12. HOTDQ - The Death house

12. HOTDQ – The Death house

LiquidAnalog

March 1, 2024

This is part 12 of my guide for Hoard of the Dragon’s Queen campaign. You can read all chapters of this guide here:

Episode 4 – A mini dungeon in Baldur’s Gate

So, this is an complete injection on my part, and of course its totally optional. I felt that as the heroes were about to compete their business in Baldur’s Gate, and before their long caravan foray into the unknown, that there is a dire need for a complete change of tone.

See – Up to this point, there is so much “open world” – roads, river and now a complete city to explore. But a long time passed since the players did any good old dungeon crawl – the last was very long ago at the caves – and the next one is far away. So I felt a mini dungeon here was highly craved, and I was right.

Why get there? How to connect it to the story?

I triggered this mini adventure as means for the heroes to gather a critical piece of lore and information – a rare book about Tiamat’s history called “The Flaming Dark” (my invention). Mentioning this by the sage was enough to send the heroes boldly into the last place where this tome has been seen years ago – a house the locals didn’t dare to enter, and which tested their resolve and character (and also their lives).

What is it?

I used the fantastic module The Death House from the Curse of Strahd book (freely available as PDF from Wizards here). This is a superb mini-adventure for levels 1-3, designed as an introductory module for the Curse of Strahd campaign. This is perfect for me as this serves as brilliant foreshadowing for the upcoming Curse of Strahd campaign (which will start right after this one). But you definitely dont have to tie it into the Ravenloft campaign – If you also plan your heroes to get to Barovia one day, keep the references as they are described – but if not, its easy to change the minor Barovia references to some other Baldur’s Gate ones.

How to run it?

There are lots of references you can find online. Here are a few worhty advices:

Death House Script, by Wyatt Trull – a pay as you wish PDF – is an amazing resource. My main praise here is on the evocative tone – where each room is dripping with flavor and prose. I used it thoroughly as my main interface to the players – the module is constantly mixing descriptions, monsters, behind the scenes and secrets, and this aid gives you the rich descriptions your players need.
Escaping the Death House, by the same Wyatt Trull – again a brilliant way to handle the escape sequence from the depths of the house.
Lessons from running the Death House – very useful and evocative tips and ideas.