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Since we were just discussing Tarina in the Elfsong Tavern, let’s take a moment to talk about the tavern itself.

The tavern is described with:

• A list of tavern patrons
• A map
• A detailed key for all the rooms (upstairs and downstairs)
• The lyrics of an elfsong sung by the local ghost in tribute to lost Elturel

(The tavern has apparently lost the stuffed baby beholder that used to hang over the bar in the 14^th century.)

Structurally, however, this is what happens at the tavern:

• The PCs talk to Tarina, who refuses to give them the information until they help her kill some pirates who are coming to attack her.
• They wait for the pirates to show up.
• The pirates show up. They fight.
• Tarina gives them the information.
• They leave.

The first problem here is that the structure doesn’t make it easy for the GM to leverage all the material presented about the tavern. The most egregious example of this is the sahuagin priestess Oshalla: Three hundred words are dedicated to describing this NPC who the PCs don’t know about, no one mentions, and who is behind a locked door on the second floor of the tavern. (Remember: The PCs have no reason to ever leave the common room of the tavern.)

She seems sort of interesting, but what the hell is she doing here?

Part of the explanation here is that the Elfsong Tavern appeared in the Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance computer roleplaying games. Its inclusion is a nostalgic love letter that will resonate with a lot of players, so it gets an uber-detailed description. On the other hand, this ultimately just emphasizes the problem: If we care enough about the Elfsong Tavern to describe it in encyclopedic detail, why not structure the scenario so that the players at the table can experience that content?

The second problem is that the scenario structure here is very weak. Tarina basically says, “I will help you after the next cut scene.” But then the GM is supposed to make the PCs wait an arbitrary and unspecified amount of time before triggering the cut scene in a location where there’s basically nothing for them to do except say, “We wait.”

(The more cynical take is that the writers are expecting the PCs to act as if they’re in a CRPG and go around picking the locks on every private door in the joint.)

ENTER TARINA

Tarina is the reason that the PCs are there, so she’s going to be the lynchpin of whatever structure we apply here. The biggest problem we have here is the entire “I’ve heard a rumor some pirates might show up and try to kill me tonight” interaction: It’s overly complicated and it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

The book says that the intention here is to give the PCs time to explore the tavern while they wait. But if they’re supposed to by bodyguarding Tarina, they’re probably not going to wander away, right?

We’re going to make a simple tweak here:

• When the PCs show up at he Elfsong Tavern, Tarina isn’t here.
• She shows up.
• She tells the PCs the information they need.

And that’s it. We don’t need any frills to get the job done here.

ELFSONG

The Elfsong Tavern is haunted by the spirit of an elven woman who periodically sings a ghostly lament for a lover lost at sea. According to Volo’s Guide to the Sword Coast, “the voice is never heard more than twice in an evening, but usually at least every three nights, and never during the sunlit hours.” The song is always the same.

Descent Into Avernus, therefore, has a really interesting moment in which the spirit unexpectedly begins singing a lay to fallen Elturel. This includes a full set of beautiful, poetic lyrics which I suspect some might be suspicious of, but which I think can actually create a great moment at the gaming table.

Unfortunately, the moment won’t actually work because the adventure doesn’t put in the necessary work to make it land. “This surprises everyone,” the book says… except the PCs. Because the PCs have never heard the spirit sing before, don’t know that it never changes its tune, and don’t know that this isn’t the regular tune.

RULE OF THREE: The Rule of Three is a narrative principle in which you (1) establish something, (2) reinforce it, and then (3) pay it off. (And the pay off can also be a reversal of the expectation you’ve established.)

We’ll do the same thing here:

• The Elfsong is being sung when the PCs come through the door. They walk into the “customary hush that falls over the tavern while the ghostly voice sings her sad lament” (Volo’s Guide to the Sword Coast).
• The spirit begins singing again when Tarina arrives. (Some or all of the PCs are likely to be upstairs when you trigger this moment. Note that the song can be heard everywhere in the building.)
• As they’re finishing their conversation with Tarina (just after she’s given them the information), the spirit sings the lay to fallen Elturel.

Basically, you show the players what’s usual so that you don’t have to tell them when it’s unusual. The moment is allowed to speak for itself. (You can still reinforce this, of course, by describing the haunted reaction of the tavern regulars.)

THE REGULARS: It’s fairly plausible that the first or second instance of the song will prompt the PCs to ask someone what the song is all about. Try to color this with that NPC’s personal opinion and relationship with the song. For example, Alan Alyth, the owner of the tavern, might tell about how his grandmother, Lady Alyth Eldendara, heard the song just once and bought the tavern that very night. The former owner agreed only on the condition that he would always have a seat in the tavern where he could come each night to listen to the song. Theomon’s Chair still sits in the corner, sacrosanct and unused by any patron.

(No, I don’t know why Alan’s last name is his grandmother’s first name.)

This allows the Elfsong to become a potential icebreaker or easy topic of conversation as the PCs interact with the NPCs here.

THE FIRST TIMER: You might also add an extra touch to the first or second instance of the song by describing it’s effect on another first timer. Also from Volo’s Guide to the Sword Coast: “A first-timer … who breaks down into tears upon hearing the song is usually embraced and comforted by the nearest regular patron.”

(This is superior to trying to tell the players that their characters “feel really sad” about hearing the song. Telling players what their characters are feeling is generally a bad idea.)

OSHALLA

While the PCs are waiting for Tarina to show up, Alan Alyth comes over to their table. He’s seen the Flaming Fist badges they’re wearing and he’d like their help. He has a tenant renting a room upstairs who has fallen behind on her rent. She’s locked her door and refuses to come out.

The tenant in question is Oshalla, the sahuagin priestess I mentioned above.

(This leverages Oshalla so that the PCs will actually interact with her. It also reinforces their new role as members of the Flaming Fist.)

TOPICS OF CONVERSATION

FALL OF ELTUREL: Use the Rumors of Elturel addendum to seed the conversation here. This will continue building up the enigma around Elturel’s disappearance. (As does the lay sung by the elf spirit later, of course.) As in Part 1, make a point of including High Observer Thavius Kreeg (and the fact he’s presumed to be lost with the rest of the city).

FLAMING FIST LEADERSHIP: With Grand Duke Ravengard missing and presumed dead in the Fall of Elturel, there’s a lot of speculation about who will become the new Marhsal of the Flaming Fist.

• Blaze Beldroth over in the western Lower City has reportedly promoted himself to Marshal and is issuing orders. It’s unclear how many Flames are actually following those orders.
• Duke Portyr has recalled his niece, Liara Portyr, from Fort Beluarian in Chult. It’s assumed he’s planning to push her into the leadership position.
• Blaze Mukar, commander of Wyrm’s Rock, is also in a powerful position.
• This is all just a test by Grand Duke Ravengard to see who’s loyal and who’s not.
• The Eltan family, heirs of the Eltan who originally founded the Flaming Fists but sold off their shares in order pay off debts, is preparing to buy back in, with Taraphael Eltan becoming the new Marshal.
• Yvandre Rillyn, a Flaming Fist veteran, has been running the Rillyn School for Swordplay. The school is actually the front for a conspiracy to seize control of the Flaming Fist. Rumor has it that Rillyn “students” were seen in Elturel before its fall. (See Descent Into Avernus, p. 182.)

THE NEXT GRAND DUKE: Ravengard’s death also opens up the position of Grand Duke. Use this gossip to establish all of the surviving dukes (see Descent, p. 162):

• Duke Belynne Stelmane
• Duke Dillard Portyr
• Duke Thalamra Vanthampur

As for the filling the fourth ducal position, any number of patriar families might be mentioned (including Taraphael Eltan). See p. 165 of Descent Into Avernus.

REFUGEES: There are those who think Baldur’s Gate should be doing more to help. There also those spewing out all kinds of anti-refugee rhetoric and conspiracy theories (like the rumor on p. 18, “I’ll bet my last copper piece that those so-called refugees are advance scouts for an army that’s preparing to attack Baldur’s Gate!”).

REDUX REFUGEE

Grab one of the refugees from the refugee caravan (or a small group/family) and have them come into the Elfsong Tavern. They’re trying to find lodging, but everywhere they’ve checked is sold out. (So is the Elfsong Tavern… unless the PCs have created a vacancy upstairs.)

That refugee who was pregnant and now has a newborn baby is probably a great choice for pathos here.

That guy who was spewing vile anti-refugee conspiracy theories a couple minutes ago? It’s a great time for him to open his stupid mouth again.

THE PIRATES

I’ll be honest: I think the pirate encounter is kind of dumb. I think the setup with Tarina knowing they’re looking for her is awkward at best and the whole thing ultimately contributes nothing to the scenario and means nothing. I suspect it’s largely here because the writers needed to level the PCs up and felt it was even more ridiculous to do without at least some kind of fight.

(If, as I’ve suggested, you’ve either run the refugee caravan scenario or simply had the players create 2^nd level characters, then this is completely unnecessary.)

THE SURPRISE: If you still want to include the pirates, then just have them burst through the doors as Tarina finishes briefing the PCs. “Oh crap, these guys again,” she says, and asks the PCs to help her deal with them.

THE RUNNING GAG: If you’ve replaced Tarina with a PC, the pirates could be worked in as a running gag as long as they’re in Baldur’s Gate. Everywhere they go… more bloody pirates seeking revenge.

THE TAVERN BRAWL: Alternatively, just start a brawl in the tavern. If the PCs do something stupid, great. Otherwise, have a quarrel over the refugees escalate until somebody breaks a bottle.

EVENT SEQUENCE

A quick summary/checklist of everything we’ve just talked about:

• Entering the Elfsong Tavern while the Elfsong is being sung.
• Tarina isn’t there yet.
• Alyth comes over to ask them to deal with the deadbeat Oshalla.
• Refugee enters, desperate for lodging.
• Tarina arrives. Elfsong again.
• Tarina briefs the PCs.
• Elfsong: The Lay of Elturel.
• Optional: Pirate Booty Kickin’ / Tavern Brawl

This should give you enough narrative space to frame conversations around the PCs (implicitly inviting them to join in), have NPCs approach them for a friendly chat, and/or let the players take the initiative and find someone to talk to.

ALTERNATIVE CAMPAIGN HOOKS

Well, we did establish that these killings were targeting refugees, right? Pick one of the refugees from the caravan (preferably whichever one was the players’ favorite) and murder them. Other refugees from the caravan find the PCs and ask for their help again. (The refugees might have found lodging at the Elfsong Tavern, so you can still frame this scene there.) You can then use Part 3D: Investigating the Murders to bring the PCs into the Vanthampur Investigations.

(Alternatively, if you prefer to follow more closely the structure of the original book, you can use an investigative montage to point the PCs at the bathhouse the Dead Three cultists are using.)

Go to Part 3: The Vanthampur Investigations

Go to Part 1

THE STONE OF GOLORR

Blackness.

They were in a void.

Edana still had the Stone in the palm of her hand. They were still all linked in a network of outstretched hands. But all around them was utter nothingness.

Then, abruptly, there was a bloom of light.

Not an explosion. More like the opposite of an implosion. A rapid, organic expansion or unfolding. An entire planet that was bulging and shaping itself into existence before them. Then, as if a hand had swept across the blackness, stars appeared in a vast river that filled the sky. Soft starlight fell across the dark mass of the planet and waters gushed forth, covering its surface in cascading torrents of incomprehensible scale.

And then something went… wrong. The planet seemed to schism, as if their vision were double. Then it ripped. The sound of that washed over them in a horrendous wave. They were seeing impossibilities as the two worlds separated and began phasing back and forth in an impossible superposition.

In the midst of this chaos, there was a bolt of white light; or perhaps something vast and crystalline lancing in from out of the darkness. It plunged into the very heart of the two schisming worlds.

In her head, Edana heard a voice: “Thus I came.”

The planets ripped apart.

… and they found themselves back in the vault, standing atop the sunburst.

The others stumbled back half a step, but Edana could still feel these tendrils of alien thought reaching up along the back of her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Her sensorium was… not overwhelmed, exactly, but shocked by a wash of sensations she had never experienced before: Not sight. Not taste. Not hearing or smell or touch. Impossible, alien sensations. There were etheric harmonies that she could see/feel/smell/taste passing through her. She was sensate to psychic tendrils that linked the world in endless enigmas.

She was attuning to an alien thought pattern that was emanating from the Stone of Golorr. The Stone was trying to find an interface between the way it thought and the way she thought. After an endless moment it began settling down. The mirrored thoughts still sizzled and warped in a fizzing cascade on the edges of brain, but she ultimately understood what the Stone was.

The Stone was in a weakened state from having been blinded by Lord Dagult, but it would grow in strength over time. Edana would be able to call upon that strength to pull out the secrets (so many secrets!) that had been encoded into the Stone. Knowing what secret to request of the Stone would be difficult – since these secrets had, as she knew from Manshoon’s research, literally been stripped out of reality – but in the absence of a specific conception, the Stone would nevertheless provide some random secret, chosen from its depths according to the whims of its alien logic.

“Gods…” Edana murmured.

When she’d had a moment to collect herself, she explained to the others what she now knew at a primal, even instinctual level.

“Can we just ask what Dagult did?” Theren asked.

“We know what he did,” Kora said. “What we need to know is how to get through this door.”

“Do we think it’s a password?”

Edana held forth the Stone. “Tell me how to retrieve the treasure of Lord Dagult Neverember.”

She felt its thoughts percolating and intermixing with her own. She reached out across the strange interface that the Stone had created between them. It took a long time for their thoughts to align — it was like the Stone was trying to pick her while she was trying to pick it — but they came together like two bodies orbiting into a collision, oscillating faster and faster until a tangle of images and words began bubbling up.

Where laid his wife to rest ‘midst bones of son’s blood sealed, there where Anri laid himself to rest, lies that which Open Lord concealed.

Twisted underground tunnels lit by strange lights. An endless field of corpses. Halls of stone. A golden dragon, aging so rapidly that scales shed from its skin; one of those scaled held in perfect focus as it falls. The sound of a silver hammer striking stone. A beam of sunlight in a darkened room. A chisel carving Dathek characters which transform themselves into two words: BRANDATH CRYPTS.

As Edana related what she had been shown, Theren recalled the enigmatic phrase Pashar had found in his research. “In beam of sun, strike dragon’s scale with mithril true upon the anvil sun.”

“We’re on the sun,” Theren said.

Kora nodded. “So we need to bring a dragon scale and a mithril hammer here?”

“There was something else,” Edana said. “A beam of sunlight.”

“I can do that,” Kora said. “With a daylight spell.”

“We know a dragon,” Kittisoth pointed out, thinking of Zellifarn.

“We can do this,” Kora said. “But we can’t do it right now. So we should leave now. Get out of the graveyard before they lock it for the night.”

Kittisoth nodded. “Let’s get home.”

CRISIS AT THE HOMEFRONT

As they returned to Trollskull, they could see that the tavern was rollicking. It was Goldennight and, as they passed by the windows, they could see the patrons inside were pasted with gold dust and encrusted with jewels streaming down their cheeks and arms. By the bar, Rishaal and Lif were looking in a book and laughing together while Lif served drinks. Fala Lefaliir, with her hair coiffed into an elaborate curly-cue topped with the miniature figure of a dragon with its wings spread, had arranged a huge assortment of teas in front of her and was sampling them in turn.

Outside Trollskull, they could see the Zhentarim, a silent perimeter. Ziraj was standing in the alley, watching the rear of the building. They found Yagra and two other zhents at the bottom of their stairs.

“It’s good to see you, Yagra,” Edana smiled.

“I heard you had cause to worry,” Yagra said. “

“Thank you,” Edana said. “Any problems?”

Yagra shook her head. “All quiet. But we’ll keep a watch through the night. We’ve got another shift coming to relieve us later.”

“Come in for a drink when you’re done!” Kittisoth said.

They headed up the stairs and through their front door, breathing a sigh of relief to finally be home. From the next room over, they could see the reassuring maroon glow of the tiny hut Pashar had created for the kids.

And sitting on the couch was Jarlaxle.

“Good evening.” The dark elf smiled.

“Son of a bitch,” Kora muttered.

“So you take children?” Edana said, her voice dripping with venom.

“Not plural,” Jarlaxle reassured her. “And only when necessary. Honestly, the child is probably safer with me than with his parents. Please! Sit!”

Some of them sat. Others refused.

Jarlaxle nodded. “So it would seem you’re acting as agents for the Gralhunds. I seem to remember suggesting that you’d be better off not getting involved with them.”

“What are you looking for?” Kora asked, cutting to the chase.

“The Stone of Golorr,” Jarlaxle said frankly.

“Why?”

“My understanding is that the Stone contains certain secrets that Lord Dagult wished to keep from the city. I want to see those secrets rightfully restored to Waterdeep.”

“To what end?” Theren asked.

“I’ve made no secret of my agenda. I want to see Luskan risen to its proper place in the Lords’ Alliance. It will be good for Luskan. It will be good for the entire Sword Coast to have that kind of unity in the face of a dark and turbulent sea.” Their faces were stony. Jarlaxle smiled again. “Now, I believe that the Gralhunds have the Stone, based on the information you so kindly gave me when we met under other guises, and I have what they want. It should be an easy arrangement to make. And as you’re acting as their agents, I’m sure you reached out to me to make those arrangements.”

“We heard you were busy tonight,” Edana said.

Jarlaxle’s smile faltered… just a fraction, but it was there. “Those plans were, unfortunately, not as successful as I might have hoped. I’m certain we’ll have better luck here.”

“So you want the Stone, and in exchange you’ll give us the child,” Kora said.

“Yes.”

“There’s a problem,” Theren said. “They don’t have the Stone.”

Jarlaxle laughed. “And yet they did! What do they say happened to it?”

“You could have just tried asking them,” Kittisoth snapped, anger at the stolen child roiling her gut. “Why didn’t you just approach them and ask?”

“I did approach them,” Jarlaxle said. “From a position of strength. Have we not opened negotiations?”

“You could have talked to them first! Before stealing their child!”

“My experience,” Jarlaxle said, “and I think you’ll agree with me from your own experience, that if you don’t warn the people whose houses you’re breaking into and then sinking, that you’re more likely to meet with success.

“Well, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kittisoth said, arching an eyebrow.

Edana, meanwhile, had gone over to the tiny hut and poked her head inside to check on the orphans. Nat and Squiddly were inside. “Where’s Jenks?”

“He headed over to bakery for his apprenticeship!’

“Everything all right?” Pashar asked as she came back into the room.

“Yes,” Edana said. “The kids are fine. Jenks is over at the bakery.”

But Theren’s eyes grew wide. They’d made a mistake. He dashed out the door.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Jarlaxle said, standing up. “The Gralhunds have told you that they don’t have the Stone. This is an obvious ploy. Tell them that this should be a simple arrangement. Bring the Stone to the theater tomorrow. The boy will go home. Waterdeep will be given what is its right. Everyone will be satisfied.”

“And what if they really don’t have the Stone?” Pashar asked. “Or if they’ve secured it somewhere that it will take a great deal of time to retrieve it from?”

“Then send me word and I’ll keep their child safe,” Jarlaxle said. “It’s probably for the best. As Kittisoth said, they don’t seem to keep their own home very well protected.” He opened the door and stepped out. From outside they heard Yagra yell, “What in the Nine Hells?!”

BLOOD AT THE BAKERY

Theren, meanwhile, had run around the tavern and into Trollskull Alley. Racing over to Amara’s bakery, he threw open the door.

Amara was laying in a pool of blood in the center of the floor. She had been stabbed several times. She was dead.

“Jenks?!” Theren screamed.

There was no answer.

Acting on instinct, Theren grabbed Amara’s body and began hauling it across the alley back to Trollskull Manor. He managed to slip past the Goldennight revelers without raising an alarm. As he reached the base of their stairs, Yagra gasped. “What happened? Is everything all right?”

“No,” Theren said coldly. “It isn’t.”

He went up the stairs and into the sitting room. The others gasped as he threw Amara’s body down. Blood stained one side of his clothes.

Pashar rushed to Amara’s side and cast a simple rite that would preserve her body for later revival. As he worked the rite, he found a note pinned inside her clothes and passed it to Edana. She read it out loud.

No one spoke for a long moment.

Then there were a dozen plans swirling: Edana asked Yagra to come in and help clean up the mess. Others were trying to figure out where Amara’s body could be moved so it wouldn’t alarm the kids when they came out. “What do we tell them?” Kora asked. Was there some place they could be moved where they would be safer? Kittisoth headed for the balcony, ready to fly to straight to Renear and demand that he keep them in his secret manse.

Kora cut through the chaos by sending a telepathic message to Vajra: “Ammalia Cassalanter murdered neighbor. Kidnapped our child. Threatening to kill. We are responding in force shortly. Please come to Trollskull. This must end.”

Coming now.

“She’s coming,” Kora said.

“I’m going to tell the children,” Edana said. “They have to know what’s going on.”

Before Edana could even leave the room, however, Vajra and Renaer appeared in the middle of it. Renaer rushed over to Kittisoth to embrace her and–

“Don’t touch me,” Kittisoth said. Her eyes boiled with rage.

“It’s not you,” Kora said.

“I understand,” Renaer said, taking a step back.

Kittisoth turned to Vajra. “What are you going to do? You promised us that you would clean this up.”

“I understand that you’re upset,” Vajra said. “Who is dead?”

Edana peeled back the sheet she had placed over Amara. “A baker who worked on the far side of the alley. Our boy, Jenks, was apprenticed to her.”

“I’m very sorry,” Vajra said. “You should know that Renaer and I have been working very hard. Over the past two days we’d gathered the evidence to take proper legal action. We raided the Cassalanter villa this afternoon to arrest Ammalia, but she had vanished. We don’t know where she is. We’ve impounded the mansion and were investigating both all of its contents and the temple beneath it.”

“What about other locations?” Pashar asked.

“There’s only one I can think of,” Renaer said. “An old windmill on Coachlamp Lane. Although it belongs to someone named Seffia Naelryke, it was originally paid for by the Cassalanters. It’s a thin lead, but…”

“It’s good enough,” Kora said.

Things moved quickly now, but with purpose: Edana went to the children. There were tears and anger and pain, but she talked them through it. Theren, meanwhile, went out to speak with the Zhentarim: they pulled the big guns, with Ziraj and Yagra coming inside to keep a close guard on the tiny hut while they were gone. Vajra told Yagra that she would have people coming to collect Amara for resurrection shortly.

Then they went down the front stairs. With a wave of her hand, Vajra summoned spectral steeds pulling a carriage. “Mount,” she said, and then lifted off into the sky, flying above them as they tore through the streets of Waterdeep to the Southern Ward. As they drew near Coachlamp Lane, Vajra swooped down to speak with them through the window of the coach.

“I’m detecting strong wards,” she said. “Abjurations designed to warn against the approach of strong magic. Lady Ammalia knows I’m the one who’s been pursuing the investigation her. I’ll need to hold back, but I’ll come quickly when needed.”

“Is everything arranged for her arrest either alive or dead?” Pashar asked.

“Do what you need to do,” Vajra said. “We’ll clean it up later.” She swooped back up into the sky.

They rode on. The windmill was easy to spot — a round tower two storeys tall, with some sort of blocky later addition thrust out awkwardly to one side.

They moved quickly but carefully. Edana slipped through the shadows, efficiently checking the perimeter of the building. There was a dark-haired woman in an upper window, looking out over the street, but no sign of Ammalia herself. Edana chose one of the entrances on the opposite side of the building, a door leading into the annex.

There were bedrooms back there. They checked them one by one until they found an occupied bed: Hope surged for a moment that it might be Jenks, but it was a man with a beard and short, dirty-blonde hair. Theren and Edana bracketed the bed to either side, and Kittisoth’s demonic shadow, cast from where she filled the door, fell across the man as they rudely awoke him and thrust the point of poniard against his throat.

“Scream and you die,” Edana said. “Is Ammalia here?”

The man nodded. His eyes wide with fear.

“Does she have the boy?”

He nodded again.

“Is he alive?” Theren asked and then, after another nod, “Where?”

“Upstairs,” the man whispered hoarsely.

“Where is she?” Edana asked.

“Asmodeus will have your souls,” the man said, still in a hoarse whisper.

Edana drove the poniard up into his skull. Blood gushed out across the white sheets. She stood up, dragging a blanket up with her to wipe her blade.

Edana, coming out of the room, put a hand on Pashar’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Kittisoth said. “No apologies. She took our son. She’s planning to sacrifice him. No more mercy.” She turned to Renaer. “She’s dead. You understand?”

Renaer nodded. “Yes she is.”

They went down the hallway, leaving the annex and entering the first floor of the windmill. Coming to the first door, Edana listened.

Creak. Creak. Creak.

A rocking chair.

Creak. Creak. Creak.

Edana signaled to Pashar and knocked an arrow. Theren came to kneel beside her, also knocking an arrow. She eased the door open. Ammalia Cassalanter was in the rocking chair, reading by the light of a fire.

Creak. Creak. Cre–

Pashar dropped a silence spell over the room. Edana shot.

Ammalia was already rising from the chair, raising her hand as if to cast, only for her eyes to grow wide as she realized she had no voice. Edana’s shot grazed her, but then Theren rapidly shot multiple arrows that struck her in the shoulder and then center mass. Edana shot again, her arrow joining the other blooming in Ammalia’s chest.

Kittisoth pulsed her wings, raw rage made manifest as she flew through the door above Edana and Theren’s heads. Electricity sparked from her eyes and raced down her arms, crackling across the head of her axe as she fell upon Lady Cassalanter. Blood sprayed across the wall, dancing in the flickering firelight. Ammalia reached up one plaintive hand to ward off the blow, but then Theren was there, having cast his bow aside, and his sword swept out and chopped off her hand, sending it spinning across the floor.

Lightning leapt from Kittisoth, burning silent, forked trails in the rug as it scorched Ammalia. Lady Cassalanter screamed silently, her mouth gaped in a rictus of terror and pain, and collapsed back in a hacked and ruined heap into her chair.

Pashar was horrified. They’d unleashed death before, but not like this. Not in visceral rage, nor so clearly in violation of the Code Legal. “I’m still sorry, Pashar,” Edana said. “But this was necessary.”

Revenge was done, but the work was not complete. They raced up the nearby stairs and found three doors. Behind one of them Edana was fairly certain they would find the silent watcher she had seen from outside. Avoiding that one, they quickly checked the others. The first room contained ritual paraphernalia arranged around a pentagram of blood upon the floor. Rage crackled behind Kittisoth’s eyes as a sick dread bubbled in her stomach, but behind the next door they found — in a crumpled pile on the ground, bound and gagged — they found Jenks.

Breathing.

He was alive.

Theren kicked open the other door and Edana used a sleep spell to dispatch the woman behind it. Kittisoth rushed to Jenks’ side and began undoing the bonds. He jerked awake in terror.

Now Edana was there, too. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Tears filled Jenks’ eyes. He sobbed. And then again. Uncontrollably. “Mommy!”

Kittisoth wrapped her wings around him.

And slowly, far too slowly, the sobbing eased.

And, at long last, stopped.

Go to Part 5

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In Part 1 we briefly discussed the idea that players should create characters for Descent Into Avernus that were either from Elturel or had other strong connections to the city. Although we concluded that such connections cannot singlehandedly make the players care about the city, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t encourage players to create characters like this. Quite the opposite, in fact. Although stuff that actually happens at the table will always be more relevant than stuff that just exists in a character’s backstory, establishing stuff in a backstory provides a vector for bringing it to the table.

(Could we turn “at-table” into a word just like “onscreen” or “onstage”? Feels like it would be useful. But I digress.)

On the other hand, don’t feel as if EVERY character needs to have that personal connection. It’s fine if they do, but I’d actually argue it’s probably better if they don’t. It may feel like having all those personal connections will make for a richer experience, but by eliminating the outsider’s point of view you’ve actually narrowed the range of available experiences.

(This advice can be generalized: If I’ve said “this game is about X, everybody create a character who is Y” and one of the players comes to me and says, “I was wondering if I could actually play a not-Y?” I’ve learned to actually stop and think about how we can make that work. Partly because, like most “default to yes” practices, it’s inherently a good idea to follow the players’ lead on what they’re interested in, but also because I’ve learned that having a not-Y at a table of Y’s creates valuable diversity.)

GMPCs

Mostly, though, we’re here today to discuss the GMPCs of Descent Into Avernus.

GMPCs are not the same thing as NPCs. A GMPC is where the GM essentially tries to be a player in their own campaign by running a character that’s indistinguishable from being another PC in the party. Although technically possible (and you can find success stories here and there), this tends to fail spectacularly for one of two reasons:

First: The GMPC becomes the unabashed star/spotlight hog of the entire campaign and/or is used to forcibly railroad the players.

Sometimes the GM specifically chooses to do this, but it’s often not intentional. The root of the problem is that the GM has privileged information unavailable to the other players. When they’re prepping the adventure, the fact that they can predict what the GMPC will do with 100% accuracy can become a crutch that’s easy to rely on. When they’re “playing” the adventure, they know how the scenario was designed and what the intended course of action is, which unavoidably biases their decision-making. Furthermore, the other players know that the GMPC has this privileged relationship with the adventure, so even if the GM can successfully firewall the character side of their decision-making from the GM side of their decision-making, it will still influence the PCs’ relationships with the GMPC.

The other common outcome is for the GMPC to become a weird half-character who awkwardly doesn’t participate in group decisions and/or frequently “vanishes” from the game world because everyone forgets that they’re there.

This usually happens because the GM is specifically trying to avoid the first problem. For example, they know that if they say, “I think we should go check out the Nattic Wood,” that the other players will interpret that as, “The GM is telling us to go check out the Nattic Wood.” So their GMPC never offers opinions. (This scenario often arises when the GMPC is being played to fill something that’s perceived as an “essential” role in the group. The GM would basically prefer to not have the GMPC there, but feels compelled to do so for some reason.)

I’ve previously written an article about this, but the short version is that I try to avoid both GMPCs and NPC allies in general. (When running games with henchmen or hirelings, for example, I prefer to let the players run them.)

Regardless of how you feel about GMPCs, the ones in Descent Into Avernus are generally being used as design crutches and it would be great to eliminate them. The easiest place to eliminate them is in character creation: If you can take any essential role being fulfilled by a GMPC in a scenario and incorporate it into a PC, then you can easily delete the GMPC.

REYA MANTLEMORN

Reya Mantlemorn is the most obvious GMPC in Descent Into Avernus. She fulfills three functions:

• She walks up to the players in the street and says, “Hey! High Observer Kreeg is still alive!”
• When the group plane shifts to Elturel, Reya Mantlemorn needs to say, “We should go to the High Hall.”
• As a Hellrider, she gets to have all kinds of cool, “I can’t believe it?!” emotional reactions whenever the big twists in the campaign happen.

The first of these is just bad design in general: Instead of the PCs discovering that Kreeg is alive (shocking twist!), a random NPC they’ve never met before just walks up and tells them. So we can just eliminate this whole thing.

For the second, we’re going to be completely revamping our approach to Hellturel in Part 5 of the Remix, so we won’t need her for that either. If you decide not to go with these changes, then you can just have literally any NPC in Elturel tell the PCs the same thing (“Lo! The GM has spoken unto me and said that thou must journey unto the High Hall!”).

For the third, it’s clearly very effective to have a Hellrider who can feel personally betrayed in her oaths and then later shocked by the revelation that the entire history and identity of her order is based on lies told by traitorous cowards. (Oddly, the adventure as written has Reya leave the group before the latter bit can happen, but nonetheless.)

It’s probably fairly obvious, though, that it will be even MORE effective if it’s a PC who’s been positioned to have those reactions.

So, in short: Encourage at least one player to play a Hellrider.

And just like that, we’ve eliminated Reya’s whole reason for existing. Delete her from the campaign.

Note: Make sure to give anyone playing a Hellrider or a knight of the Order of the Companion a copy of the Creed Resolute (see Part 4B).

LULU THE HOLLYPHANT

Slightly more unusual is the case of Lulu the Hollyphant.

Lulu, in her form as a golden mammoth, served as Zariel’s warmount during the Charge of the Hellriders. After the Hellriders were defeated, Zariel gave Lulu her holy sword and ordered her to hide it somewhere in Hell. Lulu was later betrayed and sprinkled with the waters of the River Styx, causing her to lose her memories.

Recovering Lulu’s memories is one of the major pillars of Descent Into Avernus, which we’ll be looking at in more detail in Part 6 of the Remix. Playing Lulu as an NPC works just fine, actually: She’s more of a cute sidekick or familiar than a true GMPC.

But there’s no reason that Lulu couldn’t be a PC.

The players are far more likely to get invested in Lulu’s lost memories and the mystery of her past if she’s “one of them.” And playing a small, glowing, gold pachyderm will definitely be a cool and memorable experience for the player.

If you’ve got a player who’s willing to play non-traditionally, just grab the stat block for a hollyphant on p. 237 of Descent Into Avernus and let them go. (Restore her abilities slowly over time as per p. 50.) Alternatively, you could try to rework the hollyphant into a playable PC race. Donathin Frye and Kienna Shaw have done the work for you here.

Of course, the stat block is only one part of the challenge: In the campaign as written, Lulu doesn’t show up until Part 4: Candlekeep. What’s the solution?

Just have her show up sooner.

One option would be to use a very short version of the “Prelude to Disaster” opening: The PCs (who might not even know each other) are walking down a street in Elturel. One of them happens to be a small, flying elephant. Suddenly something goes wrong with the Companion in the sky. “Oh no!” the elephant says. “I know what this is!” Out of sheer, instinctual fear she teleports herself and the people closest to her (i.e., the other PCs) into the wilderness just outside of town.

Once there, she doesn’t know why she did it. She also doesn’t know how she did it (she doesn’t regain her teleport ability until later). She just knows that they needed to get out of that city ASAP! (And a moment later the entire city crumples into the ground and vanishes, proving that to be true.)

(You could even use this setup if Lulu isn’t a PC, but it may need some additional thought about how her presence in the first few scenarios will affect things.)

Isn’t it very convenient that the PC group just happens to include Zariel’s amnesiac ex-warmount? Well… yes. But no more so than Lulu just happening to be hanging out with the guy who the PCs randomly get sent to in order to plane shift them to Avernus. If you want to justify it more than that, give Lulu a holy vision that told her she needed to be at such-and-such a place or needed to seek out such-and-such a PC. But you probably don’t need to.

If you don’t have a player willing to fly into Lulu’s shoes, I recommend nevertheless giving her a physical presence at the table with Gale Force 9’s statuette or Beadle & Grimm’s plushy.

TARINA

Tarina is not a GMPC. She’s the spy that Flame Zodge sends the PCs to meet at the Elfsong Tavern. Her function in the campaign is to point them to a bathhouse where Dead Three cultists have been seen.

But this is actually an ideal way to introduce a PC: Instead of being sent to meet with Tarina, Zodge’s contact is the last PC. Give that player the information Tarina was supposed to have and let them brief in their fellow players. (Unlike Tarina, of course, they’ll be accompanying the group on the op.)

There are a couple reasons this can be a good idea:

• The player who gets to have the “secret” information and perform the briefing feels special; they’re getting to do something cool and unusual.
• From a metagame perspective, the players will all feel more invested in this mission because it was another PC telling them about it and not some random NPC.

Organically introducing PCs to each other like this at the beginning of the campaign can get a little tricky, but, once again, by putting this stuff at-table you make it more meaningful. (How much more interesting is it to see Luke and Obi-Wan meet Han Solo and Chewbacca for the first time compared to the GM saying, “So you’re all on a space freighter heading to Alderaan.”?)

If you’re using the refugee caravan scenario described in Part 1 of the Remix, swapping out Tarina like this is less convenient and may not work. So I mention this here mostly as an interesting opportunity I noticed, particularly for people who are running the campaign closer to “by the book.”

With that being said, you could still make this happen. Obviously if you’ve got a player who has to miss the first session… ta-da. Problem solved.

Alternatively, you can pull this off by just getting the player a little more onboard: Ask them to play one of the refugees in the first scenario. Maybe they get brutally murdered by the Cult of Zariel near the end of the session. Or they survive just fine and simply say goodbye when they reach Baldur’s Gate. Then a few scenes later, the party meets their new PC at the Elfsong Tavern.

I’ve not infrequently used a similar technique when I need to introduce a replacement character or new player to a campaign. Most recently, in my second run of Eternal Lies, I had a new player coming onboard but the group was on an expedition far from where there could be any reasonable explanation for how the new PC could have found them. So I had the player take on the role of a local guide with the expedition.

He played this character for several sessions, and because both I and the player knew that this character wasn’t permanent we both took big risks with him: He eventually ended up completely insane and needing to be institutionalized after gnawing off several of his own fingers.

The rest of the group was shell-shocked: We didn’t plan it this way, but we had never explicitly told the other players that this wasn’t the new player’s PC, and while we assumed they knew, they didn’t. So the complete unraveling and destruction of this character hit them really hard, because they thought it was a PC.

(We can all pretend that players should care as much about every NPC as they do a PC; or that the audience cares as much about Random Mook #23 getting mowed down by machine gun fire as we do about Iron Man dying. But that’s not the way our brains are wired. The PC/NPC divide is particularly real because you empathize with what the other player at the table is “going through” as their character. I’ve seen people literally break down crying at the game table because of an NPC; I’m not saying no one ever cares about NPCs. I’m just saying that the line between Josh at the game table and Santino in the game world is a little less well-defined than the lines between creators and created in other mediums.)

But I digress.

Go to Part 2B: Elfsong Tavern

Go to Part 1

RETURN TO THE SEVEN MASKS THEATER

They didn’t have a lot of time to do everything they suddenly needed to take care of before infiltrating Xanathar’s that night, so they grabbed a carriage and rode to the Seven Masks Theater.

Arriving at the theater, they found it under guard. Suspicious looking thugs were watching the front door from across the street, and a couple more were loitering around the side entrance. The thugs looked human, but… They shrugged and headed down the alley, passing by posters still advertising performances of Sapphiria’s Booty and identifying themselves to the thugs. “We’re here to meet with Rongquan. Is he in?”

The thugs knocked on the side entrance. A moment later Rongquan cracked open the door and peeked out. He broke into a big grin. “Big five!”

The Trollskulls, recognizing the anti-doppelganger code they had set up with him, answered with smiles of their own as they were ushered into his office.

“How can I help you?” Rongquan asked. “Can I get you a drink?”

“That’s all right,” Kittisoth demurred. “What’s with all the guys outside?”

Rongquan, having grabbed a drink of his own, flirtatiously laid his hand over Kittisoth’s own. Kittisoth resisted the urge to roll her eyes out of her head… mostly. “To tell you the truth… it’s a cover story!”

“Really?!” Kittisoth said with faux adulation and naivete. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not really sure,” Rongquan said. “Some very secretive business with the investors. I’m not even allowed to leave my office!”

“Could we speak with the investors?” Kittisoth said, batting her eyes. (The others barely concealed their laughter.)

“Well… I suppose!” Rongquan knocked on the inner door of his office and spoke with some people on the other side. A few minutes later another knock came, Rongquan excused himself, and a dark elf entered. They were surprised to see it wasn’t Jarlaxle.

“Is Mr. J here?” Theren asked.

“No,” the dark elf said. “No he’s not.” He flopped down into a chair and kicked his boots up onto Rongquan’s desk. “Elves,” he muttered. “It’s always elves…”

Theren frowned. “You are an elf.”

“Don’t insult me,” the dark elf said.

“We need to speak with him,” Edana said.

“He has plans this evening,” the dark elf said. “But you could leave a message for him.”

“Where are his plans taking him this evening?”

“If I told you that, I don’t think ‘Mr. J’ would be very happy with me.”

“Well, Mister… What was your name?” Pashar asked.

“Soluun.”

“Well, Mister Soluun, give Fel’Rekt our best, and when you hear back from Mr. J, if you could be so kind as to—”

“If you have a message, I’ll take it,” Soluun said bluntly. “And then get out.”

Kittisoth fumed. “Excuse me? Do you have better things to do? Because—”

Edana restrained her. “Just let him know that we have a concern. About a neighborhood matter.”

“All right,” Soluun said. “I’ll pass it along.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Kora said. “We’re here about the kid.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” Edana said. “And I’m sure that if any harm comes to that kid, it will not be in Mr. J’s best interests.”

“I don’t know who this kid is,” Soluun said. “But I’m sure he’s somewhere safe.” He gave a little smile… and Edana was certain that he kid was here, in the theater somewhere.

But there didn’t seem to be anything they could do about it. They’d played their little dance, but now the music was coming to an end.  They stalked out of the office and back to their carriage.

THE HARPER CACHE

It wasn’t hard to identify the warehouse Dain had been talking about. It was, in fact, backed directly against Yellowspire Tower. Approaching it from the court north of Turnback Court, they found that its windows were boarded up and there was a big padlock on the front door that Edana made quick work of.

The interior of the warehouse was one big space, with various stacks of crates and boxes here and there. Everything had a thick layer of dust on it. The place was clearly ill-used.

“Everyone take your Harper pins off,” Kora said. She slipped their pins into a bag of holding, removing them from this plane of existence, and then cast locate object and zeroed in on a Harper pin underneath a nearby crate.

With a shrug, Kittisoth lifted the crate out of the way, revealing a trap door with a heavy iron pull ring. Hauling the trap door open revealed stairs down to a small basement room. Kora redistributed their Harper pins as they went down the stairs.

At the bottom, they found an empty room. It only took Edana a few moments, however, to find an illusory patch of the wall concealing a small indentation. Following a hunch, she pressed her Harper pin into the indentation: The wall slid back silently, revealing the supply cache. It was packed with useful stuff. There was a rack of swords, shelves filled with iron rations, a small box of Harper pins, several chains shirts, a number of potions, and fourteen bags, each containing a hundred gold dragons.

They rapidly emptied all of it into a bag of holding and reversed their tracks, replacing the crate and the padlock on the front door as they left.

Now they were out of time. They needed to head to the fights.

THE XANATHAR RAID

It was back to the beginning. They returned to the warehouse where Floon and Renaer had been held by the Zhentarim and slipped through the same sewer grate they had dropped through so many weeks (and what seemed like a lifetime) ago.

The Xanatharians had apparently destroyed the chalk marks which had guided them originally, but Theren remembered the path they had taken through the sewers and led them back to the hideout. As he drew near, he motioned the others to silence and slid up towards the intersection.

He knew there were four arrow slits looking out over this intersection from the last time they’d been here. Observing them carefully now, he ascertained that there were two goblins behind each. He waved Edana up and she cast a spell to put them to sleep.

They hugged the wall of the sewer (metaphorically speaking) and came up to the lair’s secret door. Theren slipped through it first. As he approached the landing leading down into to the chamber with the teleportation totem, however, he heard the distinctive buzz-humming of stirge wings ahead.

Peeking around the corner, he saw a goblin leaning up against the teleportation totem with a pair of stirges buzzing around his head. The goblin absentmindedly reached up and patted one of the stirges affectionately on the head.

Stepping out into landing, Theren put an arrow through the goblin’s skull, sending a spray of blood across the stone floor. The stirges immediately swooped down into the pool and began slurping up the blood, but two more arrows left them dead in the midst of their “feast.”

Edana slid across the landing and through another door into the guard chamber where the other goblins were still snoring. She efficiently slit their throats and then returned to the others, who had gathered around the totem. They clasped each others’ arms and Edana slid the teleportal key into the totem. She twisted the key and…

…they were elsewhere.

They had appeared standing in the middle of a large, fifty-foot long chamber with vaulted ceilings. They were standing between four large stone pillars that ran from the floor to the ceiling. The key was inside a depression in one of the pillars, one of several identical depressions which ran around the circumference of that pillar and the others.

There were several halls and a stairway leading out of the chamber. At the far end of the hall directly in front of them they could see two burly men wearing studded leather armor, thankfully facing away from them and looking out into a crowded hallway. The sounds of a party washed over them — people talking, glassware clinking, merry laughter.

Edana and Theren quickly shoved the others behind one of the pillars, where the guards couldn’t see them. Edana peeked out. They hadn’t been noticed.

Kora took the moment to cast locate object, searching the last of the Eyes. She quickly had a vector: It was on the same level they were, roughly in the direction of the guards (“Of course,” Kittisoth said), but somewhat off to the left.

“Which way do we go?”

They’d prefer not to have to try to sneak past the guards. The staircase, even though it led down, was roughly in the right direction. “There might a way down and around,” Edana suggested. “So that we could come up behind or even right on top of the Eye.”

The others agreed and they slipped over to and down the stairs, which curved down to a T-intersection. Edana peeked around the corner: Thirty feet to her left was a door. Fifty feet to her right was another T-intersection. It was a maze down here. And, worse yet, between her and the other T-intersection, hanging down from the ceiling, was a spectral eyestalk.

“I don’t like that,” she muttered and headed back to the others.

Neither Kora nor Pashar had any idea what the ghostly eyestalk might be. “If it’s magic, I could dispel it,” Kora suggested. “But that might just alert Xanathar that we’re down here.”

“What about an illusion?” Theren suggested. “Make it look like the hallway is empty?”

Edana agreed and raised the illusion. Cloaked by the vision of the “empty” hallway, she slipped over to the door at the end of the hall. From the far side of the door she could hear metal clashing against metal… and the smell of something cooking. She came back to the others. “Do you think we can slip through the kitchens?”

“This hall isn’t going the right way,” Theren said. “We’ve gotten twisted around coming down the stairs. I think we should go back up to the main level?”

The others agreed and headed back up the stairs, re-entering the teleportation chamber.

They spread out to check the other hallways, to see if they could figure out a better way of circling around the guards. Unfortunately, the other hallways all went in basically exactly the wrong direction. As they considered their options, however, the sounds of several people shouting came from the direction of the party. Theren darted over to one of the pillars and glanced out. The two guards had turned towards the raised voices… and they were moving away!

“Let’s do it!” Kittisoth declared and stepped forward. But Theren grabbed her and yanked her back behind the pillar. Just moments after the guards vacated their post, three figures — looking back over their shoulders towards the party — had rounded the corner into the hall and were heading their way.

The figures headed towards the stairs. Theren slid to the other side of the pillar and tracked them. As they reached the top of the stairs, a beam of light caught them and he could see their faces plainly: They were drow.

“Jarlaxle’s men,” Kittisoth murmured.

The drow disappeared down the stairs. The Trollskulls darted out, down the hallway the drow had just left, and into the party.

The party filled a grand promenade nearly thirty feet across that curved out of sight to both the right and left. Down the middle of the hall were pillars carved with eyes which seemed to track those who passed nearby. At the moment, those eyes were darting back and forth, as the entire hall was filled with an eclectic, cosmopolitan crowd of ritzy elites rubbing shoulders with scarred gangsters while servants bearing trays of food and drink passed between them.

Off to their left they could still hear the raised voices and confusion of whatever altercation had distracted the guards. Off to their right, they could see other hallways with guards posted on them. Directly ahead, however, a ten-foot-wide circular door led to a smaller passage. The party spilled down this hall and into a larger chamber beyond: That was more or less the direction Kora was detecting the Eye from.

They slid through the crowd. No one seemed to give them a second glance as they passed through the stone door and came to the top of a short flight of stairs led down to the floor of a forty-foot-high dome that was at least eighty feet across. The floor was tiled in black marble, inset with in gold with the circle-and-eyestalk sigil of Xanathar. Jutting from the ceiling was bell-shaped protuberance. On the far side of the dome, directly across from them, an identical set of stairs led up to another open, circular door, this one with two guards flanking it. Off to their left, directly in line with Kora’s vector to the Eye, was another circular door — this one shut, but also with two guards. Small clusters of people were happily chatting here and there throughout the dome.

They walked across the room. Kora pulled out the rod of rulership they had taken from Victoro Cassalanter when they arrested him and discreetly waved it in the direction of the guards. “Would you be so kind as to let me and my friends in?”

The guards came to sharp attention. “Yes, sir!”

They pushed open the stone slab of the door and the Trollskulls strode through it. As they went, Kittisoth glanced nervously over her shoulder to see if anyone was paying undue attention to the exchange. No one was. But at just that moment Jarlaxle walked into the dome, accompanied by two men.

Kittisoth cursed and darted in after the others. It didn’t look like Jarlaxle had noticed them, though. Instead, he seemed to be focusing his attention on the two guards on the other side of the room, albeit while attempting to disguise his interest.

The Trollskulls found themselves in Xanathar’s sanctum. The room was magically lit with a bluish light. Luminous violet particles drifted through the air like mist. A twenty-foot-wide fishbowl dominated the center of the room. Filled with water it also contained a small coral reef, a miniature shipwreck, and a sunken treasure chest. On a small table next to this huge fishbowl they saw a smaller fishbowl, this one containing a single goldfish: Sylgar. On one wall of the room hung a huge mirror with the word XOBLOB carved into its silver frame. In a small chamber beyond an arch in the other wall of the room they could see a huge device of twisted crystal.

“Where is it?” Edana asked.

“There,” Kora said, pointing at the large fishbowl. “In the goddamn treasure chest.”

Kittisoth had fetched up just inside the door and was watching the dome outside. Several Xanatharian guards came rushing out of the door on the far side of the dome — the one Jarlaxle was still keeping one eye constantly fixed on. These guards spoke with a quick but quiet urgency to the two guards stationed there, and then all of the guards there rushed back through the door. No one else in the room seemed to take any note of this, but Jarlaxle, of course, immediately put his drink down and, with his men, beelined to and through the door.

Kittisoth stepped back from the door. “I’m not sure where Jarlaxle is going, but—”

Pashar suddenly dropped to his knees and began babbling incoherently in the Tongue of the Beholders… or at least what he thought was the Tongue of Beholders. It was really just nonsense.

“Dammit,” Edana cursed. “We need to get out of there. Maybe I could use mage hand to try to clear the treasure chest out? It’ll take me forever to sift through it, but I need to see the Eye before I can actually grab it telekinetically, though.”

“I’ll go in,” Kittisoth said. “I’ll just climb up on this table and try to– Wait. I can fly. Devil’s breath, I am so stressed out!” She leapt and flew and dived down to the chest.

Kora, meanwhile, used a quick spell to purge whatever poison had gripped Pashar’s mind.

“I’ve got it!” Kittisoth declared, splashing out of the top of the fishbowl.

Edana snatched it and thrust it into her bag of holding, removing it from the Material Plane.

“Go! Now!”

They walked out of the room. “Close the door, please,” Kora said to the guards. “And kindly escort us to the teleportation pillars?”

“Yes, sir!”

The guards stepped away from the door and took them across the dome, through the door, and into the promenade. The disturbance they had heard earlier had apparently come to an end and they could see that the guards had returned to their posts. But it didn’t matter: Kora’s guards escorted them right through the checkpoint and into the pillar room.

Behind them they heard a gruff voice call out: “Someone has broken into the master’s sanctum! Seal the lair! Find them immediately!”

But they were at the pillar. Edana thrust the teleportation key into the pillar.

They were out.

THE THREE EYES

They would have cheered, but as they reappeared in the sewer hideout, they found four goblins kneeling over the corpse of their dead friend. Reacting instinctively, the Trollskulls lashed out with their swords and cut them down before the goblins even realized they were among them. Then they rushed out through the secret door, back through the sewers, and emerged into the clean, exhilarating air of Waterdeep.

They’d done it!

Kora sent a magical message to the Blackstaff: “We have all of the Eyes and the Stone of Golorr. We believe that the Enigma is located beneath Brandath Crypts. Going there now.”

A moment later, Vajra sent a reply: “Good luck!”

They jumped in a carriage and headed across Waterdeep, racing the sunset to the City of the Dead. Passing through the gates before they were closed for the night, they made their way quickly to the Brandath Crypts, through Lady Alethea’s tomb, into the secret crypts, and down the long, ancient passage to the vault doors.

Standing there, atop the bronze sunburst and facing the dwarven-carved doors of adamantium, Edana drew out the blinded Stone of Golorr and placed it in the palm of her left hand. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the first of the Eyes into the Stone.

A warmth spread through the palm of her hand and she heard a voice murmur in the back of her mind: “Oh… I have returned.”

She took the second Eye and pushed it into its socket.

“You have the Eyes! Unblind me, mortal!”

The voice seemed stronger now.

“Will you give me the knowledge I seek?” Edana said aloud.

“Yes,” replied the voice. “That is my purpose.”

“Wait… what?” Pashar said. Instinctively, he reached out and touched Edana’s shoulder. The other’s, following his example, also reflexively reached out; not certain whether they were warding their friend, seeking to stop her, or volunteering to ride with her into whatever danger she might face. Only knowing that they needed to be together in this moment.

Edana pushed the third Eye in.

Go to Part 4

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Descent Into Avernus begins by having the PCs stand around doing nothing while the GM describes an NPC doing awesome stuff. It then proceeds almost directly to, “If the players don’t do what you tell them to do, the NPCs automatically find them and kill them.”

It’s not an auspicious beginning.

THE PREMISE

Let’s back up for a second and briefly sum up the essential back story:

• 140+ years ago, an angel named Zariel convinced the holy knights of the city-state of Elturel to ride with her on a glorious charge into Hell itself.
• This went poorly: Many knights deserted the campaign, fled home, and shut the gate behind them. The rest of Zariel’s army was wiped out, Zariel herself was captured.
• After her capture, Zariel was tempted to evil. Swearing fealty to Asmodeus, she became the Archdevil of Avernus. Still filled with hatred for the knights who had betrayed her, she watched Elturel from afar and waited for an opportunity to present itself for revenge.
• Meanwhile, the knights who had fled back to Elturel lied about the glorious battle they had fought on the other side and their order became known as the Hellriders.
• Many decades later, Elturel was plagued by a new evil: The High Observer of the city was secretly a vampire lord. In this, their darkest hour, the god Amaunator responded to their holy prayers and the Companion appeared in the skies above the city: A second sun that burned through the night and whose light no undead could endure.
• Except this was a lie: The Companion had actually been crafted by Zariel, who had cut a deal with someone in Elturel (more on this later). Under the light of the Companion, the city of Elturel was bound to an infernal pact. After fifty years, the city and the souls of all its inhabitants would belong to Zariel.
• A few days ago, that happened: The entire city of Elturel was pulled into Avernus, the first layer of Hell.
• Among those lost in Elturel was Grand Duke Ravengard, ruler of Baldur’s Gate, who had been visiting the city on a diplomatic mission.
• Refugees fleeing the catastrophe head down the River Chionthar to Baldur’s Gate. The city is overwhelmed and orders the gates closed.

Descent Into Avernus opens with a blob of boxed text that informs the players that, due to the crisis, they have been drafted into the Flaming Fist, the mercenary guard who has served as Baldur’s Gate’s military and police force for hundreds of years, and ordered to report to Flame Zodge at the Basilisk Gate.

(The adventure actually refers to him as “Captain Zodge,” but there are no captains in the Flaming Fists. Their ranks are: Fist, Gauntlet, Manip, Flame, Blaze, and Marshal. Later on a “Commander Portyr” similarly shows up who should actually be either Blaze Portyr or Marshal Portyr.)

The PCs show up at Basilisk Gate just in time to stand around while the GM describes Flame Zodge jumping into the middle of a riot, kicking ass, and being awesome. Once the cut scene wraps up, Zodge comes over to the PCs and tells them that cultists worshipping the Dead Three (Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul) have been taking advantage of the current crisis to go on a murder spree. They need to go meet with an informant named Tarina at the Elfsong Tavern.

If the PCs refuse to do it, he has them “executed on the spot.”

If they accept the gig, but then don’t follow through, he sends a squad of soldiers to track them down and “kill anyone who refuses to go.”

If the PCs escape, Zodge sends two more squads to murder them.

REMIXING

The “do what I say or I’ll arbitrarily kill your characters” motif is problematic for what I’m hoping are fairly obvious reasons. The fact that Descent repeats it three times in rapid succession here, however, mostly serves to point a big, flashing arrow at the more significant problem:

Neither the players nor their characters are given any reason to care about what’s happening.

What you have here, basically, is a broken scenario hook that the designers have so little confidence in that they feel the need to hold a gun to the players’ heads.

So how do we fix it?

As I wrote in my design notes for scenario hooks in Over the Edge, a scenario hook should be specific: What is the specific thing that gets the PCs involved in the current situation?

“You’ve been drafted by the Flaming Fist” is specific, but its first failure is our next requirement: The players should experience the hook. By having the PCs get drafted off-screen before play even begins, Descent distances the players from the hook. Not only will this make them care less about the hook, it will also make the hook less memorable. This should be particularly avoided with the hook for an entire campaign, because you don’t want the players to get three or four sessions into things and completely forget why any of this is happening in the first place.

Ideally, the PCs (and players) should also be motivated by the hook. And it’s better if this motivation aligns with what you want them to do. (This is less critical if you design situations instead of plots because then you don’t actually care what the PCs actually do; you just want to expose them to the situation so that they can begin interacting with it.)

Being press-ganged and threatened with death can certainly motivate you, but what it’s primarily motivating you to do is get out of that situation. That’s why Descent is obsessed with tracking down PCs who bail out on the job: On some level it recognizes that it hasn’t motivated the PCs to investigate the murders; it’s only motivated them to escape the Flaming Fists.

(Designing the scenario hook so that it motivates the PCs in multiple ways is also pure gold if you can pull it off. Or, alternatively, simply align multiple hooks to all point in the same direction.)

Finally, the best scenario hooks won’t be transitory or disconnected from what happens next. Instead, they will continue to resonate — thematically, structurally, meaningfully — not only with the adventure, but with the campaign as a whole.

None of these are hard-and-fast rules. But they’re useful rules of thumb.

Now, I don’t want to completely toss out Flame Zodge or the mission he gives to the PCs. (That would require a much more thorough transformation of the first act of the campaign.) But what we will do is restructure the opening beats of the campaign to get a hook that will drive us all the way to the Gates of Hell.

REFUGEES

The central pillar of Descent Into Avernus is the city of Elturel: What happened to it? Why did it happen? How can it be saved?

Everything revolves around this city… or, at least, it should. In practice, it is curiously absent from the campaign, particularly during the first act. The PCs need to care about what happens to Elturel, but they’re never given a reason to do so.

The easy solution here, of course, it to simply have the players create characters from Elturel or with strong connections to Elturel. That’s fine, but you again run into that off-camera problem: You’ve told the players that their characters care about Elturel, but you haven’t actually shown that. You need to actually bring that connection to the table and let the players experience it.

Our method for doing this is obvious: The refugees.

Instead of starting the adventure with Flame Zodge, we’ll start with the PCs guarding a caravan of refugees trying to reach Baldur’s Gate. Broadly speaking, there are four ways to do this:

• IN MEDIA RES: We open the campaign with the PCs already journeying along the road with the refugees heading towards Baldur’s Gate.
• REFUGEES ON THE ROAD: The PCs are riding along the River Chionthar when they begin encountering refugees coming from Elturel. One group of refugees is put in danger (an attack by bandits perhaps), and the PCs have to respond to it. The refugees then ask them to guard them the rest of the way to Baldur’s Gate, “where we are sure to find safety and refuge.”
• NEAR MISS: The PCs are journeying to Elturel. At the top of one hill they see the gleaming city ahead of them. They go down into a valley, there’s a cataclysmic clap of thunder, and when they reach the top of the next hill they see that the city has vanished! They are right there at ground zero as the crisis begins.
• PRELUDE TO DISASTER: The PCs are actually in Elturel when something goes horribly wrong with the Companion in the sky above. Black lightning seems to be attacking the guardian of the city! Then black lightning begins lancing down, as well, striking buildings, streets, and people. Panic sets in and some people begin trying to flee the city. The PCs barely escape when the city suddenly vanishes!

Generally speaking, the further down the list you move the more immediate and visceral the crisis becomes, but it also becomes more difficult to ensure that the PCs end up heading towards Baldur’s Gate. Having them actually in the city sounds amazing, but there’s a risk that they won’t take the cue to get the hell out of Dodge (pun intended)!

Option: Start with the “In Media Res” option, but then flashback to earlier scenes so that the players can actually roleplay through the crisis, triaging survivors, organizing the caravan, etc. You can alternate these flashback scenes with various Crisis on the Road scenes.

Option: Instead of just opening with “Near Miss”, launch the campaign as if it’s a perfectly normal campaign based out of the city of Elturel. Send the players out of the city on a typical 1^st level quest. Something simple like a 5 Room Dungeon. (Maybe this dungeon could actually include some subtle clue or foreshadowing of the Cult of Zariel, see Part 3 of the Remix.) As they ride back towards Elturel—BAM! Cliffhanger. End of session.

PREPPING THE CARAVAN

You’re going to prep and run the refugee caravan as if it were a party. (See the Party Planning game structure for more details.) This might seem weird at first glance, but structurally it makes a lot of sense.

REFUGEES: At a minimum you’re going to want to prep 4-6 refugees. I’d actually recommend 10-15. Use the Universal Roleplaying Template to make these characters really come alive. It may make sense to start with a smaller caravan that slowly gathers more people as time passes. In either case, there are likely more refugees than just the ones you’ve prepped, but the ones you’ve prepped will be the “face” of the crisis that the PCs interact with the most.

MAIN EVENT SEQUENCE: Many of your events will be crises that the PCs have to face along the road, but they can also include landmarks, encounters with other refugees, etc. A few thoughts along these lines:

• Bandits attack.
• They find the corpses of other refugees who were ambushed.
• Alyssa, one of the refugees traveling with them, is pregnant and goes into labor.
• The axle of one of the wagons breaks.
• They pass Fort Morninglord. It remains a cursed place that even refugees shun instead of using for refuge. The nearby temporary fort of the Order of the Companion has been overwhelmed by refugees.
• Mischievous fairies are stealing their food.
• They pass a campground where a large number of refugees are gathering.
• They encounter a ship sailing up or down the River Chionthar.
• A large number of ships come sailing up the River; word has reached Baldur’s Gate and an impromptu alliance of fishermen has gathered supplies and is sailing up river to see what they can do.
• A group of Hellriders goes galloping past (either towards or away from the city).
• Cult of Zariel members attack the refugees. (They might have actually been traveling with them as refugees.)
• A platoon of Flaming Fist is marching towards Elturel. They are stopping refugees and roughly questioning them, attempting to ascertain the fate of Grand Duke Ravengard.

Include the need for food and water here. I wouldn’t recommend a full simulation: Just include a few events where food or water is running short and the PCs need to figure out how to solve the problem.

As you’re creating your refugee NPCs, you’ll also discover interpersonal conflicts that can be seeded into the main event sequence.

The distance from Elturel to Baldur’s Gate is nearly 200 miles. Given the pace at which the refugees are likely to be traveling, it’ll probably take ten days for them to reach Baldur’s Gate. Don’t feel like you need to pack in a lot of events every day. Two or three is more than enough to set the tone, and many of those can be very brief. Once the PCs manage to establish a routine, it might also feel right to sum up a couple days of travel in a short bit of narration before zooming back in for the next crisis.

RUNNING THE CARAVAN: When running a party, there’s a persistence of action as you’re generally playing things out in Now Time. For the caravan, things are going to be more abstract; you’re going to be using eliding narration and doing sharp cuts between interesting moments. Make sure to both give time and frame scenes for the PCs to interact with the NPCs. The mental checklist for running a party remains useful:

• Which NPCs are talking to each other? (Consult your refugee list.)
• Who might come over and join a conversation the PCs are having? (Again, refugee list.)
• What are they talking about?

You might find it useful to habitually frame an “evening camp” scene each day – a sort of “mini-party” where you can pack in a bunch of different social interactions. Other opportunities include:

• While traveling the road.
• While relieving yourselves on the side of the road.
• While sharing a night’s watch.
• While sharing a meal or filling waterskins in the river.

If the players are enjoying themselves, let them feel the full ten days of the journey. If they don’t seem to be getting into it, make sharper cuts and move the clock forward, but still try to make sure they get a chance to really interact with the refugees.

Design Note: At some point, I recommend having one of the refugees mention that Elturel has never faced hardship like this; not even during the Night of the Red Coup and the rule of the Vampire Lord Ikaia (see Part 4B).

AT THE GATE

When the refugee caravan arrives at Baldur’s Gate, they find the situation as described at the beginning of Descent: The gates have been shut. A huge refugee camp is growing outside the walls, but it’s clear that supplies are short out here. If they want to keep their refugees safe, they’ll need to figure out how to get them inside the city. (If nothing else, from there they could arrange passage on a ship sailing to safer ports.)

If they approach the gates directly, they meet Flame Zodge. Otherwise, someone will point them in Zodge’s direction as the “guy who can solve your problems if you can make it worth his while.” Alternatively, Zodge hears rumors about how the PCs kept their caravan safe on the road and comes out into the refugee camp to find them.

ZODGE’S DEAL: Basically, Zodge sizes them up, concludes they might be useful, and offers them a deal. If they agree to be deputized as members of the Flaming Fists and investigate the killings, he’ll let their refugee caravan into the city.

This is important: Deal-making is another central theme of the campaign.

The deal Zodge is offering isn’t literally a diabolical one (it’s actually quite reasonable and there’s no hidden loophole waiting to stab the PCs in the back), but it’s a minor echo of the infernal pacts that are coming later. So don’t just shake hands on this: Have him actually produce enlistment papers and make sure the PCs sign them.

Option: Produce the enlistment papers as actual props and have the players sign them at the table. Once they’ve done so, whisk them away and make a point of tucking them away somewhere safe where they can’t get to them.

The enlistment contract contains a reddish sigil in the form of a watermark. Once the papers are signed, Zodge will produce a symbolon knife and make an irregular cut through this watermark, giving the half he slices out to the PCs along with their badges. (The irregular edge of the watermark can only be uniquely matched to that specific contract, allowing all signers to verify the agreement. This interaction foreshadows the contract sealed between Zariel and Elturel, as described in Part 4 of the Remix.)

In addition, as we’ll discuss in more detail in Part 3 of the Remix, the killings are specifically targeting refugees. Here, again, we are tying the details of the scenario hook to the wider themes of the campaign.

LEVEL UP: Once the PCs have signed their enlistment papers, they can advance to 2^nd level.

One of the problematic elements in Descent Into Avernus is the pace and timing of the PCs leveling up. For example, the PCs are supposed to level up after the first SCENE of the adventure. (So you create your characters and then maybe 20 minutes later you pause the narrative so that they can level up.)

We’ll probably do a more in-depth discussion of this issue in Part 8 of the Remix as we’re wrapping things up, but we’ll get started by cleaning it up here.

(If you don’t want to run the full-fledged refugee caravan adventure described above, then I recommend just having the players create 2^nd level characters straight out of the gate.)

THE MYSTERY OF ELTUREL’S FATE

The last element we want to strongly establish for the campaign here is the mystery of Elturel’s fate. This can actually be broken down into three separate revelations:

• What happened to Elturel? (It was taken to Hell.)
• Why did this happen? (The city was sold as part of an infernal pact.)
• The true history of the Hellriders. (They betrayed Zariel and left her for dead in Avernus.)

In my opinion, the PCs should NOT know (or even suspect) any of these answers when the campaign begins. (If you’re using the “Near Miss” or “Prelude to Disaster” openings, you’ll want to give careful consideration to exactly what the PCs actually witness when Elturel vanishes.)

In Getting the Players to Care, I discuss a number of ways in which GMs can get their players to actually care about the lore of the world. These include:

• #2: Make It Plot
• #4: Make It Mystery
• #5: Make It Personal
• #7: Make It Repetitive

And we’re going to use all of these to make them care about Elturel’s fate.

RUMORS OF ELTUREL: We’re going to create a sense of enigma around Elturel’s fate primarily by making it the #1 topic of conversation. Virtually everyone the PCs talk to has a different theory or has heard a different version of what happened to Elturel. (And what’s going to happen next? Are more cities going to be destroyed? Is Baldur’s Gate in danger? Did you hear that Waterdeep has been destroyed, too?) You can find twelve fully developed rumors of Elturel’s fate in the Rumors of Elturel addendum to the Remix.

Seed these rumors into:

• Conversations with the refugees, and with others met along the road to Baldur’s Gate.
• People desperately asking for fresh news as the PCs arrive in the refugee camp outside the city.
• Flame Zodge’s briefing.
• Town criers shouting out the latest headlines on the street corners of Baldur’s Gate.
• Conversations at the Elfsong and Low Lantern taverns.

And don’t just have the NPCs deliver these rumors. Flip it around and get the players involved by having NPCs ask the PCs what they think happened. (This will force the players to actively engage with the rumors and really think about them.)

ESTABLISHING THAVIUS KREEG: Among the rumors and other discussions, make sure to repeatedly establish that Thavius Kreeg was (a) the High Observer of Elturel and (b) he’s missing and presumed lost with the city. (We’ll discuss this more in Part 3, but you want to firmly establish these facts so that the players will understand the significance of finding Kreeg alive later.)

THE SOLUTIONS: The PCs will be able to gather clues to the first two revelations (What happened to Elturel? and Why did this happen?) throughout Part 3: The Vanthampur Investigations before getting definitive answers in Part 4: Candlekeep.

The true history of the Hellriders can be discovered in Part 5: Hellturel and Part 6: Quest of the Dream Machine. (This is deliberate: We want them to learn and fully care about the official history as it’s been known for hundreds of years before revealing the truth. You can’t yank the rug out from under them if you don’t let them walk onto the rug first!)

We’ll discuss these mysteries in more detail (and probably look at complete revelation lists) as they come up.

Go to Part 2: Character Creation