D&D Hell plot and background ideas

[MarkVIIIMarc]

A party I run a game for is more into D&D lore than I. A couple of them have confusingly been reading Drizt & other books for two decades.

What's the general understanding of how the bodies or souls of the main races end up in one of the hells in 5e?

Can I just assume anyone soul of a person/elf/halfling whatever who was evil enough to be shunned by his god and not taken to a heavenly plane ended up in a hell as the lowliest servant of a Balor or worse?

Would it be safe to plant physical humanoids who were captured, won or bought there in tortured servitude?

Any idea how to hold a mass jail break or sorts btw? I'm imagining killing some demon/undead/devil guards and letting the slaves run at the stargate like portal? Or a few at a time thanks to some contrived help they could planeshift or get access to a teleportation circle from whatever hell to the physical world.

I'm up for advice if it doesn't show. This party really likes killing things btw and I think fighting in a hell is a great way to save little old lady shop owners from them lol.

[Kane0]

The specifics vary between editions, but the gist of it is that when you die your soul leaves the prime (or wherever they perished) and heads towards the outer planes.
Usually along the way there is a nexus or other focal point where souls are judged, sorted and/or tempted by fiends to escape their intended afterlife, whatever that may be. This is usually where the deity of death such as Kelemvor comes in, to do the sorting and make sure mortals don't try to weasel out dying when they are supposed to.
Where a soul goes depends primarily on their faith and their alignment. The faithful are 'claimed' by their deity and go to their demiplane, the rest are either sent to whatever plane best suits them based on alignment or in some cases are forsaken to the wall of the faithless or equivalent.
Once a soul arrives at their afterlife they begin as petitioners, which is sort of like a larval state I guess? Each plane deals with its petitioners in their own way. Souls that take the bargains offered by fiends are essentially thieved and brought to the plane that they signed up for, almost always to a worse situation than if they avoided this option but not always.
Petitioners can work their way up the ranks wherever they are, and at some point can gain a measure of freedom to roam the planes and whatnot. Many are absorbed into the fabric of the plane itself which can be a good or bad thing depending on perspective. The same thing happens to most extraplanar creatures that are slain on their plane, otherwise they generally just get sent back home to reincorporate.
And there are definitely exceptions to where souls go. They can be stolen, used as currency, held prisoner, etc. There are also plenty of ways a mortal can get to the outer planes, like using portals or spells. In some cases having a few exceptions lying around is a good way to avoid 'red tape' for the inhabitants of a plane, having the right tool for the right job y'know?

Mind you this isn't the only way to look at it, each setting has its own version of things. The above is the 'Great Wheel' and there will be others after me that will correct and expand on what i've said.

Edit: Devils in particular!
A lawful evil soul that isn't claimed by a deity gets sent to Baator as a petitioner, where they are turned into Lemures in an industrial scale. The process is horrific, and the resulting creature is pretty much an entirely different being than the soul it started as. Most are used as blade fodder in the Blood War or as whipping boys for other Baatezu (devils). Those that survive long enough get promoted into lesser demons such as Imps and Bearded Devils where they can move up the ranks militarily or by bringing in souls (ie tempting mortals). The process continues and gets more and more cutthroat as you go up until you become a Pit Fiend or Duke of Hell at the top of the pyramid, commander legions or even entire layers of hell.

If you can, try to get your hands on Mordenkainen's Tome or the older Tyrants of the Nine Hells from 3.5 for extra background info. But hey, if your world operates differently then great, that means your players can't take the fun out of it by knowing everything already!

[Falcon X]

Read this. PowerScoreRPG offers some of the most thorough yet easy to understand histories of D&D:
http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/2017/01/dungeons-dragons-guide-to-nine-hells.html?m=1

So, there are 17 planes a person can go for an afterlife, the 9 Hells being one of them.

Every plane has an alignment or deities in it.
If you purposely and rightly serve one deity, you go to that deities realm as a petitioner.
If you don’t serve a deity, you go to the plane that matches your alignment.
If you have a deity that you do ill against, well, that probably depends on the deity and pantheon.

Jailbreaks?
Depends.
Theoretically, if you are there from having died, you shouldn’t be able to leave. There are exceptions however.
Yes, a dead person in hell can slowly move up the ranks and become a devil worth summoning. Being summoned or called breaks the rule of not leaving the plane.
Being ressurected also breaks that rule.
There may be other ways that are secret that the DM can create. Most require making a deal.

If a creature is merely living in or traveling through hell and they are captured, then jailbreaks are possible.

[Unoriginal]

In 5e, as explained in the Mordenkainen's Tome of Foe, the process goes like this:

-Once you die, your soul goes to the outside planes, unless it get snatched by a raven.

-If you're dedicated to a god, you go to their afterlife.

-If you're Lawful Evil but not especially dedicated to a god, you goes to Hell

-If you go to Hell and you haven't done any special pact, you're put in the Styx, lose your identity, and become a Lemure.


Some still living creatures are going to be in Hell as prisoners and slaves, yes.