Murder in Baldur’s Gate continued with me running the remainder of the Introductory Stage; the Launch Weekend event expanded a small part of the stage into a 2-hour session, but there was still a major part of the stage to run: the meetings with the movers and shakers of the adventure.

The characters had been invited to three meetings, but the timing and distance between the meetings meant that they couldn’t attend all three without splitting the party. I was somewhat pleased to discover that my players didn’t want to do that; although splitting the party makes a lot of sense narratively, it is often a big problem in the game as one or more players can spend a lot of time waiting for the others to finish. In a 2-hour D&D Encounters session? It can really be a problem.

I reminded the players that they had three invitations: one from a wizard who wanted to discover who was behind the assassination, one from the commander of the Flaming Fist, and one from the poor people of Little Calimshan and the disenfranchised communities outside the walls of Baldur’s Gate. The players dismissed out of hand going to see the commander of the Flaming Fist, but decided to first visit the wizard – Imbralym Skoond – and then go to meet their contact in Little Calimshan.

Imbralym was waiting at the Three Old Kegs inn, and I described the privileged surroundings around the establishment. The Inn itself was crowded with people – there was a line waiting to get in, with bouncers supervising the crowd – but the group found themselves recognised by the public and were acclaimed and shown into the Inn without having to wait. I consider it quite important to keep the players aware of the heroism they showed during the murder of Duke Adrien.

The group found Imbralym at a large table, and he soon ordered drinks for everyone. Lachie, playing a somewhat forgetful barbarian, wanted rum, and after drinking it exclaimed, “Where’s all the rum gone?” as he looked mournfully into his cup. The serving girls quickly refilled it, as Imbryr explained to the rest of the group the current state of affairs in the city: the city is ruled by a Council of Four Dukes, with input from the Parliament of Peers. Chief amongst them is Grand Duke Dillar Portyr, who Imbralym dismissed as an easily-led fool. Duke Adrien was dead – as the group could well attest. Duke Belynne Stelmane had recently had a stroke and was not the woman she once was. Indeed, the only duke worth the title was Duke Torlin Silvershield, who truly cared about the city and was doing his best to stem the rise of lawlessness.

Imbralym then invited the players to meet Duke Silvershield, who had witnessed their heroics during the attack. The group accepted, and so were taken to the High Hall, the seat of government in Baldur’s Gate. I was aided by the illustrations in the Campaign Guide to show the players how impressive the building was (although, because the map in the book has part of it cut-away to show the interior, a couple wondered if something had happened to the building to cause the damage!)

The Duke, who was also the High Priest of Gond, greeted the group and set forth before them his concerns about the city, especially the rise of foreign influences and lawlessness fostered by the Thieves’ Guild. It was interesting to see how little the players were engaged by his speech – they’d already decided who they wanted to aid, and it wasn’t the nobles! They promised to think about his offer, and excused themselves. I was pleased to see that they didn’t cause a scene!

By now, the working day had ended (even on Founder’s Day, people still work), and a large number of workers had come up from the docks and were trying to leave the city by the Basilisk Gate in the east to reach the Outer City. Unfortunately, there was a delay, and so the players found themselves in danger of missing their meeting in Little Calimshan. The rumours from the crowd were that a “shield” had vanished, but mostly they just grumbled about the delay and the dwarven toll-collector who was causing it.

The players investigated further, and discovered that a dwarf – Nant Thangol – was getting his guards to shake down the workers and charging many fees to leave the city, often for the flimsiest of reasons. They thus decided to make him see reason, something Lee and Callan most spectacularly failed to do; in fact, Callan was on the verge of being arrested before Lachie slammed down 25 gold pieces before the dwarf and demanded to be let through. Thangol’s eyes went wide, he gathered the gold into his purse, and swiftly agreed to let everyone through. The Flaming Fist guards grudgingly let the group (and especially Callan) through, along with the rest of the workers. The group had just witnessed the first (of many to come) injustices against the poor folk of the city.

Thus, when they met with Rilsa Rael in Little Calimshan, they were already annoyed with the city, and Rilsa got appreciative attention as she described the injustices inflicted upon the poor. They met in her shop, with her master (an elderly gentleman) overseeing the conversation. Scents of cinnamon and snatches of exotic music were present during the meeting, in this little enclave of people from the land of Calimshan.

Rilsa raised the possibility of the people getting their own back – in particular against Nant Thangol, who, as the players had seen, was a particularly oppressive official. The group readily agreed that he needed to be taught a lesson, and the idea of “redistributing the wealth” from his hoard was happily agreed upon by the players. They had a goal, and they were ready to go right away!

However, before they could set out, there was a commotion in front of the shop. Rilsa went to investigate, and soon came back quite alarmed: a gang of kobolds was attacking one of the poorer settlements in the Outer City. The Flaming Fist wouldn’t come to help – or even if they did, they’d arrive too late and cause more trouble than the kobolds! Would the group help?

Of course they would! The group rushed to where the kobolds were (6 kobolds and 2 dragonshield kobolds) and Grant’s druid entangled a large group of the kobolds whilst Callan and Lachie defended the rest of the group from the attack. Lee moved to a good point and started picking off the kobolds with his bow, whilst Rich’s wizard cast minor spells to slay them.

A second wave of kobolds, coming around the rear of some of the buildings, were able to engage Rich and get in a couple of blows, but ultimately the kobolds were no match for the party. Grant’s entangle spell was particularly effective at cutting the kobolds’ strength in half, and they didn’t really have many hit points in any case. The Dragonshields, slightly tougher, couldn’t really stand up to the massive damage that Lachie’s raging barbarian could inflict.

With that combat over, we finished the session and the introductory stage of Murder in Baldur’s Gate. My particular addition to the content of the adventure was the kobold attack, due to the fact that the main combat of the stage had been covered in the Launch Weekend. The adventure actually doesn’t have kobolds as any of the suggested foes; I included them partly as a tribute to the original Baldur’s Gate computer game, where kobolds are a major foe early in the adventure (there’s even a cutscene showing them sneaking up on a farmhouse), and also to illustrate how the folk of the Outer City can’t rely on the protection of the Flaming Fist: they have to fend for themselves. The session ran at slightly under two hours.

Paul, running the game under 4E at the other table, saw the group follow a similar path as to who they visited. He included a combat against some thugs and the session ran about 30 minutes longer than mine, but I didn’t really get the details of what occurred.

I still need to become more familiar with the details of the city; although I had a vague idea of how the council was set up, I wasn’t fluent enough at describing it in play. I’ll need to do more study of the Campaign Guide! It has a lot of useful information; I just need to read it all and commit the important parts to memory! The next session will see the group take on the dwarven toll-collector, and I hope to also bring to life other events that take place in the city at the same time.

So far, so good!