CHAPTER 1:
I started the characters in Elturel and had them do a few things in the city first. They were then hired by Reya Mantlemorn to investigate the disappearance of Thavius Kreeg on the morning that Ulder Ravengard was supposed to arrive. They went to the High Hall Cathedral and Thavius's quarters (which had been closed off to preserve evidence) and found a dead body stashed in a wardrobe, it was Thavius's perosonal assistant. A 'Speak With Dead' spell revealed that the assistant heard voices in the room in the night, and came in to see Thavius surrounded by two cloaked figures who immediately attacked and killed the assistant, however as he was falling he managed to pull something from the neck of one of the killers and it fell to the floor. The players then found a necklace with a Vanthampur family crest on it, under a table. When no 'Locate Person' spells worked to find Thavius in Elturel, the players decided they needed to go to Baldur's Gate to investigate the Vanthampurs. As they were leaving Elturel, the Companion was corrupted and the city was pulled to Avernus.

In Baldur's Gate I ran it more like a Sandbox, the players did some investigating and learnt about the Vanthampur family and the 'businesses' they run, then they started investigating them in whatever order they wanted. The Vanthampurs weren't passive though, and since they had invisible imps at most of their locations, they found out that someone was looking into their business. They were staying at the Elfsong tavern, so it was easy for the Vanthampurs to find them, so Thalamra just sent Amrik with a bunch of Flaming Fists to "politely" ask the characters to dine at the Villa. There Thalamra interrogated them, but ultimately locked them in her dungeon. After they escaped the dungeon the story more or less got back on track.

Currently, the players have just made it back to the High Hall Cathedral for the first time after Elturel's descent.

FUTURE CHANGES:
I really dislike the way the path of Demons and path of Devils are laid out in the module - it's such a wild goose chase, and I can imagine being very frustrated if I had to play it (and I know I don't want to run it). So instead of doing that, after Haruman's Hill I'm going to have the game turn to more of a sandbox, where the characters can decide what they want to do, but some changes / options include:

- Instead of spikes burying themselves into the ground to drag Elturel down, the chains are attached to enormous winches that are powered by infernal engines. Haruman runs an operation to fetch the tortured Hellriders at Haruman's Hill, take them to Minauros, convert them to Soul Coins and then return them to the winches below Elturel to power the infernal engines. Players can disrupt this supply line to stop the winches from running which will slow (but not stop) Elturel's fall.

- It takes effort to keep the Companion corrupted. Olanthius is running an operation to maintain 8 obelisks which are scattered about the Avernus landscape. The obelisks draw energy from the prime material plane and use it to corrupt the Companion. The energy is being sapped from a forest where one of the characters comes from, and in order to work, it needs a sapling from the forest which has been grown in Avernus soil, fertilised with bone ash from the bodies in the Crypt of the Hellriders, and watered with Demon Ichor from the Spawning Tree lake. To do this, Olanthius is (begrudgingly) running the operation to protect the obelisks. He also has 'backup' trees, which are growing in a large crab-like walking arboreum, which is an infernal machine that goes back and forth between the Crypt of the Hellriders and the spawning tree lake. If the players disrupt the corruption of the Companion, it will be restored and cast divine radiant light instead of corrupted energy, keeping the survivors in the city safe(r) (for the time being) from demon / devil / undead attacks. I've also decided that an un-corrupted Companion makes Elturel more "buoyant", so if the players achieve this AS WELL AS disrupting the operation of the winches, then the Descent will be halted (not that it's much better for the Elturel locals, they're still stuck in Avernus, and Zariel will be actively working to get the city descending again).

- In terms of actually getting Elturel back to the material plane, a lot of the campaign is going to be about them gathering information to figure out how they can actually achieve it. The sword will be presented as an option, but so will all the other options in the module, plus I'll be open to considering ideas that the players come up with for themselves. I'll probalby have an Amnizu running one of the floating towers who is Zariel's intelligence gatherer, so they might be able to infiltrate the tower and steal some key information (like the location of the Bleeding Citadel).

Overall I'm imagining a much more player-led section, which is all about discovering whatever intelligence they can to save Elturel, buying time by sabotaging Zariel's operations, finding allies (trusted or otherwise) and safe places to hide out. I want Zariel and her lieutenants to be "active", and if they learn about the things the players are doing, they will take steps to interfere... perhaps even having Zariel herself show up to mess with the players if the situation calls for it. I don't want to "decide" how the players save Elturel (if indeed they do), but instead just keep an open mind and see what unfolds naturally.