A question I’ve been not infrequently asked is what starting date I used when running Dragon Heist using the Alexandrian Remix. A quick summary:
- PCs arrive in the Yawning Portal on Ches 1st.
- Grand Opening of Trollskull Manor on Ches 20th.
- Fireball on Ches 22nd.
- Cassalanter kids get their souls sucked to Hell on Tarsakh 11th.
Some of this timeline, particularly as it pertains to the dual festival weeks of Fleetswake and Waukeentide (with the sacrificial feast thrown by the Cassalanters being a Feast of Leiruin on Tarsakh 10th), is laid out in Part 4 of the Remix. Other dates are given on the master timeline in Part 5. But I apparently never clearly laid out how these dates related to the events in Chapter 1 (rescuing Floon) and Chapter 2 (opening Trollskull Manor and joining factions).
Basically, there are four considerations here:
First, you want to give the PCs plenty of time to resolve the situation before the Cassalanter kids get their souls sucked, but not so much that they don’t feel any pressure. It’s not quite the illusion of pressure, but it’s close: You want the players to look at the calendar and think, “We could run out of time!” without that just kind of accidentally happening despite their best efforts.
Second, you want the Grand Game stuff to play out across the full length of the festival season to give maximum opportunities for onsite surveillance. (Jarlaxle, Xanathar, and the Cassalanters all have opportunities tied to the festivals.)
For both of these reasons, you neither want the fireball (which triggers the PCs’ meaningful involvement in the Grand Game) arriving too early (no time pressure; the onsite surveillance opportunities aren’t available yet) nor too late (no time to save the kids, fewer surveillance opportunities).
However, the third consideration is that the section of the campaign you simultaneously have the least AND most control over is the refurbishing of Trollskull Manor (and simultaneous faction missions): Least because the players can theoretically fritter away a ton of time here in unpredictable ways. Most because once they’re done frittering you can ultimately say, “Okay, and then it takes you [arbitrary amount of time] for the last of the repairs to be finished. Looks like you can open the joint on [arbitrary date]!”
This allows you almost infinite control over the date that the Grand Opening happens AS LONG AS the players don’t run past your desired date. Starting the campaign on Ches 1st gives you a nearly three week lead time. In other words, you’ll have plenty of time with a healthy margin of error.
But why do we want the Grand Opening on Ches 20th?
First, it allows the Grand Opening to be its own distinct day.
Second, you get a “normal” operating day on the 21st (which you can also use to cleanly establish the beginning of the back-to-back festival weeks; see Addendum: The Twin Parades) before you blow the windows out with a fireball on the 22nd.
You’re letting the Grand Opening be a legitimate payoff for all the hard work the players have been doing and then you’re establishing something at least vaguely resembling the new status quo before you literally blow it up.
The picture at the top of this post depicts an amazing Faerunian calendar that was made by Erik Malm, one of the players in my Dragon Heist campaign. Thanks to Erv Walter, the Patreon patron who prompted me to write up this post!
Hey, love this remix! As a fairly new DM, I am confused how a party of 3-4 players can pull off multiple heists at level 5ish. From my understanding players are level 5 by the time they finish the whole un-remixed campaign. How do you handle the level progression in the remix?
This would interest me too.
I discuss this in a couple places in the Remix, but I recommend leveling up after Finding Floon, after Gralhund Villa (if they participate in the raid), and after each heist (minimum two, could be four). You’ll wrap somewhere between 5th and 7th level if you use that method.
If the PCs don’t approach the heists as heists — i.e., they just run in and start stabbing stuff — they can easily get themselves in a fair bit of trouble. But as heists, they seem to work just fine, for both me and many other GMs I’ve talked to about their Dragon Heist Remix runs.
Thanks for all the great work putting together the remix. Is there a compelling reason for the fireball to arrive so soon in the campaign? It seems to me like if the players are going to be investing a lot of money and time into repairing and refurbishing the tavern, it would be nice to give them more time to operate it and get to know the neighbors (and do early faction quests). I’ve been thinking about having the fireball happen whenever the interest and excitement in running the tavern and doing faction quests has dimmed. In that case the Cassalanter feast date would just be dated to 19 days after the fireball.
If you need more than three weeks of tavern management and faction quests before you blow out the windows, go for it!
My players decided to open on Ches 21 in order to funnel parade goers into the bar for its grand opening. This also got them more interested in the actual parade itself which made it feel like less of an optional sightseeing side quest.