#Rise of Tiamat Campaign

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

how it started:

how it's going:

[okamiryn]

My pretty Tiefling lady, Thalassa. A Rogue.

Lassie + art (c) me

[aenramsden]

The following is not my idea; it was the original brainchild of a friend of mine named Omicron, with help from various others including EarthScorpion, TenfoldShields, @havocfett and ShintheNinja:

So, you know what I want to do one day? Run (or play in) a D&D campaign in which the Big Bad Super Dragon that is fuckoff ancient and unfathomably powerful and whose actions have shaped history and bent the course of nations and had repercussions on the whole culture and society in the region where it's set; the Bonus Special Boss for some endgame optional quest after you defeat the direct BBEG and win the campaign...

... is a white dragon.

To explain this for people not deep into 5e monster lore; D&D dragons are sapient beings, and known for their instincts and tendencies, and whenever you meet an big evil dragon that's really old it's usually this ancient creature of terrible intellect Smaug-ing it up all over the place.

Except white dragons are fucking stupid. Like, they're still capable of speech and thought! They're just… feral, hungry morons. And you almost never see them portrayed as ancient wyrms for that reason; they lack majesty. Critical Role did it, yes, but even then, Vorugal is explicitly the most bestial member of the Chroma Conclave, and the others are the more intelligent planners and long-term threats. An ancient white as a nation-defining endboss, though; not a thug for a smarter master but as the strongest and biggest threat around is just not the sort of thing you tend to see.

Adventurers: "Oh wise Therunax the Munificent, gold dragon of Law and Good, what can you tell us adventurers of the evil dragons which rule this land?" Therunax the Munificent, 500-year old Gold Dragon: "Good adventurers, know this: this land is torn apart by the evil of Tiamat's spawn. The eastern marches are the dwelling of Furinar the Plague-Bringer, black dragoness whose hoard is a thousand sicknesses contained in the body of her tributes. The southern volcanic mountains are the roosting of Angrar the Wrathful, the fiery red dragon, who brings magmatic fury on all who do not worship him. And the northern peaks are home to Face-Biter Mike, the oldest and most powerful of all, of whom I dread to speak." Adventurers: "F-Face-Biter Mike???" Therunax: "Oh yes, verily indeed; two thousand years has Mike lived, and his eyes have seen the rise and fall of five empires, and a hundred and score champions have sought to slay him; and each and every one he bit their fucking face off."

Like... I want to see a campaign where Face-Biter Mike is genuinely the most powerful dragon in the region, if not the entire world. Where sometimes he descends on a city to grab himself some meatsicles and causes a localised ice age by the beat of his vast wings and the frigid wastes of his mighty breath and by the chill his mere presence brings to everything for miles around him, and everyone just has to deal with that for the next decade. An entire era of civilization comes to an end, an empire falls, tens of thousands starve in the winter, all because Mike wanted a snack. Where his hoard is an unfathomably vast mass of jewels and artefacts and precious stones frozen in an unmelting glacier, except he is a nouveau riche idiot with fuckall appraising skill, so half of his hoard is coloured glass or worthless knicknacks, and he doesn't give a shit.

"Your Draconic Majesty, this crown is… It's pyrite." "Yeah, well, it's brighter than this dusty old thing made out of real gold, it's my new best treasure. Throw the other one away." "…throw the Burnished Tiara of Bahamut, forged in the First Age of Man, your majesty???" "See? I can't even remember its fucking name." "But my lord-" "DO YOU WANT TO BE A MEATSICLE" "…I will fetch a trash bag, your majesty."

But at the same time, he's not stupid, he's just simple, and in some ways that makes him more dangerous than the usual kinds of scheming Big Bad you see in these things, while simultaneously justifying why Orcus remains on his throne (because he's lazy). Face-Biter Mike doesn't make convoluted plans or run labyrinthine schemes; he just has a talent for violence and a pragmatic, straightforward approach to turning any kind of problem he struggles with into a problem that can be resolved with violence. Face-Biter Mike has one talent and it's horrifying physical power, so his approach to any complicated problem is "how do I turn this into a situation where I can fly down and bite this dude's face off?" with absolutely no regard for the collateral damage or consequences of doing so, because those are also things he can turn into face-bitable problems.

"My lord, the dread necromancer Nikodemion is using his undead dragons to attempt a conquest of the eastern kingdom; his agents are everywhere, his plans are centuries in the making, what can we do against such a mastermind?" "I'm gonna fly over the capital and eat the eastern king." "M-my lord???" "The kingdom will collapse without leadership, Nikodemion will win his war, he'll take the capital and crown himself king." "And that helps us… how?" "Once he does I'll fly over to the capital and eat him." "…" "This is why you advisors all suck. You're all about convoluted plans when the only thing I need to win is know where my enemy is so I can fly down there and eat him. Stop overthinking things."

And, like, yeah, it's a simplistic plan, but when you're several hundred tons of nigh invincible magical death, you don't need brilliant strategy; the smartest way to win a war is, in this case, the simplest. He's not even all that clever at figuring out the consequences of face-biting, he's just memorised the common consequences of doing so.

(If you want to go all in on Mike being the major mover and shaker in the region; Nikodemion only even has a pet zombie dragon because Mike killed the last dragon to show up and contest his turf but wasn't going to eat a whole dragon by himself. Nikodemion got to stick around and amass that much power because Mike ate the Hero of the Realm while he was adventuring because he figured the Hero would come and try to slay him at some point. Nikodemion got started because Mike ate half the leadership of the Academy of High Magic who typically keep evil wizards and necromancers in check. And then eventually this product of Mike's casual, careless actions becomes a big enough problem to bother Mike personally, at which point Mike eats him too.)

He doesn't even really fail upwards, either! He is regularly reduced to nothing but the glacier he stores his hoard in, but he's Face-Biter Mike so nobody wants to commit to actually ending him forever lest they get their faces bitten the fuck off. And his hoard's in a huge-ass magical glacier so nobody can get to it without running into the Invading Russia problem; it's hard to wage war when everything is frozen over and you're both starving and freezing to death. Once he's been beaten back to his central lair and has lost all his holdings… I mean, he's still a problem, but he's a far away problem. So he loses his assets and spends a decade in a cave brooding it up while no one dares risk trying to actually kill him, and then a generation or two later he flies down to a kobold colony and gets himself some minions, or a dragon-worshipping mage comes to offer his service against a pittance from his hoard, or a particularly stupid cult starts thinking they can get in good with him and leech off his power, and then he's (hah) snowballing again.

He's also got a very… well, the kind of weird Charisma that Grineer bosses do. Like Sargas Ruk, who's a malformed idiot, but oddly charismatic. As he's a dragon, that makes him a natural sorcerer and thus Charisma is all he needs. He's pretty relaxed when he isn't in a face-biting mood, and he's kind of infectiously optimistic, because his life has taught him that he will succeed as long as he perseveres. So he just believes it.

And sometimes that's really refreshing to work for, as an evil minion of darkness! It's like, you're coming to your Evil Dragon Lord with terrible news; you've worked for evil overlords before, you know how it goes. You fall to your knees weeping and tell him that you've failed to seize the incredibly powerful magical artifact, you think your life is forfeit. And he's just like "Eh, it's okay, these things are all over the place. Better luck next time. You remember the guy who took it, right?" and you go "Y-yes, oh great lord!" and he's like "Sweet tell me his name later and I'll grab it" and then eats a frozen adventurer he kept around as a snack.

His followers tend to quickly realise that if they fail him, bringing some temple's silver or a sack of brightly coloured beads or a couple of dead cows means he's super forgiving because at least he's got something out of the day. "Oh boy, cows? It's been forever since I had those, ever since the Orc Steppe Nomads took over it's all about goats and onions. Today is a good day." He's a master of delegation by dragon standards, in that he just tells you "Just go get it done, I don't care how" rather than micromanaging you and constantly appearing as an image in smoke or taking over your campfire.

The key part of Face-Biter Mike as a threat to players (because he exists in the context of a D&D campaign) works well in that you can rely on several known quantities:

He will not pull sneaky shit that you don't see coming

He will not make convoluted plans that you must work to unravel

He will consistently attempt to come down and wreck you personally if he finds the opportunity and you are a threat to him

You cannot fight him head-on (at least not until the last leg of the campaign, and ideally as an optional boss rather than mandatory)

So as long as you are good at staying under the radar, thwarting his minions (whom he gives broad orders to with almost zero oversight) and not putting yourself in face-biting range, you can deal with him. If you succeed, it won't be the first time Mike has lost his assets and had to go brood in his glacier for a decade or two before rebuilding. It happens; he can deal with it. And that's a win for you within the context of a single campaign, so take the win.

And if you're not going to use him as an enemy, he works pretty well as a quest-giver, too! The costs for failure are obvious and straightforward, and "do whatever, just get me mine" means that players have a lot of freedom in accomplishing their goals. As far as evil overlords go he is actually one of the least dangerous to work for; his pride is relatively subdued by draconic standards, his goals are simple and typically achievable, and he is easily pleased.

(There's also a good chance he is the forefather of any draconic sorcerer in your party, because Face Biter Mike is a deadbeat dad.)

[vivi-the-goblin]

Sorcerer time! First time I've ever finished a video and not posted it immediately, trying to ease myself into doing things in advance. That way I can build stockpiles, and eventually maybe give an early viewing benefit to Ko-fi people. Anyway, one of my top 3 classes, right up there with Artificer and Druid. Metamagic is so fun, and while earlier subclasses often need a bit of tweaking I honestly love doing that anyway XD

By the way, a while back I made my own wild magic chart for my old Rise of Tiamat campaign. Some ideas are mine, some stolen off other lists on reddit and such (wish I'd kept track of which were which). if it interests you any.

[syrips]

Other People's Adored OC/PC list (loosely alphabetical)

hi im making this to add in other peoples' ocs/pcs. if you want me to gush about your character or do art of them please reply/DM/message me/let me know and ill add to the list. also i wont do nsfw art of them unless with your explicit/direct permission!!

Achlys Ghost-Speaker - @ immortalarizona (CoS)

Adran Farith - Imperial (CoS2)

Aihara Cannolis - @ razeshepard (GURPS. WP:CS.)*

Caden Lamorak - Kaiser (CoS2)*

Captain Darryl Shepard - @ razeshepard (GURPS)*

Cathus Deldrach - Kaiser (RoT)*

Cayn - @ razeshepard (GURPS. WP - 1. WG.)*

Chester - Mango (CoS2)

Cryxafil - Kaiser (TSC)*

Dharosa - Kaiser (WP:CS)*

Duke L'Orange - @ kidheart (CoS)

Ezra Sunstar - @ mx-lamour (CoS)

Faire Lira - @ chronoscalamity (CoS2)*

Gristle Soot Beard - Kaiser (SwI)*

Itamachi - @ razeshepard (WP:PC)*

Kasia of St. Andral - @ lemonsdaily (CoS)

Lugh Varrenguard - @ razeshepard (CoS2)*

Mori - Kaiser (DL:SotDQ)*

Notac - @ razeshepard (GURPS)*

Ozan Varrenguard - @ razeshepard (CoS1. CoS2.)*

Reagan - Kaiser (WP1)*

Reccet - Kaiser (WG)*

Saer'llith Dyrr - @ theseusdevorak (CoS)*

Silas Xavier - @ mxvanrichten (CoS)*

Tree Guy - Kaiser (WP:PC)*

Taltos Vasha - @ chronoscalamity (CoS2)

Verafim Razori - @ razeshepard (GURPS)*

Viola Varrenguard - @ razeshepard (CoS2. PF.)*

Irl Stuff (Vtuber / In Game Name / Username)

Keita - @ / razeshepard

list of 'what stuff means' i forgot the name for that

CoS = Curse of Strahd campaign. Syrips is not DM

CoS # = Curse of Strahd campaign, numbered. Syrips is DM

DL = Dragonlance

DL:SotDQ = DL: Shadow of the Dragon Queen

GURPS = umbrella term for other campaigns under GURPSystem

PF = umbrella term for other campaigns under Pathfinder system

RL = Ravenloft

RoT = Rise of Tiamat

SwI = Stormwreck Isle

TSC = The Sunless Citadel

WG = Weazel is DM

WP = Winged Paradise world, created by Syrips

WP # = WP campaign, numbered. Syrips is DM

WP:PC = WP: Prison Campaign under GURPSystem

WP:SC = WP: Cyberpunk Strahd under D&D 5e system

little star thingy* = Syrips has permission for nsfw fan stuff

OCs/PCs I adore but the op/artist didnt request / doesnt know about this list (aka i put them here just for organization purposes)

Caladium - @ secondsundering

Ezra Vilisevic - @ guardianinthemist (CoS)

Faline - @ todderwodders

Helene Crow Stoneraven - @ crowholtz (RL)

Immren - @ astarionz

Jack Punch - @ victorgrwrites

Tino - @ luinen-bluewater

Vex - @ laezels

Virgil - @ gravedigg

Zenith - @ feniksido

See Also: syrips OC/PC list (loosely alphabetical)

[star-dragon-art]

Astarion quirks and eybrow "Not very romantic to compare me to your brother."

Strawberry sighs. Man, shut up. He got picked up by some... unsavory people and was forced to sell himself. And now that he's out of there, he still does it because that's the only way he knows how to get his way. So like. I get it. I get why you do things. I'm not mad at you... maybe a little mad. But I get it. I know what hurts you and it sucks to know that you used me because you felt like you had to.

"... "

I didn't even want to sleep with you the first time. I was just gonna lay low in your tent so Minthara would... go away.

Astarion drags a hand down his face. "...Sorry. I... I wish this could have gone differently. Better. I... did like being with you. You were gentle. I wasn't used to that. I guess I'm still not."

Strawberry looks down at the ground, arms still crossed. You deserve someone better than me anyways. Someone who'll last longer. I'm gonna have like five different powerful beings fighting over my corpse by the end of this.

"We'll kill all those beings, just like Cazador. So you won't belong to anyone."

Strawberry closes his eyes and smiles. We can try.

----------

Some uhhhh failed romance Astarion/Tav! I missed the act 2 romance scene so he broke up with me in act 3. But it led to some interesting and emotionally complicated interactions. Especially since I went into this playthrough (my first) with one of my existing dnd characters with some extensive backstory. Strawberry feels for Astarion. Whether or not they are romantically together, this stupid vampire feels like family to him and he's getting adopted.

Strawberry's brother, Bailey, for reference. Played him in a Rise of Tiamat campaign:

he learned true polymorph and proceeded to make pegasi an invasive species on the material plane.

[vikintor]

Notes about my character design: confessions, how and why Githyanki influences my work, personal experiences, silly ideas, My games, and more I guess

If you don't follow me and just found this I have something to say first: Be welcome, hope this text doest sound pretentious, I'm Vikintor, I made some obscure games (Teocida, Tamashii and Estigma), they're available on Steam and consoles as well.

You might notice that my "original" character designs are being heavily influenced by the Githyanki these days, especially their "classic" designs from Fiend Folio to "Rise of the Githyanki" published in Polyhedron and "Knights of the lich-Queen" in Dungeon Magazine, and of course, mixed a little with what I call "modern" design (I also like how the Githzerai give me Jedi vibes, yes, Jedi from Star Wars). The less human it looks while maintaining some human proportions, the better. And that's why I love the old "classic" alienish designs the most.

Why D&D Gith's?

Confession time; I never really cared that much about Dungeons & Dragons before I discovered the Githyanki, and they're the only race in D&D that I actually care about, especially for the storytelling and roleplay possibilities based on their lore. As someone who favorite character designs ranges from D'vorah from Mortal Kombat, Undyne from Undertale, to Lilith from Diablo, liking the look of the classic Gith was easy for me, and boe they are rad.

Quick context on who they are (you can skip if you know them or don't care):

Githianky are a D&D race know as humanoid creatures (mostly gray, green and yellow skin toned) with a rigid militaristic background. Raised to serve their Lich-Queen and destined to die for her (and by her, but some don't know that part). They were slaves of an illithid empire in the past and after being led to freendom by Gith (A woman named Gith, there's no Gith races before her), their race was splited in two; The Githyanki believes they are the real children of Gith and the Githzerai believes the Githyanki still slaves, not from illithid but the queen. plus: Githianky live in cities build on the corpses of fallen deities (that's metal).

Most of the Githyanki are considered evil, as some go on raid campaigns to steal from another planes (they love precious stones and gold, and they can be seem as pirates, but instead of ships they ride red dragons thanks to a pact made with Tiamat). Their complexity creates a bunch of What-If scenarios that I'm interested in: like; did you know that religion is forbidden to the Githyanki (Only Lich-Queen Clerics are permitted), but many of them secretly worship other gods. And how crime and punishment works on their society (kinda don't works at all, so a lot of them are afraid to look for justice), and how Githyanki monks exists in their society but faces prejudice (Githaynki monks are often seem as Githzerai spies), And you have stories about the Gith rebels that believes the Githyanki and Githzerai can be unified as only "children of Gith", as the same time their leader is way too controvertial and self-centered, and how some of these rebels befriend humans (which is a taboo), or how their society hates every non-Githyanki but are polite and refined among their own kind, which is often confusing and complex as they are known for their aggressive propaganda among themselves and how they kill each other during their insane militaristic raising. They also often do parties, play and write songs and have fun, there's also half-Githyanki/half-dragons superwarriors created in a secret experiment led by the Lich-queen (those don't care about the Githyanki society and aren't friendly to them), and them you still have the Githzerai (neutral Gith monks that despise the Lich-Queen and have their own society and traditions) and the Githvy (rogue Gith's that aren't Githyanki or Githzeray, who often tries to live among other races).

Ahh?

Of course I don't know everything about them and maybe there is some misinterpretation on my part, some of the content was created over the years and unfortunately most of it was never published or translated into my idiom, so I have to translate it myself, but I'm not writing this to convince people to like them as much as I do. I'm sharing this to bring out what and how it inspired me.

So, what this have to do with me?

As someone who likes weird ambiguous characters and enjoys fantasizing with what-if scenarios; discovering that lore on D&D made me realize how much prejudice I had with D&D. If you say to me "This rpg race is totally evil or totally good" I can only answer: "Impossible. Individual characters are more complex than that, I want to explore the exceptions". If all are evil, I want some trying to discover what means to be good, and want some to fail miserable, and want some to learn something from that experience, if they're all serious, I want some to be silly and weird.

I'm far from a real writer (whatever that means), but I like fantasizing about atypical situations and writing about them, which is why I wrote neutral demon-like creatures for Tamashii and Teocida in the first place, even when I still lacked more maturity for that. I'm also interested in these exceptions in rpg lore and improving those aspects as I write about them, which is why D&D Githyanki inspired my current design.

But how it inspired me:

Just like many fantasy stories were created during sessions of tabletop RPG campaigns, I became interested in Gith-exclusive games thanks to discovering content like Fiend Folio and "Rise of the Githyanki" and "Knights of the Lich-Queen" (both Gith centred games focused on Gith players, with few exceptions), which is why I became way more obsessed with them. And damm, a videogame like BG3 having Githianky as a playable race is everything I hoped for (I'm not interested in BG4 if there's not a single playable Gith race. I just want to keep creating weird Gith girl characters and make them break things and form a band named Githgang), but I'm not here to talk about BG3, sorry.

So Gith's was my first inspiration to write my own RPG races with their own language, traditions, dogma, taboos, and designs. I think about how something like this could happen in the universe I've been working on since Tamashii. But I'm not going for something complex, but rather thinking about characters that I would create for my Gith campaigns could be another type of character if I create them in another position, another world with different laws, instead of just roleplaying as Githanky forever.

As I can't write Githyanki characters without it being some sort of fanfic (my fault for not going for something more common like wizards, orcs and gnomes), I still at least being inspired by them.

After reading a bunch to roleplay as Gith characters or just to fantasize about it, their personalities, and how they react to the world still something that is organically created while I'm assuming that character and playing around, this doesn't need to be bound to a specific lore. I'm being redundant at this point, but you get the idea, that's how the brazilian character Ozob was created in the 90's (He was a character created during a Cyberpunk tabletop RPG session, and then became an original character with books and merchandize in Brazil until CD Projekt Red got the rights to put him in the Cyberpunk 2077 for real)

Therefore, I can say that part of what may come in the future is the result of my experiences and inspirations with D&D mixed with all my other inspirations, such as H.R Giger, biomechanical horror, Screaming Mad George's style body horror, esoteric/exoteric references, industrial music and atmospheric, creepypasta, etc. It might be weird, or not, maybe a little silly or edgy as always, but I don't know what to do besides accepting the results, keep moving forward, and have fun in the process.

The first character as an Avatar:

"Astral of Latanael" still a working name for the first character I made inspired by Gith. The draft for her is: She is a Mhold'eze, a zombie-like servant bonded to her preceptor, a necromancer who serves as her mentor. Mhold'ezes inherit part of their master's powers and are often used as an extension of their master's will where they cannot be present, always receiving an important task, or mission as soon as they are born (like Feucirl and Pleroma of Teocida, except that Pleroma is not a necromancer). This is the first draft of the original character that I'm using as an avatar, but I do plan to work more on this silly lady and Latanael (her Necromancer) to include them in my game, or games, or more than that. It depends of what I decided.

Ok, just a quick look on how Astral looks right now, before I made more changes.

Congrats if you read until here, I'm surprised if you really read more than 1500 words of some weird dude talking about why silly D&D "pirates" inspired him to keep creating more silly weird angry girl characters.

[david-goldrock]

My players want to play an evil campaign now do they?

my prompt:

Tiamat, mother of dragons, queen of the nine hells, is trying to bring her devastation to faerun, but she is weak and frail. Her cultists ravage faerun, going city after city, collecting human sacrifice, treasure, and territory. In a small town called Raiora, they find 3 teenagers hiding in the burnt ruins, each with immense potential. be it their hate, greed, blood thirst or vengeance, the cult recruits them into their ranks Now they are sent on quests, hoping one day to rise enough in the ranks to commander the army of Tiamat, on the day she will breach into this world

[torrick17]

Something I find to be a crime -

WHY IS THERE NO FAN ART OF DELAAN WINTERHOUND FROM RISE OF TIAMAT?!

Does no one like a cursed hot super tall ranger elf with a WOLF for a companion?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH Y’ALL. As soon as I met him in my campaign, my Fallen Aasimar Pirate Barbarian, Lessnera, immediately was like ✨I’m gonna flirt the shit outta that man✨

JUSTICE FOR DELAAN!

[elminsters]

okay i'm actually struggling with how to structure the cult for eurydice's post-game so i'm asking for advice. my options are a) to use the canon wyrmspeakers (head cultists), ignoring that some of them died during the rise of tiamat campaign, b) axe the canon cultists all together and assume they were replaced after the events of ROT, or c) use some canon and some replacements

[thuranni]

it's important to me that tyranny of dragons when i run it is a new game from the last time i ran it. two of the four players were only in for a fourth of the back half, i only ran rise of tiamat since i didn't actually own hoard of the dragon queen, and i have a chance to write a completely different story in running it from hotd forwards which i am excited about! but man did i also just find player notes from the biggest reveal of the campaign from when i ran rise of tiamat and wow that was a story, too.

[okamiryn]

How about a woman made of porcelain for spooky season? She's a Forger Cleric in my D&D game. Named Lyra Coppélia, after the play. Lyra + art (c) me

[rclldamage]

WANTED PLOT. Long-term. Tyranny of the Dragons.

For years, the evil Cult of the Dragon has devoted itself to creating undead dragons in a vain attempt to fulfill an ancient prophecy. However, the cultists were misguided. They misunderstood. But now, under new leadership, the cult believes that the prophecy does not speak of undead dragons, but of a dragon empire that's been extinct for 25,000 years. Tiamat, the queen of evil dragons, has languished in the Nine Hells for millennia. The cult believes that the time of her return is at hand. The cult has a new face and a new mission. It seeks to free Tiamat from the Nine Hells and bring her into the Forgotten Realms. To accomplish its goal, the cult needs five ancient dragon masks and the support of evil dragons everywhere. The cult leaders—each one a "dragon whisperer"—have reached out to the evil dragons of the Sword Coast and earned their allegiance. Meanwhile, evil dragons in partnership with the cult seek to amass a treasure hoard worthy of their dark queen, not by plundering their own hoards (of course) but by stealing money from cities, caravans, good-aligned dragons, merchant ships, and other sources. Their ravenous hunt for treasure throws the Sword Coast into upheaval. Neverwinter, Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate—no city is safe from their depredations. The situation is dire. However, the Sword Coast is far from defenseless. Powerful factions are ready to rise up and put an end to the tyranny of dragons. Adventurers throughout the Realms must join forces to face Tiamat, destroy the Cult of the Dragon, and prevent the rise of a new dragon empire. The Harpers have since shared their intelligence with the remaining factions. To combat the Cult of the Dragon, Lord Dagult Neverember of Neverwinter proposes that adventurers representing each of the five factions be sent north to investigate—and to report back with haste. In their hands, the future lies.

Summary: We grab the source book and work together to write out the story with our muses, making up a couple of party NPCs and run through the entire campaign together via threads. Just being DM's together and talking about the NPCs and how they'd work into the threads. Teamwork makes the RP work, mates. (Uh, be warned but the ending of this modular is a biit hard and our characters could die).

[atlas-infernalis]

Tiamat, Lady of the First, Overseer of Avernus

Legends told by Dragons themselves state that the ancient Dragon God, Io was slain by Erek-Hus—a Primordial Lord of Chaos—during the Dawn War between Gods and Primordials at the beginning of creation. From the slain body of Io, it is said that the spilled blood droplets formed the first Dragons and that the flesh that Erek-Hus had cleaved in twain immediately reformed itself as the Gods Bahamut and Tiamat. Both halves teamed up for the first and only time in all of existence to overwhelm and defeat Erek-Hus in a second round of combat.

Legends of Tiamat’s fate after this battle are conflicting, but it is generally believed that after this period, Tiamat went on to attempt to slay the rebellious Giants that still populated Toril and that still warred against the Gods on behalf of their defeated Primordial progenitors. Many of the Gods, resentful of the Giants as reminders of a time when they attempted to collaborate in creation with the Primordials and fearful they could eradicate their own created races of mortals allowed Tiamat to wage her campaign of brutality unimpeded, feigning a blind eye. However, they soon came to fear Tiamat and her Dragon armies when it became apparent that they possessed a power even more potent than the Giants had and that many of these freshly birthed Dragons had—much like their queen, Tiamat—an innate and unquenchable thirst for power, dominion, and riches.

Interceding on behalf of righteous Dragons, Bahamut entreated the other Gods to not smite all of dragonkind for the brutality and crimes of his twin sister and her armies. Instead, he proposed, if she wished to wage war against the Primordials and wished for power, why not allow her to wreak destruction within the nascent Abyss where even greater threats to life, creation, and the Gods themselves were being born? The Archdevil Asmodeus—having recently inked the Pact Primeval with the Gods—needed powerful forces to help him keep the Demons of the Abyss occupied in the ongoing Blood War, and Tiamat craved power, riches, and bloodshed.

The proposal—surprisingly—pleased all involved parties. The Gods no longer viewed Giants as a threat and even felt a sense of shame for how vicious a massacre they had allowed Tiamat to pursue. Asmodeus welcomed a dangerous new underling and took pride in subjugating a truly ferocious Goddess under his military command. Tiamat welcomed the glory, spoils, and fear that waging war in the Hells of Baator would bring her and the power she would gain from being able to harvest wicked souls. Moreover, she welcomed the fealty of those Dragons who wished to continue similar acts of conquest and evil on her behalf, all of them giving rise to the modern Chromatic Dragons. Similarly, Bahamut took comfort and satisfaction in sparing himself and the rest of Dragonkind from extinction by the other Gods and in his new following of righteous and noble Dragons who would become the forebears of Metallic Dragons.

Unfortunately for Tiamat, the agreement she signed with Asmodeus was not without its unfair and misleading clauses. While she had agreed that she would—in exchange for her service as the general of the Devils’ vanguard—reside in and rule over the first layer of the Nine Hells of the plane of Baator, Avernus for all eternity and that she would answer to the orders of Asmodeus to carry out his wishes and strategies, this ultimately tied her to his will and deprived her of any respite and any hope to escape from The Nine Hells and the eternal Blood War between Demons and Devils. Additionally, while godhood offered her some degree of relative immortality via the high probability she would just be reincarnated in another, similar form if slain, becoming an Archdevil and the Lady of the 1st meant that she could be slain outright by the same means as any other Devil: killing her anywhere on Baator. This meant both that her life was always slightly at risk and that she could never truly enjoy her riches and her palace in Avernus because it was always far safer for her to wage war in the maddening and truly wretched reaches of the Abyss than it was for her to be present in the Nine Hells.

Understandably resentful of this, Tiamat began to seek agents to spread her faith further to mortal races across Toril in hopes that the worship of enough mortal souls would grant her power enough to escape the Hells and her indentured servitude to Asmodeus. Her cult’s agents promised that those mortals who swore fealty to Tiamat and to Chromatic Dragon rulers would be spared their wrath and destruction once Tiamat was finally freed from the Hells and that the most devout and devoted to her cause would be given great riches and lordships of their own under various Dragon Princes. Surprisingly, many evil mortals with little else to lose and few other prospects joined this campaign and created powerful armies for her cult, but they were ultimately thwarted by heroic adventurers.

Still begrudgingly, unwillingly confined to rulership over Avernus and subservience to Asmodeus, Tiamat now suffers even more for her failed escape attempt and her insubordination, her main body being restrained with all but one of her five heads held under the waters of the River Styx while her essence is divided amongst many identical Aspects who actually enact the orders given to her by Asmodeus. This punishment, while both cruel and disorienting for her, also serves a secondary purpose: to cleanse her mind of any memory of ever having been anything but a servant to Asmodeus. The waters of the River Styx cause amnesia for all who touch them for too long, even Gods and Goddesses, and Asmodeus’ punishment for the rebellious Dragon Queen is engineered to hopefully cause Tiamat permanent loss of memory and identity. Unfortunately for him, Tiamat’s cultists are less under his control than she is, and they still vie to free her from Avernus and the whole of Baator before it is too late for her to be anything more than a hollow, Archdevil shell of her former self.

Dazed as she is from this punishment and constantly plied with dubious and manipulative suggestions by Pit Fiends and Amnizu Devils sent by Asmodeus himself, Tiamat’s Aspects remain wholly unaware that there is any reason to mind her true body’s imprisonment in the River Styx and instead dutifully carry out the orders given to them by Asmodeus’ messengers. To this end, any time an Aspect of Tiamat materializes at present, it is typically with the goal of making Avernus even more hostile and warlike or of inadvertently depriving Tiamat of some resource that would help her escape her current fate.

With regards to the first goal, the culture of the Devils of Avernus has become even more fiercely warlike, constructing truly devious and merciless traps, reinforcing already impregnable fortresses, and executing the weakest amongst any unfamiliar faces found across the plane while forcefully conscripting the strongest into service as enslaved knights at the front lines of the hellish campaigns against invading Demons of the Abyss. Rumor holds that some remnant of Tiamat’s true self still persists and that she at least honors those unfortunate mortals pressed into her service who do exceptionally well against the Demonic hordes with prompt promotion to higher ranks within Devilish society once they are finally slain in combat.

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Back and Better Than Ever

Hello! I’m Desmond and I’m a dungeon master/game master and a graduate student studying fan studies and specifically fan archives. I know I’m mostly shouting into the void right now, but if I’m not- hi, hello, how are you!

I’m currently DM-ing Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos for a 6 person party that calls themselves The Loose Ends. I love recounting their chaotic endeavors, so that’s probably going to be a lot of what I write about. This version of Strixhaven University takes place in the Eberron campaign setting (shoutout to the unofficial god of D&D, Keith Baker) that I’ve been playing in with this group for the past 2.5 years now! 

The table’s adventures (first party was The Mistakes [Curse of Strahd and Rise of Tiamat] and the second was The Placeholders [homebrew adventure]) has changed a lot about that Eberron- chiefly that the Mourning was reversed and Cyre is in its second renaissance as it bounces back from certain death. I’ll talk about who these characters were/are and what my Eberron looks like now sometime in the future.

My studies are rooted in fan culture and fan archives- which includes AO3 chiefly, as well as communities on Tumblr! I’m in the throes of writing my thesis, so I might not touch on that as much, but idk!

I am someone who is shifting a focus back to Tumblr after the collapse of Twitter, but I’m certainly not new to this platform- I’ve been here for the past decade with varying levels of interaction- but I’m looking forward to taking the time to build this blog from scratch!

Anyways- if you’ve read this far, thanks for doing so! See y’all around!

[thighholsterofsexualfrustration]

Oh god...

I'm running the final fight of Rise of Tiamat tonight.

4.5 years of the first campaign I've ever run with some of the best friends I've ever had.

I feel like I can't breathe. I just hope my friends have had fun. Someone wish me luck.