When my players returned from Oyaviggaton, one question loomed over their heads: “How long until the world ends?” In their estimation, the Cult of the Dragon had everything they needed to begin their ritual and summon Tiamat. They had the gold, the masks, and the magic, and with the logistical requirements of moving armies around, the Council of Waterdeep was in no position to oppose them. Borrowing from Brennan Lee Mulligan, I advised the party, “Anytime the world hasn’t already ended, it means the bad guys can’t do it yet.” Though how much time they had remained a mystery.
So, our heroes proceeded to their meeting with the Platinum Dragonmoot. Outside of changing the name of the event and a couple of the attending dragons, I ran this negotiation mostly as-written (so there isn’t much to say for this purpose of this blog series), with the heroes’ goal to be convincing the dragons to delay their assault on the caldera until the council could join them. They ultimately succeeded, though if I were to run this module again, I think I might make it clear that some amount of the Council’s forces (the Flaming Fist marching from Baldur’s Gate, perhaps) will make it to the Well of Dragons by the end of the week, just so it’s more clear how much time they’re negotiating for. Such a force would be grossly outnumbered by the cult and its allies, which would sharpen the stakes of convincing the metallic dragons to join forces, and it’d set a clearer plan-of-action than we had in this run of the campaign.
As they were set to depart, the silver dragon of the meeting tipped our heroes off that the giants were having their own Jarlmoot to determine whether they would assault the Well of Dragons themselves just across the way in the mountains surrounding Icewind Dale. They accepted her offer to fly them there, and they joined Blagothkus in a duel against a Storm Giant to win their allegiance and the use of Skyreach Castle. With a subsequent Natural 20 persuasion check, the party’s Fighter also gained a Belt of Fire Giant’s Strength as a boon from the jarl. (It’s nearly the end of the campaign, after all. Let’s get a little wild.)
As Skyreach Castle began its flight to Waterdeep loaded with giants, our heroes teleported home and began a week of downtime. (As was always my plan, and why I mentioned above that outlining that they had a week from the start would be a wise adjustment.) They employed this downtime wisely, preparing for their finale by buying up any elemental resistance items they could find: rings, potions, scrolls, anything on offer. The party’s sorcerer also pressed upon his backstory-ties to Talis to try and get a more concrete timeline. He taunted her well enough that she teleported into his room to try and assassinate him, but had to escape as other party members arrived to assist the sorcerer. In the end, he was able to intuit that her expenditure of magic meant the cult themselves weren’t certain of their timeline, but that they wouldn’t wait for long. I advised him the party needed to be ready by the end of their downtime.
At the end of their week, an emergency Council meeting was called to order, one so hastily assembled very few council members were even in attendance. In the night, Laeral Silverhand received a letter from a member of the cult. One piece of lore I took from the r/tyrannyofdragons subreddit was the idea of a schism in the cult between its older members interested in raising dracoliches (Those Who Empty the Dragons’ Barrows) and those working to summon Tiamat into the world (the Keepers of the Secret Hoard). (This is the post in question; the user has sadly deleted their account so I can’t give them proper credit, but I loved their idea of a schism and employed it in this run of the campaign.) A member of the former sect, Gellenar, was in possession of the Blue Mask of the Dragon at Xonthal’s Tower, and he wanted our heroes to come to the tower and extract him and it to save the world.
Below is the letter I wrote up as a handout.
Heroes of Waterdeep,
I beseech you now with the final hope to prevent the Keepers of the Secret Hoard’s ultimate goals. I am Gellenar, Blue Wyrmspeaker, of Those Who Empty the Dragons’ Barrows. As Serevin first rose to prominence within the Cult of the Dragon, he needed those of us who had followed Sammaster’s beliefs. To keep us on his leash, he granted us the Blue Mask of the Dragon to study here at Xonthal’s Tower. Now, he is nearly ready to dispense of the last of us.
His demands for the return of the mask have become increasingly urgent. He is now on the verge of threats. I can delay him no further. I hope only that this message will reach you in time.
Come to Xonthal’s Tower. Rescue me, and I will give you freely the mask.
In good faith, I offer you this diagram of the Teleportation Circle at the base of our tower. However, without the password, it will place you in the enchanted hedge maze surrounding it. Would that I could share this, but the password is changed daily, and the tower prevents the delivery and sending of magical messages by all but Xonthal – wherever that wizard may be in the current age.
At your use of the circle, it is likely the Keepers will detect your intrusion, and will come in force to reclaim their mask. We will have little time. But, know that the flow of hours is strange within the maze. You will find yourself ever-waking, but hours within may be no more than seconds beyond.
Save me, Heroes of Waterdeep. Of Faerun. I beg you.
Gellenar, the Blue
Despite the possibility of a trap, our heroes refused to let any chance to prevent Tiamat’s summoning slip through their hands. They left immediately for Xonthal’s Tower via Teleportation Circle.
Xonthal’s Hedge Maze
I didn’t much like the puzzle of the Hedge Maze printed in the book, and I had a problem of my own making to solve here. Namely, I was cutting most of the dungeon within the tower itself (more on that below) and I needed my party to earn a bit more experience to get another level under their belt before the finale. (Yes, we still use EXP over Milestone Leveling. There’s got to be at least a dozen tables that do, right?) So, the hedge maze became a bit of a funhouse dungeon.
When the party arrived, they found themselves walking into the maze. Therein, they met a simulacrum, the Shade of Xonthal, who explained just what the dungeon would be. Each time the party left their current room, they would arrive in one of three types of rooms: an arena, the fountain room, or back with the shade. To leave the maze, they would need to get the fountain running again, which (as I used in my redesign of the Tomb of Diderius) was a role-playing prompt “puzzle.” I had a predetermined sequence for the rooms the party would visit, but I made a table of random encounters for them to battle. In order, they fought a Chimera that split into its component beasts when it was defeated, a Raksasha, “Xonthal’s Dinosaur Menagerie,” the “Cockatrice Court,” a Sphinx of Lore, and an Ice Devil.
In between these battles, they were able to investigate the fountain and answer its question to get it running again. Its inscription read, “There is no prison greater than those which we place ourselves within. Speak aloud what chains you bear, and what has prevented you from letting yourself release them.” Once someone volunteered an answer, a stuck spigot would flow, the speaker gained 20 temporary hit points, and the fountain became intangible preventing another offering until the next time they entered its room. (Though, I later allowed the Horizon Walker ranger to volunteer a story to it while intangible when he cast Etherealness upon himself.) My exact sequence of rooms didn’t follow a pattern until after their first possible exit (or, what I thought would be their first possible exit), but I don’t think my exact sequence was anything particularly special; I just wanted the party to be unsure when exactly they’d have opportunities to rest or manipulate the fountain.
This dungeon provided some low-stakes fun before the bite of the following encounter: one the party needed to lose so we could have our finale with Tiamat.
Xonthal’s Pinnacle
As the party exited the hedge maze, they discovered that the Keepers faction of the cult had begun their assault on the tower while they were in the maze. Bodies from the towering reach above them crashed and burst upon the ground as a fireball exploded at the top of the tower. I’d intended to use the opportunity to narrate some exchanges as the party ascended to the top of the tower, but my players surprised me with the party sorcerer grabbing one of the others and casting Dimension Door to immediately join the battle at the top. Naturally, their arrival changed the dynamic of the battle immediately.
At the pinnacle, Gellenar’s forces were on the backfoot. They were reinforced by the first Dracolich Gellenar had risen, but the Keepers’ force still outmatched them. Rath Modar had brought two simulacra, a blue abishai (Iskander), Lennithon (the dragon who attacked Greenest in the campaign’s opening scenario), and several footmen. With one Suggestion to make Gellenar produce the mask from his pack to two casts of Telekinesis, Rath Modar and his simulacra quickly acquired the ritual component. The sorcerer tried to position himself for a counterspell, but the abishai simply took the mask and Plane Shifted away.
The rest of the party finished their ascent to the tower pinnacle thereafter. They slew Lennithon and one of Rath Modar’s simulacra, which would remove them from the battle at the Well of Dragons to come. With Iskander’s Plane Shift, the party knew they had only one day before the ritual would begin. They returned to Waterdeep, boarded Skyreach Castle embarked with Waterdeep and its neighbors’ armies and the giants, and began flying overnight to reach the caldera. I explained this sudden increase in speed by saying Laeral Silverhand and other mages of the Arcane Brotherhood were working all night to accelerate the sky castle. Yet, even with that improved speed, the party would be arriving with no time to spare at all …
As always, thank you for reading. Sorry for the delay here; I missed a whole month! I’ve been a bit, I don’t know, undisciplined lately. I blasted Warcraft for a while, getting up to 3400 Mythic+ rating for the mount, then I started replaying the Witcher 3 a few weeks ago and I’ve been grinding for some collectibles in Core Keeper lately, too. All that on top of preparing to run Draw Steel and the Delian Tomb here in a couple weeks (more on that in a future post, I’m sure), running my regular weekly game, and I ran a different 10-session campaign earlier this year, too, concurrent with that one!
All that to say, thank you not only for reading, but for your patience. Good luck out there, heroes.
Ben Stovall Blog 
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