# Exploring Candlekeep Mysteries: An In-depth Review



## Jeff Carpenter (Mar 11, 2021)

Quick question how many new monsters does it have ?

I don't usually pre written adventures but i love monsters.


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## wicked cool (Mar 11, 2021)

these sound promising and better one shots (assuming the 1st level-3rd are) than Rime


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## Tormyr (Mar 11, 2021)

Nice review, but maybe use the spoiler tag 



Spoiler



so potential players don't accidentally skim and see the text


?


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## HawaiiSteveO (Mar 11, 2021)

Great article, thanks. I'd written this book off when I first heard about it. Reading the author interviews in the latest Dragon + perked up my interest, and this review pushed it back to serious consideration!


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## talien (Mar 11, 2021)

Tormyr said:


> Nice review, but maybe use the spoiler tag
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You make a good point. Updated to use that tag, thanks for the recommendation!


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## trs31 (Mar 11, 2021)

I am equal parts curious and apprehensive to see how shifting sensibilities have affected the rebranding of the Vistani. Can you let us know what this looks like?


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## Geoff Thirlwell (Mar 11, 2021)

Not reading the spoilers, but does the book say if the the default timeline is after Descent into Avernus?


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## GreyLord (Mar 11, 2021)

The review states this...



> DMs can raid *Candlekeep Mysteries* over and over again for ideas, NPCs, and maps that can be repurposed. The adventures can be run as is, expanded to turn into a longer campaign, or modified and inserted into existing campaigns. *Candlekeep Mysteries* contains a wealth of inspiration that could make it the most useful official D&D book for DMs after the core trinity.




What makes it more useful than say...Volo's, or Xanathar's, or Mordekainen's, or Tasha's?


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## darjr (Mar 11, 2021)

Geoff Thirlwell said:


> Not reading the spoilers, but does the book say if the the default timeline is after Descent into Avernus?



It was inspired by the cut entries from Avernus. Chris Perkins took those cut parts and advocated this book. So I guess you could say it’s during.


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## THEMNGMNT (Mar 11, 2021)

Good overview. Thanks!


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## Paul Farquhar (Mar 11, 2021)

Geoff Thirlwell said:


> Not reading the spoilers, but does the book say if the the default timeline is after Descent into Avernus?



It says 1492. I don't think there is any reason it matters though.


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## Enevhar Aldarion (Mar 11, 2021)

Paul Farquhar said:


> It says 1492. I don't think there is any reason it matters though.




Yep, the default for the Realms is that for every real world year that passes, a year also passes in the Realms. So I think all the adventures have a base year because of that for DMs to use if they do not need to shift the timeline any.


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## Ibrandul (Mar 11, 2021)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> Yep, the default for the Realms is that for every real world year that passes, a year also passes in the Realms. So I think all the adventures have a base year because of that for DMs to use if they do not need to shift the timeline any.



That used to be so but they haven't stuck to the practice exactly for a while now. Princes of the Apocalypse is explicitly set in 1491 and that book came out six years ago, but we're definitely not up to 1497 yet. The farthest-ahead material we've seen in 5e is 1494 (Descent into Avernus).

Edit: I just checked and it turns out they messed up the timeline (again!) in Descent; it officially takes place in 1492 even though there's a very important event in the book that very importantly has to take place precisely 50 years after a previous very important event that took place in 1444. Why, WotC, why? Usually these timeline screw-ups are the kind of thing only lore junkies ever notice, but in Descent my player group (of whom only I care about FR lore) had a whole conversation at one point, after finding a certain document in-game, about how "Oh, that means it must be 1494 right now!"


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## Enevhar Aldarion (Mar 11, 2021)

jeremypowell said:


> That used to be so but they haven't stuck to the practice exactly for a while now. Princes of the Apocalypse is explicitly set in 1491 and that book came out six years ago, but we're definitely not up to 1497 yet. The farthest-ahead material we've seen in 5e is 1494 (Descent into Avernus).
> 
> Edit: I just checked and it turns out they messed up the timeline (again!) in Descent; it officially takes place in 1492 even though there's a very important event in the book that very importantly has to take place precisely 50 years after a previous very important event that took place in 1444. Why, WotC, why? Usually these timeline screw-ups are the kind of thing only lore junkies ever notice, but in Descent my player group (of whom only I care about FR lore) had a whole conversation at one point, after finding a certain text in-game, about how "Oh, that means it must be 1494 right now!"




While some people do not place it in the canon, Aquisitions, Inc has a couple of specific references that place it in 1496. But yeah, other than for Adventurer's League stuff, the hardcovers do most seem to be stuck in the same couple of years. Even though it is only up to date as of about a year ago, this site by Alphastream is a good source for the timeline:









						The Official Timeline for the Forgotten Realms and Its Adventures | Alphastream
					

Learn the timeline when Forgotten Realms adventures take place, how FR counts its years, and key moments in FR history.




					alphastream.org


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## TheSword (Mar 11, 2021)

I’m so sad that the maps aren’t battlemap worthy. I mean  I mean I get that Dyson Logos maps have their fans but it reduces the value of the book immeasurably without quality maps for online play. With all WOCs resources and the great artists available it’s deeply disappointing.

I thought with Rime of the Frostmaiden we’d put this behind us.


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## brimmels (Mar 11, 2021)

Jeff Carpenter said:


> Quick question how many new monsters does it have ?
> 
> I don't usually pre written adventures but i love monsters.



So, by the numbers -- 
23 stat blocks total
2 of those are repeats from other adventure to make things easy for DMs
3 of those are for NPCs (or 2 if you consider Constructed Commoners to be monsters)
5 of those are adversary NPCs that could easily be renamed/reskinned for future use
The rest are classic monsters/creatures


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## Ibrandul (Mar 11, 2021)

TheSword said:


> I’m so sad that the maps aren’t battlemap worthy. I mean  I mean I get that Dyson Logos maps have their fans but it reduces the value of the book immeasurably without quality maps for online play. With all WOCs resources and the great artists available it’s deeply disappointing.
> 
> I thought with Rime of the Frostmaiden we’d put this behind us.



I'm with you, and very disappointed this book uses DL's maps. They are fantastic _in miniature_, _in the books_, but terrible for online play. I'm currently halfway through a _Descent into Avernus _campaign on Roll20 and we're wading through muddy chicken scratches in every location. The players all agreed it was a crying shame that (what they assumed must be) the attractive, interesting maps from the hardcover book couldn't have been included in the Roll20 version of the module and were instead replaced with what they all agreed must be "amateur copies"—and then were all appalled to learn that these _were_ the maps from the book.


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## brimmels (Mar 11, 2021)

wicked cool said:


> these sound promising and better one shots (assuming the 1st level-3rd are) than Rime



I liked the adventures for 1st, 2nd and 3rd level characters in Candlekeep much more than the ones in Rime of the Frostmaiden


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## brimmels (Mar 11, 2021)

trs31 said:


> I am equal parts curious and apprehensive to see how shifting sensibilities have affected the rebranding of the Vistani. Can you let us know what this looks like?



Chris Perkins wrote that adventure, which starts with the story contained in the Book of Ravens, detailing how the unnamed author traveled with the Vistani for a time, and they showed great kindness while the writer was injured. It includes Vistani lore about them being planar travelers who can traverse shadow crossings. The lore also describes the Vistani as people who display their wealth openly because they view it as a blessing and that they put great value on hospitality.


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## brimmels (Mar 11, 2021)

Geoff Thirlwell said:


> Not reading the spoilers, but does the book say if the the default timeline is after Descent into Avernus?



Both books cite DR 1492. Candlekeep emphasizes, though, that you can adjust the time as you see fit.


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## Enevhar Aldarion (Mar 11, 2021)

brimmels said:


> Both books cite DR 1492. Candlekeep emphasizes, though, that you can adjust the time as you see fit.




Avernus should be 1494, as that 1492 is probably a typo, since it does not match up to the actual lore in the book of a particular 50-year event.


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## aco175 (Mar 12, 2021)

At least my players do not care what years it is ... again


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## Ibrandul (Mar 12, 2021)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> Avernus should be 1494, as that 1492 is probably a typo, since it does not match up to the actual lore in the book of a particular 50-year event.



Should be, yes—but according to the book’s page on the FR Fandom site, it has been officially set as 1492 by WotC, and indeed the BG3 video game (whose plot takes up where Descent into Avernus leaves off) begins later in 1492. So the book’s own internal evidence doesn’t jibe with the place it has to occupy in the timeline.

I mean, this sort of thing happened back in 2e too, but back then there were dozens of additions to the canon each year. Nowadays there are two or three FR products a year; you wouldn’t think it’d be that tough to keep the dates straight on them.


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## Eyes of Nine (Mar 12, 2021)

GreyLord said:


> The review states this...
> 
> 
> 
> What makes it more useful than say...Volo's, or Xanathar's, or Mordekainen's, or Tasha's?



That probably depends on you. If you need short-ish adventures, then this is going to be very useful. If you don't, then it won't be so much.


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## dave2008 (Mar 12, 2021)

GreyLord said:


> The review states this...
> 
> 
> 
> What makes it more useful than say...Volo's, or Xanathar's, or Mordekainen's, or Tasha's?



It is an adventure book. Only you can determine if that is more useful to you than rule books like VGtM, XCtE, MToF, & TCoE.


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## QuentinGeorge (Mar 12, 2021)

jeremypowell said:


> Should be, yes—but according to the book’s page on the FR Fandom site, it has been officially set as 1492 by WotC, and indeed the BG3 video game (whose plot takes up where Descent into Avernus leaves off) begins later in 1492. So the book’s own internal evidence doesn’t jibe with the place it has to occupy in the timeline.
> 
> I mean, this sort of thing happened back in 2e too, but back then there were dozens of additions to the canon each year. Nowadays there are two or three FR products a year; you wouldn’t think it’d be that tough to keep the dates straight on them.



Especially since wasn't that what they hired Sean K Reynolds specifically for?


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## Ghost2020 (Mar 12, 2021)

Is the Candlekeep information wildly different from the Candlekeep Companion?


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## jayoungr (Mar 12, 2021)

TheSword said:


> I’m so sad that the maps aren’t battlemap worthy. I mean  I mean I get that Dyson Logos maps have their fans but it reduces the value of the book immeasurably without quality maps for online play. With all WOCs resources and the great artists available it’s deeply disappointing.



Ah, that is disappointing.  Nothing against Dyson Logos--those maps are super-clear on the page, which is great--but I really miss Mike Schley.  I'm starting to wonder what happened between him and WotC that they don't work together anymore.



trs31 said:


> I am equal parts curious and apprehensive to see how shifting sensibilities have affected the rebranding of the Vistani. Can you let us know what this looks like?



I wouldn't worry too much about it.  The season 4 AL adventures already had the PCs dealing with non-evil Vistani in a friendly way, and that was years before the formal "rebranding."


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## Ibrandul (Mar 12, 2021)

jayoungr said:


> I really miss Mike Schley.  I'm starting to wonder what happened between him and WotC that they don't work together anymore.



I don't think anything happened to him, and I would expect to continue to see his work in future products.

There's never been a period in which _only_ he illustrated maps for WotC (they've always used other cartographers alongside him, often even within a single book). And his maps are prevalent in _Rime of the Frostmaiden_, which until _Candlekeep Mysteries _was still the most recent book with maps in it. So unless I've missed some news, they're still working together; he just doesn't do _all_ the maps, and never has.


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## jayoungr (Mar 12, 2021)

jeremypowell said:


> he just doesn't do _all_ the maps, and never has.



Fair--it's just that he hasn't done _any_ maps for them in a few years now, if I'm not mistaken?


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## Ibrandul (Mar 12, 2021)

Are all the _Rime_ maps reprints of old maps?

Edit: Schley did maps of Icewind Dale for _Legacy of the Crystal Shard_ (2013), but the eleven maps in _Rime_ are different from those. His website says they were "created for" _Rime_. I'm pretty sure they're new.


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## Mercurius (Mar 12, 2021)

With all the Dyson Logos bashing, I'll go on record as saying that I really like his maps. They are conducive to a theater-of-mind style play and help facilitate an approach of shared imagination.

I personally dislike maps that look like stills from a video game. I find that they tend to anchor the focus on the map itself rather than the shared imagination.

To each their own, though. Call me old school, I guess.


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## TheSword (Mar 12, 2021)

Mercurius said:


> With all the Dyson Logos bashing, I'll go on record as saying that I really like his maps. They are conducive to a theater-of-mind style play and help facilitate an approach of shared imagination.
> 
> I personally dislike maps that look like stills from a video game. I find that they tend to anchor the focus on the map itself rather than the shared imagination.
> 
> To each their own, though. Call me old school, I guess.



I think you have said it well. Dyson Logos maps are perfect for theatre of the mind, where people are looking for simplicity and clarity. They don’t want clutter over the map obscuring everything.

I just think that with the quantity of battlemap style play - particularly online they should cater with appropriate battlemaps too.

I’d actually be fine with a separate map pack. I’ve bought a few of those made by 3pp on DMGuild but they’re a mixed bag to be honest.

Ive seen that Heroic Maps - they are excellent quality - has started working through Dragon Heist Maps so fingers crossed.


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## darjr (Mar 12, 2021)

LOVE Dyson Logos maps. Print them out to one inch scale and they are glorious! Clear and useful a d still evocative and beautiful.


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## Paul Farquhar (Mar 12, 2021)

jeremypowell said:


> Are all the _Rime_ maps reprints of old maps?
> 
> Edit: Schley did maps of Icewind Dale for _Legacy of the Crystal Shard_ (2013), but the eleven maps in _Rime_ are different from those. His website says they were "created for" _Rime_. I'm pretty sure they're new.



I believe the town maps are redrawn, but following the earlier cartography.


Mercurius said:


> I personally dislike maps that look like stills from a video game. I find that they tend to anchor the focus on the map itself rather than the shared imagination.



It depends on what you want to do with them. For a tabletop game simple clear maps are best. But for play online then colourful maps with lots of detail are best.


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## Ibrandul (Mar 12, 2021)

Paul Farquhar said:


> [Re: Dyson's maps] IIt depends on what you want to do with them. For a tabletop game simple clear maps are best. But for play online then colourful maps with lots of detail are best.



Agreed. I'm disappointed they're using Dyson Logos, but I'm hardly a basher; as I said above, DL's maps are "fantastic" in miniature, on the page, in the books. I've never used printed-out versions for live play, but maybe they do work great there too. The problem is they look really, really bad in online play, where you usually have to zoom in far enough that work in DL's style just starts to looks crude, even though it isn't. Schley's maps look great for all purposes, so I prefer them.


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## trs31 (Mar 12, 2021)

brimmels said:


> Chris Perkins wrote that adventure, which starts with the story contained in the Book of Ravens, detailing how the unnamed author traveled with the Vistani for a time, and they showed great kindness while the writer was injured. It includes Vistani lore about them being planar travelers who can traverse shadow crossings. The lore also describes the Vistani as people who display their wealth openly because they view it as a blessing and that they put great value on hospitality.



Well that doesn't sound too different from what we have now. Thanks.


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## trs31 (Mar 12, 2021)

jayoungr said:


> Ah, that is disappointing.  Nothing against Dyson Logos--those maps are super-clear on the page, which is great--but I really miss Mike Schley.  I'm starting to wonder what happened between him and WotC that they don't work together anymore.
> 
> 
> I wouldn't worry too much about it.  The season 4 AL adventures already had the PCs dealing with non-evil Vistani in a friendly way, and that was years before the formal "rebranding."



I agree that the Vistani haven't been portrayed as  just evil for a long time and I think that's a good thing. I like the similarities to Romani culture though and I think as long as the positive elements of that are focused on and they aren't portrayed as a negative stereotype then there isn't any need to change them too much.


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## MNblockhead (Mar 13, 2021)

regarding the maps, I'm a fan of both Schley and Dyson.  I think WotC is leaving money on the table by not selling separate battlemap images.  When I ran Curse of Strahd, I bough Schley's map pack, so I could have high-res, properly scaled maps. The images should could be included with the VTT versions as an extra perk but should also be available as image files.  Both Kobold Press and Frog God Games do this and it is so DM friendly that while I've bought some of the WotC adventures after Curse of Strahd, I've not actually run any.


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## Paul Farquhar (Mar 13, 2021)

trs31 said:


> I agree that the Vistani haven't been portrayed as  just evil for a long time



Curse of Strahd was the _only_ occasion they where portrayed as evil.


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## QuentinGeorge (Mar 13, 2021)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Curse of Strahd was the _only_ occasion they where portrayed as evil.



In the classic campaign, Vistani enslaved Van Richten's son and sold him to the vampire Metus, on top of Madame Eva being evil-aligned. On the flipside they were persecuted by Gabrielle and Malocchio Aderre, were part of the heroic resistance against Soth and Azrael and had other moments of heroism. They were complex and even then it was clear what might be true of one Vistani was not true of them all. (And most of the evil Vistani were "darklings", ie Vistani outcasts anyway)

Unless we are now at the point where you may not have a Vistani villain at all, which is strange and troubling.


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## Enevhar Aldarion (Mar 13, 2021)

QuentinGeorge said:


> In the classic campaign, Vistani enslaved Van Richten's son and sold him to the vampire Metus, on top of Madame Eva being evil-aligned. On the flipside they were persecuted by Gabrielle and Malocchio Aderre, were part of the heroic resistance against Soth and Azrael and had other moments of heroism. They were complex and even then it was clear what might be true of one Vistani was not true of them all. (And most of the evil Vistani were "darklings", ie Vistani outcasts anyway)
> 
> Unless we are now at the point where you may not have a Vistani villain at all, which is strange and troubling.




I always viewed the Vistani in Ravenloft as twisted and warped version of normal Vistani, and not a stereotype of all Vistani everywhere. Just like in the real world, where we have our twisted sterotypes that are true of some Roma people, but not true for the vast majority or normal Roma. Just like stereotypes of all other groups work. There are just enough to prove the stereotype true, which then gets it applied unjustly to the rest of that group.

And sure, they could still publish a Vistani big bad, but there should also be plenty of examples in the adventure who are nothing like that person, to show the group as a whole is good. The same should be done with all the other groups WotC is trying to reform and show is not "born" evil.


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## Paul Farquhar (Mar 19, 2021)

QuentinGeorge said:


> In the classic campaign, Vistani enslaved Van Richten's son and sold him to the vampire Metus, on top of Madame Eva being evil-aligned. On the flipside they were persecuted by Gabrielle and Malocchio Aderre, were part of the heroic resistance against Soth and Azrael and had other moments of heroism. They were complex and even then it was clear what might be true of one Vistani was not true of them all. (And most of the evil Vistani were "darklings", ie Vistani outcasts anyway)
> 
> Unless we are now at the point where you may not have a Vistani villain at all, which is strange and troubling.



Sorry, I intended to mean "tending to evil as a group". Up until CoS they had been portrayed as "some are evil, some are good, most are neutral".

And of course they where not in I6 at all.


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## Burnside (Mar 19, 2021)

Mercurius said:


> With all the Dyson Logos bashing, I'll go on record as saying that I really like his maps. They are conducive to a theater-of-mind style play and help facilitate an approach of shared imagination.
> 
> I personally dislike maps that look like stills from a video game. I find that they tend to anchor the focus on the map itself rather than the shared imagination.
> 
> To each their own, though. Call me old school, I guess.




I really like Dyson Logos maps if I'm running in-person games. But unfortunately, I can't do that right now.

For VTT games, I much, much prefer Schley-style full-color maps, and the experience they create for my online players is vastly superior. So it's unfortunate that we don't have them here. I will need to make my own, which is a lot of work.


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## jayoungr (Mar 19, 2021)

Paul Farquhar said:


> And of course they where not in I6 at all.



They weren't called Vistani, but I6 starts with one of them delivering the decoy message to get the players to come to Barovia.


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## Burnside (Mar 19, 2021)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Sorry, I intended to mean "tending to evil as a group". Up until CoS they had been portrayed as "some are evil, some are good, most are neutral".
> 
> And of course they where not in I6 at all.




In I6 they were just called "gypsies" which is, you know, much worse.


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## Erich the Fuzzy (May 4, 2021)

jeremypowell said:


> Should be, yes—but according to the book’s page on the FR Fandom site, it has been officially set as 1492 by WotC, and indeed the BG3 video game (whose plot takes up where Descent into Avernus leaves off) begins later in 1492. So the book’s own internal evidence doesn’t jibe with the place it has to occupy in the timeline.
> 
> I mean, this sort of thing happened back in 2e too, but back then there were dozens of additions to the canon each year. Nowadays there are two or three FR products a year; you wouldn’t think it’d be that tough to keep the dates straight on them.



The specific events of "Descent into Avernus" should happen in 1494, being 50 years after the events of 1444. The Baldur's Gate gazetteer chapter is where 1492 is mentioned. As I read the supplement, the gazetteer seems like a separate product, provided for those who want to run their own campaigns based in/around BG. It's essentially unnecessary for the DiA plotline, which has the players leave BG for Avernus by the time they reach tier 2, never to return (or at least, not until they get past level 13, and then only if they want to for some reason). So I think of this as a separate resource, and it even makes more sense for it to describe "business as usual" for Baldur's Gate rather than the specific situation of 1494 DR when Elturan refugees show up en masse and encamp outside the gates. There is almost nothing in the gazetteer to tie it to the DiA events other than the absence of the Fist's leader; if you leave that out, you can think of the gazetteer as describing 1492 and the Descent taking place in 1494.


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## Ibrandul (May 4, 2021)

Erich the Fuzzy said:


> The specific events of "Descent into Avernus" should happen in 1494, being 50 years after the events of 1444. The Baldur's Gate gazetteer chapter is where 1492 is mentioned. As I read the supplement, the gazetteer seems like a separate product, provided for those who want to run their own campaigns based in/around BG. It's essentially unnecessary for the DiA plotline, which has the players leave BG for Avernus by the time they reach tier 2, never to return (or at least, not until they get past level 13, and then only if they want to for some reason). So I think of this as a separate resource, and it even makes more sense for it to describe "business as usual" for Baldur's Gate rather than the specific situation of 1494 DR when Elturan refugees show up en masse and encamp outside the gates. There is almost nothing in the gazetteer to tie it to the DiA events other than the absence of the Fist's leader; if you leave that out, you can think of the gazetteer as describing 1492 and the Descent taking place in 1494.



Right. But nonetheless WotC has chosen 1492 as the canon date for Descent. Apparently the video game Baldur's Gate III—which references the events of Descent as having occurred earlier in the same year—is set in 1492. Makes no sense, but that's that.


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