r/DescentintoAvernus

We ran on the 2024 ruleset, and I used the Alexandrian Remix pretty much to the letter. Our party makeup was a Berserker Barbarian, a Spell fire Sorcerer, an Open Hands Monk, and a Gloomstalker ranger. We also had a druid/cleric multiclass, but the player moved away so we wrote an ending for that character. The finale was at level 13.

In the end, my party redeemed Zariel. They teleported into Elturel after retrieving the sword of Zariel, and sent one player with the rods to unlock the companion. They decided that sundering the chains would be too challenging a task as they had a target on their back from Zariel (thanks to some history between the Barbarian and Zariel herself, some past life shenanigans where she was one of the OG hellriders that died in the battle of Avernus) so they opted to try to fight Zariel directly. I had it so they had to deal substantial damage with the sword itself before they could get pulled into the last "memory dive" to redeem her - as they've been itching to fight Zariel the whole campaign. That, and a vow of enmity from Zariel towards the Barbarian would've made negotiation hard.

Picking the fight with Zariel immediately meant she called in her pit fiend, as well as the horned devil and Erinyes she had guarding the companion, in to assist her. They opened the companion with some smart moves. Especially once they summoned Gargauth to their aid (they rolled two nat 20s when persuading Bel their plans were solid, so he freed Gargauth and made him their body guard for this battle), they were holding their own. Zariel made a point to separate the Barbarian with the sword from the party, but the sorcerer managed to catch up. The Barbarian discovered quickly Zariel has pretty weak con saves, and used that to keep her blinded so she couldn't teleport to keep distance. Because of that, the sorcerer managed to catch up and keep the Barbarian healed while Zariel focused all of her attacks on her. Thanks to rage and fire resistance, she tanked her attacks pretty well.

Meanwhile, the monk, the ranger, and Gargauth, focused on the pit fiend, erinyes, and horned devil. In hindsight, I wish I had thrown another pit fiend in there to even the playing field a bit, but I was worried if they failed redeeming Zariel things would have gotten dicy.

They killed the pit fiend, horned devil, and Erinyes, with the monk and ranger dangerously low on health. Zariel downed the sorcerer in one turn, and the Barbarian caught him before he hit the lava. They retreated, and healed the sorcerer before Zariel had another turn. He used all 8 charges to destroy his healing staff, upcasting mass cure wounds to give the whole party a second wind. Zariel still had about 180hp left, and was going to call the remaining devils on the battlefield to her aid - and finally, she downed the Barbarian. She took the sword, which pulled them into the memory dive. I allowed the Barbarian to speak to try to persuade Zariel to choose a different path, but every time she offered up something, she had to make a death save. With one failure, and then three successes, she was stabilized. I wanted to raise the stakes at this moment, especially as the party has been a thorn in Zariel's side throughout the campaign, on top of the personal history. I made the default wisdom save DC for Zariel's choice 25, and if enough of the party passed persuasion checks, that was lowered to 22. Three of them surpassed 20 on their checks, so I also granted Zariel advantage. She rolled a 7 and an 18, meaning she accepted her angelic spark once more, and sundered the chains, helping the god who was imprisoned in the companion (more homebrew stuff tying in a PC backstory) lift the city from the Styx, and shifting it back to the surface.

Asmodeus shows up, to arrest Zariel, and to promote the Bhaalspawn who has fulfilled their fathers contract. They said their goodbyes before accepting a plane shift back to the material realm, and the Bhaalspawn had their body taken over by Bhaal, who will be the new archdevil of Avernus.

All in all, it was a solid campaign and my players loved it from the start. We ran 45 sessions, most of them 4-5 hours, but a few climactic sessions ran 6-8 hours. I'm running an epilogue/interlude session next which will carry us into Vecna: Eve of Ruin - as I've been building towards that in the background of the entire campaign.

Given the sword changes PC's permanently, did you warn/ask your players out of game or just let it be a surprise?

Hey there guys! I'm Dming DiA for a while now... the party has reached the endgame by retrieving the sword of Zariel.

Context: They have made contact and an infernal contract with BEL, they released the *Solar* imprisoned in the companion. Before that, they also made contact with Arkhan the cruel (They have history with the cult of the dragon) so Tiamat is also a player here. The Paladin has the shield of the hidden lord with Gargauth (made a deal with him to release it whenever he has the chance in exchange to not attack Zariel right away), and of course ZARIEL.

The party: Paladin, Fighter/Barb, Druid (with companion) and a Forge master dwarf(kinda psionic monk).

Im still Debating where to take place the final encounter and who should result to be the future ruler of the avernus. I accept any advise, premises or ideas to end this. (The aftermath of this campaing will lead to VECNA eve of ruin, so i have some hidden NPCS and Bad guys that can appear to foreshadow this (more).

Hey fellas, I'm a first time DM on a table of mostly first time player, and I'm running this campaign.

So far we had 3 sessions: the Fall of Elturel one-shot as a starting place, which then we had 2 sessions (our sessions are ~3h and very spread apart unfortunately) of the trip from Elturel to Baldur's Gate, with few events happening during that trip (the players are very ADHD).

I'm loosely following the Alexandrian Remix to help me out too, FWIW.

The players just reached Rivington as the 3rd session closed and now I'm trying to plan the whole of Baldur's Gate chapter, so Zodge at the entrance, Elfsong, etc.

However, I can't help but notice looking at the map that Rivington/Wyrm's Rock is still very far from the Lower City/Elfsong Tavern, so I was wondering how should I approach that gap. Do I timeskip as they walk through that part of the city? Do I narrate them walking down there with some detail and they can "jump off" anytime they hear something interesting? Thats assuming they decide to go to Elfsong after making the deal with Zodge, or figuring out another way to get past the gate.

My plan is to have one of the (late joining) players be the contact, Tarina (which I'm writing in their character in her place), so I'd very much like them to make their way to Elfsong as soon as possible

So, I’m DMing my first D&D campaign, and my players have accidentally created one of the funniest cursed items I’ve ever seen.

We’re playing Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. Early in the campaign, the party managed to kill Thavius Kreeg while still in Baldur’s Gate. Just to make absolutely sure he was dead, they burned his remains.

Then, instead of leaving it there like normal people, they collected his ashes.

They have been carrying Thavius Kreeg’s ashes around with them ever since.

Fast forward to the point where they saved Ulder Ravengard from possession. Afterward, they became very focused on getting holy water. They argued for a long time about why they needed it, made some very convincing points, and eventually, after some high persuasion rolls, a priest at the cathedral agreed to help them create a small amount of holy water.

So now the party had holy water.

Naturally, they needed somewhere safe to store it.

Their chosen container?

The same container holding the ashes of Thavius Kreeg.

So now my party is walking around Avernus with a jar full of holy water and the ashes of Thavius Kreeg.

I have no idea what this should become, but it feels like it should become something.

one of my players did a specific request to me: he's gonna play a reborn zealot barbarian barbarian who has an eye that he doesn't feel is truly his own. He told me that the idea was to follow a trickster entity that sends him into avernus to complete a task, and the eye is supposed to be also the entity's "eye" (the entity should see through the eye). How can i connect it to the campaign and make it cool?

I couldnt find anyone ask it before, therefore didnt see any answers. Did you let your players comb through and loot elturel? Its an entire city and therefore must have some good loot to grab. Blacksmith, arcane store, herbalist for medicine? What all did you let them find if you let them search?

So, my players are in Elturel for about 2 days (like 10 sessions irl) and the paladin has had the Shield of the Hidden lord (from now on just Shield) for all this time.

The paladin is an incorruptible type character, i've tried many times to get him to use the power of the shield and talk to Gargauth, but alas no luck in there.

I'm roleplaying Gargauth as having it full of this paladin bullshit, not wanting his power for anything, not even saving his friends.
One time the paladin got disarmed from the Shield and Gargauth used this opportunity to sever it's attunement, and after that it refused completely to let him attune or even use the shield.
I wanted to let the others try the shield and so Gargauth started speaking to them and planting ideas that the paladin is not enough and they should be using the shield.

Now the Paladin's player stated in private that he doesn't like this because it's not in the rules that an item (that he says should be a prison for Gargauth) should be able to completely bar him from using it.
He said he thought about it and he doesn't see any way to use the shield that doesn't end badly (whatever that means) and he feels that he's just carrying around an useless clump of metal.

More than anything he wants answer about what to do with the shield (at the start he even rolled a nat 20 on what the shield is, i've told what he could've got from it but obviously not everything) but I don't want to spoil anything i've prepared, i've just told him there are ways to get a "good ending" with the Shield.

Just so you know this player already played DiA with another master, it was not with the Alexandrian Remix tho.

Feel free to ask questions as i've probably explained it poorly.

Hopefully this type of post is ok. Currently running a tyranny of dragons campaign, still early as group just rescued Leonsin from raiders, but starting to plan bones for and organize potential side quests down the road. I am slowing down parts of Tyranny to allow for more side quests and character quests.

Once the party gets to Elturel, my plan is for them to do 2-3 side quests. One of those while be for character backstory and personal weapon. But I want a selection of others the PCs can choose from. One idea I have is for them to be protecting a wedding.

My thought was to have a character form Elturel who is investigating or campaigning against the corruption that leads to it being pulled to Avernus. Thinking politician or religious figure. Their child is getting married, and given what they’ve been doing they decide to hire more security.

Of course the attack happens, demons and cultist, and hopefully the PCs save the bride groom and families, but play out and see.

I like building world continuities and having old PCs and NPCs show up in campaigns in same world. We did Dragon of Icespire Peak prior, and those PCs are making appearances and including lore established in that campaign for our group

Is there an existing character in Descent already that would fit this or would be easily modifiable? Or would it be better to create and then just remeber and use them if we end up doing descent next?

For those who didn't see my previous post I will start from the beginning

So, it's around 4 or 5pm in game and the party is having a direct conflict with the villa guards. We got to this point because the party tailed an NPC who made a deal with Amirk into the upper city and to the Vanthamper estate. The rogue snuck over the wall and into the tree in the corner to spy into the villa. She wanted to tie a note to an arrow to update the rest of the party on the situation without alerting the guards. Well two natural ones later and the arrow spirals over the wall, her bow is caught in the tree, and the note falls right in front of the patrolling guards.

They kill the guards, have the Mimic player eat the jaws. The rogue fires a smoke arrow at the approaching city watch. They then make their way into the stable entrance to the dungeon. They kill the cultists and devil in the alter room. Destroy the statue, take the mace, and go into the secret door. They find the duke, kill her, and take a long rest.

So Thelma Vanthamper is dead, they took a long rest in the dungeon. None of the upper house has been dealt with. Amrik and Thurstwell are still alive. Should I have them mount a conter offensive and attempt a search and destroy? I imagine that Thurstwell sent some imps to investigate the dungeon, saw that they killed the cultists by the stable entrance, and sent news to Amrik.

I was planning on having a couple guards and a guard captain who are loyal to the Vanthampers help. Would it make sense for the two of them to try and eradicate the party with their remaining forces and the reinforcements from the watch?

It's an in person game but I plan on using roll 20 to track the enemies moments on the map

I’m planning session one, starting with the Fall of Elturel and planning on running parts of the Remix.

There’s a lot to wrap your head around with the overall lore and plot, so I’m sure there’s things I haven’t caught yet.

But is there a reason why Elturel has both the Order of the Companion knights *and* the Hellriders? I mean, I know what the lore says. But is there any reason I couldn’t just combine those two factions for simplicity’s sake? Would that cause problems with the plot down the line?

I've been DMing for a while and kept running into the same problem. Either the tool was too basic or I was paying a monthly fee for features I used maybe 20% of. And I never fully trusted cloud tools with years of campaign notes.

So I built something for myself and figured I'd share it.

World Forge is a single .html file. Download it, open it in your browser, done. No account, no subscription, nothing. Everything saves locally and you can export a full backup anytime.

What's in it:

• Characters, factions, locations, religions, creatures, artifacts, conflicts, quests
• A relationship web so you can actually see how your NPCs and factions connect
• Timeline and custom calendar system for tracking your campaign history
• Map section with pins linked to your world entries
• 17 generators for when you need an NPC, town, or plot hook on the fly
• Multiple worlds so you can keep campaigns separate
• Export your full world as Markdown to paste into Notion, Obsidian, or wherever you keep your notes

Built it mainly for long term campaigns where you need to actually remember who knows what and who hates who.

It's on itch .io if anyone wants it. Happy to answer questions.

https://preview.redd.it/9s1j49ayc20h1.png?width=682&format=png&auto=webp&s=8d552d3c81f432b978be3b62ffddebaf567569d6

https://preview.redd.it/q9tgp9ayc20h1.png?width=681&format=png&auto=webp&s=5c508cbb7fe39cb20537c6aef5b2277537a66178

https://preview.redd.it/fdby7cayc20h1.png?width=802&format=png&auto=webp&s=4627e12e9c993f0b3c15df1c752de8d38b2b86a2