15. A Tadpole Among Us 

This unfortunate test subject is about to meet his new best friend.

Social deduction games are great halfway points between RPG and more traditional board games, so why not combine them to make a tense and exciting campaign? This adventure forces players to work together while also making them question who exactly they can trust, and who’s soon to turn into a monstrous creature and attack their former friends! This campaign requires a huge level of investment and participation from all players so nobody spoils the surprise too early, so make sure you pick your “traitor” carefully!

The adventure starts in a strange chamber with huge, chitinous walls and columns, and players wake up as they drop from horrific pods, groggy and dazed. When they collect their wits, they learn they’re in a mind-flayer lair as a tentacled scientist’s latest test subjects.

As they proceed through the twisting hallways while looking for a way out, they enter a room where the doors slam shut and a bizarre eye stalk emerges from the roof and looks over the players. After checking them all, it retracts and a voice sounds: “IMPLANTED TADPOLE DETECTED. ALLOWING BASIC CLEARANCE. 

As a nearby door slides open, they realize a terrible truth; one of them is actually infected with a mindflayer tadpole, and looking to bring the party down! But since they have no real way to tell who the infected character is, they’ll have to press on while keeping an eye on their “teammates”.

This is where the fun begins. From this point on, you can throw any number of challenges or monsters at your players as they try and find their way through the winding hallways so they have to work together. But, you’ll also be giving your traitor opportunities to mess with the party in an attempt to weaken them before the big final battle with the full-fledged Mindflayer! 

It’s also fun to put non-infected characters in scenarios where they can attack another party member, if they think they know their target is the tadpole. Give them a hidden switch to flip, a rope that could “just happen” to get cut, or whatever else you can think of!

When they finally arrive at the bridge they find themselves face to face with their slimy captor, who protects a large console controlling a nearby door, the only way in or out of the ship. As the face-off begins, your traitor has a final trick up their sleeve; they suddenly transform into a Mindflayer themselves and try to help the mastermind destroy their former friends!

Recommended Starting Level: 5-7

Challenges

• For DMs: The hardest part of this campaign is giving the betrayer enough chances to mess with the party to keep it interesting, without making it too difficult for the party to continue.
• The length of the campaign is up to you, as you can add any number of encounters between the starting pods and the bridge of the ship, so try to find a balance of exciting but not too lengthy.
• Be sure to add encounters that require teamwork, like puzzles with multiple switches, a trap requiring multiple skill checks to bypass, or simply forcing the party to split and solve a puzzle with the other half of the team in a different room.
• Also include combat encounters with things related to Mindflayers and their experiments, like Mindwitnesses, intellect devourers and even humanoids who were made into mindless servants of the Mindflayers. (All of these stat blocks can be found in Volo’s Guide to Monsters, along with lots of great Mindflayer lore, so be sure to check that out!)
• If for some reason your players discover the traitor early or they die during a challenge, have a backup character ready, or even let them help control the monsters and traps through the rest of the adventure to keep the player involved with the game.
• For Players: Being the traitor can be hard to hide but do your best to keep your party from finding out you’re infected! That way the sudden but inevitable betrayal will be all the sweeter.
• Roleplaying as a double agent can be a ton of fun, so if you’re the traitor try to sneak in doubts about other players, or even go above and beyond to help your team beat challenges to keep their suspicions off of you.
• If you’re not the traitor, make sure to keep a close eye on your party members for anything suspicious, as the traitor can be caught and dealt with before the final battle to make it easier!
• However, don’t accuse someone too early, or it could end up backfiring and making you look suspicious!

What’s Fun About “A Tadpole Among Us”:

• This unique campaign lets the DM work directly with one of the players to cause some behind-the-scenes mischief to slow down the party. 
• The entire party is now under suspicion, so the usual instant trust between them all is replaced with paranoid cooperation.
• The final battle with the traitor transforming into a Mindflayer is a great reward for the infected player keeping their secret and getting the party to their master.

 

14. Giths and Gladiators

If you kids don't quiet down back there, I'll turn this Spelljammer around and we'll miss the opening execution, is that what you want?

Everybody loves a good combat encounter, so why not give the martial characters a chance to shine in a classic gladiatorial survival challenge? This campaign is fun because it gives the DM a chance to try out monsters from across the multiverse that they can’t fit into normal campaigns, while also letting combat be the primary focus of play, instead of role-playing.

The adventure starts with players attending a meeting in Baldur’s Gate held in a large community hall. They’ve all come to learn of potential quests that the city officials require help with, but when the building is filled with adventurers of all shapes and sizes, the “officials” suddenly disappear with a satisfied grin on their face.

After some quaking, the players exit the building to discover that they’re now standing in the centre of a huge arena, and the surrounding Githyanki patrons are excited to see some action! The party has been tricked, and now they must fight long enough to make up a plan of escape!

Recommended Starting Level: 1 - 3

Challenges:

• For DMs: Since the Githyanki are dimensional travellers, they have access to a huge variety of creatures and characters to kidnap and bring to the arena. So, now’s your chance to break out any monsters you’ve been wanting to throw at your party that won’t fit in normal campaigns!
• On the other hand, make sure your combats are still balanced and fair, there’s nothing worse for players than making them slog through brutal combat or slice through the enemy in the first round.
• For the players to have time to formulate an escape, give them some downtime in between major events so they can replenish their health, spells and ammo, and let them get to know older gladiators who may have ideas on how to break out.
• When players are getting used to the arena, remember that the Githyanki jailers can be a big part of the characters' escape plan; Gith are notoriously vain and aloof, so they can easily be tricked into letting their guard down when challenged or mocked, or even make the players lives worse by adding new challenges to combat out of spite.
• For Players: Now that your gladiators, be sure to put on a real show for your new captors so you can gain their favour to use against them later! Flourished finishers, over-dramatic taunts and riling up the audience could help you win gifts that will help later!
• You never know how many rounds a day’s fighting might cover, so be sure to play aggressively but tactically so you aren’t left wanting for spells or potions when you need them later!
• This campaign focuses more on combat, so while having a charming bard or sorcerer doesn’t hurt to be around make sure they are still well-equipped for the challenges of battle, otherwise they may end up losing their signature silver tongue!
• While you and your party will stick together, other parties have formed and may be set against you in a duel to the death! So, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer so you’re not surprised by a betrayal.

What’s Fun About “Giths and Gladiators”

• This campaign is a fun and unpredictable chance for melee fighters to take the front stage for the majority of the adventure, instead of often falling to the wayside when the party arrives in an area where they may be shopping, getting information, or simply doing non-combat challenges for multiple sessions. 
• DMs often have a list of monsters that they can’t mix into their campaign because the enemies don’t fit the setting or player level, so this campaign lets them flex their combat planning muscles to bring players combats they never could have had in other campaigns.
• Plus, the nature of gladiator combat also gives players a reason for being “extra” when they fight; describing fancy footwork, bold stunts and dramatic finishing moves during a fight not only feels great, but it could convince their Githyanki audience to give them gifts of new armour, potions, and other boons to help them fight tougher opponents, or even win their freedom! 

 

 

13. Night Terrors

Well this SUCKS! Eh? What? Too soon?

Astarion is a fan-favourite character in Baldur’s Gate 3, and his backstory shows us how dangerous powerful vampire lords can be. To emulate this, pitting a party against an enemy they can’t beat with normal means can force the group to think outside the box, and prioritize survival until they can find a way to rid themselves of their immortal stalker.

In this campaign, the party is resting in a tavern when suddenly a large man stumbles in, bleeding from his neck and covered in deep claw marks. He gasps broken sentences about “a death… a laughing mist… so much blood…”. Suddenly, in his last moments of consciousness, he hands the adventurers a strange medallion before saying “Get this to Veskar, he’ll know how to stop-“. He’s cut off by a final gasp before he dies in the players' arms. 

Suddenly, the candles flicker and the formerly lively atmosphere is brought to a dead stillness as an imposing female figure stands in the doorway. Her face is shadowed by her large hood, but your players see a glint of teeth and a wide smile. She calmly asks if she can come in and check on the poor man she had seen running in here, but players who recognize this stranger for what she is will know that inviting her in is a very bad idea.

If she does get let in, either by an unknowing character or a bar-goer that she hypnotizes, she is unable to find the medallion upon the dead man’s body and becomes much less composed. If she isn’t allowed in, she quickly drops her innocent act and becomes threatening, in both scenarios demanding whoever has the medallion to give it to her on the threat of death. When a terrified patron blurts out that the party has it, she turns on them and begins to approach before being interrupted by the sound of approaching guards.

Not wanting a fight, she retreats, saying that she will retake the medallion and swears an oath of death on the party, letting them know that she will hunt them to the ends of the earth to get back what is hers. When she leaves, the party is left only with the name “Veskar” and the fear that come night, the Vampire Lady will try again to find them, and so begins a race to discover the true power of the amulet so they can stop her before it’s too late.

Recommended Starting Level: 1-3

Challenges:

• For DMs: Running a survival campaign can be tricky, as you have to keep your players on edge, but still give them opportunities to narrowly escape death to keep it exciting.
• You’ll be playing a powerful Vampire Lord, so make sure your characters know her strength with feats of terrifying damage; scratches in walls, vicious bites and more. Making the players feel like they can fight and survive for a time is fun, but make sure they realize that this isn’t a fight they can win head-on.
• If they can locate Veskar, he can give them insight into the power of the medallion; it is the powerful “Holy Symbol of Ravenkind” (from the Curse of Strahd adventure), a legendary artefact that gives the wielder the means to defeat a vampire once and for all.
• To restore the medallion’s power, give the players a series of quests that require them to travel around the city, finding mages or blacksmiths and collecting materials to help repair the object. The adventure will take place over several days, but when the sun sets the real danger begins. 
• While the Vampire Lady will send her mortal agents to harass the party in the daylight, at night she sends her more dangerous vampiric minions, or may even attack herself! These fights should be tough and maybe even unwinnable, so give players chances to think outside the box and hold her off until they can finish the amulet and fight on more equal footing.
• For Players: In this adventure, despite being powerful mages and warriors, this isn’t a fight you can win out of the gate. You’re running from a powerful and immortal killer, so you’ll have to get creative to survive.
• Finding some way to use the medallion is imperative, as she clearly fears its power. “Veskar” is the only thing you have to go on, so look into who or what that may be.
• Despite being a creature of the night, powerful vampires have sway over many people who can operate in the sunlight. Thugs, mercenaries and assassins can harass your party, so be sure to keep a low profile so they can’t find you as easily!
• When you do manage to figure out the medallion, be ready for a brutal fight! You hold the advantage, but she hasn’t survived hundreds of years by being a pushover!

What’s Fun About “Night Terrors:

• Player characters are rarely put on the defensive, so giving them an opponent that they can’t defeat without help means they have to use their abilities in very different ways in order to survive long enough to gather their strength. 
• The DM also gets a really cool chance to play a powerful Vampire Lady, with contacts and minions across the city helping her track down her prey. Be sure to lean into the aloof vampire trope, with her becoming more desperate as the party gets closer to repairing the medallion. 
• Finally, with the characters at a lower level, they won’t have access to powerful spells or abilities, so the sense of danger will keep them on edge as they try to sneak through the massive city and defeat this ancient creature once and for all.

 

12. Here Comes the Boo (and Minsc)

"Nothing like the stars in the sky, a sword in your hand and the astral winds in your fur, hey Boo?"

Baldur’s Gate is home to many legendary heroes, but none are quite like Minsc and his constant companion, Boo the miniature giant space hamster! Brought to life in Baldur’s Gate 3 by the dulcet tones of Matthew Mercer, Minsc and his tendency to be wherever trouble is across the multiverse can lead the players into crazy situations of all kinds.

While our party is resting in a tavern, they are suddenly launched around the room by a mysterious portal bursting open. When they collect themselves, they see Minsc facedown on the ground, Boo still clinging to the warrior’s shoulder. Being Baldurians, the party instantly recognizes the hero, but their chance to find out what’s going on is interrupted by a massive tentacle reaching through the portal and wrapping around Minsc’s leg.

With a yelp, he grabs onto whatever he can to stop himself, and calls out to anyone for help! If the party needs some encouragement to help out, Minsc can lament about never getting to spend all the gold and treasure he’s found!

  Either way, if players jump through the portal, they find themselves facing a giant and slimy froghemoth! Working with Minsc, when they defeat the creature the man explains that he had been using a Wand of Teleportation he had bought from a lovely goblin woman, but it went haywire before he could escape the giant frog monster.

With its last charge, Minsc fired the wand and jumped through the portal despite not knowing where it led. Now the party is stranded in a bizarre world, with only a loveable but confused giant and his little buddy for a guide. Now the party must travel across strange worlds, using Spelljammer ships, sketchy portals and more to return home with Minsc’s recently acquired hoard of treasure and retire to a life of luxury.

Recommended Starting Level: 6 – 10

Challenges:

• For DMs: This campaign is a perfect framework to send your players on an adventure through all kinds of other planes, and even gives you a chance to play along with your players through Minsc.
• That being said, be sure to keep your meta playing in check, it’s very easy to say or do things that Minsc wouldn’t because you know how the story proceeds. Playing as Minsc can be fun, but if you overstep or make Minsc the main character, then your players won’t be having fun.
• With the option of so many potential destinations, it can be hard to pick which you want to travel to, and if you’re going to host several sessions and adventures there, or if you’re going to make these places a fly-by experience with one or two main events.
• It’s also helpful to have an over-arching storyline to help promote the party moving forward to a specific goal beyond simply returning. Maybe a rival adventuring party is following you to take revenge on Minsc for some reason, or they’ve stolen an item from you that you could have used to get back home. 
• If you want to get your players really involved, you could have Boo kidnapped by a powerful enemy, and you have to gather strength and allies across the planes to defeat them and save him again!
• At the end of the day, Minsc is there as a narrative drive and as comedy relief. Minsc has never been much of a serious character, so in any adventure with him in it, the rest of the adventure should likewise be light-hearted! Have fun with this adventure, and don't be afraid to get a little out-of-this-world!
• For Players: This is a great campaign to play characters that are on the sillier side, so bring your best creative ideas to show your flair across the planes!
• That being said, remember that the DM is also a player, albeit in a different role,  and so they deserve to have fun too! Have fun with your character design, but don't intentionally make the character annoying for the DM to make encounters with. This will lead to both the DM and your fellow players having much less fun.
• While travelling the planes, take in the scenery and dive into the lore if you like the history of places! Or, if you’re a fighter, be excited for all the new monsters you’ll be fighting! Minsc as a character has been used as a fill-in for the readers or players; he loves adventure, and he loves experiencing new and bizarre places, so feel free to enjoy yourself!

What’s fun about  “Here Comes the Boo (and Minsc)”:

• Any time players get to interact with the iconic duo, Minsc and Boo are a refreshing change of pace from the usual, more serious adventuring companions. They adventure because they love seeing and doing new things, and this love of adventure can be infectious! 
• With the DM having access to so many strange and wondrous planes to take the players to, this campaign could see the party in places they never could have reached in a standard campaign; from the blazing oceans of the Elemental Plane of Fire to the perfect designed plane of Mechanus, the options are truly limitless!
• Having a memorable character adventure alongside the party is also a fun way to introduce new monsters and events that Minsc can help ease the party into, or at least provide a bit of info!

 

11. More Than Meets the Eye

The only good robot is a really, really big one.

Automatons and similar constructs dot the world of Dungeons & Dragons, and while the ones you encounter in Baldur’s Gate 3 are often more foe than friend there are lots of robots whose mission is to protect the greater good! Coincidentally, robots are one of the few things that are always made better the bigger you make them, the cooler they are! So why not take the long history of Baldur’s Gate and add in every nerd’s dream; a mech controlled by the players!

Having received strange summons via letters delivered by mechanical crows, the players gather at what seems to be an abandoned mansion. As they investigate, they are met by a rusty and stuttering robot butler who leads them down into the basement where they are shocked to find a huge, highly advanced laboratory currently filled with massive metal limbs, some as long as 20ft! 

Behind one of the giant arms, the players see sparks and multicoloured lights, and after being announced by the butler, a pair of gnomes circle the arm covered in soot and a strange, lasting electric field. They brush themselves off and introduce themselves as Turatuk Jumpgear and Kewenn Jumblescrap, robotic experts and visionaries of a world enriched by robots and similar advanced technologies. After introductions are complete, they walk the party to a smaller room where a large bowl-like table made of stone sits, with dozens of multicoloured runes and glyphs dotting the inside.

Upon approach, the table springs to life and glowing, 3D pictures of two humanoid robots shimmer into view. The gnomes explain that the giant arms and legs the party saw in the first room belong to a giant robotic avatar of Mechanus, God of Order, whom the gnomes have lovingly named Gooragogh, a gnomish word for “Mighty Reclaimer”. 

They then say that the other picture is of another, equally giant robot that is an unholy replica of Gooragogh created by the evil dwarvish deity Abbathor out of jealousy of the amazing forge work that the good avatar displayed. The gnomes continue to tell the party that the two titans clashed hundreds of years ago, and both were reported to be destroyed in the conflict, with only the two machines enchanted crystal hearts preserved and spirited away by the minions of Abbathor. 

Nervously, the scientists warn the party that the lineage of Abbathor worshippers has recently found pieces of the evil and once mighty avatar Kegragin, dwarvish for “Crushing Force”, and was planning to repair the machine’s heart and use it to wreak havoc across the country, starting with breaching the walls of The Counting House, the largest bank and collection of goods in all of Southern Faerun. 

With the amount of gold, trade goods and miscellaneous magic items that would be stolen, the followers of Abbathor would effectively cripple the global economy in an attempt to appease their god's ever-growing jealousy and greed.

Despite this dour news, the gnomes excitedly say that despite this dangerous threat, they have recently found these huge pieces of Gooragogh, and they believed that if they could retrieve some rare materials and somehow steal the magic heart that acts as the machine’s power source, they could return the machine to full power and use it to stop the evil Kegrargin before they deranged cultists could use it for evil!

There’s one catch; despite having most of the essential parts, the arcane artificial minds that once drove the machine and made it capable of acting on its own have long since deteriorated, and only the one in the machine's head is still usable. This means that to use the machine to its full potential, the party will have to take manual control of the machine and fight the cultists head-on. The gnomes explain that because the party’s ancestors were followers of Mechanus, their essences were infused into the machine's memory banks, making them the only people capable of piloting the machine properly.

And so begins the party’s endeavour to locate materials to repair the machine, reclaim the heart guarded by an entire cult’s worth of enemies, and finally work together to battle Kegragin giant face to giant face. Easy right?

Recommended Starting Level: 6 - 10

Challenges:

• For DMs: While the idea of designing an efficient and easy-to-manage system for controlling a giant robot while still making it a fun and exciting experience for the players sounds like a daunting task, we can cheat a little and steal some rules from the amazing Spelljammer sourcebook, Astral Adventurer’s Guide.
• In this book they outline rules for piloting the flying ships called Spelljammers, and how there are multiple stations for the crew to man. There are positions like helmsman, bombardier, navigator and more, and while these positions won’t translate directly over to a 30-foot-tall fighting machine, we can definitely apply a few tweaks and still get some pretty great results.
• We will be treating each player as individual spell jammer pilots, with each controlling a specific part of the body with their concentrated mental will. Movement and more general actions (walking, blocking, crouching) will be handled without checks, but anything involving complex movements will require group checks (the stat modifier is up to the DM) to remain upright. Then, when we need the robot to do a certain action, the player in control of that body part will have to do a Constitution, Intelligence or Wisdom roll to maintain control of the weapon/tool used. 
• For example; The party has arrived at the battlefield, and the titans are both running at each other. As they approach the enemy, the team talks and decides it best to start off strong, so they prepare to launch themselves forward in a vicious high kick! The DM decides that they’ll all have to make athletics checks to help the robot succeed, and if the majority of players succeed in the check, then their action is accomplished! After landing and regrouping as their enemy staggers backwards, the team decide it's a good time to prepare some defences! The ranger in control of the massive ballistae they installed now has to make a Con. / Int. / Wis. check to aim and power the giant launcher. Sadly, because of the excitement going on, they can’t focus and the shot barely misses. As the enemy prepares to retaliate, the team must now decide what their next step should be since they’ve fallen on the defensive.
• Beyond the slightly complicated combat, the rest of the campaign is relatively easy; give the players a few materials or magic items the machine might need like adamantium plates, elemental energy cores, magic water for the cooling system etc. and scatter them around the continent to give the players some goals. 
• Then throw in some cultists who are trying to stop the party on top of your selected destination’s natural challenges and voila, a grand adventure worthy of tales!
• And finally, design a dungeon that will act as the holding place for the Heart of Gooragogh, and don’t be afraid to make it a tough one! The players will be diving into the most well-guarded location of the cult, so they should be ready to fight tooth and nail to get in and get out safely! 
• For Players: Beyond controlling a giant, arcane destruction robot, this campaign gives players a huge incentive to develop their back stories and the back stories of their predecessors! Having a family history is awesome, and can help explain your characters' motivations for choosing the class or background they have.
• This adventure’s final battle will require A LOT of teamwork, but as with any group thrown together, there’s bound to be some tension. Don’t be afraid to role-play this up, while still being aware of how your inner party conflict is affecting the fun of the game. While your ranger may hate the way the fighter operates, don’t let your rivalry get in the way of the rest of the party’s enjoyment of the adventure.
• Don’t be afraid to ask the DM if you can offer or request a certain item/weapon be retrieved for the final battle! If you think it would be cool to add giant spikes taken from the skeletal remains of a tarrasque, I can’t think of many DMs that wouldn’t agree with you! Or if you think of some crazy laser weapon fueled by an ultra-rare gem, then if your DM is willing you can travel deep into the earth to find it!
• Turatuk and Kewen are primarily comic relief and HQ for your mission, but they’re also genius mechanics and inventors, and if your DM is willing you’re more than able to request they build you some high-tech gadgets of your own! Bows that can apply elemental effects to arrows, shields that weigh only a pound but project pure energy to block attacks, or even goggles that help you translate languages, if they have the materials they will be excited to build items that will help save the world!

Why You Should Play “More Than Meets the Eye”: 

• I don’t think people will need much convincing when you propose an adventure that culminates in an epic giant robot fight, but if they do then tell them how cool the gadgets you can get to complete this mission are! 
• For the roleplayers out there, fleshing out the backstory of both your character and their long-gone ancestors is also a unique opportunity for making your family background matter.
• Add in a quest that will take the party across the world to strange and dangerous locales (and did I mention the giant robot fights?) and this campaign will be one to remember.

 

10. Planes, Trains and Semi-Automobiles

Kelgor knew it was too late now, but he really should have mentioned his crippling fear of heights before the race had started...

One of the lesser-used mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons is the chase rules, which is a shame because they can add exciting tension to an encounter! Additionally, the rules for vehicle combat are also grossly underutilized, so playing through the intro mission of Baldur’s Gate 3 and seeing raging dragons pursue a massive nautiloid ship was a perfect example of how these two rulesets can be combined. So let’s take that and make it into a fun adventure leaning into the classic “rat race” style of story!

The party has been invited to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime event; a race across the globe with a custom-built machine, compliments of Morradin, god of the forge himself! After being randomly selected in a divine raffle, your team has been chosen to represent the dwarvish pantheon, and they’ll do anything to win!

The players learn that the gods are all vying for the coveted prize of a bottle of Ambrosia, a drink so divine it’s said to make anyone who drinks it incredibly powerful, even the gods themselves!

After being told the rules of the race and how it will require a vehicle that can fly, swim, drive and be ready for anything else, the dwarvish gods give them a blank slate and tell them to go crazy! This means the players can make whatever vehicles their hearts and imaginations can dream of.

When the preparations are complete, they meet their opponent teams, which can be made up of whatever bizarre creatures the DM can come up with; a group of kobolds on a shaky pile of gears and metal, mindflayers on an aquatic, flying abomination, even elves with an elaborate and elegant magic machine, the options are limitless! 

After this, they’re told they have to reach 3 checkpoints, once again up to the DM! I would suggest places like a floating island, deep under a magma lake, or even across the voids of the Astral Seas! No matter where they go, they’ll have to fight off the other teams, the environment, and whatever else the opposing gods may throw at your party!

Recommended Starting Level: 5 - 10+

Challenges:

• For the DM: This adventure’s biggest challenge (and most exciting aspect) is designing teams for your players to race against! With such a wild array of options, make sure to give your opponents lots of character while also giving them equally fun and exciting mechanics.
• An example of a fun team is the kobold group above; gifted by their patron god with what looks like a pile of scrap metal, it's actually magically enhanced to let the kobolds shape the machine into whatever they need it to be. Climbing a mountain? They rearrange the vehicle into a giant spiked wheel to roll up the face! Diving under the water? Condense all the metal into a tiny metal ball and drop straight to the bottom!
• The other important factor is the locales they’ll be visiting, giving them areas where they can have bumper-to-bumper clashes while also making them unique can be difficult, but taking classic races (sailing the sea) and changing it to something slightly adjacent (sailing a river of lava or mud) gives old tropes new appeal!
• When your players are picking their vehicle's abilities, give them a limit to how many crazy gadgets and gimmicks they can have, otherwise you’ll be facing a machine that blows through any challenge you throw at them!
• For the Players: Being backed by the god of the forge himself, don’t be afraid to channel your inner “Speed Racer” and throw some crazy gadgets into your magic machine! 
• Make sure to check everything with your DM, they have to manage your madness alongside other teams, so don’t make their jobs too hard!
• After the race has started and your gadgets are locked in, don’t be afraid to ask your DM to use these abilities in out-of-the-box ways! Have a grappling hook for skipping long chasms? Ask your DM if you can use it as an anchor to swing around a sharp corner in a raging river!
• Be sure to keep an eye on your opponent teams, between their powerful godly patrons and their own natural abilities and strategies, you could be surprised by how unprepared you’ll end up being!

Why You Should Play “Planes, Trains and Semi-Automobiles”:

• From Speed Racer to the iconic Wacky Races cartoons, races involving vehicles capable of strange and hilarious stunts are always a joy to watch, so playing them is even better! 
• This campaign is meant to be taken much less seriously than other campaigns, so it’s a great opportunity for players to try out characters that might not fit more grounded adventures. 
• On the DM’s side, getting to imagine the bizarre teams that will face the players is a unique and exciting exercise to flex their creativity skills! With the prize for your party at the end being a mystery up to the DM, who knows if the race will end in victory, but no matter what happens, it’ll be a campaign you’ll be laughing over for years.

 

9. Wandering Eye, Wandering Hearts

I hope you don't get seasick, it's going to be a bumpy ride...

Nothing gets the attention of a party like the promise of lost treasure, nautical adventure and revealing long-buried secrets that could change everything in Baldur’s Gate. So let's give them an adventure that takes these aspects and gives that immense power of change to the players at the end of a long, hard journey.

Our tale begins on the deck of a merchant’s vessel where the party has been hired as the latest group of mercenary guards. Things start well, with only a minor scuffle between them and a bandit ship a few days ago, but otherwise, everything is on time. Suddenly they’re shocked to see a massive ship plummet from the sky, not very far from them… close enough that the impact of the ship on the water rocks the players' boat severely.

Whether the players stay holding on or get flung off, they can’t believe their eyes when the ship’s name, barely legible from brutal wear and tear, marks the vessel as the Wandering Eye, the vehicle of the long-thought-dead Balduran. Any surviving crew can hardly contain themselves, and start heading over to the ship to check for survivors or clues to help determine what happened, and why this centuries-old ship suddenly dropped from the sky!

Upon arriving on the ship, players will discover that the ship is almost disturbingly clean, seemingly abandoned quickly and without struggle. The only thing they find is a leather-bound journal on Balduran’s desk, which upon reading shows the party a map that leads to islands between Baldur’s Gate and Anchorome, another continent altogether!

Now armed with a map, a massive and mysterious ship and clues that may point to Balduran still being alive, the adventurers sail into the horizon for the tale of a lifetime.

Suggested Starting Level: 5-10

Challenges:

• For DMs: This adventure will be spent in one of two ways; ship combat and maintenance, and searching islands for the next clue in the map’s puzzle. This means it’s vital to learn how ship-to-ship combat works, which you can learn from the official book Ghosts of Saltmarsh, or a wide array of player-made content that makes these activities fun and easy!
• This adventure is sandbox-based, so feel free to let your imagination run wild and make up bizarre and fantastical islands for your party to search and explore.
• This could mean islands with a lagoon that goes down for miles, requiring magical assistance to dive; or a volcanic wasteland that they have to run across before the only solid ground breaks away beneath their feet!
• This is also a fun time to make use of enemies that fit the nautical theme, like the Mindflayers, Kuo-Toa and even the mythical and feared Kraken. Don’t be afraid to give these groups or creatures lots of personality, or even let some escape and bring back friends much better prepared to take down these interlopers!
• You can also drop hints throughout the voyage about Balduran somehow surviving and simply hiding from the world for some reason. If you choose you can let the team find more and more evidence of Baldur’s survival, potentially culminating in a meeting with the legendary adventurer himself.
• For Players: It’s finally time; an adventure focused totally around pirates that you and your friends can embrace to have the time of your adventurers' lives. This is your chance to use some of the more niche, sea-based sub-classes, or even old classes and subclasses that you can make more nautical-themed with your DM’s permission!
• This character customization also includes lineage, meaning you can make your adventurer a triton, a sea elf, merfolk and more to feel much more at home on the open waters.
• Be sure to keep an eye on your ship’s condition, or else you may end up with a few too many holes and not make it back to a dock in time to fix it! And with each player being able to take on a role on the ship, work on that teamwork and make your ship a well-oiled machine!
• And don’t forget that no matter how great a team your friends may be, you’ll still need some help to manage this monster of a ship! It’s important to keep them all in tip-top shape, because an angry crew may want to surprise your party with a “hostile business acquisition”.

Why You Should Play “Wandering Eye, Wandering Hearts”:

• Nothing brings a party together better than rum, shanties and the promise of a legendary treasure! 
• Following in the footsteps of one of Dungeons & Dragons most famous adventurers is an experience few can say and with the potential of bringing back Balduran alive and well would make their already massive loot reward double or triple! 
• Anyone looking for a classic pirate adventure with some extra pizazz by adding magic and mystery only TTRPGs can provide!

 

8. Stag Party

Unlike regular, mortal party animals, the fae are here for both a good time AND a long time.

Baldur’s Gate is one of the largest gathering places of cultures from all over Toril, so of course it would have a huge array of festivals held by all kinds of people. However, every year the grand event that is “Highharvestide” is enjoyed by everyone from everywhere. Along with such a big celebration, many superstitions and legends have popped up, one of the best ones being “the Stag King”, a mysterious figure said to appear only to those destined for incredible (and dangerous) adventure!

This campaign begins as many great campaigns do, partying raucously in celebration of Baldur’s Gate’s biggest event of the year. Playing games, drinking far too much ale, eating foods of all kinds and sharing stories around the fire, folks of all walks of life have gathered here, and your party is no different. Despite not having met yet, while you are all sitting happily around a fire late into the night, time suddenly freezes. Everything and everyone around you have stopped moving entirely, except for the fire you sit in front of, which still crackles and pops.

Slowly the fire begins to swirl around, like fog rolling over a hill, and taking on a beautiful dark green and deep purple hue. Then, as the flame reaches high into the air, a figure steps slowly out of it, as if he was parting a curtain to enter a room. Before you stands a massive man, easily 10 feet tall, and garbed in clothes that seem both unbelievably expensive and yet also strangely natural, like a mossy tree covered in golden vines.

He towers over you, feet hanging above the flame, and when you look at his face you see a wooden mask, bizarrely plain compared to the massive stag horns that crown his head. He looks down, and gives a long, dramatic bow before standing up regally. When he speaks his voice sounds like a forest wind, and you can hardly hear him as he asks for your help.

He says that there has been a great betrayal, and that the fairy Queen Titania has captured King Oberon and locked him away on charges of high treason. The Stag King, as the flaming stranger has introduced himself, asks the various party members to help save the King, as no supporter of the King is able to breach the Queens powerful magics, which mortal creatures would not be affected by. Should they agree, the Stag King promises a favor from the fairy King, and as anyone in Toril knows mortals are very rarely owed a favor from a fairy.

Should they accept, he bows deeply again before stepping to the side and motioning for the adventurers to enter te pillar of flame. Stepping through the heat, they find themselves gathered in the meadow of a beautiful valley. From here, the Stag King tells them where to go, what to avoid and what kinds of dangers they will face along the way. And so sets off the party, venturing where no mortal creature has gone, probably for good reasons.

Suggested Starting Level: 3 - 5

Challenges:

• For DMs: The fae-wild is a setting rarely used in official material, so I would recommend looking into the “Wild Beyond the Witchlight” adventure book for information on how to run adventures in this ever changing and always chaotic plane. That being said, the lack of information is also partially intentional, as the plane is fueled by chaos both mischievous and dark, making it difficult to map (but easy for you to make up new and exciting places and characters to fill it!).
• For this kind of adventure, I would recommend a three-act style of journey; have the characters pointed in the right direction and let them make their way forward, introducing the world and some of mysterious rules and creatures to ease them into the plane.
• Then, throw a surprising and potentially dangerous event that shows the party that, even if a powerful adventurer, they are treading in unknown territory and should be extremely careful. For the second act, have them encounter some of the intelligent denizens of the wild, either helpful, harmful, or a combination of both, so they can see how tricky it can be to work with fairies and their cryptic riddles.
• Give your adventurers a fey town or village to rest and recuperate in, letting them learn some information, buy some supplies and get pointed in the right direction once again. 
• The third act begins with them fighting or having encounters that are a little more dangerous, before they find themselves standing at the foot of the immense castle of the King and Queen of the fae. This castle will act as the final dungeon for your adventure, so pull out all the stops and make it an epic final push before confronting the fairy Queen!
• When they fight the queen, they discover she has been controlled by none other than the Stag King himself, who uses the Queen's defeat as an opportunity to steal her powers before he turns on the party! As a final act, the Queen heals the party and seemingly perishes.
• Upon a difficult fight with the Stag King (I recommend using the Korred stat block from Volo’s Guide to Monsters, just flavoured to fit the Stag King’s more forest vibe), the party frees the imprisoned fairy king, gain his thanks, and are returned to the mortal world, seemingly with no time having passed. 
• For a tangible reward, they could find they also have a shiny green coin, which when flipped into the air gives the hero the ability to use any spell of 8th level or lower as if cast at 8th level, usable only once before it disappears.
• Other than that, the story is all yours! And don’t be afraid to change anything about the three acts above, I just find the three acts help to give the players an easier time adjusting to the strange chaos that is the fae wilds!
• For Players: Since this adventure takes place on a plane defined by its chaotic nature, be prepared for anything! The party will need a balanced set of abilities, so feel free to dip into a few different play styles.
• As well, the fae wilds can affect characters in unexpected ways, so don’t be surprised if you gain or lose some physical features that can be either simply cosmetic or potentially have gameplay-related changes! (Be sure to tell your DM if you are uncomfortable with a certain change, you shouldn’t have less fun because they make a strange and permanent change to our character!)
• Always remember, fairies are notorious for tricking mortals through confusing or cryptic speech, so be on your toes when interacting with them! Even though they seem friendly, they could have any number of tricks up their sleeves.

Why You Should Play “Stag Party”:

• Areas like the feywilds are very rarely used in campaigns, let alone housing a large majority of a group's main quest. 
• This means that even experienced players have a chance to be surprised by the ever-shifting rules of nature and strange, unseen creatures that stalk the wilds. 
• For DMs, the unique challenge of guiding your players through the wilds can be tough, but the fun you can have making up exciting or mysterious locations and encounters will stretch your imagination in the best way.

 

7. Gang Warfare

Joining your crime syndicate sounds great and all, but what are the health benefits like?

As with any huge city, crime is a major part of Balduran life, and the constant back and forth between the city guard and the many branches of criminal activity can lead to lots of big messes that affect everyone in the area, especially places like Lower City. 

This actually affects other criminal groups looking to make some money, so these groups can actually be inspired to help the city manage other gang’s size and danger level an excuse for the city guard looking the other way for less harmful crimes like stealing or smuggling. But sometimes, even the groups that toe the line between criminal and just need help tying up some loose ends. 

This campaign will focus on players being hired by “The Guild”, a longtime force in Baldur’s Gate that has been managing crime movements around the city to secure their own business and keep the guards' eyes from prying too much. The party has been recruited in an attempt to get some new, less suspicious faces onto the streets to help The Guild cut off problems before they become problems.

The players are given a large variety of tasks, and as they complete tougher and tougher missions they’ll gain favor with the mysterious leadership of The Guild and in turn receive exciting boons like new enchanted weapons, access to powerful spell scrolls or armor, and even real estate where the party can rest and recoup between missions.

The kinds of missions The Guild will send the team on can range from smuggling important goods passed guards to resupply safehouses throughout the city, doing some recon to help stop any sneaky goings-on and even simply taking out an upstart gang that’s getting a bit too big for its britches.

As time goes on, the party may start to decide either that the things they are doing is wrong, and try to escape the life, or that they fully agree with (or at least enjoy the benefits of) The Guild's way of thinking, and climb their way to the top of the organization.

Suggested Starting Level: 1-3

Challenges

• For DMs: As you may have already known, Baldur’s Gate is a huge city with a ton of different districts ranging from the rich and safe upper communities to the dirty and dangerous slums. However, The Guild holds a lot of power in all areas, so you’ll have to figure out how to make the Guild both vague and mysterious, and powerful and far-reaching.
• Additionally, you’ll have to plan for a couple of other gangs to pop up, which can each have their own focus or personality; maybe a smuggling group of bird-folk have been stealing cargo from ships and stocking them underground, or a gang of muscled dwarves and charging districts an exorbitant protection fee that’s cutting into The Guild’s profits.
• While the city guard is willing to turn a blind eye to most of the Guild’s various enterprises, they won’t tolerate open mischief or crime, so make sure your players know that their actions can and will have dire consequences if they step too far out of line.
• As they progress through the ranks of The Guild, be sure to reward them with powerful gear, access to unique resources and more to keep the players invested in their work, and to give them a reason to care about The Guild’s success.
• For Players: This campaign lets you get a little dangerous and toe the thin line between justice and profit, so be sure to lean into the party’s various strengths to keep yourselves out of trouble. It’s always helpful to have a massive barbarian around, but it’s also equally helpful to have a silver tongued sorcerer to help defuse any situations that brawn can’t solve alone.
• You have a unique opportunity to make a character with a background that isn’t all that spotless; The Guild often takes its members from the downtrodden and dangerous districts so they can guarantee the people they hired are familiar with the world of crime, and are capable of adapting to whatever other gangs may throw at them. This means characters can easily make their characters with the criminal, charlatan, pirate and urchin backgrounds and explore them to their full potential.
• Remember that in the ever-shifting world of crime, it’s hard to trust anyone, but when you have a group of people that are highly capable and trusting, it’s always good to keep them close. Your adventuring party are some of the only people you can trust, so don’t let your criminal exploits drive a wedge in the party!

Why You Should Play “Gang Warfare”:

• Everyone loves some good old vigilante justice, so why not play the anti-hero for a change? With how big Baldur’s Gate is, and how widespread The Guild is, this campaign will take the party all across the city, and possibly even beyond in product protection, retrieving stolen objects and potentially even doing favours for the city guard to deal with problems they can’t manage on their own.
• While doing this players will build their reputation in The Guild and work their way up to earning some amazing treasure and high-quality tools, a double win!

 

6. The Bad, the Worse, and the Ugly

While this looks really cool, no one ever talks about the wet-hyena smell that comes with these kinds of meetings.

Baldur’s Gate is home to many different religions, and the population is free to publicly worship whoever they want, for better or for worse. This includes the worship of the evil-aligned gods that the people of the city call “The Dead Three”, Bhaal, Bane and Myrkul. But sometimes this worship goes a bit too far, and if a cult or group gets too large or ambitious, they can cause some serious damage!

While going about their everyday lives, the party is suddenly attacked by twisted humanoids armed with strange and terrifying weapons that deal painful necrotic damage. Upon defeating these robed figures, they determine that these are cultists of one of the Three Dead Gods, and begin to investigate how deep this problem goes. As they search, they’re terrified to discover that more than one of the Three Dead God’s cults are building strength in a bid to awaken their deity and return them to the world of the living to wreak havoc and dominate the world.

So begins the party’s search for answers and ways to stop the disturbing rituals that the zealots are using to give the ancient gods their strength back. Their actions can have a great positive effect, but despite their best efforts they can still miss their chance. The gods and their followers could still manage to bring the powerful beings back to life, which means that the adventurers have to find a way to banish the evil doer's spirit back to their eternal slumber.

But remember, this isn’t a quest to stop just a single god, even if a cult is focusing on a particular member of the Dead Three. Being closely intertwined, if another of the 2 cults sees their rivals trying to bring back their patron, the other cults may try and do the same before their enemies! 

The Dead Three are some of the most evil gods out there, and their holy domains; Bane, god of hatred, strife and tyranny, Myrkul reigns over the dead, and Bhaal is lord of murder and death itself. So the cultists that worship them are capable and excited to do whatever it takes to get their unholy masters back into the material world.

Recommended Starting Level: 1 - 5

Challenges:

• For DMs: The Three Dead Gods have a long and storied both in Baldur’s Gate and beyond, so it’s not wholly surprising for players to see worshipers of Bhaal, Bane and Myrkul around the city. However, on their trail of investigating the sudden rise in attacks and kidnappings, the party will discover that the cults presence in the Undercellar is far beyond what anyone could have guessed.
• The Undercellar is  a winding series of tunnels and dungeons that crisscross across the city, even including long-forgotten temples to a wide array of gods perfect for housing cultists bent on bringing back their masters. Use this environment to give your players a sense of dread and horror so they can feel like every minute down there could see monsters and men attacking them from the shadows!
• The Three Dead Gods were once powerful creatures, and so when cultists tap into a fraction of their powers, they are capable of wielding destructive magics and weapons gifted to them by their sleeping god. I would suggest using cleric stat blocks for the enemies, as they have a lot of premade spell lists and stats that can easily be transferred to a creature that looks however you want it to!
• Near the end of the adventure, the cultists could still manage to outpace the heroes, meaning their god will be awoken and threaten Baldur’s Gate and the world beyond. Now players have to think hard and think fast in order to devise a solution; should they delve into ancient arcane lore and find a way to seal the malicious entity, or should they face them head-on in an attempt to stop them by force?
• For Players: When dealing with cults and religious bodies, remember that many high-ranking people are also religious and even secretly helping the cult, so if asking for help from the city or its guard be sure to keep your hand close to your chest, you can never be sure of who’s listening!
• This is an adventure where Clerics and Paladins shine, and could include some really cool moments of debate between party members who; follow different gods in terms of how to proceed. Have fun with it and the roleplay, but always make sure the rest of your party is having fun too.
• Since the city guard may have a hard time believing your story, be prepared to go this path alone; besides your party members, you probably won’t be getting financial or supplemental support, so every resource and potion are precious items that require careful planning in order to utilize its full potential.

Why You Should Play “The Bad, The Worse and The Ugly”:

• Bane, Bhaal and Myrkle have been recurring villains through D&D’s many years, and any adventure involving them is an adventure that has a lot on the line. 
• This quest will have the players constantly running to keep with the cultists to prevent them from bringing Baldur’s Gate (and maybe the world) to its knees, meaning that the balance and careful use of spells, potions and other resources lend a survival-like aspect to this campaign without requiring intense pre-planning or rationing.

 

5. Leonin, Rakshasa and Owlbears, oh my!

For Rakshashas, hitting someone with a backhand is really the only way of hitting someone!

While Baldur’s Gate itself is a winding maze of streets, alley-ways and and marketplaces, the area outside of the city is equally as interesting and easy to get lost in. The first act of Baldur’s Gate 3 gives a glimpse at the wider world of Faerun, and even this massive starting area is a small fraction of what surrounds the even more massive city. With this wide range of landscapes, it’s really impossible to tell what you’ll run into!

This campaign begins as the party is walking through the forest, either for an already in-progress quest or just travelling to or from the city, and suddenly they hear the sounds of intense battle! If they go to investigate, they’ll the shocking scene of an eight-foot-tall Leonin (a bipedal lion-like humanoid) and a seven-and-a-half-foot tall tiger-man clashing viciously with spell and sword. As the party watches on they soon catch the attention of the tiger, who smiles ruthlessly and blinks out of sight. 

The leonin looks around panickedly, and upon seeing the party, yells out for them to run! Sadly it’s already too late, and one of the party members feels a strange electric pain arc through their shoulder, and everyone turns to see a twisting blade poking out from the adventurer’s back. The tiger stands over them with a sick smile on his face before winking at the Leonin and disappearing once again.

While the party tends to the player character’s wounds, the leonin roars in frustration before stalking over to the party. Looking at the wound, the leonin tells the party that the wound is fatal, and it would be a mercy to just end the victim and save them the pain that was to come. If the party asks what can be done or what’s going on, the leonin sighs and begins a long tale.

The details can be up to the DM, but the leonin is hunting a rare and dangerous Rakshasha, a creature from beyond our plane that are powerful sorcerers and brilliant schemers in their pursuit of wealth and power. This particular fiend has attacked someone important to the leonin and stolen a powerful family artifact. He says that the blade the Rakshasha plunged into their party member is said artifact, and that it’s a cursed blade that dooms the victim to a long, painful demise.

The leonin says his family had guarded the knife for generations, and that the route to saving their friend was probably beyond their power. When the party objects, the leonin scoffs and tells them that they’ll have to find the Rakshasha, defeat him and make him regret his decision and apologize sincerely, as the cursed blade demanded. Surprised by the party’s conviction, the leonin finally relents and gives them a bizarre gift; a baby owlbear.

As big as a fully grown saint-bernard, the baby owl bear was a pet of the Rakshashas, and is magically imprinted to it’s former master. The leonin saved the creature when they found it in the sorcerer’s lair and saved it from the decrepit living conditions and nursed it back to health from its malnourished and abused state. The hunter says the owlbear will be able to take them to anywhere the rakshasha has had a significant presence, and that they would have to gather clues from there to help determine the monster’s location. 

The leonin starts to leave, saying that they have to return home and check on their family, but that they would see each other again. The party, now with an adorable buddy in tow, then head out to track down their quarry and save their friend, who is already starting to feel the pain - and unknown to everyone, the power - that the dagger inflicts. Ahead of them lies a journey across the world in order to find the rakshasha, defeat them and find a way to make them sincerely and truly apologize for their attack, a tricky task when the target is a power-hungry sorcerer willing to do anything to survive.

Recommended Starting Level: 8 - 10

Challenges

• For DMs: Rakshashas, despite being incredibly rare in official material, are very powerful, very ambitious and very ruthless creatures that revel in battle and trickery. At a challenge rating 13, they are probably worthy of an even higher rating!
• Capable of casting spells like detect thoughts and disguise self as cantrips, they are capable of casting spells like detect magic, invisibility, fly and even the incredibly powerful 7th level spell planeshift without material components or spell slots! Add on their inherent immunity to spells of 6th level or lower, and the players have a long road ahead of them in order to find a way of damaging the creature, let alone defeating it.
• However, there are multiple options you have to help your players succeed. Along their travels to locations that the rakshsha has had a powerful effect on, they will find witnesses, victims and even helpers to the sorcerer that could have valuable information or powerful enchanted items that could help the party defeat the monster.
• As they travel, battle and level up, your party will naturally add some tricks to their kit to help later on, and boy will they need them! (I would recommend letting your party reach level 15 for the final battle.)
• Along the journey, the player that received the grievous wound from the magic blade will experience a variety of different effects, which are mostly up to you. This could involve increasingly debilitating pain, berserker rages, whispers and temptations from disembodied voices, or whatever you can dream up.
• To counterbalance this, the blade also gives the player a boon that powers up with them. This also could take many forms. They could gain the ability to summon the blade as a magic weapon (minus giving the curse to others, it can only affect one creature at a time), be able to cast spells similar to the rakshashas for free once daily, or whatever else you can imagine that gives them an advantage that counterbalances the curse without overpowering the character and leaving the other players feeling unnecessary.
• For Players: If you’re the lucky one who gets chosen to take on the burden of this powerful curse, it’s a great excuse to role-play it up! Play up your character’s pain from the curse, and if the DM gives it show the intoxicating power that the dagger gives.
• If you’re not a recipient of the dagger’s double-edged curse, prepare yourself for an intense and deadly battle with the rakshasha at the end of this road. It will not hold back, and while your friend will have a helpful ability, they will not be able to win and save themselves on their own. Use all of your party’s skills to find the fiend and learn how to defeat him.
• The small owlbear you’ll have as a companion has been mistreated their entire life, so they will most certainly be slow to trust. It will help you in order to bring justice to their captor, but the party will have to show the creature that they not only mean it no harm, but that they want to help it get its revenge.
• Anytime your party is given a cute, loveable critter as a travel-buddy, you are required to fall in love with and be ready to die for that creature. (I don't make the rules!)
• Keep in mind as well that you may run into your leonin friend again, and may even get to know them and their background, which can be helpful in your fight against the rakshasha! They may be your best source of information on the sorcerer, so be sure to use their knowledge and experience when you have the opportunity!

Why You Should Play “Leonin, Rakshashas and Owlbears, Oh My!”:

• This adventure is exciting because you’ll have a powerful enemy to hunt down across the world (and potentially even across the planes) that is a brilliant and clever schemer capable of predicting and even outsmarting the party's moves, making them dangerous to just pursue. 
• Their new friends in the leonin and the young owlbear are fun companions to get to know, and the DM getting to play them both has a lot of fun role-playing potential. And with the party having to deal with the mysterious and powerful curse put on the player, there’s always a sense of suspicion from the rest of the party; are they acting a bit stranger than usual? Is it the player being overzealous to find a cure, or are they maybe acting a bit “too” different?

 

4. Extra extra, read all about it!

You can tell the D&D is true fantasy because people still read newspapers.

One of the greatest sourcebooks in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons is Acquisitions Incorporated, a book dedicated to satirizing both modern business practice and the cliche fantasy adventure tropes. Baldur’s Gate 3 has a lot of instances where the developers have taken this philosophy of satire and included references or jokes about them!  And with the city of Baldur’s Gate being the centre of so many adventures, there's plenty of opportunities to have some laughs.

The party, recently hired by the Baldur’s Bulletin as field agents, are meeting with their handler for the first time. They arrive at the office and meet Serethed Ch’Kol, a female dragonborn with a nose for news and a love of adventure! Sadly, her overzealous nature has cost her a leg or two… or three, and so she’s destined to help other parties chase the greatest stories.

From here, the party is offered a list of rumours that they can investigate to find the greatest stories, record everything they can, and return to the Bulletin for their hefty reward! However, they are soon interrupted by the current leading team, the Penswords, who return with a thick tome detailing an adventure they had in the depths of the Underdark where they found the last living albino phase spider and valiantly saved it from drow poachers.

Despite having no proof (and no spider) Serethed is thrilled and pays them with a hefty bag of gold. The Penswords leave, with a passing tip for the party; stick to the inner city, so they don’t get hurt playing with the big kids. After choosing their adventure, the party will travel and complete quests to work their way through the ranks of the Bulletin to one day take on the Penswords and even replace them as number one.  

Recommended Starting Level: 1 - 3

Challenges:

• For DMs: This adventure, like the Acquisitions Incorporated sourcebook, is a great way to just have a goofy, fun campaign with your friends.
• While there is no real “end game” to this campaign, it can act as a great campaign between campaigns. If your usual, more serious and long-lasting campaign is getting too intense, then having something fun and goofy to play in between sessions is a great way to reconnect with your friend and refresh before getting back to the serious play.
• With the more comedy-centric focus on this campaign, I can’t recommend the Acquisitions Incorporated sourcebook enough. It gives some amazing rules and ideas on how to make a boring fantasy business into a sitcom-worthy workplace.
• This is also a great opportunity to make fun of your group's favourite fantasy tropes! Maybe you run into Bumblboar, former headmaster of a local community magic college, who was let go after the “threewiz cup incident”... or Cognac the barbarian, strongest man around and lover of fine drinks. These characters can be the centre of the rumors your players investigate, or simply fun asides along the way.
• When giving your players rumors to investigate, approach them as one-off quests. Despite being just the newsboys, they’ll more often than not end up dealing with the problem themselves and getting paid only in thanks and whatever minimum; wage is in a world where gold coins are everyday currency.
• Something I love doing in this kind of campaign is to get your players to actually write a news story about the adventure they went on. Have them exaggerate minor details, make useless side-characters heroes, or even make small problems into massive mole mountains! Getting these stories together into a newspaper you can look back on is something special, trust me!
• For Players: This is the kind of campaign where you can make characters that are objectively bad, and they end up being the most fun. My favourite example is Bobathin Blusterking, a goliath barbarian noble who fakes a caveman accent to fool people, while also claiming to be great great great grandson of the last Storm Lord, on his mother's side, twice removed.
• As a noble he has a high charisma, and high strength as a barbarian, but his dexterity is only a 7, giving him a -2. However, he believes that running from your problems is cowardly, so why would he need to be fast to avoid getting hit? Sure he takes a lot of damage, but he does it proudly!
• Have fun making your characters, and try to explore classes or lineages that you normally wouldn't! And if your DM is ok with it, you can even twist classic cliches into hilarious jokes; make a dwarf with gigantism, standing at a towering 5’9”! Or a leonin who’s actually just a tabaxi with really long hair! 
• The primary objective of this adventure is simply to have a good time. No one needs to win, the world doesn't need saving, you’re just a couple of adventuring buddies looking to make a buck!

Why You Should Play “Extra Extra, Read All About It!”

• With Dungeons & Dragons becoming such a huge part of media, the game and its adventures have become grand and dramatic affairs, and while that’s fun once and a while, sometimes you just want to save a town from zombie goats and make fun of the necromancer who raised them for misspelling ghosts in his grimoire. 
• This is one of my favourite campaigns to run when you’ve got some buddies, a couple of hours and a couple of beers. The DM can make up whatever sounds the funniest, and the rules can come second place. Even in games like Baldur's Gate, the developers weren’t afraid to have some fun, so why not try it yourself? 

 

3.  Over the River and Through Cloak-Wood, to Khelben’s House We Go!

Didn't your mother ever tell you not to step into strange portals? Well, what does she know anyway?

Sitting a few hundred miles south of Baldur’s Gate is the legendary Candlekeep, home of knowledge mundane and unbelievable. The sages who live here and guard the archive’s secrets are some of the most brilliant minds that Faerun has, and they dedicate their lives to their pursuit of better understanding the universe and the magics that fuel it. But sometimes, heroes more suited for practical applications of knowledge are required instead of the bookworm’s constant planning and strategizing.

One chilly night, the player characters have a vivid shared dream of walking massive stone halls with shelves upon shelves of ancient tomes, scrolls and magic tablets that glow with power. They are led by three robed sages wearing bird masks, and are told that they have been summoned to assist the Candlekeep masters with a mission of utmost importance. As the dream begins to end, the ethereal fortress is blasted apart by an immense staff that seems to steal the light from the air around it. With a panicked warning, the sages tell the party to hurry to Candlekeep, or the world as we know it may end!

Upon waking and heading to Candlekeep, they find the giant library eerily quiet, even for a library. They are greeted by a number of sages, but learn that a large majority of Candlekeep’s learned occupants have fallen into a deep magical slumber, and can’t be reached even with spells that allow dreamers to communicate.

The party is told that those who lived in the keep were all included in a mass shared dream, where they were spoken to by the legendarily powerful  Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun, arch-mage and namesake of the Blackstaff title that denoted Baldur’s Gate’s most powerful mage. Despite having been thought dead for almost a thousand years, the arch-wizard warned Candlekeep that a powerful and malevolent force was on the rise, and the only ones who could stop it were individuals linked to powerful artifacts capable of destroying the mysterious evil.

After awakening, the scholars searched for the right candidates, and upon finding the party, knew that they were the ones, even if they didn’t understand how they knew this. The party is then told of Cloak-wood, an area steeped in ancient mystery and rumors, and how it is actually a center point for dozens of mysterious portals that at one time lead to all kinds of different planes and worlds. The sages tell them that this is where Khelben said to send the party, but warn that the area has been dangerously unstable for centuries, and to stay on their guards.

The adventurers delve into the dense and ancient woods, encountering creatures and pockets of reality that definitely don’t belong on this plane, before arriving at a huge open space littered with arches covered in ancient runes and glyphs. While many of the arches are broken or gone all together, the players' arrival activates one of the portals, and out of it steps a man who introduces himself as Khelben Arunsu.

He specifies that he’s actually Khelben's simulacrum, but the true Khelben was unable to escape the prison he had been interned in by a powerful enemy; the dark reflection of Khelben himself! The copy Khelben assures the party that the original is safe, but he didn’t know how long that would remain true. 

At this point, he urges the party to follow him through the portal, where they arrive in a dark, stone room with a circle of pedestals, one for each adventurer. On each of these pedestals is a weapon, item or armor piece that holds incredible arcane powers, but can only be used by a certain party member.

These magic items start off with minor powers, but the simulacrum explains that by overcoming a series of challenges in this mirrored world, the artifacts' true power will be awakened and allow the party to face their most dangerous foe yet, a dark copy of their own team, which upon defeating will weaken the shadow version of the true Khelben and free the archmage from his captivity.

As an afterthought, the simulacrum also mentions how if the shadow mage isn't defeated, the entire world will slowly meld with the mirror plane and destroy life as we know it because of Khelben’s meddling in forces beyond his control, but saving the arch-mage is definitely the top priority! So the team, now equipped with artifacts that are designed just for them and that will grow and power up with the character, journey into the strange world of mirrors and magic!

Recommended Starting Level: 5 - 10

Challenges

• For DMs: The fun of this adventure is twofold; the challenges the players will face and the artifacts chosen for them! The challenges are the backbone, while the artifacts are the heart.
• Taking place in a strange, dreamy mirror world, these challenges should be targeted to your party, much like their artifacts. This adventure is made to encourage role-playing, so use your players’ backstories to their full potential!
• For example, let's say your barbarian had to fight for their survival in the murky bogs, hunting wildlife and avoiding the ire of the bigger monsters until they became the apex predator. In this nightmare world, they are once again the prey, as they have to traverse a bog of boiling mud, hopping from island to island, hunted by creatures that only vaguely resemble their normal counterparts!
• Their goal in this example could be finding a version of the barbarian’s younger self, who is hiding somewhere in the bog. In order to find them, the party will have to face the barbarian's greatest childhood fear; the massive anaconda that once terrorized him, now twisted into a titanic serpent! Have fun with this, and be sure to ask your players for their input on how to structure their own nightmare worlds!
• Magic artifacts are items that, be it through combat, research or just over time, gain powers and abilities that will make their users legends. Items like these, especially in this case, are unique to it’s user, so have fun making an item that you think compliments a character well!
• If you have a ranger who loves to jump into the fight, give them a bow that can transform into a blade, and at later levels give them the ability to apply different elemental damage types! Or if your wizard doesn’t like to get their hands dirty, give them a small homunculus that grows in strength and size over time to become a dangerous killing machine!
• The options are vast, and if you know your players you can make some amazing items to fit their personalities. However, if you’re unsure of what that player would enjoy, or just want to get some ideas, don’t be afraid to ask them for suggestions! Don’t let them get too crazy, but giving a player an item that they helped design gives them both a great tool and helps you get to know your players a bit better.
• One of the hardest parts of running a campaign can be the final boss, but in this adventure, it’s the easiest encounter you’ll ever plan! Since the adventurers are destined from the beginning to fight evil mirror versions of themselves, you simply take their character sheets and use it against them! Feel free to add some non-mechanical details like wispy fog or empty eyes, but the challenge of fighting themselves is one that players never get to experience!
• For Players: This campaign is centred around your characters in a way few other campaigns are! You get to explore your character's greatest strengths and greatest fears, so take the time to flesh your character out a bit for your DM to give them plenty to work with.
• The artifacts you receive will be influenced by your character's personality, and while the DM has the final say, feel free to give your weapon’s appearance a bit of your personal flair. If you’re a monk who’s learned to take your natural anger and use it as fuel, the magic bo staff you’ve received could be a translucent blue with a pulsing red fire within. 
• When playing in a role-play-heavy campaign like this one, remember that everyone around the table is as excited to show off their characters as you are to show off yours! Give other players their chance to shine, or even ask questions or interact in game with them to encourage them to explore their characters more! 
• As experienced adventurers, you know how dangerous the world can be, so you know that a backwards, magical place like this is even more so. Be ready to change your normal approaches to problems, because in a place like this where up can be down, you need to be able to adapt to survive.
• The final battle will be your greatest opponent yet; yourself! Keep in mind that the stronger you are, the stronger they are, so it's essential to take note of your greatest weaknesses, and find a way to exploit them when the time comes!

Why You Should Play “ Over the River and Through Cloak-Wood, to Khelben’s House We Go!”: 

• This campaign is the role-player’s dream. An adventure literally tailor-made for them to show off their characters' personalities and underlying attributes! This quest is great to place part way through an already-in-progress campaign, as it can give players a chance to take everything that has happened to their characters and flesh out exactly how it’s affected them. 
• The addition of highly personalizable magic items also gives this quest a great sense of progression, as by completing it the players are rewarded with a one-of-a-kind magic item. 
• For DMs, the strange nightmare/mirror world is a great chance to flex your homebrew muscles, changing classic creatures, even making your own, or even taking classic locations and twisting them into new and bizarre reflections can be a ton of fun to plan, and a ton of fun for your players to experience!

 

2. Once Risen, Twice Burned

Though heroic, this is beginning to look like a rather gristly last stand.

In the opening hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 we learn of Elturel, a city that had suddenly and terrifyingly been pulled into the 1st Layer of Hell, Avernus. “The Descent” and its impact on the world of Toril are best experienced first-hand, but the danger and mystery that comes from the Hells and the Abyss are an exciting prospect for adventurers looking for a whole new world of monsters and masterminds to take on. But while the Devils that abducted Elturel are logical, conniving and meticulous, what would happen if a city were to be targeted by the much more brazen and blunt Demons instead?

For clarification, while the terms “demons” and “devils” are used interchangeably in our world, the creatures in these classifications are entirely different creatures, and are actually each other’s greatest enemies. The Blood War is a never-ending struggle between the two groups, and both sides are very different in both form and approach to causing mayhem. Devils love to make deals, betrayal is second nature and at the end of the day, they want to win by being smarter than their opponents.

Demons, on the other hand, are creatures of brute strength, raw magic power and fight and conquer because being the strongest is to be the greatest. Demonic incursions in the world of Dungeons and Dragons are often sudden, explosive and devastating for miles outside of where they directly affected.

Our party has recently completed a mission to the south of Baldur’s Gate, and they’ve finally arrived back in the city, taking a chance to rest in the Twin Songs district, famous for its wide array of religious sites. However, as they rest at a local tavern, a massive earthquake strikes as the sky turns a menacing reddish purple. Where the sun once sat is now a dark black void, and as players watch hundreds of winged demons descend upon the area. 

Screams and cries of pain are heard, but before they can figure out what's going on, the players are set upon by demons that have burst through jagged tears in reality. Fighting off this initial wave of monsters, they hear a clamouring of bells coming from multiple churches and shrines in the Temple District, as well as amplified voices shouting for people to come to these places, as they are somewhat protected against the sudden invasion. 

As the group fights their way through the madness, they spot groups of knights wearing dark, blood-red armour walking amongst the demonic hoard. They go from dead person to dead person, stabbing down with strange, needle-like blades which glow dark purple and seem to drain the essence of each person. 

Upon arriving at the nearest temple, the priest there explains that the area has been cut off from the rest of the world by an immensely powerful spell designed to blur the line between the demonic Abyss and the Material Plane. While there are demons of all sorts, the priests from different temples suspect that the Demon Prince Baphomet is behind this attack, based on the presence of these mysterious but brutal knights who wear armor similar to that worn by the soldiers of Baphomet in ancient texts.

While the priests don’t know exactly why Baphomet is attacking, and they admit that as the Prince of Beasts he may not have a reason at all, but they believe that if they can get a hold of one of the strange needle blades, they could learn more. The party, being the only force capable of standing against the monsters, are begged to go out, retrieve a needle, see if they can discover anything else, and return here.

As the party either fights or sneaks passed enemy patrols, they eventually find a pair of dread knights standing in a square, absorbing more essence from the bodies around them. Upon defeating the knights the players discover that under the armour, the formerly human knights are now twisted abominations of demon and man, giving them enhanced strength at the cost of their humanity.

As they take the needles and move to leave, suddenly a robed figure appears on a nearby rooftop and calls out to the party. With a face that is contorted into a half-wolf, half-boar abomination, the speaker warns the party that if they continue to interfere in the resurrection of his master, the hell-priest would be forced to destroy them. 

Upon their defiance, the priest smiles as if to say he had both known and hoped they would say that. After a grim farewell, the priest disappears and the party continues. 

Arriving back at the temple, the priests begin to investigate the demonic weapons and discover that the needles actually absorb the malice, rage and bestial fury in someone's soul by burning away any other emotion and absorbing what's left. 

As they begin to work on how to stop the enemy, players notice a young acolyte starting to smile wider and wider, becoming more and more maniacal. Before they can stop them, the young zealot stands against a wall and with a final cry to Baphomet, activates a magic bomb that blows open the side of the temple. 

Demons from around the district begin to converge on the area, and the priests cry out that if the party can hold against the raging tide for a short while, they may be able to reverse-engineer the twisted magic blades and use them to fight more efficiently against the evil. 

And so the players make a desperate stand, and if they manage to hold back the waves of frothing beasts, the air is suddenly filled with glinting  of now blessed metal, flying through the air and shredding the monsters, calm to the area once more.

The priests, now exhausted and drained of power, tell the party that they can bless their weapons with the consecrated metals of the needles, and that they should now be capable of dealing significant damage to the knights and their leaders. They beg the party to find the source of this madness and bring an end to it before the cultists can complete their plan and bring Baphomet into the Material Plane, an event that would surely spell the destruction of all life as we know it.

Luckily, the player's quest to find the cultist’s headquarters is assisted by the sudden and ear-splitting explosion of a beam originating from a darker side of the Twin Songs district. Racing towards it, encountering more and more of the dread knights but using their now blessed weapons to cave their way through, they arrive at the centre point of this all; one of the many faceless shrines meant as a stand-in point for various religious practices to have a simple place to worship. 

Strewn around the building are dozens of bodies, but demonic and not, and in the centre is a circle of hooded figures standing in reverence beneath the robed demi-human they encountered before. Seeming unsurprised but still annoyed, he warns the party one final time that they are meddling in affairs far beyond their abilities.

 He tells them that this district will act as a grand sacrificial altar, upon which the blood of the innocent and the rage of all those who died will fuel their master’s ascent from the abyss so he may reign over the world with blood and fury.

When the party inevitably defies them, the priest is almost pleased as he sends his last dread knights to slow the party. As they finish their battle, the party is still too late, and as the priest finishes his discordant chant, he suddenly looks panicked before being split apart, an immense minotaur with jagged horns and a goat-like face. 

30 feet tall and bringing with him an axe with a blade as long as a man, the players now stand at the feet of the imperfect yet incredibly dangerous Baphomet, Lord of the Beasts.

Taking his first breath of air untainted by the abyss, he roars in preemptive victory before looking down at the beleaguered party. Snorting a bestial laugh, he looks around and sees that his cultists have done a fine job of slaughter, with which Baphomet is almost disappointed.

  He expected a great army to meet him and believes that the party is no match for him in this state. Grunting once again, he reaches out and the party is suddenly overwhelmed by thick, choking musk that once dissipated, leaves them feeling… fully recovered?

Baphomet snorts and lowers himself to a fighting position, saying that the party may as well warm him up before he begins his global slaughter. And so the players enter into a desperate fight for survival, with both their lives and the world at stake. Should they fail, the world will drown in blood and demons will take the place of humanity. But…

If the players manage to defeat the beast, he lashes out in a rage, infuriated that mortal creatures could manage to best him. Suddenly, the ground opens up once again, pulling the demon prince towards it. The beast screams futilely, and as he disappears he swears every vengeance and curse he can manage before the Abyss reclaims it’s bloodied prisoner. 

When he is fully engulfed, the skies clear again, and while the sound of battle can still be heard all around them, the barrier holding back reinforcements is broken, heralding an eventual rescue.

After the party holds out and is found by help, they are brought back to the temples for proper healing, being hailed as heroes. The priests are awestruck by the party, and they can only thank them again and again, some even proclaiming them saints of their various gods. After the devastation has cleared, the party is from then on hailed as heroes, saviours of both Baldur’s Gate and the world. However, for some reason, the party feels that, while weakened, Baphomet has not tried his last at world devastation.

Recommended Starting Level: 18 - 20

Challenges: 

• For DMs: This adventure should come at the end of a long campaign, or act as an epilogue for a much earlier campaign. This is designed as a final test for your players, where they will need all of their abilities and then some in order to prevail. 
• With them being at level 18-20 upon starting this quest, feel free to throw whatever Demons you can imagine at your party. Waves of small pests or encounters with lumbering beasts and their handlers are on the table, and using books like Mordekainen's Tome of Foes will give you a ton of great options for enemies.
• While this quest should be a gruelling march through hell, you should still give your players some help to get them through it. The blessed weapons they receive can have a variety of effects based on your personal tastes, but even giving magic damage bonuses, special abilities or access to holy damage is enough.
• With the priests of the benevolent gods backing them, the party should also be given health potions, spell scrolls, minor magic items or even one-time use holy relics to give them powerful but precious special advantages. The one-time-use factor makes abilities a constant balance of need versus have, and they’ll have to use them only when necessary to ensure victory.
• The end boss of this fight is a literal Demon Prince, and Baphomet is especially well known for his viciousness. Even though he revitalizes the party, he only does this because he thinks that he can win and gets a little too cocky.
• Play him like you would a near-mindless beast, who’s revelling in his first fight on the Material Plane. I would suggest making the occasional “mistake” or miss during the fight to keep the players from feeling too defeated, but at the end of the day, this is a creature that knows only battle and destruction, so don’t hold back too much!
• There’s a great stat block for the demon prince of beasts in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, but always remember that you can change those stats however you want. You can add dangerous new spells, reduce his hit points if you have more casters than martial fighters, or change whatever else you need to make it an exciting, brutal but still winnable fight! 
• For Players: This is the “legendary mode” of quests. You’ll need every tool in your kit, and you’ll need to bring in the big guns to have a chance of getting through this alive.
• The biggest challenge will be balancing when to use your spells and abilities; you’ll be facing waves upon waves of demons, and you can’t be sure when (or if) you’ll have a chance to replenish spell slots and supplies before your next brutal encounter.
• At this high of a level, you’ll have plenty of options to wreak havoc across the battlefield, but remember that Demons, while often simple creatures, still have the raw strength and unexpected abilities to bring down your party if you come in unprepared! 
• The final boss will be far and above the toughest creature you’ve ever battled, and it’s got the battle prowess and tactical knowledge to destroy you before you thought possible if you underestimate him.
• For reference, the creature is a CR 23 monster, with a melee attack that does minimum 12 damage. While this doesn’t sound like a lot, remember that it has 3 attacks a turn, a list of innate spells and who knows what other terrifying abilities. 
• However, if you can muster the strength to defeat this titan, you’ll go down in history as some of the greatest heroes of all time. Seriously, this is a crazy fight, so if you come out on top you deserve a few pats on the back!

Why You Should Play “Once Risen, Twice Burned”

• This adventure is a classic, no-holds barred, fight to the death campaign ender. This is a great opportunity to use all of your highest level abilities, with spells like power word kill or resurrection, class capstone abilities like Monk’s “Perfect Self”, and any of the legendary magic items you have to take down beasts stronger than you’ve faced before. 
• The same goes for the DM, you have the perfect excuse to bring out some of the game's most powerful and devious characters, with abilities unlike anything else. Both sides should have fun in this tense, fight to the bitter end battle.

 

1. A Brewing Storm

When people join the cult of Umberlee, they always seem to forget the "evil squid tentacle" part of the deal.

With the winding streets of Baldur’s Gate being home to crime of all kinds, it’s up to only the most brilliant of detectives to help put the perpetrators behind bars. So when a mysterious series of murders rocks the city with their graphic and bizarre nature, who better than a ragtag group of heroes to save the day? But sometimes, with crimes as heinous as this, there’s more to discover than even the most wizened gumshoe could expect.

A string of murders has struck Baldur’s Gate, and there is truly no one safe. Hermits, guards, bakers, nobles, merchants, priests and more have been targeted, and the brutal nature of the crimes have the city guard stumped and panicked. So panicked in fact that they’ve begun to approach adventuring groups in a last-ditch effort to find the culprit.

When the group answers the summons they meet with a guard captain who does their best to fill them in. The murders started only a week ago, but there has been one victim found every morning and every night, and the crime scenes are almost too graphic to explain. With limbs and other body parts hung around the area, it’s a hard scene to come across in the waking hours of the morning.

The captain continues and says that as of yet they haven’t found any common threads with the murders, but people who knew the victims said that they had developed an intense fear of any body of water larger than a puddle. Even if they had lived on the waterfront or worked on the docks all their lives, they would suddenly be paralyzed in fear of the sea, fountains or even just barrels of water, saying that it was “watching” them.

Upon finishing the introductions, a guard barges in and breathlessly tells the captain that there's been another murder. Rushing to the scene, the party is met with a scene that, as the captain had said, was hard to describe. 

The limbs and various parts had been strewn around the area, and the victim's clothes and items had been neatly placed on a nearby barrel. As the group looks around, characters proficient in arcana or religion begin to notice some odd arrangements that look a little too repetitive to be coincidental.

But before they can learn too much, a guard cries out and points down the alley, where a caped figure disappears around the corner. If the party isn’t able to catch the stranger, they still find a strange piece of a tapestry, ripped off of a much larger picture. The fabric is dirty and ragged, but players can still manage to see what seems like an ancient but familiar symbol that they just can’t place it.

However, if they do manage to catch the stranger, they discover that it’s a noble who had recently been declared missing. The man is panicked, and keeps mumbling about “the eye of the depths”, but the party can’t get much more out of them, except for receiving the same flag piece as above. After this, players are left to either wait for another murder, or research what the flag could mean.

After investigating, they learn that the fabric piece is a fragment torn off of a larger tapestry in the temple of Gond, and when they go to see the full picture, they’re both confused and terrified to discover that the symbol they found was torn from a portion of the tapestry that depicted the followers of Gond sealing away the evil goddess, Umberlee, mistress of the seas and storms, and lover of wanton destruction. 

With this knowledge in hand, the players are now left to follow the murders, gaining knowledge like meeting locations, vague plan outlines and, with a decreasing DC with each crime scene, the reason behind the strange intentional display of each murder. 

Through an Arcana or Religion check the players will recognize that the patterns are actually disturbing versions of an ancient form of writing used by cults of Umberlee, with nodes and circles equating to hymns and shanties that worshipped the devious Sea Queen.

However, if a player succeeds in a Nature or Survival check, they will realize that the positioning of the various limbs and almost paint-like markings of blood match to various weather patterns that have been affecting the area as of late. Legs matching to storm fronts, hands acting as areas of high wave density, and blood covering areas that experienced strong tidal changes, the players can see that the scenes are actually showing incoming storms, and how they’re becoming more and more dangerous.

Players will now have to collect these clues and find the site of the cult before the deranged sailors can bring back Umberlee to her full power so she can swallow Baldur’s Gate whole as vengeance against the followers of Gond. They will discover an island not far off the coast of Baldur’s gate hidden away unless the travellers have the holy shanty used to appease Umberlee’s storm.

When they arrive, they will have to fight their way through waves of cultists and their summoned creatures - courtesy of Umberlee herself - to find the leader of the cult, none other than the captain of the guard themselves. 

They tell the group that he had been shown the true destructive beauty of Umberlee years ago when he was almost killed in a storm. She spared him, and told him that if he freed her and helped destroy the city that captured her, he would become a sorcerer of the seas powerful enough to carve his name into history and control the sea where Baldur’s Gate once stood.

Cue a dramatic final battle whereupon seemingly defeating the guard captain he suddenly transforms into a grotesque, human-like version of Umberlee’s favoured children, a kraken. The players will fight hard, and if they can manage to defeat the monster, they will be able to repair the rusted seal that holds the Sea Witch in place, ensuring that her escape will not happen for many years to come.

Recommended Starting Level: 5 - 8

Challenges:

• For DMs: Murder mysteries in Dungeons and Dragons can be a very tough campaign to manage because of the number of crime scenes, clues, suspects and eventual end game that are required in order to make it feel fleshed out, but don’t be intimidated out of trying it!
• I find it easier to start and the end and walk backwards; you know Umberlee is the main villain, so who and where would a sea witch strike? Consider targets like followers of Gond, dock workers who would notice a rise in activity around the bay, nobles who held interest in the safe flow of goods, or even simple urchins or thugs who had seen the cult moving around or were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Then we drop the clues, things like the flag above, strange tattered robes, items mysteriously rusted in a short amount of time, nautical-themed ritual items and the such. Tie these things to dockyards, trade centres, ancient cults of Umberlee, and even myths the followers of Gond have in regards to their god sealing away the Sea Witch.
• Adding in some suspects like prominent merchants, tradesmen, suspicious and creepy beggars on the docks, and even cultists who somehow slipped up and got caught are a great way to introduce some information that you wouldn’t be able to get from material clues alone. While your game doesn’t have to end with the guard captain being the culprit, having a twist of some kind is always fun, so consider someone like a follower of Gond corrupted to help the enemy, or even the noble from above who had been spying on the players and played crazy to throw them off!
• To keep players more interested in fighting engaged, makeup encounters where sea creatures suddenly appear on dry land summoned by Umberlee, cultists hunt down the party to end their snooping, or even just running into thugs and bruisers as they investigate less safe parts of town. Murder mysteries like this don’t have to have combat, but players will often want it to keep things interesting, so feel free to add some in that feels nautical or environmentally related.
• For Players: This adventure is the perfect place for your investigation skills to shine, so if you’re less combat-inclined, be sure to speak up and lead the way! Dealing with a powerful sea goddess is an area above most people’s heads, so the wizards, druids, clerics and even rangers are going to be valuable assets.
• Keep your expectations towards combat low; Sherlock Holmes was never well known as a fighter, and while he may have had the occasional scrap, mysteries are fun because the enemy is trying to make small, sneaky moves, not loud attacks. Don’t expect to fight your way to the solution, as making too much noise could alert the enemy, or force them to strike pre-emptively to stop your snooping.
• Remember that there are a handful of spells that can help with learning more about a crime scene, things like Divination, Speak with Animals, Commune and more will give you some insight that you couldn’t access by just looking at a scene.
• Don’t be afraid to go to a nearby library or archive to learn more about Umberlee, Gond, strange weather phenomena and similar subjects to potentially make your investigation easier!n

Why You Should Play “A Brewing Storm”:

• Murder mysteries are the backbone of; some of fiction's greatest stories, and there's a unique charm to piecing together seemingly unconnected events, clues and people to discover a twisting web of connections and finally reaching the dramatic end and save the day. 
• This is a fun change of pace if your party has been slicing their way around the world, and it gives the less combat-inclined members a chance to lead the way and show their true strength. 
• It can be a bit challenging for the DM, but watching your players’ faces as they uncover a huge clue is priceless, and worthy of every minute of planning.

 

You may also be interested in: 

• The 10 Greatest Weapons in DnD (Legendary Weapons)
• 32 Most Interesting Facts About Dungeons and Dragons!
• 25 Best D&D Games for PC That Every Fan Must Play!