I now am an actual man after reading this book.
Before I read this book I was a weak man. After this book, I shaved 10 minutes off my 5k time, and increased my deadlift by 225lbs.
I ran this tonight and it was an amazing experience. I’d previously run the standard intro For Descent into Avernus and was fairly dissatisfied. The plan was to use this as a flashback sequence and jump back in where we had left off. In the end my players got deeply invested in their new motivations and we wrote off the murder hobo mercs from last time. We started this at level 2 and it worked just fine with a party of 2. It was so fitting and cinematic when my paladin player swore an oath of vengeance at the edge of the crater of Elturel right after watching it get dragged to hell. This opening propels the heros into the adventure instead of dragging them along and I can’t say enough good about it.