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Last March of the Tyrant Wyrm by Jean Lorber (@jlorber4) and Jeff C. Stevens (@Jcorvinstevens)
The Last March of the Tyrant Wyrm is a truly beautiful and unique adventure with real heart and soul, as well as a hell of a lot of fun to be had, following the arduous journey to redemption for a once evil and abused dragon.
"Last March of the Tyrant Wyrm’ is an 8- to 12-hour adventure for a party of four to five characters of 4th - 6th level. It’s an adventure about redemption, and for that, you need someone worth redeeming. In D&D, what better creature than a red dragon?"
"The dragon’s ultimate redemption is in the PCs hands. For the good of Faerun, bring him into the light. Bahamut is waiting…"
CW: Depression, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Mental Control/ Loss of Free Will, PTSD, Kidnapping, Slavery, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake
Please be aware of the content warnings, but I would like you to know I believe to the best of my knowledge they are all relevant and natural to the plot and not handled in a problematic manner. For context, I have my own mental health problems, PTSD and have experienced Avoidant/ Restrictive Food intake, and I did not have any issues with this adventure, but I would advise you to assess and speak to your own table. I thoroughly recommend the use of safety tools when running this adventure. With the tools and clear communication with an understanding group this is potentially a truly moving, exciting and enriching experience!
Introduction
The introduction opens with a quote from Dr Seuss about the Grinch's heart growing in triplicate, which epitomises the story that unfolds over the course of this adventure. This section exemplifies the thorough, thoughtful and easy to work with nature of this adventure is (I want to say ergonomic), despite the more complex and adult themes and new mechanics. This includes detailed paragraphs on the story overview, the goal of redemption, three hooks plus a hook for working the adventure into Tyranny of Dragons (despite the adventure "literally crashes into [the party]"), scaling the challenges, and an awesome "If you forget everything else…" table with bullets for the adventures theme, goals, factions and secrets.
The backstory tells the fascinating and heart-breaking stories of Scoriaptrak, the dragon, Kefleek, the betrayed and betraying minion of the dragon and the rising Necromancer, Rhezicora and how these stories entwine or will cross.
A detailed run down of how to play the dragon and how to handle players who think they are invincible now they have a dragon is next - unfortunately, the dragon is clearly in no state to be much of a threat.
Major Design Elements
"Adventure design elements help to facilitate story development and role-playing (e.g. Redemption Dice, encounters triggered by character growth)"
This section details the unique aspects of the game, including the Redemption Dice mechanic, which essentially breaks down to being bonus dice like Bardic Inspiration awarded to players for particularly virtuous actions and roleplay in front of the dragon that later influence him for the better and ultimately can be added to very important rolls Scoriaptrak will have to make in part three. Among other aspects, handling of the dragon's possible death and how to handle that situation.
This adventure comes in three parts:
In the first section the party witness the fall of a red dragon, before its kobold representative approaches, offering the dragon's hoard as payment for an escort to its lair, which is a few days away. On the way they must find means to keep the dragon hidden and discover the quandary at the dragon's heart.
This section introduces the dragon and kobold partnership and gets the party involved, up and personal with an extremely depressed, suicidal dragon secretly subdued by its kobold follower. The experience of being with a dragon is something that will be breath-taking and shocking for the players as they discover its mental anguish. Working together they will battle a swarm of stirges, discover more about their new employers, as they must first find a way to keep the dragon hidden on the long journey.
This brings up the first awesome set piece with clear different ways to approach it; an abandoned wizard's tower that a hobgoblin gang are attempting to ransack, which the party are there to...pilfer. An alliance benefits both parties as they are having trouble getting very far in the tower, but there's always the chance of brutal conflict with a large group of enemies. The tower shows the ingenuity of the wizard and writers with a clever, targeted trap and a thoughtful and extremely useful magical popup book!
In the second section the adventurers face a necromancer with wicked plans for the dragon and an undead horde to do her bidding. If this were not enough, they must discover and break a magical cage on the dragon's mind, before showing him the beauty and positivity of life by seeking it out...while pursued by a blue dragon.
This section is absolutely chock full of great content with 13 areas to traverse and explore using a point crawl map and system, with so many, many more possible encounters to play out. These are broken down into area encounters (those found in specific areas), triggered encounters (those that take place after a certain action and/ or event has taken place) and random encounters (to be used in between areas. Despite the huge amounts of possible encounters, each have a real point and purpose in relation to the story, whether it's a chance for the party to roleplay and display morals to inspire Scoriaptrak and earn Redemption Dice, relating to the dragon's past, providing the opportunity to discover clues and information about what's ahead, testing the party's ability to hide the dragon from foes, driving them ever forward and/ or confronting Kefleek and his magical control of the dragon. There is even advice and mechanics included for the players to create their own encounters in tandem with the DM for a truly collaborative experience driven by the players, which is inspired.
Along the way the party may face an undead spit-roasted boar and other bizarre elements of the Necromancer's minions, which they will need to do their best to avoid, see adorable lizardfolk hatchlings being put through their paces, a ruined castle with literal ghosts of the past and a chance to make some amends, as well as a new friend in need of their own redemption, the coming to light of a friend's betrayal, and many more strange sights and tangible teachable moments, including tense situations that call for cool heads and diplomacy, as well as enough combat to keep the martially-minded players engaged.
In the third section the heroes must traverse treacherous tar pits, from which the Necromancer has raised a tide of ancient bones, in order to reach the dragon's lair. A mighty battle will rage, met by a dragon cult wishing to see the mighty wyrm return to its former evil ways. Will the inspiration of the party be enough to save the dragon's soul, garnering the intervention of the Platinum Dragon himself? Still, this all might not be enough to face what awaits them when they finally reach the dragon's lair after their mighty march. Only true salvation will grant the party the boons they need to finally be victorious and finally rest (hopefully not eternally).
The Necromancer's camp is laid out in it's fascinating array of tarpits with various undead dredging up more bones to become their brethren, a kobold's workshop full of whizzbangs (with the emphasis on bang), the Necromancer's own sparse sanctum and the "mancave" of her exhausted paramour with a complicated and confusing idea of how they can make a fresh start...with fighting and kidnapping...
Each area of the camp also has its altered situation if the camp is on alert and waiting for the coming battle.
These morbid mucilage (yes, I looked up this word, but it's awesome and means sticky/ gluey. You’re welcome!) mires are also the scene of the final battle, which has a lot of moving parts with the party plus big S and lil K (and possibly Red Flag, the Barbarian and/ or any stray companions or friends the made on the way), the Necromancer, all her boneybois and explosive Wyzz, the Dragon Cult, and more...which could seem daunting, but in the same way every other part is broken down and made easy to understand and run, the authors have got you covered.
With the commendable approach of, "focusing on the real point: the characters trying to accomplish awesome, heroic acts", the battle is broken down into likely series of events, the Necromancer's tactics, the allies and resources available to the party and how they can be utilised to aid the party, before getting into triggered events.
There is even a Big Battle Cheat Sheet in the appendix, which might just be the best thing I've ever seen as an aid to the DM! It has tables for the enemies for regular or ambush, allies and resources, where they can be found or come from and how they can be used, bullet points for the beginning of the battle and mid-battle with checkboxes for Scoriptrak's saves to avoid relapsing to his past evil, the BIG encounters I'll mention shortly, again with checkboxes, and the all-important reminder Redemption Dice are very important in these checks! It's a seriously impressive, innovative and helpful resource.
The real battle was the friends you made along the way, or rather the battle for Scoriaptrak’s soul. This plays out in a truly monumental moment with two major deities await the convincing of the party and the dragon himself. This is a wonderful chance for roleplay and using those Redemption Dice, as well as being truly epic for the party to converse with two gods over the soul of a red dragon...It's hard to think of anything that's quite as epic. Peak, as I believe the youth say, Dungeons & Dragons. But that's not all!
The final leg of the adventure is to Scoriaptrak former abode to meet some old friends and enemies, possibly frenemies, get paid in full and... battle the blue dragon that's back to attempt to finish the red dragon off. Hopefully, the party will be armed with epic boons from the Platinum Dragon himself and up to this monumental challenge!
This epic adventure ends with many seeds and threads to continue the story, as well as ways to integrate it into the Tyranny of Dragons storyline.
The appendix contains 18 new creatures and unique statblocks, including dragon cultists, all the significant NPCs and a cool collection of new skeletal creatures, such as a skeleton gibbon and a skeleton giant armadillo (which there’s a chance you might find curled up with a bugbear sleeping in it!).
There are 10 quality new magic items on theme, as well as five Bahamut Boon items, which are super powered and will make the player's feel like superheroes when they race the finale with the blue dragon!
The appendix also contains all the handouts and glorious old skool artwork by a host of talented artists: Christopher Spence (@hominidart), Penflower Ink (@tomfummo), Daniel Walthall (@axebane), and CHGuise (@chguise) to be shared with the players when referenced. This also includes all the battle maps in DM with legends and blank player maps, the big battle cheat sheet and the beautiful uncropped cover art by Eric Jonasson.
The Last March of the Tyrant Wyrm is a truly beautiful and unique adventure with real heart and soul, as well as a hell of a lot of fun to be had, following the arduous journey to redemption for a once evil and abused dragon.
This adventure contains a lot of moving pieces and elements but has been crafted with the DM firmly in mind, with every effort made to make prep and referencing as easy as possible. From the extremely helpful convention of having the Synopsis, essential elements and information relevant to a section, situation, etc laid out in an easy to read and reference manner, numerous sidebars with tangible, sense-based information and insights, clear notation of the purpose of each encounter, section summaries, and the afore-mentioned Big Battle Cheat Sheet. On top of this, great advice and ideas are provided to give DMs a lot of options and material to work with, while keeping it ultimately up to the DM and players.
Redemption Dice introduced in part two are a brilliant additional mechanic, acting like a hybrid of Inspiration (from the DM) and Bardic Inspiration, to reward moral and virtuous behaviour and roleplay in front of and/ or with the dragon with the intention of pushing him towards goodness. They also play an integral part in the defining moments as Scoriaptrak looks death in the face.
This is also one of those adventures that is a pleasure to read! The writing and story are wonderful with each aspect feeling alive and vibrant. I found myself reading late at night and unable to stop, even after falling asleep because of the hour and nearly breaking my nose with my tablet. It’s also beautiful to look at with clear point crawl maps and gorgeous, old skool illustrations, tied to encounters and results, in separate appendices for ease of sharing with players, which is something all adventures should do otherwise only the DM sees the incredible art or they show the players glimpses as they desperately cover up spoilers.
The Last March of the Tyrant Worm is an epic caravan guard adventure in which the caravan is actually a red dragon, the precious cargo is the dragon's immortal soul. The goblins, gnolls and orcs you would be defending the caravan are both within and without, as well as being metaphorical, incorporeal and oh so very tangible in every which way. The dragon wishes to take its life, but so too does the Necromancer, for a very different purpose, and the elves and cult, united in wanting the dragon to live, have unreconcilable intentions for that life. While a caravan guard normally has little to think about, save defence, martial strategy and keeping their charge alive long enough to pay up, this adventure finds the players in need of more than their blades, bows and wands, as roleplay is at the heart and soul of this adventure (as well as essential in their defence). There are still many locations to explore and monsters to be slain, as this is a most rare adventure; indulging all three pillars is an accolade it can claim.
It is obviously so much more than this describes, but I couldn't help but draw the comparison.
This is the adventure I have thought about the most and has had such a profound effect on me. This truly is something special. I wish I had words to do it justice. I need more like this!
CREDITS
Design: Jean Lorber (@jlorber4)
Developmental Editor: Christopher Sniezak (@thelight101), Ken Carcas
Editor: Ken Carcas
Cover Art: Eric Jonasson
Interior Art: Christopher Spence (@hominidart), Penflower Ink (@tomfummo), Daniel Walthall (@axebane), CHGuise (@chguise)
Cartography: Jean Lorber
Layout: Jeff C. Stevens (@Jcorvinstevens)
Page Background: Nimgyu (color and saturation changed)
With special thanks to Teos Abadia
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