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ZARIEL’S SPARK

The last of our four memory dives comes at the moment when the Archduchess of Avernus touches the Sword of Zariel. As we’ve now established, Zariel placed a small shard of her soul into the Sword of Zariel before giving it Yael. This spark of Zariel’s former self is what provides Zariel with a chance for redemption.

Here’s how that plays out:

• The Archduchess and the PCs are drawn into a memory dive.
• The events of Zariel’s Fall (see above) play out once more.
• But this time, the “Zariel” of the past has the appearance of the Archduchess of Avernus. She’s living out her own memory of what happened.
• The PCs are also present in the scene (although only Zariel can see or hear them).

The key here is that the spark within the Sword basically gives Zariel a chance to relive this pivotal moment and (most importantly!) make a different choice when the ultimate moment arrives.

If Zariel rejects Asmodeus’ offer, that obviously doesn’t actually change the past. This is a memory dive, not time travel. But it is her chance for redemption: The vision ends, the PCs return to the real world to find that no time has passed, but Zariel’s devilish form melts away as she is returned to her angelic form (see Descent Into Avernus, p. 148).

INFLUENCING ZARIEL: The PCs can attempt to influence Zariel’s choice. They might counter Asmodeus’s arguments, remind Zariel of events from her own past, or perhaps even make an emotional appeal (which could be particularly effective coming from Lulu).

Resolve this as a special group check, calling for skill or ability checks at DC 15. Give them advantage on this check if they invoke something they’ve learned about Zariel’s past. If at least half of the group makes a successful check (even if not everyone in the group makes a check), then they succeed: Zariel makes a different choice and is redeemed.

On a failure, they still grant advantage to Zariel’s Wisdom save (see below).

BEARING SILENT WITNESS: If the PCs don’t intervene or fail the group check, then Zariel makes a DC 22 Wisdom save. On a success, she makes a different choice and is redeemed. On a failure, she rejects redemption and destroys the Sword (along with the spark of goodness within it).

ON THE MATTER OF REDEMPTION

This is a semi-controversial point in Descent Into Avernus: Zariel has spent centuries as a devil, doing countless evil acts on a scope probably beyond mortal comprehension (of her own free will!), and now she just waves her hand and is redeemed?! What the hell?!

(If you’ll pardon the pun.)

You can see similar arguments around Darth Vader’s redemption in Return of the Jedi.

What seems to trip people up here is the idea that redemption means Zariel or Vader should be automatically forgiven for the things they did or should be immune from facing consequences for those actions. There are ethical structures in which this is true, but it’s not intrinsically linked to the act of redemption itself.

Redemption isn’t about how other people treat you or should treat you. It’s about your fundamental identity and the type of person you are (which will determine the actions you will take in the future). You can choose to be a better person starting RIGHT NOW, but ultimately no one else needs to change their behavior because of that until your actions give them cause to do so.

In Christianity, for example, the only person who “needs” to do anything differently because you’re redeemed is God. Who is, notably, omniscient and can, therefore, “see” redemption without the need for action.

(The meaning of the word “redemption” is actually based on the Christian God’s omniscience: Only He can redeem your sin – i.e., declare it a debt no longer owed — because only He can see your “ledger.”)

This same thing applies to the Star Wars universe: Force magic allows you to “see” a person’s fundamental identity and the fact that Anakin is able to manifest as a Force Ghost is evidence of how he was “aligned” as a person, regardless of the actions he had taken previously (and which would have demonstrated that prior personal alignment).

And we see the same thing in the metaphysics of Descent Into Avernus: Zariel is a supernatural being and if the fundamental alignment of the cosmos recognizes her as an angel… well, it means she has, in fact, fundamentally changed. She has rejected sin and found redemption.

In the real world, we could similarly hypothesize the ability to have this knowledge: Like, if we could take 100% accurate brain scans and were able to analyze a person’s “code” to see what type of person they were, we’d be able to know whether or not someone had truly become redeemed — had fundamentally changed and become the type of person who does good things.

Once we have that technology, the ethics of crime and punishment will need to change (but will almost certainly take decades or centuries to adjust). But until we have that technology (if we ever do), then it’s just a fantasy that can be fun to think about.

Go to Part 6D-L: Questioning the Hellriders

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CLAIMING THE SWORD

In the larger structure of the campaign, this memory dive more or less replaces the Idyllglen visions from Descent Into Avernus, p. 140. Its presentation and function, however, are different.

In the published campaign, the Idyllglen vision is triggered by Lulu’s memories being restored in a burst of magical light. In the Remix, that doesn’t really happen. We’ve put large structures in place for Lulu (and the other PCs) to slowly piece together what was taken from her, but there is no finale where it all magically comes back to her.

This memory dive is instead triggered when a PC moves to claim the Sword of Zariel. Within the Sword is Zariel’s Spark, and this memory dive is basically the Spark showing the PCs’ the long path to the Fall of Zariel.

Structurally it’s more or less doing the same thing for the players: We’re setting up the path to Zariel’s Fall because that’s also the path to her Redemption — if the PCs choose to take that path. (If they don’t, then this simply completes Zariel’s story and reveals the origin of her evil.)

So, a PC reaches for the Sword, there’s a flash of golden light and…

SNIPPET – THE LEGIONS OF HEAVEN: A legion of solars stand at attention, flaming swords held point-down before them. Before them – inspecting them – is another angel. He rides a golden, winged lion. His face shares the fierce, leonid beauty of his mount.

Zariel is there — somehow younger in her timeless beauty. An innocence around her eyes? A naivete? An eagerness?

The mounted angel stops. He speaks, but not to Zariel. To an angel just a little further down the line.

Celestial Marshal: What’s your name?

Chazaqiel: Chazaqiel, Celestial Marshal, of the ninth legion.

Celestial Marshal: Do you know why you are here, young one?

Chazaqiel: Elysium seeks to claim the Avernian paradise!

Celestial Marshal: Thank you, young one.

The winged lion spreads its wings and soars into the sky.

Celestial Marshal (addressing the whole assembly): To glory, my angels! To the emerald plains we’ll soar, and there forge our destiny! The Legions of Heaven shall secure the Eighth Heaven!

A great, golden light grows around the mounted figure, suddenly pulsing with blinding intensity. And then…

GM Note: The Celestial Marhsal is Ashmedai, who shall become Asmodeus.

VISION – THE GREAT BETRAYAL: You find yourselves… flying? Yes, flying on feathered wings through a jungle at night. Somewhere nearby the forest is on fire — a wall of blue flame which sends strange shadows dancing through the writhing foliage. The air is hazed with purple smoke. You’re following another angel, your commanding officer.

“Zariel!”

Another small squad of angels swoops out of the night, led by Chazaqiel. Your commanding officer — who your realize is Zariel —pulls up in midair.

Zariel: Kentarch Chazaqiel! Thank the Heavens! Have you heard from Princeps Sanniel?

Chazaqiel: Sanniel is no longer in command. I am Princeps now.

Zariel: What do you mean? Was she killed in the planar upheaval?

Chazaqiel: No. She turned against the Celestial Marshal.

Zariel: Against Ashmedai? What are you talking about?

Chazaqiel: Things are changing, Hecaton. We are no longer going to be a the plaything dangled between Elysium and Celestia. Ashmedai has claimed Avernus for himself. The great work has just begun. We ride paradise into the jaws of battle!

Zariel: Where?

Chazaqiel: To Hell.

Zariel: This is treason!

Chazaqiel: Don’t be a fool, Zariel! You swore an oath to the Celestial Marshal! Now obey him! Obey us!

Zariel: I swore an oath to Heaven, Chazaqiel. To Heaven above all.

Zariel abruptly draws her sword and attacks! Chazaqiel beats his wings and flies back just out of reach.

[Roll initiative.]

Angelic Rebellion: The PCs are currently solars under Zariel’s command. They use their own stat blocks, but have the hit points, AC, and other abilities of a solar (MM, p. 18).

• Zariel and Chazaqiel both command an equal number of solars. (The PCs are free to choose which side of the conflict to side with.)
• After 3 rounds, there are trumpets from reinforcements nearby. Zariel orders those loyal to her to cut their way free and flee!

The Flight of Blue Fire. Use the rules for chases (DMG, p. 253). Even if the PCs are captured or cut down, Zariel is fated to escape with a small band of other loyalists.

Homework: Develop a chase complications table that features the after effects of the planar upheaval as Avernus plunges through the multiverse.

When the chase comes to an end (either because the PCs have been captured or they have escaped with Zariel), there is a flash of golden light. A voice cries out, “The demon lord flees!” And then…

SNIPPET – FIRST VISIT TO IDYLLGLEN: Zariel is mounted upon Lulu in her golden war mammoth form. A small force of planetars and other celestials are arrayed behind and above them. Across a recent battlefield of torn mud and blood, they are glowering at a deviless mounted upon a dire hellhound and surrounded by a motley gang of demons.

The devil has coppery skin, dark hair, and two curving ram’s horns upon her head. Her lips are curled in a sultry smile that doesn’t touch her tawny eyes.

Zariel: What has brought you to the mortal plane, demon?

Glasya: It seems the same as you, angel. We pursued the demon lord Yeenoghu and followed the foul beast here to his butchery among the humans.

Zariel: And your name?

Glasya: I am Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus.

Several of the planetars surged forward with a strong beat of their wings. Zariel raises her hand to keep them at peace.

Glasya: And yours?

Zariel: Zariel. What are your intentions?

Glasya: Completed, I think. Yeenoghu has slipped through our snare. He has most likely slunk back to the Abyss with his tail tucked between his legs. [she looks up at the planetars] Will we need to tuck yours, too?

Planetar 1: She’ll only have a tail once she’s ripped it off of you!

Glasya (laughs): Come, Zariel. Leash your dogs and I’ll leash mine. I would speak with you without our voices being drowned by the rattling of sabers.

Zariel gestures towards a small grove off to one side. Glasya considers it, then nods her head and dismounts. Zariel follows suit, leaving Lulu and the others behind as she moves off to parlay with the devil.

Glasya’s hellhound edges closer to Lulu and sniffs. Lulu recoils. The hellhound reaches up… and licks her trunk.

Glasya and Zariel return. Zariel announces that they have both agreed to leave the fields of Idyllglen in peace, having “fought to common purpose.”

There’s a flash of golden light. And then…

SNIPPET – ZARIEL’S FALL: As your vision clears, you’re standing on a field of battle beneath the blood red sky of Avernus. A huge mound of devils lies dead. Other devils, still living, are hauling bodies off the mound, chittering amongst themselves.

All the way at the bottom of the mound, as one last corpse is pinioned on a pitchfork and flung to one side, the body of an angel is revealed. A blood-stained Zariel.

The devils draw back. Some of them are cackling, but then one glances back over their shoulder and suddenly drops prostrate to the ground. Others, too, following the first’s gaze, throw themselves to the ground.

A tall devil with skin of maroon and crimson, dressed in robes of black and gold, strides in amongst the scattered corpses. He is possessed of a leonid beauty, with two almost impossibly long, dark horns curving gracefully from his forehead.

You recognize this face. It is the face of Ashmedai, once Celestial Marshal of the Legions of Heaven.

The devil’s eyes smolder as he looks down at the angel. In a smooth voice of elegance and grace he asks, “Where is her Sword?”

“Gone.” Zariel chokes out of the word. “Asmodeus.”

“Fetch her some water,” Asmodeus says.

They wait. Simply gazing at each other. A few minutes later, the water is brought in a chalice of ivory-and-gold. Asmodeus takes the cup and offers it to Zariel.

Zariel smacks his hand aside, spilling the cup into the dust and blood.

Asmodeus smiles:

I look at you and I see that you are in despair. You thought you could make a difference. That you could end the Blood War. But here you are on a field of dead friends.

You look at me and I know you see malevolence. You see Evil. You see an antithesis. You see betrayal. But I did make a difference. And I will end the Blood War.

All those aeons ago, at my trial, when I looked you in the eye and laughed. Do you think I mocked you? No. I laughed because I saw you standing where I had stood before. I knew we walked the same road and you were just a few steps behind me.

Look around you. Look at the dead. Piled high. Do you really think this to be Good? Do you think this butchery to be worthwhile because it was done in a noble cause? You know as well as I do that as long as this continues, as long as the dead are nothing but tallies in the ledgers of complacent gods, Good is derelict. It is meaningless. It is feathery cupids cavorting on a celestial isle while suffering boils forth across the multiverse.

I know you came here to kill demons. You think you have failed. I think you have barely begun.

Which of us do you think sees more clearly?

What I offer you is simple: A chance to continue our fight. You have killed Terza’reg. I offer you his place on the Dark Eight and command of a Blood Legion. Serve me and your Crusade can still boil across the Abyss and turn the Great Wheel into a new epoch.

As Asmodeus speaks, you sense that this is but one truth among many: That Zariel and Asmodeus converse upon many different planes of thought. That this is but a mortal reflection of a myriad complexity beyond your grasp.

But when it is done, Zariel gazes upon Asmodeus for a long moment. An eternal moment.

And then she reaches out her hand.

“I accept.”

As their hands clasp, they explode with a blinding, golden light. And then…

SNIPPET – ZARIEL’S REQUEST, REDUX: You are elsewhere on the Avernian field of battle. Zariel is kneeling in the dust. Lady Yael, arrayed for battle in battered, bloody, dust-covered armor kneels on the ground next her. Zariel is pushing her glowing sword into Lady Yael’s hands.

Yael: I refuse. Do not ask me of this.

Zariel (smiling sadly): I must. I do. Look beyond this forsaken day. One last time, I need you to dream a little bigger.

Yael weeps and then, unable to speak, nods, taking Zariel’s sword.

But the moment shifts, and you see that in the moment Zariel passes over the Sword, she passes something else, too: A part of herself. A spark. A shard of her eternal, celestial soul.

I am the memory of Zariel that was and who can be again.

I am the Sword of her will and the Blade of her soul.

Zariel continues to speak to Yael, but she turns her head and her blazing eyes bore into you: “This is the last thing I will ever ask of you.”

Go to Part 6D-K: Zariel’s Spark

When using a location-crawl structure (of which a dungeoncrawl is obviously the most well known example), the PCs explore an area room by room. You can see this clearly in the default action of the ‘crawl: If a PC is standing in a room and there’s nothing interesting for them to do in that room, then they should pick an exit and go to the next room.

This structure works well when designing an area that has a high density of interesting stuff in it. Not every room in a dungeon, for example, needs to be filled with interesting stuff, but probably at least half of them do, otherwise the pacing of the scenario collapses as the players robotically churn through empty rooms.

So what can you do when the scenario calls for a crawl-type exploration of a large area with only a few points of interest?

To some extent, of course, we’re talking about a fictional world and you can simply choose to design it differently: Shrink the scope of the area to sync up with the desired points of interest. (Or, alternatively, increase the number of points of interest to match the scope of the area.)

But this is not always desirable or even possible. For example, if the PCs are heading to an abandoned skyscraper in the post-apocalyptic urban wastelands, changing the skyscraper into a duplex is to fundamentally alter the nature of the scenario. And simply filling the skyscraper to the brim with various encounters would be inconsistent with the general premise that Downtown is a thinly populated desert. (It could also quite easily bloat the skyscraper exploration out of proportion to its importance in the scenario.)

Which, of course, brings us to the sector crawl. Like other crawls — location-crawls, hexcrawls, urbancrawls, etc. — it features keyed locations, geographic movement, and an exploration-based default goal. But while superficially similar to a location-crawl, the sector crawl is designed to handle low density areas. It consists of sectors, connections, and encounters.

SECTORS

You’ll start prepping your sector crawl by identifying your sectors. Basically, you’re breaking your scenario’s area into large chunks. Ideally you want these sectors to:

1. Broadly map to the characters’ understanding of the environment.
2. Generally have one point of interest per sector.

In fact, one way of designing a sector crawl is to list your points of interest — hive of mutants, cache of medical supplies, sarcophagus of the seer, etc. — and then figure out what “sector” each point of interest is in. It’s okay to have a few sectors with multiple points of interest, but if you end up with LOTS of sectors like that, you’ll probably want to think about breaking that part of your scenario down into smaller sectors. On the other hand, sectors without a point of interest should generally be very rare (or not used at all).

For example, each floor in our post-apocalyptic skyscraper might be a separate sector. Or perhaps the skyscraper is broken into three sectors – the Lower Floors (1-10), the Middle Floors (11-46), and the Upper Floors (47-69). Or maybe it’s the Ground Floor, Lower Floors, Upper Floors, and Penthouse.

The scale of these sectors, as you can see, will vary depending on the scenario, but you want them to flow naturally from the logic of the campaign world (as opposed to being arbitrary divisions) so that the players can choose how to navigate through the area. (Ideally the players won’t even know you’re running a sector crawl because their navigation decisions will flow naturally from a completely in-character point of view.)

CONNECTIONS

That brings us to the connections between sectors, which is the second thing you’ll want to prepare for your sector crawl.

By default, however, a sector crawl isn’t about the paths between sectors. You can generally access any sector from any other sector, although that navigation might be chokepointed through, for example, a central hub or elevator.

This open access might, in some cases, be only conceptual in nature. If you actually followed every step the PCs take, for example, you might discover that getting from the Lower Floors to the Penthouse is, technically speaking, only possibly by passing through the Middle and Upper Floors. But conceptually, players on the 5^th Floor can say, “Let’s take the elevator up to the Penthouse,” and they can just do that.

This open-access doesn’t mean that the PCs aren’t exploring the location. It just means that the meaningful choices will be ones of sequence and priority rather than geographical navigation.

(If this is making you uneasy, think about how node-based scenario design routinely gives PCs a slate of clues that effectively give them a menu of places to go next. An open-access sector crawl basically does the same thing.)

To support this, as you’re thinking about how your sectors are related to each other, you’ll usually want to avoid sector structures that only make sense after the characters have already explored them. Looking at a post-apocalyptic skyscraper, for example, the players can immediately intuit that it’s made up of various floor and they can go to various floors by going up or down through the skyscraper.

Conversely, if they arrive at the Great Gate of an abandoned dwarven city, they might have no idea what other sectors exist, which will make it difficult for them to make sector selections. If the PCs can’t get an immediate overview of a location when they arrive there, you may need to provide that information in some other form — maps, local guides, skill checks, divine visions, etc.

Tip: The overview might be provided as the point of interest for the Arrival sector. In other words, the PCs arrive at the Great Gate, and when they explore that sector you can tell them about the Grand Promenade, the Lower Galleries, and the seven Dwarven Minarets.

Sometimes, though, you’ll want a mysterious sector for the PCs to discover. These are sectors that are connected to (or hidden within) a specific sector, and can only be discovered or unlocked when the PCs explore that sector.

In most cases, once a mysterious sector has been revealed or accessed, it will become part of the sector crawl’s open access. (Meaning that it can be freely selected like any other sector in the future.) But it’s also possible for some sectors to act as chokepoints: In order to get from a sector on one side of the chokepoint to a sector on the other side of the chokepoint, you do, in fact, have to pass through the chokepoint sector.

Chokepoints can be used to create isolated sectors, but in other configurations you can actually think of them as the connection point between two different sector crawls.

A similar type of sector is the hub sector: If you’re in the hub, you can access any of the sectors connected to the hub. Conversely, you’ll need to pass through the hub to reach any of the sectors connected to it.

Hubs can be a useful way of conceptualizing particularly large sector crawls. Instead of needing to provide an overview of every single sector in the entire complex, you only need to provide an overview of the sectors connected to the hub and any “neighboring” hubs. It’s only when the PCs go to a new hub sector that you’ll need to overview the sectors connected to that hub.

The Great Gate of the dwarven city, for example, can serve as the hub for nearby features within the city (e.g., the Lower Galleries and the Dwarven Minarets), while also providing access to the Grand Promenade which is another hub.

A final key thing to understand is that the more chokepoints, hubs, and mysterious sectors you add to your sector, the more specific you are making the connections between your sectors. The more you increase that specificity, the more your sector crawl will begin blurring into a pointcrawl. This will become even more true if your sectors begin shrinking towards single points of interest.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but it’s useful to be aware of what you’re doing.

ENCOUNTERS

A sector crawl doesn’t need encounters, but they’ll usually enhance the scenario and make the area feel like a dynamic, living environment. The specific encounter methods generally resemble those in other ‘crawl structures (like hexcrawls and dungeoncrawls) — they might be random or programmed; keyed to specific sectors or the entire scenario; and so forth.

RUNNING THE SECTOR CRAWL

Running a sector crawl largely consists of going to a new sector or exploring the current sector. Each time the PCs do one of these things, trigger or check for an encounter.

Exploring the sector will turn up:

• Its “identity” (if this was not already known);
• Its point of interest (i.e., the content keyed to the sector); and
• Any secret connections to other sectors (if you’re using mysterious sectors).

If a sector has multiple things to discover, the PCs might find all of them through a single exploration action or find them one at a time (requiring more exploration actions in order to find additional stuff).

And that’s it! Running a sector crawl is actually quite straightforward.

A SECTOR OF ONE

I’ve found it occasionally useful to conceptually think of some locations as a “sector of one” when running them.

For example, in a mystery scenario there might be a house which contains exactly one clue. The players, perhaps conditioned by the ubiquitous location-crawls found in RPG scenario design, might decide to start searching the house one room at a time – essentially treating it like a dungeoncrawl.

Knowing that it’s a rather large house and they’ll spend most of their time not finding stuff that isn’t there, I might push them into a sector crawl and frame their actions appropriately: They say they’re going to search the kitchen, but I simply handle the resolution of the action as searching the whole house (i.e., the house is a single “sector” and they’re performing an exploration action there).

Note: I’m not saying this is the one-true-way of handling this situation. I can think of a half dozen different reasons why you might want to handle the house search as a location-crawl even though there’s only one clue to be found.

This can also be a good thought experiment for how you run a sector crawl, particularly if you’re finding yourself defaulting back into treating the area as a location-crawl. Unless the players are aware of the sector crawl structure (and it’s a structure that doesn’t always lend itself to that), you’ll often be figuring out how to interpret the players’ declared actions within the context of the structure.

For example, they may not explicitly say, “I’m exploring this sector.” But they might say that they’re looking for a place to sleep. Or are searching one section of the sector. Or are looking for medical supplies. All of those can be treated as exploring the sector (and trigger the sector’s discoveries and encounter).

The same thing will be true of navigation, where you’ll need to figure out if certain actions are just moving around inside their current sector or if it’s actually moving to a different sector (and, if so, which one).

UNTESTED: MEGADUNGEON SECTORS

This is something I haven’t had a chance to actually test yet: Converting sections of a megadungeon into sectors.

I’m not talking about designing a megadungeon-like scenario as a sector crawl. (Although you can easily do that, as demonstrated with the example of an abandoned dwarven city above.) What I mean is running a megadungeon as a dungeoncrawl, but when the PCs have “cleared” a particular section of the megadungeon (akin to clearing hexes in a hexcrawl) you convert that section of the megadungeon into a sector.

This would hypothetically allow the players to quickly move through cleared sections of the megadungeon. If you’ve run large dungeons or megadungeons before, you’ve probably already done something akin to this in a purely informal way. (Skipping the boring stuff and getting to the interesting bits, right?) What I find interesting about formalizing this into a sector crawl is that it would still provide a structure for triggering encounters there or even exploring to discover hidden secrets the PCs had previously missed.

It would also give a convenient structure for handling restocking the dungeon – i.e., unclearing the area as new monsters migrate in. For more details on that sort of thing, check out (Re-)Running the Megadungeon.

If you’d like to see a sector crawl in action, there’s one in the upcoming Apeworld on Fire! adventure for the Feng Shui roleplaying game. Designed by Paul Stefko, we used a small sector crawl for a section of the adventure in which the PCs are exploring an abandoned arcanowave laboratory while being hunted by a nanostock demon!

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 24C: The First Hound of Ghul

Returning to the tunnels beneath Greyson House, they proceeded carefully past the point where the pit of chaos now lay entombed. The stone above it was now visibly warping and buckling, making it clear that the effort to seal away the pool would not last for more than a few more days at most.

But, soon after, their fears regarding the unknown intruders were laid to rest: Drawing near to the former bloodwight nests, Tee could easily distinguish the distinctive sound of elvish voices. Stepping into the open, she confirmed that this was a party of workers and scholars from House Erthuo.

In this session, the PCs return to the Laboratory of the Beast. They’ve been here before. In fact, depending on how you count, this is their third or fourth foray into this section of Ghul’s Labyrinth. (It won’t be the last.)

What’s pulled them back this time is the desire to wrap up some unfinished business. There are a couple particular examples of this I’d like to draw your attention to.

First, in this week’s campaign journal, Tee obtains a set of magical lockpicks which allow her to open doors which had previously thwarted their efforts to open.

Second, in the next installment of the campaign journal, you’ll see them figure out how to haul some of the larger treasures out of the labyrinth.

Some GMing advice will tell you to fear failure: Your players couldn’t open the door? Didn’t find the secret passage? Missed a clue? You’ll find plenty of people who will tell you these outcomes aren’t “fun” and shouldn’t be allowed.

But this is myopic advice.

Failure is rarely the end of the story. It is an opportunity for the players to use their ingenuity to find a different path to success. And often the stories we discover along these paths are the most memorable and enjoyable.

Partly this is due to the sense of accomplishment and progress: When you discover that you can achieve a goal that was previously impossible, that’s satisfying. And when you figure out how to find a success that overcomes failure, that’s a success which you own. The context of failure gives meaning to the eventual triumph.

Also, the consequences of failure are usually fascinating and far more interesting than the consequences of success. This can be particularly true of roleplaying. As Admiral Kirk says of the Kobyashi Maru, “It’s a test of character.” How we deal with failure is far more revealing – and meaningful – than how we deal with success.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE DUNGEON

The other reason the challenges of failure often result in great stories is because they force you to re-engage with a situation.

You can see that in a pretty pure form in this session: There’s nothing inherently amazing about picking the lock on a door, but it motivates the PCs to come back to this dungeon. Which, in turn, allows them to see how the dungeon has been transformed as the result of their actions.

The Laboratory of the Beast is a fairly sterile complex, inhabited primarily by the remnants of technomantic and necromantic experiments from the distant past. But even here, the PCs encounter the researchers from House Erthuo: The things which they have done in the past are having a tangible effect on the game world.

This makes the game world feel real. It also gives meaning to the actions of the characters and the choices of the players. The first engagement with something is often scarcely removed from exposition — it establishes the basic facts, but can rarely delve deep in exploring them. It is in the re-engagement that story happens.

Of course, there are other ways that you can motivate players to, for example, revisit a dungeon. But simply allowing failure to exist in your campaign will see this behavior emerge organically from the events of play with little or no effort on your part.

LOGISTICAL CHALLENGES

Much like failure, you’ll often see GMing advice which suggests that logistical elements like encumbrance are “boring” and should just be skipped over.

There are certainly times when the logistical hurdles of a situation are clearly manageable and, therefore, the trivial details of exactly how they are managed are best skipped. And there are certainly, for example, encumbrance systems which are so burdensome that it’s better to find an alternative.

But that’s really no different than, say, an overly complicated combat system or the fact that you don’t need to bust out the initiative rolls to let 15^th level PCs intimidate and rough up some street thugs. And I think it’s a mistake to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

D&D, in particular, is a game of expeditions. When you remove the logistics from an expedition, you remove most or all of the challenge from that expedition. And I don’t just mean that in a mechanical sense. When you remove adversity from a narrative, it generally doesn’t improve the narrative!

In the current session, you can see how the logistical problem of getting bulky-yet-valuable items out of the dungeon forced the players to come up with alternative solutions. That includes bringing the House Erthuo researchers to the dungeon (“if we can’t move the orrery to sell it somewhere else, we can sell access to it where it is”). It also created a failure state which, once again, brought the players back to the dungeon.

You can see another example of this in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, actually. Once the players have found the huge cache of coins which is the ultimate reward in that campaign, the question of how they’re going to get that gold out when there are potentially multiple factions looking to steal it out from under them is really interesting.

(With minimal spoilers, Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon is a mind-bending look at a similar conundrum.)

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 24D – Running the Campaign: Magic Item Wish Lists
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 24C: THE FIRST HOUND OF GHUL

June 21st, 2008
The 12th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

THE NEXT MORNING

But when Tee woke up the next morning, she discovered that the Dreaming Apothecary had finally delivered the items she had purchased. They were laying, neatly displayed, on her bedside table.

There were two small, golden discs designed to be affixed to the temples. Tapping either of the discs caused a scintillating field of golden energy to cover Tee’s eye sockets. Although this effect prevented others from seeing her eyes, it enhanced her own vision.

There was an armband of black silk with Tee’s dragon sigil embroidered upon it in silver thread – thread that was not merely silver-dyed cloth, but actual woven silver.

And, at first, Tee felt there had been some mistake because there was no sign of the glamoured lockpicks she had requested. Instead, there was a large ring set with a faceted ruby. Closer inspection, however, revealed a tiny trigger near the base of the stone. Pressing the trigger revealed a set of tiny prongs, wires, and other small devices crafted from mithril. Slipping the ring on, Tee found that she could control the minute motions of these precision tools with a mere thought.

Since Tee had received her tools, it was decided that the entire group would first return to Ghul’s Labyrinth and finish their explorations there. (As a result, Ranthir’s researches into the golden key were delayed.)

Returning to the tunnels beneath Greyson House, they proceeded carefully past the point where the pit of chaos now lay entombed. The stone above it was now visibly warping and buckling, making it clear that the effort to seal away the pool would not last for more than a few more days at most.

But, soon after, their fears regarding the unknown intruders were laid to rest: Drawing near to the former bloodwight nests, Tee could easily distinguish the distinctive sound of elvish voices. Stepping into the open, she confirmed that this was a party of workers and scholars from House Erthuo.

The leader of the Erthuo expedition stepped forward and introduced himself as Faeliel. He grew quite excited when Ranthir introduced himself, shaking his hand vigorously. “Cordelia told me that you might pass this way. I’m most pleased to meet you. Would you like to see what we’ve accomplished with the orrery?”

Ranthir smiled with delighted surprise and eagerly followed Faeliel. With only a glance he could see that the orrery had already been partially restored.

“That’s right,” Faeliel said. “We’re trying to restore the orrery before moving it so that we can preserve as much of it as possible. The mechanisms are badly damaged, but we’re learning a lot by observing it in a relatively unchanged state. This damage over here seems quite extensive and recent, unfortunately.”

Ranthir explained about the bloodwight which had burst its way out of the orrery shortly after they discovered it.

“Oh!” Faeliel gasped. “Well… I’m glad we weren’t the first ones here, then!”

They both laughed, and then fell into a spirited conversation. Ranthir was able to offer several insights into the workings of the orrery before the others pulled him towards the bluesteel door.

THE FIRST HOUND OF GHUL

They were careful not to let any of the workers from House Erthuo overhear the password as they passed through the bluesteel door.

Tee had been intermittently obsessing for weeks now over the cryptic mysteries hidden behind the locked secret doors near the alchemical laboratory. Now, with her new tools, she was eagerly looking forward to trying her luck with those locks once again.

But before she did that, as they passed through the first antechamber (where the four colossal statues of Ghul looked down upon them), Tee swung open the double doors leading into the strange and tainted temple of obsidian. Through those doors she hurled every artifact of tainted chaositech she carried, feeling her very soul lightened by the loss of their burden. With a deep satisfaction, she swung the doors shut behind her and then turned aside towards the laboratories.

One of the secret doors lay in the chamber with four alchemical pits, where the fetid fungus had threatened to overwhelm them in a living, undulating wave. While Agnarr and Tor moved cautiously towards the pits to ensure that no new dangers were breeding in their depths, Tee moved toward the section of the wall where she had discovered the concealed keyhole. Removing the ruby on her new ring, she slid the delicate mechanisms into the keyhole.

With a satisfying click, a section of the wall popped open with a burst of stale air. Sliding the wall panel to one side, Tee revealed the hidden chamber. To one side, a small wooden desk was half-rotten through. To the other, what appeared to have once been large crates had been stacked in the corner, but many of these had collapsed under the weight of many years.

And the sound of deep, laborious breathing echoed through the chamber…

Tee motioned for the others to keep silent and then moved quietly into the room.

She discovered the source of the breathing behind the desk: A large, gracile creature with chocolate-brown fur lay sleeping. Its neck and hind legs were curiously elongated, but it was clearly a hound.

Tee backed her way out of the room and told the others what she had seen. Then she moved back into the room, searching it while being careful not to disturb the dog. Agnarr followed her in to keep an eye on the creature and watch her back.

But as soon as Agnarr laid his eyes on the creature, a huge smile spread across his face. It was his dog! He had spent so much time looking for a faithful hound to rear and train, and now he had found it in the most unexpected of places!

Most of the room’s contents had decayed to dust and ruin, but among the shattered boxes Tee found three spears of solid steel and high craftsmanship that she felt might fetch a fair price in the city above. But her persistence paid off particularly when she found a secret compartment hidden inside the ruined remnants of the desk… and, inside the compartment, a half-rotted purse containing several dozen blood-red rubies.

As Tee stood up, slipping the gem purse into her bag of holding, Agnarr gestured towards the dog. “Try to wake it up.”

Tee gave the barbarian a skeptical look, her thoughts returning to the vicious, yapping, porcelain puppy that Agnarr had last fixated on in his quixotic search for a faithful companion. But she could tell that he wasn’t going to be easily dissuaded, so she gave the slumbering dog a half-hearted prod. It didn’t stir.

Tee shrugged. “No such luck! Let’s go.”

She headed towards the door, but Agnarr didn’t follow. Instead he sheathed his sword and gave the dog a more powerful prodding with his foot. There was still no response.

With a thoughtful look on his face, Agnarr reached into his own bag of holding and pulled out a raw steak. (Tee: “Why do you have raw steak in your bag?” Agnarr: “For the goblins.” Tee: “Well… that explains absolutely nothing.”) Agnarr waved the steak under the dog’s nose.

The dog didn’t stir.

But Agnarr was not to be easily dissuaded: Laying the steak down, he grabbed the dog with both his hands and gave it a mighty shake.

The dogs eyes popped open! It lunged at Agnarr’s face!  Tee, cursing, whipped our her rapier—

… and the dog began ecstatically licking Agnarr’s cheek.

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: TBD – Campaign Journal: Session 24D
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index