Is a +1 sword magical? Technically, yes. But does it feel like magic? Probably not.

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So now you have a stack of notes about the city. How do you actually use them during play?

The key is that virtually all actions in the city boil down to either finding information or going to a location.

For finding information, check out Rulings in Practice: Gathering Information for an in-depth look. Finding the information will almost always involve going somewhere. Often the information the PCs are looking for will be (either directly or indirectly) a location, too – a service they need, a resource, the place where their enemy is hiding out, etc.

Once the PCs are heading to a location, look at your notes for the district they’re going to. Then:

1. Name the district and point to it on the map. (“You head over to the Docks.”)
2. Mention a landmark – a major street they travel down, a building they pass, an art installation, etc. (“Passing down Fishwives’ Lane, the smell of gutted tuna thick in the air…”)
3. Make an encounter check for a scenic encounter. (Or, alternatively, automatically run an encounter.) (“…you see a dragonborn fishmonger offering to sell freshly harvested oyster pearls. He says one of them is a rare rainbow pearl, a sign of good luck.”)
4. Describe the location they arrive at. (“Dominic’s hovel is tucked into a narrow side street just past the red docks. There’s smoke coming out of the crooked chimney, so somebody must be home.”)

Advanced Technique: Make the encounter check first. If an encounter is indicated, you can then choose to frame the encounter at either the landmark or the destination itself. It’s a convenient way of adding context to procedurally generated content, and can also be a great way of adding unexpected complications to whatever location the PCs are heading to.

And that’s all it takes.

The districts and landmarks weave together the geographical fabric of the city. The encounters provide a low-level of activity not directly connected to the PCs or what they’re immediately engaged with, creating the sensation that the city is in constant motion.

By the same token, this doesn’t need to be a straitjacket. Maybe you mention two  or three landmarks instead of just one. Maybe you complicate things by checking for encounters in each district the PCs pass through. Or, conversely, once you’ve established the life of the city as a pervasive presence at the table, you may find that effective pacing demands fast-forwarding past an encounter and cutting straight to the action.

Follow this procedure rigorously for a couple or three sessions to make sure you’ve really internalized it, but then do what feels right, knowing that you can always return to this procedure as a safe and effective foundation.

INTRODUCING THE CITY

Now that we’ve established our basic procedure, let’s take a closer look at our first session: How do we go about introducing a city to the players?

If one or more of the PCs live in the city or are otherwise familiar with it, particularly if it’s going to be the focal setting of the entire campaign, I will prep a short player briefing to orient them. This will include:

• The map.
• Two or three sentences describing each district.
• Maybe one page of common services (list of taverns, list of weaponsmiths, etc.).

Give this briefing to the players before or during Session 0 so that it can inform character creation.

As with most such handouts, five pages is probably the longest you’d want to make this. Any longer and, in my experience, most players won’t actually process the information. (Paradoxically, the more information you try to cram into the handout, the less information about the city the players will actually take away from it.)

It may also be useful to note that this player briefing largely mirrors the material you’ve prepped for yourself. If you’re doing minimal prep yourself, you can often just strip out the random encounter tables and be good to go.

But what about the adventurer at the gate scenario, where a PC is coming to the city for the first time?

Generally, I will still give them the map. Even if the PCs technically wouldn’t have one, it’s just too useful as an easy point of common reference at the table. (I will often print out poster-size version of the map and hang them on the wall of the gaming room, using a laser point to indicate locations.)

Advanced Technique: If you’d rather run a streetcrawl until the PCs have taken action to orient themselves within the city (which might be literally obtaining a diegetic map, but could also simply be sufficiently exploring the city, closely questioning a local, visiting every district, or something else along those lines), that can be a very immersive technique. In a peaceful city, however, you may not find that the streetcrawl to be particularly compelling.

At this point, focus on the players’ goals, but use those goals as a vector for the player briefing.

For example, if the players say that they’re going to spend a day or two getting to know the city, that’s super simple: You can just give them the player briefing.

But maybe they say something like, “Let’s find an inn.”

Depending on what their goal is, you might call for some kind of skill check to see if they can find it – Streetwise, Charisma (Investigation), Library Use, something like that.

Advanced Technique: Even if they’ll definitely find the thing they’re looking for, you might still call for the skill check and use fail forward techniques to make the check meaningful. Maybe on a success they can find a really good deal and/or on a failure they get marked as rubes by pickpockets.

If it’s a common service, present them with the multiple options you prepped earlier. (High-, middle-, and low-class for hotels, for example). Specifically call out the different districts these services are in. If they went looking for a weapons shop, you might say, “There’s an elven bowyer in Emerald Hill or dwarven crafters in the Guildsman District.” You’re not just saying, “These districts exist.” You’re inviting the players to make a choice based on these districts. That’s significant. The districts are now an active part of the players’ thinking about the setting. The more they do that, the more the city comes alive in their imagination.

As this point, the PCs are going to pick a location to go to – either a common service they’ve selected or some specific location that brought them to town in the first place (e.g., the tower of the High Mage Ghulak). This is simple: Just use the urban procedure we detailed above… but with one important addition!

For the district of the location they choose, include the description of the district from the player briefing. You can probably work these two or three sentences into the description of their journey to the inn or tower or whatever.

As the players work their way through their shopping list (or whatever brought them to the city), you’ll be organically building up their understanding of the city over time. The scenic encounters, landmarks, and the locations found in the adventure scenarios you’re running will gradually draw them further and further into the setting, resulting in them setting goals that are increasingly specific (“let’s find the leader of the Red Bandit pickpockets who tried to rob us” or “that abandoned lighthouse looks cool, let’s go check it out”).

In play, this might look something like this:

• The PCs enter a new town and go looking for an inn.
• “People milling around the gate suggest three choices: The Lion’s Purr in Midtown, the Wandering Sword in the Merchant District, or the Wallowed Pig in the Penury Ward.”
• The players select the Wandering Sword.
• “You head south into the Merchant District. Most of the buildings here are two stories high – small businesses with apartments for the owners above them. You notice that there’s an abandoned lighthouse standing in the middle of town… which is a weird place for a lighthouse to be. You find the Wandering Sword on Southward Street.”
• At this point you can describe the Wandering Sword and have a short scene there while the PCs arrange for their rooms. They decide to check out that lighthouse.
• On the way to the lighthouse, you describe them passing through the market square (another landmark in the Merchant District). As they leave the market, they have a random encounter with Red Bandits who attempt to waylay them.
• After dispatching the Red Bandits, they proceed to the lighthouse (which is a small adventure site you’ve prepped).
• When they return to their rooms at the Wandering Sword, the encounter check is negative, so you simply describe them passing through the Market Square again (it’s night now, so the stalls are deserted).
• Discussing their plans for the next day, the PCs decide to find the Red Bandit’s gang house. So the next morning you call for a Gather Information check and, when they succeed, say, “You ask around and discover it’s an open secret that the Red Bandits control a dilapidated apartment building in Penury Ward, which is officially known as Laketon, but had been riddled with poverty for generations.” (You’ve snuck in a little extra district briefing there.)
• The PCs head for the apartment building.
• “You head down Tabernacle Way [landmark] into Penury Ward. Passing the Church of the Bloody Saint [landmark], you’re approached by several of the beggars who camp in the church’s yard.” The beggars here are a random encounter and suggested that the Church of the Bloody Saint would be a good landmark to use here. After a short roleplaying scene with the beggars (during which you might seed other rumors or information about the city), the PCs continue to the apartment building.

And so forth.

Once the players are familiar with a district, of course, you can obviously stop briefing them on the district. At this point, the newcomers have acclimated to the city and you simplify back into the standard urban procedure.

OPTION: BACKGROUND EVENTS

A final option you can add to your cities to give them even greater depth are background events.

These are events running in parallel with the campaign, but which don’t directly affect the PCs. They include stuff like:

• The mayor has been indicted on corruption charges.
• Hyperdyne Industries has bought out Cobalt Enterprises.
• Another Redjack murder has happened in the Penury Ward.
• All of the department store Santa Clauses vanished into thin air simultaneously at 12:02 PM.

They appear as newspaper headlines or as random gossip when the PCs are chatting with an NPC. Layering these into your urban-based campaign is a great way of adding even more depth to the city.

Of particular note here are factions, which are often a part of many urban campaigns. Describing the offscreen actions of these factions through background events weaves them into the life of the city, making them a pervasive part of the environment and enhancing the actions directly affecting the PCs as part of the campaign by making the factions vast in their scope.

FURTHER READING
Thinking About Urbancrawls
Ptolus: In the Shadow of the Spire
Dragon Heist: The Alexandrian Remix

You know that saying that “there are eight million stories in the naked city?”

That’s 100% true. There’s no easy way to narrow down what an urban campaign “should” be, because it CAN be an infinite number of things. You might have:

• A node-based conspiracy game, like the one from Ptolus: In the Shadow of the Spire.
• A crew-based game focused around heists and scores, like Blades in the Dark.
• Faction-based intrigue, like in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.
• A secret agent thriller, using the conspyramid from Night’s Black Agents.
• The city as a homebase in a hexcrawl campaign.
• A police procedural, featuring episodic mysteries.
• Org-based intrigue, with the city as the backdrop for a campaign using Reign.

And so forth.

But no matter what campaign structure I’m using, and regardless of whether I’m running Waterdeep, Dweredell, Hong Kong, or Los Angeles, there are a few techniques I’ve learned that can help bring the city to vivid life.

WHAT TO PREP

This guide assumes that the city is either the setting for the entire campaign or, at the very least, a place that the PCs are going to be exploring for awhile. If the PCs are just visiting the city (flying in for a single adventure, for example), you may still find some of this material useful, but you’ll want to scale it down (and almost certainly focus your prep around what you know the PCs will be doing there).

I’m also assuming that we’re talking about an actual city. For smaller communities – villages, remote space stations, etc. – some of these techniques may, once again, be useful in a stripped-down state. But, in my experience, they’re actually very distinct (and probably merit their own discussion at some point).

With that in mind, here’s what you want to prep for a city setting.

First, the map. If it’s a city in the real world, track down a street map. Google Maps or Apple Maps will be invaluable resources, but I wouldn’t recommend relying on them as your primary map. You really want something that lets you come to grips with the city in its totality.

If it’s a city you’re creating, you’ll obviously need to draw the map. (Or generate one. The tools for this are getting better all the time.) Don’t feel like you need to detail every single street or building. But you will want to break the city down into districts and to know the major routes that connect those districts.

Design Tip: When thinking about routes, it can be easy to default to “road.” But that’s often not the case, and a city’s unique character can be defined by its transportation: The London Underground. The Venetian canals. New York ferries.

Similarly, emphasize the fantastic nature of your speculative settings with fabulist transportation routes: Zeppelin towers. Etheric railways. Fairy roads.

Second, on that note, you want to break the city down into neighborhoods/districts. I find the sweet spot for a new city to be somewhere between six and twelve. You want enough divisions to give the city texture – so that being in Oldtown feels different than being in South Market or the Docks – but not so many that either you or the players are overwhelmed.

(Over time, for larger cities, you may discover that you want to create sub-districts within these broader areas, particularly in regions of the city where the PCs spend a lot of time. For example, in a New York City campaign you might start with the five boroughs – Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island – plus the Gold Coast in Jersey. Later, you might break Manhattan into Harlem, the Upper East Side, Lower East Side, etc. And maybe after that, if you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you’d want to track even finer distinctions in the Lower East Side like the East Village, Chinatown, Alphabet City, etc. Even when you’ve reached the point where, for example, you’ve got Manhattan split up into forty-two separate neighborhoods, you’ll still want to keep the high-level districts distinct in your mind and the minds of your players. They’ll remain useful tools.)

For each district, you’ll want to describe its general character. This can be as simple as a couple of sentences, but you can dive into more detail like:

• What types of businesses are found there?
• What’s the architecture?
• What ethnicities or other population types live there?
• What’s the history of the district?

In addition to this general description, you will want a specific list of landmarks in the district. You might be able to get away with just one, but you’ll probably want to have at least three per district.

Sometimes when we talk about “landmarks” we get trapped thinking strictly about statues or big, famous buildings. But for our purposes this is really just “things in the district.” So if you put the Lion’s Purr tavern in a district, you can also add it to the landmarks list.

If your city becomes detailed enough, you may want to break out a separate list of “major landmarks” for each district for the sake of utility, but even this list will likely be (and arguably should be) esoteric, focusing on the sites that have become relevant to you, your players, and the campaign as much as the big stuff that would make a generic tourist’s guide.

For each district you’re also going to want scenic encounters. These might be procedural encounters (i.e., random encounters) or they might be handcrafted (in which case you’ll need to periodically restock them as they get used up).

The key thing that makes the urban environment feel distinct from other adventure locales is the constant activity. You want the players to feel like there’s stuff happening all the time and just out of sight. As we’ll see, this is the primary function of these scenic encounters. In addition, we distinguish them by district because we want the different areas of town to feel distinct: The stuff that happens in Oldtown is, once again, different than what you see on the streets of South Market.

A few practical tips for prepping these encounters without getting overwhelmed:

• In a pinch, you can just use city-wide encounters and rely on improvisation to “color” them to whatever location the PCs are currently in. (“Ruffians” at the Docks might be a group of drunken sailors. The same encounter in the Trades Ward might be Xanatharian gangsters shaking down a local businessowner for protection money.)
• You might have city-wide encounters, but one of the entries on your encounter table is “District Encounter,” and each district has one or two unique encounters triggered by this entry.
• You can have encounters “shared” by multiple districts. For example, you might have the “Ruffians” encounter in the Dock Ward, Trades Ward, and North Ward, but not in the very respectable Castle Ward. Conversely, you might encounter a banker in the Castle Ward or Trades Ward, but not the Sea Ward. (Or you might just be much less likely to do so.) For a detailed example of how you can set this up on a table, check out Waterdeep: City Encounters.

The last thing you’ll want to prep for the city is a list of services.

Exactly which services you’ll want to list is going to be very dependent on the campaign you’re prepping. If the PCs are wandering adventurers coming to the city for the first time, for example, you’ll likely want to have a list of inns. If the PCs live in the city, on the other hand, maybe that’s not so important.

Some common categories here, however, include:

• Hotels/inns
• Bars/taverns
• Shopping
• Banking
• Hospitals/healing
• Legal services
• Gambling
• Entertainment
• Specialists (locksmiths, magi, assassins, bodyguards, etc.)

Before you get lost in the weeds here, it’s important to remember that you’re not trying to list every single example of each service in the city. In many cases, you probably can’t. Take Galveston, TX, for example, a modest town with a population of 50,000. It has dozens of hotels and more than a hundred bars. Even if you wanted to prep all those options, would it really be useful at the table?

What is useful at the table is having enough options so that the players can make a meaningful choice. For example, in the Eternal Lies campaign, the PCs visit a number of cities around the world. For each city, I prepped three hotels: A high-class, middle-class, and low-class option. This both mirrored the likely criteria the players would be using to decide on their accommodations and tied into a meaningful choice within the structure the campaign (i.e., how the investigators were spending their limited pool of resources in each city.)

You can see what that prep looked like here.

(This class-based division can be a useful one for a number of different services: Are you going to a classy restaurant or a dive bar? A flea market in Chinatown or a swanky store on Fifth Avenue? But you may find other criteria are more relevant to your campaign. Prep accordingly.)

Remember to cross-reference these services into the district listings as landmarks (either minor or major).

At this point you might be asking yourself: Do I really need to prep all this stuff? Can I just improvise it instead?

Sure.

But make sure you take notes. A defining aspect of the urban environment is its persistency. You build the city up in the players’ imagination over time by showing them the same locations and geography again and again and again:  You’re going down Tavern Row or Chicago Avenue. On the way to the museum, you pass that weird Italian-Korean fusion restaurant where you first met Felicia. On the way back to your hotel, you’re near the statue of George Washington when the thunderstorm breaks and rain begins pouring down.

And as you’re taking these notes, you’ll find this structure – map, district, landmarks, services, etc. – useful for organizing them and using them. No matter how much or how little you prep to begin with, in fact, your notes on the city will continue to expand and grow as you play – adding new locations through both adventure prep and improvisation.

Go to Part 2: Life in the City

Go to Part 1

Aggah-Shan’s guards regularly patrol this level. There are 10 guards in total.

• A patrol of 1d2+1 guards cycle through Areas 18, 17, 20, 21, 22, and 19. (They move to a new area every 2d6 rounds.)
• The remaining guards are generally resting Area 21.

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AGGAH-SHAN’S GUARD

Medium undead, lawful evil

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Armor Class 16 (natural)

Hit Points 112 (15d8+45)

Speed 30 ft.

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STR 18 (+4), DEX 15 (+2), CON 16 (+3), INT 10 (+0), WIS 15 (+2), CHA 12 (+1)

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Saving Throws Str +7, Dex +5, Con +6

Skills Athletics +10, Intimidation +5

Damage Immunities poison

Condition Immunities poisoned, exhaustion

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12

Languages Giant

Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)

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Slavish. The guard has advantage on saving throws against being frightened, charmed, or turned.

ACTIONS

Multiattack. The guard makes three attacks with its necromantic mace.

Necromantic Mace. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. Hit: 8 (1d6+4) bludgeoning damage and 7 (2d6) necrotic damage

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Aggah-Shan’s guard are undead warriors, wrapped in brown funerary linens and wearing crimson-red Anubian helms. Through the jackal’s mouth their skull can be seen, with red flames in their eyesockets. Each wields a top-heavy mace which crackles with purplish necrotic energy. They carry large, copper shields in the shape of a beetle’s wings.

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AREA 16 – THE OTHER THRONE OF IRON

A throne of black iron and gray stone sits in the middle of a blue-tiled room. The ceiling is painted with roiling flames.

TELEPORTATION THRONES: Characters using the throne in Area 12 to teleport arrive on the identical throne in this area, and vice versa.

SECRET DOOR: DC 30 Intelligence (Investigation) check to detect. The door is not trapped, but opening it releases the permanent wail of the banshee in Area 23 so that it can also be heard by characters in Area 16.

• Listening at the Door: DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check can faintly detect the wail. Hearing the wail in this way, however, inflicts 3d6 necrotic damage (DC 15 Constitution saving throw for half damage).
• Wail of the Banshee: The wail has no effect on constructs or undead. All other creatures who hear the wail are afflicted by a powerful death magic and must succeed on a DC 25 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, a creature with less than 100 hit points instantly drops to 0 hit points. Creatures not reduced to 0 hit points instead stuffer 9d8+50 necrotic damage (or half damage on a successful save).
• Dispel magic will suppress the wail for 1d4 x 10 minutes.

AREA 17 – THE HALL OF SCENTED SMOKES

A dozen magical braziers line the length of this hall. Lighting any one of them causes all of them to alight, filling the room with colorful smokes carrying pleasant scents.

AREA 18 – LEY-LACED STATUE

A classical statue of a bare-chested archer bending his bow back, his foot placed upon the breast of a maiden who lies nude at his feet. Thick, blue-black veins run through the marble.

INTELLIGENCE (ARCANA) – DC 16: The statue is carved from ley-laced marble. This statue acts as a pearl of power that can be used up to four times per day. It is currently keyed to an adamantine arrow which fits into the archer’s bow (and is currently either in Area 15 or carried by Aggah-Shan).

LEY-LACED MARBLE

Ley-laced marble is a naturally occurring stone. During the metamorphic processes which form the marble, ley-energy permeates the impurities lacing the sedimentary rocks. The resulting marble (which is usually found on or near ley lines) is possessed of properties similar to a pearl of power. (In fact, it’s hypothesized that pearls of power were created by reverse-engineering ley-laced marble.)

Unlike pearls of power, however, ley-laced marble is not particularly efficient in its retention of magical energy. In addition to being difficult to excavate from the ground, ley-laced marble must be maintained in such large chunks in order to maintain its properties that it is rarely if ever portable in any true sense of the word.

However, rites have been perfected which allow a piece of ley-laced marble to be keyed to a specific object. Anyone carrying the keyed object can access the powers of the ley-laced marble at a distance of 1 mile per character level.

AREA 19 – HALL OF GILDED SKULLS

Six skulls gilded in gold sit on cushions placed atop marble pillars. Two pillars stand empty.

SKULLS: Each skull has a named burned into its dome — Verana, Elmchaea, Enel, Siust, Atath, and Mosdyna.

DM Background: These skulls belonged to Aggah-Shan’s enemies.

AREA 20 – AGGAH-SHAN’S LIBRARY

Most of the volumes in this library reveal a mind consumed with a strange, compulsive disorder: Gambling odds calculated, recalculated, and then calculated again. Written out at great length in varied tabular arrangements — vast expanses of endless tabulated data.

AGGAH-SHAN’S SPELLBOOK: But this library is also home to Aggah-Shan’s Spellbook. The book is designed to be opened by placing Aggah-Shan’s bony finger into the skull-faced keyhole on the cover. If any other finger is placed in that keyhole or if someone attempts to force the book open, it triggers a prismatic spray trap (DC 14 Intelligence (Investigation) to detect; DC 14 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools) to disable; DC 20 Dexterity saving throw if triggered).

BOOK OF MRATHRACH: The library also contains the Book of Mrathrach (a chaos lorebook).

BOOK OF MRATHRACH

In those days when the Masters of Chaos still stirred and the echoes of their spirits were manifest within the Temples of the Screaming Dead tended by the midnight priests of the Earthbound Demons, there walked upon this earth the Man who would have made demons of all men; who would have immanentized the mortal flesh in eschatonic blood.

This book tells the bloody tale of Mrathrach. It purports to be a reconstruction of an ancient verse epic, although the passages of verse preserved within its pages are broken and irregular (although somehow beating with a primal pulse when read aloud).

Mrathrach was a warlord in the demon armies which “fought black-backed against that oily light of piety’s tyrannicies.” His faith to his master, “the Duke Gellasatrac,” is lauded and entire passages are given over to describing the great deeds of martial honor and the bloody human sacrifices he offered to Gellasatrac’s glory.

But when the war turns against the demon armies, the poem becomes an elegiacal transformation of the strife of conflicted duty. In the end, it describes how Mrathrach agreed to betray Gellasatrac to “the greater glory of the Masters and the presecient schismed schemes of the Shallamoth.”

And he drank of the Black Blood, the Holy Gift of Gellasatrac. So Mrathrach became the First of the Vested — vested in the trust of his masters; vested in their power; vested in their fate. The first quenching by which the bands of power would be forged.

AGGAH-SHAN’S SPELLBOOK

Spells marked with * are from the Ptolus sourcebook.

CANTRIPS: chill touch, shocking grasp

1^st LEVEL: burning hands, charm person, color spray, detect chaositech*, detect evil and good, dissonant whispers, endure elements, expeditious retreat, feather fall, fog cloud, grease, jump, mage armor, magic missile, shield, silent image, sleep, Tenser’s floating disk, unseen servant

2^nd LEVEL: aid from the future*, alter self, arcane lock, blindness/deafness, blur, darkvision, enlarge/reduce, flaming sphere, invisibility, levitate, mirror image, ray of enfeeblement, rope trick, see invisibility, spider climb, suggestion

3^rd LEVEL: blink, conjure animals, fly, gaseous form, haste, hold person, hypnotic pattern, Leomund’s tiny hut, lightning bolt, magic circle, slow, tongues

4^th LEVEL: banishment, confusion, conjure minor elementals, polymorph, stoneshape, stoneskin, wall of fire

5^th LEVEL: animate necrosis*, animate objects, cloudkill, contact other plane, divinatory expungement*, enervation, mislead, wall of stone

6^th LEVEL: chain lightning, create undead, disintegrate, eyebite, flesh to stone, move earth, teleport trace

7^th LEVEL: month of Vallis*, prismatic spray, teleport

AREA 21 – AGGAH-SHAN’S GUARD

1d8+2 of Aggah-Shan’s necromantic guards can be found here. (There are 10 total. The others are patrolling this level, as described above.)

AREA 22 – THE FALSE PHYLACTERY

BATH: The southern end of this chamber is a bath made of black marble with two silver dragon heads looking out over the room.

PRISMATIC CUBE: Levitating in the center of the room is a set of double-layered prismatic wall spells forming a cube.

FALSE PHYLACTERY: Within the prismatic cube is a hollow mithril statue in the shape of a man lying on a cushion of blue velvet. A heart-shaped trapdoor on the statue’s chest can be opened, revealing adamantine wires which have been welded to various points within the statue and then bound together into a very specific and cleverly-woven knot. The statue has an arcanist’s magic aura placed upon it to make it appear to be a lich’s phylactery (but it is not).

AREA 23 – TRAPPED HALL

Beyond the secret door in Area 16, a short hallway leads to Area 24.

WAIL OF THE BANSHEE: This area is filled with a permanent wail of the banshee. The wail has no effect on constructs or undead. All other creatures who hear the wail are afflicted by a powerful death magic and must succeed on a DC 25 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, a creature with less than 100 hit points instantly drops to 0 hit points. Creatures not reduced to 0 hit points instead stuffer 9d8+50 necrotic damage (or half damage on a successful save).

• Dispel magic will suppress the wail for 1d4 x 10 minutes.

TRAP – CRUSHING WALL: In addition to the wail, this area also has a pressure plate in front of the door to Area 24) that triggers a crushing wall trap (affecting everyone in the hall).

• Mechanical trap
• DC 17 Intelligence (Investigation) to detect the trap.
• DC 22 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools) to disable the trap.

DOOR TO AREA 24: The door is also trapped. Anyone touching the door triggers an incendiary cloud (that lasts for 1 minute, moving into Area 16).

• Magical trap
• DC 17 Intelligence (Investigation) to detect the trap.
• DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) to identify the spell effect.
• DC 20 Dexterity saving throw for half damage.

AREA 24 – TRUE PHYLACTERY

PRISMATIC CUBE: Levitating in the center of this room is a set of double-layered prismatic wall spells forming a prismatic cube. Inside the cube if a forcecage.

TRUE PHYLACTERY: Within the forcecage is a sphere of adamantine (4-in. thick). Within the sphere are three humanoid figures of taurum (the true gold which makes common gold naught but a bauble), each inscribed with a single rune upon its chest.

Destroying the figurines destroys Aggah-Shan’s phylactery.

Go to Part 3: The Mrathrach Machine

Go to Table of Contents

This detailed key for the Poisoned Poseidon, was created by Tominar. It’s designed to be used in conjunction with the maps and adversary roster from the Remix. “The area numbers are keyed to the drawn map of the Poisoned Poseidon, but it should be fairly easy to match them up.”

CULTISTS

NPCs from the adversary roster are expanded here, including names, loot, and some descriptions.

Iron Consul – Fahul: Wears a cloak that has the symbol of Bane on the reverse side.

Master of Souls – Remigio: Has the keys to his quarters (Area 3).

Necromites: Each carries a pouch containing 2d6 silver.

THE POISONED POSEIDON

As the PCs approach the location, read the following:

The port is busy with people, porters carrying goods, horses towing boats up the canals and many people. Most of them dressed poorly and looking dejected. You see a man whispering to a group of refugees, pocketing a few coins and them pointing them to the north side of the harbour. As you make your way towards the tannery district, the smell of excrement, lye and rotting flesh assaults your noses. You see a large ship, sunken into the muddy ground and supported by a number of wooden beams. On the side of the ship, painted in flaking red letters reads – the Poisoned Poseidon.

1. THE MAIN DECK

The main deck is generally kept clear, but there might be a stack of tanned hides ready for sale. A crane has been installed on the poop deck that is used to raise and lower heavy material from street level. The ship stinks of lye, excrement and rot. As you look around the deck you see some stacks of tanned hides ready for sale. To the front of the ship there is a set of double doors, and to the rear there are two single doors. There is also a staircase that descends into the lower levels of the ship.

Standing on the deck are a heavily built man sitting on a barrel under the centre mast, as well as two men and a woman playing dice on the fore deck. Every so often someone comes up the stairs to pick up or drop off a some materials.

2. WORKER’S SLEEPING QUARTERS

Six bedrolls are haphazardly placed around the room. The bedrolls are empty of valuables but hidden in a pot is a mother of pearl comb worth 25gp.

3. REMIGIO’S QUARTERS

The door to these quarters is locked at all times – DC 12 Thieves’ Tools check or DC 14 Strength check. Remigio keeps the keys to his cabin and his desk on him at all time.

There is a made bed, a large deerskin rug and a desk.

Desk: On the desk are a number of writing materials and an emblem depicting a white skull inset into a black triangle (DC 13 Intelligence (Religion) check to identify this as the symbol of Myrkul, the Lord of Bones and the God of Death). Similar depictions are roughly carved all over the desk. The desk also has two locked drawers.

Desk Drawers (DC 14 Thieves’ Tools check or DC 14 Strength Check): One drawer contains a number of letters (Handout: Poseidon’s Correspondence). The other drawer contains a coin pouch container 35gp, 40sp and an onyx worth 30gp. It also contains three red potions (potions of healing).

4. MEETING ROOM

The door to this room is unlocked. Opening this door reveals an unlit room, with a large table surrounded by chairs in the center. The area around the head of the table is covered in roughly carved symbols of a skull in a triangle. DC 20 Intelligence (Religion) check to identify as the symbol of Myrkul.

5. THE LOWER DECK

Most of the lower deck is used to store the untreated skins of slaughtered cattle that are delivered to the tannery, along with the blood, dirt, manure, hooves, and horns that come with them. The floor is dirty, the stench of excrement and rot is stronger in here. There are crates and barrels stacked around the room, and another set of stairs going down. At the aft of the ship you see four closed doors, in a U–shape, and to the fore, are two doors.

6. SHRINES

In this cabin there are three small shrines. A symbol showing a white skull set into a black triangle is decorated with black candles, one is lit with a green flame. Another shrine depicts a black hand, under which are three daggers driven into the wood of the counter. The third shrine depicts a skull surrounded by 9 red droplets in a circle. This shrine is clean but lacks any offerings.

7. ARMOURY

This cabin has three small racks against the walls that contain an assortment of weapons. There is an assortment of mundane weapons – 5 daggers, 3 shortswords, 3 maces, 1 war hammer and 1 whip.

8. MURDER SQUAD QUARTERS

These cabins each contain a bed. During the day three of the cabins contain the remaining members of the murder squad resting. They wake up and investigate if any loud noises are heard on this deck or the deck above. Each cabin also contains a footlocker containing a set of commoner’s clothes, a set of cultist robes (necromites) and 1d6 gp and 3d8 sp.

9. HOLD

The hold of the ship is filled with barrels, crates and stacked pieces of leather. The area is lit with covered lanterns and appears to be empty. To the north and south you see sets of double doors. An incredibly strong scent of urine can be detected to the south. There is also another staircase going further down, into an unlit area.

10. TREATMENT ROOM

If the doors are listened at: You can hear the sound of metal rasping on leather, and occasionally two voices talking to each other.

Hanging on the walls are a collection of curved knives similar to the ones the workers are using.

There are two tanners working on removing hair from the soaked hides. If they notice the party, they ask what they’re doing here. They will accept most explanations, cower and shout out if attacked. If left without an explanation they will go and warn either Remigio below, or Fahul above.

11. VATS

If the doors are listened at: You can hear the sound of liquids splashing, and occasionally two voices talking to each other.

In this room are two tanners soaking hides in three large vats, wearing pegs on their noses. If they notice the party, they ask what they are doing here. They will accept most explanations, cower and shout out if attacked. If left without an explanation they will go and warn either Remigio below, or Fahul above.

12. LOWER HOLD

This level is dark, damp and unlit. The floor is made of packed earth that is turned to wet mud in places. Dotted around the place are a few rotted barrels, from which a blue liquid has leaked out and dried. To the south, you see a set of double doors.

If listened at doors: You see a faint, flickering green light through the gap in the doors. Daytime: You can hear a faint humming coming from beyond the doors.

13. SURGERY TABLE

In the center of the room sits a large table. On top of which lays the corpse of a naked middle-aged woman. A man in black robes stands hunched over the corpse with his back towards you. He seems to be moving his hands while humming. Beside him is a small table containing a disturbing variety of surgical instruments and three brands (each with a holy symbol of the Dead Three). On another table across from him sits a bundle of clothes and other personal effects. At the opposite end of the room, through the broken hull of the ship, there is another set of doors.

Among the surgical equipment can be found the Poseidon Papers, and among the belongings can be found Shohreh Netitia’s Refugee Papers.

Unless the players have been particularly loud, Remigio doesn’t notice them until they bring attention to themselves.

Refugee Papers: A DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) test reveals the papers to be forgeries. The forgery can also be detected if the PCs look to verify the origin of the papers (for example, by cross-referencing the refugee lists in the High Hall; or tracking down the official tabularius whose authorizing seal supposedly appears on the papers).

14. CATACOMBS

A tunnel has been carved out of the earth, supported by wooden struts embedded in the wall. Niches that are stacked with urine-soaked skins line the walls ahead.

15. PRISONS

Prison A – To the north is an alcove lit by a flickering lamp. A man and a woman in chainmail are sitting at a table playing five finger fillet. Two iron doors are set into the walls near them.

East Cell – Locked (DC 15 Thieves Tool, DC 20 Strength). Inside lies Reya Mantlemorn, unconscious. Reya is a Hellrider (DC 10 History/Insight for Harry to recognise and vice versa). She snuck into the city with some of the early refugees. One of the refugees in her group turned up dead a week ago (Wemba Oshrat). Reya started investigating – and was jumped.

North Cell – Unlocked. Reya’s gear is in here.

What Reya Knows: Most of the people who have gone missing were refugees. Remigio wanted to know about other Hellriders and Knights of the Companion in the city. Was out of Elturel on patrols when it happened – then escorted some refugees to Baldurs Gate. Knows that some refugees are entering the city with forged papers – doesn’t know where they get them from and will only bring this up if specifically asked. If the players seem honourable, then she will ask to join them.

Prison B – One cell is empty. The other has the body of a Flaming Fist spy (male, dark skin, shaved head) who was trying to infiltrate the Dead Three. The body is dressed in robes similar to the cultists upstairs and carved into his forehead is the emblem of the Flaming Fist. With him is a pack containing a red potion (healing), a vial containing an eyeball floating in a yellowish liquid (potion of clairvoyance). There is also a Flaming Fist badge and 15gp.