Earlier this month, I shared my thoughts on how to get the characters from Dragon of Icespire Peak to other adventures listed at the end of the module. I gave an example of how Dungeon Masters might use the Altar of Fate located at the Shrine of Savras to show visions of what awaited them in the land of Barovia (since Curse of Strahd was one of the recommended adventures to transition to).

Let’s try that exercise again. Today, let’s do Tyranny of Dragons.

Sergeant Markguth of Greenest has been in Phandalin for nearly a tenday when the characters are introduced to him in the common room of the Stonehill Inn. He traveled to the area with a squad of guards under his command, but the Triboar Trail is a dangerous place, and only a few of the members in his company survived the journey.

Now in need of mercenaries to help him accomplish his errand, Markguth had no choice but a detour to Phandalin in the hope of finding swords to hire.

Phandalin is a lonnng way from Greenest. Several weeks travel to the south and east. What brings Markguth, the Sergeant of Governor Nighthill’s household guard this far north?

An auto-loading crossbow platform commissioned by Governor Tarbaw Nighthill for the defense of Greenest’s keep, which has been engineered by the residents of Gnomengarde.

If the characters choose to extend their services to Sergeant Markguth, they arrive at Gnomengarde to find that King Korboz has flipped his wig, and the gnome charged with the construction of the auto-loading crossbow platform has gone postal.

Whether all of this insanity is due to a mimic and overwork or the influence of Zaggtmoy’s minions is up to the Dungeon Master. But someone has to help Markguth retrieve that auto-loading crossbow platform and then help him get it back to Greenest.

Once the Gnomengarde side quest is behind the characters, it’s off to Tyranny of Dragons, only to find that Greenest could really use that auto-loading crossbow platform in defense of the town while there’s a young blue dragon wheeling around in the sky as goblins and cultists burn and pillage the town below.

Is it too late for the weapon to make a difference? Can it even be assembled in time?

Or will the characters just need to roll up their sleeves, roll initiative against whatever marauders they encounter, and take care of business the hard way?

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