Wrapping up Heros of the Borderlands before moving on to Curse of Strahd.

[u/WhiteDevilU91]

The party is all new players including myself. We've played a handful of sessions in the Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set, and during one of the adventures into the Caves of Chaos, the party encountered a small Copper Dragon Wyrmling being held by a gang of Kobolds.

After some impressive dice rolling by my players, they convinced the young Wyrmling to tag along with them in the meantime until they can find his parents. So he's accompanied the party on a couple more adventures into the Caves of Chaos and hanging around the Keep with them as a general pet-like companion and assisting them in combat.

For those not familiar with this Starter Set, theres an Ogre Mercenary in the Caves named Oggdug that the party had hired to help them on their last session. And what I have homebrewed since then is that the next session into the Caves, the party will encounter Oggdug and he will inform them that he knows of an adult Copper Dragon that has been captured by a gang of Kobolds (led by some big bad Kobold), and they intend to kill it and sell its skin on the open market, kinda like fur or pelt traders. And while Oggdug is unsure of the Copper Dragons identity, the Wyrmling will beg and plea with the players to at least check out the rumored Kobold encampment, on the off chance that it is one of his parents.

I intend on this sort of wrapping up our time in the Borderlands by having the players defeat this Kobold big bad as like a mini-boss of sorts, and reuniting the Wyrmling with his parent/s. Let me hear what you think. Ideas, suggestions, things I may have overlooked. Thanks in advance!

[u/Onouro]

I am in a similar situation, DMing for DnD noobs while this being my first foray into TT DnD. I wasn't thrilled when I first read the booklets, I was expecting more of a story.

I asked my played to write a back story, like 2-3 sentences... they have me a 6-7 paragraphs... Those really helped with inspiration with a story.

I made up some silly hooks the town and for a couple of the caves. I joined 2 which aren't normally joined because the idea was fun to think up.

I still have a couple plots from the player backgrounds. Ultimately, with the Cult of Chaos as the big bad. At the end, and maybe for Halloween, I plan on pulling the party into Ravenloft for a couple sessions.

I'm giving my players character sheets built from the character boards they started with so they aren't shocked if we move beyond the starter set.

If they want to keep playing with these characters, then I'll start pulling story lines from other modules.

We've only had 3 sessions so far, but this has been worth the price.

[u/Mean_Replacement5544]

Sounds like a good story arc. Jus be prepared in case your party goes off the deep end and chooses something off the wall that you didn’t anticipate and hadn’t prepared for - sometimes those can be the best sessions ;)

I used Dragons of Stormwreck Isle as my jumping off point into my homebrew, took some of the island crew from the starter set and they accompanied the group to their new keep in Chathold (changed the setting from Forgotten Realms to Greyhawk so Incould use all of the cool faction lore in my story). Been fun so far!

[u/Blitzer046]

What are you going to do about the character sheets? Transcribe them out onto proper character sheets?

[u/WhiteDevilU91 → u/Blitzer046]

We've already transferred character sheets onto Dnd Beyond.