(click for PDF)

Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen first published Ars Magica in 1987. It was a revolutionary game, including:

• A system of spontaneous magic (allowing you to cast any spell you could imagine at any time).
• Troupe-style play, in which players took on the roles of many different characters (and could even swap GMing responsibilities) in the course of a single campaign.
• Long-term play, in which the group created a covenant of wizards and developed not only their individual characters, but the covenant as a whole.

The 5th Edition, revised by David Chart, was released in 2004 by Atlas Games. When David took over the Ars Magica line he proposed a series of 40 supplements. He then released them like clockwork, one every three months for 10 years, until all 40 books were released. The result is arguably the single most complete and deliberately comprehensive RPG product line to ever exist.

Part of my job at the current RPG Producer at Atlas is to figure out what’s next for Ars Magica. When I got the job I ironically noted that I had played all of Atlas’ current RPGs, but none of the current editions. (This was also true for Ars Magica, which I’d been introduced to via 3rd Edition in the ’90s and did some brief dabbling with 4th Edition around 2001 or 2002.) I’ve spent much of the last year familiarizing myself with these games one by one (and also diving deep into everything we’ve published for them) and the time has come for me to run a full-fleged 5th Edition campaign.

To that end, I’ve developed one of my system cheat sheets for Ars Magica 5th Edition.

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED

These cheat sheets are not designed to be a quick start packet: They’re designed to be a comprehensive reference for someone who has read the rulebook and will probably prove woefully inadequate if you try to learn the game from them. (On the other hand, they can definitely assist experienced players who are teaching the game to new players.)

The cheat sheets also don’t include what I refer to as “character option chunks” (for reasons discussed here). In other words, you won’t find the rules for character creation here.

HOW I USE THEM

I usually keep a copy of the system cheat sheet behind my GM screen for quick reference and also provide copies for all of the players. Of course, we’ll also keep a copy of the rulebook at the table, too. In the case of Ars Magica, I’ve found it even more advantageous than usual to have a copy of the book for EVERY player:

• Character creation features a lot of detailed decisions from rich lists of evocative options. You’ll find that the whole process can be finished in literally a fraction of the time if access to the rulebook isn’t a chokepoint.
• Play in Ars Magica will intermittently see the players break apart into essentially simultaneous solo play (particularly during season-based play), during which access to various elements of the rulebook is frequently useful. Once again, removing this chokepoint speeds things up tremendously.
• The spontaneous magic which is the crown jewel of the game is greatly facilitated by having easy access to the Technique & Form guidelines on pages 116-161. (I’m looking at potentially prepping these as a separate quick reference packet.

Another way of understanding this is that Ars Magica is a game intensely interested in the “character option chunks” — not just during character creation at the beginning of the game, but throughout the entire campaign. Even character advancement is usually not a bit of bookkeeping separate from play, but rather an organic part of the character’s lives. As such, while these cheat sheets will, like my other cheat sheets, speed things up by serving as a comprehensive system reference and cutting down the amount of time required for many rulebook references, I’ve generally found that there many aspects of play unique to Ars Magica (compared to most other RPGs) that will still benefit from easy, frequent access to the rulebook.

The organization of information onto each page of the cheat sheet is designed to be fairly intuitive. The actual sequencing of the pages is mostly arbitrary (although topics are obviously grouped together if they require multiple pages):

PAGE 1: Core mechanics.

PAGE 2: The Botch Table. Kind of weird for this to just be hanging out on a page all by itself, but I haven’t found a better place for it. You can probably also skip this page if you’d like.

PAGE 3: Less fundamental core mechanics.

PAGE 4-8: Hermetic magic. All basic Casting rules on page 4; all the rules for Magic Resistance on page 5; additional rules on pages 6-7. Page 8 has the rules for designing spells.

PAGE 9: Warping & Twilight.

PAGE 10-12: Laboratory. Basics on Page 10, Projects on Page 11, and Enchanted Items on Page 12.

PAGE 13-16: Texts & Books, Familiars & Apprentices, Advancement, Aging.

PAGE 17-19: Combat, Advanced Combat, and Fatigue & Wounds. This includes non-combat damage.

PAGE 20: Realms & Creatures. These two topics are only lightly associated with each other, but they both fit on the same page to round things out.

This cheat sheet includes the Ars Magica 4th Edition rules for movement, filling in what I consider to be a fairly essential bit of utility that got dropped from 5th Edition. These rules are indicated in blue text.

This proved to be the largest cheat sheet I’ve done to date, which I actually found quite surprising. The 5th Edition rulebook is generally so well-organized and clearly presented that reading it and using it belies how much detail is actually packed into the game. You can get some sense of that from the cheat sheets themselves, which — despite their bulk at 20 pages — nevertheless break down comfortably into very clean modules.

MAKING A GM SCREEN

These cheat sheets can also be used in conjunction with a modular, landscape-oriented GM screen (like the ones you can buy here or here).

Personally, I use a four-panel screen and use reverse-duplex printing in order to create sheets that I can tape together and “flip up” to reveal additional information behind them.

Due to the bulk of the Ars Magica cheat sheet, though, even this technique (which puts 12 pages of data at your fingertips) is insufficient. You’ll either want to create an additional “flip layer” (so you have a front sheet; can flip that up to reveal two more; and can then flip up the next sheet to reveal two more) or make some editorial choices. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I haven’t had a chance to actually experiment with this in actual play.

As a newbie 5th Edition GM, my gut instinct is to prioritize:

• Page 1: Core Mechanics / Page 20: Fatigue & Wounds / Page 4: More Core Mechanics
• Page 4: Hermetic Magic – Casting / Page 5: Magic Resistance / Page 6: Hermetic Magic – Casting Options
• Page 8: Hermetic Magic – Designing Spells / Page 18: Combat / Page 19: Combat – Advanced
• Page 11 – Laboratory / Page 12: Laboratory – Projects / Page 13: Laboratory Enchanted Items

If I was going with just four panels:

• Page 1: Core Mechanics
• Page 18: Combat
• Page 4: Hermetic Magic – Casting
• Page 6: Hermetic Magic – Casting Options

But, as I say, these are currently just best guesses. And your mileage would probably vary in any case.

FUTURE THOUGHTS

Moreso than most, this cheat sheet is still a work in progress. You may notice that the sheets are a little more “loosely packed” than similar sheets I’ve done in the past. This is partly in anticipation of laying in additional material from the previously mentioned voluminous library of supplements. Not all of the mechanics to be found therein (that way lies madness), but key stuff that jumps out. (For example, you’ll already find a reference to the laboratory personalization rules from the Covenants supplement. I’m probably going to actually move those onto the sheets in some capacity.) This is likely to be at least somewhat idiosyncratic and a reaction to the immediate needs of the Rhine Tribunal campaign I’m currently running, but I think there’s decent odds you’ll see an “advanced” version of this sheet popping up here at the Alexandrian in the future.

If you’re still on the fence about trying Ars Magica, the 4th Edition of the game is currently available as a free PDF. Although obviously different from 5th Edition in a number of ways, the game is fundamentally unchanged and this can give you a pretty good sampler of whether or not it would be something you’d be interested in.

Nick LS Whelan has this really cool site where he reads RPG-related blog posts. They’re great whether you need accessible content or are just looking to load up some podcast-like audio for your commute.

Nick has posted readings of a couple different posts from the Alexandrian:

Blogs on Tape – Episode 74: The Day the Old School Died

Blogs on Tape – Episode 79: Spells – Parasites of the Mind

The first looks at the weird urban legends surrounding the publication of The Palace of the Silver Princess in 1983. The latter is an alternative look at what it means to prepare a spell.

You can find the original articles here and here if you’d rather just read them.

Go to Table of Contents

Gargauth in the Shield of the Hidden Lord has the potential to be a persistent element that accompanies the PCs for the entire campaign… or he might be gone before they even realize what and who he is.

GARGAUTH: ROLEPLAYING TEMPLATE

NAME: Gargauth (Once-Treasurer of Hell, the Tenth Lord of the Nine, Lost Lord of the Pit, the Hidden Lord, the Outcast, the Lord Who Watches)

APPEARANCE: A shield of silvered, vanadium steel embellished with bronze decorations suggesting the horns, eyes, and fangs of a pit fiend.

QUOTE: “You have no idea the secrets which I could share with you! If you would only serve me!”

ROLEPLAYING:

• Wants nothing more than to be released from its prison.
• Craves power, with little care for what form it takes.
• Speaks in either a sibilant, seductive whisper or a baritone roar.

BACKGROUND: See “Lore of Gargauth” in Part 3B: Lore of the Vanthampur Investigations.

STAT BLOCK: See Descent Into Avernus, p. 225.

MEETING THE SHIELD OF THE HIDDEN LORD

When the PCs first find the Shield of the Hidden Lord, Gargauth will claim to be the Shield of Silvam and that the Vanthampurs stole him from the Hhune family.

The Shield of Silvam is one of the Kuldannorar artifacts once held by the Tethyrian royal line. A DC 16 Intelligence (History) check will reveal that the Shield of Silvam was created before the Eye Tyrant Wars, was lost during the Strohm Dynasty (between the 5^th and 9^th centuries), and briefly resurfaced in the 14^th century before vanishing again.

A DC 18 check will recall that the chronicles record that it was a mithral shield with an inset “eye” of crystal (i.e., not at all what the Shield of the Hidden Lord looks like). If confronted with this fact, Gargauth will at least initially attempt to claim that the Shield of Silvam recovered in the 14^th century was a forgery.

FREEING GARGAUTH

Gargauth’s overriding objective is to free himself from the shield, so let’s briefly discuss how he can do that.

First, he can fulfill the pact with Zariel by bringing thirteen cities to Hell. Having succeeded with Elturel (which may or may not be his first success), he’s now looking for the next viable target.

Second, the shield can be unmade in Bel’s Forge in Avernus. As it was originally created there, so can it be destroyed.

Third, Gargauth can be freed by Asmodeus or any Archduke or Archduchess of Hell who touches the shield and says his name.

Finally, Gargauth can be temporarily freed by casting dispel evil and good on the shield. Each casting has a 1% chance of freeing him for 1 minute. Using a higher level spell slot to cast the spell can either increase the percentage chance of him being freed (stepping 5%, 10%, 25%, 50% for each additional spell level), the duration of his release (stepping 10 minutes, 1 hour, 12 hours, 24 hours for each additional spell level), or a combination of both. (For example, a 9^th level spell slot could have a 10% chance of releasing him for 1 hour. Or a 50% chance of releasing him for 1 minute.)

Note: This section explicitly supercedes the “Freeing Gargauth” section of Decent Into Avernus.

THE MANY AGENDAS OF GARGAUTH

Gargauth is an incredibly clever, incredibly perceptive, and incredibly persuasive devil who is keenly aware of how vulnerable he is while trapped within the Shield of the Hidden Lord. He will adapt to whatever situation he finds himself in. He will deceive freely. He will prey on trust, but not abuse or alienate it needlessly. To be most effective, he needs to be in the possession of someone who will do what he says; but what he needs to avoid at all costs is to be stuck in a position where he cannot influence anyone around him. He will endure a weak position and bide his time for an opportunity to turn it to his advantage, rather than losing his temper and burning his bridges.

Upon encountering (and most likely being acquired by) the PCs, his first agenda will probably be to get away from them. He’s been around the block enough to know that wandering heroes who go around trying to save the world are terrible candidates for helping him achieve his goals, and Baldur’s Gate is filled with far more promising prospects.

Thus, his first strategy of posing as the Shield of Silvam so that they’ll return him to his “rightful owner.”

If that fails, another plausible strategy Gargauth might employ is using his telepathy to “call for help” from anyone nearby who might be more receptive to him. You can use this to justify the “Knights of the Shield” encounter in Part 4A: The Road to Candlekeep, for example, by assuming that at some point while they were walking through Baldur’s Gate with the Shield of the Hidden Lord, the PCs happened to pass a member of the Hhune family and Gargauth telepathically contacted them. (You can easily imagine any number of similar hijinks.)

If there comes a point where Gargauth perceives the PCs as perhaps being in a serious position to save Elturel, then he would be highly motivated to stop them from doing that. (Sucking cities to Hell is not particularly easy, he needs thirteen of them, and he put in 50+ years on this one.) My guess is he’d go for subtle misdirection and disinformation here.

In Part 4C: At the Threshold of Hell, when Sylvira says she’d like to keep the Shield of the Hidden Lord to study it, Gargauth might have one of two reactions: If he thinks it will be easier to take advantage of Sylvira’s fascination with the Nine Hells and corrupt her, he’ll happily jump ship. If he’s already got a good thing going with one or more of the PCs, on the other hand, he may make some strong offers to convince them to keep him.

On the other hand, when Traxigor tells the PCs that they should drop the shield into the River Styx in order to destroy it, Gargauth is going to get real serious real quick. He might telepathically reach out to Sylvira and offer to help her in her research, potentially seeding a debate about whether the shield should stay or go. Alternatively (or if that fails), he’ll try to make himself appear as useful as he possibly can to the PCs. (First up: He knows Avernus and can serve as a valuable guide.)

Once they’re in Avernus, Gargauth is likely going to try to get them to take him to Bel’s forge and then manipulate them into destroying the shield (and freeing him). One tactic might be to telepathically convince someone the PCs are interacting with to tell them how the shield can be destroyed at Bel’s forge (while conveniently not mentioning that this will free Gargauth, not destroy him). Another might be to simply take the PCs to Bel’s forge while pretending to guide them somewhere else (and then hoping he can spin the situation accordingly).

If the PCs are intransigent, Gargauth will probably continue trying to arrange for his escape. (Signaling nearby devils and ruining PCs’ attempts to sneak through Elturel, for example.)

If pushed absolutely to the wall (i.e., they’re on the banks of the Styx and about to throw him in), Gargauth will be willing to negotiate his knowledge for how to save Elturel. He’ll be able to tell them that they have to destroy the contract, destroy the chains, and arrange for Elturel to return to the Material Plane (see Part 7). He can even offer up his own services (if they free him!) in destroying the chains.

INTO THE RIVER STYX

What actually happens if the PCs do throw the Shield of the Hidden Lord into the River Styx? (Which is, I think, the most likely outcome.)

Option #1: It’s destroyed. Trapped in the shield as he is, Gargauth is entirely an entity of nous (or mind). His memories are thus the entirety of what he is, and when the shield is dipped into the River Styx he is utterly destroyed. As Gargauth is the source of the shield’s powers, all that is left is a well-crafted, mundane shield.

Option #2: A tabula rasa spirit. Gargauth’s mind is wiped clean. What’s left inside the shield is an incredibly powerful pit fiend with no memories and no innate form. In a campaign about Hell, damnation, and redemption, this has the potential to become a powerful thematic opportunity: How is this essentially newborn entity possessed of tremendous power influenced by the PCs and their actions? Is this new entity saddled with Gargauth’s sins? As this entity’s personality develops, does that influence what powers the shield manifests? If the PCs lead this new entity down a path to goodness and then later free it from the shield, what actually appears? A reformed pit fiend? An angel? Something else?

Option #3: Punt it down the road. Traxigor emphasizes that the shield has to be immersed in the Styx for several days (or a week or a month or whatever). The only realistic option is to just toss it into the deepest part of the river and walk away.

Go to the Avernus Remix

The Quiet Year is a map-making storytelling game by Avery Alder. The group will collectively tell the story of a community which, after a long war, has finally succeeded in driving off the Jackals. The community doesn’t know it, but they will have one quiet year — a time to come together, to rebuild, to prepare for the future — before the Frost Shepherds arrive and the game comes to an end.

The central focus of play is the map itself: We begin with a blank sheet in the middle of the table and a brief setup phase will see the group quickly sketch in the broad strokes of their community. We will also determine which Resources are important to our community, and which one of those Resources is in abundance (with all others being in scarcity).

(The Resources section of the setup phase is subtly brilliant: There are no predefined Resources. Instead, each player creates a Resource and adds it to the list. This, all by itself, radically alters the game each time you play it. A community in which Transportation, Solar Power, and Food are the key Resources is a completely different community than one in which Clean Water, Steel, and Mana are the key Resources.)

Once the setup phase is complete, the game proceeds in turns. On their turn a player will:

• Draw a card
• Advance active projects
• Take an action

CARDS: The game is played with a deck of standard playing cards. There are fifty-two weeks in a year and fifty-two cards in a deck, and thus each turn represents a week of time. Each suit of cards represents one season (hearts are Spring, diamonds are Summer, etc.), and each season of cards is randomized.

Generally speaking, each card you draw will offer you an option between two questions. The active player has to answer the question, which will also often mean adding to the map or updating the map. For example, if you draw the 10 of Hearts you must choose between:

• There’s another community somewhere on the map. Where are they? What sets them apart from you?
• What belief or practice helps to unify your community?

Whereas the 5 of Spades offers a choice of:

• Winter elements destroy a food source. If this was your only food source, add a Scarcity.
• Winter elements leave everyone cold, tired, and miserable. Project dice are not reduced this week.

The game ends immediately when the King of Spades is drawn (and the Frost Shepherds arrive). This can happen at any point in the last season of thirteen cards (even the very first week of winter), so as the year continues more and more uncertainty about how much time you have left will begin to creep in. (And this will naturally influence the group’s predilection towards breaking ground on new projects vs. other options.)

ACTIVE PROJECTS: Various cards and actions will establish projects. Most projects are entirely the creation of the player initiating them and will be given a timeline of 1-6 weeks (i.e., turns). These projects are tracked on the map using six-sided dice, and the dice count down one pip each week.

TAKE AN ACTION: Finally, a player can choose one of three actions. They can Start a Project; they can Discover Something New; or they can Hold a Discussion. Each of these influences the story of the community in different ways.

THINGS I DON’T LIKE

There’s one other “significant” mechanic in the game: Contempt tokens. I’ll let the rulebook explain them:

If you ever feel like you weren’t consulted or honoured in a decision-making process, you can take a piece of Contempt and place it in front of you. This is your outlet for expressing disagreement or tension.

(…)

If you ever want to act selfishly, to the known detriment of the community, you can discard a Contempt token to justify your behaviour. You decide whether your behaviour requires justification. This will often trigger others taking Contempt tokens in response.

And that’s it. As a mechanic, Contempt tokens are empty and meaningless. They’re also somewhat incoherent: The beginning of the rulebook specifically points out that we, as players, have two roles in the game: To represent the community itself and care about its fate and ALSO to “dispassionately introduce dilemmas … create tension and make the community’s successes feel real.” So how is acting to “the known detriment of the community” something that needs to be “justified”? Furthermore, there IS no “decision-making process” in which you can be consulted; the game explicitly tells you NOT to discuss the decisions you have to make in the game.

Having played with Contempt several times, I’m simply going to be dropping them from future sessions. They don’t add anything to the game and, worse yet, simply confuse new players due to their incoherence and lack of point.

THINGS I DO LIKE

Everything else.

The Quiet Year is a beautiful game that creates beautiful stories. The choices presented in each season are elegantly balanced to push play in particular directions without drowning out the creative input and interests of the players.

The storytelling engine is specific enough to push interesting events into the narrative, but general enough to never constrain you: You can set The Quiet Year in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a Martian colony, the African savannah, or a Middle Ages village just after it’s been scourged by the Black Death and never hit a discordant prompt.

You can learn The Quiet Year in about 15 minutes, you’ll get 3-4 hours of play before the Frost Shepherds arrive, and then — if you’re anything like the people I’ve played with — you’ll immediately begin trying to figure out when you can play it again.

(There’s also an alternate setup you can use for a shorter game if you’d like.)

A FEW OTHER DETAILS

The game is designed for 2-4 players, but I found that it expanded well to 5 or 6. (I did not play with only two players, although I am curious what that experience would look like.) The designer has noted in online discussions that the primary problem with a larger player count is the down time between turns, so this will be at least somewhat dependent on how much your group is entertained in the audience stance. (Players also often have narrative input on other players’ turns.)

In addition to an $8 PDF, The game is also available in a $50 bag that contains everything you need to play: Rulebook, custom cards (with the text printed on them so you don’t have to consult the tables in the rulebook), dice, and counters. I, personally, don’t think the experience offered by The Quiet Year is worth that much, but your mileage may vary.

A QUIET YEAR

I wasn’t sure how well The Quiet Year would play online in the Era of COVID-19, but it was actually a spectacular experience. You’ll obviously need some form of shared whiteboard for the group (I found that one built into Zoom worked just fine). You can try to get fancy with the playing cards, but I found it easy enough to just act as a facilitator with a physical deck of cards to one side of my keyboard.

The one thing I will say, is that I think post-apocalyptic narratives have a completely different feel when you’re playing them during an actual apocalypse. And this impact is particularly substantial if it’s an interactive medium.

To give you some sense of what The Quiet Year is capable of, this is the narrative of one game that I played: Our community collapsed completely and murdered each other in internecine warfare. (So the year was perhaps not as quiet as it might have been…)

Our village was located in a valley. At sunrise and sunset we all stopped and collectively meditated upon the passing of the days.

Some among us even went so far as to worship the Sun.

Expeditions beyond the mountains to the west returned with members horribly burned by a “bright light.” Clearly they had found the place where the Sun sets and been burned for their hubris.

The Sun Sect grew.

To the southeast there was a horrible Pit; a bottomless black void. It was surrounded by skulls and strange runes. No one had placed them there; no one dared to touch them.

One day a woman named Petra climbed naked out of the Pit and came to the village.

Other outsiders came who wore Moons on their clothes. They were ostracized.

Petra and another girl named Sibyl convinced many young members of the village to enter the Pit and learn its mysteries.

They did not return.

We reclaimed the mine to the southwest. Our supply of metal was abundant! But we discovered that those working at the site contracted a strange disease that made them incredibly pale. They were referred to by the slur of “moon-facers,” and this term was soon being used to also refer to those who wore the symbol of the Moon.

Around this time, a flood destroyed our food stores. Tensions grew between the Sun Sect and the Followers of the Moon.

Faced with this persecution, some of the Followers of the Moon assassinated three of the four Elders who led our village. They then fled to the northern end of the valley, leaving the last remaining Elder — a man named Jonas — in charge.

Jonas was a member of the Sun Sect. He took control of the citizen’s militia and reforged it as the Swords of Dawn.

A few weeks later, foresters heard the voices of Petra and Sibyl among the trees of the forest. Their words could not be understood, but they seemed filled with portent.

A beam of purple energy shot out of the Pit. The faces of the others who had gone down into the Pit could be seen writhing within it. Petra herself emerged from the beam and declared herself a Priestess of the Moon.

Jonas died in his bed, pale as if moon-touched. The community was left leaderless. (Elders could only be nominated by existing Elders, Jonas had refrained from doing that, and now all the Elders were dead.) The Sun Sect moved into the power vacuum and the Swords of Dawn enforced order.

The Sun Sect declared that the Pit had grown ascendant because we had turned out back on the Sun. They decreed that a child must be taken to the highest mountain in the east and sacrificed to the rising sun.

This was done. Almost the entire Sun Sect marched up to the mountain peak.

But as the sacrifice was about to be performed, a huge avalanche wiped out the entire expedition.

Petra and the moon-facers took control of the village. A string of murders followed, leaving mutilated bodies in the woods. Then the beam of energy from the Pit washed across the sky, blotting out the Sun.

One of the last surviving members of the Sun Sect — angry, vindictive, and driven mad by this last divine sign — set fire to the forest! Our stores of lumber and the entire northern forest was destroyed.

When the envoys from the south arrived to trade their grain for our lumber, we were unable to pay them. Trade collapsed. The famine worsened.

But the morning after the fire, a beam of golden energy shot up into the sky from the site of the child sacrifice.

So there was a golden beam to the northeast and a purple-black beam to the southeast.

A new religious leader emerged: Wren argued that we had strayed too far from the Way of the Sun and we needed to sacrifice MORE children into the Sun’s golden beam, to at least match the number who had passed into the Pit.

Wren led a pilgrimage up into the mountains and they did, in fact, cast many children into the golden beam. The energy of the golden beam spread, blotting out the black dome that had shaded the valley and replacing it with a golden dome of sun-like light.

But the light shone 24/7.

Many in the village suffered from sleep deprivation as the eternal light shone on.

The valley was then hit with a plague, which further decimated the population. Then a massive thunderstorm rolled in. It rained for days and days and days. The river flooded, wiping out our village and forcing the population to scatter into the hills, creating a number of small, scattered “niche” communities.

As the waters receded in the valley below, we saw — in the burnt fields of the forest — what we at first thought were new trees. New trees that grew rapidly with the blessing of the Sun’s eternal light!

But what actually grew was strange: Purple-pink growths that fruited large, pear-shaped fruits that glowed with a bluish light.

Strange goliaths, of whose existence we had seen hints on our earlier expeditions, came from the west and settled among the strange trees, somehow feeding upon the glowing fruits.

An entire niche community vanished mysteriously overnight. When people from a neighboring community arrived, they found food still cooking over open fires. The only clue was the word RELLIK scratched into the dirt.

At the opposite end of the valley, it was discovered that the skulls and bones of the children sacrificed to the golden beam had appeared in the bone ring around the Pit. This connection between the two beams raised metaphysical questions that our desperate community had no time to properly consider.

A children’s crusade led almost all of our remaining children back down to the floor of the valley. There they ate of the glowing fruits.

Petra was badly beaten. She was forced into hiding, circulating from one family to another to hide her from the Sun Sect.

One of these families, seemingly driven mad, killed and ate her.

Other incidents of cannibalism forced the niche communities into armed compounds that no longer spoke to each other.

Strange changes were seen among the children eating of the purple pears.

The Swords of Dawn marched on the mine to wipe out that source of the “moon-faced plague.”

As the mine burned, the Frost Shepherds arrived.

A QUIET YEAR.

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Author: Avery Alder
Publisher: Buried Without Ceremony
Cost: $8.00 (PDF)
Page Count: 15

Go to Table of Contents

At this point the NPCs are going to give the players a huge infodump. This sort of thing can be really fraught with problems, not only provoking a lot of glazed eyes around the table, but also making it difficult for players to actually retain vital information.

So let’s talk about how we’re going to make it work.

First, we’ve already put a lot of work into the campaign before we ever got to this point. I talk about this in more detail in Random GM Tips: Getting the Players to Care, but if you’ve set things up so that the players have spent a half dozen or more sessions actively struggling to piece this information together, then they will be (a) actively invested in seeing it all come together and (b) incredibly excited to receive a glut of information after spending so much time fighting over little tiny scraps of data.

On a similar note, we’re going to deliberately frame this information as a reward: You worked hard to get the Shield of the Hidden Lord and the infernal puzzlebox to Candlekeep, and now you can turn in your plot coupons and get very specific rewards (in terms of information received) for each one.

Third, although I primarily frame stuff as “things Sylvira knows” for the sake of simplicity, the other reason I recommended in Part 4A that you should include Traxigor in this scene is that you can use the sequence of introducing new NPCs — Sylvira, then Traxigor, then Lulu — to break up the tidal wave of information.

There are also some places where I recommend that Sylvira and Traxigor disagree with each other, particularly over what course of action they recommend. Feel free to push that farther as you improvise the scene. (For example, Sylvira might say that Gargauth joined an alliance with Bane, Bhaal, and Loviatar to invade Hell. And then Traxigor says, “No, no, no. Lothiak’s Infernal Chronicle is quite clear on the point that Talona, the Lady of Poison, was also part of the alliance and an absolutely crucial part of the campaign.”) Not only will these back-and-forths between the NPCs break up the scene, they will (a) encourage the PCs to also engage with the scene as a conversation and (b) force the players to think about the disagreement and make their own decision about what they believe.

We’re also going to break up the infodump with some action (i.e., the infernal puzzlebox being cracked open and possibly Traxigor asking the PCs to help him find his planar tuning fork). You can enhance this option, if you’d like, by using the suggestion in Part 4A that opening the puzzlebox might take a full tenday (giving the PCs a chance to research topics at Candlekeep). That way you’d have a small infodump, a big break, and then another infodump (launching off the revelation of what’s inside the puzzlebox).

Finally, we’re going to proactively prompt PC expertise. Although the initial revelations obviously need to come from the Candlekeep experts (otherwise the PCs wouldn’t need to have come here in the first place), once those doors of knowledge have been unlocked, it’s quite possible that one or more of the PCs will have relevant knowledge. (For example, they might recognize the infernal contract inside the puzzlebox and know it’s significance.) This not only gives players another opportunity to be actively involved with the scene, it also frames the scene so that Sylvira and Traxigor are peers who are working with the PCs, not lecturers who are giving them a homework assignment.

Some of what’s summarized below appears elsewhere in the Remix. It’s comprehensively listed here so that it will be crystal clear exactly what information Sylvira, Traxigor, and Lulu give to the PCs (including the information they get wrong) and what information they don’t have.

SYLVIRA: THE SHIELD OF THE HIDDEN LORD

If shown the Shield of the Hidden Lord, Sylvira will recognize it as an infernal artifact:

• It was created by Gargauth, an archduke and demigod of Hell.
• Gargauth can speak through the shield.
• Anyone in contact with the shield is said to hear the Whisperings of the Hidden Lord. It’s unclear whether Gargauth can read or control the wearers’ thoughts, but it can definitely communicate telepathically with them.
• In some accounts, the wielder of the shield can create walls of fire and fireballs.
• It’s possible that there are multiple such shields, each allowing Gargauth to speak through it but perhaps manifesting a unique cluster of magical powers. In any case, the shield has turned up repeatedly throughout history, always as the instigator of great evil.

She’s also passingly familiar with Gargauth himself:

• He was once the Archduke of Avernus, the first level of Hell, as one of the Lords of the Nine.
• He was overthrown by a devil named Bel (who was, in turn, overthrown by Zariel, the current ruler of Avernus).
• Gargauth became known as the Tenth Lord of the Nine and the Lost Lord of the Pit, among other titles.
• While wandering the material plane, Gargauth feuded with a demon named Astaroth who was seeking to become a god. Gargauth slew Astaroth before that could happen and actually assumed Astaroth’s mantle for himself, effectively impersonating the dead demon and receiving the worship of Astaroth’s cultists.
• Gargauth later joined an alliance with the Dark Gods (Bane, Bhaal, Loviatar, and Talona) when they attempted to invade Hell itself and seize it from Asmodeus. The effort failed.
• Ever since then, Gargauth has been seeking power here on Toril. He’s known to work with Astarothian cultists (who still hear him as the voice of their God) and Dead Three cultists (who honor him for his alliance with the Dark Gods). In one notable instance in the 11^th century, Dead Three cultists summoned Gargauth as part of an assault on the Sign of the Silver Harp, an inn that was used as a gathering place for the Harpers. (In that instance, it turned out the whole thing had been an elaborate trap staged by Elminster and the Blackstaff Khelben Arunsun. Gargauth and the cultists were defeated.)
• His agents have been frequently reported to have a great interest in the Imaskari Empire, for reasons which are unclear.
• If the PCs think/know that he was working with the Cult of Zariel, Sylvira will consider it an odd development given his antagonistic history with Asmodeus.

SYLVIRA’S RECOMMENDATION: Initially, Sylvira will be eager to take the Shield of the Hidden Lord into her own custody for study. (Traxigor might argue that it should instead be locked up in Candlekeep’s vaults and forgotten. “It’s too dangerous.”)

Regardless of what the PCs decide at this point, when it later becomes clear that they’re heading to Avernus, Sylvira will tell them that the shield should be thrown into the River Styx. She believes that this will destroy its link to Gargauth and end its legacy of harm. (She’s more right than she knows: Since Gargauth is actually trapped within the shield, being plunged into the Styx will erase all of his memories. See Addendum: Playing Gargauth.)

Design Note: Sylvira’s understanding of the Shield of the Hidden Lord is deliberately incorrect/incomplete, skewing closer to the item’s original continuity. The key thing being withheld here is that Gargauth is actually IN the shield, not just communicating through it. The PCs might discover more accurate information by researching Gargauth and/or the shield at Candlekeep, and will also have the opportunity to unravel more of Gargauth’s story once they go to Hell.

SYLVIRA: THE INFERNAL PUZZLEBOX

Sylvira is familiar with infernal puzzleboxes and has opened several of them in the past.

• They are crafted by devils of the Nine Hells.
• They are usually made of infernal iron, but some are made of bone or horn.
• They are designed to safeguard their contents, but also as infernal temptations. “Any lock can be picked. But a puzzle entices.”
• The process of solving the incredibly intricate puzzles which seal the box, if done incorrectly, can lure a person into unwittingly performing an infernal rite that will bind them to the devil who made the box.

Sylvira has perfected several spells and/or technomantic equipment that will allow her to open the puzzlebox safely.

MECHANICS: A creature that spends 1 hour trying to open an infernal puzzlebox can make a DC 30 Intelligence (Investigation) check. If the check succeeds, the creature figures out the trick or sequence of steps needed to open the box (and can do so reliably in the future without a check). If the check fails by 5 or more, the creature must make a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw, taking 12d6 psychic damage on a failed save (or half as much on a successful one). If this damage would drop the creature’s hit points to 0, it instead results in the creature becoming affected as per the dominate person spell by the devil who created the box: The devil can communicate with them telepathically across any distance and the victim is particularly susceptible at night (when the devil can control their body like a puppet unless they succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw). This acts as a curse, as per the bestow curse spell with a permanent duration.

SYLVIRA: THE INFERNAL CONTRACT

Inside the infernal puzzlebox is a platinum tablet inscribed with Infernal characters. One side of the tablet is jagged and rough, as if it had been ripped apart through some tremendous force.

THE TEXT: The text on the tablet is the Pact signed between High Watcher Bellandi and Zariel (see Part 4B).

INFERNAL CONTRACTS: Anyone making a DC 14 Intelligence (Arcana) or Intelligence (Religion) check will recognize this as an infernal contract. A DC 16 test reveals the following information. Sylvira is familiar with this information in any case and can brief the PCs if none of them are familiar with infernal contracts.

• Infernal contracts are magically binding agreements between mortals and devils, almost always involving the mortal’s soul being forfeit in return for some service or gift.
• When infernal contracts are signed, there are two identical copies written on the same medium (a tablet, scroll, skull, or whatever else). These are then split apart, with the mortal keeping one copy and the devil keeping the other.
• The contract can only be destroyed if BOTH copies of the contract are brought together, and even then the wards upon the contract make it quite difficult to actually do it. (Sylvira will suggest that the fire of an ancient dragon might do the trick. Traxigor will suggest dropping the conjoined contract into the River Styx, causing its contents to be forgotten. A wish spell would also work.)

Design Note: I chose to have the tablet made from platinum because it was alchemically believed to represent the durability of a union or agreement.

HISTORY OF ELTUREL: PCs can also make a DC 14 Intelligence (History) check to recall pertinent details from Elturian history. (Some of this they are likely to have already picked up, if it wasn’t part of their character backgrounds to begin with.)

• High Watcher Naja Bellandi became the first High Observer of Elturel.
• High Rider Klav Ikaia was the ruler of Elturel in 1444 DR when he was revealed to be a vampire lord. On the Night of the Red Coup, High Rider Ikaia and his vampires began a reign of terror which plagued the city for fourteen days.
• On the fourteenth night, the Companion — believed to be a gift from some unnamed god — appeared in the sky above Elturel as a second sun. Its light destroyed the vampires.
• Naja Bellandi, who had led one of the major groups of resistance fighters, was hailed as a hero and became the first High Observer.
• She was assassinated a couple years later and replaced by High Observer Cathasach Restat, who had been one of the founding members of the Order of the Companion.

GM Tip: You might want to prep these chunks of information as handouts you can give to players who make these skill checks, allowing them to brief the other PCs in-character.

WHAT NEXT?

There are two key revelations here:

1. Elturel was NOT destroyed. It’s trapped in Hell.
2. The Pact which traps Elturel in Hell cannot be broken unless the two halves of the contract are brought together.

These are major twists. Give the players some time to think about them and really process this new information. If all goes well, they’ll reach the crucial conclusion by themselves: Even if the people in Elturel are fighting to save themselves, their cause is hopeless. Nothing they do can save the city unless someone takes THIS half of the contract to Avernus. The PCs have the key (or, at least, one half of the key) to saving the city.

Otherwise, one of the NPCs can lay this out for them.

If Reya Mantlemorn is here, she’s a strong candidate for this. “Take it to the High Knights at the High Hall!” She’ll have complete faith that the High Knights will be able to save the day if she and the PCs can just get the tablet to them.

TIME TO GO: Once the PCs decide to go to Avernus, Traxigor will ask them to help him find his tuning fork. (He’ll accompany them out of Candlekeep so that he can cast plane shift and take them to Elturel.)

MAP OF AVERNUS: While the PCs (or some of the PCs) are helping Traxigor find his tuning fork, Sylvira will dig out the Avernus poster map. She’ll explain that:

• There’s no guarantee that it will even be the right part of the Avernian plains, but it’s one of the few known maps of Avernus in existence and the only one in her possession.
• It was created by the cartographer Nico Sovanna, an infernal researcher (much like Sylvira herself) who was interested in the Charge of the Hellriders and actually journeyed to the location in the Nine Hells where he believed it took place.
• Unfortunately, Sovanna went quite mad as a result of his expedition.

Design Note: More on the map in Part 7 of the Remix. Mostly I’m providing a plausible explanation for why a random map of an infinite plane just happens to be of exactly the right region.

MAP OF ELTUREL: The PCs might like to get a map of Elturel before they go. They can dig one up in the archives of Candlekeep easily enough and copy it. (Or, if you prefer, Sylvira can just give them this map, too.)

What you’ll want for this, obviously, is a pre-Avernus map of the city. You can find one in Forgotten Realms Adventures. (Unfortunately, the resolution in the scanned PDF WotC is currently selling isn’t great.)

The mismatch between this map and the reality they find on the other side of the plane shift will lead to some potentially cool navigation and a visceral sense of the disaster. On the other hand, it will give them a notable advantage in Elturel and so you may not want them to automatically get the map (so that they only gain the advantage if they earn it for themselves).

INTRODUCING LULU

If Lulu is not being played as a PC (see Part 2), this will be the moment when she’s introduced. We’ll be doing a comprehensive look at Lulu’s background (and straightening out all of the continuity problems it has) in Part 6D of the Remix, but for right now this is the key information:

• Lulu’s earliest memory is of waking up in the red sands of the Avernian wastelands.
• She wandered down the River Styx for several years, having many adventures before finally returning to Toril.
• Sylvira became aware of a hollyphant in Amn who could tell tales of the Nine Hells. She made a special journey south and tracked Lulu down. The two hit it off and Lulu decided to come back with Sylvira to Candlekeep to continue assisting her with her research; the two of them are now good friends.
• Lulu has a few fragmentary memories of the time before her memory loss: She particularly remembers that she was friends with a beautiful warrior angel, who came to the city of Elturel long ago and led the knights of that city on a charge into Hell itself. (“I don’t remember the actual battle,” Lulu says. “But we must have lost. I guess that’s how I lost my memories.”) Sylvira is 100% convinced that Lulu was actually at the famous Charge of the Hellriders and she’s been trying to figure out how to help Lulu get more of her memories back, particularly about that event. (Because Lulu has this connection to Elturel, she’ll be particularly interested by any PCs who come from Elturel and to learn anything they know about the city’s disappearance.)

I recommend having Lulu flutter into the lab somewhere in the middle of the infodump; this will provide a nice change of pace, but should definitely happen before the infernal puzzlebox is opened. To demonstrate her familiarity with the Nine Hells, have her drop useful commentary. For example:

• She might be the one to mention Gargauth’s other titles (Tenth Lord of the Nine, Lost Lord of the Pit, etc.) because she met a devil who absolutely loathed him for his betrayal of Asmodeus.
• She likely recognizes the infernal puzzlebox for what it is, and could babble excitedly about how much she loves seeing Sylvira open them. (“It’s like getting a Caravance gift!”)
• She could be the one to reveal how infernal contracts can be destroyed… but then have no memory of why she knows that.

Here’s the key bit, though. When the infernal contract is read out loud, Lulu will suddenly recover a key bit of her memory:

“Zariel! That was the name of my angel!”

And this is mind-blowing (to Sylvira and Traxigor if nobody else). The angel who led the Charge of the Hellriders is Zariel, the Archduchess of Hell? And Lulu was her good friend?

Yes! Yes! I remember! Through the gate we went, tearing through devils like a song through the air! And Zariel was singing songs, with the knights joining her celestial voice!

But then… we were betrayed? Yes. I remember the betrayal. But who? I don’t know. I just… No. I don’t know.

And that’s all she remembers. (For now.)

Of course, when the PCs decide to take the infernal contract to Avernus, Lulu will volunteer to go with them: She’s the only one there with first hand experience of the Nine Hells, and she wants to help however she can. (If the PCs turn her down, she’ll insist. And then she’ll try to sneak into their bags.)

Go to Part 5: Hellturel