Campaign Overview - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Campaign Overview. Tyranny of Dragons tells an epic story spanning two adventures, Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat-the two tales contained within this collection. Both adventures are introduced here, outlining their backgrounds, plots, and fundamental ties, followed by details on allies and villains relevant to both adventures. Regardless of which adventure you're running, this overview provides useful information, applicable to the wider campaign and helpful for foreshadowing the threats unleashed by the Cult of the Dragon. Tyranny of Dragons is set in the Forgotten Realms on Faerûn's western shore-the Sword Coast. A thin strip of civilization stretches down this coast, where widely spaced cities are arranged like beads on a string. Roads loosely connect the cities that stretch from Luskan in the north to Calimport in the south, passing through Neverwinter, Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate, and other ports along the way. The bulk of this adventure takes place on the stretch between Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter. Adventure Supplements You can play this adventure with just the Dungeons & Dragons basic rules and the Tyranny of Dragons appendix online, which contains all the monsters and magic items not described in this book. Both of these supplements are available as free downloads on DungeonsandDragons.com. Hoard of the Dragon Queen Tyranny of Dragons tells an epic story across two adventures, of which Hoard of the Dragon Queen is the first. Characters begin this adventure at 1st level; by the end of it they should be 7th or 8th level and ready to continue with The Rise of Tiamat. The ideal party size is four characters. If your group is larger or smaller, you can adjust the adventure's difficulty by adjusting the number of enemies in each encounter. Character Advancement At your option, you can use the milestone experience rule. Under this rule, you pick events in the campaign that cause the characters to level up. In Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the char...