D&D 5E D&D Beyond Offers A Free Baldur's Gate Gazetteer

In Baldur’s Gate, thievery, blackmail, and illegal trade runs rampant. Now you can journey to this dangerous city of the Sword Coast with the Baldur’s Gate Gazetteer. Learn about each of the city’s districts and key locations and people, and unlock backgrounds for your next Baldurian character!

The Gazetter includes:

• History of Baldur's Gate
• Baldur's Gate Today
• Government
• Citizenry
• Economy and Trade
• Religion
• Dangers in Baldur's Gate
• City Landmarks
• Upper City
• Lower City
• Outer City
• Beyond Baldur's Gate
• Baldur's Gate Character Backgrounds
• Dark Secrets

The Gazetteer is quite sizable, and mainly lore-based, with two new NPC stat blocks (Nine-Fingers Keene, and Rilasa Real), some random encounter tables, and information on how the regular D&D character backgrounds fit in. There's also a new background, the Faceless. Finally there are some rules about 'Dark Secrets' which are a background element which the party shares.

Claim Baldur’s Gate Gazetteer now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[mamba]

The relevant Daye for BG3 isn2020, when people began playing it.

pretty sure a lot more people play it now than in 2020

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

So, it is linked by basically the events of the adventure having been undone? How is that different from ‘it never happened’?

I assume there must be one, or this is the weirdest ‘link’ ever… can anyone provide some details?

Haven't had enough free time to get too far into the game, but it's why there's a band of tiefling refugees (the ones sheltering at the druid grove) trying to make their way to Baldur's Gate, for one.

After the city's brief stay in Avernus, whatever tolerance Elturel may have once had for its tiefling population seemingly went out the window.

 

[Demetrios1453]

So, it is linked by basically the events of the adventure having been undone? How is that different from ‘it never happened’?

I assume there must be one, or this is the weirdest ‘tie in’ ever… can anyone provide some details?

No, the events of the adventure still happened. However, the adventure had several potential endings depending on the actions of the characters. The game assumes that the ending that occurred was that the adventurers saved the city and returned it to the Realms, and that Zariel remained ruler of Avernus. That's a likely outcome of the adventure. The game picks up a short time after Elturel returned, after they've driven out all the tieflings, wanting to remove any reminder of the city's time on Avernus.

 

[Ondath]

Yes, it could have . . . . and?

A lot of us LOVED the callback to the 80s cartoon we grew up on! Didn't bother me a lick that this "tie-in" was decades too late!! Or that the new starter didn't tie-in to the movie.

Although, actually . . . it kinda did, as the 80s cartoon kids showed up BOTH in the new starter AND the new movie!!!

EDIT: Oh, and I'll push back on the "cartoon that almost no one watched" . . . there's a reason why the D&D cartoon is considered classic Saturday morning nostalgia. It didn't rise to the heights of He-Man, Transformers, or GI Joe, but plenty of us Gen X'ers watched the hell out of that when we were kids!

I mean, nobody's questioning whether you enjoyed the starter set or DiA. But it's a simple fact from a business standpoint that these products are not utilising the brand synergy to their fullest potential. And they could without relative difficulty. Admitting this does not mean that your enjoyment of these products is invalidated.

 

[Weiley31]

So, it is linked by basically the events of the adventure having been undone? How is that different from ‘it never happened’?

I assume there must be one, or this is the weirdest ‘tie in’ ever… can anyone provide some details?

Not undone. Their version of the campaign canon has it where the heroes saved the day. And the city was saved.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

No one is asking for perfection. An average marketing team at most companies would have had something on shelves for DADHAT. It's not a wild creative leap to think of doing so, and it simply isn't nearly as hard as everyone defending WotC makes it out to be to create a few extra pieces of art for Golden Vault featuring the DADHAT characters and have swapped them in (which can be done very late in the publishing process, assuming they're the same size as the art that ended up being used, which can certainly be dictated to the artists) once the early test screenings showed -- as they did -- that the movie would be well-liked.

Likewise, Stormwreck Isle, which featured the cartoon characters that didn't actually appear in the adventure could have easily instead have featured the DADHAT characters in the art. Heck, they could have re-released the exact same box in a "DADHAT Special Edition." (Although I would have gone the extra mile and written up both the cartoon characters and DADHAT characters as level 1 premades to include in the box, myself.)

Honestly, people act like creating D&D content is like splitting the atom. It's not that hard, and it's super-weird that so many people want to insist that no one could do it better than WotC, despite them stepping on rakes on a monthly basis for the past year.

This goes double for the people furious about Spelljammer, who clearly don't believe that WotC are infallible, except strangely when it comes to marketing.

I think they've been stepping on rakes increasingly for years now, it's just way more rakes and the rakes are getting bigger and are covered in poison now.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Everyone is focused on why no D&D tie ins to the movie and video game, but they did, MtG had the DADHAT secret lair, D&D had the hiest themed anolthology, etc...

And BG3 had BG: Descent into Avernus, comics had Inferno and Mindbreaker prequels, and Commander Legends: Battle For Baldur's Gate, although Hasbro in general has missed the boat on BG3, like no Shadowheart/Wyll/Karlach/Gale/Lae'zel/Astarion action figures? Or mugs? No official T-Shirts?

But the biggest fail of us given BG3's horror themes is no Spirit Halloween customes?!?!?!

I mean we have a Vampire, A Magic Nuke Guy, A Evil Priestess of a Goddess of Darkness, a Warlock with a super sexy Fiendish Patron, a giant Tiefling Infernal Engine, an a Githyanki space pirate, Minsc & Boo, and that is before you concider stuff like Mindflayer or Priestess Gut (Goblin) that would make an awesome custom. All very distinct looks to them, unique styles.

What a huge missed opportunity.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think a nice marketing item they could have when they release a new campaign is a soundtrack for the campaign. Maybe even with vinyl limited editions with the alternate cover printed on it.

 

[mamba]

it's why there's a band of tiefling refugees (the ones sheltering at the druid grove) trying to make their way to Baldur's Gate, for one.

The game picks up a short time after Elturel returned, after they've driven out all the tieflings, wanting to remove any reminder of the city's time on Avernus.

so this is the connection, thanks

 

[mamba]

Not undone. Their version of the campaign canon has it where the heroes saved the day. And the city was saved.

that is what the ‘basically’ was for. Elturel is back where it belongs, but a little worse for the wear compared to the ‘it never happened’ case.

The question was how is this difference reflected in BG3, it is not by there being a gaping hole where Elturel should be after all. That has been answered by now