As Descent Into Avernus begins, the city of Elturel has fallen, sending waves of desperate refugees down the Chionthar River to overwhelm the resources of beleaguered Baldur’s Gate. The true story of what happened is detailed in the adventure, but in such times of confusion and chaos it is likely that many stories — some based in a faulty understanding of the truth, others being entirely fabrication — will be flying around. You can use the following rumors to draw an air of mystery around the fall of Elturel as your campaign begins. In those early days, each time the PCs interact with someone they are likely to hear some new version or radical variation of the tale. Others will also be desperate to find out the truth and will likely quiz the PCs on what they know and what they’ve heard.
1. ELTUREL LIVES!
The Companion — Amaunator’s Gift, the shining orb which hangs as a second sun above the city of Elturel and has long protected it from the scourge of the undead — sensed that a great evil was threatening Elturel. It bathed the city in its holy rays and drew it across time and space to the Keep of the Eternal Sun, the stronghold of Amaunator, God of Sun and Time. Unfortunately, many who sought to reach the city before its ascension were unable to do so. In some versions of this rumor, when the danger has passed, the city will be returned. (Or, alternatively, this was a reward for the city’s holiness. All those within have been transformed into angels to continue their holy works upon a higher plane of existence.)
2. FIRE OF DRAGONS
A dozen ancient dragons flew out of the east and burned the city. Some report that there were riders on one of the dragons or all of the dragons (a woman in white, death knights, storm giants). The tales might say that all the dragons were of the same color (usually red or black, even though the latter would be incompatible with the dragons burning the city). Others report that the dragons were of many different colors, suggesting that Tiamat might be responsible. A few days later, the PCs might run into a morphed version of this story in which Tiamat herself was leading the dragons in their destruction of the city.
3. ARMY OF DEMONS
Thirteen planar gates opened at various points within Elturel and thirteen balors leading thirteen demon armies flooded through and laid waste to the city. When the last refugees fled, it’s said they looked back to see a citadel of obsidian being raised in the center of the city — a spire of black corruption reaching up towards the dimming light of the Companion.
4. METEOR!
It was a meteor strike! It fell from the sky and landed near the center of the city, wiping it out in a cataclysmic explosion that could be heard for miles around. (Or maybe the meteor flew straight through the Companion, causing it to explode! The meteor landed a few thousand feet or several miles away or changed direction and flew off to the west.)
5. ELTUREL BESIEGED!
Elturel has not actually fallen! It is merely besieged by a necromancer’s army of the undead / a horde of orcs / an army of devils that has ridden out of the Nine Hells to seek revenge against the Hellriders who had once ridden through a gate into Avernus itself! The Flaming Fist is refusing to ride forth and break the siege, even though Grand Duke Ulder Ravengard — who had been visiting the city on a diplomatic mission — remains trapped inside. The rumor identifies some other member of the Council of Four — Thalamra Vanthampur, Dillard Portyr, Belynne Stelmane, or a conspiracy involving all of them — as manipulating the Fist in order to see Grand Duke Ravengard dead.
6. THE EGG
The Companion was not the boon that the people of Elturel long thought! It was actually some strange, celestial egg! And now it’s hatched! Some report that a titanic humanoid figure standing several hundred feet high and glowing with a golden light now stands in the ruins of what was once Elturel, gazing towards the southwest. Others say that the egg’s hatching unleashed a swarm of hellwasps or thousands of giant, ever-burning spiders that have wreathed the city in their webs. (There might still be time to save most of the people if we act quickly! Most have only been cocooned by the spiders!) And so forth.
7. RAVENGARD’S BETRAYAL
Grand Duke Ulder Ravengard, having entered Elturel under the pretense of a diplomatic envoy, betrayed High Observer Thavus Kreeg and slaughtered the leaders of the city at a banquet held in his honor. His knights then sacked and burned the city. (In some versions of this rumor, soldiers from either Fort Morninglord or Fort Tamal, or both, rode to the city’s defense and are now counter-sieging the Grand Duke, trapping him in the ruins of the city.)
8. COMPANION’S END
The Companion — the second sun which had long hung in the sky above Elturel — exploded! The city was completely wiped out, leaving nothing but a smoking crater where it had once stood. Some claim that the devastation was due to the Sun God withdrawing his holy blessing from the city, and priests of Amaunator can be seen throughout the refugee communities in Baldur’s Gate preaching apocalyptic messages or flagellating themselves in the hope that they can regain their god’s blessing through the mortification of their own flesh. Others suggest that the Companion was sabotaged: Natives of Baldur’s Gate suggest that it must have been devils from the Nine Hells (possibly in retaliation for the Hellriders who long ago invaded Avernus; everyone knows devils have infinite patience in their schemes and that revenge is best served cold!). Many among the Elturian refugees, however, whisper that it is Baldur’s Gate itself which is responsible! It’s no coincidence that Grand Duke Ravengard was in Elturel when the explosion happened!
9. ILLITHID ATTACK
A fleet of flying, squid-shaped ships appeared suddenly out of black portals above the city. They destroyed the Companion — sucking it into some sort of black vortex or singularity — and then fell upon the city below. The ships have now erected a pulsating field of black-and-purple energy around the city. No one knows what’s happening inside now. (Later reports might describe how those touched by the writhing tentacles of the ships were turned instantly to ash, while knowledgeable sages will say that the victims were actually teleported into the illithid ships.)
10. CIVIL WAR
The soldiers of Fort Tamal, which guards the Boareskyr Bridge on the northern frontier of Elturgard, rebelled, rode south, surprised the defenses of Elturel, and have seized the city. It is said that a black knight rode before them. Some say that it is Tamal Thent — the paladin who would have become the next High Observer if Thavus Kreeg, who became High Observer in his place, had not had him assassinated — returned as a death knight. Others say that it is a Hellrider banished to Fort Tamal for heresy who has become infected with the blood of Bhaal, the dark god who was slain by Cyric at the site where the fort stands. (See Sword Coast Adventurer’s Giude, page 73.)
11. THE SECOND CITY
Elturel wasn’t the first city to be obliterated: Scornubel, the City of Caravans that lies further east along the Chionthar River, was scooped out of the ground (or pummeled by divine lightning or overthrown by a cabal of illithids within the government or any of the other rumors above) three days before the fall of Elturel.
12. THE LEGACY OF MORNINGLORD
In 1476 DR, Fort Morninglord — which guarded the border between Elturgard and Baldur’s Gate along the Chionthar River, was found abandoned. The entire garrison had vanished overnight, the stones of the fort were blackened, and every door and window had been fused shut. High Observer Thavus Kreeg of Elturgard, fearing that the fort had been contaminated by some evil, ordered it sealed and declared that anyone entering the fort would be outlawed.
Three days ago, the seals on Fort Morninglord burst and the former garrison — now riding as death knights upon fiery steeds and leading an army of devils out of the Nine Hells — rode east and sacked Elturel. Various stories suggest that after Elturel’s fall they continued riding east, and that Scornubel will fall next.
Wow. I love this. Wish I had this when I started my Avernus group! Such good content.
I’m curious how you intend to use these at the table. Probably it would not be good to have any alternate stories so plausible that PCs feel like they should eg hare off to Morninglord to pursue anything. But it seems like you also don’t want it to be obvious to the players which stories are “the real plot” and which are “just rumors”.
In our world a big part of what rumors do is they create fog of war. “All these people were just there! Shouldn’t they be able to say what happened?” Well, this guy says the earth opened up and swallowed the city. “I saw the Companion explode.” “No, it was sucked down into the hole.” “I saw a black cloud fly over the city before it all blew up. The vampires found a way to sabotage it!” “It didn’t explode, an impenetrable black wall surrounded the whole city, and there was a stink of Hellfire.” “Every one of the Hellriders was slain by a pulse of evil flame!” “No, I saw a patrol of them ride off with Thavius Kreeg, right before the the Companion exploded.” “It didn’t explode, I’m telling you, it was stolen.”
Basically, take every detail of what really happened and say “yes”, “no”, and “it was those guys’ fault.”
At the point where you’re using these, the PCs would be:
– Locked in Baldur’s Gate
– 1st level characters
– Not particularly motivated to do anything about the fall of Elturel
– Not really positioned to do anything about it
These are background events.
What the PCs are actually focused on is the fact they’ve been press-ganged by the local cops to deal with a cult that’s killing people. In the course of what seems an unrelated investigation, they’ll stumble onto the truth of what happened in Elturel.
So the goal of the rumors are:
– Create the sense of chaos and confusion which is the premise and backdrop of the PC’s initial adventure.
– Establish the stakes that make the eventual discovery of what really happened meaningful.
I hope you’ll consider compiling your tweets about Descent into Avernus into an article at some point. It would make it easier to follow the thread, and provide a means for those of us who don’t Twitter to comment and ask follow-up questions. (Also it would allow future visitors to the site to see what you have to say about the adventure.)
The Twitter thread is literally live-tweeting my read-through. I’m still figuring out how that will translate into articles here at the Alexandrian, but it’s quite likely much or all of the same material will be covered here eventually.
I’ve heard that Baldur’s Gate 3 is going to be a sequel of sorts to Descent into Avernus, and the trailer for the game features a glimpse of a nautiloid. Is that what gave you the idea for the Illithid Attack rumor, or is it just a case of synchronicity?
It’s sort of an easter egg. And sort of a meta-game gotcha for players who have seen the Baldur’s Gate 3 trailer and might believe that, therefore, this is definitely what’s happening.
Thanks for this “remix”, would have loved to have found it before I started to run the campaign, but at least it has reassured me that all the remixes I’ve done to try to fix things is not me being completely unable to run something prewritten.
One of the main issues for me in the beginning, was actually the very first hook (should have seen that coming). When rumors of a fallen city start to circulate, that is OBVIOSLY the main plot. Most players with an intelligence over 8 would rather investigate that than a random rumor about some “random” cultists.
I’m extremely curious what motivates Ulder to travel to Elturel. The book says that it took months of convincing before he accepted to accept Kreeg’s invitation but I fail to see the stakes of the “diplomatic” mission.
How did they convince that HE needed to go for this diplomatic mission.
Why was it so hard to convince him ?
Fall of Elturel on DM’s guild introduces a secret meeting by Ontharr Frume to which Ulder is attending but it doesn’t jive with the “months of convincing by Vanthampur on behalf of Kreeg”. I still fail to see what drew this reticent dude out of BG to Elturel since it seems critical to Kreeg’s machinations the Duke is there when the city falls.
That’s a good point. The adventure in general is fairly dismissive of the political landscape, despite its relative importance to what I’m referring to as Act I (i.e., everything before Avernus).
My inclination, in the absence of a better idea, is to simplify: It doesn’t take any special effort to get Ravengard to Elturel. He’s invited to the neighboring polity for a diplomatic summit on such-and-such a date and he goes. There’s no reason it needs to be more complicated than that.
If you wanted to add complexity, I’d maybe go the other way: Originally the whole Council of Four was supposed to go, but Thalamra wanted nothing to do with that, obviously. She put political pressure on the idea that “one of the Dukes should remain in the city”; ideally, the other three Dukes would go and she’d stay. But this resulted in Portyr and Stelmane throwing hissy fits and it ended up being Ravengard alone who went.
Would you suggest I use these for Flame Zodge, if I go the “Lulu rescues the party with a Teleport last second before the City sank” route? I feel it’ll just annoy the party since they bore witness to it directly.
My personal recommendation is to frame the “Lulu gets ’em out at the last second” in such a way that they PCs aren’t certain what actually happens. Lulu teleports them out before that happens. There’ll certainly be some versions of the story they can rule out, but not all of them.
(I’d probably go with some variant of, “There’s something wrong with the Companion and then this flying elephant…”)
As eyewitnesses, though, the PCs do have privileged information and that makes them special: For example, Zodge might have completely the wrong information and be really interested to hear what the PCs saw. That’ll make the players feel special.
(But it can also go the other way, where some obstinate jerk refuses to be dissuaded from their “it’s all fake news, there are no refugees, and the city shouldn’t be under quarantine” conspiracy theory.)
Loving these and have made great use of some already!
I have a PC Lulu and literally all they saw of Elturel was the sky going dark, ‘black lightning’ hitting The Companion and forking off to hit buildings and people, then Lulu shows up and teleports them out. As such they don’t really know what is going on despite being witness to it, as Justin suggests.
So far on the road to Baldur’s Gate I’ve used;
– Hellriders ask for information, and suggest maybe it was a devil incursion.
– The forces at the Fort Morninglord camp thought it was perhaps Grand Duke Ravengard’s people, as his retinue stopped at the Fort only days before it happened.
– Flaming Fist on the road pressured them heavy-handedly, suggesting it was perhaps an Elturian trick or a way to assassinate the Grand Duke.
Next session they will arrive at Basilisk Gate, and the growing refugee camp and will have;
– Flame Zodge thinks it was a dragon attack. He has questioned refugees and all they know is there’s a mass of ash and smoke (because they left before the dust settled)
– Jentha Allinamuch of the Smilin’ Boar Tavern who wonders if there isn’t some sort of civil war going on. Apparently some forces road from the northern Fort Tamal lead by a dark rider… perhaps a powerful deathknight?
– Mad Morgane, Stonyeyes homeless woman who sells ‘roadkill’ to Hamhock’s Slaughterhouse. She knows Elturel wasn’t the first city attacked. Scornubel, east of Elturel along the River Chionthar was attacked by a fleet of flying ships, which devastated the city.
In addition I have created a newssheet called Baldur’s Mouth which has rumours of these flying ships (because the craziest ideas get the most traction in the news!) and quotes from Zodge suggesting that there’s no evidence of that and to come to Basilisk Gate where the Flaming Fist will pay for any reputable news.
(Here’s the newssheet I made: https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.d20.io/images/159249272/vVtQTXqItwo6GMU4ZcmfXg/max.png?1598056478 )
[…] Alexander covers this in Rumours of Elturel. Simply pick and choose any of these, or build up from […]