You have come to the city of Baldur’s Gate in search of adventure and quickly discover the Flaming Fist, one of the largest and most powerful mercenary companies in all Faerun. To survive in this teeming metropolis, you must prove both your physical and political prowess, and the challenges you will face might turn out to be far more complicated than you imagined. A Living Forgotten Realms adventure set in A Living Forgotten Realms adventure set in Baldur’s Gate for characters levels 1-4.

DM: Chris (Nuke)

Players:

  • Shadow – Human Assassin, Level 3 (Scott – ssevener)
  • Armenius – Human Warlord, Level 4 (Preston)
  • Forrester – Human Ardent, Level 4 (Brian – Stylo)
  • Vindicator 339 – Warforged Fighter, Level 4 (David)
  • Aeloch – Dragonborn Barbarian, Level 1 (Chris – Kristoph)

When adventurers find themselves in Baldur’s Gate, it’s certainly not uncommon to check-in with the Flaming Fist in search of gainful employment.  Of course, not just anyone can work for the Fist, but occasionally the high-profile company does solicit for various odd jobs as a means of “testing” the competency of its potential heroes, and that’s precisely the opportunity that was offered to our band of noble adventurers when they came knocking at the old HQ early one summer morn.

Frankly, the work was random at best, and definitely seemed like just the dirty and/or boring tasks that the Fist didn’t really feel like handling themselves, however a paycheck is a paycheck, and thus three tasks the crew humbly accepted.  The instructions were pretty simple – navigate the bureaucracy of the city harbor to release a shipment that had been suspiciously detained, retrieve some lumber that had been stolen by a group of bandits, and finally, retrieve a shell to be used in the making of a magical, albeit somewhat girly-sounding sword for a noble prince. Rumor had it that the shell could be found in a cave that may or may not have been guarded by some sort of weird, shark/octopus hybrid super-monster, so at the very least that sounded promising…

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The first task was done so quickly that it hardly deserves mention at all – the heroes did a bit of their standard poking around down by the docks and found the typical sneakiness that one comes to expect from competing merchants. No actual bashing in of heads or anything was even required, however they did make up for it a bit in the second encounter when, as one might’ve expected, the smugglers behind the lumber theft were none too excited to give up their loot without a bit of martial confrontation.  They offered up an adequate fight and even forced the party to pull our their collective running shoes as they took advantage of the warehouse’s system of catwalks and elevated platforms, however in the end having the home court advantage just wasn’t enough and our heroes were able to seize the wood that they had been sent there to retrieve.

Their final excursion, on the other hand, really required them to get their hands dirty, and in some cases warranted a change of clothes afterwards as well, in that while they did not come to find the fabled Sharktopus terrorizing the seashore, instead they did however come face to tentacle with a pair of equally-nasty otyughs (otyughi?) and even a giant creepy-crawly to make the skermish a tad more interesting!

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Upon their return, glittery shell in hand, though, the group found the Fist smack dab in the middle of a crisis and thus they were in the unique opportunity to get some real work in before the day was done! It had been reported that an unknown group of mercenaries were seen dragging someone, possibly a prisoner, through the town and the Flaming Fist needed a band of proven warriors to investigate. Despite several of them nearly drowning in their previous scuffle with death, the party as a whole was excited to finally get some grown-up work and made haste to the inn where the group had been sighted.

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Although admittedly they didn’t make the most stealthy approach, our heroes managed to locate the renegades hiding out in one of the rooms upstairs and barged in just in time for a good, old-fashioned clobbering. Granted, a bit of said clobbering was actually done by each side of the fight and the group saw themselves several close calls along the way, they finally managed to pull things together at the last minute and dropped the soldiers before they could cause any more bruises and/or property damage to the inn.

Their victory, albeit short and sweet, was much appreciated by the Flaming Fist and they felt themselves moving up a notch in the eyes of their employers. While not quite enough to warrant a newfound career just yet, their adventures cleaning up these odd jobs around Baldur’s Gate would serve to make future freelancing opportunities a bit easier to come by, and at least for the time being, that was more than enough for our band of wandering adventurers…

(Additional Photos Available Here)
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