Ideas for Blood War campaign

[deathbymanga]

So, a Friend was inviting another friend of mine into a Pirates campaign, but then had to tell the rest of us there wasn't enough room for more. So Screw Him! :P :P We'll make our own Pirate Campaign, with Blackjack, and Hookers, and we're keeping both of them, because we're in Hell now.

3.5 Campaign. I'm DMing. This is my first 3.5 campaign to DM, I'm used to 5e.

Players are lvl 10, no Gestalt. Players are dead and in the Abyss involved in the Blood War. They start with 1 special item that came with them into the afterlife, nothing else of note, just average adventure gear.

Currently the only books I've got banned are 3.0 books and Vile Darkness/Exalted deeds.

Any ideas the more experienced DMs might want to offer? any campaign hooks or maybe rules I might have neglected to notice?

[ThisIsZen]

The Blood War got sidelined in a lot of 3.5 material honestly (Asmodeus considers it an amusing distraction, for example, while the Good/Evil conflict gets emphasized). I would suggest looking into 2e content, specifically Planes cape. Hellbound: The Blood War is a deluxe adventure box with a lot of resources in it, available for about ten bucks in pdf form on drive thru rpg. I'm using it for my Blood War campaign as well.

[FocusWolf413]

Don't use them in battles. They'll get overwhelmed easily. Assist other on grapple checks leads to a quick battlefield death.

Use them as a small strike force to weaken the enemy. Use them for trade or negotiation. Send them out to retrieve things. Make sure they feel endangered at all times.

[Coidzor]

They're in the same unit as the Nameless One. That's got the other people riled up and is causing trouble as the Nameless One's infamy is drawing extra attention from their foes.

They're in a unit where the Nameless One is supposed to be somewhere in the opposing force. They're getting sent on increasingly crazy missions to try to either provoke him into exposing himself or set up an opportunity by another group to get rid of him.

A creature or group is trying to sow discord or get soldiers to unionize, and for some reason the fiends that prevent that sort of thing can't figure out where it's coming from, leading to increased tensions and irritability.

Since you're familiar with 5e, I'll say this, you probably want them to have some access to at least simple magical gear if you want them to not all play casters if they know the system.

[deathbymanga]

Ok, after talking with the three guys I know are going to be in the campaign, I got these characters:

a Neutral Evil Bugbear Barbarian Mercenary who kills for money and doesn't care who, who went out in a blaze of glory after he got caught and thrown into a gladiator pit and decided to blow everything up with the explosive barrels left for entertainment purposes

a Necromancy Specialist Wizard who tried and failed to create a Phylactery, luckily only dying in the process, not eradicating his soul all together.

And a Chaotic Evil Satyr Rogue/Assassin who successfully accomplished his life's goal of killing an Archmage who slaughtered his family and loved ones, only to die horribly in the end in a fantastic display of grace and mutilation.


One thing I noticed is that Chaotic Evil souls become Larvae the minute they enter the Abyss and then mature into demons themselves. which is great thematically, but the character then looses much of their own memory and can make later character interactions harsh when the now dead Archmage finds the Satyr and seeks his destruction, only for the satyr to have no recollection of what he's done.

So, it might be interesting to create some starting point enemy that's been collecting souls before they can even enter the lower planes, this results in a nasty prison break situation that forces the team to rally together to escape, flee to the river styx, and now have hold the fort until one of Charon's sailors can come pick them up and take them elsewhere. Maybe because they'll likely have no money after all this, their fee is paid for in advance by some "benevolent" sponsor who wants to hire them to do a "job"?

[FocusWolf413]

This is the one gametype where they all need tk agree on a set alignment. It doesn’t work otherwise.
You might want to refluff their races as types of devil/daemon/demon, and give them bonuses and SLAs every level or every other level or something. That could be really cool.

[deathbymanga]

The Blood War got sidelined in a lot of 3.5 material honestly (Asmodeus considers it an amusing distraction, for example, while the Good/Evil conflict gets emphasized). I would suggest looking into 2e content, specifically Planes cape. Hellbound: The Blood War is a deluxe adventure box with a lot of resources in it, available for about ten bucks in pdf form on drive thru rpg. I'm using it for my Blood War campaign as well.

I'm really enjoying this set, thanks a lot. I'm not usually a big fan of using modules, but this is great. my one concern is that the encounters are all AD&D built, is there a good conversion guide to convert the encounters to 3.5?

[Sheogoroth]

Ooh! I love the idea.
The problem with a blood war campaign, though, is that it's fundamentally endless and neither side really commits that many major assets to it.
You could have them work for Hell rather than the Abyss, since demons are described as being endless with little actual structures; devils would be more inclined to strike a deal with them.

I wrote up a campaign once(never got around to fully fleshing it out or playing it) in which the forces of Abbadon were secretly flaring up the Blood War, all the while a group of their agents as Anti-heroes were trying to, in some way, create a chain reaction that would destroy the material plane. Each module was the heroes stopping some very convoluted plot that would functionally either end all life or completely destroy it.

Module one was, right off the bat, resurrecting a dead god of necromancy IN the plane who would immediately try to destroy everything.
I think the big bad of module 3 was a druid who believed life was corrupted in the material plane and created his own temporal distortion plane that had been rapidly expanding and the larger it got, the more time was distorted, so having been in his plane for 10 years to him felt like 10,000 and it had just started cresting the exponential growth horizon and was preparing to Cast "Create Demiplane" from inside his own demiplane, which would create a field of negative energy the size of his plane in the material plane that would grow at the normal rate of time as he percieved it, but because of his time distortion, it would have very quickly reached an infinite rate of growth and destroyed all life.
Another one was summoning an Elder Evil.

Anyway, their purpose was to starve Hell and the Abyss of souls and the heavens of petitioners(since Div don't need souls) and take over everything.
I thought it was a fun idea, but I figured the scope was too large and having people save the world as 6th level characters even if I give them Gestalt requires suspension of disbelief.

[ThisIsZen]

I'm really enjoying this set, thanks a lot. I'm not usually a big fan of using modules, but this is great. my one concern is that the encounters are all AD&D built, is there a good conversion guide to convert the encounters to 3.5?

Well, most of the monsters in it have 3.5 versions, and those that don't could be altered to something that does have stats
Even if you don't use the adventures in the books, the info is great, and you can pull some neat material and set pieces out. For instance, I'm going to be making the Relentless fortress from Squaring the Circle a key location and my PCs' base of operations in the Lower Planes.

Also, a possible solution to your issue with the larvae would just be to contrive a reason for the PCs to be exempt. Perhaps their senses of self are so potent that they ignite into unique Outsiders as they cross the border from life to death? Retaining all that they were but ending up in an unfamiliar and hostile place. Creatures like that would be valuable assets to Arch fiends, so they'd have plenty of opportunity to choose a patron.