Descent Into Avernus begins by having the PCs stand around doing nothing while the GM describes an NPC doing awesome stuff. It then proceeds almost directly to, “If the players don’t do what you tell them to do, the NPCs automatically find them and kill them.”
It’s not an auspicious beginning.
THE PREMISE
Let’s back up for a second and briefly sum up the essential back story:
- 140+ years ago, an angel named Zariel convinced the holy knights of the city-state of Elturel to ride with her on a glorious charge into Hell itself.
- This went poorly: Many knights deserted the campaign, fled home, and shut the gate behind them. The rest of Zariel’s army was wiped out, Zariel herself was captured.
- After her capture, Zariel was tempted to evil. Swearing fealty to Asmodeus, she became the Archdevil of Avernus. Still filled with hatred for the knights who had betrayed her, she watched Elturel from afar and waited for an opportunity to present itself for revenge.
- Meanwhile, the knights who had fled back to Elturel lied about the glorious battle they had fought on the other side and their order became known as the Hellriders.
- Many decades later, Elturel was plagued by a new evil: The High Observer of the city was secretly a vampire lord. In this, their darkest hour, the god Amaunator responded to their holy prayers and the Companion appeared in the skies above the city: A second sun that burned through the night and whose light no undead could endure.
- Except this was a lie: The Companion had actually been crafted by Zariel, who had cut a deal with someone in Elturel (more on this later). Under the light of the Companion, the city of Elturel was bound to an infernal pact. After fifty years, the city and the souls of all its inhabitants would belong to Zariel.
- A few days ago, that happened: The entire city of Elturel was pulled into Avernus, the first layer of Hell.
- Among those lost in Elturel was Grand Duke Ravengard, ruler of Baldur’s Gate, who had been visiting the city on a diplomatic mission.
- Refugees fleeing the catastrophe head down the River Chionthar to Baldur’s Gate. The city is overwhelmed and orders the gates closed.
Descent Into Avernus opens with a blob of boxed text that informs the players that, due to the crisis, they have been drafted into the Flaming Fist, the mercenary guard who has served as Baldur’s Gate’s military and police force for hundreds of years, and ordered to report to Flame Zodge at the Basilisk Gate.
(The adventure actually refers to him as “Captain Zodge,” but there are no captains in the Flaming Fists. Their ranks are: Fist, Gauntlet, Manip, Flame, Blaze, and Marshal. Later on a “Commander Portyr” similarly shows up who should actually be either Blaze Portyr or Marshal Portyr.)
The PCs show up at Basilisk Gate just in time to stand around while the GM describes Flame Zodge jumping into the middle of a riot, kicking ass, and being awesome. Once the cut scene wraps up, Zodge comes over to the PCs and tells them that cultists worshipping the Dead Three (Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul) have been taking advantage of the current crisis to go on a murder spree. They need to go meet with an informant named Tarina at the Elfsong Tavern.
If the PCs refuse to do it, he has them “executed on the spot.”
If they accept the gig, but then don’t follow through, he sends a squad of soldiers to track them down and “kill anyone who refuses to go.”
If the PCs escape, Zodge sends two more squads to murder them.
REMIXING
The “do what I say or I’ll arbitrarily kill your characters” motif is problematic for what I’m hoping are fairly obvious reasons. The fact that Descent repeats it three times in rapid succession here, however, mostly serves to point a big, flashing arrow at the more significant problem:
Neither the players nor their characters are given any reason to care about what’s happening.
What you have here, basically, is a broken scenario hook that the designers have so little confidence in that they feel the need to hold a gun to the players’ heads.
So how do we fix it?
As I wrote in my design notes for scenario hooks in Over the Edge, a scenario hook should be specific: What is the specific thing that gets the PCs involved in the current situation?
“You’ve been drafted by the Flaming Fist” is specific, but its first failure is our next requirement: The players should experience the hook. By having the PCs get drafted off-screen before play even begins, Descent distances the players from the hook. Not only will this make them care less about the hook, it will also make the hook less memorable. This should be particularly avoided with the hook for an entire campaign, because you don’t want the players to get three or four sessions into things and completely forget why any of this is happening in the first place.
Ideally, the PCs (and players) should also be motivated by the hook. And it’s better if this motivation aligns with what you want them to do. (This is less critical if you design situations instead of plots because then you don’t actually care what the PCs actually do; you just want to expose them to the situation so that they can begin interacting with it.)
Being press-ganged and threatened with death can certainly motivate you, but what it’s primarily motivating you to do is get out of that situation. That’s why Descent is obsessed with tracking down PCs who bail out on the job: On some level it recognizes that it hasn’t motivated the PCs to investigate the murders; it’s only motivated them to escape the Flaming Fists.
(Designing the scenario hook so that it motivates the PCs in multiple ways is also pure gold if you can pull it off. Or, alternatively, simply align multiple hooks to all point in the same direction.)
Finally, the best scenario hooks won’t be transitory or disconnected from what happens next. Instead, they will continue to resonate — thematically, structurally, meaningfully — not only with the adventure, but with the campaign as a whole.
None of these are hard-and-fast rules. But they’re useful rules of thumb.
Now, I don’t want to completely toss out Flame Zodge or the mission he gives to the PCs. (That would require a much more thorough transformation of the first act of the campaign.) But what we will do is restructure the opening beats of the campaign to get a hook that will drive us all the way to the Gates of Hell.
REFUGEES
The central pillar of Descent Into Avernus is the city of Elturel: What happened to it? Why did it happen? How can it be saved?
Everything revolves around this city… or, at least, it should. In practice, it is curiously absent from the campaign, particularly during the first act. The PCs need to care about what happens to Elturel, but they’re never given a reason to do so.
The easy solution here, of course, it to simply have the players create characters from Elturel or with strong connections to Elturel. That’s fine, but you again run into that off-camera problem: You’ve told the players that their characters care about Elturel, but you haven’t actually shown that. You need to actually bring that connection to the table and let the players experience it.
Our method for doing this is obvious: The refugees.
Instead of starting the adventure with Flame Zodge, we’ll start with the PCs guarding a caravan of refugees trying to reach Baldur’s Gate. Broadly speaking, there are four ways to do this:
- IN MEDIA RES: We open the campaign with the PCs already journeying along the road with the refugees heading towards Baldur’s Gate.
- REFUGEES ON THE ROAD: The PCs are riding along the River Chionthar when they begin encountering refugees coming from Elturel. One group of refugees is put in danger (an attack by bandits perhaps), and the PCs have to respond to it. The refugees then ask them to guard them the rest of the way to Baldur’s Gate, “where we are sure to find safety and refuge.”
- NEAR MISS: The PCs are journeying to Elturel. At the top of one hill they see the gleaming city ahead of them. They go down into a valley, there’s a cataclysmic clap of thunder, and when they reach the top of the next hill they see that the city has vanished! They are right there at ground zero as the crisis begins.
- PRELUDE TO DISASTER: The PCs are actually in Elturel when something goes horribly wrong with the Companion in the sky above. Black lightning seems to be attacking the guardian of the city! Then black lightning begins lancing down, as well, striking buildings, streets, and people. Panic sets in and some people begin trying to flee the city. The PCs barely escape when the city suddenly vanishes!
Generally speaking, the further down the list you move the more immediate and visceral the crisis becomes, but it also becomes more difficult to ensure that the PCs end up heading towards Baldur’s Gate. Having them actually in the city sounds amazing, but there’s a risk that they won’t take the cue to get the hell out of Dodge (pun intended)!
Option: Start with the “In Media Res” option, but then flashback to earlier scenes so that the players can actually roleplay through the crisis, triaging survivors, organizing the caravan, etc. You can alternate these flashback scenes with various Crisis on the Road scenes.
Option: Instead of just opening with “Near Miss”, launch the campaign as if it’s a perfectly normal campaign based out of the city of Elturel. Send the players out of the city on a typical 1st level quest. Something simple like a 5 Room Dungeon. (Maybe this dungeon could actually include some subtle clue or foreshadowing of the Cult of Zariel, see Part 3 of the Remix.) As they ride back towards Elturel—BAM! Cliffhanger. End of session.
PREPPING THE CARAVAN
You’re going to prep and run the refugee caravan as if it were a party. (See the Party Planning game structure for more details.) This might seem weird at first glance, but structurally it makes a lot of sense.
REFUGEES: At a minimum you’re going to want to prep 4-6 refugees. I’d actually recommend 10-15. Use the Universal Roleplaying Template to make these characters really come alive. It may make sense to start with a smaller caravan that slowly gathers more people as time passes. In either case, there are likely more refugees than just the ones you’ve prepped, but the ones you’ve prepped will be the “face” of the crisis that the PCs interact with the most.
MAIN EVENT SEQUENCE: Many of your events will be crises that the PCs have to face along the road, but they can also include landmarks, encounters with other refugees, etc. A few thoughts along these lines:
- Bandits attack.
- They find the corpses of other refugees who were ambushed.
- Alyssa, one of the refugees traveling with them, is pregnant and goes into labor.
- The axle of one of the wagons breaks.
- They pass Fort Morninglord. It remains a cursed place that even refugees shun instead of using for refuge. The nearby temporary fort of the Order of the Companion has been overwhelmed by refugees.
- Mischievous fairies are stealing their food.
- They pass a campground where a large number of refugees are gathering.
- They encounter a ship sailing up or down the River Chionthar.
- A large number of ships come sailing up the River; word has reached Baldur’s Gate and an impromptu alliance of fishermen has gathered supplies and is sailing up river to see what they can do.
- A group of Hellriders goes galloping past (either towards or away from the city).
- Cult of Zariel members attack the refugees. (They might have actually been traveling with them as refugees.)
- A platoon of Flaming Fist is marching towards Elturel. They are stopping refugees and roughly questioning them, attempting to ascertain the fate of Grand Duke Ravengard.
Include the need for food and water here. I wouldn’t recommend a full simulation: Just include a few events where food or water is running short and the PCs need to figure out how to solve the problem.
As you’re creating your refugee NPCs, you’ll also discover interpersonal conflicts that can be seeded into the main event sequence.
The distance from Elturel to Baldur’s Gate is nearly 200 miles. Given the pace at which the refugees are likely to be traveling, it’ll probably take ten days for them to reach Baldur’s Gate. Don’t feel like you need to pack in a lot of events every day. Two or three is more than enough to set the tone, and many of those can be very brief. Once the PCs manage to establish a routine, it might also feel right to sum up a couple days of travel in a short bit of narration before zooming back in for the next crisis.
RUNNING THE CARAVAN: When running a party, there’s a persistence of action as you’re generally playing things out in Now Time. For the caravan, things are going to be more abstract; you’re going to be using eliding narration and doing sharp cuts between interesting moments. Make sure to both give time and frame scenes for the PCs to interact with the NPCs. The mental checklist for running a party remains useful:
- Which NPCs are talking to each other? (Consult your refugee list.)
- Who might come over and join a conversation the PCs are having? (Again, refugee list.)
- What are they talking about?
You might find it useful to habitually frame an “evening camp” scene each day – a sort of “mini-party” where you can pack in a bunch of different social interactions. Other opportunities include:
- While traveling the road.
- While relieving yourselves on the side of the road.
- While sharing a night’s watch.
- While sharing a meal or filling waterskins in the river.
If the players are enjoying themselves, let them feel the full ten days of the journey. If they don’t seem to be getting into it, make sharper cuts and move the clock forward, but still try to make sure they get a chance to really interact with the refugees.
Design Note: At some point, I recommend having one of the refugees mention that Elturel has never faced hardship like this; not even during the Night of the Red Coup and the rule of the Vampire Lord Ikaia (see Part 4B).
AT THE GATE
When the refugee caravan arrives at Baldur’s Gate, they find the situation as described at the beginning of Descent: The gates have been shut. A huge refugee 
camp is growing outside the walls, but it’s clear that supplies are short out here. If they want to keep their refugees safe, they’ll need to figure out how to get them inside the city. (If nothing else, from there they could arrange passage on a ship sailing to safer ports.)
If they approach the gates directly, they meet Flame Zodge. Otherwise, someone will point them in Zodge’s direction as the “guy who can solve your problems if you can make it worth his while.” Alternatively, Zodge hears rumors about how the PCs kept their caravan safe on the road and comes out into the refugee camp to find them.
ZODGE’S DEAL: Basically, Zodge sizes them up, concludes they might be useful, and offers them a deal. If they agree to be deputized as members of the Flaming Fists and investigate the killings, he’ll let their refugee caravan into the city.
This is important: Deal-making is another central theme of the campaign.
The deal Zodge is offering isn’t literally a diabolical one (it’s actually quite reasonable and there’s no hidden loophole waiting to stab the PCs in the back), but it’s a minor echo of the infernal pacts that are coming later. So don’t just shake hands on this: Have him actually produce enlistment papers and make sure the PCs sign them.
Option: Produce the enlistment papers as actual props and have the players sign them at the table. Once they’ve done so, whisk them away and make a point of tucking them away somewhere safe where they can’t get to them.
The enlistment contract contains a reddish sigil in the form of a watermark. Once the papers are signed, Zodge will produce a symbolon knife and make an irregular cut through this watermark, giving the half he slices out to the PCs along with their badges. (The irregular edge of the watermark can only be uniquely matched to that specific contract, allowing all signers to verify the agreement. This interaction foreshadows the contract sealed between Zariel and Elturel, as described in Part 4 of the Remix.)
In addition, as we’ll discuss in more detail in Part 3 of the Remix, the killings are specifically targeting refugees. Here, again, we are tying the details of the scenario hook to the wider themes of the campaign.
LEVEL UP: Once the PCs have signed their enlistment papers, they can advance to 2nd level.
One of the problematic elements in Descent Into Avernus is the pace and timing of the PCs leveling up. For example, the PCs are supposed to level up after the first SCENE of the adventure. (So you create your characters and then maybe 20 minutes later you pause the narrative so that they can level up.)
We’ll probably do a more in-depth discussion of this issue in Part 8 of the Remix as we’re wrapping things up, but we’ll get started by cleaning it up here.
(If you don’t want to run the full-fledged refugee caravan adventure described above, then I recommend just having the players create 2nd level characters straight out of the gate.)
THE MYSTERY OF ELTUREL’S FATE
The last element we want to strongly establish for the campaign here is the mystery of Elturel’s fate. This can actually be broken down into three separate revelations:
- What happened to Elturel? (It was taken to Hell.)
- Why did this happen? (The city was sold as part of an infernal pact.)
- The true history of the Hellriders. (They betrayed Zariel and left her for dead in Avernus.)
In my opinion, the PCs should NOT know (or even suspect) any of these answers when the campaign begins. (If you’re using the “Near Miss” or “Prelude to Disaster” openings, you’ll want to give careful consideration to exactly what the PCs actually witness when Elturel vanishes.)
In Getting the Players to Care, I discuss a number of ways in which GMs can get their players to actually care about the lore of the world. These include:
- #2: Make It Plot
- #4: Make It Mystery
- #5: Make It Personal
- #7: Make It Repetitive
And we’re going to use all of these to make them care about Elturel’s fate.
RUMORS OF ELTUREL: We’re going to create a sense of enigma around Elturel’s fate primarily by making it the #1 topic of conversation. Virtually everyone the PCs talk to has a different theory or has heard a different version of what happened to Elturel. (And what’s going to happen next? Are more cities going to be destroyed? Is Baldur’s Gate in danger? Did you hear that Waterdeep has been destroyed, too?) You can find twelve fully developed rumors of Elturel’s fate in the Rumors of Elturel addendum to the Remix.
Seed these rumors into:
- Conversations with the refugees, and with others met along the road to Baldur’s Gate.
- People desperately asking for fresh news as the PCs arrive in the refugee camp outside the city.
- Flame Zodge’s briefing.
- Town criers shouting out the latest headlines on the street corners of Baldur’s Gate.
- Conversations at the Elfsong and Low Lantern taverns.
And don’t just have the NPCs deliver these rumors. Flip it around and get the players involved by having NPCs ask the PCs what they think happened. (This will force the players to actively engage with the rumors and really think about them.)
ESTABLISHING THAVIUS KREEG: Among the rumors and other discussions, make sure to repeatedly establish that Thavius Kreeg was (a) the High Observer of Elturel and (b) he’s missing and presumed lost with the city. (We’ll discuss this more in Part 3, but you want to firmly establish these facts so that the players will understand the significance of finding Kreeg alive later.)
THE SOLUTIONS: The PCs will be able to gather clues to the first two revelations (What happened to Elturel? and Why did this happen?) throughout Part 3: The Vanthampur Investigations before getting definitive answers in Part 4: Candlekeep.
The true history of the Hellriders can be discovered in Part 5: Hellturel and Part 6: Quest of the Dream Machine. (This is deliberate: We want them to learn and fully care about the official history as it’s been known for hundreds of years before revealing the truth. You can’t yank the rug out from under them if you don’t let them walk onto the rug first!)
We’ll discuss these mysteries in more detail (and probably look at complete revelation lists) as they come up.
This is just brilliant. I’m ready to scrap my campaign and start from scratch! XD
The Adventurer’s League module, DDAL09-01 Escape From Elturgard has three 1 hour mini-scenarios finding refugees. One combat mission, one skill check mission, one exploration-with-some-combat mission. These could be easily tweaked into the opening of DiA that you’ve described here and it also gives you a handful of named refugees to play with. The 4th hour is a social interaction that tracks down a murderer in the group and might lend itself into meeting Flame Zodge if you capture the murderer alive. Pro-tip: I’ve seen a bunch of AL DMs run the NPCs as jerks… don’t do this! You want the players to view them sympathetically, not as an a-hole burden…
Does your bullet-point summary of the campaign premise say “Observer” in a couple of places where you mean “Companion”?
(hastily scrubs site)
No. No, it does not.
(whistles innocently)
(Although now I’m picturing the High Observer as an artificial creation of the Nine Hells. I’m uncertain whether that’s amusing or intriguing.)
You mentioned at one point that there’s not really a reason for the PCs to go to hell later on; given that, how viable would it be to start the campaign in Elturel at five or so (perhaps running a few sessions before the city gets taken to get the PCs familiar with the story of the hellriders and more attached to Elturel as a whole), and just not have them escape when the city is taken?
The main issues I can see with it at first thought are that you lose the mystery of what happened (since I imagine you figure out you’re in hell pretty fast) and have to rebuild the mystery of why, since that’s otherwise resolved by the time they planeshift in the original module.
You also lose or have to rewrite around Lulu and the evil shield, but those always felt kind of like weak points of the module anyway (Lulu in particular), so I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, and in exchange you completely avoid the question of why random low/mid-level PCs are the ones being chosen to save the city.
Oof… I guess I skimmed over the intro to this adventure, that railroad is pretty dire. I like the change to start in Elturel and travel with the refugees to Baldur’s Gate, but I worry that between Lost Mine and Hoard of the Dragon Queen a lot of players will find the “you’re all guarding a caravan” intro a bit familiar.
Looking forward to the rest of the remix. I’m curious to see what you end up salvaging from the Baldur’s Gate chapters, as my initial instinct was to scrap the first half of the adventure completely and have the PCs dragged into Hell along with the rest of the city as the initial hook.
It’s an option (and one that I considered). But, as you note, you’re very much ripping out the central structure of the scenario.
I actually found it even more difficult to explain why the PCs — out of everyone in Elturel — end up positioned to save the day. If they’re outside Elturel, then you can structure things so that they’re the ones who can bring something from outside the problem space (and thus end up in a privileged position once they’re in Elturel). This is not done well in the published book, but you can patch it in (as we’ll see).
If you go with a “you didn’t get out” structure, I think you’d almost be better off ditching the entire “save the day” concept and explicitly structure the scenario as a “sandbox in Hell” thing.
So far, in my game,
1. the PCs started with connections to Eturel. But had all left (too religious, fearful of ‘outsiders’,…. ) I foreshadowed how it has shifted morally and politically to the Alt-right under Kreeg’s rule.
2. The players were told they needed buy in to save Eturel from the start. They created PCs and a starting story with me. Collectively they decided they had travelled from near Eturel to Balders Gate for a stag do. They did some random rolls on those Appendix tables. They got drunk. Had a fight and accidentally killed someone. Then made tracks for Eturel.
3. Near Eturel, lying in a ditch, one night, they see people they later realise were Kreeg and his entourage, riding fast towards BG. Think nothing of it at the time.
4. Wake up to smoke on the horizon and refugees on the road. Walk to the brow of the hill, and see the devastation.
5. Join the dots and travel back to BG trying to find Kreeg….
@Jake M, it’s a good point about “you’re guarding a caravan” becoming a bit of a cliche.
However, the similarity mainly exists from a high-level “elevator pitch” view. Up close, looking after a group of desperate refugees, some of whom may be your friends or family, should feel very different to guarding a well-provisioned caravan of merchandise for hard coin as mercenaries.
The things the players focus on during play will be different too. The caravan guard scenarios tend to just be fighting off wandering (or scripted) monsters. Justin gives a bunch of “encounters” to play out on the road for the refugees, only a couple of which are outright combats.
That’s the significant change I also did in my campaign; the PCs are in Elturel, they chase a Zariel cultist out of the city, so they’re not in the city when it’s pulled into Hell. Still, they witness it, and then they travel with refugees (I used DDAL0901 for the caravan NPCs) to Baldur’s Gate. The captured cultist gives them information that teaches them there’s a connection between the Elturel plot and the Baldur’s Gate plot. They get involved to rescue Baldur’s Gate from being sucked into Hell, but also because they assume (correctly) that the plotters would have information that would help them save their city.
“Deal-making is another central theme of the campaign.”
“Another” implies that you already mentioned a different central theme, and I can’t find any such mention. Am I missing something?
I ended up rewriting the first part of this adventure as well. I didn’t feel that the PC’s would be invested in being part of the Flaming Fist or care much for the lack of choice they had.
Instead, I tapped into the shared background they decided upon. They witnessed/’aided’ a murder. While laying low for a while, a note is attached to the door that directs them to Zodge to aid him. In doing so they would uncover more information about they crime they witnessed and help clear their names.
I like the idea you are using here as well and may give that a try the next time I run this campaign.
@Wyvern. Saving Elturel. (Literally in terms of goal; metaphorically in terms of souls.) We establish this theme in the first session through the refugees.
I really like the Near Miss option, but it leaves the problem that the PCs will be much more likely to want to go investigate the site to find out what happened, than immediately take charge of a bunch of refugees and walk a ten-day to Baldur’s Gate. I *think* the answer is to use the Hoard of the Dragon Queen setup — that is, make the disaster site seem much too scary for any sane 1st-level character to want to go near. Maybe have a bunch of flying devils and Zariel cultists actively hunting survivors? Dimly glimpsed flying shapes, mangled bodies, screams in the distance, panicky survivors yelling “run for your lives!” I think it works.
There is reason for Zariel to hunt survivors, since I think any that pledged the Creed Resolute might be hers now, even if they missed the initial taking.
I’m also tempted by the idea that the PCs hook up with some farmers who have a well-stocked wagon full of food, but that food makes them a target for other desperate refugees.
Could be interesting to have a Hell cyst (like the one I put in Dragon Heist) located in the center of the crater. PCs who are curious and investigate could get an early hint of what happened to Elturel.
Why do the Elturel refugees go to Baldur’s Gate?
I don’t know much about the Forgotten Realms, but a look at the Sword Coast map shows there’s a city Scornubel much closer than Baldur’s Gate, upstream the Chionthar river.
It would make more sense to go to Baldur’s Gate if the refugees were travelling by the river – the flow would naturally take them there.
A few reasons:
1. Refugees are going to go in EVERY viable direction. So there will be refugees heading to Triel and Scornubel, too. But also towards Baldur’s Gate.
2. Scornubel is a much smaller city than Baldur’s Gate.
3. Although Baldur’s Gate is farther away, Fort Morninglord, a major outpost of Elturgard, is much closer. Refugees will likely head that direction, only to discover its resources have been completely overwhelmed by the crisis. Many will then push on rather than turning back.
4. Boats are, as you say, a good reason for the general flow to go that direction.
This is something to think about if you’re going with a “Near Miss” or “Prelude to Disaster” opening, though.
@Justin
Fort Morninglord seems like a natural pick for refugees to go, but reading your write-up I was under impression it’s common knowledge that it’s a cursed place.
From what I read, Scornubel is sort of a caravanserai gone big, with 14k of regular populace but easily quadrupling in size during the trade season.
I’m thinking in terms of “where I’d go if I knew the surroundings”.
I’m partial to starting in Elturel itself, letting the PCs witness the event first-hand. In that case, they will most likely be in the first wave of refugees.
It seems like the PC would need to have ties to both Elturel and Baldur’s Gate when they start, to ensure they have a reason to go in that direction.
@marek In the chaos immediately post-disaster the answer to the question of “which way do we go?” is “AWAY FROM ELTUREL AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.” Everyone who starts on the west side of Elturel is going to go west away from immediate danger for at least a while.
Once the tide is started, it’s hard to turn around. You’ve gotten far enough from the city that there aren’t a lot of cross-roads — your choices narrow down to “keep going” or “head into the wilderness of the Fields of the Dead” or “turn around and work your way against the frightened tide, back towards the place where everyone got killed.” As long as Baldur’s Gate doesn’t seem actively disastrous, most people are going to keep going.
In my game, though, the PCs are going to be among the early arrivals at BG, so the refugee camp will not yet be huge.
@marek Of course that’s the logic for someone who starts a reasonable (“safe”) distance from the city, and for the general flow of refugees. For PCs in particular, probably you can either put them in a position when the disaster happens so that west is their only rational direction to go (that’s what I did), or else you can give them a clue in game that makes them think they can learn something/do something when they get to BG. If they’re standing around saying, “uh, which way do we go?” usually they will latch on to the first plan on offer.
IIRC it’s been fifty years since the Companion appeared over Eturiel. You could have the players travel to Eturiel for the grand fifty year celebration. You can introduce the history of Eturiel and how magnificent the celebration is supposed to be. Maybe some of the party will be meeting old friends or family in Eturiel for the celebration. Then use the DDAL09 Adventure league series to get them back to Baldur’s Gate. The added bonus is that the players can be level three before they get to Baldur’s Gate that way.
Two things,
First, I always thought the major motivation was that what happened to Elturel will happen to Baldur’s Gate because of the deal the matriarch of the Velanthampur(?) made, and the early game should be about making them care about their city to stop this happening to them (thus leaving the fate of Elturel open as a bargaining chip for less saintly PC’s.) and less about saving Elturel itself. Not that there’s anything really wrong with shifting it, but I felt like that was part of the reason for setting it in Baldur’s gate, and having Baldur’s gate specific variations on things like Backgrounds.
Second, I started thinking some similar thoughts, but approached it from a different direction. I made it so the city itself hadn’t yet disappeared, but the city’s leadership had, and strange tings were afoot (sicknesses, violence, unnatural events) this lead to many people fleeing the city, and the Duke Ravenguard going to see what the hell is happening. The PC’s are meant to have a “Dark Secret” that unites them, and honestly that makes the most sense for why they’re under the Zodge fellow’s thumb, he’s got it over on them so they’re his dogsbodies, the reason they don’t just take off is two fold, this is where they live and/or the city is under lockdown with all the crazy stuff happening. If they do try to avoid him they get brought in for their crime (instead of just hunted down as deserters). A good way to work this in is make the “Dark Secret” part of the character creation, or even handle that first level of play with that scenario. Though maybe in a more free form story game kind of way where the party just collectively figures out what they did. Things play out as normal, but instead of an otter taking them to hell, he (or through other means) takes them to Elturel, to inform the Duke of their findings, and something to do with the contract being returned triggers the descent, so it’s their fault the city actually poofs down to hell. They are to bring the contract as proof of what’s going on, which is in service of Ravenguard wanting to take control of the city during the chaos.
That’s how it made sense to me anyways.
Hi,
I wanted to get some advice from some much more experienced DMs about the scenario you could use around a 5-room dungeon option for the first session as described in this article.
I want my players to begin in Elturel and get recruited to clear a small dungeon underneath the city. They go down, do a little combat, get a little loot and find some small clues before returning to the surface only to be standing in the crater that is left after Elturel is taken. My question(s) surround the scenario of the dungeon so that it fits in with the remixed story but doesn’t ruin anything.
Q1. Who should send them? Ravengard? Kreeg? Lightward? A random NPC?
Q2. Who should be in the dungeon? Zariel cultists? Dead Three? Ikaia?
Q3. What clues should they find in the dungeon that gives small hints towards the story as a whole without revealing any of the revelations that should be saved till later
I’m not looking for a detailed dungeon map, key and descriptions but if anyone has good answers for the three questions above it would be great to hear what you’ve got.
Thanks 🙂
N.B If my players are from Elturel, would this effect how their first exploration plays out? (See Part 5 of the remix)
Q1. I like Ravengard. If they’re part of the expedition from Baldur’s Gate, it makes explaining why they return to Baldur’s Gate (instead of going in any other arbitrary direction) super simple. It also provides additional motivation to return to Elturel later. And a nice moment of reuniting with their liege lord.
Q2. Zariel cultists or a Son/Daughter of Ikaia. (Or both fighting each other?) The cultists let you foreshadow what’s happening. The Ikaia connection lets you establish some deep Elturel lore (and also sets up faction stuff for the return to Elturel).
Q3. The fact that Zariel cultists from across Faerun are converging on Elturel is a nice hint that doesn’t really spoil any later revelations.
For a map, I’d just go browing through Dyson Logos’ site until finding something that inspires a cool idea.
Thanks Justin, sounds really good.
Hi Justin,
Firstly – thank you for creating such an incredible resource, it is helping me immensely get my head around this campaign, especially the start.
I just had one question – do you think it would be possible for a player to have the companion as a warlock patron?
I was thinking someone such as Bel (the original creator of the sphere) or even Zariel herself could speak to the player as if they were a celestial being – and siphon off powers from the actual being inside to give to the player. They could act as a devil acts, lying and scheming to get what they want by guiding the PC to Hell where they can kill or turn them. The PC would have no idea – and having the Companion turn black and vanish could give them so good motivation if the voice inside their head is telling them that everything is black and they need help from all of their followers (but not giving away the fact that the City has gone to Hell until the relevant revelations).
The Companion as patron would also give a good oomph to the later revelations that the companion is under Zariels control (I have been the voice inside your head this whole time!) and the eventual releasing of the celestial being.
Do you think this would give too much away or would be a poor idea?
@Max: Sounds really cool!
Couple things to make sure you’ve got clear answers for:
1. Why would they want the PCs to come to Elturel? It’s not necessarily untenable for the bad guy to bring the heroes to the one place where they can thwart their evil schemes, but you want to make sure there’s a really clear reason for it. (Off the top of my head, the real goal might be luring Lulu back to Hell so that she’ll help recover the Sword of Zariel. Recovering the Sword is what it’s always been about for Zariel.)
2. You’re likely to run right into the middle of a question 5E (which prefers to kind of wave it’s hands when it comes to the specifics of a warlock’s pact) doesn’t like to think about: What happens if a warlock loses or forsakes their patron? There’s a lot of discussion online about this, but you’ll want to have a pretty clear answer for how you want to handle it (in a way which will be fun and entertaining for the player).
Luring Lulu in sounds like an excellent idea – and I shall look deeper into the patron abandonment. Thanks Justin – it’s very cool to have a writer answer your questions so fast!
I’ve actually got a player doing it kind of the other way around. He is a Hexblade and a Hellrider, but we are flavouring it as him taking an unknown celestial patron, which grants him celestial powers and a holy sword.
I think the player assumes the patron is The Companion (or unknowingly the planetar imprisoned within it) . My plan is that the patron is actually the Sword of Zariel itself, which wants the Hexblade to redeem Zariel.
We have left it intentionally vague though.
@Justin
I’ve been working on the Session 1 Dungeon which you gave me advice on earlier in this comment thread. I’ve decided to make my players relatively new members of the Flaming Fist who have accompanied Ravengard and his personal guard to Elturel.
The only issue I have now is how do I handle the interaction the party has with Zodge when they first arrive at Baldur’s Gate. In your remix he offers them a deal that he’ll let the refugees in if they join the Flaming Fist but in my case they’re already members.
Any suggestions on how I can alter this so that it still makes sense and they still make a deal? (as I want to keep that theme)
Thanks
Skip having Zodge be the gate guard. Make him more important. Maybe he’s even Blaze Zodge in this continuity. After reporting in, the PCs are quickly shuffled up through the ranks to Zodge’s office.
First things first: He’s going to want a complete debrief on what happened in Elturel. These aren’t just random refugees; these are members of the Fist who were part of Ravengard’s Honor Guard. What the hell happened? Where the hell is Ravengard?
(Pun intended. You can smirk quietly to yourself behind the GM’s screen.)
Once the debrief is done… Great. Well, I’m glad your back. It’s good timing, actually. We’ve got a murder case — several murders in fact — and I haven’t had the manpower to investigate it because we’re up to our frickin’ necks in refugees. You’re perfect because you’re available. Here’s the case file. Get back to work.
Is there any way to have the party still make a deal at the gate to get in the city/get the refugees in the city or should I just drop that part of the scenario?
Absolutely great stuff Justin! Any thoughts on remixing other campaigns after you’ve finished DiA?
@Justin
First of all, thank you for putting together this remix. It looks awesome and I really look forward to running it for my players.
I want to use the “Prelude to Disaster” hook and I came up with an interesting way to ensure that the PCs end up in Baldur’s Gate, and I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.
The adventure starts with the PCs being interrogated by Flame Zodge in a guarded tent just outside the city walls of Baldur’s Gate. He says something like “The Grand Duke is missing, rumors say that Elturel is destroyed, and my city is nearly overrun by refugee rabble. Nobody knows what the hell is going on. I understand that you were there and witnessed the disaster. Tell me everything, and don’t leave out a single detail!”
After this, we flashback to 11 days prior (one day before the disaster) and play as normal until the timeline catches up with “present day”. This is used to build close personal connections between the PCs and Elturel. One PC will be a Flaming Fist member that came with the Grand Duke’s delegation, everyone else is from Elturel. I’ll run a modified Fall of Elturel first (with much less obvious clues – the cultists have a letter from “A.V” (Amrik) and a clue pointing to the Poisoned Poseidon, and Elturel’s fate is not obvious as the PCs have a hill between them and the city when the Companion turns black), followed by an abridged DDAL0901, followed by a couple encounters on the road to BG. This should take about 2 sessions, and at the beginning of session 3 the PCs finish telling their story to Zodge, the flashback ends, and we catch back up to present day.
I’m also thinking of presenting this to my players as “think of the flashback as as an extended, interactive video game intro. This is not going to be representative of the campaign, but at times I may take over and narrate what your characters did to set up the scenario structure for the rest of the campaign.”
Would love to get some feedback on this idea. Thanks!
Is there a guide anywhere on the Remix of where milestone levelling should happen? I saw that the players should level up after they sign Zodge’s papers, but I didn’t see any others.
That’ll be in Part 8: The End as part of the final broad overview.
Broadly speaking, I’m assuming the same pace of leveling. It only really gets tricky once you get past Fort Knucklebones and things open up into the hexcrawl.
OK, doing it in part 8 makes sense. I did notice that the Dungeon of the Dead 3 was beefed up fairly significantly in your version of it. Should the players be level 3 before going in? If so, when should they level up?
@Max The players should be level 1 for the fall of Elturel, Elfsong tavern and/or investigating the murders, level 2 for the Poisoned Poseidon, level 3 for The Dead Three, level 4 for Vanthampur Manor, and level up to 5 after Baldur’s Gate before they go to Elturel.
[…] of all, check out Remixing Avernus – Part 1: The Beginning over on The Alexandrian. Justin writes in detail about the premise of the campaign and ways to fix […]
[…] Alexander proposed a Main Series of Events which many of these use as their basis. I’ve turned some of these short bullet points into […]
Generally, I agree with your judgment on the beginning…I ran this for Adventurer’s League and I felt it was way too railroady myself. I am curious, though as to why you dismissed or ignored the concept of the party having a “Dark Secret” that binds them together. I really liked that idea, personally, and it was fun having everyone roll from the tables in our session 0 to see what that dark secret was and who knew about it. Overall, though, I like your suggestions for opening the adventure. Perhaps the “dark secret” could be worked into some of those beginning options.
The Dark Secrets are all designed for a Baldur’s Gate campaign:
– Conspiracy in Baldur’s Gate
– Murder in Baldur’s Gate
– Theft in Baldur’s Gate
– Failed Coup in Baldur’s Gate
DIA isn’t a Baldur’s Gate campaign. Even with the light expansion I’ve done with the Remix, the PCs will spend only a handful of days in the city. Most of these secrets are significant character hooks and making the group’s secret a centerpiece of character creation would indicate to the players that THIS is what the campaign is going to be about… only for the structure of the campaign to almost immediately tell them to leave town and never come back.
There’s honestly a whole different Remix where you ditch Thavius Kreeg, Elturel, and all the Avernus stuff and just focus on dark secrets in Baldur’s Gate.
I recently watched Matt Colville’s video on Campaign Handouts in order to give the players a “trailer” of the campaign to help them come up with ideas for their characters during session 0. He emphasized that one of the important things to include on the handout is the Central Tension, which is the main axis that the factions in the story fall on. What would be the Central Tension of Descent into Avernus?
I was thinking maybe Law vs Chaos, as devils vs demons is a prevalent motif. But the angels are also a group, so maybe the tension is the Blood War, and it has 3 sides? The most confusing thing about this is while there is lots of conflict in Avernus, I’m not sure how the themes would be represented in the beginning of the campaign in Baldur’s Gate and other parts of Faerun.
To sum up, does anyone know what the Central Tension of Descent into Avernus is, and how they would present it through the whole campaign both in Faerun and in Hell?
Temptation, fall, and redemption.
Thanks for all the hard work you’ve put into this remix, Justin. It’s amazing, and I’m using it all to gear up for running it soon. In doing so, I’ve created a couple of handouts that someone else might find useful. Both use the medieval indenture model of having two copies on one sheet (top-to-top) and then cut in half. I was just going to give the Creed to the players who would have signed it, but the Enlistment papers I was going to (hopefully) have each character fill out (I tried to make it a form-fillable PDF). Haven’t tested anything, and these may change, but here you go:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ypqz_fAENywrRcA1VW4ue1KxsXVRfNRY/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TzLPqlaWW7zYtornajvpEamvoKxRLWoB/view?usp=sharing
Hi,
Just looking to start and thinking about my players that want to drill up hellriders – how much should they know about the hellriders and zariel? Apologies if you’ve mentioned this elsewhere – great work!!
@Thomas: Part 6D-D delves into what the known/understood history of the Hellriders is.
About to do session #2 of DIA, following this Remix. This is also my first campaign I’ve run, so forgive any naivety, but a few thoughts:
– First, I think this remix has done so much for the story, thank you for all of the effort that’s gone into it, and I look forward to all the places it can go (especially once the PCs actually start solvin’ some murder)
– I was a little hesitant to run a full 10-day caravan trip for some players who really aren’t super experienced with D&D and don’t want to give that much benefit of the doubt (even if 7/10 days were ultimately going to not be too eventful). I ended up running day #1 and day #10 — and had my most-experienced player (who probably plays in 3-4 games at any given time) say “Oh thank god” when I said we wouldn’t be running the entire trip. To me, it felt like a bunch of kickoff momentum that immediately halts in order for you to get to Baldur’s Gate
– For the intro, obviously depends on your table, but I ended up following the mold of “Prelude to Disaster”, and theater-of-the-minded the PCs escaping the city in the midst of the storm. Then they “ended up” on a cart together (along with some other refugees). Got the players to gets to actually act right off the bat, without worrying about firm rules too much, and also gave a nice little vignette into each character’s life/personality and how that’s disrupted (which can be great when you have backstory-averse players like I do, but you still want them to put just a lil’ thought into personality/RP). Of course this is less fun if they all are already together, if you have a lot of PCs, etc (I’m sure folks can think of more limitations)
I’m already thinking ahead to trying to make Gargauth a central figure in tying the PCs to wanting to go to Avernus (I think the Gargauth/Bel/Zariel dynamic you’ve created is great, especially if you have a Warlock in the party), but we’ll get there when we get there…
Thank you again!
I have decided to run this campaign and in doing so came across your website, I will say I should be running with the ideas only with a few slight changes, that will have to slot into what I already have going on at the moment.
To put things into perspective here, my players at times have a habit of reading the books which is annoying. So I have become habit forming in response to this by simply changes names of groups, NPC’s, Cities, Ignoring maps of towns and cities and basically renaming areas, taverns, places of power. People in power and such like.
In my game the party are already members of the Grey Hands (which is simply the name I’m giving the mercenary group that is based in Waterdeep (Why Waterdeep you ask) well its was the first name of a city I came up with at the time of starting. Too late to go back now. As the party are eager recruits (All are of Elven heritage) trying to be members of GreyForce the elite of the elite, it has been easy enough to get them to volunteer to investigate on behalf of commander Blackrod. Whom has gathered some reports (Which contains some of more selective rumours) collected from the refugees.
Seems the players bought into this and are quite happy to try and find out exactly what is going on. Bear in mind I have changed the city from Eturel to Loudwater (Once an elven enclave). So I wish to thank you for giving myself more precise methods in regards to pointing out the errors in the publication and how to possibly overcome them once names and places have been changed to protect the integrity of the plan adventure.
What is a symbolon knife?
Hello!
Something that I feel like could be a nice mention/post of its own is what everything players should know about the campaign and the world prior to first session. Like you say they should care about the relevant official history before the truth is revealed to them, but what everything does the relevant official history include? The High Harvest, the Companion and the Charge of the Hellriders for sure at least if they are from Elturel. But should the names of Yael, Haruman, Jander Sunstar and Olanthius mean something to the PCs by the beginning of the campaign?
And if the characters are from Baldur’s Gate I’d assume that would also warrant somewhat decent sized info dump of relevant knowledge regarding that city. How much should they know about what kind of a personality Thalamra Vanthampur & her sons are?
I am trying to keep the pre-game exposition low but the trove of information that feels relevant is getting somewhat high.
I liked everything I found here. Just starting the campaign in Jan 23. Went with a slightly different start. Thought a 5 room dungeon would be too big. Added 3 additional roles for the players to get assigned to help the story along:
Character creation
1st level, D&D 5e
All of the players need to be born in Elturel a river city of the Forgotten Realms.
Your parents live and work in the city, as do your siblings.
You need to create your family history and character background story.
Before you start that, I need to know what character class you intend to create.
There will be a few players with special character background assignments.
====================================================================================================
Hellrider (Paladin, Fighter, or Ranger)
When you turned 12, your parents sent you to the city’s military academy, so that you could continue the family tradition of being a Hellrider.
You graduated last month and having completed your training have been granted 2 weeks leave before your first official assignment.
You, and other friends, are taking this time to escort one of your former academy pals to Baluder’s Gate, where they have accepted a commission as an officer of the Flaming Fist there.
On your way to Baulder’s Gate, your Marshall asked you to look into an old tomb where locals had reported some vandalism.
Following River Chionthar, if you take the north river road, it will be right on your way there. All they got from the villagers was that some sort of “bat” logo was scrawled on the tomb entry.
Your orders are to investigate it, identify the logo, and put down any undead you might encounter, if any.
Some sort of necromancy would be required for that to happen, and this is just likely some local youths with nothing better to do.
Do not open any of the burial vaults if they are still sealed up. We don’t want any vandalism reported on us.
The Hellriders have given you a Light Warhorse and a suit of crimson and white Plate Mail armor with the crest of Elturel centered on the front of the breastplate.
All Hellriders are required to give a tenth of their earnings to the city of Elturel’s coffers.
Hellrider is a job for life, you have sworn the Creed Resolute.
(Swear to serve the High Observer and the greater good, uphold Elturgard’s law, and permit no difference in faith to come between them,
nor attribute the Companion to one god or another, among other codes of behavior.
If a Hellrider overstepped the limits of law or proper behavior, their comrades would admonish them to “recall the Creed”.)
====================================================================================================
Flaming Fist (Paladin, Fighter, or Ranger)
When you turned 12, your parents sent you to the city’s military academy, so that you might have a chance of becoming a Hellrider.
You were not able to finish your final year at the academy due to an injury, and by the time you recovered, a nobleman’s son had taken your seat.
You travelled to Baulder’s Gate to seek work there and after interviewing with the city guard, several temples, and a few noble houses, you returned to Elturel to watch your friend’s graduation from the academy.
While at home this past month, a letter arrived this week from Marshal Portyr of the Flaming Fist in Baulder’s Gate offing you a commission as an officer in their ranks (a Manip).
The letter tells you to report to Flame Zodge at the Basilisk Gate as soon as possible. The Flaming Fist ranks are: Fist, Gauntlet, Manip, Flame, Blaze, and Marshal.
====================================================================================================
The Merchant Spy (Rogue)
Your family’s business has had you travelling back and forth to Baulder’s Gate from Elturel for years, both by boat and cart along the river road. The cart trip is faster, but the boat it less dangerous.
Your father has accompanied you on these trips since you were a child, but this last year his age has caught up with him and you feel independent enough to do it yourself.
You know every river boat captain by name and most of the regular merchants on the road. Many you’ve camped with over the years.
The family business often has you waiting in town on ships. They often get delayed, or sunk by storms or pirates, so you can have several days at a time with nothing to do.
This idle time in Baulder’s gate has gotten you familiar with the city and its guards – the Flaming Fist.
A misunderstanding on the ownership of a purse you found lying in the street, introduced you to one of the Fist’s newest recruits some years ago.
Thankfully your father sorted it out, and you’ve developed a working relationship with him over the years. He now holds the rank of Flame and his name is Zodge – Flame Zodge.
His office is located at the city’s Basilisk Gate, several connected rooms built into the city wall between the two great portcullis.
His latest task for you has been to track down some cultists, find their hidden meeting location, and report back to him. You did that last week, but haven’t had a chance to report back yet.
It didn’t seem like an emergency to him at the time anyway, it’s a religious matter and not really something he should be prying into. For 200 gold, why not?
————————————————————-
Flame Zodge followup
After sending his new officer to the Elfsong tavern, he brings his merchant spy into his office “for questioning”
Flame Zodge asks, “Did you get it, do you know where they are? how many?” You reply that you found their secret lair, but never saw more than three at a time. There could be a dozen or more.
There is a secret entrance to their catacombs beneath the Bath House. You found the secret door and proved you could open it, but didn’t dare investigate it alone.
He says, “I want you to inform my new officer of their location. Take them to the Bath House tomorrow, show them the way in, and join them so you can report back to me on their leadership abilities.
I have other assignments in mind for my new officer if this works out. If it doesn’t, bring me back the deputy documents and the commission contract, seal, breastplate, and cape.
I need complete deniability on this if it fails.
I sent them to the Elfsong tavern, finish your business in town and meet them there tonight and give them the details.
Here is your 200 gold.”
You still have a wagon load of goods for the family warehouse to deliver, at least the business has a local staff to do the heavy lifting.
You might want to pay them while you are there too, it’s due, and all this trouble with the sealed gates will leave them with little to do.
====================================================================================================
THE BASILISK GATE
Welcome to Baldur’s Gate, a veritable nest of rats and vipers clinging to the rocky slopes overlooking the Chionthar River.
From their high perches in the Upper City, the local nobles – known as patriars – gaze down with veiled contempt upon the common rabble in the grimy Lower City, which hugs the foggy harbor.
The whole of Baidur’s Gate reeks of blood. crime, and opportunity. One can easily fathom why pirates and traders are drawn to this place like flies to a carcass.
Following the river farther east would eventually lead you to Elturel, capital of the holy land of Elturgard – or at least that was the case until a few days ago.
The flood of refugees from Elturel has gotten worse since news first arrived that the city has fallen. Everyone is saying Baldur’s Gate is next, but no one truly knows who or what has claimed Elturel.
The patriars pay a mercenary army called the Flaming Fist to protect their interests in Baldur’s Gate, and by extension, the city itself.
The Flaming Fist has gained even more power since their charismatic leader, Ulder Ravengard, claimed the title of Grand Duke a few years ago.
Apparently, Ravengard is missing. In his absence, the Flaming Fist just been ordered to seal the city’s gates to staunch the flow of refugees. No one will be allowed in or out.
The Basilisk Gate, which pierces the city’s eastern wall and takes its name from the various statues that rest in its niches and perch atop its battlements, is where you arrive.
Unseen beyond Basilisk Gate, a dirt road stretches through the Outer City slums to the bridge known as Wyrm’s Crossing, then to distant realms beyond.
Dozens of Flaming Fist soldiers are trying to control an angry mob of commoners eager to leave the city.
A fight breaks out between soldiers and commoners, and you finally spot Flame Zodge as he wades into the fray and begins throwing punches. Just another day in the City of Blood.
———————————————————-
Flame Zodge (updated dialogue and position)
Flame Zodge recognizes his new officer recruit in the crowd, having interviewed him a few weeks earlier and beckon’s him (and his friends) to his office. (but not his merchant spy)
“I was expecting you yesterday, but it’s good to have you at all it seems. I was told to give you half a dozen men and put you on street patrol, but I have a better use for you at the moment – a special assignment.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself – here is your signed contract, you just need to sign it yourself, and you get this official seal for your correspondence, an officer’s cape, this breastplate with the
Flaming Fist crest, and 10 gold per day – paid on the first day of the new month. Here is a 100 gold advance to cover you until then. Please sign here, here, and here.”
Once the contract is signed, he continues.
“The refugee crisis, has stoked fears that Baldur’s Gate might suffer the same fate as Elturel, of which nothing remains but a hole in the ground, apparently. Our grand duke, Ulder Ravengard,
was visiting Elturel on a diplomatic mission when the city was destroyed. Coincidence? I think not. The knights of Elturgard call themselves Hellriders. A few of them escaped the city’s destruction and think we’re
somehow to blame for Elturel’s downfall. I have orders to arrest them on sight, which I don’t agree with. I see you brought one with you. I assume you can vouch for them?
The only way the other Fist’s will leave a Hellrider alone is if you deputize them, here are a dozen deputy contracts you can issue with your own seal.
Use them wisely, the contracts stipulate a 3 gold per day pay rate, and act as an official badge of office.
Don’t lose them, and don’t give them to unscrupulous characters.
All this trouble with sealing the gates, and the Hellrider arrests has left us shorthanded to deal with another problem. For that, you get a special assignment.”
Since Flame Zodge’s desk has a red ink stamp pad, this is your opportunity to deputize the party. He continues as you do so:
“Baldur’s Gate has long been plagued by followers of the Dead Three – the gods Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul. I thought they had been wiped out years ago, but apparently not.
These purveyors of fear and death are taking advantage of the current crisis and have been murdering refugees throughout the city, and the outlying slums.
We need you to put down this unholy den of evil, our jail is filling up fast, so we don’t want any more prisoners.
A few blocks from the Basilisk Gate is Elfsong Tavern. I’ll have my spy contact you there and give you the location of their meeting place.”
====================================================================================================
The vandalized tomb:
From a distance the players can make out the entry to an ancient stone Cairn tomb in a small light forested clearing atop a knoll. A black smudge can be seen on the main entry stone face.
A war horse has been tethered to a small tree near it. A dark figure rises from a kneeling position in front of the main stone dropping two white stones in the process.
The dark figure waves their hands in ritualistic manor and takes three steps toward the horse to mount it. (casts Shield of Faith making their AC 18)
(This is where you roll initiative with a distance of 120ft. A Hold Person spell could be very useful before the dark figure can mount their horse)
The dark figure was creating some sort of magic circle with the white stones, and had almost completed it. (Summoning Circle; Arcana DC 15)
Religion DC 15 – The mark on the stone is the symbol of Zariel
DM: Intent here is for the Acolyte of Zariel to escape and ally with Duke Vanthampur in Baldur’s Gate (at a higher level), but there is a possibility of them being captured or killed. If killed 400xp, if captured 600xp.
If captured and motivated to talk, the Acolyte of Zariel will reveal one the following tidbits for each successful check: Deception, Intimidation, Persuasion DC 17
1 The agents of the five headed one are back.
2 Baldur’s Gate IS next!
3 Zariel want’s her sword back.
4 Hellturel!
5 Where is the infernal puzzle box?
6 Release me! I must find the Shield of the Hidden Lord.
Urila Dolnore : Acolyte of Zariel
Male Humanoid (no race), Lawful Evil
Armor Class: 16 (Half plate, Shield)
Hit Points: 17 (2d8 +4)
Speed: 30ft (9m / 6 sqr)
Proficiency: +2
STR 14 (+2)
DEX 9 (-1)
CON 15 (+2)
INT 8 (-1)
WIS 17 (+3)
CHA 11 (+0)
Skills: Religion +1 Insight +5
Actions
Mace. Melee Weapon Attack +4 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 +2 ) bludgeoning damage.
Spells
Spellcasting. the Acolyte is an 2nd-level cleric. Its spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 13, to hit with spell attacks +5)
Cantrips (at will): Poison Spray, Guidance, Sacred Flame, Thorn Whip
1st level (3 slots): Shield of Faith, Speak with Animals, Healing Word, False Life, Protection from Evil and Good, Cure Wounds
Potion of Healing: The healer carries a potion of healing (2d4+2 healing as a action) and a Healer’s Kit.
Chosen of Gods: Once per week, as an act of incredible courage the acolyte can sacrifice himself to protect others.
The DM can roll a d20 and add acolyte CR to this roll. If the check gets 20 or more the acolyte can receive one of the random bonuses:
Regain one spell slot of his greater slot available; Maximize the healing of a spell, grant one target resistance/advantage against the next damage/saving throw.
Speaks Common.
The Cairn tomb consists of a left or right entry (the large stone blocks the front) a narrow tunnel opens into a large offering room with three open tombs, left, right, and ahead.
https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=mummified-warrior
One of these 3 undead wields a +1 Spear
Each has an item below:
Instrument of Illusions
Ear Horn of Hearing
Potion of Fire Resistance
Each crypt has loose scattered coins 1d100 in number
Roll for type
1-4 Copper
5-7 Silver
8-9 Gold
10 Platinum
===============================================================================================================================================
Repeating Carlos’s question: What is a symbolon knife? Italics were used like we should know what that is, but I can’t find anything on it anywhere.
I found this definition of “symbolon”
https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-6166;jsessionid=118381EDF6D0FE122B98107F0325583D
I dropped the threat and increased the gold reward to start off. Had to use an NPC to save the party during barfight. Used the imp to drop the party a key and map for the first dungeon and offered more gold to kill Thurstwells brother Mortlock. Whose story I altered so that he is trying to stop the dead three cultists his family hired to do the killings. As Mortlock is the outcast and black sheep of his family he is trying to right their wrongs. Giving the players their first deep moral choice. IF they kill Mortlock then they will be paid with their first soul coins. If they help him then he will reward them with plot lore and a magical item.
I think it would be cool to start pre-disaster with a Festival of the Companion. It appeared exactly 50 years ago, so a celebration makes sense. There’s a mass prayer to the Companion, burning of vampire effigies, a diplomatic speech by guest of honour Grand Duke Ravengard, and fun games to participate in. Some rat and bat swarms do show up to disturb the festivities, because Ikaia, despite the necesity to stay hidden, just can’t stand that the city is celebrating his defeat.
Anyway, when the worship of the Companion is at its peak, the light goes out…
So, I feel like I must’ve missed a chapter? Or at least a page? What is the difference between a Hellrider and a Knight of the Order of the Companion? They’re distinct in that the published book even states that the cultists are killing Hellriders and their descendants AND knights of the Order of the Companion. Is this a Square/Rectangle situation? All Hellriders are KotOotC but not all knights are Hellriders? If I’m encouraging characters to consider being in one (or both?) is there a place I can go to offer them “What you know” that’s Remix-lore accurate but spoiler free? I have done a lot of prep up to Candlekeep but now that I’m ready to have players make characters I suddenly realize i don’t know what they ought to know? Or how to distinguish between the two cursed organizations. There’s only one Background that was custom made, for a Hellrider. But wouldn’t a Knight be equally cursed? If anyone could point me to where I can go to set myself straight, I probably just was drinking from a firehose and missed that section?
@Gruzzle: The Hellriders and the Knights of the Companion are two separate orders of knighthood based out of Elturel.
Their history is confused because:
1. When the 4E guide to the Forgotten Realms was being written, the author confused Elversult (which had an artificial sun) with Elturel (which now had one). So the history of Elturel becomes very… confused at this point.
2. The 5E Sword Coast sourcebook tried to straighten out this completely muddled history with some strategic retcons.
3. Descent Into Avernus appears to simultaneously (a) ignore some of the retcons from Sword Coast and (b) try to create its own set of retcons, but also it’s pretty clear that either not all of the authors were on the same page or continuity was radically revised and the book was not coherently updated to reflect it.
Based on what we see in the book, I believe that some material was written with the understanding that the Hellriders no longer existed, some material was written with the understanding that the Knights and Hellriders were two separate organizations, and some material was written under the assumption that the Knights and Hellriders were the SAME organization (although it’s unclear if that was meant to just be a name change or if the Knights of the Companion had subsumed the Hellriders or any number of other possibilities).
tl;dr You’re confused because the book is confused.
A Textual History of Elturel can give you more details on this if you want to unravel it all.
I think my play is going to be using the terms synonymously.
Is there a place in the remix write-up that gives a safe just if things your Hellrider PCs can know at the start of the adventure? I’m trying to make that list myself, but want to avoid missteps and defer to the Remix completely.
Thank you for all of this. I’m starting two side by side Avernus campaigns, one Sunday nights and one every other Thursday. This whole write up is helping me so much to fix the obvious holes. I prefer having a good story and having things making sense conceptually and as originally written this campaign had so many issues. I am having a lot of fun taking these ideas and crafting my own version of this story for my groups.
oh, NICE find here. i just had the idea to mix HOTDQ into DTA. I have a lv10 group without campaign at BG and a lv4 party just finished chapter 3 of HOTDQ. both groups probably will never meet, but the global development of elturel disappearing -maybe short before they arrive there- might spice things a little bit up…
Thank you for all your work. I’m studying carefully all your work and this is my request:
Can you tell me an (or more) example of one of your characters connected to Elturel, is the only chance to make them interested in save the city?
If a Character is a Hellrider, he has all the information about the Companion, Kreeg the Savior? The undead stories of the former vampire lord? What about Zariel’s traitors? How to avoid a colossal spoiler?
If they care about Elturiel, what should keep the party interested in playing 5 levels in Baldur’s Gate?
I want to also share my thoughts about the ranking and Zodge:
– Blaze Zodge (an officer that commands all the soldier in baldur’s gate under the Grand Duke)
– Marshall Portyr, the daughter of Duke Portyr. Zodge want to impress her, and show her he is capable to deal with all the situation alone.
I suppose that Zodge is a subordinate of Portyr, one is Captain and the other is a Comandant.
Sorry for my bad english, but i’m not English or American 😀
Bless ya!
Hi Justin, thanks for your work, it’s inspiring.
I just have a quick question: when you say “If you’re using the “Near Miss” or “Prelude to Disaster” openings, you’ll want to give careful consideration to exactly what the PCs actually witness when Elturel vanishes.” what do you think is “the right amount of informations”?
I’m planning to run DiA and starting with a “nearly miss” opening, with all the party enlisted in the Hellriders and send out of Elturel for a brief quest. How would you describe what the party sees when returning to Elturel? And what is to be kept out of this description? I think that let them miss the “crucial moment” and let them witness only the view of the crater is a missed opportunity to give them a truly remarkable moment, but in the other hands I want to avoid a big spoiler…
Thank you in advance for your reply
Thanks again, Justin, for this and your other remixes. There are so many poorly designed published adventures out there that, even if one is able to recognize their flaws (usually only after trying to run a few of them), it’s difficult to find examples of the art’s “best practices”. I particularly appreciate your analysis of their design faults together with the reasoning behind your solutions, as these help a DM develop their own skills quite a bit more than presenting a remix without analysis. They’re much like case studies, through which one learns how to convert principles into practice. No doubt, this is one of your key goals, and the fact that you do it despite the additional effort entailed is deeply appreciated.
On the subject of the adventure’s defective opening scenario hook, where the PCs begin as unwilling servants of the Flaming Fist and are threatened with death if they refuse, it not only fails to properly align the PCs motivations and goals with the rest of the adventure, but also suffers from profoundly broken logic. If the Fist presses the PCs into service due to a lack of manpower, how then does it have resources available to hunt the PCs down if they don’t comply? This sort of thing, where the adventure relies on premises constructed of logical inconsistencies and contradictions, happens a lot in WotC’s adventures, often reducing them to useless incomprehensibility as you point out several times in this remix.
[…] a plethora of roadside, forest, and hill encounters that can be used for building these out plus, The Alexandrian, gives us a sample list of things that can occur within the refugee caravan as it proceeds along. I […]
This is really great. I have some new players to the TTRPG that have been enjoying BG3 so I may use this intro and adventure to show them the Prelude to BG3 and use many of the Tieflings from the game and Zevlor as the refugees. The intro you provide here is much more appropriate and thoughtful than the books railroad.
Hello,
I started my DIA campagn with an adventure in Elturel for many reasons :
– I wanted to create an attachement to the city by living in its walls, interacting with its people (PC being from and having family and friends in Elturel)
– introducing some historic lore as something important is easier if the PC experience it in their home. (and the lore of Elturel is quite interesting : cool taverns, commercial, religious, and political matters, mysteries…)
– starting with an investigation plot discovering something is wrong, getting some threads of the plot (but not the complete picture) then experiencing the apocalypse of the realm was a thrilling experience for the players. (At first I wanted them to experience the cataclysm from within and been saved, but they finally experienced it as they were out of the city, but not far from it)
For that, it was a big work, as I had to collect and use many historic lore of the City, create a stronger political structure (historic noble families, chivalry orders and militia commanders, economy and even a not evil thieve guild and other more evils criminals wanting to eliminate them, and finally several underplots linked to the City’s fall (rituals & assassinations to weaken it’s resistance)
By now, PC are heping a band of refugees and all heading to Baldur’s Gate.