Personally I’m running LMoP + DoIP before leading into Tyranny of Dragons.
In my games, Venomfang and Cryovain both seek the Forge of Spells in preparation for Tiamat’s arrival but they want the Forge for two different reasons.
Venomfang seeks the Forge as an offering to Tiamat for a potential lair, for a cave system in which any spell or magic could be crafted might be useful to his Goddess. Venomfang wishes desperately for power, and while he believes the power of the Forge of Spells is powerful, he sees it as shortsighted. He believes possibly pleasing the Queen and earning her blessing may bring him the true power he seeks. Venomfang is much more of cunning snake in my games rather then a brutish monster. (In my games the Forge of Spells is much more amped up, allowing the crafting of magical weapons and cantrips and maybe a boon.)
Meanwhile Cryovain seeks the Forge of Spells to turn himself into an Ancient White Dragon so that he may perish in glorious combat against the Queen of Chromatic Dragons. For he believes there could be no greater death than at the hands of his Queen, and he wants it to be a legandary battle.
The Black Spider has caught wind of the Cult of Dragons wanting to aid both chromatic dragons, and so is seeking the Forge for herself so her and her little following in Phandalin can capture and enslave the 2 Dragons so her, Iarno, and King Grol may take over the Frontier and eventually the city Waterdeep. Though she is unaware of the coming arrival of Tiamat.
Those are just my ideas though! Hopefully they help you think of something :)
What I'm doing is leading LMoP and DoIP into Tyranny of Dragons, so I set up Venomfang and Cryovain as being caught in a power struggle, fighting one another for territory, while the Cult of the Dragon try to win their favor.
I am also running a combined LMOP & DOIP and have homebrewed a bunch to fit my players backstories and interests. Now I haven’t decided whether the dragons or the Mindflayers are the BBEG.
What I would suggest is maybe they need The Forge of Spells to make a weapon that can bring about a new age of Dragons or aid in Raising Tiamat?
I ran both books parallel and brought in Venomfang/Cryovain after wave echo cave.
Because Venomfang is a green dragon and they generally use deceit when dealing with people, I had him convince the group that his plan was to restore thunder tree to its "prior glory" (the party wanted to rebuild the town, but prior glory to Venomfang was regrowing the forest and making a lair)
Venomfang fang also got his claws (haha pun) into reidoth and was forcing him to serve.
Venomfang became a sort of like patron for the party. He sent them to a handful of the locations to collect magic items for his hoard instead of the party getting the jobs from the job board postings. (And he sent them back to locations where they missed important magic items as well)
Killing cryovain was one of the missions from Venomfang. Venomfang was mad that he moved into his hunting ground.
After a few visits to him, the party started realizing that the town was becoming more and more overgrown and other dangerous creatures were moving into the town. They decided to ambush Venomfang in his layer instead of turning over the dragon armor and dragon slayer sword that he had them collect. (He didn't want anyone else to have those items, but the party certainly wanted to keep them. Haha)
He just told them what they wanted to hear. He told them he would "fix" Thundertree. He told them that he was concerned for Phandalin because Cryovain was a feral beast and could harm the fledgling town. He made promises of wealth and power. He expressed concern and compassion for humanoids. He basically just lied through his... fangs. Haha. Everything he said was split with double meanings and half truths.
It helps that one of my players' backstory was that she was a toddler elf (who lived there) when Thundertree was originally destroyed, so the group all wanted to help bring back that childhood home. Then they met a giant magical beast that said he also wanted to "restore the area to its former glory"
It also helps that my my players almost never asked if someone was telling the truth. So, even though they were nervous about it at first, they decided to work with him. And then the perks of working with a dragon were amazing, so they kept going. It wasn't until later that they realized that the town was becoming part of the forest again and that they were lied to.
I don't think Venomfang needs to be a bigger part of the first story arc. Let the first story arc focus on The Cragmaws and The Black Spider and Wave Echo Cave. Let the things the characters *do* in part 1, transform Venomfang from a minor encounter in part 1 to a major player in part 2.
Venomfang, per the story, runs away at low health (25% I think). You could have him flee at 50% instead, to make sure he gets away. Now Venomfang has a problem - he needs a new home.
Fortunately for him, not far away (from a dragon's perspective) is an old abandoned castle - the now ex-Cragmaw castle. This castle also just so happens to put him where he can keep an eye out for the very adventurers that humiliated him in Thundertree and plot revenge. And it comes with a group of goblins, bugbears, and hobgoblins that recently lost all of their leadership (Grol, Klarg, Nezznar) - an excellent source of minions for a manipulative green dragon.
Now two evil dragons both view the Phandalin region as their territory, putting them at odds. Add on top of that, the Talos Cult Orcs driven out of the mountains by Cryovein are now encroaching on Cragmaw territory in Neverwinter Woods, setting up a bunch of factions at odds with each other, and the players, and whose goals are a risk to Phandalin and the broader region.
I think that will all give your players plenty to do as they move from LMoP to DoIP while keeping the threat of Venomfang looming as they discover they are trapped in the middle of a territorial battle raging between the Venomaws, Talos Cult, and Cryovein factions.
Once the dragons are both dead, you could finish the campaign there. Or do Tiamat like others have suggested. Or there's these three adventures that spin off from the Talos orcs in Icespire Peak and take place not far from Phandalin and make a good followup (I haven't run them before but people on reddit seem to love them).
- Storm Lord's Wrath
- Sleeping Dragon's Wake
- Divine Contention
They just might need some tweaks since your characters will be higher level than usual for those adventures.
I personally like this idea of him becoming a major character later on! Maybe right now I'm jus thinking of a good way to foreshadow his resurgence to become a bigger bad in part 2
Here's a couple ideas. I know in DoIP the characters have a chance of spotting Cryovain in the distance, flying overhead. You could have something like that occur with Venomfang. The thing I would change up though is that while Cryovain is spotted out hunting and doesn't really notice the adventurers, Venomfang's appearance could be a lot more personal. Like a swooping dive just over their heads; or set up what seems to be a random encounter where they get attacked by a chimera, but as soon as combat is about to begin, Venomfang crashes down from the sky, snaps the chimera's back, gives the players a toothy grin and launches back into the air with the chimera's corpse. Something that sends the nonverbal threat of "I haven't forgotten you, I know where you are, and I can strike at any time."
Also, if you use the idea of the broken Cragmaw Tribe of goblins finding new leadership under Venomfang you could swap out the orcs at Butterskull Ranch (which has nothing to do with the Talos storyline anyways, and the orcs will be super easy after Wave Echo Cave) with a bunch of goblinoids: lots of goblins, some goblin bosses, and groups of hobgoblins and bugbears. The idea is that the ranch was hit by a wave of goblins led by a green dragon. Big Al saw the dragon take off with one of his cows. Some of the goblins also ran off with a bunch of pigs, chickens, etc (to take back to other Cragmaws in Neverwinter Woods, though Al wouldn't know this). But most of the goblinoids have stayed behind to party it up on the ranch, eating and drinking their way through the cattle and supplies at the ranch before returning to Neverwinter Woods themselves. I makes the ranch situation a lot more interesting (in my view at least) and informs the players that Venomfang has moved from up near Neverwinter to down near Phandalin, and that remaining Cragmaws are now aligned with the green dragon. They may even feel responsible - after all if Venomfang had remained in Thundertree, Butterskull Ranch probably wouldn't have been attacked. This makes dealing with Venomfang their responsibility, even if no NPC ever gives them a direct "please kill Venomfang for 1000gp" type of quest.
I’m
Putting together the same thing, and my plan currently is to put the entirety of Thundertree after Wave echo cave. The thought is that afterwards, the region will be flooded with more inhabitants, and with Thundertree being a former lumber town it’s the best known location for workers to enter Neverwinter wood and harvest lumber and timber, as well as a trade post for other items and goods. It also would act as a rest stop much closer to Neverwinter itself. And would guarantee the safety of the high road.
I would just alter it, by having him fly over Phandalin a few times, in the distance far above the town. (Unreachable ofc). And then perhaps the townsfolk will start to wonder and start to ask Harbin questions about that dragon up in the sky.
Harbin, a pompous man but definitely scared of dragons should be eager to give coinage to those brave enough to chase away the Green Dragon. And perhaps if you plan on running the extra adventures after the DOIP story, why not throw in a whole ass Adult Green Dragon that normally flies south of Kryptgarden Forest (his home). Throw in the Black Adult Dragon that can be seen in that adventure as well. And you'll have a full blown panic in Phandalin and the surrounding towns of Leilon, Neverwinter and Triboar.
Enjoy.
I feel like the answer to your question lays in your players backstories. Care to share a bit?
I would at least have Venomfang be scared of cryovain, keeping to his lair because of it. This bothers him. When the party comes to face him hè might try and convince them to go after cryovain instead, promising vast ammounts of gold in return. If they haven't found it yet, hè might tell them where to find "dragonslayer" in order to kill cryovain. Being a green dragon hè gets to deceive them a lot aswell . Maybe hè convinces them cryovain is behind whatever trouble your players backstory was involved in, pulling on their emotional strings. Only to find hè has led them allong for his own gain.
If you are so lucky to have a kobold in your party, use that. Have them come from Venomfangs slavespen.
This way hè gets to be a amazing NPC (like, dragon quest giver, wtf) and turn out to be a liar and deceiver and make for a chapter 1 (or if you are lucky, more chapters) bbeg.
I hope this helped and if you let me know about their races and backstories, maybe I can help some more:)
hey there these are some great ideas! deceiving them and putting the blame on cryovain is a very devilish but clever idea HAHA in terms of my party, we have just finished our session 0 and so far the party is composed of a changeling bard, a warforged artificer, a half-elf rogue, a human ranger, and a firbolg barbarian.
Sounds like a awesome party! I really hope one of their backstories makes Venomfang somewhat accesible ^^
The ranger might find tracks and clues that lead to believe a young dragon is responsible for the destruction of "insert someplace important to the party" and that might lead them to thunder tree. Then when they confront the dragon it tells the story of how it hè came across cryovain rampaging the important place and got run off into thunder tree. hè even has the wounds to show for it. (this last part might be True, if you desire). Nevertheless, hè very much is the culprit and cryovain just happened upon him and got territorial. White dragons are more bestial. Green dragons are rlly quite evil.
Personally I’m running LMoP + DoIP before leading into Tyranny of Dragons. In my games, Venomfang and Cryovain both seek the Forge of Spells in preparation for Tiamat’s arrival but they want the Forge for two different reasons. Venomfang seeks the Forge as an offering to Tiamat for a potential lair, for a cave system in which any spell or magic could be crafted might be useful to his Goddess. Venomfang wishes desperately for power, and while he believes the power of the Forge of Spells is powerful, he sees it as shortsighted. He believes possibly pleasing the Queen and earning her blessing may bring him the true power he seeks. Venomfang is much more of cunning snake in my games rather then a brutish monster. (In my games the Forge of Spells is much more amped up, allowing the crafting of magical weapons and cantrips and maybe a boon.) Meanwhile Cryovain seeks the Forge of Spells to turn himself into an Ancient White Dragon so that he may perish in glorious combat against the Queen of Chromatic Dragons. For he believes there could be no greater death than at the hands of his Queen, and he wants it to be a legandary battle. The Black Spider has caught wind of the Cult of Dragons wanting to aid both chromatic dragons, and so is seeking the Forge for herself so her and her little following in Phandalin can capture and enslave the 2 Dragons so her, Iarno, and King Grol may take over the Frontier and eventually the city Waterdeep. Though she is unaware of the coming arrival of Tiamat. Those are just my ideas though! Hopefully they help you think of something :)
What I'm doing is leading LMoP and DoIP into Tyranny of Dragons, so I set up Venomfang and Cryovain as being caught in a power struggle, fighting one another for territory, while the Cult of the Dragon try to win their favor.
I am also running a combined LMOP & DOIP and have homebrewed a bunch to fit my players backstories and interests. Now I haven’t decided whether the dragons or the Mindflayers are the BBEG. What I would suggest is maybe they need The Forge of Spells to make a weapon that can bring about a new age of Dragons or aid in Raising Tiamat?
I ran both books parallel and brought in Venomfang/Cryovain after wave echo cave. Because Venomfang is a green dragon and they generally use deceit when dealing with people, I had him convince the group that his plan was to restore thunder tree to its "prior glory" (the party wanted to rebuild the town, but prior glory to Venomfang was regrowing the forest and making a lair) Venomfang fang also got his claws (haha pun) into reidoth and was forcing him to serve. Venomfang became a sort of like patron for the party. He sent them to a handful of the locations to collect magic items for his hoard instead of the party getting the jobs from the job board postings. (And he sent them back to locations where they missed important magic items as well) Killing cryovain was one of the missions from Venomfang. Venomfang was mad that he moved into his hunting ground. After a few visits to him, the party started realizing that the town was becoming more and more overgrown and other dangerous creatures were moving into the town. They decided to ambush Venomfang in his layer instead of turning over the dragon armor and dragon slayer sword that he had them collect. (He didn't want anyone else to have those items, but the party certainly wanted to keep them. Haha)
How did u get your players to trust Venomfang knowing he is, well, a damn big green dragon?
He just told them what they wanted to hear. He told them he would "fix" Thundertree. He told them that he was concerned for Phandalin because Cryovain was a feral beast and could harm the fledgling town. He made promises of wealth and power. He expressed concern and compassion for humanoids. He basically just lied through his... fangs. Haha. Everything he said was split with double meanings and half truths. It helps that one of my players' backstory was that she was a toddler elf (who lived there) when Thundertree was originally destroyed, so the group all wanted to help bring back that childhood home. Then they met a giant magical beast that said he also wanted to "restore the area to its former glory" It also helps that my my players almost never asked if someone was telling the truth. So, even though they were nervous about it at first, they decided to work with him. And then the perks of working with a dragon were amazing, so they kept going. It wasn't until later that they realized that the town was becoming part of the forest again and that they were lied to.
I don't think Venomfang needs to be a bigger part of the first story arc. Let the first story arc focus on The Cragmaws and The Black Spider and Wave Echo Cave. Let the things the characters *do* in part 1, transform Venomfang from a minor encounter in part 1 to a major player in part 2. Venomfang, per the story, runs away at low health (25% I think). You could have him flee at 50% instead, to make sure he gets away. Now Venomfang has a problem - he needs a new home. Fortunately for him, not far away (from a dragon's perspective) is an old abandoned castle - the now ex-Cragmaw castle. This castle also just so happens to put him where he can keep an eye out for the very adventurers that humiliated him in Thundertree and plot revenge. And it comes with a group of goblins, bugbears, and hobgoblins that recently lost all of their leadership (Grol, Klarg, Nezznar) - an excellent source of minions for a manipulative green dragon. Now two evil dragons both view the Phandalin region as their territory, putting them at odds. Add on top of that, the Talos Cult Orcs driven out of the mountains by Cryovein are now encroaching on Cragmaw territory in Neverwinter Woods, setting up a bunch of factions at odds with each other, and the players, and whose goals are a risk to Phandalin and the broader region. I think that will all give your players plenty to do as they move from LMoP to DoIP while keeping the threat of Venomfang looming as they discover they are trapped in the middle of a territorial battle raging between the Venomaws, Talos Cult, and Cryovein factions. Once the dragons are both dead, you could finish the campaign there. Or do Tiamat like others have suggested. Or there's these three adventures that spin off from the Talos orcs in Icespire Peak and take place not far from Phandalin and make a good followup (I haven't run them before but people on reddit seem to love them). - Storm Lord's Wrath - Sleeping Dragon's Wake - Divine Contention They just might need some tweaks since your characters will be higher level than usual for those adventures.
I personally like this idea of him becoming a major character later on! Maybe right now I'm jus thinking of a good way to foreshadow his resurgence to become a bigger bad in part 2
Here's a couple ideas. I know in DoIP the characters have a chance of spotting Cryovain in the distance, flying overhead. You could have something like that occur with Venomfang. The thing I would change up though is that while Cryovain is spotted out hunting and doesn't really notice the adventurers, Venomfang's appearance could be a lot more personal. Like a swooping dive just over their heads; or set up what seems to be a random encounter where they get attacked by a chimera, but as soon as combat is about to begin, Venomfang crashes down from the sky, snaps the chimera's back, gives the players a toothy grin and launches back into the air with the chimera's corpse. Something that sends the nonverbal threat of "I haven't forgotten you, I know where you are, and I can strike at any time." Also, if you use the idea of the broken Cragmaw Tribe of goblins finding new leadership under Venomfang you could swap out the orcs at Butterskull Ranch (which has nothing to do with the Talos storyline anyways, and the orcs will be super easy after Wave Echo Cave) with a bunch of goblinoids: lots of goblins, some goblin bosses, and groups of hobgoblins and bugbears. The idea is that the ranch was hit by a wave of goblins led by a green dragon. Big Al saw the dragon take off with one of his cows. Some of the goblins also ran off with a bunch of pigs, chickens, etc (to take back to other Cragmaws in Neverwinter Woods, though Al wouldn't know this). But most of the goblinoids have stayed behind to party it up on the ranch, eating and drinking their way through the cattle and supplies at the ranch before returning to Neverwinter Woods themselves. I makes the ranch situation a lot more interesting (in my view at least) and informs the players that Venomfang has moved from up near Neverwinter to down near Phandalin, and that remaining Cragmaws are now aligned with the green dragon. They may even feel responsible - after all if Venomfang had remained in Thundertree, Butterskull Ranch probably wouldn't have been attacked. This makes dealing with Venomfang their responsibility, even if no NPC ever gives them a direct "please kill Venomfang for 1000gp" type of quest.
this is incredibly clever and helpful!! i will definitely use this in my campaign :)
I’m Putting together the same thing, and my plan currently is to put the entirety of Thundertree after Wave echo cave. The thought is that afterwards, the region will be flooded with more inhabitants, and with Thundertree being a former lumber town it’s the best known location for workers to enter Neverwinter wood and harvest lumber and timber, as well as a trade post for other items and goods. It also would act as a rest stop much closer to Neverwinter itself. And would guarantee the safety of the high road.
I would just alter it, by having him fly over Phandalin a few times, in the distance far above the town. (Unreachable ofc). And then perhaps the townsfolk will start to wonder and start to ask Harbin questions about that dragon up in the sky. Harbin, a pompous man but definitely scared of dragons should be eager to give coinage to those brave enough to chase away the Green Dragon. And perhaps if you plan on running the extra adventures after the DOIP story, why not throw in a whole ass Adult Green Dragon that normally flies south of Kryptgarden Forest (his home). Throw in the Black Adult Dragon that can be seen in that adventure as well. And you'll have a full blown panic in Phandalin and the surrounding towns of Leilon, Neverwinter and Triboar. Enjoy.
I feel like the answer to your question lays in your players backstories. Care to share a bit? I would at least have Venomfang be scared of cryovain, keeping to his lair because of it. This bothers him. When the party comes to face him hè might try and convince them to go after cryovain instead, promising vast ammounts of gold in return. If they haven't found it yet, hè might tell them where to find "dragonslayer" in order to kill cryovain. Being a green dragon hè gets to deceive them a lot aswell . Maybe hè convinces them cryovain is behind whatever trouble your players backstory was involved in, pulling on their emotional strings. Only to find hè has led them allong for his own gain. If you are so lucky to have a kobold in your party, use that. Have them come from Venomfangs slavespen. This way hè gets to be a amazing NPC (like, dragon quest giver, wtf) and turn out to be a liar and deceiver and make for a chapter 1 (or if you are lucky, more chapters) bbeg. I hope this helped and if you let me know about their races and backstories, maybe I can help some more:)
hey there these are some great ideas! deceiving them and putting the blame on cryovain is a very devilish but clever idea HAHA in terms of my party, we have just finished our session 0 and so far the party is composed of a changeling bard, a warforged artificer, a half-elf rogue, a human ranger, and a firbolg barbarian.
Sounds like a awesome party! I really hope one of their backstories makes Venomfang somewhat accesible ^^ The ranger might find tracks and clues that lead to believe a young dragon is responsible for the destruction of "insert someplace important to the party" and that might lead them to thunder tree. Then when they confront the dragon it tells the story of how it hè came across cryovain rampaging the important place and got run off into thunder tree. hè even has the wounds to show for it. (this last part might be True, if you desire). Nevertheless, hè very much is the culprit and cryovain just happened upon him and got territorial. White dragons are more bestial. Green dragons are rlly quite evil.