I just ran my second session of HotDQ and I've run into a problem. After almost wiping to find Leosin, the party absolutely furious that he didn't want to go back with them to the point where they cursed him to his fate and walked out.
They now want nothing to do with him, and will probably end up attacking him if he bad-mouths them or shows up and puts on the mystery act. How crucial is he to the rest of the story? I've heard conflicting messages from this remix blog that says he honestly isn't that important, and people on Reddit who say he's one of the more important NPCs to the story, so I'm not sure what to believe.
I'm looking for suggestions on where to go from here before our next session. I've decided I probably need to read through the entire module (I've been attempting to go through it episode by episode), but I'm not sure how to best remedy/work with their attitude towards him if he is going to be continuously showing up.
Best Answer
Leosin's later appearances in the campaign are purely as a quest-giving NPC.
In episode 3, he sends the player characters back to the Cult camp, and sends them to meet Ontharr Frume in episode 4. This is going to be the hardest Leosin instance to replace, since at this point there isn't any equivalent NPC to give the quest. You could have an authority figure (perhaps even Ontharr himself?) arrive at Greenest to give these requests. Alternatively, the people of Greenest could ask the characters to return to the Cult camp, since they would naturally be concerned about the possibility of another attack.
In episode 4, he represents the Harpers, and together with Ontharr Frume of the Order of the Gauntlet, he gives the characters the quest that drives the campaign from episode 4 through to episode 8. Doing this without Leosin is simple - any representative of the Harpers can take his place, or Ontharr Frume can give the quest by himself.
At the start of Rise of Tiamat, he summons the characters to the Council of Waterdeep. Either Ontharr Frume or whoever you used to fill Leosin's place in episode 4 can be used for this. (Or any powerful NPC the players trust, really.)