaining why someone is suddenly there to join the party and then they must go. It adds diversity, it’s exiting and cool
Magic items are cool, 5e official campaigns lacks of magic items. I don’t like the “magic item distribution chart” of 5e, I give plenty of magic items to my player: they are cool, they are powerful, and players wants to be cool and powerful, so why not? Just add a bit of CR and you are fine
Players backstory is super important. Even if you are playing a premade adventure, do what you can to tie the player backstory to the main story. You don’t want your player to think: “Why am I even doing this? Why should I care?”
Bosses should have minions, especially if the party is greater than 4 people. Yes, you have legendary resistance and legendary actions to make up for 1vsMultiple, but you still need to pump the CR a lot if you have 5 or 6 player or if you give them a lot of magic items (and I had both). So, adding minions with 1hp helps a lot to redistribute the action economy
Evolve yourself! We started with full theater of mind, then we used paper and pencil for maps, then pathfinder tokens, and then I bought a 3d printer. HERE you can find the backstage of creating the map for the final battle!
Conclusions
100% I forgot something, I tried to recap all the campaign with less words that I could, I hope it’s understandable.
Many thanks to my player and to you if you’ve read until now 😀
Don’t forget to have a look at my backstage photos here and let me know in the comments what you think about it, Ask Me Anything, and.. don’t forget to love each other 🙂
