How to Make a Serpent Cult Dungeon

For use in Hoard of the Dragon Queen or wherever horrible serpent cults are sold. 

How to make a serpent cult site:

1. Choose a transformer
2. Choose a main prize 
3. Choose a guardian to guard it
4. Improvise area contents, peppering description with decor 
5. Place special areas
6. Guard treasure and prizes with locks, supply lore as keys, and don't forget monsters and traps and guardians
7. Add your own content

Transformers are features that change the way you navigate or interact with the dungeon. Manipulating them can open new areas and close off others. Think gravity reversal buttons, items that open special doors.

Prizes are the main treasures. They're relevant to your campaign, worthy of setting out to obtain specifically. Like the holy grail, the shards of Narsil. 

Guardians are big scary monsters that you shouldn't just be able to melee. Think cinematically. Think the huge boss fights from videogames. Just think of something awesome and don't worry about how to implement it.

Locks are anything that that bars the way to a reward and may be opened by a key, literal or not. If supplied an unsuitable key, a lock may present a risk: animating/releasing guardians, setting off a trap, destroying it's guarded treasure, or nothing may happen. Locks may reveal what they guard to tantalize players. 

Lore should be personalized for your campaign. Give entities named and reveal them, maybe use them as keys. Lore can be revealed in statues, texts, murals, ghostly reenactments, interrogations, etc. 

Lore (can be used as keys)

1. The ancients fed milk to the serpents and anointed their heads with it
2. The name of an entity 
3. Musical notation pictured next to a snake charmer. It is a famous hymn. 
4. The steps of a sacred dance 
5. The mudras for a sacred ritual
6. The components of a holy potion
7. The site of a holy shrine
8. The weapon of a holy warrior 
9. The face paint of a hated enemy
10. All the snakes in the world were almost killed in a fiery sacrificial pit by a god, but another god stopped it out of love for the serpent queen
11. The number of heads the serpent princess had at birth 
12. How many heads the lover of the serpent princess cut off
13. How long the serpent princess's lover digested in her stomach
14. The name of the plump white rat that ever escapes the prince's jaws
15. The process for rendering the contact poison of suspended animation stable 
16. The recipe for the contact poison of suspended animation 
17. The markings of the spear that slew the serpent prince
18. The musical notation of the dirge for the serpent prince 



The lyrics of the dirge for the serpent prince 
The words of the vow of vengeance for the serpent prince

Locks

1. An empty bowl filled carved on the inside with magical writing having to do with presenting the proper offering: milk and blood are acceptable. 
2. A statue of a snake set into a inverse some in the floor, with drains in it. The top of the head has a hole in it as well. Pour milk in the head so that it drains through the snake itself and through he floor drains, and the lock will open.
3. Gigantic snake statue made of bronze blocks the way. Grooves in the floor beneath apparently so to can be moved. If a serpent cult hymn is played, the statue will slowly approach the music while keeping on its track, so clearing or blocking the way. 
4. Holes that need snakes in them. 
5. Trough that needs 6 gallons of blood. 
6. Wavy crawlspace, must be slithered through
7. An ear into which certain words must be spoken 
8. A stage on which a danceidt be done
9. An amphitheater in which a performance must be conducted 
10. An arena in which must be defeated
11. A bed missing a lover on which his corpse or someone dressed in his garb must lie
12. A diner to whom appropriate food must be served 
13. A groom to whom the proper bride must be given 
14. A rider to whom a proper mount must be supplied
15. A worker who needs a tool
16. A reader who needs a book
17. A nursing mother who needs an infant 
18. A scribe who needs a stylus
19. A warrior who needs a weapon
20. A door that needs a key

Special Areas

1. Hatchery, incubated by giant horrible bloated thing, fed by blood tubes from sacrificial pit below obscured by its horrible encrusted bulk
   • Treasure room beyond 
   • Treasure from dead heroes on floor near burst eggs
2. Room with bowed out door straight up filled with snakes subsisting on brimstone vapors
3. Karzum, city of the vanquished: dead god statue, king, soldiers and people, men women children. In miniature except for people. Lots of places to climb. Palace has treasure taken from city. Try to take it without the key, and literally every being will animate and attack. 
4. Huge chasm, can be spanned by twisted cables that run along the ceiling, there may be snake holes in the ceiling or walls, some cables may be loose. 
5. Ziggurat with altar on top. Blood everywhere. Blood elementals commanded by a skeletal high priest. Breaking the altar reveals a chute to a treasure room. 
6. Beauty of the goddess. Vast room plated in bronze. At the end, a titanic naga statue. Viewing it transfixes you, and you see in your mind the life cycle of a serpent and the life cycle of a universe melded. You wake up hours later and cannot see a serpent without marveling at its beauty. You totally get snake worship now. If you begin to engage in acts of snake worship, gain d100% of the XP needed to level for each step you take toward the ultimate recapitulation of the full and ancient priesthood. So splashing milk on a snake grants d100% XP to level the first time you do it. Then if you sacrifice an animal to a snake, take that XP roll again, etc. 

Transformers

1. River of blood, dangerous, reroute, boats of scales
2. Hoods Ike cobra to glide around, air drafts and screw lifts 
3. Musical instruments to charm snakes or snake like structures, moving things around. Different instruments charm different snakes or structures
4. Floating rideable poison clouds 
5. Snake chains, shoot like grappling gun from anchor points, reload, repair, transport
6. Snake keys: particular species held or placed into lock for passage, must be living, pictures for clues
7. Poison as key in vials
8. Bones as keys, femurs, skulls, x#

Guardians

1. Ancient high priest Azathoth, reanimated, wants to take over cult from current leadership, will talk and cooperate if shown deference, will not tolerate disrespect
2. dragon
3. Monster king
4. Giant bone serpent 
5. commander of insane paladins
6. avatar of the dead god

Decor:

1. Wavy motifs
2. Ouroboros 
3. Circles, twists 
4. Stone baths
5. Bloody altars
6. Braided hanging chains
7. Holes in surfaces, tons
8. Statues of kings, heroes, gods, priests (pro and anti cult)
9. Acrid smell
10. Bloodstains
11. Lab gear for body modification and poison milking
12. Snakeskin and human skin garb
13. Stone trees drapes with snakes or beds for humans 
14. Rivers of blood or poison
15. Tunnels, rifles and scaled
16. Scaled surfaces
17. Forking paths like tongues
18. Doors opening like jaws
19. Slight slope with blood grooves in floor or contained in glass on walls, leading to bad things 
20. Pens for humans and beasts, wavy bars
21. Storage on circular rooms like snake stomach
22. Bulging rooms like gorging snake stomach
23. Torture / medicine equipment: feeding tubes, clamps, straps
24. Serpentine columns, heads eating various things babies rabbits etc
25. Fangs everywhere, control mechanisms, inscribed
26. Mosaics of naturally colored or painted scales
27. Documents written on scales or snakeskin, bound with gut or ligament
28. Bones bones everywhere mixed
29. Things crushed from constriction
30. Eggs, man; death = bite; life = breaking though shells; shells and thin membranes everywhere

Traps:

1. Pits (snakes / spikes optional)
2. One way doors
3. Poison gas
4. Rotating floor
5. Guardian reanimation (drain the suspense-poison bath or pop off the poison IV when triggered)
6. snakes be everywhere 
7. Animated statues (snakes, followers, defeated gods, slain kings coated in statue poison-resin)
8. Sacrificial pit

Prizes:

1. Dragon mask
2. Magic gear of slain dragon slayers
3. Horrible spells
4. Treasure (coins, ancient, horrible stuff, shed skin)
5. Serpent magic items
6. Poison and delivery systems for it

Monsters:

1. Cultists
2. Mercenaries
3. Paladins driven insane
4. Priests/kings in suspended poison-animation, awaiting reawakening to dominate, possible faction interest
5. Yuan-ti 
6. Horrible experiments 
7. Tons of snakes (poison!)
8. Bone serpents
9. Dragons
10. Kobolds
11. Lizardfolk
12. Troglodytes 

Drama Bombs for Hoard of the Dragon Queen

A drama bomb is a situation a PC can't ignore that forces upon them an ethical or personally dramatic choice.

The reason they can't ignore it is that the PC wants something, is committed to defending or performing or upholding something, and the bomb represents an obstacle, opportunity, or threat in that context. 

They each require some concrete action to resolve, during which time the PCs will have to take dramatic stands, but not in a way that's forced or mechanized. It's simply a consequence of the situation. 

Use these one at a time. Probably don't introduce another while one is active. Don't need to use all of them or really more than one.

What these drama bombs say may or may not be true. Decide for yourself or randomly determine it, now or later. If you randomly determine, I'd prejudice the roll in favor of PCs that have suffered greatly in holding to their beliefs.

That said, I'm only presenting one drama bomb in this post. I'll provide more later. 

HAIL TIAMAT
This one takes a bit of setup, and, to be effective, it has to be true.

Before you drop it proper, show that there is a war on by showing the horrors of war.

1. When they travel on the road, each 6 mile hex there is a 1/6 chance of encountering a city's army, mustering, retreating, what have you. This is flavor and theme. The point of it is to establish that it's going on and to drive home that it's awful. Amputees everywhere. Wounded screaming. Orphans following. 
2. When they stop at a village, 1/6 chance it is burned out from war and has few to no survivors. Orphans. Invalids starving to death. 
3. When they enter the wilderness, 1/6 chance of seeing mass graves or awful camps of the city militaries. Prisoners of war tortured, no one safe from rape and slavery. 
4. In taverns, people are talking about the war. Escalates to violence 1/6 of the time. 
5. In towns, orphans and invalids swarm the temples.
6. When they ask who's fighting whom or what about:
1. Northern confederation of city-states vs southern, with frequent backstabs and incursions
2. Rumors of terrible brutality on the other side
3. Territorial encroachments
4. Succession disputes
5. Religious apostasy
6. Political ideological zealotry

Now then, here's the bomb proper: when they capture or subdue a cultist, or if it seems fine to just let one surrender, use this one:

• BET (cultist—Conservator), wiry, tattered robes, pensive, head half as large as it should be:
• goal: persuade the characters to join the Conservators, who wish to summon Tiamat to usher in an age of equality and peace, with no war but lots of human sacrifice and vegetarianism: all meat belongs to the Great Queen
• wants: to be accepted into the group; to know what it's like to hang out with friends
• history: orphan librarian, fled the Stormfront cult faction 
• mother ran off, father executed in Baldur's Gate for theft, raised in Candlekeep with two sisters and a brother
• learned about Tiamat @ Candlekeep, joined cult when Candlekeep was raided
• part of a cult faction called the Conservators ("not a drop of blood wasted"), who follow an ancient cult of Tiamat who holds that violence is sacred and may only be used in self-defense or to sacrifice to Tiamat
• when you want to humanize Bet:
• have him suddenly give someone a massage—undeniably feels great, +1HD roll in temp hp if they let him finish it
• ask for better clothes; he hasn't had any since he fled the Stormfront; is very grateful
• have him get drunk and start telling you a story; +inspiration if you listen; it's basically Jack & the Beanstalk, his favorite story from childhood; it's the only thing he remembers his mother doing for him; he'll ask what your favorite story is; he'll say that's a good one too and fall asleep, preferably on or near you
• useful because: 
• makes artfully styled maps of everywhere traveled
• knows five languages
• knows lead to dungeon guarding dragon mask
• knows a friendly wearer of purple, Melshas (zany, nose like squid, stoner)

This bomb also unlocks a couple factions:

• Stormfront, encountered in Greenest, are blue/black dragon flavored
• Conservators, few in number, who are the purest and oldest strain of Tiamat worship, heavy on the Lawful

The Conservators are correct that Tiamat's reign would bring peace. The Drakarchy would enforce non-violence by constant threat of superior force, and would in return demand a constant stream of human sacrifice. But, on the upshot, her reign would mean only a tenth as many deaths as all the wars would claim in her absence. 

The players and PCs will likely not believe this. Ensure that every avenue of research they pursue confirms it. They can still disbelieve it, of course, but the evidence is against them. Whenever they find draconic lore, confirm it there as well. It's like the ending of Watchmen. 

So what do the characters do? If they help the cult summon Tiamat, they will save a ton of lives and be rewarded richly for their service. They may still have trouble with the more barbaric Stormfront faction as well as other factions in the cult, not to mention the five "heroic" factions and the city-states. But there you go.

Now the thing is, to make this mean something, you have to show consequences. So, if they stop the summoning of Tiamat, you have to make the war even worse: World War II on steroids, mass awfulness. The factions come together only to devolve into bloodshed. And, as the party stands athwart the carnage, ask them: did they make the right decision? Ask the players what they think. Do an epilogue, briefly, as a montage, showing the effect the campaign had on each PC. Etc.

Similarly, if Tiamat is summoned, present her reign of terrible peace; and do the same procedure above. How do the PCs react?

Their reaction determines whether it's a comedy or tragedy, regardless of what happens. 

Road Encounters for Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Last time we played, the players said they were going to go catch the cart of loot from Greenest.

I've got to figure out how to do that since, at this point, we're in full sandbox mode.

Time to break out the hexmap.

Now, there are lots of people on roads, not just cultists. (Although a cultist-road sounds great for a wilderness encounter.) So how does that work? We need road encounters.

This presents the question: what is a road encounter?

One: they're not caravan encounters. For those, when they're actually traveling with a caravan, we'll just use the encounters from Hoard of the Dragon Queen chapter 4.

In other words, what kind of fictional happening is worth spending time on in play?

If a road is deserted, any kind of social interaction is meaningful. But, in this scenario, the roads are just, you know, pretty much normal. They'll be getting less so as the cult gains power, but we should assume that seeing people on the road isn't of much consequence.

So let's focus our road encounters on interesting things:

1. cult caravan
2. lead to dungeon
3. village siege
4. special

At the start of each wilderness turn, roll 1d6. On 1, if you're on the road, roll on the road encounters table above. 

If the party knows a certain thing is in a hex (a dungeon, a cult caravan) from a rumor or bit of lore or what have you, still check for a random encounter that will happen in addition to the known encounter. 

Optionally the following table for flavor text to narrate as a transition into the encounter. E.g., "You pass a row of thirteen crosses. Only one of the people on them is still alive, a young man with his nose cut off and his legs broken. Then, as the road turns, you see …"

1. heap of charred bodies by the road
2. row of real crosses by the road
3. people buried up to their heads in the road
4. A procession of snakes across the road
5. Vultures circling above the woods to the east
6. A stream running red
7. Torn clothes and trinkets littering the road 
8. Scorched or frosted or melted stones by the road 
9. An army fresh and in high spirits
10. An army retreating screaming and bloody

1 Cult Caravan

The party has fallen in with or otherwise observed a caravan and has spotted cult activity in one of the parties. What so they do? Here are some tables to flesh that out. 

1. Generate caravan 
1. Caravans have 1d20 parties. 1 of those will be the cult if the cult is present. 
2. Each party has d12-2 guards, with default cargo value = 100gp/guard. 50gp unguarded. 10x value for cult party. 
3. 1/6 chance of interesting cargo seller who might part w for coin or service. 
4. 1/6 chance of bard. 
2. Identifying cult party
1. Cultists will give themselves away by:
1. Ritually murdering people and creating suspicion and/or physical evidence 
2. Having cult periphernalia in their belongings 
3. Wearing concealed cult insignia 
4. Trying to convert other parties
5. Being super creepy and secretive 
6. Retiring to a quiet place to perform:
1. Sinuous dances
2. Bloodletting 
3. Poison eating
4. Sibilant chants
5. Snake adoration
6. Torturing
2. Typical approaches to identify cultists:
1. Just hang with the folks. They will tell you without prompting if weirdness has been going on. 
2. Spy on a party
3. Rifle through a party's stuff
4. Talk with a party to get a feel for them
3. Complications and red herrings (1/3 of the time or as seems good)
1. The cult knows you're there and is simply waiting for a time to strike 
2. The folks informing on the cult? ARE the cult. They hope to make you shed innocent blood, then kill you 
3. Venomous snakes in your stuff
4. Poison in your drink
5. Not a cult party, just a greedy merchant trying to use party to elimate a rival
6. Not a cult party; just a jilted lover trying to get revenge 
7. Cultists are actually trying to get out of the cult 
8. Cultists are actually mercs who've had enough 
9. Cultists are actually faction members 
10. Cultists are members of the lawful good Conservators faction of Tiamat's cult; they will only fight in self defense and have stolen the goods from the rival Stormfront faction
11. Not a cult party, just weirdos 
12. Not a cult party, just a poor desperate family who found the goods among the inexplicably dead cultists (they died from a wandering apothecary's dubious elixirs; he is a serial killer; add him to random encounters table; if asked family remembers bottles of cloudy red glass; the apothecary still uses such bottles)

2 Lead to Dungeon

Throw in a dungeon that contains a dragon mask, a wyrmspeaker (with dragonmask), a wearer of purple, an awesome magic item, a dragonslaying item, or some other campaign-specific prize. 

3 Village Siege

Use my previous besieged village generator post. Its besiegement is visible from the road, either because it's on the road or because the you can see/hear the smoke/screams/refugees/massing attackers. 

4 Special

When you get the special result:

1. cult assassins
2. monsters
3. bandits
4. bard
5. merchant
6. faction member
7. refugees
8. refugees

Cult assassins (5 of them, always) wait until the party is most vulnerable, then strike. 

If striking from surprise, they attack with advantage and hit critically and force death saves. Keep making the saves until you get 3 failures or three successes. 

They have five approaches which will correspond to the primary or accent color of their clothing. You can fake out the players by having innocent parties dress in similar colors. 

1. ambush on road (blue)
2. open attack on road (red)
3. poison by putting snakes in belongings or by poisoning food/drink (green)
4. murder while sleeping (white)
5. disguise (black)

Ambush on road means that you make the surprise attacks and then have the cultists run off unless they are confident of victory. 

An open attack on the road means that five guys show up and straight attack; party has time to prepare, no surprise. 

Poison means they will attempt to poison food/drink without being detected by the players. 

Murder while sleeping is like that scene in Bree from Fellowship of the Ring. 

Disguise means the cultists appear to be a different special encounter (roll or choose again), and then they use one of the other approaches when they are in an advantageous situation. 

Monsters means you show a monster attack:

1. having recently happened
2. in progress, PCs stumble on it
3. happening to PCs right now
4. about to happen, but PCs might prevent it

In any case, the monsters can be tracked to their lair in this hex. Treat as a lead to a dungeon (see dungeon rules above). The tracking roll should mean wasted time on < DC 12 and an encounter before the lair is found on < DC 18. 

Bandits 2d8 of them are the same as monsters, but only 1/3 of the time will they lair in a dungeon. The other 2/3 of the time it's just a small camp. 

They are risk averse and primarily want money, supplies, food, and fancy clothes. 1/3 of the time they want something worse. 1/3 of the time they are professional bandits; the others are deserters from one army or another and still have the modified regalia. Heads of such bandits are valuable to army commanders. 

Bards traveling alone are desperate. They're running from:

1. the law
2. a creditor
3. a monster
4. bandits
5. cultists
6. relatives of someone with whom they've had a romantic disagreement

Having a a bard in your camp means you get +1 on all HD rolls in camp if you listen to his songs or stories and after a long rest you start with your proficiency bonus in temp hp. 

You should use bards to ask the PCs dramatic questions and to provide alternate perspectives. Award inspiration if players make or accept an overture to bond or become more intimate with a bard (or any character). Bards make overtures wanting:

1. respect
2. reassurance
3. friendship 
4. approval 
5. confidence
6. relief

Bards also have a 1/6 chance of knowing what's up with any bit of lore. "Oh I know what that word means." 

Give each bard a style. Just think of a band or musician and clone them. 

Merchants have special stuff for sale. They may be running from something as a bard or may be part of a caravan (50/50 cult presence). 

What they sell is special: cursed 1/3, amazingly campaign-relevant 1/3, otherwise very useful 1/3. 

What they want is: a trifle as they have no idea what it is or think that it's cursed 1/3, a ton of money 1/3, a favor 1/3. 

Their favors are from this list: kill, kidnap, humiliate, recover, escort, procure, convert, perform. 

Faction members may be running from something as bards, but they want to join and help you. They know the location of a nearby dungeon, cult stronghold, urban cult hideout, or village soon to be under siege. 

Refugees are running away from armies or cultists or destroyed villages. 

They are pitiful and need your help. Use them to just see what the players do and to drain their resources and to ask them dramatic questions. Can also be used as red herrings if they behave or dress a bit like cultists. 

1/3 of the time their village is still under attack and is nearby. 

They are fated for disaster unless the party takes steps to care for them. If they don't, show the party the grisly outcome. 

Actual Play: Hoard of the Dragon Queen Episode 3b

Last session, the party entered the dragon hatchery and cleared a few rooms. Tonight, they bulldozed the thing, but it was tense the whole time.

I don't believe the dungeon is intended to be owned so hard, but I had my revenge.

Things that happened

The party encountered the half-dragon with his brace of berserkers in the dragon shrine. They took one surprise round and destroyed him, then killed the berserkers over the next couple of rounds. 

The party didn't fall for the trapped small chest. They lassoed it from afar and dragged it toward them, triggering the trap from a safe distance. 

The barbarian climbed up the chute to the wearer of purple's quarters, got her to investigate the rug that covers the chute, then grabbed her leg when she uncovered it. He threw her down to the bottom of the pit and fell on top of her. 

They kept her alive and unconscious and investigated the hatchery. 

Unfortunately, the roper killed the level 3 half orc barbarian. He was scouting via darkvision, got glued in place by hidden kobolds, lost initiative to the roper, and got chomped on. It was sad. 

Silver lining: while the roper was digesting his meal, the party tossed a couple torches down to the pit and filled a couple dragon eggs with arrows. 

The rest of the party (3 folks now) retreated from there, only to hear the wearer of purple screaming out in pain—she'd regained consciousness. The rogue euthanized her, but not before the guards in the room above heard the noise and came to investigate. 

With some quick thinking, they dragged her body out of visual range; so, when the guards looked down the shoot, they saw nothing. At that point, I had them split into two groups: half waiting in the room and half circling around to investigate. 

But before the other group could come and flank, the rogue decided to check out what was happening in the room above. He was instantly pulled up and overpowered. They interrogated him, and after some failed bluffing, hauled off to be interrogated more thoroughly in the next room. 

That's when the paladin offered to parlay. He lied about their numbers and showed them the severed heads of the wearer of purple and the half-dragon and said, basically, give us our rogue back, or you guys get the same treatment. 

The intimidation kinda worked. The guards retreated, but they slit the rogue's throat on the way out. 

Or at least tried to.

I ruled that it wouldn't be necessarily fatal; they were doing it in a rush, and who knows? 

The rogue made all his death saves, and they made a bandage and kept pressure on the wound. 

At that point, they took their treasure and left. On their way out, they could see the cultists booking it and the remaining hunters watching the scene with amusement. 

The hunters took a liking to the half-dragon's severed head and offered basic medical treatment to the rogue and lookout service to the party while they took a short rest. In exchange, they got to keep the head. 

"Just feel of it, Jethro."

"Aw, that's nice. Got a good weight to it. Y'all want some of this grizz jerky?"

Next time

Next time, they're off to chase down the goods stolen from Greenest. I imagine they'll ambush the cult's carts, interrogate those who live, and we'll be done with that bit within an hour or two. 

It was a ton of fun, and the surviving members level to 4. The poor barbarian's player is going to jump in with a level 1 healbot for next session. 

City Encounters for Hoard of the Dragon Queen #hdqRemix

So the players go to a city (as opposed to a village). Here's what you do.

I apologize for having only 6 real encounters. I'm trying to get something written up quickly before tomorrow's game. I'll revisit this and update it with more content.

Cross off each entry as you use it, then replace with a new one of your own devising. Each encounter should present and risk and/or reward (tailored to the campaign, in this case Hoard of the Dragon Queen) or a dramatic situation.

I'll expand in later posts about what I mean by "cult lore". For now, just treat them as rumors—leads to risky reward or simply reward.

By "transition" I mean, effectively, a cutscene or establishing shot. Something brief that establishes where we're resuming the fiction, what's around, and what it looks/feels like.

Procedure:

1. begin turn (I use 6 hours)
2. ask the players what action the want to take (hit taverns for rumors, for example)
3. check for random encounter (1/6)
4. transition into encounter, preempting or interrupting action
5. resolve encounter
6. if players wish to change action, fine
7. transition into action
8. resolve action
9. end turn

Encounters:

1. A hurrying porter drops a book without realizing. It's a freshly copied codex containing 1 item of actionable cult lore (q.v.).
2. The most observant PC notices an elderly man watching them intently, then looking away.
•  That's it. Proceed with the action. 
• For the next turn, if the players say they're looking out for trouble, or are otherwise taking precautions against ambush, they spot an ambush of 3 cultists and can react normally when they attack. 
• Otherwise, DC 15 Perception check using the best stats among the PCs. 
• On a failure, 3 cultists surprise attack a single PC (the weakest looking or most exposed, or randomly). That PC needs to make 3 death saves. 
• The cultists retreat to a safehouse (for instance, Jotan's Jewelers) as soon as possible unless they're positive they can finish the job. 
3. A three year old girl (named Faun, faded flower-pattern dress, yellow ribbon in hair)
• yells "Mommy" or "Daddy" and runs up and hugs one of the PCs
• then looks up to realize it's not Mommy or Daddy. Collapses in sobs.
• A kind-hearted priestess (Aster, shaved head, missing eye) rounds the corner,
• says "Oh, Faun," tries to pick her up and hold her, but Faun resists and cries on ground.
• Aster: "I'm sorry; she's always getting out. She thinks she's going to find her parents."
• She's not. Her parents were killed by the cult. 
• Aster: "The orphanage is over that way. I hate to ask everyone, but we could really use some money. And if you could come by and tell some stories or play some music or whatever you can do, I'm sure the kids would appreciate it."
• Proceed with play. 
• In a few days, if no one has gone to talk with Faun, present this encounter instead of a random one: Faun, half-hidden under a dirty blanket, dead by violence. 
• If, before then, a PC does go to visit her, have her be unresponsive. 
• If the PC remains patient and genuine, Faun will want to sit on the PC's lap and will ask for a story. This will be relaxing for her. 
• She will cry and not want the PC to go and make the PC promise to visit her again. If the PC doesn't, the party will find Faun dead as above.
• If the PC does visit her again, she will be responsive to what the PC says, will grow up and have an ordinary but mostly happy life, taking over Aster's duties, unfailingly loyal to the PC and holding resolutely to the PC's ideals and attitudes.
4. A pair of cult thugs shaking down a merchant for protection money. Can be tracked to their hideout (say the Silver Horn tavern's basement), where 2d4 of their fellows reside. 
5. A busker like Bob Dylan. No one pays attention to him, but he unknowingly spouts a piece of cult lore. He doesn't know anything about it; it's just a story his mother used to tell him. 
6. Three fancy cultists at a mask vendor. 
• They're being real jerks, asking to look at every mask. "No, something with horns on it, don't you have something with horns on it? I was told you have something with horns on it. Anything blue, then?" 
• They're trying to find a lost dragon mask. 
• If the PCs wait to eavesdrop, the fanciest hatted one provides his card to the merchant: "Bertram Wooster, Solicitor—Inquire at the Barded Heifer"
• The Barded Heifer has a locked upstairs wing containing a cult safehouse as well as storage for three wyrms (Alien-ish chestburster leech-things that turn people into kobolds, who later turn into halfdragons) in suspended animation, courtesy of as many vats of amber jelly 

City Procedure

I love procedures. I need them. I like to look at a list and see the next thing I need to do. Do it enough, and it's internalized.

I've got dungeons. I know exactly how to run them, as does practically everyone else. 

I've more recently acquired hexcrawl competence, and now I want to expand that to settlements (not that lacking that competence stopped me from muddling my way through a city campaign). 

So here is a first stab at a city procedure, together with a sketch of a city to be passed through in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. There's not enough there to use for a whole campaign, but cities in HDQ are just meant to be stopped in briefly. 

The elements of the city (look, encounters, taverns, etc) have generative procedures, but I'm not going into that now. What I'm trying to hammer out here is the procedure for actually linking up the elements of the city into a smooth, gameable thing. 

You know how it's no sweat to run a dungeon, and you're not fumbling for what to do next?

The idea is to reproduce that in the city. 

CITY PROCEDURE

1. Begin turn. 
2. Ask the players what they want to do, and tell them options if they don't have something in mind. 
   1. Tavern: here they can find rumors, bards, and rest. 
   2. Shop: shopping. 
   3. Contact: if they know of someone or a group (like a faction of which they're a member), let them know that they can get in touch with a bit of asking around
   4. Explore: if you have points of interest or random encounter tables, you can present this as an option. 
   5. Special: any special features of the district that are obvious, like if you've made a coliseum where they can participate in gladiatorial matches for cash. 
   6. Objective: anything else they want to do falls under this category. 
3. Once they've told you what they want to do, check for random encounters, if you're going to. 
4. Determine the turn length. This is how long it takes to get something done (like getting rumors from a tavern), and it's the schedule random encounters are checked on. 6 hours is fine, but scale up or down as feels right, from hours or minutes to months. 
5. If a random encounter is indicated, interrupt their action with it and resolve it. 
6. If they wish to change their action because of the encounter, accommodate it. 
7. If the action involves entering a new district (including the first time they enter a city), narrate a transition. 
   1. If it's a boring village or district, or a place you don't intend to be a play hub, then it's either "average village", or "unremarkable district"
   2. If it's not boring, take a moment to think about what makes it unique and describe one or two of those things (pink gulls, towering walls, skull-lined gates) and how the people look, if interesting (pirates, metal, bird costumes)
   3. If it's not boring, do an encounter as part of the transition from wilderness/district to district. This is part of its intro cutscene, so to speak. Examples: a rowdy duel between outlandish personalities, a market where all are masked and selling items hidden beneath velvet drapes, mounted bullfighting.


If they would encounter a special feature of the area (you've found the blue palace!), handle it as a random encounter. 
8. Cut to the interesting part of  their chosen action and resolve it. 
9. End of turn. 


Baldur's Gate
• People are aggressively insecure
• Cracked wood white sails, salt and trade, casual violence
• Pirate haven, founded by pirates, rum in everything, argh me mateys


The Sugar (rowdy market on harbor)
•  mostly sellers of sugar from all over, in all colors, for consumption and display
• +1% XP to next level if you become enthralled with a piece of sugar jewelry and simply must have and wear it (1d20 gp, random color and shape)
• Kurtz (desperate female Clint Eastwood, wants to buy a stilt-house and sell jewelry, ah, that's the life), sugar merchant (specialty: magenta, with chartreuse particles in the crystals, from an island called The Croaks where giant frogs grow legs on their backs and are essentially reversible), extorted by cult; you see two thugs demanding money and threatening her, then leaving. She'll tell you about them and will try to kill them if you don't. She'll succeed 50/50. She'll team up and join party if prospects for cash look better.
• Broadsides: buy a share in a cheaply made boat rigged with cannons. Make it a QTE game or push your luck game with death saves. Generate a captain; or, if you're trained, you can captain your own and get double the payout. 

Structured Improvisation for the HDQ Sandbox

I've been thinking about reference material, and my conclusion is: do less.

Having a bunch of stuff to reference is a chore. It makes you look bad, and no one will like you.

You know how one page dungeons are great?

One page other-major-chunks-of-the-game are great too.

So that's the goal here:

• When you're hexcrawling, use the hexcrawling page. 
• When you arrive at town, use the town page.
• When you enter the temple, use the temple page. 
• Etc.

This post is going to be shorter and sketchier than I would like, but I'll either update it or give each bit its own post going forward, and, perhaps, if the stars are right, actually make fancy one pagers. Treat this as a one pager of one pagers. 

For each of these, improvise and write down the stuff on an index card. After the game, you can copy over the stuff for later reference (but by then it'll be in your head pretty well). 

Regions (hexcrawling)

• Visual inspiration
• Use my wilderness board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/wilderness/
• Use my flora board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/flora/
• Use my entrances board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/entrances/
• Procedure
• Think of what they can see; tell them
• Give them ways to go; ask them which
• Check for random encounters; if indicated, interrupt with it at any point
• If they encounter something non-randomly, describe and resolve
• Resolve any special actions (RP opportunities, hunting, crafting)
• Transition energetically into next turn
• Three things
• A distinctive topography
• Something beautiful or terrible
• A resource or danger
• Example: the Greenfields
• ocean of deep green grass, tall and short, undulating, wispy clouds in sapphire sky
• patches of scarlet, dripping flowers like bloodstains where battles have been, bones always beneath the soil, and perhaps monsters and treasure
• it's so peaceful: +proficiency temp hp if you have a picnic or sleep here in the open

Towns

Towns are any settlement smaller than a largish city. They're not meant to be hung out in for very long. No random encounters. 

• How they people are (xenophobic, oppressively religious, oppressively do-goodery, aggressively backward, learned and kind, grunting rather than talking, all dead)
• Aesthetic of town (ruins all about reappropriated to adorn structures far less grand, gothic Warharmmer 40k style, elfy, postapoc wasteland, very English, Hobbiton, so dirty, hovels and mansion)
• The deal with it—exaggerate, please (wonderful wine, everyone into it; the end is night!; marriage fever!; stonerville; normal and boring; tulip mania) 
• First impression: an encounter or description of the entrance
• Procedure: first impression > ask if they want to go to tavern! conduct other business! or something else. 

Taverns

These are the hubs for the town or city. You should communicate to the players that the tavern(s) is where you should go to get access to more game content. But don't say it that way of course.

• name of the tavern (owner or adjective-noun or nonsense)
• quality (fancy with big rooms, terrible with folks piled on in common)
• specialty (something normal, exaggerated, made grotesque, or just gone too far)
• decor (rustic, hipster, country, military, police, memorial, normal, historical)
• secret, usually none (cult-run, cult-extorted, cult-meeting-place, crime front)
• entertainment (bard [q.v.], feats of strength, feats of skill, feats of stupidity, lust, excellence)
• eavesdropping, a possible option (blackmail, rumors, secret of the tavern)
• asking the barkeep and barflies (rumors)

Rumors

• someone (merchant, king, priest) is a cult member
• someone (merchant, king, priest) is being extorted by the cult
• a nearby village has been razed
• a cult camp is nearby
• a cult enclave is nearby (temple, house)
• an institution in the city has been compromised (temple, militia, guard, court, kingsguard)
• a dungeon is nearby
• monsters lair nearby

Shops

Unlikely (1/6) that they'll have something very special (magic item unawares, unique but very useful mundane stuff), or a secret (as tavern)

Bards

• generate as person
• style, as a musician or band or artist you know
• what their problem is (needs money, fame, love, carnal pleasure, to actually good, confidence)
• will write songs about your deeds if you keep with you 
• +temp hp = prof bonus if you spend rest listening to performance
• knows history/religion/arcana, 50/50 or d100% chance to know basically anything

Temples/Courts

• the god(s)/king worshiped/ruling here
• the weird thing (exaggerate an element of worship or doctrine / customs, dress, entertainment)
• the good/awesome thing they do or preserve
• unlikely, a secret
• resource (secured treasure, magic gear or relic, library, zealots / warriors, court wizard, $$$)
• learned people who can read languages and know history
• they want something from the people or rulers or clergy (respect, piety, money, behavior modification)

Faction Contacts

• randomly determine which factions have contacts here
• will meet you in a tavern, church, or place of entertainment (amphitheater, garden, museum)
• takes your info, gives you aid (money, henchmen, hirelings)
• has rumors
• to get more info, do objectives (q.v.)
• the particular faction flavors the objective: when the Order of the Gauntlet wants you to assassinate a cultist, it's probably a priest known for heresy (but maybe he's innocent)
• introduce uncertainty and ethical choices into the objectives given by the factions (target is sympathetic, target has family, eliminating target will have drastic consequences)

People

• Use this to get a name, face, and style: http://imdb.com/random/name
• Use my characters board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/characters/
• general description (tall, blonde) and one unique thing (cataracts, missing arm)
• choose body part (brain, heart, eyes, loins); person wants something associated with it
• either speak normally, change meter, change accent, change timing of speech
• make a particular facial expression and hold it: let that expression direct your speech and manner
• do things that invite judgment or admiration

Monsters

• Use my monsters board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/monsters/
• What fear, perversion, or grotesqueness does it embody? 
• Where is it strong and where, if at all, is it weak? 

Treasures

• Use my treasures board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/treasure/
• Make them boring (coins, gems)
• Make them mysterious (you don't need to know what's up with them at first)

Dungeons 

• Visual inspiration
• Use my maps board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/maps/
• Use my caves board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/caves/
• Use my dungeons board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/dungeons/
• Use my objects board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/objects/
• Use my lore board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/lore/
• Procedures
• Check for wandering monsters; if indicated, interrupt with encounter during this turn
• Tell the players their options, ask which way they go
• Resolve stuff they encounter
• If there's nothing interesting there, don't hide it; say there's nothing interesting there
• Most rooms in a big dungeon should be boring and only there to confuse mapping
• End turn when they've crossed ~100' or explored a room or two thoroughly
• Mark off light sources
• Decide and Do
• Who built this and who inhabited it?
• How did it come to ruin?
• Show what you know in your descriptions
• Give awesome, then boring, then AWESOME
• What awesome treasure or knowledge does this place guard? 
• What horror runs this place now? 
• What else will kill the PCs here? 
• If they are proceeding carefully, always give warning of traps; otherwise, sorry
• Make your warnings diegetic and give false positives to make it interesting

Lairs

• Use my caves board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/caves/
• What lairs here?
• What are the signs of it (stench, bones, markings, droppings, screams)?
• What does it feel like (cramped, expansive, vertical, mossy, damp, echoing)?
• What parasites or hangers on are about?
• Is it small or expansive, straightforward or mazy?
• What main treasure or secret or mystery lies hidden here? 
• Does it connect to a dungeon? 

Cities

• Use my cities board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/city/
• Use my interiors board: http://www.pinterest.com/antulana/interiors/
• Create the districts of a city like towns (q.v.)
• Create random encounter tables (crime, shock, cult, injustice that is normal here, delightful entertainment or festivity)
• Cities are corrupt and oppressive and always infiltrated by the cult; a merchant, temple, or court will always be extorted or loyal to the cult; to deal with the cult, do objectives

Objectives

• Assign an action (assassinate, sneak in to get proof of, set up, track down, capture for interrogation, capture for ransom or deal, make public display of, tail, discover loyalties)
• Assign a target (king, merchant, priest, courtier, general, captain, grunt, commoner, faction member or contact, slave)
• Sometimes layer ethical problems or hard choices onto this objective, per faction contacts (q.v.)
• Color the objective's action and target by whoever is giving the objective
• To resolve an objective, ask how they're going about it; if they don't know, have them ask around at a tavern or with a faction contact or whatever
• Either make a skill check (DC 15) or a reaction roll; can give advantage or disadvantage
• On a fail, the worst thing happens; on a DC+5, the best thing happens; otherwise, some complication arises
• For the reaction roll, 2-5 = worst, 6-8 = complication, 9-12 = best

Village Raid Procedures

These procedures and tables are for running any number of village raid scenarios in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, from the RAW Greenest to whatever village you may happen to generate.

Introduction

1. As written: tell them that they crest a hill and see to the east that smoke is rising from the town and that a huge winged form passes overhead. Thunderclouds gather and whirl above. Lightning strikes. Does the party leave or engage? 
   1. Leave: commence hexcrawl procedures (product not included—yet)
   2. Engage: commence the raid turn
2. Modified: the PCs are all faction members. Have them pick one, assume one of its ideals and take a bond with their immediate supervisor, should such a thing be applicable. Membership in a faction is secret, but, because of the current situation, they've all been assigned to work together. They already know each other. They are investigating cult activity in the region on behalf of their (now cooperating) factions. Begin scene Greenest Arms (below). 

Greenest Arms

The PCs are in the inn, on the west side of town. Just pick a likely building from the HDQ map of Greenest. Ask them if they're:

1. Eating and drinking
2. In the upstairs rooms, amorously
3. In the upstairs rooms, meditatively
4. On the balcony, reflectively
5. At the stage, listening to the (avant-garde / terrible / heartthrob / intoxicated) bard
6. At the bar, asking for info about cult activity

Once you know who's where, tell them they hear screams, and, when they look out the window (or balcony), they:

• see people running to the keep
• hear screams and see figures moving in the distance
• see distant fires

People in the inn start yelling to get to the keep; there's a raid. They know the drill. Then start the raid turn. 

Raid Turn

1. What are the players doing? Holing up or moving?  If they're holing up, use the holed up procedure below. If they're moving, proceed.
2. Ask how they're moving:
   
   1. off road or in cover: 1/6 encounter chance
   2. in housing block: 2/6 encounter chance
   3. on road: 3/6 encounter chance
   4. around important structures (mill, smith, store, inn): 4/6 encounter chance
   5. around refuge (church, manor, keep): 5/6 encounter chance
3. Generate and describe an encounter (http://detectmagic.blogspot.com/2014/09/cult-besieged-village-generator-hdq.html).
4. Ask if they intervene or keep moving. If they intervene, resolve as normal. Otherwise, proceed.
5. If the dragon is here, check the table where is the dragon?
6. Check for unavoidable encounters using the same procedure as above. They can run, of course. Resolve the encounter as normal and proceed.
7. Movement finishes. 
8. End turn. 

Greenest Arms is two moves away from the Keep. You can make a hexmap of the village if you want for this purpose. Otherwise, assume a move is about 200 feet. 

Each movement turn is 10 minutes. Each holed up turn is an hour. 

If they get to the Authority (in the keep/manor/church), the Authority will likely have missions for the PCs that will grant them no immediate benefit. But they can be heroes if they want. Just use the missions from the module: saving people at important structures, getting prisoners, driving away the dragon if the dragon is present.

NOW FOR SOME PROCEDURES & TABLES

What's the situation? 2d6:

• 2: worst possible (the most important place in town has been breached / slaughter commencing or nearly over)
• 3-5: worse than you expect (the most important place in view is surrounded / aflame, large group of people suffering)
• 6-8: what you expect, given the progess of the siege (chaos, people running around being slain, looting of houses, stacking bodies, wrapping up and loading the treasure, etc.)
• 9-11: better than you expect (a group of militia fighting back, the coast is clear, survivors running to the woods without pursuit)
• 12: best possible (the siege is ring called off early, or the forces are engaged in a tactical retreat—what magic is afoot?)

The people want (when things calm down or place isn't besieged):

1. the children to stop going missing 
2. the lord to stop taking the loveliest youths
3. the crops to stop purpling, crisping, and floating away as ash
4. the dead to stop clawing up
5. the ancestors to stop haunting in their preachy and nagging way
6. the bandits to stop stealing our crops—won't make it the winter this time 
7. the boys and girls alike to stop coming home pregnant from the forest
8. the other sect to abide by the ban on their worship
9. the fields to be rid of the 6-18' long muscular tooth-mawed worms 
10. their prized chocobos to return to their stables; something scares them, and they won't enter the village
11. to stop lying compulsively about everything
12. the river to un-petrify
13. the bronze clouds above to melt and let the sun shrine through again 
14. the body parts to quit floating down from upriver 
15. the trees to stop screaming
16. the heavy special tax nullified—what is the lord building with the money anyway?
17. to have enough food that hibernation isn't necessary after this year's harvest
18. to drown the lord in a bathtub of his own vodka
19. to subdue and despoil their intolerable neighbors
20. the plague to stop 

The Authority wants / from (d6, twice):

1. Money / the people 
2. Respect / peers
3. Compliance / superiors
4. Revenge / enemy
5. Cover / allies
6. Love / family

Why can't this person get what he wants from the other person (2d6):

• 2: Lacks unreasonable virtue

• 3-5: Lacks secondary virtue

• 6-8: Lacks primary virtue

• 9-11: Other person unreasonable

• 12: Misunderstanding 

Holed up

At the start of the turn when the party is holed up somewhere, make a reaction roll:

• 2: worst 
• 3-5: bad
• 6-8: same
• 9-11: improvement
• 12: best

Very context dependent here. If the PCs barely made it in and are holding the doors against an actively opposing force, a bad result means, in addition I whatever opposed do-they-break-through checks you might do in the round, a boarded up window breaks, and a villager gets shot through it. 

If the PCs are holed up somewhere and no one saw them, the worst thing is that they're discovered. Bad would be a group of monsters encamped nearby. Etc. Good would mean maybe some militia passes by you can link up with.

Where is the dragon? (2d6)

• 2: coming right for you
• 3-5: headed your way 
• 6-8: staying where he is
• 9-11: heading away from you
• 12: leaving (for now anyway)

Checking for survivors:

• Players commit to the search for the given amount of time
• GM determines how likely it is or there to be survivors here (x in 6, definitely, or definitely not)
• GM checks, but doesn't reveal if there are survivors
• Random encounters checked for, if any hostiles may still be in the area, and those encounters resolved
• GM determines how likely it is, given then time, method, and area the players are searching, for them to find survivors
• If none are found (whether there are any or not to find), GM asks what they want to do now. Players can repeat the search, modify it, abandon it, what have you. 
• If survivors are found, check the d20 table on the village encounters roll all the dice table to see what kind of group is encounters 
• Use reaction roll to check their mental and physical health
• Resolve encounter as usual