This is so helpful! It's easy to have the hub town fall to the wayside and be the boring "rest stop" but there's a lot in Dragon's Rest to keep it going, and the tips you give make it a lot easier to juggle them and keep it rolling than it would be normally.
I ended my first session in dragons rest where Runara invites them for dinner. But because the wizard detected powerfull magic from Runara, 1 of the players is convinced they get poisoned food at the dinner :) (while I planned to introduce them to the 2 quests there ) :)
Great tip on giving Tarak’s backstory in parts. I made the mistake of trying to get his whole story out on the first meeting, testing my players’ patience!
the way i hanlded the 9 kobolds is just "most of them are hurt due sparkrender attacking, the ones which arent are tending to the passed out ones. They are also forbidden to speak since they only got hurt to watch the spectacle which Myla forbade, she even used the "scary eyes." when the player tries to talk to the 1-2 tending ones they just get responses like. "must not talk... promised Myla....hard"
My Tarak had an australian accent. I also changed his backstory a bit to say he used to be a part of the same criminal organization that my rogue wants information from. Great guy that Tarak.
Excellent video! Tanks a lot! I did the seven kobolds thing just yesterday and my players instantly guessed that those seven kobolds are the the seven gold wyrms that accompany Bahamut in analogy to that statue that is accompanied by seven canaries. Of course in their (nearly) human form. I do have such a smart party of players and I am really tempted to explore that thought a little more.
@@heyitsMattyP Thanks for your reply. And of course those kobolds are not the most mighty dragons that ever existed. But I will leave the players in doubt about that. Btw. tomorrow night (CET) they are going to explore the Seagrow Caves and I will add lot of your ideas. Afterwards I will comment below that video to tell you how it worked out. th-cam.com/video/XXuLJvX4KbM/w-d-xo.html And thanks again for all the effort you are putting in your very good and helpfull videos!
Great video and tips! These ideas are giving me some great ideas for my run of Stormwreck! The idea for Myla to have an invention stolen sounds like a great side quest hook and to also prevent players from accidentally murderhoboing her brothers in their encounter. She could also express to please not harm them if the party encounters them. They just tend to be idiots at times and do stupid and misguided things. One idea I think would work better for RPing Myla as a tinkerer/Artificer(?) vendor would be that instead of her doing all the work for scavenging stuff, maybe you could try and encourage the party to find materials and stuff (or random junk) for her to tinker with and maybe build some cool gadgets with. Also, with her being a semi-crippled winged Kobold, maybe in her spare time, she could be seen building and testing prosthetic wings to give her some flight ability back. I feel like I'm going to enjoy RPing her as sort of female version of a mix between Doc Emmett Brown (Back to the Future) and Jimmy Neutron. A workshop that's both cluttered, yet organized with projects that are in various states of completion and success. Maybe even have a few "good ideas at the time" inventions that provide overly complicated solutions for simple tasks, made during instances of shear boredom. lol
She's a fun character! I've got a writeup coming out with a Q&A between her and the party, and it made me a big fan of Myla. I just love earnest characters!
Brilliant video, definitely going to use some of these ideas. Going to mix in the elixir of healing if one of my players/an NPC gets bitten by a zombie, and have a necrotic sickness/curse slowly affect them over time. The only way to cure this is to have Tarak convert the ruby mushroom into the cure. Gives some personal incentive/urgency to do the caves (or find another cure) and puts it at odds with rushing to the compass rose to snuff out the threat at the source.
Since I got to run part I of DOSI aka Dragon's Rest before this video, I made some RP tweaks for my own ease (and enjoyment) - Kobold Krew: Myla (has a lisp) is easily excitable about magical newcomers, especially shapeshifters or classes with familiars or animal companions. She is partly inspired by Hermione Granger; the other Kobolds are just mischevious ADHD-riddled entities. They're there to give minor quest info, aggro zombies, and get in trouble. - Runara: Female version of Deckard Cain, BUT her library has a special section full of dragon smut. Players always wanna know what the biggest treasures and the rarest books in a library are and me just maintaining eye contact with the players while stating that Runara has "The Lusty Dragonborn Maid, Vol 5" half open on her table and has absolutely no interest in putting it away while newcomers are in her library at 1am seems like both a power move and an unexpected twist on the kindly old lady NPC - Tarak: Uncle Iroh from ATLA but he used worked for the Peaky Blinders instead of the fire nation, and had a bit of a short fuse when it came to repeated kobold shenanigans; he's loud when he gets excited and he doesn't really realize it, it's a good thing he doesn't really get excited about fishing or else he'd never catch anything. - Varnoth: Lin Beifong from Legend of Korra but 15% more butch; regardless, she's actually deeply introverted and bumping into an entire adventuring party at late dinner time gives her near-crippling social anxiety which she manifests as gruff mono-silabic replies, clumsily slamming cutlery on the table, as well as stating that she'd rather eat alone in her quarters. Her cold glare also freaks out the Kobold Krew but Tarak is way too friendly and she's soft around him. I also plan on doing my best Hades from Disney's Hercules for Sparkrender, maybe with a dash of Scar.
I mean, given she's an adult bronze dragon, why not just use her stats as are per the "Change Shape" feature? It's not as if there's a circumstance where she'd be benching a ship or something... 😅
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This is so helpful! It's easy to have the hub town fall to the wayside and be the boring "rest stop" but there's a lot in Dragon's Rest to keep it going, and the tips you give make it a lot easier to juggle them and keep it rolling than it would be normally.
Cheers Dunc!
I ended my first session in dragons rest where Runara invites them for dinner. But because the wizard detected powerfull magic from Runara, 1 of the players is convinced they get poisoned food at the dinner :) (while I planned to introduce them to the 2 quests there ) :)
Classic players - always sus on everyone!
I love this 'tv screen' thing you're doing in the background. Brilliant visual idea.
Cheers Rob! Just trying some new stuff. Maybe a few tweaks to fix a couple of janky bits, but it'll get there!
These postcard thumbnails are dope! Good work Matty P!
Cheers Sun!
OKAY the kobold invitation got me to sign up for your patreon 🤣
Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.
Great tip on giving Tarak’s backstory in parts. I made the mistake of trying to get his whole story out on the first meeting, testing my players’ patience!
Dumping exposition is a delicate task which I'm still working on, too :)
the way i hanlded the 9 kobolds is just "most of them are hurt due sparkrender attacking, the ones which arent are tending to the passed out ones. They are also forbidden to speak since they only got hurt to watch the spectacle which Myla forbade, she even used the "scary eyes." when the player tries to talk to the 1-2 tending ones they just get responses like. "must not talk... promised Myla....hard"
My Tarak had an australian accent. I also changed his backstory a bit to say he used to be a part of the same criminal organization that my rogue wants information from. Great guy that Tarak.
You'd better be nailing that accent my dude! No excuses if you're a watcher of this channel :)
Excellent video! Tanks a lot!
I did the seven kobolds thing just yesterday and my players instantly guessed that those seven kobolds are the the seven gold wyrms that accompany Bahamut in analogy to that statue that is accompanied by seven canaries. Of course in their (nearly) human form.
I do have such a smart party of players and I am really tempted to explore that thought a little more.
Oh cool! Glad your players are plugged in. FYI, I'd recommend *against* having any NPCs secretly be uber-powerful in general.
@@heyitsMattyP Thanks for your reply.
And of course those kobolds are not the most mighty dragons that ever existed.
But I will leave the players in doubt about that.
Btw. tomorrow night (CET) they are going to explore the Seagrow Caves and I will add lot of your ideas. Afterwards I will comment below that video to tell you how it worked out. th-cam.com/video/XXuLJvX4KbM/w-d-xo.html
And thanks again for all the effort you are putting in your very good and helpfull videos!
Great video and tips! These ideas are giving me some great ideas for my run of Stormwreck!
The idea for Myla to have an invention stolen sounds like a great side quest hook and to also prevent players from accidentally murderhoboing her brothers in their encounter. She could also express to please not harm them if the party encounters them. They just tend to be idiots at times and do stupid and misguided things.
One idea I think would work better for RPing Myla as a tinkerer/Artificer(?) vendor would be that instead of her doing all the work for scavenging stuff, maybe you could try and encourage the party to find materials and stuff (or random junk) for her to tinker with and maybe build some cool gadgets with.
Also, with her being a semi-crippled winged Kobold, maybe in her spare time, she could be seen building and testing prosthetic wings to give her some flight ability back.
I feel like I'm going to enjoy RPing her as sort of female version of a mix between Doc Emmett Brown (Back to the Future) and Jimmy Neutron. A workshop that's both cluttered, yet organized with projects that are in various states of completion and success. Maybe even have a few "good ideas at the time" inventions that provide overly complicated solutions for simple tasks, made during instances of shear boredom. lol
She's a fun character! I've got a writeup coming out with a Q&A between her and the party, and it made me a big fan of Myla. I just love earnest characters!
Why should I use Tarak and Varnoth? The seven kobolds would work just as well. Just meld the traits of them into some of the kobolds.
Brilliant video, definitely going to use some of these ideas. Going to mix in the elixir of healing if one of my players/an NPC gets bitten by a zombie, and have a necrotic sickness/curse slowly affect them over time. The only way to cure this is to have Tarak convert the ruby mushroom into the cure. Gives some personal incentive/urgency to do the caves (or find another cure) and puts it at odds with rushing to the compass rose to snuff out the threat at the source.
That's a good way to tie it all together :)
Thank you for the helpful tips!
You're very welcome :)
I love what you did with Varnoth
Cheers! Every campaign I run must have at least one French lady, and Varnoth drew the short straw
Wait, Myla is not defined as the vendor in the book? I was already using her as that, but I don't remember where I got the idea then hahaha😂
It just makes sense!
@@13REPF95 Actually it is mentioned in the book. :)
I love the seven dwarves idea!
It's so much easier. I think every NPC should be named after their personality, and they should only be able to say their own names, like Pokemon.
@@heyitsMattyP The NPC named Verbose would really test my patience..
Since I got to run part I of DOSI aka Dragon's Rest before this video, I made some RP tweaks for my own ease (and enjoyment)
- Kobold Krew: Myla (has a lisp) is easily excitable about magical newcomers, especially shapeshifters or classes with familiars or animal companions. She is partly inspired by Hermione Granger; the other Kobolds are just mischevious ADHD-riddled entities. They're there to give minor quest info, aggro zombies, and get in trouble.
- Runara: Female version of Deckard Cain, BUT her library has a special section full of dragon smut. Players always wanna know what the biggest treasures and the rarest books in a library are and me just maintaining eye contact with the players while stating that Runara has "The Lusty Dragonborn Maid, Vol 5" half open on her table and has absolutely no interest in putting it away while newcomers are in her library at 1am seems like both a power move and an unexpected twist on the kindly old lady NPC
- Tarak: Uncle Iroh from ATLA but he used worked for the Peaky Blinders instead of the fire nation, and had a bit of a short fuse when it came to repeated kobold shenanigans; he's loud when he gets excited and he doesn't really realize it, it's a good thing he doesn't really get excited about fishing or else he'd never catch anything.
- Varnoth: Lin Beifong from Legend of Korra but 15% more butch; regardless, she's actually deeply introverted and bumping into an entire adventuring party at late dinner time gives her near-crippling social anxiety which she manifests as gruff mono-silabic replies, clumsily slamming cutlery on the table, as well as stating that she'd rather eat alone in her quarters. Her cold glare also freaks out the Kobold Krew but Tarak is way too friendly and she's soft around him.
I also plan on doing my best Hades from Disney's Hercules for Sparkrender, maybe with a dash of Scar.
Oh rad! Those characters are all good stand-ins for those NPCs! But your Tarak sounds way meaner than mine haha
I mean, given she's an adult bronze dragon, why not just use her stats as are per the "Change Shape" feature? It's not as if there's a circumstance where she'd be benching a ship or something... 😅
what's with the tiny USA flag in every video?
It's a stamp on a postcard
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