I need some advice

[TheIceborn]

Hello everyone, I am a DM in 3.5 edition and I just wondered if you could give me some ideas for story development cuz my inspiration just vanished :p
My group just found out that in 5 weeks the armies of hell will march upon the world.
Do you have any advice on what should I create as an option to stop that? Or in case they fail, how should I organise the worldwide war? Thanks! :)

[Chester]

Perhaps they must find and seal the portal? Or defeat the necromancer behind it?

[TheIceborn]

They found the portal, but are unable to get anywhere near it due to around one hundred orcs that are around it as guards. The mastermind behind opening the portal is a pit fiend and my*PCs decided to find another way to close it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

There's a couple things you want to do when structuring any story.

First, determine your antagonist; you've already done this in choosing a an organized force of the Baatezu.

Second, determine their motive for antagonizing whomever; here's where you want to start digging. More on this in a moment.

Third, determine how they're going to go about their antagonizm; you've settled on an invasion.

Fourth, determine exigent factors; who, other than the PC's, will be involved in either aiding or stymying the antagonist? What natural obtacles will the antagonist have to bypass to reach its victims/goals?

Finally, flesh out these details sufficiently to setup a framework for the adventure/campaign.



In this particular instance, motive becomes a fairly important question, at least if you want to stick to connonic devil lore. The Baatezu are better served by a slow infiltration and integration run than an overwhelming invasion. So what's motivating them to shift from this normal tack to something so much more aggressive?

A couple possibilities come to mind:

Perhaps a mass of Tanar'ri has been seen mobilizing in carceri, flying the flag of Grazz't and are preparing for a hard invasion of Baator and the Baatezu have decided they need a serious soul-drive that warrants the loss of efficiency for a higher short-term payoff.

Perhaps it's some particularly ambitious, mid-level merilith seeking to secure a promotion by aggressively overtaking as much mortal territory as possible to impose a LE tyranical regime and claim all the souls that are to be raised in this new harvest territory.

Maybe they're acting in accordance with an old alliance with Hextor or an equivalent deity that's more interested in an aggressive expansion of territory than in the souls of the mortals that live in that territory. There's a resistance plot with leverage in dividing the devils and the deity's worshipers there if stopping the invasion goes south.



Once you've established -why- the Baatezu are invading, you can figure how to thwart it from that end and, failing that, -how- they're invading can be explored.

Are there devil cultists on this side setting up a portal or gathering for a ritual to let masses of manes and lemures into the material plane? How about some cosmological confluence (the planets/moons/planes are aligning just so, in a way they only rarely do) creating a natural vortex to allow the invasion? Are masses of cultists waiting for some cue to all perform bog-standard callings in unison?




As for setting up a war, a guy could write a book. In fact, WotC wrote 2; Heroes of Battle and The Miniatures Handbook. I'd suggest giving them a once over (the former is the more important) and there's a section in complete warrior that also has some thoughts.

[TheIceborn]

This is the second advice you gave me and both are pretty damn good!!! Thank you very much for your help, I will make sure to follow these steps :)

[Dousedinoil]

It would be really interesting if the 5 week window that they have is completely wrong. I would have a city get wiped out by demons not even a week later, really put the PCs behind the eight ball. People don't like being outsmarted by the BBEG. Give them options. Maybe they decide to retake the city, maybe they station up at another city to wait for the onslaught or decide to find the lair of the BBEG and reverse the portal. Also try and do your best to plan out a bunch of twists in the plot that make it harder to stop them. You don't want it all to be over in one session when they teleport in and kill the BBEG while he's off guard.

I'm Drunks and Dragons (one of the best podcasts out there and worth a listen to) they had to close the portal by using a hammer of sundering. The catch was that it took the soul of the person who used it. It will create a dilemma in the group and it's interesting to see who will step up and sacrifice themselves to save the world.

[Kelb_Panthera]

This is the second advice you gave me and both are pretty damn good!!! Thank you very much for your help, I will make sure to follow these steps :)

NP. Glad to help.

[Gildedragon]

5 weeks is... kinda short notice to put a stop to the plans.

you could have this happen in more... paused stages. How do the players know the invasion is happening? Prophecy? First hand sighting of the portal opening up? Overheard plans?

[TheIceborn]

The characters captured a high ranking cultist that discovered them the plans for invasion and told them the location of the portal. Their problem is they don't have the powers to destroy it, so rn they're seeking for something that can prevent it from opening completely.
I really like the idea about the premature invasion, I must say.
About the sacrifice....ik my players pretty well and every single one of them would rather watch the world burn than do that.

[Kelb_Panthera]

My first thought was to produce a sealing device based on dimension lock. Problem is that a portable one is going to cost 120k gold pieces and take 4 -months- to produce. It would also require the involvement of a caster powerful enough that your party would likely become redundant (15th level, minimum.)

If you can muster up a scroll of forbiddance that'd do it. It's not super secure though, since any CL 12 or higher attempt to dispel it may open the gate once more. If you can then hold the location for 33 days, a capable caster can build a piece of wondrous architecture based on forbiddance at the site to hold it shut until you can come up with a method to destroy the gate. The cost will be enormous but I imagine you could get it subsidized what with the entire world on the line.

If you can't muster up even a 11th level cleric to aid you, you might be dealing with something a bit above your pay-grade.

Alternately, there's always the good old mcguffin cop-out. They have 5 weeks to get the special gate closey thingamabob and then get it to the site to seal the gate. Ancient tomb/dungeon built after the last time this sort of thing happened is the typical hiding place for such things.

[Vizzerdrix]

What about doing it the old fassion way and burrying it in conctete?

[Kelb_Panthera]

What about doing it the old fassion way and burrying it in conctete?

That might work. It depends on whether the DM rules that the gate opening would destroy any physical object in the aperture or not and whether creatures on the other side could reach through with weapons and tools to just dig their way through. It's not RAW but I have a sneaking suspicion that the gate itself isn't a proper portal, as in something crafted with the create portal feat anyway. Feels, from what he's written so far, like an artifact gate of some kind.

[TheIceborn]

Yh it's an artifact gate, quite ancient. Burrowing it is near impossible bcs it's on the mountain top.
2 of them made a deal with the pit fiend(horrible decision, really) who sent them on the other side of the world so they cannot find the artifact on time(didn't kill them because only half of the party was present there at the time and he didn't know the location of the other two), so he basically tricked them so they cannot close the gateway on time.

[Eisfalken]

As a backup plan for Kelb's stuff, here's the number one thing to ask:

WHY are the armies of hell invading? What's the motive? What do they have to gain from doing this?

See, here's the funny thing: war is expensive, for Hell as well as anything on Earth. Those devils are, in most settings, busier fighting demons, each other, etc. You're talking about deploying them away from their homes into a Material Plane world for... what? Permanent portals are expensive and hard to make; one Mordenkainen's disjunction on a scroll or something can be the absolute end of the invasion.

There has to be an objective. Is there some difference in your game as to how devils acquire souls to create more of their kind? Normally that's not how it works at all; you have to "lead" the mortal to being Lawful Evil, and/or not worshipping any deity of that alignment (so they can't lay claim to you later). There's a reason the Nine Hells sends tempters and seducers to get Faustian pacts, because they have to use those methods to get the souls they want.

So. All you have to do is explain, in detail, to yourself, why are they invading?

When you have that answer, now you have the answer to backup plans to thwarting the invasion. Let's say this is an attempt to actually bring in powerful pit fiends to kill a number of mortals who have signed over their souls but surrounded themselves with mortals to protect them from ever dying or coming to great harm. Okay. Now you have a interesting way to frame this scenario: devils invade, but after taking over certain areas, they just sorta stop. The PCs can fight mooks, but there's no sign of the pit fiend bosses for some reason; they're off fighting their way to the mortals they're here to collect. But let's say one of those mortals (or several of them) know some terrible secret the PCs want or need to know. Now you have a motive for them to break the invasion. Even if they fail, that just means people die and the devils go home. The PCs lost, but it doesn't "cost" the world anything it probably actually missed (and lost knowledge can be had from just about anywhere, if the PCs really have to have it).

Maybe they come and build some kind of magic device that can rip souls out willy-nillly and bypass certain metaphysical rules about the process. The Upper Planes can send angels to help, but they also need portals to get there easier, so now the PCs have to fight a defensive war to buy time for clerics and wizards to build those portals and bring support in.

There can be many ways to stop the invasion. The PCs could try smashing the portal. They could kill the fiends leading the invasion, which, given devil philosophy, should actually create a power struggle for control... which can be exploited to kill more of them. Or maybe there's a rival archdevil in Hell who despises the one invading the Material Plane; maybe the PCs need to make a deal with a devil to kill one (lots of interesting intrigue with this option; you might try pushing for a powerful PC to sign a Faustian pact to get the help of the rival, or maybe the party rogue decides a quick murder job to pin on the invaders would do the tricks).

Details, my man. You get those, you have the whole thing.

[TheIceborn]

I have details for the invasion, why and how and everything....its too long to put in a single post(literally, it would take me like 10 pages of a book). I take
care of such things.
IvI've got the entire campaign worked out in my head now thanks to your answer guys, you rlly helped a lot and I thank you for that :)

[weckar]

I'd like to offer an alternate perspective, and a possible contingency plan:

You said that your players/party members are not really of the super-heroic sort. Would it really be THAT bad for them if the devils took over? Unlike demons, they have little reason to slaughter obedient residents. So if they fail to stop everything entirely - just let it happen. There will be serious amounts of tyranny and oppression, sure (The expression 'hell on earth' springs to mind), but it gives you the opportunity to make a whole PLANET the battleground for the blood wars. Have the Demons invade a year later, or so, and effectively force the party to side with the lesser of two evils where they can offer the unique advantage of being planar natives (presumably). You have no IDEA how useful units like that would be on either side of the board.