16. HOTDQ - Skyreach Castle part I

16. HOTDQ – Skyreach Castle part I

LiquidAnalog

March 1, 2024

This is part 16 of my guide for Hoard of the Dragon’s Queen campaign. You can read all chapters of this guide here:

Episode 7 – The Hunting Lodge

Well. Apologies for this very short section; My simple recommendation here is to trim this chapter completely. Ignore it and have the trail lead directly to Parnast and Skyreach Castle.

Why?

I don’t think that this is a good episode. According to the module, the main point of this entire lodge is to meet Talis the White, so that the heroes can get some password to the castle. But there are several problems with that premise.

First – it comes at the heels of a superb climax of mass revolt operation and battle in Naerytar, and the excitement of finding and using the portal – only to get to “just another place” that is not exciting or interesting as much.

Second – Talis the White as the only important NPC here looks like filler material. There is no foreshadowing of this NPC anywhere before in the module, and she is barely mentioned after. She also does not really play a real role in the castle – you could make her an ally, but that is unlikely, and the castle has enough tension as it is between Giants and the Cult, that getting Talis in there is not really required.

Lastly – good players will skip the lodge altogether anyway, chasing Rezmir to Skyreach Castle – after all, Rezmir just ran away, the trail gets cold, and a huge castle is looming ahead and about to lift off. And they really don’t need a hint on the password – they can figure out the password by themselves (stealth, charm) or bullshit their way in, or even wyvern their way in.

So – you can include it, but I found this episode pointless and tiring. I skipped it.

Episode 8 – Skyreach Castle

This is a brilliant conclusion to this grand chase story – the highly anticipated and epic conclusion to the entire module. Big reveals ensure, and the epic battle that the heroes have been waiting for arrives to conclude the story in a bang.

One important note for you to consider – remove unnecessary NPCs here, so you can trim the action and allow to focus the story on the core elements – the tension between the Giants and the Cult. I removed the following:

The vampire Sandesyl. This looks to me like an old-school monster, and I think including this character here is completely needless. Like in Naerytar, there is so much tension buildup, that introducing just random monsters should be avoided (random in the sense that it bears no connection to the story or other characters).
In addition, it seems to me that the shallow way the vampire is placed here is diluting the vampire theme – and will detract heavily if Curse of Strahd is anywhere in your party’s future.
Rath Modar. Depending if you plan to continue with the campaign to the second book or not, and the strength of the party – I suggest you trim Rath Modar completely. I think Azbara Joss makes a great mystery assistant here, and I saw little reason to suddenly introduce his superior – mostly because this does not add any interesting piece to the story, so this character seems redundant to me.

Here is the episode synopsis as I see it.

Parnast

A formerly wood-cutting village, with a huge and strange icy castle shadowing it. Its not clear yet that the castle is not part of the landscape.

The atmosphere in the village is that this is a village under cult occupation. People are unhappy, but are afraid to talk against the bullies.

The heroes can glimpse some of the action – cultists commanding villagers by force, cultists dragging provisions onto the castle – rolling wine barrels, crates of fresh food, water baskets – basically emptying the town storages of goods.

Following great advice from the links above, I introduced one of the villagers as a renegade that is willing to share some insights and rumors with the heroes once they trust him enough. Dalin the wheel guy is getting ugly treatment from the cultists, and once he notices the party is not behaving as usual cultists, he might share some rumors and thoughts with them.

“The castle arrived a few months ago out of nowhere” (wait what?)
“Who’s In charge? A half dragon, Rezmir or something”
“Who’s In charge here? Captain Othelstan, avoid him”
“We are under control of thugs for over a year now”
“Many people signed up when the cult took control… Beware the innkeeper”
“The cultists keep trained Wyverns in the vilage stables to reach the castle”

You can hint of the possibility of Wyvern mounting by having a mounted wyvern land nearby with 3 cultists dismounting. Wyverns are not very nice beasts – I made them tame by means of an amulet the cultists place on their chest. I made this the urgent team that was sent to collect the last goods before departure, so the heroes could get a sense of the urgency from their loose commands – “get it quick, we lift off in an hour!” – which they will attribute to the wyvern at first.

Getting into the Castle

There are several ways the heroes can get onto the castle.

Pass-phrase: It should be easy for the heroes to stealthily eavesdrop on the cultists as they bring provisions onto the gates, and hear them say “Hail Blagothkus” to enter. This is a great password BTW because its the first time they hear this name and don’t know what it means, and its also a deviation from the Tiamat theme.
Stealth: They might find a way to sneak unseen, then masquerade as cultists inside. A bit more challenging.
Wyverns: This could be a dramatic way to get in – especially watching the castle lift off as they are left behind, and chasing it with Wyverns. They could masquerade as cultists that missed the last call but made it.

Skyreach Castle – Departure

As the heroes get in, the castle starts to lift off. This is a major dramatic event! A horn sounds, the bridge is retracted, mists accumulate, the ground floor vibrates slightly for a while, and the nearby mountains get lower and lower as the castle drifts into the night sky.

The heroes need to find their place – either masquerade as cultists, or stealthily hide in the mists as the Ogres and Cultists make the last arrangements.

The Castle Ground Floor

Here is where the tension begins. First, how long can the heroes persist their bullshit story as cultists, if at all? Or how long can they hide with all enemies around them? Meanwhile they could spot Rezmir, commanding the departure arrangements. They might see Azbara Joss getting into his room.

The heroes are likely to discover the kitchen and its 20 Kobold staff, working frantically on food prep for the entire castle. However there is not a lot of room for folks to eat – and I would not think Rezmir, Azbara or any of the Giants will step into the Kobold kitchen to eat. So it makes more sense that the kitchen staff does deliveries to the various guests – which will allow the heroes to bullshit their way to meet some of the guests.

Specifically they should meet the two Stone Giant guests – Wigluf and Hulde, and find them worried about Blagothkus’s plan. With respectful chat, they could get a lot of crucial facts about the situation:

The castle is owned by Blagothkus, but they are only guests – helping him to repair damage to the castle and aid with its defense if needed
They are not happy with the clutists aboard
Wigluf is worried that Blagothkus’s attempts to incite the giants into action against the dragons could lead to devastating consequences
He is using a magic cauldron to perform an augury ritual and hopes to ascertain the most likely outcome of Blagothkus’s alliance with the Cult of the Dragon
If questioned, he could disclose that the castle is controlled from a steering tower accessible from the upper courtyard. Only giants can gain entry to the tower

Once the heroes get this, the situation in the castle should become clearer: Blagothkus is helping the cult for some reason, and the giants (rightfully) are not happy.

If the heroes know their Arcana and History, this behavior should seem very unusual. Giants had a blood feud with Dragons for Millenia, so a Giant helping a Dragon worshipping cult in efforts to raise Tiamat should be very strange.

The Kobolds

The heroes should gather some tidbits of information listening or directly questioning the Kobolds:

“The red-robed wizard is nice. His room (area 12) is off limits to all kobolds”
“The dragon loves meat! Toss it into the cavern (area 25) and run!”
“Blagothkus still speaks to his dead wife – her spirit is the castle’s pilot and protector”

The Upper Floor

As the party investigates the upper floor, they should see the Ogres, the Ballistas on the guard towers (below and here), and the Ogre patrols. Its up to you to decide how tolerant the Ogres would be for small folk (possibly Cultists) wandering about in the upper level – it could be quite quick before they are brought before Blagothkus.

Meeting Blagothkus

Blagothkus is impressive and quite interesting figure. Cloud Giant, long hair, intelligent and with magical abilities.
The heroes will want to gather his opinion on the situation, and likely persuade him that this is a bad course of action.

Blagothkus’s quotes:

“I have no conflict with you, the “small folk.””
“We, the Giants, are the rightful lords of this world. However we have grown soft! Thrashing some dragons would be good for Giant-kind”
“I am trying to gather support among giants”
Where are heading? To the Well of Dragons.
“yes, my castle is transporting a vast amount of treasure to the Well of Dragons, where the cult is gathering its forces and amassing a hoard in anticipation of the Tiamat’s arrival”.
“Why am I helping them? This is a way to stir my fellow giants out of their complacency and into action”
“I am not an enthusiastic of the cult… but The threat of a dragon empire will spur the giants to unite”
“I can take care of the cult. But just in case, you should know that they are entirely serious about making dragons a power along the coast again. Can you imagine? The nerve”
“I am worried the Cult of the Dragon might try to seize control of the castle”

Shifting the Tide

This is the most challenging piece of this episode. As its described, the heroes need to try to persuade Blagothkus and persuade him to stop aiding the cult and even publicly oppose them. However the book does not mention what exactly the heroes could say or do to shift the tide.

One possible path could be charm: That Blagothkus is under some charm from Azbara Joss – you can hint this by having the heroes see or hear him meeting with Azbara joss every 8 hours. If the heroes discover this, they could attempt to Dispel or Calm Emotions, however it would be tricky to cast a spell on him without his consent, as he is himself knowledgable of magic use.

However I found a different path: As Blagothkus is openly hostile to dragons (he wants to incite a global Giant-Dragon war), I think there is a gap in the logic as presented in the book – I could not see how he would agree to host an evil dragon in his castle – Its one thing to help this puny cult with its unlikely endeavour in raising a goddess of Dragons, and another thing IMHO to host a dragon in his flying castle.

So the path I chose is that Blagothkus is unaware of the dragon hiding in his castle. This provides a great opportunity for the heroes, once they scout the castle, to report this to Blagothkus, and even bring proof (say Blagothkus commands Wigluf to join them and report to him). Once Blagothkus learns that a dragon is in his castle, he explodes with rage and goes all nuclear on Rezmir and her team – which ignites the all-in war the heroes want to cause.

Continuing the guide on part 2 – 17. HOTDQ – Episode 8 – Skyreach Castle – part II