You ever think about how WDDH and BG3 are set in the same year so like, in BG3 endgames where Gale didn't ascend, Vajra's already got her hands full with a turf war between the Xanathar Guild and two opposing factions of Zhentarim and then Gale Fucking Dekarios rolls back into town having formed an unshakable lifelong bond with like five or six of the least hinged people in Baldur's Gate and wants to teach at Blackstaff Tower again
As I suspect the campaign may not ever gat picked up again (we reached and never returned to chapter two for over a year lol). So i‘m going to drop how i was running Waterdeep Dragon Heist and few plans/ideas i had as DM.
I wasn’t running the Alexandrian remix but i added bunch of fun things from newspapers and tweaks to villain motivations other DMs may like
Spoilers below
Villians
Autumn/Winter
I had decided on two villains a main and a secret villain
Though i left a Xanathar open as an option in case main villain became an ally too soon.
~Jarlaxle plot~
He was there to cause a fun mischief for the players. Leaning into him turning loses into wins and being five steps ahead to antagonise the players. He also wants to gain political influence for Luskan the players can help with as things develop.
A race to the treasure type villain.
He first appears in chapter two as a rival. As my players mostly had performance backgrounds i created a festival in game that had three very cool but magic trinkets to win.
So as the players did faction quests they were also prepping to win the festival of arts contest. The circus carnival was their biggest rival. They had options to try to win honestly, sabotage others, hire npc artists or audition for the circus and win with zord etc. they could try anything to win. I would use performance checks for big finale to see if they won and felt like maybe if they lost Jarlaxle would wager one prize in a one off challenge to them.
As they owned the tavern I decided to add a day where they hired staff who had benefits to be hired from performance and general game ones. A healer, someone who can carry heavy items they find, someone who finds random items per day. They got to hire two out of the four candidates.
One candidate is Athrogate in disguise/fake name who will also spy on the players and give intel to Jarlaxle who may use it for villan purposes later (my players fell for this trap but i never got to exploit it yet). There are ways for the players to catch him spying.
Another candidate was a comedy duo the bard from the game. I switched his plot to betraying his bard partner than mother (i think that was book plot in last chapter) the players not hiring them has consequences in last chapter.
Jax is in disguise as the pirate zord for as long as needed. He can even turn up as his other aliases.
The players will chase festival prizes and later dragon hiest until Manshoon men disrupts the chase scene between players and the drow.
~Manshoon plot~
The main or most sinister villain to contrast the fun of having Jarlaxle as a rival. He aims to control the city and gather puppets to rule from the shadows as a hidden lord.
While he is after the treasure i changed his motivation into creating chaos for masked lord’s power in the city to install his puppets.
There are two Zhents in the city
the new flashy one which is more like a pyramid scheme
the old traditional branch manshoon has revived
Manshoon is stirring up distrust in a newspaper owned by the Greyhunds. Every morning the players get two papers
Iron fist (a front for manshoon. Fear stories)
Waterdeep gazette (a front for the open lord and masked lords. Everything is fine news)
The Iron Fist sells tabloid/Fox News propaganda that sells scandals about Laerels leadership and the shadowy masked lords. It sells few hits on players too. Featured ads where they are hiring ’ex cons’ for redemption project the players can explore to discover there are two zhents in town.
The festival and circus advertises in both papers.
Greyhunds are also trying to campaign to be Open lords
There’s option for the players to do a speech in secure location in front of hidden masked lords (as a outreach thing to retore city trust among the people). This would lead to Manshoon taking a interest in the players as an antagonist. With a few tavern events.
His interest in treasure is power and shaming the current leadership in the city to cause a change in power to greyhulds and himself. Greyhulds turn up in odd spots doing very bad community outreach.
His side disrupts the chase scene thats mix of autumn and winter events. This is when jarlaxle sides with the players to help take down manshoon (in exchange for the dragon staff and peace for luskan)
The treasure
The players can keep the hoard (pay off the tavern fees) or donate it to the open lord to restore trust in the city and foil iron fists shaming.
Player plots custom adds
One player didn’t realise they had a backstory that linked to the vampire manshoon. I was going to bring him in. At the end of the game the players get chance to raid manshoons hideout. The vampire manshoon was going to trick the players into getting the other clone to waste ‘command word kill’ so vampire manshoon could use his on the other clone. He would then promise the players to bring back npc or dead player if they did exactly as he says. With options to foil his plot. Potentially leading also into a new campaign all together.
A players dodgy father/gnome family were the ones working on jarlaxles submarine.
Player to lift a curse on themselves by saving gondian artifacts.
A player choice to spy for a mindflayer
Artemis Entreri trying to recruit the party rogue into a faction of his own via a mad test where he secretly wants the player to disobey him. He’s looking for rogues like himself strong willed.
Dalakhar is not an actual NPC in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist Campaign. He just appears and gives info, and then is never seen again, therefore there is no portrait for him. For my campaign, I needed him to be an actual companion, so here is an NPC portrait again!
