D&D 5E How should I lead my players from Phandalin to Greenest?

[doctorhook]

Lost Mine of Phandelver is set in the Phandalin area, just north of the Sword Mountains. Hoard of the Dragon Queen begins in Greenest, in the Western Heartlands, then heads north through Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep to the Mere of Dead Men (which isn't far from Phandalin).

My players want to keep using their Lost Mine characters in HotDQ, but I can't think of a particularly plausible way to get them from Phandalin to Greenest without either a super-lame railroady hand-wave ("Okay you guys hike south for a month, and now you're in Greenest!") or an entire campaign-worth of adventuring on the way.

Any suggestions for linking LMoP and HotDQ?

 

[Astrosicebear]

Lost Mine of Phandelver is set in the Phandalin area, just north of the Sword Mountains. Hoard of the Dragon Queen begins in Greenest, in the Western Heartlands, then heads north through Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep to the Mere of Dead Men (which isn't far from Phandalin).

My players want to keep using their Lost Mine characters in HotDQ, but I can't think of a particularly plausible way to get them from Phandalin to Greenest without either a super-lame railroady hand-wave ("Okay you guys hike south for a month, and now you're in Greenest!") or an entire campaign-worth of adventuring on the way.

Any suggestions for linking LMoP and HotDQ?

Did they defeat the cultists in Thundertree? Kill or drive off the dragon? Have an encounter where some new cultists, some guards and a leader type cultist come to Phandalin to 'scout' it for looting. Have the players interact/ capture/ defeat these cultists and learn of their plans throughout the region, and the leader has a missive on him from one of the leaders in HoTDQ informing him that Greenest to the south is 'ripe for the taking'. Make sure to mention 'its riches will greatly add to the Hoard for our Dragon Queen.'

Should be enough of a hook. They can even take a cargo boat from Neverwinter to Baldur's Gate courtesy of Gundren (since he gets shipments to Phandalin for the Mine.

 

[Ceylin]

I haven't read enough of my HOTDQ book -- but any reason it needs to be Greenest and not some other city closer by? I figure you have to adjust for their level now anyway right? What if they skipped further ahead in the adventure, or simply had a different town under attack, with very similar .. happenings?

 

[Astrosicebear]

I haven't read enough of my HOTDQ book -- but any reason it needs to be Greenest and not some other city closer by? I figure you have to adjust for their level now anyway right? What if they skipped further ahead in the adventure, or simply had a different town under attack, with very similar .. happenings?

HotDQ is pretty much a railroad... it all starts in Greenest just by going there. Sure it could be any town, as the next few episodes are location agnostic... but the travel near the middle of the adventure would have to be modified... but its certainly possible to flip the entire locations around and just go south instead of north.

As for the level difference, if the DM is using the episodic level up system, they might want to skip the first 5 chapter level ups... If the party is level 4/5 it will make the first few deadly episodes survivable and quick.

 

[zoroaster100]

The way I'm going about it is that the druid Reidoth asks the characters to see an old friend of his, a monk who specialized in sagecraft and study of dragon cults, because of the activity of the cultists and dragon in Thundertree, which Reidoth was spying on. His spying revealed the cultists were up to something really big, but he doesn't know what.

If the characters take him up on this, the pregen wizard who has links to Oghma's church in Nevertree, will be able to get them passage to Candlekeep, where the monk usually spends his time studying.

When they arrive in Candlekeep, they can learn that the monk found clues to figure out that the cultists were going to be raiding in the region of Greenest. The monk left to see if he could intercept the Cultists, warn Greenest, and maybe learn more about what the Cultists are up to. The characters can follow him to Greenest but will find Greenest under attack, kicking off Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

 

[SilverBulletKY]

My characters may overhear the cultists speaking the dragon and talking about sending him off to Greenest to attack the town. I would then use the same dragon at Thundertree be the dragon at Greenest.

 

[Hand of Evil]

May be too late to lay some clues about; Greenest merchant mark on goods found, documents pointing to Greenest, coins minted in Greenest, map on wall with a circle around Greenest.

The coins could be the easiest as any NPC can be used to say, "never saw one of these before!" It could even be a "hoard coin" and the players can have the NPC tell them a story.

 

[jrowland]

Simply scratch out the word Greenest and write-in Phandalin. Then, for the pursuit (travel) episodes, go south instead of north, stopping at waterdeep, then baldur's gate, then some murky swamp place in the south. (or East if you prefer, it doesn't really matter). The gate in the swamp leads to the same place. As to why go south to teleport north...well, it is a safer road and more well travelled, less obvious you are carrying stolen treasures. In fact, I am adding "other" cultists join from time to time from raids in other places. Its a collection point and MOST cultists aren't privy to the destination. Its to throw of the scent....move south whil treasures are actually collected (via portal) north

 

[DEFCON 1]

Here's another methodology if you didn't want to have them make the actual trek down to Greenest (but bear in mind I haven't read Lost Mines, so my connective tissue might be a tad off):

- As Phandalin is right near the Mere of Dead Men, you basically want to remove Episode 4 of HotDQ entirely since there's no need to travel anywhere.

- Replace Greenest with another village that is around Phandalin. Leilon, Thundertree, Conyberry... whichever one might work best.

- You can then run Episodes 1, 2 & 3 plot-wise pretty much as-is, selecting a good area in the hills of the Sword Mountains to put the raider's camp and dragon hatchery. You will need to increase the power/number of the cultists and monsters... probably swapping out kobolds for hobs or lizardmen or someone.

- On the map the party finds in Frulam Mondath's chamber in the hatchery at the end of Episode 3, instead of the map showing the cultists heading to Beregost and then north, replace it with arrows heading to the Carnath Roadhouse on the eastern edge of the Mere of Dead Men. The other sheet of paper mentioning Castle Naerytar can remain as-is.

- Skip Episode 4 for the most part, as there won't be time for the party to insinuate themselves into the Cult's caravan. Instead, you could use a couple of the encounters from the episode for the party to come upon on their own as they rush southwest trying to catch up with the cultist caravan.

- Have the party arrive at the Carnath Roadhouse either as the caravan arrives or slightly after. They then can observe the Roadhouse and all the stuff that goes on there, before following the Cult into the Mere heading into Episode 6 and the rest of the adventure.

That should work pretty well I'd imagine.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Simply scratch out the word Greenest and write-in Phandalin. Then, for the pursuit (travel) episodes, go south instead of north, stopping at waterdeep, then baldur's gate, then some murky swamp place in the south. (or East if you prefer, it doesn't really matter). The gate in the swamp leads to the same place. As to why go south to teleport north...well, it is a safer road and more well travelled, less obvious you are carrying stolen treasures. In fact, I am adding "other" cultists join from time to time from raids in other places. Its a collection point and MOST cultists aren't privy to the destination. Its to throw of the scent....move south whil treasures are actually collected (via portal) north

I second this. You'll have to scale down the scope of the raid on Greenest, perhaps, but it should mostly work as written.

Thaumaturge.