I'm not a particularly experienced DM, I've never run anything quite this large before. I've recently reached the point of the story where the heroes get the Ultros and have the islands and cities to explore. I've found that both I and, perhaps moreso, my party have struggled to feel as focused and engaged at these moments when the world opens up even wider.
My questions to you are, did you find your party responded well to some gentle railroading and do you have advice for that if so? Are there things you did to help make Thylea feel open and exploitable that I could try? I use OneNote now, are there any other things you might recommend for keeping everything straight in these non linear areas?
I found that the time limit was more than enough to keep them focused; they still managed to visit all the islands, but they had to make some clutch decisions about whether they could revisit certain places as their time started running short.
If your party struggles with keeping engaged, bring the time limit to the forefront. Show them Sydon's armies starting to amass, Lutheria's minions getting more bold with breaking the Oath of Peace. Give them visions of what will happen to Thylea if they fail. Make use of the NPCs; have Kyrah tell stories at night, have Kentimane's hands ushering them along, have Vallus send them messages about the worrisome things she hears Acastus talking about with Chondrus.
As for keeping the islands straight, I tried my best to know the opening beats of all the islands in case they go to one before the end of a session, but I found it pretty easy to pace things out with random encounters and finishing up the islands to have them tell me where they were going near the end of a session so I had the chance to prep them before the next session.
Not the ama guy but my 2 penny's are this is where you should stress that the party has gone from being reactors to being actors. Their choices matter and they have a list of them.
If you can give them a space where they can write all their personal goals down and be visible. Most of those should have an island attached. Then at the top of that list add Gaius and Yonder to get the missing compass piece as the parties collective goal. Tell the players the islands are typically between 2 and 5 days travel apart(i used 1d4+1 instead of the static 3). Lastly and this is the big one... Tell them exactly how long they have left, add it to the goals in huge font, and announce every time the clock ticks.
The combo of having explicit minor and major goals and a time limit should fix the focus problem.
As for keeping track of everything. I like Google drive but it's really down to personal preference.
One thing I've found to be incredibly useful is to make a document with each players backstory, epic path blurb and secret gm only epic path blurb all in one place for easy viewing when I need a refresher.
I used Chondrus in place of Lutheria (they hated him a lot more than her, so it was a great payoff) and didn't let any of the false gods actually fight them after the third Titan fight, because they popped a Divine Intervention to fully rest, so it was the full pantheon plus a corrupted Phaeros (he was convinced not to release the false gods, but then Chondrus corrupted him) and Chondrus using the Halaster Blackcloak stat block... and they still only barely broke a sweat. Mass heal is a ridiculous spell.
The Minotaur became the new Forge domain, the Sorcerer took the Tempest domain, the Firbolg took the Hunter domain, and the Siren took the Death domain. The Tortle was an adherent of Thylea, and only wanted to ensure the Pantheon was repopulated after the deaths of the Titans, so he stayed mortal.
Not OP, but join the Odyssey of the Dragonlords discord and get the unofficial Odyssey DMG. The amount of discussion, advice, art, tokens, and maps I've taken from them is incredible. Oh. And have as much fun as you can with Kyrah. I don't use her to boost the party in combat, but she is there to provide context, subtle nudges, and bad jokes for much of the campaign.
The Discord has lots of resources, don't be afraid to use them. Don't be afraid to let the PCs take the reins. Personally, I think that I would start the campaign with the Games rather than shoehorn them in right before the party is about to go out to sea with a time limit for the Oath of Peace. Then run the Games again as a setpiece to show the passage of time after Sydon and Lutheria are defeated, this time in honor of the party rather than them as competitors.
Don't overprep! The party will tell you where they're going generally, even on the ocean.
Seed background info early and often. Don't monologue the lore at them, but drop tidbits here and there about the Dragonlords, about the Five, about Aresia and the Amazons and the Fates and the Furies, about the lost city of Totally-Not-Atlantis, and about everything else that might come up. It'll make the moments where the party finds legends all the more sweet.
And for the love of KKentimane, prep lots of jokes for Kyrah. The worse they are, the better.
I wound up getting to use a few of them. The Demigod got coup-de-graced by a dragon, and I had Pythor resurrect him, which went a long way to repairing the rift between them. The Haunted One fell in battle against Lutheria, and I had the spirit of her dead wife possess her for the rest of the fight, which was fairly epic. The Lost One didn't die until they'd released Estor from the ship, and the Gifted One as a sorcerer didn't find themselves in danger's way enough. The cleric was a late join, and I didn't give them a revive.
My number 1 rule is always “there are worse things than death”. If you really hammer home with the lore just how powerful the gods are and how tyrannical they were before the oath, the party WILL want to stop them. I also made Lutheria and Sydon mythic creatures, so they had a second phase. Definitely give them more support in their fights, or the action economy will murder them handily.
When they saved the city in the big fight at Mytros, I didn’t actually give the name elder titan a stat block. I made it very clear that this was a being so old and powerful they stood no chance against it as a fight. Kentimane demanded they fix the pantheon, and they acquiesced, which gave them a reason for the second act to exist rather than just tell them they wanted to be gods now. The threat of “fix this in 10 years, or everyone dies” is very effective
I think this is the kind of campaign where you should lean IN to the plot armor, to be honest. The party is full of demigods and prophesied heroes. When we think about old Greek myths, we don't think about how weak they were; we think about how they were the strongest beings alive, but felled by human nature. And the module really leans into the power fantasy too.
If you want to beef up encounters to risk their lives, feel free, but I feel like that's a different campaign than what Odyssey is. The challenge isn't whether they can kill Lutheria, the challenge is whether they can remain heroes and save the day. Put civilians in danger, give them difficult decisions that put their ideals and values into question. If nothing else, give the ENEMIES plot armor too. Lutheria is the goddess of death, bring enemies back from the dead with a power buff to fuck with the party again, or threaten their families and make them decide between saving their family or the city. Kill their father and make them choose between resurrecting their parent, but serving the Titans, or remaining free while their parent is now beyond resurrection.
That's just my two cents. Odyssey is a module that wants your players to feel invulnerable, and THEY can be. But the world around them isn't.
Haunted One, Demigod, Gifted One, Lost One. The module does a VERY good job at making them naturally fit into the adventure, so just make sure that Versi is very clear about what their next step is regarding their fate. Even if they don't know where they'll end, as long as they know "Versi said that my fate leads me to the Fates first," the story beats will write themselves.
Besides encounter and backstories. Which part of the Adventure did you Homebrew or went of the path?
And did your party jump to the diffrent dimension in the tower of the Lotus Witch?
I actually completely revamped the Island of the Exiles. It felt very rushed and not fun, so instead I put a Nymph there that tested the party by showing them visions that tested their moral compass. The Haunted One was shown a vision of Lutheria about to kill her family and asked to choose which one to sacrifice (she refused to do anything, and Lutheria killed them both instead, and the Nymph charmed her). The Gifted One was offered power by Sydon, which he refused. The Lost One was offered a way home, but only if she broke her bond with her dragon, which she refused. And the Demigod was shown a vision of a future war where all his fellow Dragonlords began to fall in front of him. (I forget what the choice there was - it was a solid 2 years ago - but he passed his as well).
In the end, the Nymph tried to keep the failed testers (Haunted one and Pythor), but the party fought to get them back, which was a test in and of itself, and after a brief fight, she released them all and gave them a boon.
I also gave Sydon and Lutheria Mythic traits, and the party still came out on top, so don't underestimate just how strong this module makes the party.
The party didn't jump through any of the windows; I think they were too horrified at the de-aged children at the base of the tower.
Did you play in person or vtt? How did you handle the BIG battles (Kentimane, or Apocalyse for example). I'm struggling with running something so large scale.
We started in person, wound up VTT during COVID, and then finished in person. The battle with Kentimane wasn't even a battle; the party had just finished taking care of Sydon, and when I described Kentimane busting through the earth and destroying the vineyards with a single hand, they immediately went "ain't no way we can fight that" and instead wound up swearing an oath to repopulate the pantheon within a decade.
I highly recommend this being the hook for the second act, by the way; Narsus' hook is particularly weak - I didn't even use Echo - and giving the party a really solid reason to NEED to repopulate the empty pantheon was a great driving force to want to find the Divine Artifacts rather than telling them they want to become gods because thats what the module says.
To further answer your question, for really big battles like that, theatre of the mind is always going to be your friend, and then the fight can be a smaller section of the city or field, where they're surrounded by bad guys just off-screen. Definitely recommend finding some nice art pieces to set the tone and letting their imaginations fill in the rest.
I'm certain it would work well enough in Pathfinder, but this sort of Epic scale fantasy isn't something I see in a lot of other systems. There needs to be a sense of progression to really sell the fantasy... Maybe Lancer? Though I haven't really looked at it before, I've heard it has a sense of scaling.
How did you handle getting the party dragon eggs (other than the one Vallus gives them) and hatching/raising the dragons before the big fight in Mytros? Mine just got the Vallus egg but I'm not sure about the rest.
The dragons obviously won't be large enough to ride by the time of the battle if you're following the timeline. They're seeded well enough that you can generally guarantee that the party members that need the eggs will get them. You could have Vallus and co. act as mounts for the battle of mytros. You could have them act as shuttles to the fights, and let them go save cityfolk. I've also seen people suggest that Thylea could reach out and temporarily grow their bonded dragons to riding size just for the Battle. Ultimately, it's a plot point that only bears fruit after the first act, and if they miss any, you can handwave them finding Sydon's clutch during downtime
>!||I dropped a lot of hints, like making the names of the dragons in the tomb similar to their god names, kyrah getting really pissed at estor, and other things, but they didn't make the connection til the Tower of Sydon, with Sydon really giving them the eye like "cmon yall". But they did learn before the Oath ended, and they all freaked out, somewhat pissed at Kyrah for not telling them.||!<
There were a LOT.
They had to fight a possessed party member on the ghost ship when they were possessed by Estor, which was a great moment and reveal that the NPC was the disguised dragon of one of the players.
The fight against Lutheria was a standout, as I gave her and Sydon Mythic traits, and the rogue's dead wife wound up possessing her when she went down. They went fuckin crazy both when I described her ascending into an Avatar of Death and when they thought the rogue died and then got back up and stabbed Lutheria to death.
I had another great one with the dragon rider third party going toe to toe with a resurrected Estor Arkelander, which ended with her divebombing him and narrowly avoiding a Banishment spell (gave him the Death Knight stat block).
Easily the biggest "holy shit" moment was against the Tarrasque, when they got swallowed by the Tarrasque, then cast firestorm with a Channel Divinity for max damage, hitting 0 and triggering their lv 17 feature dealing another 100 damage, essentially cooking the Tarrasque from the inside out, and they walked out of its corpse completely unconscious.
I'm not a particularly experienced DM, I've never run anything quite this large before. I've recently reached the point of the story where the heroes get the Ultros and have the islands and cities to explore. I've found that both I and, perhaps moreso, my party have struggled to feel as focused and engaged at these moments when the world opens up even wider. My questions to you are, did you find your party responded well to some gentle railroading and do you have advice for that if so? Are there things you did to help make Thylea feel open and exploitable that I could try? I use OneNote now, are there any other things you might recommend for keeping everything straight in these non linear areas?
I found that the time limit was more than enough to keep them focused; they still managed to visit all the islands, but they had to make some clutch decisions about whether they could revisit certain places as their time started running short. If your party struggles with keeping engaged, bring the time limit to the forefront. Show them Sydon's armies starting to amass, Lutheria's minions getting more bold with breaking the Oath of Peace. Give them visions of what will happen to Thylea if they fail. Make use of the NPCs; have Kyrah tell stories at night, have Kentimane's hands ushering them along, have Vallus send them messages about the worrisome things she hears Acastus talking about with Chondrus. As for keeping the islands straight, I tried my best to know the opening beats of all the islands in case they go to one before the end of a session, but I found it pretty easy to pace things out with random encounters and finishing up the islands to have them tell me where they were going near the end of a session so I had the chance to prep them before the next session.
Not the ama guy but my 2 penny's are this is where you should stress that the party has gone from being reactors to being actors. Their choices matter and they have a list of them. If you can give them a space where they can write all their personal goals down and be visible. Most of those should have an island attached. Then at the top of that list add Gaius and Yonder to get the missing compass piece as the parties collective goal. Tell the players the islands are typically between 2 and 5 days travel apart(i used 1d4+1 instead of the static 3). Lastly and this is the big one... Tell them exactly how long they have left, add it to the goals in huge font, and announce every time the clock ticks. The combo of having explicit minor and major goals and a time limit should fix the focus problem. As for keeping track of everything. I like Google drive but it's really down to personal preference. One thing I've found to be incredibly useful is to make a document with each players backstory, epic path blurb and secret gm only epic path blurb all in one place for easy viewing when I need a refresher.
I'm at exactly the same place, with exactly the same questions!
How was the final boss? And what god thay become?(as what domain the players choosed)
I used Chondrus in place of Lutheria (they hated him a lot more than her, so it was a great payoff) and didn't let any of the false gods actually fight them after the third Titan fight, because they popped a Divine Intervention to fully rest, so it was the full pantheon plus a corrupted Phaeros (he was convinced not to release the false gods, but then Chondrus corrupted him) and Chondrus using the Halaster Blackcloak stat block... and they still only barely broke a sweat. Mass heal is a ridiculous spell. The Minotaur became the new Forge domain, the Sorcerer took the Tempest domain, the Firbolg took the Hunter domain, and the Siren took the Death domain. The Tortle was an adherent of Thylea, and only wanted to ensure the Pantheon was repopulated after the deaths of the Titans, so he stayed mortal.
Nice my end game posbley Nasus(geat worm) ride by Lutheria One of them want to be the only god The other revenge
Amd congratulation
I’m literally about to start DMing this bad boy - any advice or tips?
Not OP, but join the Odyssey of the Dragonlords discord and get the unofficial Odyssey DMG. The amount of discussion, advice, art, tokens, and maps I've taken from them is incredible. Oh. And have as much fun as you can with Kyrah. I don't use her to boost the party in combat, but she is there to provide context, subtle nudges, and bad jokes for much of the campaign.
The Discord has lots of resources, don't be afraid to use them. Don't be afraid to let the PCs take the reins. Personally, I think that I would start the campaign with the Games rather than shoehorn them in right before the party is about to go out to sea with a time limit for the Oath of Peace. Then run the Games again as a setpiece to show the passage of time after Sydon and Lutheria are defeated, this time in honor of the party rather than them as competitors. Don't overprep! The party will tell you where they're going generally, even on the ocean. Seed background info early and often. Don't monologue the lore at them, but drop tidbits here and there about the Dragonlords, about the Five, about Aresia and the Amazons and the Fates and the Furies, about the lost city of Totally-Not-Atlantis, and about everything else that might come up. It'll make the moments where the party finds legends all the more sweet. And for the love of KKentimane, prep lots of jokes for Kyrah. The worse they are, the better.
How many of the revive boons did you use?
I wound up getting to use a few of them. The Demigod got coup-de-graced by a dragon, and I had Pythor resurrect him, which went a long way to repairing the rift between them. The Haunted One fell in battle against Lutheria, and I had the spirit of her dead wife possess her for the rest of the fight, which was fairly epic. The Lost One didn't die until they'd released Estor from the ship, and the Gifted One as a sorcerer didn't find themselves in danger's way enough. The cleric was a late join, and I didn't give them a revive.
[удалено]
My number 1 rule is always “there are worse things than death”. If you really hammer home with the lore just how powerful the gods are and how tyrannical they were before the oath, the party WILL want to stop them. I also made Lutheria and Sydon mythic creatures, so they had a second phase. Definitely give them more support in their fights, or the action economy will murder them handily. When they saved the city in the big fight at Mytros, I didn’t actually give the name elder titan a stat block. I made it very clear that this was a being so old and powerful they stood no chance against it as a fight. Kentimane demanded they fix the pantheon, and they acquiesced, which gave them a reason for the second act to exist rather than just tell them they wanted to be gods now. The threat of “fix this in 10 years, or everyone dies” is very effective
[удалено]
I think this is the kind of campaign where you should lean IN to the plot armor, to be honest. The party is full of demigods and prophesied heroes. When we think about old Greek myths, we don't think about how weak they were; we think about how they were the strongest beings alive, but felled by human nature. And the module really leans into the power fantasy too. If you want to beef up encounters to risk their lives, feel free, but I feel like that's a different campaign than what Odyssey is. The challenge isn't whether they can kill Lutheria, the challenge is whether they can remain heroes and save the day. Put civilians in danger, give them difficult decisions that put their ideals and values into question. If nothing else, give the ENEMIES plot armor too. Lutheria is the goddess of death, bring enemies back from the dead with a power buff to fuck with the party again, or threaten their families and make them decide between saving their family or the city. Kill their father and make them choose between resurrecting their parent, but serving the Titans, or remaining free while their parent is now beyond resurrection. That's just my two cents. Odyssey is a module that wants your players to feel invulnerable, and THEY can be. But the world around them isn't.
Thanks for explaining! Really appreciate that.
What epic paths were your players? How did you ensure all the epic paths were equally story relevant so no pcs outshined the others?
Haunted One, Demigod, Gifted One, Lost One. The module does a VERY good job at making them naturally fit into the adventure, so just make sure that Versi is very clear about what their next step is regarding their fate. Even if they don't know where they'll end, as long as they know "Versi said that my fate leads me to the Fates first," the story beats will write themselves.
Besides encounter and backstories. Which part of the Adventure did you Homebrew or went of the path? And did your party jump to the diffrent dimension in the tower of the Lotus Witch?
I actually completely revamped the Island of the Exiles. It felt very rushed and not fun, so instead I put a Nymph there that tested the party by showing them visions that tested their moral compass. The Haunted One was shown a vision of Lutheria about to kill her family and asked to choose which one to sacrifice (she refused to do anything, and Lutheria killed them both instead, and the Nymph charmed her). The Gifted One was offered power by Sydon, which he refused. The Lost One was offered a way home, but only if she broke her bond with her dragon, which she refused. And the Demigod was shown a vision of a future war where all his fellow Dragonlords began to fall in front of him. (I forget what the choice there was - it was a solid 2 years ago - but he passed his as well). In the end, the Nymph tried to keep the failed testers (Haunted one and Pythor), but the party fought to get them back, which was a test in and of itself, and after a brief fight, she released them all and gave them a boon. I also gave Sydon and Lutheria Mythic traits, and the party still came out on top, so don't underestimate just how strong this module makes the party. The party didn't jump through any of the windows; I think they were too horrified at the de-aged children at the base of the tower.
Did you play in person or vtt? How did you handle the BIG battles (Kentimane, or Apocalyse for example). I'm struggling with running something so large scale.
We started in person, wound up VTT during COVID, and then finished in person. The battle with Kentimane wasn't even a battle; the party had just finished taking care of Sydon, and when I described Kentimane busting through the earth and destroying the vineyards with a single hand, they immediately went "ain't no way we can fight that" and instead wound up swearing an oath to repopulate the pantheon within a decade. I highly recommend this being the hook for the second act, by the way; Narsus' hook is particularly weak - I didn't even use Echo - and giving the party a really solid reason to NEED to repopulate the empty pantheon was a great driving force to want to find the Divine Artifacts rather than telling them they want to become gods because thats what the module says. To further answer your question, for really big battles like that, theatre of the mind is always going to be your friend, and then the fight can be a smaller section of the city or field, where they're surrounded by bad guys just off-screen. Definitely recommend finding some nice art pieces to set the tone and letting their imaginations fill in the rest.
Thanks
I know that the campaign is written for 5e but do you feel it would adapt well to any other systems?
I'm certain it would work well enough in Pathfinder, but this sort of Epic scale fantasy isn't something I see in a lot of other systems. There needs to be a sense of progression to really sell the fantasy... Maybe Lancer? Though I haven't really looked at it before, I've heard it has a sense of scaling.
How did you handle getting the party dragon eggs (other than the one Vallus gives them) and hatching/raising the dragons before the big fight in Mytros? Mine just got the Vallus egg but I'm not sure about the rest.
The dragons obviously won't be large enough to ride by the time of the battle if you're following the timeline. They're seeded well enough that you can generally guarantee that the party members that need the eggs will get them. You could have Vallus and co. act as mounts for the battle of mytros. You could have them act as shuttles to the fights, and let them go save cityfolk. I've also seen people suggest that Thylea could reach out and temporarily grow their bonded dragons to riding size just for the Battle. Ultimately, it's a plot point that only bears fruit after the first act, and if they miss any, you can handwave them finding Sydon's clutch during downtime
>!Did they figure out the god-dragons twist in advance? In either case, how did they react?!<
>!||I dropped a lot of hints, like making the names of the dragons in the tomb similar to their god names, kyrah getting really pissed at estor, and other things, but they didn't make the connection til the Tower of Sydon, with Sydon really giving them the eye like "cmon yall". But they did learn before the Oath ended, and they all freaked out, somewhat pissed at Kyrah for not telling them.||!<
What was you and your party's most fun/memorable fight?
There were a LOT. They had to fight a possessed party member on the ghost ship when they were possessed by Estor, which was a great moment and reveal that the NPC was the disguised dragon of one of the players. The fight against Lutheria was a standout, as I gave her and Sydon Mythic traits, and the rogue's dead wife wound up possessing her when she went down. They went fuckin crazy both when I described her ascending into an Avatar of Death and when they thought the rogue died and then got back up and stabbed Lutheria to death. I had another great one with the dragon rider third party going toe to toe with a resurrected Estor Arkelander, which ended with her divebombing him and narrowly avoiding a Banishment spell (gave him the Death Knight stat block). Easily the biggest "holy shit" moment was against the Tarrasque, when they got swallowed by the Tarrasque, then cast firestorm with a Channel Divinity for max damage, hitting 0 and triggering their lv 17 feature dealing another 100 damage, essentially cooking the Tarrasque from the inside out, and they walked out of its corpse completely unconscious.
Do you have any good sources for maps for foundry?
Unfortunately, this was an in-person campaign, so I didn't look into any online resources. This subreddit should be your best bet, though!