11. HOTDQ - Baldur's Gate

11. HOTDQ – Baldur’s Gate

LiquidAnalog

March 1, 2024

This is part 11 of my guide for Hoard of the Dragon’s Queen campaign. You can read all chapters of this guide here:

Episode 4 – The big city

Well well. So now we arrive to arguably the biggest gaping hole in the entire book – The Baldur’s Gate section of the module. This section is described in one paragraph in the book, and you are basically expected to work this out yourself from all available content. I get there are page count constraints when publishing a campaign book, but come on. As a DM I found it a nasty surprise.

Do not fret – we have the Internets! Baldur’s Gate is a huge city, with dozens of highly detailed locations and places of interest. Luckily there is an abundance of information, lore and descriptions available – the challenge is of course on you, the DM, to absorb and learn this huge city, so you get it to live for your players.

Here are some starting points for the Baldur’s Gate setting:

I want to highlight the best resource: Murder in Baldur’s Gate, a $10 adventure set in Baldur’s Gate, spends the entire first half of the book to introduce you to the city, its vibe, its customs and factions. Those chapters are superb. This module is highly recommended even if you don’t plan to run the adventure (which looks very good to me for another time) – as it takes real effort to describe the life in baldur’s gate in great detail.

Be ready…

As I wrote above, your challenge is that once the players find they have a few days to spend in the city, you better be very ready to describe the sights of the sprawling city between the two mountains. You have the opportunity to describe the taxation at the gates that causes long queues before the evening gate closing time. Maybe some thugs happen to roam the streets through the mists after dark to spice things? What will the townsfolk recommend as their favorite inn (Blade and Stars or Blushing Mermaid?), and be ready to describe and lead the heroes into the famous magic shop Sorcerous Sundries – which your players will undoubtably run into immediately as they hear about it, to gather some highly needed magical items with all the loot they found so far… And all of that in a live city that could not care less for the chase the heroes are in.

Allow the heroes to blend in, roam the streets, the shops, the gates, the inns – and interact with the city. Describe the mists, the chill, the people going on their daily errands – low income folk on the lower city, and servants and nobles on the upper city. This is an iconic location, and if the players never been there, its your role to make it the memorable location it deserves to be.

Here are some highlights and fun places to visit.

Felogyr’s Fireworks

A colorful alchemy shop. Adventurers can buy there colorful torches, smoke grenades, fireworks with possibly harmless illusions, colored chalks, quick fire starters, and other light smoky things.

Eastway Expeditions

Adventuring gear shop. The owner will gladly sell you his “jungle-proof” or “dinosaur-deterring” equipment.

Sorcerous Sundries

A colorful (really, they have colored glass ceilings) magical items shop. Sells common magical items – everything is highly guarded magically, of course.

Ramazith’s Tower

Trade wisdom and knowledge with priests of Ohgma and Gond.

The wide

A huge open market in the upper city. You will find many things there! Beware of pickpockets.

Hall of Wonders

A museum of inventions in the upper city.

Major NPCs in Baldur’s Gate

Its a huge city. But a few NPCs are material to the trajectory of this story.

Ackyn Selebon

This is the most important contact for the heroes in Baldur’s Gate, as he is a trusted supplier by Ontharr, and a member of the Harpers, so the heroes can trust him with details on their mission as they see fit.

He can provide them with information, opening an eye on the FoxTraveller for any suspicious activity, suppling them with a wagon if they wish, and also masquerading service in the form of Miriel the makeup and disguise artist that can help set them on the way with false wigs and cloths.

Aravax FoxTraveler

As mentioned on the note they found on Cyanwrath, this is the point of contact all of the Cult of the Dragon carts will contact as they arrive to Baldur’s Gate. This is a major opportunity for the heroes to follow – either bullshit their way as cultists, join one of the caravans as guards, or just as another regular cart.

Adapt to where the players want to take this: Do they want Ackyn do the eavesdropping and tell them whats going on there? Or do you want to do it themselves – which might risk them getting exposed, and lose the trail?

The Sage – Adrian Trent

Here is another major NPC I injected here. Adrian the sage is a tall and thin 60 year-old human, living in a nice house on the upper city, and loves to provide his knowledge or research on challenging new questions.
You should provide this contact by Ontharr Frume – if you missed this, maybe Aravax can provide the lead, or your trusty innkeeper.

I think having a Sage at this point in the story is highly important – the heroes should have tons of unanswered questions from their encounters with the cult – the riddle in the shrine, the hint of a mask, and trying to uncover what is this huge and sinister operation the cult is doing.

Adrian will love to help (for a reasonable 100 GP per hour…), but once he sees some of the materials they have he might get very interested personally, and might make a deal with the heroes for more books if they can find them.

See sections 4 and 5 of my Lore and Secrets Reveal chapter for the detailed info they get from Adrian on their first meeting, and after they bring him the rare book “The Flaming Dark” from the haunted house (see next chapter).

Next: 12. HOTDQ – Episode 4 part V – The Death house