January Article: Descent into Avernus Chapter 1 Recap & Review

• January 30, 2020
• Article  
• Descent into Avernus  
• Dirk  
• Campaigns  

For the past few months, I have been running the Descent into Avernus campaign module. With the holidays and various scheduling conflicts, we had gone from being able to meet biweekly to meeting no-weekly. Luckily, January has been way better for us being able to get together, which has allowed us to finally finish Chapter 1.

I would like to share my experiences running the game, as well as the experiences shared with me from the players so you can learn from my successes and failures.

If you aren’t looking for spoilers, please skip this article. The expectation here, is that you should buy the book and follow along. It’s worth your time and your money.

Campaign Homebrews

First of all, I’d like to cover what things were different about the rules for this game as opposed to vanilla 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.

1. Wounds: Every critical hit, and critical fail on a saving throw, results in an Open Wound. For each Open Wound a character has, it has one level of exhaustion. Characters may treat these Open Wounds as a Short Rest Activity with a successful DC 15 Heal (Wis) check. A Treated Wound does not give levels of exhaustion, but it does have a chance to reopen when a new wound is gained. At the end of a long rest, a character with a wound may attempt a saving throw to heal the wound, removing it entirely. This is taken directly from GiffyGlyph’s Darker Dungeons supplement.
2. Wear & Tear: Rolling a natural 1 on an attack roll with a weapon causes the weapon damage dice to be reduced by one step (d12 > d10 > d8 > d6 > d4 > 1 > BROKEN). Over the course of a short rest, a character can repair a damaged weapon by one step with a successful DC 15 Int (smith’s tools) check. Rolling a 1 on a spell attack causes damage to the characters spell focus, which reduces their spellcasting modifier by 1 when using that item.
3. Classes: There are two classes being playtested in the campaign. A new Hollow Knight class, whose design and testing processes are being lead by our own Otamhs, and a new Runic Mage class, whose design process is being lead by myself, Dirk. For more information regarding these classes, please join us on our Discord to ask us directly.
4. Subclasses: One new subclass is being playtested. This is a Dark Souls themed Paladin subclass called “Oath of the Painting Guardian”. The character is also playtesting a new race, also Dark Souls themed because I’m a fanboi, Corvian.

More homebrew content will be tested throughout this campaign, most of which will be tested in Avernus itself.

The Dark Secret

Descent into Avernus has a great system in place for integrating the players into the game. The Dark Secret. What this is, is a bond that brings each player character together for a purpose. The way it works, is the party chooses a single secret that they all share together, and then either roll or decide amongst themselves how it played out. These secrets range from committing an act of murder to treason against Baldur’s Gate.

For my group, we decided to determine their secret and roles within their shared secret using using dice rolls. The result was that they were brought together by being involved in a heist by stealing the Spyglass of Balduran, basically a nifty trinket that was reportedly used by the founder of the city. Each of the characters had different roles from being a lockpicker, a lookout, a getaway guy, etc.

The complicating factor for their heist though, was that when they went to fence the spyglass, they never got paid. Leaving them criminals hunted by the law, but also broke criminals on top of that.

Using the Dark Secret: Admittedly, I did not implement the secret very well. My players had stolen the Spyglass, and it was known to one of the noble families (in this case it was Thalamra Vanthampur, a main antagonist) but from there… I didn’t use it any further.

Running it Again

My recommendation is for you to run a session 0 where the players play out the Dark Secret, Ocean’s Eleven style. I did not do this due to our limited amount of time but I highly recommend you do not make the same mistake I did.

The Basilisk Gate

Descent into Avernus officially begins with the players already in Baldur’s Gate amidst a massive refugee crisis. The neighboring city of Elturel has mysteriously vanished, leaving thousands of displaced citizens fleeing to Baldur’s Gate. All adventurers within the city of Baldur’s Gate are conscripted into service by the Flaming Fist and told to report to the Captain at the Basilisk Gate for their assignment.

The player’s assignment: Hunt down and eradicate a cult of devil worshippers within the walls of Baldur’s Gate that the rest of the Fist cannot supply the manpower to get rid of. Failure to report or failure to comply results in execution at the hands of Flaming Fist mercenaries. Yikes.

My group accepted this shoehorn method of forcing the campaign forward without much complaint. For myself, I feel there is much more that can be done to make things much better.

Running it Again

I highly recommend that if you are going to be running a Session 0, use the first part of Session 1 as a Hook, where you move the players directly from the resolution of their Dark Secret into this chapter. If the end result is to have the players collide with the devil cult, you could have them do so directly and make it feel more natural than: “Do these things on penalty of death by DM hand waving.”

I have a list of hooks at the end of this article. Stay tuned.

Chasing the Cult

With the player’s conscripted into the Flaming Fist, the Captain sent the players to meet a contact that will tell them where they can find said cultists. The players followed this information to a tavern to meet up with the contact: a retired pirate. The pirate agreed to help at the price of “taking care of” some of her old pirate associates, who happen to walk through the doors of the tavern, summoned by fate.

The fight with these pirates is difficult for 4 players to get through. All but one of my players were reduced to 0 hp by the baddies, and it was a very close victory. Personally, if I were to run this fight again at 1st level, I would probably leave it the way it is so I could introduce the players to the difficulty and dangerous nature of the campaign.

My players accepted this first part of the campaign with little complaint. This step of the campaign also provides the framework for almost every additional step that will be taken by the players until the resolution of the game. GO HERE AND BE TOLD WHERE TO GO NEXT. Not a terrible method of moving things along, but not necessarily interesting.

Running it Again

If I were to run the game again, after running the Dark Secret, I would either have the players meet directly with said contact that will share with them information about the cultists they ran into, or have the players find where the cult is hiding out on their own by identifying and following a dim-witted cultist.

The First Major Dungeon

The player characters followed the information provided by their contact to the first dungeon of the game. I’m not sure if you have read up on this dungeon on Reddit or on other platforms, but is a brutally crafted slaughterfest.

It starts out fairly innocuous, with the searching for the entrance to the cultist hideout in a bathhouse, but once the player characters make it inside, they are in for a world of pain.

In the features for this dungeon / cultist hideout, there are specific rules for how to collapse rooms here. Each room is constructed with a semi-fragile wooden beam that can be damaged, causing a quasi-cave-in. The resulting damage is significant for low-level characters, to the point that it is likely a character caught in the collapse will be reduced to 0 or outright be killed.

The dungeon features two areas that seem to be specifically built to utilize this feature. One is a chamber full of natural gas, that explodes when fire is brought into it, the damage from which will very likely kill a character. The other is a fight with a ridiculous NPC in a morgue setting that wields not one… but TWO Fireball spells. Did I mention that the players are level 2? Level 2. Facing down a dual fireball wielding caster in a room that can collapse upon them.

For the natural gas room, I recommend doing something similar to what I did, which was notify the players ahead of time that the sewer smells like flammable gas, and even though it’s dark, it may be dangeorus to use torches (knowledge which I gave to anyone proficient with Survival or Nature). When the players reached this room, I allowed for a Perception, Survival, or Nature check to detect the gas buildup and douse the flames of their torches before the gas is ignited. Luckily, the character making said check had darkvision and was scouting ahead of the party.

For the insane fireball-wielder… Suggestions from other DM’s in other places say to not cast the fireballs. I cast the fireballs. I would do it again. I have never seen panic on the faces of D&D players in the way that I saw their panic. Before this, however, I recommend making sure each player has an inspiration point, or some way to gain advantage on the saving throw, so that the entire party isn’t potentially taken out by bad rolls. The hard part, however, is that with the location this NPC is encountered, it is very heavily implied that the last fireball is meant for him to nuke himself, collapsing the room and killing everyone inside. This would be a dick move. Don’t do that.

At the end of the dungeon is the trigger to the next part. Really, it kind of leaves the players with a fork in the road, with both forks leading to the same place. The main idea here, is that the son of a very influential political family reveals that his family has been running and funding the cult for some time. He gives up the location of his brother, and gives up the dirt on his mother, the queen-pin.

One thing that happens that feels a little out of place is how the players are encountered by a small group of dragon cultists on their way out of the dungeon. These cultists are searching for treasure stolen from their goddess, Tiamat, which the players are likely to have picked up in the dungeon. While the encounter may feel out of place, it is important to note that this meeting serves two main purposes: 1. The encounter gets the players associated with the dragon cult of Tiamat early in the game. There is more on this to develop later. 2. It also helps the players get a brief introduction into the strange politics of Hell: there are no real alliances between any of the Archdukes or any of the other many powers either trapped or otherwise in Avernus.

Running it Again

Honestly, I’m fine with the difficulty of this dungeon. I would definitely be sure to be careful with the collapsing rooms, explodey gas, and the fireball slinging. Give the players a bit of a heads up so they have a chance to roleplay their way out of it. At least hint at the danger to those that are proficient with releveant skills, and if the palyers fall into a deadly trap, do your best to minimize the casualties by only affecting a couple of the group instead of the whole gang.

Additionally, integrating the Cult of Tiamat into the campaign wouldn’t be a bad idea. Having the players either become mortal enemies of the Cult, or them becoming allied in an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” relationship. Later in the game there are more opportunities for the relationship between the party and the Cult of Tiamat to develop, for better or worse, but you could easily seed this relationship early in the campaign.

The Villa

My players decided to hunt down the brother first. They beat him up, killed his fiendish companion, and got more dirt on the family. They did not, however, kill the fellow.

After shaking the brother down, they launched a night assault on the family’s villa. The villa has a tall wall surrounding it as well as guards on the outside grounds and the upper level, as well as invisible imps. The party really liked how well this was set up.

The party scaled the walls and creeped in through an unlocked window on the ground floor. Here, they were ambushed by invisible imps. Throughout the rest of the main floor, the players continued to be assaulted by invisible imps. Luckily, these little guys didn’t put up much of a challenge, but they did get some hits in and drained some resources.

Upstairs, however, was a different story. After climbing the stairs, they come across a few guards. They accidentally alerted these guards, which alerted the outside guards. The resulting bloodbath was fairly significant with the party corralling the guards to fight in a narrow corridor. The sheer numbers of the guards themselves caused the fight to be difficult.

When the bloodbath was over, the players were able to explore the rest of the villa. They found a Helmed Horror (big yikes), whose fight they found extremely boring. After defeating the horror, the party discovered another brother. This brother was found clutching a major plot item, which the party gladly murdered him for. To be fair, the fellow and it coming since he cast sacred flame on them the minute they opened the door to his room.

Inside the villa was really easy to run. The difficulty of the fights was mild compared to what the party had accomplished so far, which is really good considering the potential ass-kicking the comes next.

There was also plenty of things for the party to loot here. They stole pretty much anything that wasn’t nailed down. One of the players has a background as a fence, being able to sell stolen goods, so that made things a little easier on them to explain how they plan to sell the silverware and candlesticks of one of the most influential noble families in the city.

Running it Again

With as much as I liked the simplicity of how this area is run, there are some changes I would make if I ran it again.

I would get much more mileage out of the imps. Setting up cruel little devilish traps for intruders would certainly be fun and make things a little more interesting.

The Helmed Horror could have been used in a more interesting way. The Horror is a beat stick with a huge AC and plenty of immunities, but it is boring. So boring.

I the future, I think I would have the players encounter the imps in the lower level, who would then retreat to the room with the Helmed Horror. Here, they would prepare the room for a fight by doing things like setting one or two of the bookcases to fall over on intruders or stringing up acid vials to fall on the players heads. Once the room is set, a couple of the imps stay behind, while the rest lure the party into the room.

The last thing I would have done differently, is described the villa to be more like a devil worshipper’s home. Creepy. Evil images. Evil portraits. Evil feeling. Creaking floorboards. Evil. Creepy. Evil. Creepy. In that order.

Eradicating the Cult

Beneath the villa lies the final dungeon of the first chapter. It begins with the player characters taking the stairs into the cellar and being ambushed by some real devils. They may be spined devils, and they may not put up much of a fight, but it is refreshing to put the party up against some devils in a devil-themed campaign.

Beyond a door in the cellar lies the sewers, which has been converted for use by the devil cult. These cultists are a little different, and do not have the cool abilities of the cultists in the first dungeon, but it is nice to fight some cultists anyway.

The party found some cultists on patrol with incense burners, which were swiftly killed, disrobed, and used as disguises. The first real room that was discovered was probably the best one for them to find: The Shrine. Here, a bunch of cultists are on their knees before a statue of a certain Archduke of Hell, overseen by a Barbed Devil.

After some uncertainty, the party decides to attack the cultists. The cultists are cheap and flimsy, but the Barbed Devil can put up a good fight against low-level characters, especially when he is dangerous with ranged attacks and melee attacks.

Once the party dispatched the cultists and the devil, they explored the Shrine. Here, the players decided to insult the Archduke, and I made a big mistake. In the interest of making things more interesting, I described the consequence for their rudeness as follows:


“You look into the glowing white eyes of the Archduke and spew your insults. A shudder of stinking sewer air ripples through the room and snuffs out all of the candles and lit lanterns in the corridors surrounding the Shrine. You feel like your insults were heard.”

The party attempted to light a torch, which was immediately snuffed out. The only light in the room coming from the glowing eyes of the statue of the Archduke. The party did not bring any magical sources of light with them, through abilities, spells, or otherwise, so most of them were stuck in darkness. Instead of choosing to go back upstairs and either wait out the darkness or look for a magical source of light to dispel the darkness, they barricaded themselves into a neighboring room (the kitchen and dining area) and attempted a short rest. Enter part two of my big mistake.

The rest of the dungeon is not uninhabited. Some cultists come looking for the missing patrols and discover a room full of their slain brethren. The cultists alert their cult-bros, and get the assistance of someone bigger… the Duke herself, who was also in the cellar performing her own worship to her Archduke patron.

The party is quickly discovered and their barricaded room invaded. I underestimated the power of the Duke and her Eldritch Blasts, especially when using the cardboard cultists as body blockers to keep the players from attacking her.

The cultists bashed a hole in the door, through which the Duke opens fire and reduces a party member to 0 hit points. The cultists push through the barricade and get slaughtered by the party, but not before another player gets taken out by the Duke’s blasts. After a few rounds of combat it comes down to a one-on-one showdown between the last party member and the Duke.

The Duke, still having substantial hit points, and the player having very few, decided not to destroy the party or capture them and put them in holding cells. She instead questioned the survivor, found that they were sent by the Captain of the Flaming Fist, and struck a bargain. She would let them leave the dungeon if they went to kill the Captain and destroy any evidence of cultist connection to herself and her family. The survivor agreed. The Duke planned to kill them anyways.

Running it Again

If I could rewind time, I would have let the party reignite their torches, or I would have previously given them an item that is able to produce magical light. There was an item already built into the dungeon that provided this ability, a magical weapon that was staring the players in the face, but they did not push forward to find it. I would have definitely used better descriptions to help lead the players to finding the item for themselves.

Additionally, the fight with the combined strength of the Duke and the cultists was overwhelming for the party due to their injuries and expended resources, but also because we only had 3 players present. With one more player, the players would have won without a TPK. It would have been close, but they could have won. If this situation arises for you, the change you could make is simply lower the hit points of the Duke and reduce the number of cultists by 1 Fanatic and 2-4 regular cultists.

The bargain with the Duke was interesting and the party really liked it. I should have had the Duke either keep one of the wounded players as collateral for compliance, and I totally forgot to have her cultists shake down the players for the quest item they received and all the dishes and silverware they stole. Oops.

Killing The Captain

The party made it back to an inn and finished a long rest. They spent part of the next day fencing the goods they had stolen and bought some armor and adventuring gear. One of the party members with high Arcana and Perception noticed they were being followed by ravens. With his knowledge of devils, he quickly deduced that they were being followed by shape changing imps, likely as spies for the Duke.

The party originally planned to skip town but decided against it at the revelation that they were being followed. Instead of trying to evade the raven-imps, they made their way to the Captain with a murderous intent.

When the Captain is first introduced in the campaign book, he is given an entourage of soldiers using the veteran statblock. Each one of these veterans has a name. I drew the layout for the office building the Captain had appropriated, and introduced each of the soldiers by name.

The party decided against killing the Captain and his entourage, and instead decided, unsurprisingly, to betray the Duke by telling the Captain everything. In the middle of their explanation, devil cultists break through the windows and kick down the front door. A lot of them. I used the special Descent into Avernus cultists with the cool abilities. For example, one of the cool abilities some of these low CR cultists have is the ability to give nearby enemies vulnerability to piercing damage dealt by them. These little guys are absolutely terrifying.

The party rushed to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the veterans to protect the Captain as the cult comes to tie up the last of the loose ends.

When the fight was closing out, after losing a couple of the veterans to cultist blades and magic, the players heard the entire back wall of the building collapse, accompanied by a piercing fiendish scream. A bone devil, summoned by the Duke to ensure victory, had arrived to finish the party. The look on the player’s faces as they watched the bone devil annihilate the tough veterans was enough to force them to make the quick decision to run for their lives and try to get the Captain to safety.

At this point, for the first time ever, I got to use the chase mechanics listed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. The bone devil was not only faster than each member of the party, but it also has flight. Luckily, the party had the quick thinking to look for a sewer entry so they could get off the streets as fast as possible, leaving the bone devil upon the streets murdering innocent civilians.

The party had communicated, prior to entering the sewer, that they would head back to the Villa, which was connected directly to the sewer tunnels, and take their revenge. The Captain, very much believing their story about murderous devil cultists, agreed to find his way to a different part of the city where he would bring the full force of the Flaming Fist down upon the noble family responsible for the murder of countless innocents, and the attempt on his own life.

Running it Again

Personally, I loved running this and my party has been blowing up our discord about it ever since. Many of my players are veterans that know the CR of the bone devil and know they certainly would never survive a real encounter with it, which is what made the session even more memorable.

In all honesty, I had reduced the hit points and damage of the devil by half with the expectation that the players would try to be heroes and fight it the first time I described it turning on a group of passerby’s. Surprisingly, the players left the innocent civilians to be horribly killed, choosing to save their own skins and enact their revenge over putting themselves in harms way to protect the helpless.

If I were to run this again, I would have definitely played up the massacre the bone devil was able to perform upon the innocents caught in the streets. Giving the players more emotional and moral interest to at least try and organize some kind of effort to quickly stop the bone devil would have gone a long way to push the characters into a hero role, as well as hammer home the dangerous nature of the power of hell.

Revenge

The party returned to the Villa through the sewers. The homebrew Runic Mage used his Seidr Magic feature to turn an iron gate blocking the way into dust, providing them quiet entry. The party, now in full sneaky-murder mode, crept into the first room they find: the holding cells, guarded by a bearded devil. The devil was brought down quickly and the prisoners freed.

One of the prisoners was an extremely important NPC who, as written in the book, has the layout of the dungeon memorized, and gives the players direction on how to reach the secret rooms. The NPC also told the players to take the quest item they found previously in the hands of one of the brothers to Candlekeep to have it investigated by a wizard that is studying the devil cults in Elturel and Baldur’s Gate. The party followed his directions to find the Duke in her secret shrine. They murdered her pretty fast. It was obvious that the players weren’t going to pull any punches, and they used all of their available resources to take her down as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The party’s next stop was the Duke’s vault, obviously to relieve it of the noble family’s precious heirlooms and valuables. Here, they met one of the most important NPCs in the chapter, and find a magical shield. The NPC they found had the shadow of a short, pudgy demon, which immediately threw up red flags for players, who quickly interrogated him (surprisingly without violence, threats, or coercion) and then murdered him. To help move the whole murder-process along, the magical shield that this NPC was standing in front of reached out telepathically to the Runic Mage to tell him the following:

“I am an all-powerful angelic being of the mounting, celestial heavens. The devil cults have trapped me in this shield and plan to use my powers for evil. Release me.”

The Runic Mage and the rest of the party honestly didn’t need the push because they already had made up their minds to murder the poor fellow and take the shield.

The last room the player’s investigated was the ritual chamber. The description in the book was creepy, devilish, and complete with a devilish circle carved in the stone floor and a ceiling decorated with pit fiend sculptures. Very awesome stuff that was hardly utilized within the campaign. The description of the room did a great job sending chills down the player’s spines, but did little else.

The rest of the dungeon was deserted due to the party killing the rest of the cultists in their last sewer diving experience.

When the players returned to the surface, they were met by the Captain and a small army of Flaming Fist. The party didn’t really ask many questions as to why the Flaming Fist burnt the Villa to the ground, or why the Fist didn’t release to the public that the devil cults had been traced to an influential, noble family, which has been cut down for their evil and treachery.

Running it Again

While this section of the game, which I had to mostly improvise or write myself to return the player’s to the main storyline, definitely was a memorable experience for myself and for the players, there are things that I would change if I were to run it again.

1. The ritual chamber should be glowing with fiendish power and be littered with either dead cultists or sacrificed creatures. In the center of the chamber should be a fiery manifestation of Zariel, the Archduke of Avernus. When the party enters the room, the fire immediately dissipates but the ritual circle remains glowing. Any creature stepping into the circle is teleported immediately to Avernus upon a failed Charisma saving throw. This change would give the party a direct and personal reason to venture into Hell.
2. I didn’t use the barbed devil very well. I should have had him jump on a weak character and give them a big, barbed bear hug. The fight didn’t feel dangerous for the players, partially also due to bad rolls on my end but mostly due to me not playing it in a way that made it feel scary, devilish, or even provide a real threat to the party.
3. The shield that the players discover should push them to go to the ritual chamber discussed in point 1, and it should urge the one wielding or carrying the shield to step into the circle as a way to break the enchantment that is keeping the entity trapped in it’s prison.

Leaving Baldur’s Gate: Candlekeep

I ran the last section of this chapter somewhat differently than is listed in the book. I didn’t have the players check back in with the Captain and go through the scripted dialogue, and I didn’t have them encounter the Knights of the Shield on their way to Candlekeep.

Following the aftermath of the Villa, and the party successfully enacting their revenge, they celebrated their victory. One player commissioned a portrait of themselves which the Captain now hangs in his office out of respect and thanks.

The journey to Candlekeep was uneventful. When the players did arrive, they turned in the Apocalypto book they found in the Villa they ransacked and stopped by the inn, as adventurers do. Here, they met a new friend: Little One, the Ogre. I highly recommend you have your own players meet him as well. The encounter was a positive one that let the players do some role playing with an intelligent Ogre. Luckily, the party didn’t do anything crazy… like steal his hat (you’ll need to read the book to find out why that’d be a bad idea).

The party eventually left the inn and went to meet their contact, a Wizard who has been tracking the progress and movements of Devil cults. I’m not going to give you a play-by-play of this meeting but I ran it nearly identical to how it is listed in the book. Very worth it. The meeting gives clear background for the events at Elturel and sets a clear path for the players to go to hell.

Something I added new was that I slipped in that the party should first go to Elturel and see if there is anything left of the city to save. Afterwards, they need to venture deeper into Avernus to meet Mordenkainen, who can hopefully give them guidance on how to save Elturel.The rest of the chapter played out exactly as written in the book. The Wizard opened the puzzle box provided by the party, read off a contract that damned Elturel and it’s citizens to Avernus, and dispatched the players to meet her associate to transport them to Hell.

One change that I did make was that the Wizard requested the players to assist in finding a way to return Elturel from Hell, and save thousands of lives by extension. The way the players could do this was:

1. To travel directly to Elturel to assess the extent of the damage and see if there is anything left to be saved.
2. If the city still has people willing to fight back, help mount or organize any resistance to help protect the citizens as best as possible until a proper solution can be found.
3. Bring the opened puzzle box and it’s contents to Mordenkainen on the plains of Avernus and consult with him for options to release Elturel from hell by either voiding the contract or by writing a new one with Zariel.
4. Meet Lulu, a hollyphant with a personal relationship to Zariel from her days as an angel that might prove to be a useful in returning Elturel.

The chapter ended with the players leaving the Wizard to meet her associate, a crazed hermit that was turned into an otter some time ago, who cast’s plane shift to transport the party to Elturel in Avernus.

Fade to black.

Unused Campaign hooks

Here are some hooks that I would like to use to integrate the characters more fully into the game if I were to run this campaign again:

1. The Guild is having issues with their extortion racket they are running due to many of their “customers” being attacked and intimidated by a new set of baddies on the block. Devil cultists. The party is tasked with shaking down some of the Guild’s clients for information and subsequently put an end to the threat to their crime monopoly.
2. The party is coming home from an evening of drinking and general adventurer stuff when they stumble upon cultists beating / kidnapping / murdering some Elturel refugees. The players stop the assault and either question the cultists or find a trinket on them that leads them to the cultist hideout.
3. One of the party member’s main contacts, friends, or family members has been kidnapped. The authorities aren’t doing anything about it because people go missing in Baldur’s Gate all the time. The only clue you have is a tattered piece of black cloth with a single rune, written in infernal, that says, “War.”
4. The Hhune patriar family contacts you through a mutual friend because of your discretion and “specific moral qualities.” A family heirloom, a magical shield, has been stolen from them. Find their hideout and return the shield.
5. Rumors have it that the cult of the dragon has lost a large amount of their offerings to their goddess, Tiamat. Chests full of gold and gems were stolen and are now hidden by the thieves. Who knows what terrible things people can do with that kind of money. Maybe someone more trustworthy should retrieve it and put the money to good use.
6. A high ranking wizard from Candlekeep is looking for “able bodied adventurers with no family or relatives that want a way to earn fast gold… if they survive.” Other adventurers in the city know what this means. It means being sent into a nest of demon or devil worshippers with bad information, getting captured, and being sacrificed to whatever dark god they worship.

Final Statements

All in all, Chapter 1 is very great. I would definitely do things differently as a DM if I were to run this again. The last main suggestion I have is to make Baldur’s Gate a great experience for your players by integrating them directly into the setting. Additionally, hammer home the danger of the campaign. Threaten the lives of the players and scare the hell out of them.

If you have any comments, questions, or feedback about our experiences playing this first chapter, please join us on discord and ask myself as the DM or ask the players in the campaign about their experiences themselves.

If you enjoyed this article, please feel free to browse our Homebrew section and peruse our other articles. If you want to support the Critical Game Mastery crew, you can find us on Patreon. Here, we publish behind-the-scenes snapshots scoop on how we do things, as well as some deep cuts on what our plans are for the future and give access for you to help us test our homebrew content before it is published here.

Thank you for reading,

Dirk

Critical Game Mastery