Baldur's Gate: The Flaming Fist's Dirty War

Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild

The Flaming Fist maintains order in Baldur's Gate. They also maintain a second set of books.

Aldric Voss paid his 'supplemental tariff' every month for two years. Then he didn't. Three days later, his warehouse full of Calimshan silk burned to the ash. The fire investigator ruled it accidental. The complaint he filed to the Parliament of Peers was logged, stamped, and quietly made to disappear. When he went looking for answers, a uniformed Flaming Fist officer knocked on his door and told him — very politely — to let it rest.

He didn't. He hired you instead.

The Flaming Fist's Dirty War is a D&D 5E adventure for three to five characters of levels 3–6, set entirely in the streets, warehouses, and political chambers of Baldur's Gate. It's an investigation adventure first — the kind where what you know matters as much as how hard you can hit — built around a chain of corruption that begins with a shakedown operation in the harbor district and ends at the desk of a lieutenant who has been running a shadow payroll for five years.

Following the evidence means dealing with a sergeant who is genuinely good at his job and genuinely comfortable doing this, a harbor master who got trapped and can't see a way out, a fence who keeps comprehensive records for exactly this kind of occasion, and a council member who has been building a case in isolation for four years and is quietly delighted that someone has finally brought her something she can use. The chain has seven links. Every one of them has a price, a weakness, or both.

Combat is present — this is Baldur's Gate, and the Flaming Fist does not take insults quietly — but it is never the primary tool. Every major confrontation has a non-violent path. The players who do best here are the ones who listen to what NPCs are actually afraid of, not the ones who swing first. That said: the encounters that do happen are tactical, tightly designed, and the final confrontation with Lieutenant Solgard is the kind of scene that gets talked about after the session.

The adventure ends with a genuine moral question — one with no correct answer, only consequential ones — and an aftermath that changes the shape of whatever campaign it's sitting inside.

What's in the pdf:

Three acts of structured investigation across nine major scenes, with branching resolutions and a dynamic Escalation Track that rewards subtlety and complicates recklessness. Eight fully developed NPCs — each with motivations, personality notes, and explicit guidance on how they break under pressure. Four tactical combat encounters with terrain features, morale rules, and notes on how each can be avoided entirely if the party is clever enough. Four player-facing handouts reproducing in-world documents the characters actually find. Custom statistics for the two unique antagonists. A reward structure that takes seriously the question of what 'winning' means in a city where the institution you just cracked is also the one that maintains order. Three new magic items thematically tied to corruption and documentation. A ten-entry random encounter table for the harbor district. And DM guidance that assumes you want to run this well, not just run it.

Designed for one-shot play, a three-session arc, or seamless insertion into any ongoing Baldur's Gate campaign — including Descent into Avernus, for which it makes an excellent prologue.

The Flaming Fist has always charged for its services. The question is who's paying — and for what.

: $2.99