Sandboxing Starter/Essential kits.

[TodChuncker]

Hello interwebs!
!
Accidentally posted a thread twice and was editing spelling and grammar too much apparently. So my original post got deleted.

So! I would like some help threading the Lost Mines and Dragon of IceSpire Peak together.

Couple of things to narrow the ideas.
I MAY be setting it prior to the eruption of Hotenow. And have the red dragon Karrundax be another player in the game. The Cryovain moves into Hotenow which causes Karrundax to awaken. K scares out C which moves him into Venomfangs territory. Which is the area between the two mountain rangers. V then begins to look for the Forge in Lost Mines so SHE might get more power. In my world it is resting on a rift to the Shadowfell which is what gives the forge its power. She will eventually get the power and turn shadow dragon.

The Forge! The Rockseekers have JUST stumbled upon the forge as I am moving it to the “Dwarven Excavation”. Same idea about the start of Lost Mines Module

Venomfang has employed the Spider to find the forge by any means necessary. All that remains the same. Goblins/ bugbears and what have you.

The Orcs. The Necromancer is taking advantage of the chaos of the moment has employed the half orcs to command the orcs to do what they do. This is the start of the conflict that happened 500 years ago in the Lost Mines Module. But secretly! The Necromancer is making his way to the Tower of Storms to raise an army of the dead to ALSO take Wave Echo for himself...

The Redbands. They are actually gonna be a platoon sent from Neverwinter with Sildar as their Captain. They get disgruntled as the campaign goes on and eventually have their plot line from Lost Mines play out. But the Manor is intact. It gets destroyed later by the dragons fighting above Phandalin. And that’s when the Redbands move in.

Yeesh. Lots going on.

Other things.

The Druid is a Spore Druid gone mad but not bad causing blights to take over Thundertree.

The Spider Staff will absorb shadowfell energy and cause the Spider to transform into a Drider.

I think my players ARE the old heroes from the Dragon Barrow. (Yes yes, changing lore I know) So I’ll take that out and leave it as flavor for when they all die in the eruption of Hotenow stopping the Fire Primordial from raging free.

Which leads me to Hotenow. There is another rift to the plane of fire in the old dwarven city of Gauntlgrym that also imbues items with power. Flavor added as the city was once known for its forges. And then history plays out with the volcano erupting forever changing Neverwinter.

I mean.. with all that, I may have it figured out.

But I’d still love the hive mind to toss some other stuff my way so I can maybe sprinkle it in here and there.

Thinks and thunks?

[Lyracian]

Sounds like you have it all in hand? Perhaps I will get some ideas from you!

I had already started running Lost Mine when this came out. Fortunately my players were just finishing off the Red Brands and this is well timed to give them some sandbox options for the side quests while they try and find Cragmaw Castle.

My plan was to remove Thundertree and use the White Dragon and the starter set adventures to merge the two together. Thundertree always seems placed far to far away from most of the adventure to want to have the characters wander most of the way back to Neverwinter. One Dragon is probably enough but I might move Venomfang to the Conberry ruins to allow for the fight between the two dragons to be part of the campaign. After all the game is called Dungeons and Dragons not Dragon!

I was going to merge the Druid from Thundertree with the Healer who is being attacked by the Manticore but I have not got much further with my plans as I have not finished readying the new module yet.

[Zhorn]

Before I suggest anything; you do you. Any story elements that make more sense to you, go with that and make the game your own without being beholden to the ideas of others.
That being said

The Druid is a Spore Druid gone mad but not bad causing blights to take over Thundertree.

Two different directions:
1- Myconids instead of Blights. If you go for the Spore Druid, mushrooms monsters make more sense, and the Spore Servant Template is ready to be added to any creature you want to use for more interesting encounters.

2- Blights + Vampires. If you dig into the lore of blights, you'll find they are tied to Gulthius Trees, where Gulthius was a vamprire whose wooden stake sprouted into a big bad evil tree. I turned the Blights in Thundertree into an adventure hook to inform my players about The Sunless Citadel on the northern edge of Mount Hotenow (See Tales of the Yawning Portal for that adventure). Drop the Circle of Spores and make the Druid in Thundertree a disciple of Belak, the Druid in the Sunless Citadel, who was booted from of his druid circle because he dared to expand nature’s reach in ways they couldn’t grasp.

The Spider Staff will absorb shadowfell energy and cause the Spider to transform into a Drider.

I swapped Nezznar "The Black Spider" into a Drider also, but it needn't be complicated or attached to an item you'd need to account for what it might do to the players if/when they get hold of it. Nezznar as a promising spellcaster underwent the test of Lolth, fail and got turned into a drider, was outcast from their den, and now seeks powerful magic to break their curse.

[TodChuncker]

Sounds like you have it all in hand? Perhaps I will get some ideas from you!

I had already started running Lost Mine when this came out. Fortunately my players were just finishing off the Red Brands and this is well timed to give them some sandbox options for the side quests while they try and find Cragmaw Castle.

My plan was to remove Thundertree and use the White Dragon and the starter set adventures to merge the two together. Thundertree always seems placed far to far away from most of the adventure to want to have the characters wander most of the way back to Neverwinter. One Dragon is probably enough but I might move Venomfang to the Conberry ruins to allow for the fight between the two dragons to be part of the campaign. After all the game is called Dungeons and Dragons not Dragon!

I was going to merge the Druid from Thundertree with the Healer who is being attacked by the Manticore but I have not got much further with my plans as I have not finished readying the new module yet.

For mine. Venom fang is only seen as a woman sorcerer. She is being attacked by the dragon cult because they know she is a dragon but the adventurers will not.... unless you know they nat 20 Orlando even then they will see she is just merely a draconic bloodline sorcerer. I may make the white dragon attack the windmill instead of the manticore. Would makes sense if Venomfang is hanging out there.

Thunder tree IS too far from anything. I certainly don’t want my group going back to Neverwinter. I won’t stop them but I certainly don’t want to unpack Neverwinter in all it’s glory. Lotta work.

[TodChuncker]

Before I suggest anything; you do you. Any story elements that make more sense to you, go with that and make the game your own without being beholden to the ideas of others.
That being said


Two different directions:
1- Myconids instead of Blights. If you go for the Spore Druid, mushrooms monsters make more sense, and the Spore Servant Template is ready to be added to any creature you want to use for more interesting encounters.

2- Blights + Vampires. If you dig into the lore of blights, you'll find they are tied to Gulthius Trees, where Gulthius was a vamprire whose wooden stake sprouted into a big bad evil tree. I turned the Blights in Thundertree into an adventure hook to inform my players about The Sunless Citadel on the northern edge of Mount Hotenow (See Tales of the Yawning Portal for that adventure). Drop the Circle of Spores and make the Druid in Thundertree a disciple of Belak, the Druid in the Sunless Citadel, who was booted from of his druid circle because he dared to expand nature’s reach in ways they couldn’t grasp.


I swapped Nezznar "The Black Spider" into a Drider also, but it needn't be complicated or attached to an item you'd need to account for what it might do to the players if/when they get hold of it. Nezznar as a promising spellcaster underwent the test of Lolth, fail and got turned into a drider, was outcast from their den, and now seeks powerful magic to break their curse.

Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own- Bruce Lee

Mushroom people. Nailed it.

The Blight idea is interesting. I COULD tie the tree itself into a Strahd connection. Hmm. If they do it mid adventure some interesting things could happen back in the main realm. BUT I will look into the Sunless Citadel. Googled it and the first thing that came up was Meepo... so possibly alter the story to have his dragon live? And ITS Cryovein?

The Drider is a red herring. I will implant Venomfang in her human form into the party as help for their dive into wave echo cave. The second Nezznar starts to lose he is gonna flip out and turn Drider. And then out of nowhere a green dragon will bite the human body off the spider. I think the staff itself will be from the forge. Because it’s the Shadowfell underneath my forge, it will imbue everything with a positive and a negative effect. Summoning spiders is all well and good until you crit fail and you turn into one yourself.