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In working on the Alexandrian Remix of Descent Into Avernus, I ended up doing a lot of research into the history of Elturel. It’s rather a tangled mess, and I thought there might be some benefit in briefly summarizing what I found.

FORGOTTEN REALMS CAMPAIGN SETTING – 1st EDITION

Elturel’s first appearance in print receives five paragraphs. The year is 1358 DR:

• It is divided between the Dock District and the High District (located on a bluff overlooking the River Chionthar).
• It’s a “huge city,” similar in size and capability to Scornubel and Iriaebor.
• Ruled by the High Rider, currently a cavalier named Lord Dhelt (a former leader of the Hellriders).
• It is a member of the Lords’ Alliance.
• It has a way-base for the Dragoneye Dealing Costers (a merchant company).

The HELLRIDERS are:

• Well-equipped, mounted troops who patrol and provide caravan escorts from Waterdeep to Iriaebor.
• Take their name from the story that a company of Riders had ridden into Avernus. (Note that this is specifically characterized as a story that took place in the apparently legendary past from a current date of 1358 DR.)
• A mixture of warriors and clerics.
• Led by a Marshal.
• They ride in plate armor of crimson and white, marked with an upturned crescent.

FORGOTTEN REALMS ADVENTURES

The city is greatly expanded with a two page entry. Notable new details include:

• Population of 29,000 in winter and about 33,000 in the summer. Warehouses and cellars beneath the city allow it to briefly hold up to 400,000 during times of siege. Note that this means it has actually shrunk. It was previously the same size as Iriaebor (now 81,000 to 119,000) and Scornubel (50,000).
• Lord Dhelt has leveled up and is now a 16^th level paladin of Helm.
• Helm’s Shieldhall is the most powerful church in the city and ruled by a High Watcher.
• The Dragoneye way-base has become the huge Dragoneye Docks.
• The people are “Elturians” (not “Elturelian”).

The city is given its first MAP.

The HELLRIDERS are:

• 2,000 strong.
• Ride in patrols of 30, with guardhouses and regular patrols throughout the Fields of the Dead. There are also warning beacons set across the farmlands north, east, and west of the city.
• Lord Dhelt is no longer described as a former Hellrider and now leads major expeditions himself.
• Berelduin Shondar (“Bereld the Just”), the patriarch of Helm’s Shieldhall, leads as many Hellrider patrols as Lord Dhelt.
• There are additional shrines to Ilmater, Tempus, Tymora, and Waukeen.

FORGOTTEN REALMS CAMPAIGN SETTING – 2nd EDITION

The date is now 1367 DR. The short city entry from the first boxed set is expanded with material from Forgotten Realms Adventures and updated with a smattering of new details:

• The Chionthar is narrow and shallow here; it can be crossed with poling barges.
• It is now a “major center” for the Dragoneye Dealing Coster (following in line with the Dragoneye Docks).
• The shrine to Waukeen has become a shrine to Lliira.

The HELLRIDERS:

• Are named “from the story that a company of Riders had in the past ridden into Avernus, first of the layers of the Nine Hells, to rescue a companion.” (emphasis added to the new lore)
• Ride in patrols of 30 warriors accompanied by at least one priest of Helm and led by a Marshal. (Note that the Marshal now leads the patrol, not the whole organization. Also note that they have still not been referred to as knights up to this point.)
• Lord Dhelt is back to being a former leader of the Hellriders, but still leads major expeditions.
• One-tenth of their earnings go directly into Elturel’s coffers.
• The total Hellrider force numbers around 2,000 women and men.

VOLO’S GUIDE TO THE SWORD COAST

The Elturel entry here mostly rewrites material from Forgotten Realms Adventures and then describes two taverns (the Bent Helm and Pair of Black Antlers) and two inns (Gallowgar’s Inn and Phontyr’s Unicorn) at greater length.

There are a few interesting tidbits:

• Lord Dhelt is back to being the current leader of the Hellriders.
• The text diegetically creates a third district: The “more prosperous and orderly homes and shops west of the heights are still part of the Dock District, but are increasingly referred to as Westerly.” (Westerly is never mentioned again in subsequent sources.)
• Raulavin Oregh, who was the Harvestmaster of High Harvest Home in the Forgotten Realms Adventures, has become Baulavin Oregh.

FORGOTTEN REALMS CAMPAIGN SETTING – 3rd EDITION

The date is now 1372 DR. Elturel’s entry has been shrunk down to a single paragraph:

• The population has fallen to 22,600.
• Lord Dhelt has leveled up again. He is now a 17^th level paladin.

The HELLRIDERS:

• Are now only 200 strong (instead of 2,000).

If we were to interpret these changes diegetically, clearly some horrific tragedy has struck the city: Thousands are dead and the Hellriders have been reduced to one-tenth their former strength. That does not, however, appear to be the case. These changes are retcons, not updates.

FORGOTTEN REALMS CAMPAIGN GUIDE – 4th EDITION

We have now leaped forward in time to 1479 DR.

It’s probably useful to note that everything from this point forward is based on a mistake: When writing the 4^th Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Rich Baker confused Elversult (which had an artificial sun) with Elturel (which now gained one).

Let’s talk about the city:

• It is now the capital of an imperial theocracy. Elturgard, also known as the Land With Two Suns, has conquered Iriaebor, Scornubel, Triel, and Berdusk.
• There is now a state religion dedicated to Torm.
• The ruler is now the High Observer of Torm.
• Elturel’s population has shrunk again, this time to 17,000. (This might be intentionally diegetic given the Spellplague. But, oddly, the text repeatedly refers to people fleeing to Elturel and the population swelling as a result of its imperial expansion.)
• The Dungeon of the Inquisitor is a vast, subterranean maze that lies deep beneath the streets of Elturel. (Parts of this complex consist of natural caverns, the full extent of which have not been determined. Some of the prisoners work in mines down there. The strong implication is that there’s a connection to the Underdark.)

The HELLRIDERS: Don’t seem to exist. They are not mentioned in the text and appear to have been completely replaced by the PALADINS OF ELTURGARD (who are a knighthood led by the High Observer).

• Despite Elturgard having a state religion, many of the paladins “do not serve the same god.”
• All of the Paladins of Elturgard wear the “blazing insignia of the Companion.”

THE COMPANION: “The heatless second sun is called the Companion or Amaunator’s Gift, though no one but the High Observer knows if the object was truly bestowed by the sun god.”

• Undead cannot “abide its sight.” (Exactly what that means is unclear, but even people suffering from mummy’s curses seem to find respite here.)

Note: Even beyond the Elversult/Elturel mix-up, there’s a lot going on here that I can’t really wrap my head around. Somehow the city has abandoned Helm and become an intolerant theocracy of Torm worshipers while SIMULTANEOUSLY receiving a second sun that reputedly comes from Amaunator. Also the religiously intolerant Torm worshipers wear Amaunator’s holy symbol on their chests and are tolerant of paladins from any old god serving in the Paladins of Elturgard?

SWORD COAST ADVENTURER’S GUIDE

The year is now 1489 DR (or possibly 1490 DR).

• City is still ruled by the High Observer, but he’s no longer referred to as the High Observer of Torm (just “High Observer”). The current High Observer is a cleric of Torm (Thavius Kreeg).
• Elturgard is now known as the Kingdom of the Two Suns (instead of the Land of the Two Suns).
• It is no longer a member of the Lords’ Alliance. (The textual history here is complicated: As far as I can tell, no explicit list of Lords’ Alliance cities was given in 3^rd Edition; Elturel did not appear on the explicitly incomplete lists which did appear. The Lords’ Alliance isn’t mentioned at all in 4^th Edition, with the rather strong implication, in my opinion, that it no longer exists. In the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, however, the Lords’ Alliance is affirmed to have existed continuously since its founding, but Elturgard and several other cities have been explicitly given the boot.)

COMPANIONS OF ELTURGARD: These appear to be the same thing as the Paladins of Elturgard referred to in 4^th Edition.

• Made up of paladins of gods such as Tyr, Torm, Helm, and Amaunator.
• They wear the “symbol of Elturgard.”
• Their heraldry (which may or may not be the same as the symbol of Elturgard, but probably is) is now a pair of suns: The larger sun and a smaller sun with blazing light around it.
• Led by the High Observer.
• They’re also referred to as the “Order of the Companion.”
• Creed Resolute: Created by the first High Observer. A series of oaths and maxims that, among others things, prohibits the Companions from ascribing the Companion to any one god.

HELLRIDERS: They’re back!

• The Hellriders “aspire to join the Companions.” But they are also a separate organization. They are also referred to as “knights” for the first time.
• They wear the same heraldry as the Companions of Elturgard.
• At some point they also began swearing the Creed Resolute.
• They are named Hellriders because “long ago warriors of Elturel literally rode through a gate into the Nine Hells to pursue and destroy devils that had been plaguing their people.” (emphasis added to the lore change).

THE COMPANION:

• A golden orb that gives a warm, golden light. It can be seen as far away as Boareskyr Bridge and Berdusk.
• Vampires “burn away to dust” in its light, while “other undead quailed in its illumination.”
• Still referred to as “Amaunator’s Gift,” but no one knows where it actually came from and it’s “ascribed to one deity or another.”
• Called the Companion because it’s a companion to both the sun and the city.

RISE OF ELTURGARD:

• 1439 DR: Elturel had conquered territory belonging to several neighbors and put them under “Elturel’s Guard.” The High Rider was then revealed to be a vampire.
• Undead swarmed the city.
• The Companion showed up in the middle of the night. High Rider and his vampire spawn were outside at the time and instantly destroyed.
• The first High Observer created the Creed Resolute.
• Modern Elturgard refers to the lands that lie under “Elturel’s Shield” (meaning anywhere the light of the Companion touches; although that includes neighboring kingdoms that aren’t amused by the claim).

RISE OF THAVIUS KREEG:

• The heir apparent to the post of High Observer, a paladin named Tamal Thent, went missing with her entire retinue near Fort Tamal near the Boareskyr Bridge. This cleared the way for Thavius Kreeg to become High Observer.
• 1449 DR: Thavius Kreeg becomes High Observer.
• It’s possible that, after becoming High Observer, Kreeg was assigning paladins who might be a threat to him to Fort Tamal at the Boareskyr Bridge (far from Elturel itself).

Note: The changes between 4^th Edition and 5^th Edition, in my opinion, do not appear to be diegetic. The theocratic elements of Elturel appear to have been deliberately toned down using retcons, particularly the central importance of Torm. To at least some extent, this also appears to be an effort to straighten out the confusing contradictions from 4^th Edition.

DESCENT INTO AVERNUS

There’s a lot of lore pertaining to Elturel to be found in Descent Into Avernus, although it is not as clearly presented as the previous sources we’ve looked at (and I may easily overlook something in this summary). Upon reflection, it is interesting to note that Elturel is probably more thoroughly and usefully described in the two pages of Forgotten Realms Adventures than in all of the blather in Descent Into Avernus.

The current year is 1494 DR. Regarding Elturel:

• It is a holy city.
• The vampire lord now conquered Elturel in 1444 DR instead of 1439 DR. (This is because the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide described it as happening 50 years ago… and apparently it ALWAYS happens 50 years ago, no matter what the current year actually is.)
• The appearance of the Companion did NOT destroy the vampire lord. (It instead “sent the vampire lord scrambling for the shadows and laid waste to his undead army.”)
• The city is now led by the High Overseer instead of the High Observer. (This is not a diegetic change: In contradiction of previous sources, the ruler has been the High Overseer since the Companion first appeared.)
• The list of gods venerated in the city is now Lathander, Torm, Helm, and Tyr. (The Lathander/Amaunator stuff is a wormhole to go down at another time.)

The MAP of fallen Elturel is the first map of the city since Forgotten Realms Adventures. It’s clearly based on the previous map (right down to the outlines of individual buildings, suggesting — somewhat implausibly — that the city has seen essentially no new construction in the past 136 years). Most of the changes appear apocalyptic in nature, but there are a couple of significant exceptions:

• The Grand Cemetery has been added to the west side of the city.
• A ravine has been added to the east side of the bluff. (You may, at first glance, assume this to be an apocalyptic scar, but the text confirms that the bridges of Torm’s Blade and Torm’s Reach crossed a ravine here before Elturel went to Hell. A direct comparison also reveals that the streets around the bridges have been redrawn to accommodate them. If you wanted to explain this diegetically, we could perhaps theorize that the ravine was the result of damage inflicted during the Spellplague.)

THE ORDER OF THE COMPANION: Is not mentioned.

HELLRIDERS: The Hellriders are described in various places as now being followers of Torm. (This may be a diegetic shift, but it appears more likely that the authors have simply retconned the Hellriders and Order of the Companion into a single, muddled organization.)

• In the mid-14^th century, Zariel came to Elturel and trained the original Riders.
• In 1354 DR, Yeenoghu (a demon lord from the Abyss) attacked the village of Idyllglen. The Riders of Elturel stopped the attack and Zariel herself threw Yeenoghu through a portal that sent him back to the Abyss, but not before several villagers had been killed.
• Swearing vengeance against Yeenoghu (again: a demon lord from the Abyss), Zariel and the Riders of Elturel opened a portal to Avernus and rode through to wage a holy war in the… Nine Hells?
• Or, according to a different section of the book, Zariel tracked the demons (still from the Abyss) back to the portal they’d originally came through… a portal which then took the Riders to the Nine Hells!
• Many of the Riders became panicked when they reached the Nine Hells and fled back through the gate, sealing it behind them and trapping Zariel and the other Riders. Those who fled in shame became the famous Hellriders; the others were slaughtered upon the fields of Avernus and Zariel was corrupted into the Archduchess.

Note: None of this, of course, makes any goddamn sense.

THE COMPANION:

• Is actually a Solar Insidiator, created by Zariel (see DIA, p. 153-4 for more details).
• Contains an imprisoned planetar.

RISE OF THAVIUS KREEG:

• Thavius Kreeg was a priest of Torm who appealed to any power to save the holy city. Zariel answered and provided the Companion. Thavius Kreeg took credit for the Companion and became the first High Overseer (presumably in 1444 DR), not an heir to the position.
• Or, according to a different section of the book, Thavius Kreeg was already High Overseer when he struck the bargain with Zariel.

Go to the Avernus Remix