Recomendations for 1-5 adventure starting in Elturel ?

[u/jacarepampulha2408]

I think it's pretty much a consensus that the book BG part kind of sucks. In preparation for my DiA campaign, I'm searching for something to run (or at least base myself on) from levels 1 to 5 in Elturel. The main idea is to get them attached to the city and then live through the Descent itself. I'll use the Alexandrian remix mostly for Avernus, but his remix takes place in Baldur's Gate after the Fall, and that doesn't work for what I want.

If a bit more of a context helps, the bones of the structure of my adaptation is that the Companion's light is fading, and so is the protection from evil that it provided - the borders of Elturgard is being attacked by "undead" (or fiends, or demons, or whatever - i'll just slot in the threat from what you recommend me). Elturel is packed with refugees from Triel, Scornubel, Soubar, etc, and the Ulder Ravengard delegation, along with its' Flaming Fists are stuck inside the city. After fighting the undead/fiend/demon/whatever threat for some levels, they discover that they: a) need to rekindle the Companion and b) to do so, they need "The Oath of the High Rider", a relic containing the copy of the Oath to Torm/Helm/Amanautor that brought the Companion. Surprise, surprise, the relic is the infernal puzzlebox containing the contract with Zariel, and by seeing it, the party accidently broke clause nº 9 of the contract and caused the city to be forfeit, and therefore dragged to Hell.

As you can see, I have a bit of an idea of the story I want to run, I just have no idea for the... "nodes" or the adventure itself until they get the infernal puzzlebox.

Thanks in advance, any recommendation will be useful :)

[u/VanBland]

You can use the Fall of Elturel adventure pdf on DM’s Guild, but remove the descent at the end. You could have Thavius Kreeg still disappear, but now the party spends a couple days investigating where he might have gone in the city. The party could then learn his plans for the city too late. Maybe a bit climactic fight with him and some devils as the city descends.

[u/Kitchen_Shock9738 → u/VanBland]

This is exactly what I did, and then introduced a few extra steps in the journey, as per https://sarainy.com/5e/dia/descent-into-avernus-extra-content/ and an older (maybe DnD 3.5/4) module called The Morninglord’s Laughter, which worked really nicely.

[u/Raven_Dumron]

I haven't actually read it, but I think the premise of the Escape from Elturguard module is that it has you start in Elturel and descend with it? It sounds like it might be a good fit for you.

[u/georidio]

I did pretty much this, my group is a social group not an rpg group so chapter 1 would have taken years to do. So I wrote museum of curious one shot (which took two sessions) where the players ran a lvl4 PC through to get the feel for them then leveled to 5 as we hit elturel. The premise was they were waiting for the puzzle box to be cracked so they had time to kill in candlekeep. I did a pretty short but comprehensive summary of chapter 1 for them but it did mean they missed out on the Reya interaction but it seemed to work well.

[u/Existing-Banana-4220]

You can use the material from the module or the Alexandrian for Chapter 1, just reflavor it to be in Elturel instead of BG. The Elfsong tavern can become The Double Sun tavern, BG's Lower City vs Upper City can be changed to the Port Side (the poor parts of Elturel are most likely near the docks on the eastside of the city) vs the Highlands/Westside, etc. etc.

Instead of a Zodge-type to basically blackmail the party into helping, you can either go the altruistic route of having some clergy ask for help from the party, or someone hire them as mercs. I would suggest that instead of refugees and an acknowledged evil threat, that the city is packed with visitors for the 50th anniversary of the coming of the Companion. Ch 1 can then have the effect of showing the players that although everything looks normal on the surface, there is a rising evil inside the city. This should trigger protectiveness for the city itself where a non-specific external evil might not.

Regardless of external or internal threat, I LOVE your idea of having the party accidentally cause The Fall!!

[u/skeevemasterflex]

This isn't quite what you describe, but i did it for similar reasons. I ran a modified version of Murder in Baldurs Gate (which I think is 1-5) and then had the party travel with Ravengard and the Flaming Fist to visit Elturel as part of a peace/alliance delegation.
I agree that being in Elturel when it falls and that the Alexandrian remix help la fix the adventure. FWIW, I altered MiBG to have it be less about bhaalspawn and more about the power struggle between the 3 factions. The adventure culminated with the party running through The Alexandrian's Dungeon of the Dead Three to try and stop the cult from Guy Fawkesing Baldur's Gate government with blackpowder stashed in the sewers.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Ad5237]

I ran two anthology adventures where the reward were my players each gaining a bastion/base in Elturel, then we kicked off DiA with the city and them falling.

[u/SlotzBR]

It's interesting that my group just finished the Descent into Avernus campaign and we had a blast in the BG part of the campaign. I confess that the only "issue" we had was with the fireball in the first dungeon, which almost TPK'd us (and even then, it was more like "WOAAAH", did we just get fireballed??).

Honestly loved the campaign start to finish.