The first of the Avernus Rising Adventure modules that's available online on DM's Guild. The adventure runs parallel to Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (BG:DiA) but the characters were in Eltugard (but not in Elturel) when Elturel was pulled into Avernus thus setting the stage for what I think is a better series of adventures than BG:DiA.
Dara will give you all the side quests you need.
Luckily for the adventurers, Dara (accompanied and watched over by Ghorin, who's secretly an Angel, and Clyde who is a Celestial as well), Chosen of Ilmater (Note: Dara is 10 years old. I didn't know this until I painted a model of her.), is there to guide and give quests to the characters. She's also the main character of the Avernus Rising Adventure but of course, the characters would need to do all the heavy lifting. Dara gives you three tasks for this adventure and you, unquestionably but begrudgingly, set off to do whatever she asked you to do.
Pretty much Dara.
One of the first task is to gather weapons at a nearby smithy so that the survivors of Eltugard can protect themselves during the journey to Baldur's Gate. A very mini dungeon run exposing new players to traps as well as using perception and investigation rolls. After talking to the smiths and a woman named Vollis (Spoiler: She is of the Cult of Zariel) who say the bandits (who are in league with cultists but not of the Cult of Zariel) stole the weapons, the adventurers made their way to an old abandoned temple. The adventurers will need to figure out that there's a hidden door behind the water font. For any failed rolls to perceive and/or investigate, I would suggest that you add more traps on top of the trap on the double doors. If the adventurers set off any traps, the cultist are sure to notice and set up an ambush. If the players are not cautious, they would spring an ambush (Add some cover and hiding places in the ritual chamber to accommodate this) giving a surprise round to the cultist. Short and sweet, and a nice introduction to typical D&D dungeon encounters for new players.
The old abandoned temple!
Unfortunately, mine didn't have the water font or double doors so I had to improvise.
Sneaking up on those good-for-nothing cultists.
Another task is to gather supplies for the trip to Baldur's Gate Land. This part of the adventure is a simple non-combat skill-base fetch quest with some complications. You will meet the initial NPC contact who lead you to another NPC who will actually give you some tasks. I highly recommend ensuring Billiam agrees to follow the caravan to Baldur's Gate as his presence is required for the plot. The module would ask the players to try to persuade but ignore that. However, the tasks given by Billiam are alright i.e. fetch some ink, feather quills and paper. Simple non-combat skill-base encounters unless they weren't being sneaky about it when they acquire the feathers. I would suggest making the clues for the Pegasus presence obvious as earliest as possible or perhaps, Billiam may give a hint. Again, very simple skill-base scenarios that's nothing too hard for new players and low-level characters.
My Pegasus has yet to arrive from Reaper Miniatures.
Last task given is rescue to find more survivors and for this scenario, the party comes across a burning inn attacked by devils. One of the more serious combat encounters but just enough of a challenge for level 1 or 2 characters. However, there's another complication; another survivor is unconscious in a burning barn. Nothing particularly wrong with this encounter. The party needs to lift the siege of the inn by attacking the devils and send one person to rescue the unconscious man in the barn. The best of the scenarios within the module.
Attacking "Lemures". Again, still waiting for that Reaper Miniature order to arrive.
More "Lemures".
Burning Barn Rescue Operation.
However, the module does not end yet. You have a detective scenario in the last past of this module. After travelling for days, Billiam (Again, important for the plot so you must get the party to bring him along) was murdered and it's up to the party to investigate (Again, under Dara's request). It was Vollis, by the way. The party just needs to speak to all named NPCs in the caravan that they would previously encountered. There's enough information and leads to come to the correct conclusion. Vollis is exposed and there's a fight. Thus the module ends on a high note.
The caravan rests while Billiam gets murdered off scene a little off to the left.
If you asked me, this is one of the better written modules and makes a great introductory to Dungeons & Dragons. It has every type of scenario that a player would encounter later on in later modules. This also provides the typical set up for these modules i.e. Dara gives you a quest and you go do it. It would also clue the players in that most if not all combat encounters is going involve cultists, devils and the occasional, demons and yugoloths. TL;DR: Good introductory module with a variety of encounters and also sets the campaign theme of fighting Hell itself.
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