Tyranny of Dragons is a storyline for the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It is broken up into two adventure modules: Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat, both of which were released in 2014.
The story begins with the adventurers arriving in the town of Greenest, only to find it under attack by an army of raiders accompanied by a blue dragon. After doing their part to fend the raiders off, the adventurers are then tasked with tracking down the raiders' camp to retrieve the townsfolk's stolen valuables and rescue some hostages. From there, they become embroiled in a struggle against the Cult of the Dragon, which is conducting these raids as part of a greater Evil Plan to summon the Chaotic Evil dragon goddess Tiamat into Toril, which would cause The End of the World as We Know It.
This adventure provides examples of:
- Acid Attack: Rezmir has the acid breath of her black dragon ancestors, and she can also hurl magical "caustic bolts" at her enemies.
- Androcles' Lion: There's a golden stag that the party may encounter from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep. Sparing the stag from the wrath of hunters or whatever else is threatening it may provide the players with some sort of reward, either a +1 longbow or some EXP.
- And the Adventure Continues: Should the players beat the final boss, the Cult of the Dragon becomes a chaotic, disorganized mess, and the chromatic dragons who wanted to see Tiamat's return scatter in all directions. Despite stopping the worst possible outcome, the DM notes say that an adventure can continue from there with the heroes putting a stop to dragon attacks made in retribution and getting rid of the last remnants of the Cult.
- Anti-Regeneration: The sword Hazirawn inflicts magical wounds which temporarily prevent the victim from regaining hit points.
- Apocalypse Cult: Under Severin's leadership, the Cult of the Dragon has switched goals from creating dracoliches to freeing Tiamat from her imprisonment in the Nine Hells and summoning her into the Material Plane. Their success would mean the collapse of civilization itself, as Tiamat would lead her chromatic dragon hordes to conquer the world.
- Assassin Outclassin': By Rise of Tiamat, the Cult knows that the players represent the biggest threat to their plans. They will send specially-prepared hit squads to take the party out, often striking in places where the players would normally feel safe or at times when they aren’t at their full strength. The player characters will need to fight for their lives if they want the campaign to continue.
- Attack Animal: The Cult makes heavy use of trained guard drakes and ambush drakes, which are essential quadrupedal lizards trained like attack dogs.
- Brought Down to Badass: If the ritual to summon Tiamat isn't stopped outright, Tiamat will show up as the Final Boss. However, there are several things that the heroes can do to at least partially disrupt the summoning enough to weaken her, such as freeing the sacrifices or preventing her Dragon Hoard from reaching The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. Each of these things reduces Tiamat's maximum health by 75 points each, and imposes other restrictions on her (like losing her immunity to most spells and reducing her Armor Class and attack power). Even with all of the restrictions in place, Tiamat is still far from an easy opponent, with hundreds of hit points and multiple powerful attacks. It's just that the penalties on Tiamat make the battle one the heroes can probably win as opposed to an outright slaughter.
- Coup de Grâce: If Langdedrosa Cyanwrath wins the duel in the first episode of Hoard of the Dragon Queen (and he probably will), he will administer a final blow to his unconscious opponent. This will kill an NPC outright and inflict a death save failure to a player character.
- Cutting Off the Branches: If the players didn't play through Hoard of the Dragon Queen before starting The Rise of Tiamat, the events of Hoard will have taken place with another adventuring party standing in for the player characters. These adventurers will have sacrificed themselves to crash Skyreach Castle, depriving the Cult—and the party—of a valuable asset.
- Damage Over Time: Any creature that takes fire damage from Severin's spells will burst into flames, taking additional fire damage every turn until the fire is put out.
- Dead Man's Switch: Rezmir's personal chest has been enchanted to teleport its contents away in the event of her death. If the party kills her before opening the chest, they'll lose out on the loot. Among this loot is the Black Dragon Mask, one of the key pieces of the Cult's plan. So killing Rezmir is going to end up a Pyrrhic Victory if the players can't get the loot first.
- Defiant to the End: A villainous example: if the players capture Rezmir, she "refuses to cooperate in any way," and "the best that the characters can hope for is that their prisoner eventually stops berating and insulting them." She'd rather die than surrender.
- Delicious Distraction: It's possible to divert the attention of some attack drakes in the Cult's camp by throwing slabs of meat at them. There's a cavern made into a butchery within the camp to make this easy.
- Disc-One Final Dungeon: Skyreach Castle is an Ominous Floating Castle that serves as a major stronghold for the Cult of the Dragon. It is home to multiple boss-level enemies including a vampire, a cloud giant wizard, an adult white dragon, two Red Wizards of Thay, and Rezmir. It serves as the climactic finale to Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but not to Tyranny of Dragons as a whole (unless the characters all die, of course).
- Distressed Dude: The monk Leosin Erlanthar was captured by the Cult while infiltrating their camp near Greenest. The players can rescue him during their own infiltration of the camp, but it won't be easy as his captors have thrashed him and strung him up in a very conspicuous spot.
- Downer Ending: Should the heroes lose the Final Boss fight against Tiamat, she and her dragons take over the Sword Coast in a mass slaughter, decimating everything in their path.
- Draconic Abomination: Tiamat, Queen of Dragons. She's a five-headed gargantuan monster, Chaotic Evil, and the object of worship for an Apocalypse Cult. Should she end up summoned, it will be as the Final Boss after being played up as a creature of no pity, remorse, or shame that will bring about The End of the World as We Know It.
- The Dragon: Severin leads the Cult of the Dragon and acts as Tiamat's primary agent in the Material Plane.
- Dragon Hoard:
- The ritual to summon Tiamat requires the Cult to gather a hoard worthy of the Dragon Queen. To that end, they have been raiding towns and communities throughout the Sword Coast, funneling the stolen plunder to the Cult's headquarters at the Well of Dragons. At the Well, there's so much money amassed in one of the caverns for the ritual to summon Tiamat that the DM guide says the amount of money is "incalculable".
- Hoard of the Dragon Queen has the players follow a large chunk of plunder as it makes its way north, and will likely end with them doing something to keep that chunk out of the Cult's hands. Also, it ends with fighting a white dragon whose hoard is frozen under ice.
- Dragon Rider: Some members of the Cult ride wyverns into battle. The wyrmspeaker Neronvain rides the green dragon Chuth.
- The Dreaded: The mere thought of Tiamat coming back is enough for races like giants, metallic dragons, devils, and various humanoid kingdoms to work together to prevent her return. Teeth-Clenched Teamwork though it may be, Tiamat is such an Omnicidal Maniac that everyone fears Tiamat's return, because whatever spats they may have with each other, letting Tiamat come back is far worse.
- Duel Boss: Cyanwrath challenges a player character to a one-on-one fight at the end of the Greenest stage, using hostages as collateral so that no one else interferes. Cyanwrath is probably going to win this fight, but his intention is to leave the character alive.
- Early Game Hell: The first chapter of Hoard of the Dragon Queen can be rough. The players are all level 1, they have few hit points, and they’re expected to deal with encounters that pit them against large groups of enemies who, while frail, can inflict a high amount of damage for that point in the game. Then there are the encounters with Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and Lennithon. The former is a half-dragon fighter with 57 hit points, and his attacks (of which he can make two per turn, or four if he action surges) inflict enough damage to cripple or kill a first-level character in one hit. The latter is an adult blue dragon who attacks exclusively with his breath weapon; early-game characters wouldn't survive that, even under the best of circumstances. The players aren't expected to win against either of them at this point, but even so, they can still bring the campaign to a premature end.
- Empathic Weapon: Rezmir's sword Hazirawn has a mind of its own and can speak two different languages.
- Enemy Civil War: The players can instigate one amongst the Cult’s forces at Castle Naerytar. The lizardfolk tribe that works for the Cult resents Pharblex Spattergoo and his bullywugs for killing their shaman, bossing them around, and otherwise treating them like dirt. It won't take much convincing to get them to turn against the Cult and the bullywugs, provided that the players don't alienate them by indiscriminately killing every lizardfolk in sight.
- Enemy Mine:
- This is why several opposing factions, like the Red Wizards of Thay and the Order of the Gauntlet, are willing to work together to stop Tiamat. Several of these evil factions hate good guys, but when the alternative is The End of the World as We Know It, working with the enemy is a much better option. Several of the allies you get for the finale of Rise of Tiamat include Giants, Metallic Dragons, Devils, and the various mortal races and their factions, many of whom hate each other. Despite how much they hate each other, all of them agree that letting Tiamat be summoned is a bad idea.
- Blagothkus the giant will help the party if they can talk him into it at the end of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. But he's not doing it out of self-preservation or because he fears the Cult. It's because he wants to spur other giants into action, and he was already planning on betraying the Cult if it meant getting giants to fight dragons. Blagothkus wants giants to take their "rightful place" as rulers of the world. This belief lasts even if the party convinces him to help them, so he's a nominal ally with a shaky alliance at best.
- The Evil Prince: Neronvain is the son of the elf king Melandrach and was formerly prince of the Misty Forest until his father banished him for his cruelty. Now he is one of the Cult's five wyrmspeakers, and terrorizes the elves of his former homeland with the aid of the green dragon Chuth.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: By The Rise of Tiamat, the Zhentarim and the Red Wizards of Thay are both willing to join the other major factions of the Sword Coast in opposing the Cult of the Dragon. Both groups are unquestionably evil, but the Zhentarim want to rule the world and Szass Tam wants to keep ruling Thay. Neither group gets what they want if the Cult summons Omnicidal Maniac Tiamat and she destroys humanoid civilization, so they're willing to work with the heroes to prevent her return.
- The Exile: Rath Modar and the other Red Wizards allied with the Cult are exiles from Thay. They oppose Szass Tam's rule of the nation and are lending their arcane powers to the Cult in the belief that Tiamat will help them depose him. This turns out to be entirely wrong. Should Tiamat be summoned, Rath Modar will profess his loyalty in bringing her back, and immediately get eaten by one of Tiamat's heads.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Dralmorrer Borngray is a member of the Eldreth Veluuthra, an elven supremacist group which hates humans and wants to remove them from Faerûn. He joined the Cult of the Dragon in the hopes that Tiamat will exterminate humanity while sparing the elves of Evermeet.
- Several members of the council of metallic dragons have a beef with some of the humanoid races. Protanther the gold dragon despises elves because they created the dracorage mythal, which drives dragons murderously insane. Otaaryliakarnos the silver dragon hates dwarves because they killed her niece in one of their dragonmoots. If any of the player characters are a race that the dragons have issues with, it will cause the metallic dragons to be less likely to help. They'll essentially demand an official apology from the player character's race for a past misdeed to get their aid, necessitating another quest.
- Fighting a Shadow: Destroying Tiamat's physical form doesn't actually kill her. It just banishes her back to the Nine Hells.
- Final Boss: If the players fail to stop the summoning ritual, Tiamat will show up to deal with them. She's the strongest monster in the entire game, with a monstrous challenge rating 30, the same as the Tarrasque, but with the additional benefit of being extremely intelligent, capable of advanced planning and manipulation, and having the benefits of all five chromatic dragon types. The only real way to win is to weaken the summoning ritual, which causes Tiamat to be summoned with several restrictions and penalties placed on her. But even with the penalties in place, Tiamat is still far from an easy opponent; if the players impose every restriction they can on Tiamat, her Challenge Rating goes from 30 to 18, which still puts a weakened Tiamat among the strongest monsters in the entire Fifth Edition of D&D.
- The Ghost:
- The Cult's blue wyrmspeaker, Galvan, is mentioned a few times but never actually appears in either module. He doesn't even have a stat block or a proper description. Though an Updated Re-release of the module on virtual tabletop website Roll20 gives Galvan a token, description, and proper character sheet, it still doesn't have any place for him in the campaign as written.
- Tiamat's brother Bahamut — the Lawful Good Platinum Dragon, god of honor, duty, and courage, and the King of Good Dragons — gets mentioned a few times throughout the modules. There's a few references to him as the yin to Tiamat's yang, and it's said that Bahamut often interferes in the mortal world when Tiamat is involved. However, Bahamut himself never makes an appearance. He doesn't get a stat block or a proper description, either. (Plus, if the developers gave Bahamut stats, some players would want to fight him just for kicks.)
- Grim Up North: One episode of The Rise of Tiamat has the party traveling far north to the Sea of Moving Ice in search of a missing member of the Arcane Brotherhood. Their search will eventually lead them to Oyaviggaton, the iceberg lair of the cruel white dragon Arauthator.
- Haunted Castle:
- The top floor of Castle Naerytar's northwest tower is haunted by half a dozen specters. They're content to stay in their room and ignore everything else going on in the castle, but if something intrudes upon their privacy, the enraged specters will emerge and attack everyone in sight.
- Skyreach Castle is haunted by Sandesyl, a vampire affiliated with the Cult. She sleeps in her coffin during the day, but at night she emerges and stalks the courtyard, preying on anyone foolish enough to be out alone.
- The Heavy: Rezmir is one of the Cult's five wyrmspeakers, and while she is not the Big Bad of Tyranny of Dragons, she is the main antagonist of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. That module’s entire plot revolves around the party tracking her as she makes her way up the Sword Coast with the plunder her forces stole from Greenest, culminating in a final battle with her at Skyreach Castle.
- Hedge Maze: Xonthal's Tower is surrounded by a magical hedge maze that distorts space. Navigating it is the only way to get into the tower, as it has no physical entrance. If the players don't figure out the trick to navigating the maze, they'll be wandering its trapped and monster-infested paths for quite a while.
- Hopeless Boss Fight:
- The encounters with Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and Lennithon in the first episode of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. As written, the fights are almost impossible to win. Lennithon can fly, has hundreds of hit points, and can easily one-shot an entire party of first-level characters with his breath weapon. The party is means to convince the dragon that raiding a village isn't worth his time rather than directly fight him. Cyanwrath is expected to be fought solo and can dish out enough damage to demolish all but the toughest first-level characters in one round. Both of them can be encountered again later in the campaign, at points when the players will be stronger and have a much higher chance of beating them.
- In Rise of Tiamat, the Cult realizes that the heroes are the biggest threat to their plans, and send three assassination squads to kill them. The first two are supposed to be hard, but the third is supposed to be close to impossible; the cult sends multiple young red dragons after them, just for a starter. If the characters all die, it's suggested that Ontharr Frume save them, and use the fact that the Cult thinks they're dead to their advantage.
- Human Sacrifice: The ritual to summon Tiamat requires the sacrifice of hundreds of lives. The Cult's raids are as much about capturing prisoners for this eventual mass sacrifice as about gathering treasure for the Dragon Queen's hoard.
- I Am Who?: There's a "backstory table" for characters if they want to give an in-universe reason as to why they're headed to Greenest to begin the campaign. One of these options is that the character is a former gold dragon, cursed by Bahamut for their arrogance. All the character knows is that they're cursed in some form, that Bahamut is responsible, and that Bahamut has told them to do good deeds in order to remove the curse.
- Ice Palace: Skyreach Castle is basically a flying glacier carved in the shape of a palace scaled for giants.
- Imperfect Ritual: In the final episode of The Rise of Tiamat, the players have many opportunities to sabotage Severin's summoning ritual. Each successful bit of sabotage will weaken Tiamat, and enough sabotage will stop her from coming through the portal altogether.
- Kryptonite-Proof Suit: Trespin the troll counteracts his natural vulnerability to fire by wearing a soaking wet cape, which grants him Damage Reduction against fire damage.
- The Legions of Hell: The Cult of the Dragon has summoned numerous devils from the Nine Hells to assist them in completing their plans. They can do this because some devils—most notably Zariel, the archdevil of Avernus—are fed up with Tiamat and want her out of the Nine Hells. Other devils want Tiamat to stay right where she is, however, and they may offer the players some unholy assistance in thwarting the Cult.
- Load-Bearing Boss: If Blagothkus dies, his spirit will assume direct control of Skyreach Castle. He will then steer the castle into the nearest mountain to crash, hoping that this will eliminate his killers and keep the castle out of their hands.
- Mage Tower: One episode of The Rise of Tiamat is set in Xonthal's Tower, the former home of a reclusive wizard. He disappeared years ago and the Cult of the Dragon has recently moved in, taking advantage of the tower's weird spatial properties to keep out nosy intruders while they conduct experiments.
- The Marvelous Deer: In Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the player characters might encounter a gold-furred stag while traveling from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep. The book offers three possibilities as to the stag's nature: a majestic but completely normal animal that the local farmers view as a bringer of good fortune; a mysterious fey entity that offers the characters cryptic advice and a +1 longbow before vanishing into thin air; and an ancient cursed elf prince who turns into a stag whenever he leaves the ruins of his castle.
- Mask of Power: The five dragon masks are magical artifacts that grant their wearers supernatural powers, most notably the ability to speak Draconic and influence chromatic dragons. Bringing them together makes them combine into the Mask of the Dragon Queen, which is a crucial component of the Cult's ritual to summon Tiamat.
- Miles Gloriosus: One of the encounters the players can have while traveling with merchants from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep is coming across a group of adventurers who are far more confident in their boasting, prompting the players' employer to ditch them for the new guys. In reality, they're a troop of actors; when faced with real danger, the actors immediately prove useless, with the stats of commoners. A savvy PC can use this to their advantage by making the merchants hire them back for more money.
- Mind Rape: If the players visit Thay to negotiate with a representative of Szass Tam, a group of Red Wizards will enter their dreams while they're asleep to torture and interrogate them. How well they hold up under this torture, and the answers they give, will determine whether Thay allies with the Council of Waterdeep in opposing the Cult.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Trespin, the groundskeeper of Talis the White's hunting lodge, is a mutant troll with an extra pair of arms.
- Mundane Utility: The Cult is using a summoned air elemental to blow a giant horn called the draakhorn constantly.
- The Necrocracy: In The Rise of Tiamat the players may need to go to Thay, the magocratic state ruled by the lich Szass Tam and his undead zulkirs.
- No Entrance: Xonthal's Tower has no doors. The only way to get inside is by using a teleportation circle hidden somewhere in the depths of the surrounding hedge maze.
- Noble Demon: In the first episode of Hoard, Langdedrosa Cyanwrath will offer to release some of the Cult's prisoners — a woman and her three children — if someone agrees to face him in Combat by Champion. If one of the players (or an NPC) takes him up on that offer, Cyanwrath will keep his word and let the prisoners go, no matter who wins.
- No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: Lennithon, the blue dragon that attacks Greenest, is already bored of just causing mass death and panic in the town by the time the party shows up. Lennithon can be convinced that the assault on the town isn't worth his time by playing to his ego that the villagers are Not Worth Killing; if they party just hides or ignores him, Lennithon eventually leaves on his own for the same reason.
- Not Worth Killing: Lennithon, the blue dragon that attacks Greenest, can be convinced to leave the town and stop causing any more chaos by convincing him that the assault on the town isn't worth his time. If the players don't do this, Lennithon will eventually leave anyway because fighting a bunch of peasants that just die without giving him any sort of resistance has gotten really old to him.
- Ominous Floating Castle: The climax of Hoard of the Dragon Queen takes place in Skyreach Castle, home of the cloud giant Blagothkus. He has forged an Alliance with the Cult of the Dragon and allows them to store a large portion of the titular hoard in his flying fortress, which can then transport it to the Well of Dragons.
- Passed-Over Promotion: Talis the White was angling to become the Cult's white wyrmspeaker, but she was passed over in favor of her rival Varram. She is not happy about this, and is scheming to sabotage her rivals. She may even go so far as to give the players vital information that will help them thwart Rezmir's plans if they play their cards right.
- Physical God: The players will have to face Tiamat in physical form if they can't prevent Severin's summoning ritual. May the gods help them if she comes through the portal at full power, because she is one of the nastiest critters in all of 5th edition: a CR 30 monster with slightly less health than the Tarrasque, more uses of legendary resistance, complete immunity to all spells of 6th level or lower, recovery of thirty HP every round, and the ability to inflict over 400 points of damage every round between her multiattack and legendary actions. Winning a fight against Tiamat without weakening her first is all but impossible.
- Playing with Fire: Severin exclusively attacks with fire magic.
- Poisonous Person: The green wyrmspeaker Neronvain can create clouds of poisonous gas twice a day, and his physical and magical attacks all inflict poison damage. He is also immune to poison.
- Purple Is Powerful: The highest-ranking members of the Cult of the Dragon are the Wearers of Purple, so named because they wear purple clothes. They are often skilled warriors or powerful spellcasters, and each of the Wearers is meant to be a difficult combat encounter.
- Railroading: Hoard of the Dragon Queen follows an extremely linear plot, with few opportunities for players to deviate from it and do their own thing. Certain events will also take place regardless of the players' actions — for instance, Leosin Erlanthar will escape from the Cult's camp, whether the players choose to help him or not. The Rise of Tiamat is more open-ended, allowing players the freedom to choose the order in which they tackle the adventure's main objectives.
- Refuge in Audacity: Early in the adventure, one of the ways for the heroes to get into the Cult's camp is to just walk straight through it without even attempting to hide their identities or act like they're going to be stopped. This will work this one and only time because the camp is already disorganized, and because the cultists don't expect anyone to be so brazen as to just walk in.
- Relationship Values: In The Rise of Tiamat, the party is brought into multiple councils.
- The Council of Waterdeep has actions the party takes while fighting the Cult of the Dragon affecting the opinions of the various councilors, who represent many of the major factions and kingdoms of the Sword Coast. Impress a councilor enough, and they will commit every force at their disposal to the final battle at the Well of Dragons; otherwise they will commit only a token force to the fight. The book includes a helpful scorecard for the DM to keep track of the party's reputation with each councilor.
- The party also gets brought before a council of five metallic dragons in Rise of Tiamat. Besides what they've done while opposing the Cult, the metallic dragons will hold long-standing grudges and opinions about humanoid races that the party has to work around. For instance, the gold dragon Protanther wants an apology from an elf king if there are any elves in the party, because elves created the dracorage mythal drug that drives dragons insane. The fact that the elf in the player's party had nothing to do with that will fall on deaf ears.
- Retcon: Naergoth Bladelord was a death knight back in 4th edition, but here he is an unusually powerful wight instead. No explanation is given for this discrepancy.
- Rich Bitch: While traveling from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep, one of the potential encounters is an inn that's "full" because a few rich jerks have bought out every room, forcing the players to sleep outside while enduring their taunting. It's said in the DM notes that a few merchants will eventually get fed up with this and attack.
- Seers: The wizard Diderius was a master of divination magic. His tomb, and the divination pool contained therein, is the focus of an episode of The Rise of Tiamat.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: A few elements turn out to be big wastes of time, either for the players or for the Cult itself.
- The wyrmspeaker Varram has lost the white dragon mask, so he travels to the Tomb of Diderius to consult the divination pool there in the hopes of finding the mask. He gets captured by the yuan-ti that have taken over the tomb and will likely end up dead or a prisoner of the players, but before that happened he managed to look at the pool… which showed him that the mask had already been found and reclaimed by other members of the Cult.
- A paranoid cultist stationed at Xonthal's Tower wants to defect and is offering the blue dragon mask in exchange for asylum. The other cultists discover his treachery shortly before the party arrives; by the time the players get past all the tower's defenses and reach the defector, he will be dead. And the dragon mask he died for, which the party went through all that trouble to obtain? It's a fake.
- When the party arrives in Waterdeep, a member of the caravan will accuse one of the player characters of the murder of another merchant, accepting nothing less than the character's head. The player character, regardless of who gets accused, had nothing at all to do with the murder. It was the thieving gnome Gleamsilver, who killed the merchant because he saw her stealing from the caravan and she had to kill him to cover her escape. In any case, the accusing merchant is wrong, and is quite likely to die seeking vengeance on the wrong person.
- Even the bad guys get one during The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, which happens more-or-less regardless of whether the players stop their plans or not. If Severin and Rath Modar successfully summon Tiamat, her first act will be to eat them both while laughing maniacally in spite of everything they did to bring her to the Material Plane in the first place. Tiamat only wants dragons serving her, so even half-dragons or dragonborn are worthless to her. And if the heroes win and either stop the ritual or kill Tiamat, then all that work they did was All for Nothing. Either way, the villains come out of the adventure with nothing but misery to show for it.
- Shared Dream: The player characters get pulled into one when visiting Thay, thanks to Red Wizards becoming Dream Weavers with the "Dream" spell. They engage in some Cold-Blooded Torture of the characters in the dream, which won't actually hurt them in the real world unless they refuse to cooperate. If things go south for the characters, they take psychic damage and wake up from their dream without getting the benefits of a long rest.
- Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: The Red Wizards will pull every player character into a Shared Dream, where the wizards engage in some Cold-Blooded Torture. However, this won't work on any elves or half-elves in the party, because elves and half-elves all have a racial trait where they can't be put to sleep by magic.
- Skewed Priorities: A tiefling sorcerer called Maccath the Crimson is being held prisoner in the Sea of Moving Ice by the white dragon Arauthator, aka "Old White Death". Though she is a prisoner, Maccath has become obsessed with completing Arauthator's challenging magical translations. Like most members of the Arcane Brotherhood, she is dedicated to the point of arrogance, believing that even if she is fated to die as a dragon's plaything, she will have accomplished something magnificent first. As such, the tiefling sets out terms for her own rescue when the player's party finds her, saying that she won't leave the Sea of Moving Ice without bringing along as much of the Arcane Brotherhood's stolen property as she can.
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Spiritual Successor: To the classic Dragonlance series of modules, to the point that adapting this adventure to that setting has been quite popular among longtime D&D fans. - Squishy Wizard: By the standards of cloud giants, Blagothkus is one. He has 138 hit points compared to the typical cloud giant's 200, lower Strength and Constitution scores, weaker saving throws, and less accurate melee attacks. In exchange, he has an arsenal of wizard spells that can inflict high amounts of damage. Mind you, he's still a giant with superhuman levels of strength and durability, so his squishiness is only relative to other giants.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: While traveling from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep, there's a murder of a merchant in the players' group. The killer was good enough to cover their tracks, and while accusations get thrown around, no evidence and no witnesses means the murder has to go unsolved. And when the party gets to Waterdeep, a friend of the dead merchant accuses a player character of the murder in spite of the lack of evidence.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Despite the Enemy Mine situation of the finale, the various allies the players gather don't like each other enough to, at times, work well together. The book mentions that some of them may not be as helpful if put together, such as having Devil allies be near any good aligned group. If the players aren't careful with approaching the finale, their allies can end up losing due to simply not being able to put aside their differences to fight.
- Terrible Artist: Frulam Mondath, a card-carrying member of the Cult of the Dragon, is implied to be a terrible poet. Most of the non-plot-relevant papers on the tables in her chamber are bad poems about dragons.
- The Undead: Some of the Cult's longest-serving members are undead, like the elf vampire Sandesyl and the wight Naergoth Bladelord.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The final episode of The Rise of Tiamat takes place at the Well of Dragons, a Volcano Lair which serves as the Cult's headquarters and is surrounded by their armies of evil mercenaries, giants, devils, and chromatic dragons. In the volcano's caldera stands the Temple of Tiamat, an eldritch castle that exists simultaneously on the Material Plane and in the Nine Hells, where Severin and Rath Modar are conducting their ritual to summon Tiamat.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: The book recommends letting Rath Modar escape from the players at Skyreach Castle by using a fly spell, since he is integral to the plot of The Rise of Tiamat.
- Volcano Lair: The Well of Dragons is an extinct volcano and former dragon graveyard. The Cult took over the place and built a citadel there long before Severin came to power: under his leadership, it serves as the Cult's primary headquarters and the site of their summoning ritual.
- Would Hurt a Child: There are a few dragon eggs that players have to deal with in the Cult of the Dragon's camp. One option is to just smash the eggs and kill the baby dragons before they're born. There's even DM notes that say that the baby dragons pitifully try to breathe for a few minutes before dying, intending to make the players feel bad about it.
- Wrong Assumption: After Leosin Erlanthar escapes from the Cult of the Dragon's base camp and gets back to Greenest (whether the party helped him do it or not), Leosin says that he doesn't think the party needs to head back to the Cult's camp right away. Leosin is wrong about this; after Leosin correctly guessed that the Cult was going to hit Greenest next, his presence spooked the Wearers of Purple enough that they put their plan into motion early. By the time the party gets back to the camp, it's almost entirely empty.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: If Severin and Rath Modar successfully summon Tiamat, her first act will be to eat them both while laughing maniacally.
DISCLAIMER: Under no circumstances shall the Cult of the Dragon or its adherents, affiliates, partners, licensors, or thralls (enchanted or otherwise) be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or cataclysmic damages to the Material Plane, its features, denizens, geographies, spheres, or natural laws, arising from the acts, incarnations, servants, and ruinous whims of Tiamat, Queen of Dragons. Those seeking to avoid abject draconic annihilation should relocate to the nearest convenient afterlife or just try and stop us.
