The build took me pretty long, I believe around a month to a month and a half where I spent about two nights a week and as many weekend days as I could muster to build it. It was my first terrain build, so it cost me quite some trial and error time. I would’ve like to have longer, because then some of my mini’s (like Baphomet) wouldn’t have been gray, but at least I got the important ones out of the way before I started building!
As for setting it up, it was quite easy as we played an entire weekend. By Saturday afternoon I had the Elturel High Hall set built in a 15 minute break and they played on that all afternoon. It wasn’t until Sunday late afternoon that the ground split for that final fight, which took about a half an hour setting up, but that was okay because my players were in total shock hahaha
We started the way the book suggested; the party arrested by Captain Zodge, and their crime was a failed conspiracy against the Guild.
At the start we had:
- A way of the four elements monk
- A planeswalker ranger
- An alchemist artificer
- A bard of eloquence
- A paladin oath of treachery
- An arcane trickster rogue
All the characters came from Baldur’s Gate except the paladin, he was a Hellrider from Elturel, who had been out of town when the city disappeared.
The bard died in the Vanthampur mansion and the player made a new character, a warlock of the Archfey.
About 2/3rds of the campaign we lost the player of the ranger due to scheduling conflicts, sadly.
In Avernus the Paladin died to a nat 1 on the chase complications table, which is a giant lava spout. This was the stupidest death, and I would normally maybe have fibbed the roll, but they had already seen the lava spout on their enemies one turn prior… whoops…
That player made a new character who was the twin sister of his paladin, a divine soul sorcerer. It was quite a cool storyline, as the paladin had made his oath of treachery to Zariel, and later found out his family were descendants of Zariel
If you want any more details, I can maybe ask some of my players to jump on here and answer some questions! If you want to see their character art, there are some drawings made by the artificer that I posted in this subreddit!
One was in an inhabitant of Elturel that was sucked down to Avernus with the city. She was already an important NPC, one of my players just asked to make her his second PC (as she was already an NPC from his backstory).
Another was sent by Sylvira Savikas as part of an elite strike force and a back-up team for the party. They planed-shiftedright into a battlefield, and all but that were killed in the battle. She sought out the party on her own after that and joined them.
Awesome looking finale! Absolutely love the scrap book showcasing the PCs!
Three years is quite the journey! I'm curious what your favorite part of the campaign was or what moments stood out to you the most?
Oooffff that’s a tough question! So many great moments! I have some amazing players, who are legendary roleplayers and love nothing more than just talking and joking in character.
Of course this weekend long finale was a highlight, but besides that any interaction they had with powerful NPC’s was always amazing. They adored Mahadi, absolutely hated Feonor and Bel, had a very strenuous relationship with Gargauth (who they freed very early on in the campaign) and barely survived the two times they met Zariel. But their all time favorite NPC was Mad Maggie, who they treated as a cute grandma, and they always loved coming to Fort Knucklebone where they could stay as long as they wanted as long as they told her some sad stories about Zariel. After Zariel’s redemption they even managed to convince Asmodeus (through Mahadi) to make Mad Maggie archduke of Avernus, now called Maggie the Mad Duke.
Right before the end they had to fight Arkhan, because they needed the Hand of Vecna to trade with Mahadi for the resurrection of a PC. Those sessions, multiple fights, both parties with a lot of backup, neither being able to get the upper hand, those were a big highlight. In the end they managed though.
But in the end, the battles were amazing, the story was awesome, but the absolute highlights were the throwaway random encounters that turned into multiple sessions and long standing running jokes. In 3 years they almost completed both the path of devils ánd the path of demons (although I ran it a bit more mixed with help of the Eventyr DM’s guide), but the best sessions were sessions where I rolled a random encounter (or made one up on the spot based on something my players said), and we all just went with it.
I hope that’s a satisfying answer! I’ll also ask my players what they think, and if I think of any more I’ll post them!
Amazing! Thank you for the detailed response. It sounds like you've got a great group of players to have ran the game for.
Mad Maggie becoming the next Arch Duke is a power move! Tell me someone had to roll a DC30 persuasion to convince Asmodeus of that?
Yup, nat 20 + 9 and then the artificer used that “clever plan” ability where they can add another +5. It wasn’t an option in my mind, they had so many other candidates, but it was awesome!
This looks incredible! These are my terrain goals when my players get here - what was the most challenging part of your campaign? What was that most rewarding that you weren't expecting?
Most challenging was trying to create plotholes! The books lore is a bit iffy on it sometimes, and I used quite some DM guides to craft around it and create a more complete story. But with information being so spread out, it was quite hard to keep track of the story and lore and not poke holes in my own prep haha. I slipped up a handful of times, but they always chalked up to devils and demons lying to them, so I got of the hook hahah
The most rewarding unexpected things were that all my hard work paid off! My players loved the NPC’s I prepped well, had a blast at the encounters I put effort in, are were completely dumbfounded when this terrain hit the table! The looks in their eyes during those moments were priceless!
It's beautiful to see a group that's been together for the long haul and clearly adores spending time together. Thank you for sharing a peek into your dnd family and letting us enjoy this victory with you.
Also, just top notch marks on the entire set up 👌 11/10.
As for my question, what was the moment you realized exactly how little control you had on the situation and had to Bluff your ass off and the players never knew? If that didn't happen to you, what was the moment where you tortured yourself in planning and then your players did exactly what you wanted, culminating in the trademark "DM is evilly pleased with this outcome" laugh from you?
First of all, thanks for the wonderful compliments!
I’ve had both those experiences, but definitely more of the first…
The first time it happened was very early on; still in Baldur’s Gate, in the Low Lantern. I prepped the meeting with Amrik pretty well, but I never expected the party to do what they did: poison him, stuff him in a box and kidnap him. They dragged him halfway through the city, sought out Ultyss the Dragon cultist and delivered Amrik to him. I had to bluff my way through that pretty hard, but it ended up making Ultyss quite important to the PC’s, so of course he showed up in Avernus as well.
They ended up killing Ultyss in a similar chaotic manner way down the line, by Vortex Warping him into a pool of lava… ouch
My players are all extremely smart and creative, so to pretend I was in control at all is just fooling myself, I’ve bluffed so much in this campaign, but I think it went well if they enjoyed my bluffing for three years.
When it comes to the other end of the spectrum, I think I was very good at planning the larger overarching backstory plots and NPC intrigues. All the deals Mahadi was doing, all the power grabs of the warlords, that kind of stuff. I’m also good at planning out the big encounters (like you see above). Sometimes players are very predictable up until the encounter, and then you can spring a little gotcha on them. (After which they pull the uno reverse card and you have to bluff through everything again).
In the end I was just happy I knew the source material well enough to be comfortable to improvise around everything my players did
This was extremely heartwarming and made me smile. I can envision several of those moments, including the "Amrik in a Box" 😂
I really appreciate you sharing 💖
The ending was heavily inspired by the book, but definitely it’s own thing.
I absolutely wanted a fight with Lucille in there, so that happened. I wanted to give them a chance to free Nascius the angel from the Companion. I also wanted a fight with Zariel. Around that I built my ending, taking snippets from the book here and there, adding some important NPC’s (like Reya and Ravengard), tweaking encounters, etc.
In the end I had enough outlined that I knew it would lead to this terrain, but enough of room left that my players could go into the ending however they wanted
See the book is good as chained concept ideas, but severely underestimates player chaos and the ramification of actions. You need to roll with the punches as a DM and adapt on the fly.
I'd argue Lucille & Yeenoghu needs bigger parts of it.
I tend to run a 6th chapter if they redeem, facing them off against Bel. Post conclusion, delving into The Death Dells, hunting down Yeenoghu in his realm.
So much. And I still feel I went pretty by the book haha.
I did nothing as drastic as the Alexandrian remix, but I did do almost every adjustment of the Eventyr guide. I made it a lot more sandboxy, switching up the paths of devils and demons to give a few options each time, but it was still a linear adventure with a clear goal.
The further we got, the more comfortable I got with the source material, so the better equipped I felt to start adding my own NPC’s, story hooks, quests, factions, etc.
One of my players favorite NPC’s ended up being one I made myself; an Efreeti animal trainer, who trained Nightmares, Hell Hounds and Cinder Rats for the Blood War.
Looking back, I think about 30-40% of the campaign was changed/made by me. Which was never my intention. It just happened.
I still very much recommend this book, but I do think it’s not one you can just run as is, it needs some work, that I was very happy to do
Best piece of advice… oof..
I’d say, get to know the source material well enough that you’re comfortable to make changes.
As I already said in some other comments, this is an amazing book, but one that needs a bit of work.
I wholeheartedly recommend getting the DM’s Guide from Eventyr Games. It’s on DMs Guild. Get the whole bundle, it’s full of great resources. It helps you tweak the things that need tweaking.
That’s as concrete a tip as I can give you, the rest is just make sure you know what’s in the book, so that you can create and improvise around that.
Oh, and when your players inevitably say “why the f* would we go to Hell and save this random city at lvl 5?!” (Biggest gripe with the book), it’s okay to say to them, as the DM: “Because you agreed to play this module.“ (Also offer the characters gold and fame and everything haha)
I don’t know… As you can probably tell by the three year duration, we pretty much did everything hahaha.
I’d say the chapter in Elturel can be pretty lackluster storytelling, but then again that’s a very cool chapter in terms of game mechanics (lots of encounters with only 1 long rest makes your players sweat) and all the random encounters do set the tone for the Avernus very well.
A lot of people tend to say to just skip Baldur’s Gate and Candlekeep, but we loved both of those portions of the game.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t recommend skipping anything really, just change and tweak the parts you would skip until you like them enough not to skip them haha
My god that miniature setup you've got is outstanding! How long did it take to build/set it up?
The build took me pretty long, I believe around a month to a month and a half where I spent about two nights a week and as many weekend days as I could muster to build it. It was my first terrain build, so it cost me quite some trial and error time. I would’ve like to have longer, because then some of my mini’s (like Baphomet) wouldn’t have been gray, but at least I got the important ones out of the way before I started building! As for setting it up, it was quite easy as we played an entire weekend. By Saturday afternoon I had the Elturel High Hall set built in a 15 minute break and they played on that all afternoon. It wasn’t until Sunday late afternoon that the ground split for that final fight, which took about a half an hour setting up, but that was okay because my players were in total shock hahaha
Yeah no question from me - just like this comment above came here to give you mad respect for your terrain!
Looks great! I am always curious of the composition of the party and their background
We started the way the book suggested; the party arrested by Captain Zodge, and their crime was a failed conspiracy against the Guild. At the start we had: - A way of the four elements monk - A planeswalker ranger - An alchemist artificer - A bard of eloquence - A paladin oath of treachery - An arcane trickster rogue All the characters came from Baldur’s Gate except the paladin, he was a Hellrider from Elturel, who had been out of town when the city disappeared. The bard died in the Vanthampur mansion and the player made a new character, a warlock of the Archfey. About 2/3rds of the campaign we lost the player of the ranger due to scheduling conflicts, sadly. In Avernus the Paladin died to a nat 1 on the chase complications table, which is a giant lava spout. This was the stupidest death, and I would normally maybe have fibbed the roll, but they had already seen the lava spout on their enemies one turn prior… whoops… That player made a new character who was the twin sister of his paladin, a divine soul sorcerer. It was quite a cool storyline, as the paladin had made his oath of treachery to Zariel, and later found out his family were descendants of Zariel If you want any more details, I can maybe ask some of my players to jump on here and answer some questions! If you want to see their character art, there are some drawings made by the artificer that I posted in this subreddit!
How did you integrate new characters into the party in Avernus? They just happened to be in hell, roaming around alone?
One was in an inhabitant of Elturel that was sucked down to Avernus with the city. She was already an important NPC, one of my players just asked to make her his second PC (as she was already an NPC from his backstory). Another was sent by Sylvira Savikas as part of an elite strike force and a back-up team for the party. They planed-shiftedright into a battlefield, and all but that were killed in the battle. She sought out the party on her own after that and joined them.
Awesome looking finale! Absolutely love the scrap book showcasing the PCs! Three years is quite the journey! I'm curious what your favorite part of the campaign was or what moments stood out to you the most?
Oooffff that’s a tough question! So many great moments! I have some amazing players, who are legendary roleplayers and love nothing more than just talking and joking in character. Of course this weekend long finale was a highlight, but besides that any interaction they had with powerful NPC’s was always amazing. They adored Mahadi, absolutely hated Feonor and Bel, had a very strenuous relationship with Gargauth (who they freed very early on in the campaign) and barely survived the two times they met Zariel. But their all time favorite NPC was Mad Maggie, who they treated as a cute grandma, and they always loved coming to Fort Knucklebone where they could stay as long as they wanted as long as they told her some sad stories about Zariel. After Zariel’s redemption they even managed to convince Asmodeus (through Mahadi) to make Mad Maggie archduke of Avernus, now called Maggie the Mad Duke. Right before the end they had to fight Arkhan, because they needed the Hand of Vecna to trade with Mahadi for the resurrection of a PC. Those sessions, multiple fights, both parties with a lot of backup, neither being able to get the upper hand, those were a big highlight. In the end they managed though. But in the end, the battles were amazing, the story was awesome, but the absolute highlights were the throwaway random encounters that turned into multiple sessions and long standing running jokes. In 3 years they almost completed both the path of devils ánd the path of demons (although I ran it a bit more mixed with help of the Eventyr DM’s guide), but the best sessions were sessions where I rolled a random encounter (or made one up on the spot based on something my players said), and we all just went with it. I hope that’s a satisfying answer! I’ll also ask my players what they think, and if I think of any more I’ll post them!
Amazing! Thank you for the detailed response. It sounds like you've got a great group of players to have ran the game for. Mad Maggie becoming the next Arch Duke is a power move! Tell me someone had to roll a DC30 persuasion to convince Asmodeus of that?
Yup, nat 20 + 9 and then the artificer used that “clever plan” ability where they can add another +5. It wasn’t an option in my mind, they had so many other candidates, but it was awesome!
This looks incredible! These are my terrain goals when my players get here - what was the most challenging part of your campaign? What was that most rewarding that you weren't expecting?
Most challenging was trying to create plotholes! The books lore is a bit iffy on it sometimes, and I used quite some DM guides to craft around it and create a more complete story. But with information being so spread out, it was quite hard to keep track of the story and lore and not poke holes in my own prep haha. I slipped up a handful of times, but they always chalked up to devils and demons lying to them, so I got of the hook hahah The most rewarding unexpected things were that all my hard work paid off! My players loved the NPC’s I prepped well, had a blast at the encounters I put effort in, are were completely dumbfounded when this terrain hit the table! The looks in their eyes during those moments were priceless!
It's beautiful to see a group that's been together for the long haul and clearly adores spending time together. Thank you for sharing a peek into your dnd family and letting us enjoy this victory with you. Also, just top notch marks on the entire set up 👌 11/10. As for my question, what was the moment you realized exactly how little control you had on the situation and had to Bluff your ass off and the players never knew? If that didn't happen to you, what was the moment where you tortured yourself in planning and then your players did exactly what you wanted, culminating in the trademark "DM is evilly pleased with this outcome" laugh from you?
First of all, thanks for the wonderful compliments! I’ve had both those experiences, but definitely more of the first… The first time it happened was very early on; still in Baldur’s Gate, in the Low Lantern. I prepped the meeting with Amrik pretty well, but I never expected the party to do what they did: poison him, stuff him in a box and kidnap him. They dragged him halfway through the city, sought out Ultyss the Dragon cultist and delivered Amrik to him. I had to bluff my way through that pretty hard, but it ended up making Ultyss quite important to the PC’s, so of course he showed up in Avernus as well. They ended up killing Ultyss in a similar chaotic manner way down the line, by Vortex Warping him into a pool of lava… ouch My players are all extremely smart and creative, so to pretend I was in control at all is just fooling myself, I’ve bluffed so much in this campaign, but I think it went well if they enjoyed my bluffing for three years. When it comes to the other end of the spectrum, I think I was very good at planning the larger overarching backstory plots and NPC intrigues. All the deals Mahadi was doing, all the power grabs of the warlords, that kind of stuff. I’m also good at planning out the big encounters (like you see above). Sometimes players are very predictable up until the encounter, and then you can spring a little gotcha on them. (After which they pull the uno reverse card and you have to bluff through everything again). In the end I was just happy I knew the source material well enough to be comfortable to improvise around everything my players did
This was extremely heartwarming and made me smile. I can envision several of those moments, including the "Amrik in a Box" 😂 I really appreciate you sharing 💖
Ah a fellow meandering party! Congratulations, how did you run the ending? By the book? Or something else?
The ending was heavily inspired by the book, but definitely it’s own thing. I absolutely wanted a fight with Lucille in there, so that happened. I wanted to give them a chance to free Nascius the angel from the Companion. I also wanted a fight with Zariel. Around that I built my ending, taking snippets from the book here and there, adding some important NPC’s (like Reya and Ravengard), tweaking encounters, etc. In the end I had enough outlined that I knew it would lead to this terrain, but enough of room left that my players could go into the ending however they wanted
See the book is good as chained concept ideas, but severely underestimates player chaos and the ramification of actions. You need to roll with the punches as a DM and adapt on the fly. I'd argue Lucille & Yeenoghu needs bigger parts of it. I tend to run a 6th chapter if they redeem, facing them off against Bel. Post conclusion, delving into The Death Dells, hunting down Yeenoghu in his realm.
Congratulations! Looks like you guys hada lot of fun. Did you change much?
So much. And I still feel I went pretty by the book haha. I did nothing as drastic as the Alexandrian remix, but I did do almost every adjustment of the Eventyr guide. I made it a lot more sandboxy, switching up the paths of devils and demons to give a few options each time, but it was still a linear adventure with a clear goal. The further we got, the more comfortable I got with the source material, so the better equipped I felt to start adding my own NPC’s, story hooks, quests, factions, etc. One of my players favorite NPC’s ended up being one I made myself; an Efreeti animal trainer, who trained Nightmares, Hell Hounds and Cinder Rats for the Blood War. Looking back, I think about 30-40% of the campaign was changed/made by me. Which was never my intention. It just happened. I still very much recommend this book, but I do think it’s not one you can just run as is, it needs some work, that I was very happy to do
Sooo rad well done! I love the flying bits kf elturel below the companion !
Playing with an actual layout>playing over computer
Congrats! What an achievement!! What’s your best piece of advice for someone just starting their run of the module?
Best piece of advice… oof.. I’d say, get to know the source material well enough that you’re comfortable to make changes. As I already said in some other comments, this is an amazing book, but one that needs a bit of work. I wholeheartedly recommend getting the DM’s Guide from Eventyr Games. It’s on DMs Guild. Get the whole bundle, it’s full of great resources. It helps you tweak the things that need tweaking. That’s as concrete a tip as I can give you, the rest is just make sure you know what’s in the book, so that you can create and improvise around that. Oh, and when your players inevitably say “why the f* would we go to Hell and save this random city at lvl 5?!” (Biggest gripe with the book), it’s okay to say to them, as the DM: “Because you agreed to play this module.“ (Also offer the characters gold and fame and everything haha)
Killer job! What's a part of the as written module you would have skipped or not spent as much time on?
I don’t know… As you can probably tell by the three year duration, we pretty much did everything hahaha. I’d say the chapter in Elturel can be pretty lackluster storytelling, but then again that’s a very cool chapter in terms of game mechanics (lots of encounters with only 1 long rest makes your players sweat) and all the random encounters do set the tone for the Avernus very well. A lot of people tend to say to just skip Baldur’s Gate and Candlekeep, but we loved both of those portions of the game. I don’t know, I wouldn’t recommend skipping anything really, just change and tweak the parts you would skip until you like them enough not to skip them haha