Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 pukunui Sep 07, 2015 1:51:46	Hi all,   After a month-long hiatus, my Tyranny of Dragons campaign is restarting this weekend. We'll be heading into chapter 4.   I've got some ideas for spicing up the scenes in Elturel a bit. I might go with the rather popular festival idea. I'm thinking I'll also have Delaan Winterhound (from The Rise of Tiamat) be present at the meetings so that the druid PC can have the opportunity to join the Emerald Enclave, while the others decide whether or not to join either the Harpers or the Order of the Gauntlet.   Then comes Baldur's Gate. I've got Murder in Baldur's Gate, and having read through the campaign guide, I've identified a number of interesting little tidbits that could potentially be useful:   - There's a tavern named The Blushing Mermaid that seems like it could be a likely place where cult agents might meet. - Since the cult's leader, Severin, is a Calishite, there could easily be a cult connection in Little Calimshan. - The Redlocks patriar family is said to secretly finance pirates and smugglers. They might be helping the cult smuggle their goods through the Gate without setting off any alarm bells. - The Guild also has a smuggling route on the river to bypass the Wyrm's Crossing tariffs. The Guild are very much "no questions asked" types, so I could see them transporting some of the hoard without even knowing that's what they were hauling.   The trouble is that I'm not entirely sure what I can do with all of that. Yes, I could come up with some sort of little investigative scenario, where the PCs go around the city hunting down the cult's trail, but what would the point of that be? They'll already know that the cultists have to go to Blackgate to get new wagons, so there's no real reason for them to go figuring out how the cult is getting their stolen treasure through the city unnoticed. They'll also have been told not to try and stop the cultists, so there's not much point in sending them on a quest to intercept the treasure.     Another possibility would be to give them some clues about Talis, since one of the PCs has the "Talis was my childhood friend" bond, and there are no leads that tie in with it. The bond's suggestion that Talis was kidnapped in Greenest is a complete red herring, as far as I can tell. Anyway, they could potentially do a little investigative thing to see if Talis was in Baldur's Gate, but again, I'm not entirely sure what the point of that would be, and I can see it being rather boring.     The only other thing I can think of would be to come up with some completely unrelated thing that would take them on a little sightseeing tour of the city ... but again, that could potentially be rather boring. It could also potentially land them in jail, if they end up tangling with the Watch or the Fist or whatever.     Anyone got any ideas? Has anyone else embellished the part of HotDQ that sees the PCs hanging around Blackgate waiting for the cultists to show up?
#2 Granville7482 Sep 07, 2015 4:16:40	Maybe it's due to the recent popularity of it in video games...   When the SCAG comes out, I plan to have the players at my table either hold up, or foil the hold up of Baulder's Gate's biggest bank. Or maybe a mueseum. So that's one game session that can take a session.   This one was inspired a bit from Baulder's Gate, but I have my own twist on it.   A certian brothel is starting to be the talk of the town, and get more and more customers, while old customers are discouraged to return as the clients become more and more exclusive, including prominent members of the city, like politicians. The odd part is this brothel is compleatly underground and access to it is in the sewers. The first part of the adventure is combing the sewers to try and find it, or socializing at least to find the quickest route. In traveling the sewers it's discovered by the party when they meet the old bum that was responcible for releasing monstrous creatures like Othyguyths, Gelatnious cubes and even quippers in the sewers to keep it clean, as they eat refuge and stool. After the first few deaths, he was forced to live among his kind, due to public outcry. He knows some of the lay of the land, and is able to socialize with these monsters enough he can avoid being killed by them , if careful.     Closer to the coast, a young bronze dragon keeps a fishery of giant crabs. Both to feed itself and the comming young. The crabs also dont wander too far out of it's lair because they get destroyed by the cubes and othyguths. After hacking through "Crabgarden" the players come across the dragon. It dislikes how men and women have been wandering the sewers and more than one have stumbled into it's home. The dragon does not dislike humans and demi-humans, but it wants it privacy maintained while it keeps watch on it's eggs. So it offeres "rusty, sunken treasures" if the source of the visitors can be stopped.   When the players find the brothel, it is extremly modern and glamerous, more like nio-niore ebberon club in Sharn, than a Forgotten Realms one kept in the sewers of Baulder's Gate. It reeks of money. The first thing players will see is six finger handprints in the cement, like the walk of fame on hollywood blvd. -more later.
#3 sleypy Sep 07, 2015 5:26:48	I think the Undercellar would be the ideal location for what you're describing compared to the Blushing Mermaid. For one, the Black gate is the entrance to the Upper City so it would share locations. The would have to go past two security check-points going into the city and then again going into the Lower city. (It might be easier to just take their wagons through the Basilisk gate.) Two, the Undercellar, tavern, leads to the Undercellar catacombs. Which would allow them to move through the city unnoticed by the city guards or mercenaries.    On page 30 of the campaign guide, there is paying for "burl" to avoid the merc or other persons. It is basically sanctuary. The cult could buy up houses in the worse parts of the Lower city and Outer city to take advantage of the desperate people seeking refuge. The paying for "burl" is an odd quirk of the city that the players might find a use for down the road. Might also be interesting if they fell victim to this Cultist scheme.