1.6a Assault on Stormshore Warehouse – Setup

Table of Contents

Stormshore Warehouse serves as a way of keeping Dara’s Refugees relevant once the PCs enter Baldur’s Gate. After all, just reaching the city of Baldur’s Gate is not guaranteed safety at the best of times, let alone with the current crisis.

Yet how do we actually setup this new content within the existing Extra Content of mine, and the Alexandrian Remix that Justin Alexander has created?

Firstly, we have to make sure that Dara’s quest is an ongoing part of the narrative and is presented to the players as an ongoing thing.

Second, we have to ensure that the refugees are still relevant and ‘around’, by having them stay in an old warehouse on Stormshore Street in the Eastway District.

Thirdly, we must change the final events of the Portyr Assassination of the Remix so that the refugees are revealed to be in imminentdanger from the Cult of Zariel.

Campaign Timeline

Just to keep things clear, here is the general timeline of events in condensed form. The next section covers these in more depth, incorporating Dara’s background.

• The Fall of Elturel and the Escape from Elturgard
• Journey to Baldur’s Gate
• Outer City Murders
• Lower City Murders
• Dungeon of the Dead Three
• The Portyr Assassination – Important: You will need to add the handout below!
• Assault on Stormshore Warehouse – Where the campaign is now, this series of articles
• The Struggles of Stelmane – Our next series of articles
• Journey to Candlekeep – Unchanged from the Alexandrian Remix

In my personal campaign some of these parts overlapped, especially the Outer City and Lower City Murder investigations. You might even choose to lengthen, shorten or even entirely remove some of these elements, possibly adding your own, as you see fit.

Dara’s Quest and Full Timeline

To recap, Dara is the Chosen of Ilmater. This makes her essentially a demigod, however being the God of Suffering, Ilmater has made his young Chosen not much more adept than a normal acolyte NPC statblock – for now at least!

After some discussion on my Patreon with a newer Patron named Hazeyindahead it seemed necessary to write up a timeline for Dara herself, just to clarify what is going on for her. The following is the result of that discussion.

Pre-campaign

• 10 years ago Dara was created by immaculate conception in the nation of Amn, many hundreds of miles to the south of Baldur’s Gate.
• She was raised by priests in the Towers of Willful Suffering, a small simple and intentionally meagre temple to Ilmater located in Eshpurta, Amn.
• Being the Chose of Ilmater, she was able to call on the god’s aid as an acolyte statblock priest would, all from an incredibly young age.
• At the age of 10 she was sent on a pilgrimage to Baldur’s Gate in the distant north to read the Tome of Exalted Deeds.
• Dara made this long journey with the laypriest Ghorin and his goat Clyde watching over her.
• This journey took many weeks via cart to Berdusk, then by barge up the River Chionthar.

So far in the campaign

• During a short respite in Elturel, Dara and her companions received visions from Ilmater, to help the imminent suffering in a small village to the west of the city. That night disaster struck. The Companion of Elturel activated and the city was dragged into Avernus.
• Dara joined up with the Player Characters to rally the now refugeed survivors of this village and head to Baldur’s Gate – see 1.1 The Fall of Elturel and 1.2 Escape from Elturgard
• The PCs and 1.2.a Dara’s Refugees make their way to Baldur’s Gate, but are kept outside the city due to the refugee crisis.
• The PCs solve the 1.5 The Outer City Murders and are permitted entrance into the city with their refugee friends. [This is the part where the last articles of mine took place].

Now

• Now in the city, Dara goes to the Shrine of the Suffering, where the Tome of Exalted Deeds is kept. She returns many times over the next few days to read it (depending on your campaign pacing) while the PCs solve the Lower City Murders – see The Alexandrian Remix
• After completing her study of the Tome, Dara receives another vision from Ilmater. She is to head to Avernus and ease the souls of those suffering there unjustly – Note this isn’t explicitly about the Hellrider’s yet.
• Dara gains new powers from her God to help her complete this holy quest. Her statblock is no longer acolyte and is increased to war priest (from Volo’s Guide to Monsters). He warns them of the imminent attack about to take place at Stormshore Warehouse.

Next

• Immediately following Part 3J: The Portyr Assassination (with the handout added, see below) the Stormshore Warehouse is assaulted by the cult of Zariel.
• Dara rushes to the warehouse with Ghorin and Clyde, to help fight off the pit fiend Lucille’s invasion.
• Lucille’s first act upon being summoned (other than showboating, probably) is to throw a fireball at the newly arrived Dara, Ghorin and Clyde – presumably killing them instantly.
  (My players were momentarily outraged that I “Killed Clyde, the best character in the campaign”… to be fair I did roll damage dice and apply it, just to extend their horror)
• Once the flames clear, Dara is revealed to be shielded by the combined wings of a planetar named Rinzel (formerly disguised as Ghorin) and a goat legged deva named Ausuriel (formerly disguised as Clyde the goat).
• The battle between the pit fiend and the newly revealed angles takes to the skies above Baldur’s Gate, while the PCs, aided by Dara’s new healing abilities (including revivify if needed), deal with the devils and cultists on the ground.
• Once the battle is over, Dara explains what is going on and her new quest from Ilmater.
• Right on queue, the mysterious plane-shifting merchant Fai Chen and his donkey pulled cart arrives the portal, ready to take Dara and the angels to Avernus to begin her quest.
• Dara says her farewell to the PCs and refugees – insisting that they must stop the evil that is in Baldur’s Gate… sure that one day they will meet again. Fai Chen leaves with Dara, Rinzel and Ausuriel, closing the portal to Avernus behind him.

Phew, that’s a lot going on. Hopefully however you can get the gist of what has happened so far and begin to incorporate the ‘Now‘ section into your campaign.

The Portyr Assasination

After finishing the Dungeon of the Dead Three, the PCs learn of an imminent attack on Duke Portyr – see Part 3J: The Portyr Assassination

Run this as stated, except with the following changes. This is largely an extension of the Adventure League module DDAL 09-04 Day of the Devil, which Justin Alexander used the first third of for his basis of The Portyr Assassination. The Assault on Stormshore Warehouse posts takes the last third of that module and reincorporates it back into Descent into Avernus, sowing the seeds to use further Adventure League modules, once the PCs reach the plains of Avernus themselves later in the campaign.

Assassin’s Handout

Following the assassination of Duke Portyr the PCs discover that the assassin was working under the orders of Lucille – a pit fiend of Zariel’s.

Add the following missive on the assassin, who we are now naming Velnar. Should the assassin manage to flee from the PCs, then the paper could be discovered elsewhere such as in The Wide by the Flaming Fists, or the last place they were spotted before disappearing.

Assassin’s Missive – Word Doc

You’ll notice that the top target is [PC NAME]. Hopefully one of your PCs is a Hellrider, Knight of the Companion, or perhaps even just a descendant of someone who was. By targeting them directly in this missive it will help make the adventure personal to your players, rather than just being “Save someone else”. It also ensures the action WILL come after them as a proactive node if nothing else, should they for some reason not want to go to Stormshore Warehouse to save the NPCs there.

To Stormshore Warehouse

This should hopefully send the PCs scurrying to Stormshore Warehouse to save their friends… and stop an army of devils descending upon Baldur’s Gate.

On the other hand, some groups might think themselves massively outmatched, which is true. This instead may lead them to seek allies to help, which is totally fine and is going to happen anyway when Dara and her friends show up. If so, check out Calling in the Big Guns or Calling in the Little Guys as appropriate, but lean into saying ‘Yes’ and having their earlier interactions in Baldur’s Gate pay off.

Ultimately, even if the PCs don’t head to Stormshore Warehouse for one reason or another (such as not caring about the refugees) then Lucille’s invasion will come seeking THEM. One of them is marked as a target after all, and so after devastating Stormshore Warehouse the devils will seek out the PCs…