Waterdeep: Decent into Avernus

[Gydian]

After seeing the youtube video by XP to level 3 on the idiocy of the Baldur's Gate's beginning of that adventure and running the adventure twice I thought how about mashing up Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, which I have also run and been aplayer, with Avernus.

The idea of taking the summer story of Dragon Heist and ending it with a trip to hell, I think would make a better story.

What pointers would you recommend for merging these two adventures?

[MrCharlie]

After seeing the youtube video by XP to level 3 on the idiocy of the Baldur's Gate's beginning of that adventure and running the adventure twice I thought how about mashing up Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, which I have also run and been aplayer, with Avernus.

The idea of taking the summer story of Dragon Heist and ending it with a trip to hell, I think would make a better story.

What pointers would you recommend for merging these two adventures?
There is actually some great "could be" foreshadowing for a potential Avernus trip in the persons of the Cassalanters whom are looking for the money. If you make them the main villains, then you can easily tie it in wholesale.

Potentially make it so that their plot, previously to sacrifice the money to the archeduke of hell, also has some text as a ritual enabling Waterdeep to go the way of Elturel or otherwise establish the Cassalanters as people with the eventual power to do so. Potentially via giving them the authority to become lords of waterdeep, and then pull the same form of "as your lord I damn thee" plot responsible for Elturels damnation.

As a tie in, have the party discover that the plot for Waterdeep was associated with some plot in Elturel, then goad them into traveling there at the end of the adventure to unravel what's going on there.

Then cause the city to be teleported straight to hell, with them inside.

I'd also make Asmodeus a recurring greater scope villain in the story behind the scenes, and have him subtly intricate himself with the players via visions and casual "chats with the devil". It makes no sense that he'd be completely uninvolved in the plot of Avernus, which contains such a serious threat to his battleground plane and its ruler, so having him attempt to play the players as his cats paws is a great way to build drama and do justice to the conniving lord of the hells.

And yeah, Baldurs Gate is a mess. While the politics of the city and the dungeon of the dead three are interesting, the unoffical mini-boss of that dungeon is more lethal than the final boss (I literally completely one-shot killed a player from full health with him, which was hilariously f'ed up) and the entire section is rail-roady and poorly written.

I also feel that there is a more perfect version of dragon heist (which I have a high opinion of) where all four villains are active at the same time to varying degrees, and the Cassalanters are one of the most committed.

[Gydian]

The Cassalanters was who I had in mind.

What about having Zeriel be the one that they made the deal with that they are trying to renege?

[Unoriginal]

The Cassalanters was who I had in mind.

What about having Zeriel be the one that they made the deal with that they are trying to renege?

Zariel really isn't the kind to do the type of deal the Cassalanters went for, and she's not the kind to offer an escape condition in her deals either.

However, Zariel could contact the Cassalanters as the moment to pay approaches and offer to be the one to pay the escape condition, in exchange for their allegiance. That amount of gold and that amount of sacrifices are things Zariel can afford without issue, and then the Cassalanters can work to damn Waterdeep like Elturiel was.

Something that I would personally do is to have the Cult of Tiamat contact the PCs and offer a genuine alliance, the moment the Cassalanter shift from Asmodeus to Zariel.

[Gydian]

Interesting.

Thoughts on how to introduce Lulu? Or maybe not at all. I am experimenting with the idea of a different guide to take her place.

[4sigma]

I've twice run parties through Dragon Heist and used it as a prelude to Avernus. Has worked well both times.

I would not change the Cassalanters. You probably do want them alive at the end of Dragon Heist, but presumably having failed at obtaining the gold, and the ensuing consequences for them in Dragon Heist. You might hook them back into Avernus somehow via Mahadi, who is Asmodeus' agent there.

One time when I ran the adventure, my PCs bit off more than they could chew and got caught poking around the Cassalanter villa in places where they definitely should not have been. One of my players was a warlock fiend pact with Glasya has his patron, so when the party was doomed to be destroyed by the Cassalanters I let Glasya offer them a deal to get out of it but now they owe her a bunch of soul coins. (Victoro Cassalanter also conveniently modified their memories of their visit to the villa, so they didn't remember seeing anything they shouldn't have seen there.) Your Waterdeep presumably won't run quite like this, but if your party does something stupid in Waterdeep, you can certainly hook the two adventures together by having an archdevil of your choice offer them a deal to get out of what would otherwise surely be a TPK, in exchange for something they promise to do for them on Avernus.

I ran Dragon Heist otherwise more or less as written. Then at the conclusion when they were all level 5, got them down to Baldur's Gate via Isle of Abbey from the Saltmarsh adventures. You basically need them to pick up the puzzle box somewhere (I had it drop in the Isle of Abbey), meet Reya in BG to learn what happened to Elturel (I had Reya meet them at whatever was the first tavern they went to in town), and then get them over to Candlekeep. Once you're at Candlekeep with Reya and the puzzle box, you're rolling straight into the rest of Descent into Avernus. I did leave out the Shield of the Hidden Lord. If you want to incorporate that you can drop it along the way somewhere, but I'd skip the dungeons in BG as written.

[4sigma]

Interesting.

Thoughts on how to introduce Lulu? Or maybe not at all. I am experimenting with the idea of a different guide to take her place.

I thought about skipping Lulu but decided to include her. Was very glad that I did. You certainly can have a different guide to take her place if you want. My parties were pretty fond of her though.

[Unoriginal]

You could introduce Lulu by having Silverhand introduce the angel as an old friend of hers and " someone who went to Hell and came back".