So there are ash zombies in Thundertree as remnants of Mount Hotenow’s eruption.

There are dragon cultists in Thundertree because the Cult of the Dragon sent envoys to curry favor with the young green dragon residing there.

And there are twig blights in Thundertree because, uh. Hmmm…

I needed an explanation for this phenomenon, so I linked the presence of Thundertree’s twig blights to the two Gulthias Trees in the region and then created an adventure hook with Venomfang as the quest-giver to tie it all together. But what if blights aren’t your thing?

Replace the twig blights with kobolds.

They make sense narratively, since Kobolds are known to serve dragons and worship them as gods.

Like twig blights, kobolds have a challenge rating of CR 1/8, so there’s no need to adjust encounter difficulty. It’s a straight-up swap.

Kobolds are tribal, which explains why there’d be 24 of them in Thundertree. More, if you decided to swap out the dragon cultists with more kobolds (or variants, like winged kobolds from the Monster Manual, or the other choices presented in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Flee Mortals).

Overwhelm the party with Kobolds upon entering Thundertree. Have the kobolds come at them in waves, restraining the characters, disarming them, or bludgeoning them into 0 hp senselessness so that they are captured, and then in some dramatic moment, presented to Venomfang, who sleepily cranes his neck over the parapets of the ruined wizard tower to find out what his annoying underlings are banging on about.

Venomfang isn’t hungry. He’s still digesting the dragon cultists that came through town last week. But there are giant spiders in the ruined store and ash zombies in the old garrison to contend with. Both taste terrible, and it might be fun to watch some captives deal with each threat armed only with rocks or makeshift clubs.

And if these captives survive those perils?

Perhaps they can deal with the Gulthias Tree that’s making all of those blights in the Neverwinter Wood, forcing Venomfang to reside in a dump like Thundertree.

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