Introduction

Tyranny of Dragons is set in the Forgotten Realms on Faerun’s western shore—the Sword Coast. A thin strip of civilization stretches down this coast, where widely spaced cities are arranged like beads on a string. A combination of roads and wagon tracks loosely connect the cities that stretch from Luskan in the north to Calimport in the south, passing through Neverwinter, Waterdeep, Baldur’s Gate, and other great ports along the way. The bulk of this adventure takes place on the stretch between Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter.

Background

The Cult of the Dragon has been active in Faerun for centuries. It has focused on making undead dragons to fulfill a prophecy most of that time, but that’s changing.

Dragon Masks

The new leader of the cult is a Calishite named Severin Silrajin, who believes that real draconic knowledge and power belongs to living dragons, not undead ones. Severin’s ambition amused Tiamat, so she revealed the existence of five dragon masks to him—one for each chromatic dragon color. Individually, these ancient masks allow wearers to communicate with dragons. More importantly, a person who is erudite in draconic lore becomes a wyrmspeaker while wearing the mask, which allows the wearer to think like a dragon, gain favor among dragons, and subtly influence their behavior. When all five are brought together, they magically merge into a single Mask o f the Dragon Queen. With the assembled mask, the cult can release Tiamat from her prison in the Nine Hells.
After Severin (subtly guided by Tiamat) discovered that secret, he bent all the cult’s resources to finding the long-lost dragon masks in their secret hiding places. When he recovered the red mask, Severin became the first of the wyrmspeakers, but others soon followed.

Cult Organization

The Cult of the Dragon is organized in cells, which vary in size from just a handful of members to scores. Leaders in the cult are known as Wearers of Purple, and they outrank normal cultists, but no formal grades exist within the ranks of the Wearers of Purple. Although the cult uses regalia in its rituals and its distant camps, members who operate in public places dress and act no differently from anyone else. The cult is not above hiring mercenaries when it has special jobs to fulfill. Indeed, many of the “cultists” that characters encounter in the first three episodes of this adventure are working for pay.

Greenest Town Map

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Greenest

Rewards

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Besides earning experience points (XP) for raiders fought on the way to the keep, characters earn a bonus of 50 XP per nonplayer character (NPC) brought alive into the keep. Divide this bonus equally among the party members.

Important Characters

Governor Nighthill. The man who runs Greenest is Tarbaw Nighthill, a human male of sixty years.
Castellan Escobert the Red. Escobert is a shield dwarf with knotted, tangled, bright red hair