Go to Part 1

ESCAPE FROM ELTURGARD (DDAL 09-01): It’s not really surprising that both I (in the Avernus Remix) and Rich Lescouflair in Escape From Elturgard conclude that the best way to start the saga of Elturel’s fall is in a refugee caravan heading from the outskirts of the fallen city to Baldur’s Gate. There’s just no better or more immediate way of introducing the PCs to the crisis and, importantly, the lives most dramatically affected by.

Escape from Elturgard employs a clever design that can be used as four stand-alone, one-hour sessions or one longer, cohesive session with the caravan encountering multiple challenges. Three of the scenarios involve gathering supplies for the caravan before it departs, while the fourth takes place on the road.

The custom illustrations of every significant NPC in the caravan are a particularly nice touch and a great resource for this kind of adventure.

The grit in the wheel here, however, are the continuity errors. None of them are particularly large or fundamentally crippling, but they are everywhere – a constant, pervasive annoyance that never really goes away.

A good example of what I mean is the opening paragraphs of the second interlude/adventure, which has the quest giver say, “See that cart? It belongs to Ippon the Miller. Take it to the mill and gather supplies.” So the PCs walk over to Ippon and he says, “See this cart that definitely doesn’t belong to me? I think we should take it.” You can see how that doesn’t really break anything, but is nevertheless remarkably jarring.

The three “prep the caravan” sections of Escape From Elturgard are the scenario’s best parts and easily scavengable for a Remix campaign, with a couple provisos: First, the wacky “go on a shopping trip for paper and ink for a poet who otherwise refuses to join the refugee caravan” is, in my opinion, tonally inappropriate for the post-apocalyptic setting. Second, some of the adventures include devils roaming the countryside around Elturel as if they had “attacked” the city, but the continuity leading to that is a little hazy. (Elturel was sucked into Hell; it wasn’t attacked by devils.)

The fourth section of the scenario involves a secret cultist in the caravan murdering one of the other refugees and the PCs needing to solve the crime. This section of the adventure is not very good. The mystery is simply not handled very well, in no small part because the murder doesn’t actually make any sense.

• Grade: C-

The next three adventures – Stopped at the Gate, Hungry Shadows, and The Day of the Devil – form the Betrayal in Blood series.

STOPPED AT THE GATE (DDAL 09-02): Like other seasons of the Adventurers Guild, Season 9 reflects the events of that year’s major campaign book, in this case Descent Into Avernus. But this one reflects the campaign book rather more closely than other seasons that I’m familiar with, and, frankly, the effect is rather ludicrous.

Whereas Descent Into Avernus features the PCs being hired by a Flame of the Flaming Fist to investigate a Cult of Zariel in Baldur’s Gate murdering refugees under the instructions of a devil named Gargauth, these Adventurers League scenarios feature the PCs being hired by a different Flame of the Flaming Fist to investigate a different Cult of Zariel in Baldur’s Gate who are also murdering refugees for a different reason while being instructed by a different devil whose name starts with G (Gharizol).

With all the fascinating stories that could be told within the period of upheaval created by the Fall of Elturel in both Elturgard and Baldur’s Gate, the fact that the only thing the Adventurers Guild could think of was, “I dunno… I guess just the exact same story?” is not only incredibly disappointing, but also a huge disservice to anyone playing in both an AL and Descent Into Avernus campaign.

And it’s a millstone that none of the individual scenario writers are really capable of overcoming.

In Stopped at the Gate, the PCs need to investigate the murder of Marcus Hallgate. The poor design of the mystery can be exemplified by the first scene. The PCs can get two clues, both delivered by the victim’s wife:

• There have been other murders. The PCs are not expected to investigate any of these, but they can talk to a city watchman who “knows more.” (He doesn’t.)
• A friend of the Hallgates purchased a gift for the wife several days ago. (The gift has absolutely no connection to the murder, but apparently the PCs are supposed to follow up on this out of desperation.)

So the PCs leave the scene with two clues (sort of), and then this happens:

If the characters choose to see Dovis first, he’s at his post by the Heap Gate (Scene C). If they choose to go to Harwin’s shop first (Scene D), they end up encountering Dovis before they get there.

It’s not just that it’s railroading. It’s that the railroading is both transparent and completely pointless. In any case, they (hopefully) go to Harwin’s shop and his assistant tells them:

A couple of days ago, Harwin left to check on the shearing operations outside of town. This was strange; they had wool and Harwin didn’t like the sheep. Harwin must have left before Zook got to the shop this morning, since the tea in Harwin’s mug was still warm.

So he left a couple of days ago, but the tea in his mug was still warm this morning?

It turns out that Harwin is being controlled by a devil named Gharizol. Gharizol hatched a “brilliant” plan for killing Marcus Hallgate:

• Make a fancy dress for Marcus’ wife so that she would go dancing!
• She will not, of course, take her husband to go dancing with her!
• Then, having gotten his wife out of the way, kill Marcus… while he is walking down a busy street and in no way in a location where his wife’s presence or absence would be meaningful!

Just… astounding.

In my opinion, this scenario is completely unusable.

• Grade: F-

HUNGRY SHADOWS (DDAL 09-03): In Hungry Shadows, the PCs are engaged to investigate another murder related to the Cult of Zariel.

The fundamental problem here is the continuity. Initially, I thought it was just presented in an utterly baffling fashion, but having read backwards and forwards through this thing several times, I’m forced to conclude that the whole thing is, in fact, utter nonsense.

A cultist has been “murdered” in their own home with all the doors and windows locked. How did he die? Well, either some sort of devil broke down his door and killed him (what all the evidence says) OR he was casting a summoning spell, it went wrong, and something appeared in the room with him and killed him (which is what the appendix says).

Who found the body inside the locked house that no one had been inside? No idea. The adventure doesn’t say. What we DO know is that the first members of the Flaming Fist on site are actually moles who are loyal to the cult. So what do they do? Well, first they report the murder to their superior officer and wait for the PCs to be called in. And THEN they arrange a meeting with a cult member at a local tavern to tell them that they need to cover up all the evidence of the cult’s involvement.

Where is the cult located? UNDER THE MURDER VICTIM’S HOUSE.

“Features” of this adventure also include:

• A group of moles working within the Flaming Fists who conveniently self-identify themselves as moles by all wearing black kerchiefs around their necks.
• A dungeon map that not only lacks a numbered key, but also labels of any kind, making it ludicrously and unnecessarily cumbersome to run.
• A serious recommendation that PCs pause in the middle of a six room dungeon to take an eight hour long rest while the cultists in the next room politely wait before starting their ritual to summon a devil to fight the PCs.

I would consider this scenario nigh unusable, and certainly not worth the effort required to salvage something vaguely serviceable out of it.

• Grade: F

THE DAY OF THE DEVIL (DDAL 09-04): I talk about this adventure in Part 3J of the Remix, where I loosely adapt the continuity around Duke Portyr’s assassination. And the reason I wanted to adapt it is because M.T. Black has done a bang up job of it.

The Day of the Devil opens with the PCs listening to Duke Portyr give a speech to a large crowd. Midway through the speech, he’s shot by an infernal arrow that causes his body to explode as several devils leap out of it. The PCs’ first order of business is to deal with the devils in the midst of a panicking crowd. It’s both an explosive opening (pun intended), but also handled with great elegance through a combat complications table that neatly captures the chaotic nature of the scene in an easy-to-run mechanic.

This is followed by the revelation that the cultists are also targeting some of the refugees the PCs have befriended, triggering a great chase sequence across Baldur’s Gate to reach the warehouse where the refugees have been staying in time to stop further tragedy. This is followed by a decent siege scenario (with the PCs defending the warehouse from cultists and devils).

The only real false step with the adventure are the loose ties to the other AL adventures, which mostly crop up in the final scene: Dara, who was the leader of the refugee caravan in Escape From Elturgard, has confusingly de-aged into a ten-year-old girl (this is just a continuity error). Then she reveals that two other refugees have secretly been celestials this whole time, she has just been consecrated as a priestess of Ilmater (as a ten-year-old child?), and they’re all heading to Avernus to rescue some souls.

At which point a character the PCs have never seen before blows up one wall of the warehouse (that the PCs have just bled to defend and which the refugees are still living in) and comes riding in on a mule-drawn cart, offering to give them all a ride to Hell.

All of which I recognize is supposed to elicit a response of, “WTF?” But I suspect not quite in the tone of derision I have for it.

But, honestly, if you just ignore that entire tacked-on ending, it’s a good adventure. (It does not, however, bode well for where the series is heading.)

• Grade: B-

Go to the Avernus Remix – Go to Part 3: Behind Infernal Lines

Go to Table of Contents

The Avernian hex key is going to be one of the “hands on” sections of the Remix: We’re going to set up the scaffold here, but there’ll be some finishing work you’ll probably want to do before running it.

To stock the Avernian hexcrawl, I will be:

• drawing locations from Descent Into Avernus,
• pulling material from a variety of Avernus-related supplements on the DMs Guild, and
• creating original content.

Most of the locations in Descent Into Avernus were originally and primarily designed to be part of the Choose Your Railroad structure that the campaign is built around. The key below assumes that you’ll have access to the Descent Into Avernus book, but will be providing notes focused on how these locations should be adapted in the absence of this railroad.

In cases where I’m using material from the DMs Guild, you will similarly need to either obtain the original supplement or swap those hexes out for your own creations. The notes below, once again, focus primarily on how you can adapt the published material to good effect. (Harvesting published scenarios like this is something I almost always do when stocking hexcrawls.)

Original content is also unlikely to be a in a play-ready state, but should be sufficiently detailed that you’ll be able to flesh out the details.

Throughout these locations we will be seeding:

• The four components required to repair the dream machine.
• Clues related to Lulu’s memory mystery.
• Clues related to the Avernian Quest.

INDEX

Hexes A1 thru B6
Hexes C1 thru D6
Hexes E1 thru F6
Hexes G1 thru H6
Hexes I1 thru J6

A1. AVERNIAN TARPIT

A vast tarpit several hundred feet across. The is hot enough to burn (1d6 fire damage) and it is constantly bubbling. Dangers include:

• A large gas bubble explodes, spattering those within 10 feet with hot tar. DC 12 Dexterity saving throw or 1d6 fire damage.
• Getting stuck in the tar. (It counts as difficult terrain and requires a DC 14 Strength check to pass safely or a DC 18 Strength check to escape once stuck. If stuck, the victim will slowly sink into the tar, becoming submerged 3d6 rounds later.)
• Jets of flame spontaneously erupt from particularly strong outgassing.
• The gas itself can be toxic, requiring a DC 16 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, characters are affected as per a confusion spell, rolling on the custom table below once per minute to determine their actions. At the end of each minute, they can attempt another saving throw.

There are several small outcroppings of rock and solid-ish land dotted throughout the tarpit. On one of these is a giant boulder of gold that gleams in the strange, reddish light of Avernus. (The boulder is actually pyrite; fool’s gold.)

A2. OBELISK OF UBBALUX

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 98.

A set of astral pistons within the obelisk are intrinsic to Ubbalux’ prison. The pistons can only be accessed if Ubbalux is freed.

FREEING UBBALUX:

• As described in Descent Into Avernus, Ubbalux has heard of the Mirror of Mephistar (Hex I1) and believes Mephistopheles can unravel the riddle.
• Bel built the prison and could free him. Ubbalux can also point them towards Bel’s Forge (Hex H2). (If it seems reasonable, Ubbalux might still be under the impression that Bel is the Archduke of Hell.)
• You can also solve Bel’s original “riddle” (see below).

INVESTIGATING THE STONES: Bel told Ubbalux that the secret to escaping the prison was hidden in the arcane runes etched across the standing stones. The trick is that crucial information is located on the outside of the stones, where Ubbalux can’t see it.

• A DC 12 Intelligence (Arcana) check indicates that each of the outer standing stones is associated with one of the schools of magic.
• A character who speaks Infernal or succeeds on a DC 18 Intelligence (Arcana) check will notice that each standing stone has a cartouche containing two syllables, one of which is either the first or second syllable of the associated school of magic in Infernal and the other appears to be a nonsense syllable.
• A similar cartouche appear on the inside of the stone (where Ubbalux can see it, although you can also look across the circle and see them from outside) with a similar pairing of the first or second syllable of the associated school of magic in Infernal (whichever one isn’t on the outside) and a nonsense syllable.

SOLVING THE RIDDLE: Combining the two “nonsense” syllables on each stone forms a command word associated with that stone. You can intuit the correct order of the syllables by looking at the matched syllable from the school of magic. (So the syllable in the cartouche with the first syllable of the school of magic should be the first syllable of the command word and the second syllable should be the second.)

To release Ubbalux, you need to place your hand on each stone and speak the associated command word (suffering the effect described on pg. 98 of Decent Into Avernus). Once this has been done with all eight stones, the energy field drops: Ubbalux is freed and the central obelisk can be accessed.

A3. OOZE HARVESTERS

• Pit of Shummrath
• Map by Dyson Logos

Treacherous stone steps are carved into the cliff face surrounding the Pit of Shummrath, leading down to a miserable village which has been built upon a shelf of rock that thrusts out into the green ooze.

A pair of piscoloths and a gaggle of sahuagin overseers dominate a population of enslaved half-fiend goblins who dredge sludge from the Pit and bottle it. These are shipped to the piscolothian cities in the dark waters beneath the ice of Stygia, where the oil-slick-like telepathic emanations of the sludge are a kind of delicacy used to spice food.

Asmodean Cavern: The mouth of a cave at the base of the cliffs in the goblin village leads to several chambers containing ancient fiendish pillars. The four faces of each pillar are covered with worn runes in an archaic form of Infernal and the bas reliefs of various devil faces. Touching the runes causes the devil faces on the matching pillar to animate and recite them. Collectively they tell of the Trial of Asmodeus and the rights given to Asmodeus under the First Law by the ruling of Primus, Lord of the Modrons. This site is recorded as being one of sixty-six such memorials erected to record this epochal event.

The goblins lived in these caverns, but several years ago they were flooded by a sudden undulation of the Pit. Shummrathian ooze still lingers in the depths of the cave, creating a hostile environment for the goblins who still squat here.

A4. ARCHES OF ULLOCH

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 103

The Arches of Ulloch allow the mass transport of entire armies, but they require the use of a tuned keystone (similar to the planar tuning fork required for a plane shift spell) to align them with a particular plane of existence.

One of the arches currently has an ancient Avernian keystone, allowing teleportation to anywhere within Avernus.

Creating a new tuned keystone requires:

• Either the original plans (located in Bel’s Fortress, Hex H2) or a DC 20 Intelligence (Arcana) check to reverse engineer the existing keystone.
• 50 soul coins worth of raw materials.
• An appropriate workshop (such as those located in Bel’s Fortress, Fort Knucklebones, or other Warlord armories).

Note: There is an unkeyed keystone in the Dump (Hex H1).

A5. WARLORD LAIR: THE LOST GOLGARI

• Warlords of Avernus, p. 8
• Map by Dyson Logos

This is the lair of Kolasiah, the Infernal Medusa, and the Lost Golgari, who have come to Avernus from Ravnica. Kolasiah seeks a way of returning home and would value any news of a powerful spellcaster not allied with Zariel.

Entrance Ramp: Infernal war machines come roaring down the ramp and are parked in a cluster around the central stone pillar.

Forge: In the central pillar of the rock at the bottom of the entrance ramp there is a forge and garage run by Malargan the Oni. See Forges of Avernus, p. 4. A set of astral pistons can be found here.

For more details on the Avernian warlords, see Part 7E of the Remix.

Design Note: As written in Warlords of Avernus, the Lost Golgari have been reduced to a fraction of their former strength. You can either lean into that (with chunks of their base here being deserted) or I would potentially go the other way and bolster her to have a larger number of infernal machines and riders.

A6. WARLORD LAIR: BITTER BREATH’S MARAUDERS

• Bitter Rivals, p. 5
• Descent Into Avernus, p. 90

For more details on the Avernian warlords, see Part 7E of the Remix.

B1. ARKHAN’S TOWER

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 110

For Arkhan’s Tower, we would like to prep:

• A complete map of the tower.
• An adversary roster of the denizens. (Descent Into Avernus, p. 110-11 does provide a comprehensive list of creatures to add to the roster.)

For the map, I will recommend PogS’ excellent original cartography.

B2a. FERRYMAN’S PORTS

• On River

There are charonadaemon ferry stations on both shores of the Styx here. There are commissions available for travel up- and downriver, but most regular travel simply crosses the river to the other station.

Sudok’s Mart: The station on the contra-Dis side of the river is larger and contains a small market overseen by a yugoloth named Sudok.

B2b. ALVSKRAEMA CARAVANSERAI

• Map by Dyson Logos
• On Bridge (Across Pit of Shummrath)

The Alvskraema caravanserai is located next to the bridge which crosses the Pit of Shummrath. It is jointly operated by Brarumoch, Haskari, and Meltrus.

Brarumoch: Operates the common room and runs the kitchen. The caravanserai’s specialty is elf meat. Brarumoch has a supplier who hunts and butchers elves on the Material Plane; here they are considered an expensive delicacy known as alvskraema.

(This doesn’t mean that any elf walking through the door will be set upon and butchered. That’s not the sort of thing you do to a customer.)

Haskari: Operates a weapons forge. He specializes in creating cacophonous weapons, which allow those wielding them to speak and understand Abyssal. (See Forges of Avernus.)

Meltrus: Specializes in repairing and building infernal machines. He and Haskari are constantly squabbling over shop space.

Design Note: Note that the name Alvskraema is more or less “Elfscream” in Old Norse. It’s designed to echo the Elfsong Tavern from Baldur’s Gate. Thanks to Flallen from my Twitch chat for the suggestion of Elfscream Tavern.

B3. WITCH-QUEEN’S ABODE

• Dance of Deathless Frost

Tasha keeps a summer home in Avernus, as described in Dance of Deathless Frost. She is aware of Kostchtchie’s phylactery, knows that Baba Yaga knows its resting place, and is able to summon Baba Yaga’s hut.

B4. RED RUTH’S LAIR

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 107

Red Ruth has a heartstone.

B5. BONE CRATER

A large meteor impact crater formed by a huge skull (more than ten feet across) that’s partially embedded at the center of the crater.

B6. WARLORD LAIR: SOUL COLLECTORS

• Warlords of Avernus, p. 2
• Map by Dyson Logos

This is the lair of the warlord Algoran and his gang, the Soul Collectors.

Shrine to Eskarna: Algoran discovered an ancient shrine dedicated to the demon Eskarna. It was built countless aeons ago at a time during which the demons had pushed the front lines of the Blood War deep into Avernus. Long abandoned and forgotten, it was discovered by Algoran and converted into a gladiatorial arena.

Gladiatorial Arena: Watched over by the well-worn statue of Eskarna, Algoran hosts gladiatorial competitions here which attract a varied crowd of visitors and competitors.

Cogbox: Algoran recently acquired a modron slave as a wager during the gladiatorial fights. The modron has a Nirvanan cogbox. The modron might be willing to trade it for anyone who can help them gain their freedom; alternatively, if Algoran learns its value, he will seize it and try to make a deal (or wager) himself.

Shaaksuraar’s Armory: A “mountain of a sahuagin-werebear” called Shaaksuraar oversees a productive weapons forge for Algoran. This is located in the river cavern; Shaaksuraar goes on swims through the subterranean river and also quenches his fresh-forged weapons in the waters here. See Forges of Avernus, p. 3.

For more details on the Avernian warlords, see Part 7E of the Remix.

Design Note: The concept of Eskarna comes from Dyson’s original key for this map, although we have reduced it to an ancient ruin here. In Forges of Avernus, Shaaksuraar manages the Goregut Armory, but the Goreguts’ lair (Hex J3) in the Remix has been destroyed by Princeps Kovik (Hex J5). I’ve reassigned Shaaksuraar to Algoran, but you could also make this part of his backstory: That he worked for Raggadragga until his forge was destroyed by Kovik. (To add extra drama, perhaps Shaaksuraar betrayed Raggadragga to Kovik for a large payment of soul coins before transferring his services to his new forge here.)

Go to Hexes C1 thru D6

Go to Table of Contents

As described in Part 7 of the Remix and the Alexandrian Hexcrawl, I prefer to run hexcrawls as a player-unknown structure: The abstraction of the hexmap is useful to me as the Dungeon Master, but kept secret from the players so that they can engage with the game world as their characters would.

This is not, however, the only way to run a hexcrawl. In other hexcrawl systems, the players are given a hexmap and know what hex they’re in (unless they’re lost, in which case they are misled about what hex they’re in). There are a number of potential advantages to this approach:

• It can enhance clarity and simplify the complexity of running the hexcrawl. (This can include handling movement by simply counting hexes.)
• It gives a clear structure to the PCs for creating their own map of the wilderness. (They basically just “fill in the hex.”)
• It can make it easy to provide a list of “hex actions” that the player can choose to focus on specific hexes. (For example, “we’re going to spend extra time searching this hex to see if we can find anything interesting.” This can be particularly useful in mid- or high-level play if the PCs begin to engage in realm-building game play, because it allows for things like hex-clearing. In fact, even if you, like me, prefer a player-unknown exploration model, it can often be useful to switch semi-diegetically to a player-known hexmap for realm-oriented play.)

But I digress.

The point is that people may want to run the Avernian hexcrawl using player-known hexmaps. After a discussion with members of my Discord, I thought it would be useful to provide blank player hexmaps for use in these campaigns. I’ve included four varieties:

• Simple White. For easy printing and player note-taking/terrain mapping.
• Avernian Blank. The flat surface texture that I developed for Avernus. (You may find this version more useful when using a VTT because it has greater visual interest.)
• Avernian Mountains. This map includes the mountains, defining the edge of the hexcrawl for the players and reflecting, to some degree, the fact that the mountains can be seen from a great distance. This version also includes other decorative elements.
• Stygian. This includes both the mountains AND the River Styx. I don’t recommend using this one (charting the course of the Styx is probably better for the players to figure out), but some may find it useful.

For each of these map types, I have prepared a version both with Elturel /the Dock of Fallen Cities as a starting location and without.

In addition to these blank maps, the players should still be given the illustrative player map. The players will be cross-referencing between the two maps, trying to figure out exactly which hex each feature on their characters’ map is likely to be in (and exploring accordingly).

(more…)

Avernus Rising, the ninth season of the Adventurers League, featured a bunch of Avernus-related adventures and content. As with my reviews of Avernus-related DMs Guild products, I thought it would be worthwhile to do a survey of these adventures and see what might be useful for the remix. I’ve also written up my impressions in these short capsule reviews.

A few things to keep in mind:

• I was reading these adventures with a specific question in mind: Can I use this in the Remix? That’s not what they were designed for, and although my reviews here are aiming for a wider perspective, it’s probably a good idea to keep in mind my POV here.
• Unless otherwise noted, these are not playtest reviews.
• There’s a guide to how I use letter grades here at the Alexandrian: 90% of everything is crap, and the crap gets sorted into the F category. All the other letter grades are an assessment of how good the non-crap stuff is. Anything from A+ to C- is worth checking out if the material sounds interesting to you. If I give something a D, it’s pretty shaky. And anything with an F, in my opinion, should be avoided.

For better or worse, I also won’t be reviewing these as Adventurers League adventures, per se. I don’t have a lot of AL experience and my primary interest is in home tabletop play, so that’ll be my primary focus.

REVIEW INDEX
Part 2: Betrayal in Blood
Part 3: Behind Infernal Lines
Part 4: Interlude at Mahadi’s
Part 5: Doors and Corners
Part 6: Red Hunt & Season 9 Remix

INFERNAL ENCOUNTERS (DDAL00-12): As with Baldur’s Gate: City Encounters (see my review over here), Infernal Encounters features a bunch of “encounters” which are actually scenario hooks. Bizarrely, several of these do not even remotely resemble an encounter. For example:

An eccentric merchant commissioned the construction of a keep within the Nine Hells and when he died, none of his beneficiaries were willing to claim it. It’s now fallen to one of the characters – his last living relative. If they think that getting to the keep is difficult, wait until they’re forced to clear out the devils that are trying to claim squatters’ rights.

This excerpt also highlights another “feature” of these encounters: Although ostensibly designed as random encounters for use in the Nine Hells (including a table distributing them throughout the Nine Hells), a baffling number of them are clearly designed to be used on the Material Plane and bring people to the Nine Hells. For example:

A local madman claims that his cat is a portal to the Nine Hells.

This largely renders the random encounters unusable, although there are a handful of encounters that can be salvaged (and which I’m using in the encounter tables for the Remix).

Of more use are the Random Devils in Chapter 2, which provide a lot of customization options for making individual devils distinct characters. There’s also the Impaler, a new infernal war machine that you can use to help vary those, too.

The book is rounded out with four “expanded encounters” which are various side quests. These are associated with some of the random encounters (although, bizarrely, NOT the encounters which are structured as scenario hooks). They are something of a mixed bag: One is a pretty decent raid scenario based on a Dyson Logos map, but another, for example, consists entirely of the PCs “distracting” some bad guys by engaging in fifty rounds(!) of combat while standing on a featureless hilltop. A third is a heist without a map (which is problematic, but it’s a micro-heist on a target with only two rooms, so it mostly works).

Overall, there’s some value to be found here, but it’s very inconsistent. You’ll need to sift a lot of chaff to find scant wheat.

• Grade: D

Note: The following epic adventures were sent to me by a patron who thought they might be useful and that they should be included in my reviews here. Unlike the other Adventurers League books we’ll be looking at, they are non-trivial to obtain copies of, so I won’t be directly incorporating elements from them in the Remix.

INFERNAL PURSUITS (DDEP09-01): This is a multi-table event, designed to be run by multiple GMs simultaneously for four or more groups of PCs. I’ve had a great deal of fun with such events in the past, and there are certainly compromises that have to be made in order to make events like this work. But Infernal Pursuits seems particularly stilted, with PCs not even being given the vaguest semblance of meaningful agency as they’re arbitrarily shoved from one combat encounter directly into the next.

Something else I’ve noticed in my (admittedly brief) experience with Adventurers League adventures is that (a) they’re clearly designed to tie in with the current adventure path release, but (b) the “tie-ins” seem to have been written on the basis of someone describing a conversation about the adventure path that they overheard in a noisy bar. So here, for example, characters like Mad Maggie are not so much off-model as they are completely different people with almost unrecognizable motivations and personalities.

There are some interesting resources here: Infernal Pursuits provides a different set of mechanics for handling war machines, including rules for stuff like rams and sideswipes that aren’t found in Descent Into Avernus. There are also two new war machines in the form of the Earth Ripper and Soul Reaper.

• Grade: D

HELLFIRE REQUIEM (DDEP09-02): This is another multi-table event that takes place in the village of Torm’s Hand, an otherwise unknown settlement supposedly “on the outskirts of Baldur’s Gate.” Here the recently deceased paladin Klysandral is being laid to rest and his mortal remains transformed into holy relics. Asmodeus is unamused and has sent agents to suck the whole temple into Avernus so that Klysandral’s remains can be corrupted.

(Grand Duke Ravengard is also in attendance, and frankly I’m going to stop going to places he’s visiting. Get sucked into Hell once, shame on Asmodeus. Get sucked into Hell twice, shame on you.)

Compared to Infernal Pursuits, the interactive elements between the tables are handled quite well and look to be very interesting and dynamic in actual play. The adventure itself, unfortunately, is a fairly mediocre rehash of Monte Cook’s A Paladin in Hell. It is also plagued with sloppy design and confusing continuity. For example:

• The adventure opens with the PCs clearing out Asmodean cultists.
• But then it turns out that the REAL cultists working for Asmodeus are the Cult of the Dragon!
• But not all of the Cult of the Dragon! Some of the Cult of the Dragon are supposed to be your allies!
• There is absolutely no way of telling them apart! But it is mandatory that you rescue some and slay others, with no clear instructions for which are which!
• And then, despite having killed dozens of cultists, it turns out there is only ONE bad cultist! And it was one of the ones you rescued! Oh no! (I mean, the other ones want to free Tiamat from Avernus and bring an age of terror and flame to the world, but… I guess that doesn’t count for some reason?)

One of the weirder elements of this adventure is Grand Duke Ravengard making the PCs honorary Hellriders… which is a little like Queen Elizabeth declaring someone an honorary member of the U.S. Marine Corps. (I’m kind of baffled this adventure wasn’t set in a principality of Elturel. It would take little more than a few name swaps to make this true. Then just ditch all the weird and pointless Cult of the Dragon continuity and you’d have an eminently playable adventure.)

• Grade: D+

FORGED IN FIRE (DDOPEN2019): Forged in Fire is a tournament scenario with pregenerated characters. Three warlocks stole a puzzlebox from Thavius Kreeg. They have been captured by three paladins. But before the paladins can deliver them to justice, they all get sucked into Hell.

(Running into these three paladins and warlocks in Avernus could make for a fun random encounter. They could also be used as new or replacement PCs should the need arise.)

This is an exceedingly well-organized and well-presented adventure. Events are clear, information is presented when and where you need it, and the protocols for running the tournament are clearly communicated. The railroad is a little fragile (potentially being derailed if a single player doesn’t understand a clue or proves obstinate), but mostly serviceable as such things go. Reading this immediately after Infernal Pursuits and Hellfire Requiem was a night-and-day experience.

The opening scene is real humdinger: The characters are literally plummeting out of the sky above Avernus and, if they can’t figure out how to slow down, they’re going to go SPLAT! in the middle of the Blood War.

There’s a bunch of cool Avernian terrain features:

• Craters filled with bones
• Ichor bogs
• Weeping salt flats (the thin layer of salty water is formed from the tears of the damned and filled with howling, ghostly faces).
• Tar pit plains

And if you’re looking for locations to flesh out your hexcrawl, you have:

• Xalzair’s Library (featuring, among other things, a swarm of vampiric tomes!)
• Falgrath’s Forge (built in the middle of one of those tar pit plains)
• Bragacon’s Menagerie (featuring riddles and mazes built into a titanic sword)
• Yaltomec (a volcano formed from the petrified souls of the damned)

The first three are the abodes of the pit fiend patrons of the pregenerated warlock PCs (a quite clever device), but all are quite easy to plug-and-play in any campaign.

In short, Forged in Fire is a truly vivid and memorable tour of some truly unique and creative vistas of Hell. Well worth checking out if you can figure out how to get your hands on a copy of it.

• Grade: B-

Note: Because Forged in the Fire is not widely available, I have not incorporated these locations or terrain features into the Remix. But if you’re lucky enough to have a copy, I encourage you to do so.

Go to the Avernus Remix – Go to Part 2: Betrayal in the Blood

Go to Part 1

Rhodarin Press has published five supplements fleshing out Avernus, presenting a unique vision of the first layer of Hell. The first of these I stumbled across was Tyrants of the Purple City, a brief gazetteer describing an entire infernal city that lies somewhere along the Styx.

TYRANTS OF THE PURPLE CITY: The city is primarily presented through a number of distinct factions, each of which has a barebones quest/job that they want accomplished. This is an interesting lens for viewing the setting, but seems very practical, resulting in a lot of bang for your buck in a relatively short supplement.

The biggest shortcoming of Tyrants of the Purple City is the appalling proofreading. (Although the malapropism of “portuary ward” is almost delightfully evocative.) This is a problem which unfortunately persists throughout the Rhodarin supplements.

• Grade: B-

CHARON’S DROWNED SHRINE: Charon’s Drowned Shrine presents another Avernian city lying along the Styx, but this one was utterly destroyed in a flood forty years ago.

I will just never understand paragraphs like this:

Characters will most likely approach the city through the main course of the river. If they traverse the town to the Temple they should come across the districts in the order Outskirts, New Harbor, Eastern Gate, and then the Inner City, where the Temple resides, but through magic means or other strategies, they might be able to circumvent some wards.

First, there’s a map, so this is immediately obvious and the text is irrelevant. Second, stop trying to force non-linear environments into being linear, plotted experiences. Third, the phrase “if the PCs figure out how to do something, then they can do something” seems to be the #1 favorite way for RPG authors to write “I feel a need to write something, but have absolutely nothing to actually say.”

With that grumpy pet peeve out of the way, the biggest problem Charon’s Drowned Shrine has is that Orinxis, the ruined city, is… mundane. Absurdly so given that it is a CITY IN HELL ITSELF.

For example, the first keyed location is the Old Water Mill. Oooh… A mill churned by the cursed waters of the Styx itself! What alien and infernal purpose could it have been built for?

Grinding flour.

In similar fashion, the adventure just kind of blithely assumes that the PCs will be casually wading (and even diving!) into the waters of the Styx. The whole thing just feels like an adventure designed for the Material Plane that has been awkwardly copy-pasted to Avernus.

This one just doesn’t do it for me.

• Grade: D

ESCAPE FROM THE BLOOD FORTRESS: Originally written as a one-shot that could also be potentially used as part of a longer campaign to bring the PCs to Avernus for the first time (by having them kidnapped and then locked in an infernal prison from which they must escape), the author has hypothetically retrofitted Escape from the Blood Fortress to be used as part of a Descent Into Avernus campaign (although, as far as I can tell, no actual effort has been put towards achieving this goal).

The dungeon from which the PCs are escaping is painfully linear, which is made worse because options ARE given.. it just turns out they’re designed to murder you if you’re stupid enough to take them. For example:

Exiting through this exit is highly inadvisable, as it would probably mean a very complex encounter and almost certainly incarceration or death.

So go back to the Preapproved Exit™ you dummies.

Other design problems include encounters which are… vague. For example:

The denizens of this kitchen are mainly imps and quasits following the orders of Jakll, a blind and very old tiefling (non-combatant) with excellent cooking skills.

How many imps? How many quasits? No idea.

The aforementioned “gonna kill you dummies for picking the wrong door” encounter is similarly undefined. There’s just, like, so many devils out there!

Eventually the PCs follow the linear dungeon up high enough that they can look out a different window and see a huge cut-scene play out which is, despite them having no agency in it whatsoever, the “climactic moment in the adventure.” Oddly, the adventure then continues.

This one is a miss for me, too.

• Grade: F

THE ADMIRAL’S SUCCESS – A GUIDE ON SAILING THE STYX: This supplement consists of two parts. First, a set of alternative mechanics for handling exposure to the Styx designed to moderate the consequences of doing so.

Second, ten scripted random encounters designed for groups traveling along the Styx. These encounters are mostly serviceable, but also fairly pedestrian.

Unfortunately, several of them once again suffer from the “I forgot to put combat stats in this combat encounter” problem seen in Escape From Blood Fortress, which is fairly crippling in a product pretty much exclusively designed to provide ready-to-use encounters.

• Grade: D

VYSIANTER’S GUIDE TO THE RED WASTES OF AVERNUS: This is an example of what I mean when I talk about GMs lacking scenario structures. The author’s concept here is a blasted swath of Avernian wilderness called the Red Wastes, but the only scenario structure he knows is “linear plot.” And so the trackless waste through which the PCs are supposed to “roam” is presented as… a road.

With a sequence of programmed encounters that play out as the PCs walk down the road.

Once again, several of these encounters are vague, with some basically consisting of the author saying, “Here’s an idea for an encounter that might work. Maybe. I dunno.”

The typos also remain on point with this one, producing “bad-reliefs” and a temple to “Armodeus” (who I’m assuming is Asmodeus’ n’er-do-well cousin who’s also a frat boy).

The book is rounded out with the Lost Temple of Dak-Thrael. This dungeon is very atmospheric and evocatively packed with a ton of lore about the Queen of Lilies (who once ruled over the verdant paradise which preceded the Red Wastes). I find the key to be a little muddy – with boxed text that violates the “don’t tell the players what their characters are doing” rule and a presentation primarily based on theorizing about things the PCs might do (instead of just clearly describing the room so that I can run the game) – but it’s serviceable.

If you’re looking to add a little enigma to your version of Avernus – a reminder that its history stretches back through countless aeons beyond human comprehension and its wastes are filled with the lost palimpsest of unknowable epochs – Vysianter’s Guide to the Red Wastes might be worth snagging for Dak-Thrael alone (to which I’d give a grade of C-).

• Grade: D+

After stumbling into Tyrants of the Purple City and being pleasantly surprised, I was really excited to discover that Rhodarin Press had done a whole slate of Avernus-focused supplements. Unfortunately, I was pretty consistently disappointed by the rest of the line. With that being said, I see a lot of potential here, and will be keeping an eye on Rhodarin in the future to see how they develop.

One last thing to note, which may not have been immediately clear from the above, is that all of Rhodarin’s Avernus products are loosely bound together, forming a shared continuity. Each book stands on its own, but they’re also designed to work with each other.

Go to the Avernus Remix