The next three adventures – Faces of Fortune, Infernal Insurgency, and The Diabolical Dive – form the Behind Infernal Lines series.
FACES OF FORTUNE – THE STORY OF FAI CHEN (DDAL 09-05): At the end of our last adventure a couple celestials revealed that they had been hiding among Elturian refugees from the very beginning! A mission to Hell is proposed… and apparently the celestials immediately bow out. A conversation which I imagine going something like this:
Celestials: Our work here is done.
PCs: You did nothing.
Celestials And you’re welcome!
PCs: People are dead.
Celestials: Celestials out, bitches!
In any case, the PCs and ten-year-old Dara are heading to Hell to rescue the trapped souls of innocent Hellriders. So they all hop in a cart drawn by a goat and driven by somebody named Fai Chen and somehow they all end up in Hell.
I’m so in the weeds on Fai Chen!
Some research indicates he also showed up in Season 8 of the Adventurers League, but even with this information I’m at a loss: Who is he? What does he want? How did he know to show up in Baldur’s Gate (but then not know anything about Dara or her celestial connections in this adventure)? What power does he possess to bring people to (and from?) Hell?
No idea.
Which seems particularly perverse given the subtitle of this adventure.
This was a frequent malady back in the ‘90s, when RPG supplements were more heavily driven by serialized metaplots which would slowly evolve their worlds over time. Often these metaplots were driven by J.J. Abrams-style mystery boxes and, in order to preserve the sense of enigma, these secrets were even kept from the GM reading the book. Which becomes a problem when the GM lacks the context necessary to understand how they’re supposed to be running the adventure at the table. That’s what happens here: I don’t know what Fai Chen wants, so I don’t know how he’d respond to anything the PCs might do or say. I don’t even know what he is, so if he gets into a fight (with the PCs or anybody else) I don’t even have the tools to resolve it.
But Fai Chen does, in fact, bring everyone to Avernus. At which point, apparently, Dara reveals she has no plan whatsoever. She doesn’t even have a plan to make a plan. So Fai Chen shrugs and says, “Weird. Well, I guess we’re all heading to Mahadi’s Emporium, renting a stall, and joining the flea market!”
Which is what this adventure is all about.
The frankly surreal framing aside, Ted Atkinson carries off the adventure itself adroitly.
The one thing we do discover about Fai Chen is that he’s basically the Han Solo to Mahadi’s Lando Calrissian. As the PCs approach Mahadi’s Emporium they’re attacked by an Avernian warlord gang, and after fighting their way through they discover that this warlord has been regularly harassing travel to and from the Emporium. Mahadi believes that there’s a traitor within the Emporium who’s assisting the warlord and he wants the problem solved.
This “traitor within” plot has a significant similarity to the one found in Hungry Shadows. This creates an interesting thematic resonance (the evils of the Material Plane are echoed in Hell), but the contrast largely just serves to demonstrate how this sort of plot can be handled without making your eyeteeth ache.
Mahadi’s Emporium is detailed and enhanced with a dozen or so colorful and well-rounded inhabitants, there are several side-quests designed to both accent the main quest and draw the PCs further into the social circles of the Emporium, and the whole thing is studded with some flavorful combat encounters.
Faces of Fortune is just solid adventure design, and well worth grabbing for any campaign that will be featuring Mahadi’s Emporium.
- Grade: B
INFERNAL INSURGENCY (DDAL 09-06): Fai Chen can now infinitely duplicate himself and the PCs are suddenly not allowed to leave the Emporium so they need to sneak out. (This will never be mentioned again.)
Would someone please hire a continuity editor for the Adventurers League?
Speaking of poor continuity, the Firesnake Forge from Descent Into Avernus which became Gears of War in DDAL 09-05 is now the Gearbox. Other than that, all the Emporium NPCs and locations which have been previously established are abruptly swapped out for a completely new roster. (The silver lining here is that you can pillage from both scenarios to flesh out your version of the Emporium.)
Weird inter-adventure continuity aside, Infernal Insurgency is a pretty good scenario. The concept is that the PCs need to raid an Avernian munitions dump. Their goal is to wreak enough havoc (i.e., blow stuff up) to pull devils away from a nearby facility (leading into scenario DDAL 09-07). The scenario struggles a bit as it gets awkwardly forced into an inappropriate structure, but a simple adversary roster and just ignoring the scripted elements of the ending will go a long way here.
- Grade: C
THE DIABOLICAL DIVE (DDAL 09-07): Having successfully drawn defenders away from Plagueshield Point in the previous adventure, the PCs are now ready to raid Plagueshield Point and steal the original battleplan used by the Hellriders when they charged into Hell! They then promptly discover that nobody knows where Plagueshield Point is, so they’ll have to start by finding someone who does.
… uhhh. If the people planning this operation don’t know where Plagueshield Point is, how did they know that raiding the munitions dump in the previous adventure would pull defenders away from it?
Seriously. Continuity editor. Look into it.
There’s a number of internal continuity errors and other oddities, too, like a creature without telepathy inexplicably communicating telepathically.
Once again, annoying continuity glitches aside, The Diabolical Dive is a rather nice adventure featuring two modest dungeon crawls. The first, Shadowswimmer Tower, is rather cleverly designed to be handled through either a frontal assault, social maneuvering, or sneaky stealth. It also features some nicely evocative touches of lore which help bring to life its owner’s obsession with studying the arcane properties of the River Styx.
The second location, Plagueshield Point, is starkly memorable in its concept: A drow citadel built around a magical geode which serves as a prison and which has been transported to the bottom of the Styx as part of an infernal bargain gone wrong.
- Grade: B-
Go to the Avernus Remix – Go to Part 4: Interlude at Mahadi’s
