In this episode of Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus, the characters started to investigate those behind the Cult of the Dead Three and engaged in some role-playing.

I began the session with a recap of what had occurred last time. When you’re running a mystery, reminding the players of what is going on is necessary. It’s a good idea for any game you run, but especially when the plot requires you to remember critical details from one session to the next. I typically ask a player to recap, as they’ll remember the action differently from how I do, and then I fill in essential details the recap missed. (This also gives me a clue as to things I didn’t explain adequately).

The basics of the recap: The characters were hired by the Flaming Fist to seek out Cultists of the Dead Three who had been murdering people in Baldur’s Gate. In the cultist’s lair, they’d discovered that one of the Dukes of Baldur’s gate had hired the cultists to cause trouble. That Duke? Duke Vanthampur. The party found one of the Duke’s sons in the lair and learnt from him the locations of two other sons, including the one directly providing the money to the cult.

So, in this session, they visited that son, Amrik Vanthampur, in his place of business, the Low Lantern.

The Low Lantern is a merchant ship that is now a tavern, permanently moored in the docks. The adventure provides thumbnail sketches of a few NPCs the characters can interact with, and the players took advantage of the opportunity. How much you use these interactions depends on the group; not everyone is good at role-playing, and it is by no means assured that the DM is also a good role-player! In my case, I was happy enough to portray the characters they decided were important: Laraelra Thundreth, the owner of the tavern, and Skadric Salakar, a Flaming Fist soldier temporarily suspended for dereliction of duty.

Some of the role-playing was purely for the entertainment value, but much of it was concerned with their mission. The players took full advantage of their status as deputies of the Flaming Fist to explain to Laraelra what they were about to do and to make sure no-one in the tavern interfered, and they recruited Skadric to help.

Then came the confrontation with Amrik. Amrik was not disposed to help, and he summoned his bodyguards to deal with the players. However, through their initial investigations of the tavern, they’d identified them and arranged themselves to nullify the bodyguards quickly. Amrik was not so easily dealt with, as he used a smoke bomb to help flee up the stairs, murdering a poor drow commoner who got in the way.

However, Amrik didn’t count on one character using misty step to get in front of him, and, seeing he had no way out, surrendered.

At this point, Reya Mantlemorn, a Hellrider of Elturel, approached the characters. She’d been hunting Amrik herself, as she believed he knew the whereabouts of the High Overseer of Elturel, who everyone else thought had vanished with Elturel, and she wanted to know how he’d escaped. As the Hellriders were being hunted by the Flaming Fist, she was apprehensive about the characters, but they reassured her that they weren’t interested in causing her trouble.

The party took Amrik to Captain Zodge, where they explained the situation. Zodge suggested they use Amrik to get into the Vanthampur mansion, as he’d be able to call off the guards. The characters agreed and so, after a rest, they proceeded there, hoping to find the Duke.

Arresting a ruling Duke of Baldur’s Gate? These characters have no fear of that!

Of course, the characters had to find the duke. Due to the presence of Amrik, the characters were able to get into the mansion with little difficulty, except for a gaggle of imps in the main hallway, who took exception to them and tried to free Amrik. The imps failed in this, their little forms cast down by the attacks of the party. Barbarians with big weapons are scary!

The mansion is an environment to explore that consists of several locations with only a few NPCs. Most of the NPCs aren’t crucial to the plot, with one exception, but you can use them for engaging diversions and thus give more context to the players of the situation. However, I wasn’t feeling that adding extra role-playing would serve us presently – we’d already done a lot in the tavern – so we mainly concentrated on the exploration. Two NPCs were already with the party, Reya and Amrik, and I was having trouble enough role-playing them! Amrik mostly remained silent, Reya looked after Amrik, and I’d forget both existed for long periods.

This behaviour is typical for DMs. There’s a lot to keep track of, and there are typically no reminders on the page that an NPC is still accompanying the party!

The person the characters need to encounter is Thurstwell, the third son. And so, of course, the party failed to find his room. Amrik wasn’t feeling co-operative and didn’t point it out, and so the party instead discovered the Duke’s chambers. The helmed horror present might have proved challenging, but again they weren’t threatened because of Amrik. The role-playing and work they’d done tracking down and capturing Amrik in the last session were paying off!

The party liberated a set of pipes of the sewers from the Duke’s possessions, but they found no documents explaining her plans. More disturbing were the caged prisoners in the tower above: two citizens of Baldur’s Gate who had offended the Duke in some way. One was a sewer inspector, and the other was a tax collector. The rogue of the group picked the lock of the sewer inspector’s cage to let her free, but an invisible imp stung her to death before she could leave. The lock on the tax collector’s cage proved too complex for the rogue to pick, much to the relief of the tax collector! Yes, a painful death might be in his future, but it wouldn’t come immediately. We resolved to return to him after we’d found the Duke, and then promptly forgot about him, as it was the next week that the party found the Duke! And who remembers details that aren’t relevant to the plot?

(This is very common in D&D games. The adventurers would have saved him afterwards. But the players have a lot of other things to consider, and many things to remember).

As the party hadn’t found the Duke in her chambers, they asked Amrik where she might be. (They remembered Amrik was with them! Hooray!) He said that she might be in the sewer hideout below. And so, they proceeded downstairs.

The adventure suggests that the characters advance to 4^th level before entering the sewers, but it’s not a natural break in play – there’s no reason they’d take a long rest, especially as Amrik’s presence meant they hadn’t had to fight most of the potential foes in the mansion. As a result, they were a little lower level than expected for the next section. There were five of them, however, so perhaps they’d be okay?

Of course, as soon as they entered the complex under the mansion, spined devils attacked! Spined devils don’t have that many hit points, so the party slew them quickly, but the characters took some minor wounds in the process. The first room contained the cellar and supplies, but beyond that was a blocked off area of the sewers with many rooms and passages that were lit by oil lanterns. It was quickly apparent that this area saw a lot of traffic.

(The first couple of rooms the characters investigated were empty. However, the next room wasn’t. The group was working in intelligent adventuring formation now, with the characters listening at the doors and checking for traps before proceeding. As they heard chanting from behind the next door, they knew that there’d be enemies. What they weren’t expecting was that a Barbed Devil led the devil cultists behind the door.

The cultists went down quickly, but not so the devil. Yvrine, the barbarian, was knocked unconscious, then healed for a couple of hit points, and immediately re-entered the fight. This did not please the devil, and he kept swinging at the barbarian once he was down again, attempting to kill him outright. Yvrine was very lucky that one of the devil’s three attacks missed – otherwise it was all over for the barbarian.

I’m now implementing this type of monster behaviour in my games to stop the play of “get healed for one hit point, stand up, fight and be knocked down, repeat” that is too common in 5E. The solution used in Pathfinder 2 is to add a “wounded” condition which means you start with more and more failed death saves when you’re unconscious. For 5E, without changing the rules, I have foes attack unconscious characters only after they’ve been unconscious at least once. As each melee hit on someone unconscious inflicts two failed death saves, characters won’t survive that strategy for long. I want them to withdraw from combat for a couple of rounds, drink healing potions, and only then return to the fray.

The party slew the devil before it could kill any of the party, and then discovered a magical mace owned by the cultists. It wasn’t a weapon that any of them used, but Carlamin, the elf fighter/cleric, would use it to good effect when forced into melee.

It was now the end of the session, and the party retired to the opening chamber to take a short rest. We’d take up the exploration of the remainder of the sewer hideout next time!