D&D General Great London Fire of 1666 and using it in your game

Today starts the anniversary of the Great London Fire of 1666, lasting from Sept 2 to Sept 6, gutting the entire part of the city within the old Roman walls. With a population of around 500k, London was similar to Waterdeep, depending on D&D edition. With the existence of magic, both for extinguishing the fire and for amplifying it, how would you play out something like this in an adventure? What character levels would you make it for? And what BBEG might be behind it, whether in actually starting it or just in taking advantage and keeping it going to further their evil plans? Reading through the article below, all sorts of ideas come to mind, as the fire came just a year after the end of another wave of the Great Plague, and the attempt to use gunpowder to destroy houses in the path of the flames, to create a firebreak, caused more panic, as people thought the French were invading at the same time.

 

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jgsugden

Legend
In many worlds you just wouldn't be able to play a direct equivalent. Magic makes it too easy to stop the fires. In a city the size of Waterdeep/London, it seems unlikely that there would not be spellcasters capable of stopping the fire.

On the other hand, if you make it magical fire, or otherwise a magical attack, then you can do more. However, with magic involved, the fire might have a tendency to work faster.

In my homebrew world, which I've rebooted 3 times (4 total continuities), the campaign begins in a land that is about to be overrun by a surprise attack by a fanatical assembly of forces. One of the things that these forces know they need to do is to quickly eliminate as much of the magic users from the nation to be concquered as possible. They achieve this by creating a mystery that draws many of them to the Tower of High Magic, the governing body of the Arcane in the nation, and then using a powerful magic to rip a hole in the universe between the Prime Material Plane and (my equivalent of) the Elemental Plane of Fire - and then releasing several broad anti-magic spells to prevent fire fighting, teleportation, etc... The spellcasters are trapped within the tower as it is consumed. The rift to the fire plane is in the only 'mundane' entrance to the massive tower (there are no windows, balconies, or room entrances). An army of fire elementals, salamanders, and azer wrap up things up for the conquering army. As the massive tower collapses, it falls on parts of the surrounding city and the city itself is then destroyed in the fire. As it is aided by the fire plane residents, the entire town is consumed in less than an hour.

In all 4 continuities, the PCs were not near the tower when this went down (although in all 4 they actually play an unwitting role in setting it up to happen). In the current run of the campaign, they have not even heard of the events transpiring as the leaders of the vanquished refugee nation are keeping many of the details of the downfall from the populace in general and there were very few survivors from that location.

If you want the feel of the Fire, but are not tied to an actual fire as the mechanic, you could have the city be built upon a Primodial's resting place and then have it awaken, essentially having a slow acting volcano consume the entire city. That type of adventure would be appropriate for PCs of any level. It would just change whether it is a 'avoid everything' adventure, or 'fight the thing before it entirely consumes the city' adventure. I did something like it using Cloverfield as a model for the adventure. The PCs were hired by a very wealthy NPC to recover the components of an artifact that he'd kept locked away in 7 different vaults within the city, so the PCs had to try to recover them before they sunk into lava in their various locations. They didn't have time for multiple short rests, much less a long rest, and had to deal with a collapsing city, fire monsters in the service of the primordial, and eventually with the emergence of the primordial himself (300 feet tall lava monster that was arising institnctually because other primordial creatures were arising and they battle when that happens).
 


el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
I am not agreement with @jgsugden that it would not happen within a world of magic, since even "normal" fire can spread even faster than casters can cast spells (esp. during a drought) - that said, a rogue fire elemental could start a raging "normal" fire pretty quickly - and even after powerful adventurers showed up to defeat it the monster the fire would continue and saving civilians would complicate fights. Add in stuff like, saving animals, digging trenches, looters, organizing bucket brigades could all be cool. I should know I ran adventure like this back in 3E days based on the 2E Dungeon Adventure "Hot Day in L'Trel" (Dungeon #44 - 1993) - but I had the fire be the consequences of a plague of insomnia making the people of the small city getting careless and dazed and kind of sleepwalking through life.
 


Mad_Jack

Legend
Random considerations:

  • Even with Control Weather or similar spells to make it rain, putting out a raging city-wide fire is going to be tough - if nobody's managed to put it out before it becomes large enough to threaten an entire neighborhood or city quarter, the only option is probably trying to confine it to that one area.
  • Depending on what part of the city is burning, it's unlikely that whatever water source they have is going to be able to generate enough water to effectively fight a fire once it grows beyond a couple of buildings.
  • Even in a city with an efficient and coordinated city-wide police force/city guard, it's going to take a great deal of time to start trying to spread word of the fire and even longer to try to find individuals with the ability to contribute toward fighting it in any sort of magical capacity, assuming they're inclined to help/can be coerced into helping.
  • Coming from the other side of the issue... Similar to the London fire, most larger cities are likely to have a wall or gate (or even wide thoroughfare) between different sections of the city, which will help contain the fire so a city-wide emergency is probably going to involve several arsonists acting with deliberate coordination, and most likely fire creatures summoned to run amok.
 
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el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
For anyone interested, I remembered that the "Fire" adventure was captured in my Second Son of Second Son Campaign Story Hour.

You can read about the beginning of the fire itself near the end of this session/installment, here.

Or, if you want to go back a little further for the sleeplessness plague that led up to it, you can start with this post.

I think the only real context you need is that the party has recently returned from an adventure to the inn called Death & Taxes where they rent some suites, for some "downtime" - and while there one member of the party has been temporarily made the city's watch-mage until a replacement is found for the former one - so he acts as a kind of meditator and sheriff. Unfortunately, the story hour's wiki links no longer work.
 

GMMichael

Guide of Modos
Remember, remember, the 6th of September...

. . . With the existence of magic, both for extinguishing the fire and for amplifying it, how would you play out something like this in an adventure? What character levels would you make it for? And what BBEG might be behind it, whether in actually starting it or just in taking advantage and keeping it going to further their evil plans?
I'd wait until a PC discovers that her long lost best friend from tutoring lives somewhere in the city. Then it would burn down.

I'd run it at a level before PCs can summon ice elementals.

The only reason I'd use a great fire is if an enemy (or PC) started it. It's too deus ex machina otherwise. Not a bad plan for the certifiably insane, former royal counselor or maybe the PC's recently-disappeared quartermaster (Q) to invent.
 

I am not agreement with @jgsugden that it would not happen within a world of magic, since even "normal" fire can spread even faster than casters can cast spells (esp. during a drought)
The great Fire of London came after an extended period of dry weather, and even so, spread slowly. The main difficulties in fighting it where dry wells and non-invention of pumps and hoses capable of drawing water from the river in sufficient quantities. The ability to Create Water, summon a rainstorm, or have invisible servants carry buckets would easily have dealt with it.
 

One plotline to pursue would be "what if the PCs accidently started the fire". This almost happened in one of our games, although it was only the docks district that burned down.
 

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