What does a devil want out of the party?

[mythmonster2]

So, I'm starting a campaign of mine, in 5e, with the basic premise that the party has been forced into servitude under a devil. They're alive, and can technically walk away at any point, but their souls are bound to the devil and will go to him when they die. So, the devil is basically forcing them to do things, stringing them along with the idea that he'll lessen their burden if they do jobs for him.

Now the question is: what does the devil want? The first session is going to be simple, so I can see how the party deals with the dynamic. It's an act of petty revenge: kill the descendant of a hero who once banished this devil a century or two ago. However, the devil undoubtedly has greater plans. What kinds of things could the party do to spread his influence on the mortal plane? I have an idea of the party maybe starting a cult to allow the devil to gain more power, but I'm not quite sure how to direct them into doing that. Does anyone have any other interesting ideas for the party to do?

[MoiMagnus]

One thing you have to decide is "is it a short term or long term investment?"

If it is a short term investment, the devil will without any regret discard them once they served their purpose, either as scapegoat for other of his pawns, or in a mostly-suicidal mission (but if they succeed, that's always good to take, right?).

If it is a long term investment, the devil expect them to become stronger an stronger, and to be in the end some of his most powerful spawn. In this dynamic, while the devil will make his possible for rebellion to not be an option, he also want to avoid them to feel like they benefit from this servitude (from the power and the network he gives to them, and the promise of even greater power, all things he can remove from them at any point), do that they don't desperately try to get out of the contract at any cost. (There is nothing worse to deal with than a powerful group of hero that has nothing to lose).

Second question you have to answer is "how much 'politics' is too much for your players?"
1) "Politics? We're playing Dungeons & Dragons, not Courtrooms & Advisors!" -> Final objectives of the devil can be to assemble whatever doomsday artefact he want, getting rid of the chosen one (which can lead to a very fun high level where the team has to do all the stuff the chosen one was suppose to take care of while the world fall apart), ...
2) "Meh, as long as it is just the plot and not the gameplay that's ok." -> Planting seeds of discord and cults (and political assassination) so that a war happen, ... How to use the party? For example, send them kill some ambassador, and put some fake clues that would lead to it being considered as an aggression.
3) "Of course I love it!" -> What about trying to change the world so that the opposition Law vs Chaos is more important than Good vs Evil. Create conflict between the CG and LG churches, find some CN revolutionary and give them to power to cause troubles, eliminate moderate in powers. If your PCs reach high level, this could even degenerate into a full war between Lawful gods and Chaotic ones.

[Kaptin Keen]

I feel like asking: Why is this fun for the players?

It doesn't particularly matter what the answer is - I'm not even asking for an answer - it just feels like something you'd do well to consider. Getting quests seems to almost always be a part of how games work, but being forced to do them by a devil for a reward that never comes .. might not be 100% appealing to everyone.

Anyways, to find out what the devil wants, find out what sort of devil it is. As an example, maybe it's one of the dear old archetypes: War, Famine, Disease, Death. If War, then maybe it just wants to push for ever escalating conflict. If famine, burn crops, raid trading routes, entice sahuagin to raid fishing villages. And so on.

Wait, why do I believe Disease is one of the four - apparently, the fourth guy is Conquest? But .. that's just bad writing, War and Conquest is clearly the same guy. I feel like it's fair to include Disease. War has the red horse, Famine the pale, Death the white, leaving Disease with the black.

I'm rambling. Sorry =)

[Omegonthesane]

So, I'm starting a campaign of mine, in 5e, with the basic premise that the party has been forced into servitude under a devil. They're alive, and can technically walk away at any point, but their souls are bound to the devil and will go to him when they die. So, the devil is basically forcing them to do things, stringing them along with the idea that he'll lessen their burden if they do jobs for him.
Devils are not much for outright lying in their promises, although the eased burden could be laughably small while technically fulfilling a contract.

There would also have to be moment to moment job perks and bonuses to keep the players on side, if they are the kind of servants who are still sufficiently trusted as to be going on quests unsupervised instead of doing manual labour at sword point.


Now the question is: what does the devil want? The first session is going to be simple, so I can see how the party deals with the dynamic. It's an act of petty revenge: kill the descendant of a hero who once banished this devil a century or two ago. However, the devil undoubtedly has greater plans. What kinds of things could the party do to spread his influence on the mortal plane? I have an idea of the party maybe starting a cult to allow the devil to gain more power, but I'm not quite sure how to direct them into doing that. Does anyone have any other interesting ideas for the party to do?
Is there intended to be a point where the party rebels? You probably want a set of plot threads prepared if they decide their final quest will be to escape their servitude by permanently killing their master.

Is this a "heroic" party or a "villainous" party? I'm not on about what alignment is nominally on their sheets (though doubtless there's a correlation) but how their intentions and deeds are framed. In the latter case it will be less incongruous for them to be basically morally OK with their situation, whereas the former would probably require some rationalisation that their master is less... inimical to a desirable world than the batting average for Baator if the intended end is not rebellion. You could thread this needle by having their master's plan be mainly to destroy other devils, peers and superiors, to get Klingon promotions within the Baatorian hierarchy rather than to further the cause of Evil in the material plane.

As others have said, you probably want an ear to your players' tolerance for Politics in Dungeons & Dragons, but this will inform the implementation rather than the biggest picture. Though, 5e does not actually provide fully realised mechanics for almost anything except combat, so you won't get much help from the rulebook to write scenarios that aren't meant to be solved by swording.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

IMHO Devils would make sure the party thinks that they are in control, or that they're helping a good cause. So they wouldn't reveal themselves or their power to the party.

But anyway, another question to ask is, "is the existence of this hero's descendant known? Are they currently active/powerful/knowledgeable of their lineage?" If yes/yes, they will probably be guarded and much more of a suicide mission. If yes/no, they will be less guarded but still watched over. If no/no, there would be little consequence for the success of this mission.

As for end goals, a devil wants Law to win, but by forcing the Neutral/Not His Lawful to fight the Chaos. He might weaken the mortals by having them fight demons (a good cause, on the surface) and then discard of the party and remove everything he's given them to perform a ritual to suck up all the souls

[GrayDeath]

I`ll jump on the wagon of ssaying: Make very VERY sure your Players find the concept of such a campaign at the very least intruiging.
Otherwise, no matter how well you make it work, they will have much less fun and hence the campaign will likely die early.


That out of the way, ask yourself first and foremost:

Why are the characters under the Devils Control?

Because that makes for very different themes of the campaign (say you go for a "Devils Bargain" Type all pof them used to save a loved one, that offers far different hooks and things they would be willing to do than if, say, they are all Evil Powerhungry Murderhobos, or "Forbidden Knowledge" seeking Archeologists....or whatever else).

Second: Do you want the Devil to actually have a lot of Control (and likely an accompanying Imp to keep tabs on the group), or more be the "We dont like our Boss much, but aside from telling us what result he wants, he lets us do our jobs", or what level inb etween that.

And lastly: Will the Theme be more alike to "The Path to hell is paved with Good Intentions" or "A group of Damned on the lookout ofr a way out", or maybe Good guys helping the Devil because the Alternatives are worse"?


Once you can answer these, I think youll need much less help from us (which at least I will of course still be willing to provide! The general Concept is a campaign I always wanted to paly, just depending on HOW you wanna do it^^).

Edit: As for the first planned "Job": Depending on the above, you might want to modify the reasons the Devil tells the Group for this, but in most but the "Good guys without alternatives" this will liekly work as a start. Though if it was me, I`d start it off with something less obviously Evil (unless, of course, this is an Evil group).

[mythmonster2]

Yeah, I definitely talked this over with the players, they were interested in the concept, wouldn't have done it otherwise. They ended up making mostly self-interested, but not evil characters, but they all definitely want out of the deal and I'm expecting some kind of rebellion at some point. They've been tricked into working for him; they initially were working with a wizard, but the wizard betrayed them and exploited a loophole in their contracts (what else?) to make them serve the devil. The devil's sent an imp to be his mouthpiece and that's how he's going to be giving orders, but it's not a super tight leash.

[Vaern]

Speaking from a 3.5 respective of devils, they traditionally want souls. When a devil corrupts a soul it basically acts as experience points that allow the devil ascend to new forms, and devils value rank above just about anything else. Like, to the point that they fear being demoted more than they fear being defeated and utterly annihilated.

The quality of a soul affects how much it is worth. Corrupting a good soul is a greater achievement that simply claiming the soul of an already-evil creature. The devil may charge the player with tempting paladins or clerics of a good deity to perform questionable acts until they fall out of favor with their god, giving the devil a chance to swoop in and make a play for their soul.

A devil can not collect a claimed soul until the creature dies. Therefore, when it comes to a pure soul that has been corrupted, the threat of atonement hangs over the devil's head. It's relatively common for devils to arrange the deaths of those who may potentially seek redemption. Perhaps the devil would like to have the party hunt down such a wayward soul seeking redemption to secure his claim on said soul.

The devil may also turn to quantity rather than quality. If he arranges for the player to become part of a government he may be able to make a long play to shift the government, and by extension the whole region that it rules over, into a lawful evil tyrannical dictatorship. This may give the devil rightful claim over the souls of all of the government officials, law enforcement and military who willingly follow them, and a good number of citizens without them even realizing that they are under the influence of a devil.

Whatever service the devil demands of the party, its primary motivation should be to gain power by spreading corruption.

[kyoryu]

The first question is: "What does the devil want?"

The devil should either be the BBEG of the campaign, or at least working for him. In other words, the servitude of the players should tie directly into the main campaign plot in some way. So, you need to start with what the devil wants, and then how can he use the players in furthering that goal?

Note that this doesn't mean the players have to be doing evil. There can be a lot of ostensibly good things the players can do that will further the devil's cause!

[paddyfool]

To make this work, the devil had better have class. Character. Panache. Let him be generous with his rewards, let him offer them "choices" (where all options given serve his goals), let him work by charm as well as fear. And let the jobs work up in increasing nastiness from relatively benign missions (eg to investigate rumours of a demonic incursion), to spying for him, stealing for him, kidnapping for him, killing for him, and so on up until they break.

And give them shared enemies to deal with. Be those zealous crusaders looking to take them down, or be they chaotically destructive and unreservedly malevolent demons looking to bring the whole material plane to fire and ruin.

[mythmonster2]

The main thing the devil would want is probably souls, I'm still running with that being the main currency and power source of fiends. A secondary objective I've thought of is to find a way for him to be summoned freely, since devils can't come and go onto the mortal plane as they wish. So, perhaps finding some sort of artifact or managing to enlist a powerful magic-user into his service.

For how he's interacting with the party, I've got a basic idea for the first part of the plot. The party's first target, in the revenge plot, turns out to be a bandit who's been attacking the nearby area. When the party kills her, they get some renown and appreciation for doing this, and the devil realizes he can take advantage of this. He has the party gain a reputation as heroes, doing other acts of good in public, while still serving his needs by, say, killing the half-fiend child of one of his rivals. Then, once they've gained a decent amount of fame and goodwill, he can have them start using that fame to spread his influence.

This is where I've mostly hit the idea block, in how exactly to do that. The first idea in mind was "start a cult", but I'm not quite sure how they could go about that. What exactly goes into starting a cult? Might it be easier to co-opt one and divert their devotion in another direction?

[denthor]

There is only one person who can answer this question.

I loathe to summon him but

Red fel
Red fel
Red fel

Be that ray of darkness you so desire.

[Brookshw]

Now the question is: what does the devil want? The first session is going to be simple, so I can see how the party deals with the dynamic. It's an act of petty revenge: kill the descendant of a hero who once banished this devil a century or two ago. However, the devil undoubtedly has greater plans. What kinds of things could the party do to spread his influence on the mortal plane? I have an idea of the party maybe starting a cult to allow the devil to gain more power, but I'm not quite sure how to direct them into doing that. Does anyone have any other interesting ideas for the party to do?

Consider, the hero not only had descendants, but also created a whole organization of do-gooders, and for the devil's revenge to be complete he wants to corrupt it. This can give you a long term objective that can be broken down into all sorts of tasks/adventures. The party could get involved in all sorts of mischief, replacing texts with twisted messages, provoking a war and fanning the flames of hatred in the organization, etc. Meanwhile, the party can either go along with it or subvert the devil, e.g., replacing the book but leaving a note in it that its not the original or accurate text. Could be fun to fulfill the word but not the spirit of any task. They also might not know the devil's true objective, or not be the only team working to bring it about.

[Red Fel]

There is only one person who can answer this question.

I loathe to summon him but

Red fel
Red fel
Red fel

Be that ray of darkness you so desire.

You know it, baby.


So, I'm starting a campaign of mine, in 5e, with the basic premise that the party has been forced into servitude under a devil. They're alive, and can technically walk away at any point, but their souls are bound to the devil and will go to him when they die. So, the devil is basically forcing them to do things, stringing them along with the idea that he'll lessen their burden if they do jobs for him.

Now the question is: what does the devil want? The first session is going to be simple, so I can see how the party deals with the dynamic. It's an act of petty revenge: kill the descendant of a hero who once banished this devil a century or two ago. However, the devil undoubtedly has greater plans. What kinds of things could the party do to spread his influence on the mortal plane? I have an idea of the party maybe starting a cult to allow the devil to gain more power, but I'm not quite sure how to direct them into doing that. Does anyone have any other interesting ideas for the party to do?

Okay, so I read up, and it's good that your players are onboard with this campaign. Otherwise, as others have said, it would end badly.

Now, I have a few thoughts, but first I'd like to comment on a few things I saw in the thread.


One thing you have to decide is "is it a short term or long term investment?"

The first question is: "What does the devil want?"

These. One half of the equation is that question: What does the devil want? Well, that's going to be key. But that's half of the equation. The other half is...


I feel like asking: Why is this fun for the players?

This. Because they may be onboard now, but a good concept needs to keep them hooked later as well. So let's lead from the latter into the former.

First: Why is this fun for the players? I've discussed it before, but any plot hook - especially those involving devils, souls, and eternal servitude and the like - should create stories, not end them. Therefore, your goal in making this engaging for the players needs to be that their diabolical taskmaster's role is to create more opportunities for them, rather than to limit their options. Or, to put it differently, having this guy involved can add complications - it absolutely should - but his demands need to be optional, not mandatory, and you need to give the players flexibility in how, let alone whether, they address them.

I know it sounds contradictory. He has a claim to their souls, it seems stupid that he should put up with their disobedience. And I'll come back to how you reconcile that after I explain this next part.

Second: What does the devil want? I'm going to disagree with Vaern on this one - he's not just out for their souls. If that's really all he's after, it's a fait accompli - it's a done deal. He has their souls, and neither needs nor will offer anything further. Devils don't want souls.

They want pawns.

Devils are Lawful Evil. I don't know how 5e addresses the Hells, but in 3/3.5e, they're a perverse hierarchy of traded influences and allegiances. It's an ongoing game of the most twisted version of chess an immortal being could imagine in its darkest nightmares. Souls are a form of currency, it's true, but they're worth more as leverage than as coin. And right now, your devil has leverage.

Over whom, you might ask? Well, presumably, nobody. That's just it. Unless you're starting this campaign at mid-to-high level, these PCs are basically nobodies. So what good are their souls to him? No good. They're barely worth currency, certainly not worth favors.

But he has leverage over them. Because they probably want out from under his boot heel. And he can use that.

So what does he want? He has pawns - the PCs. He wants to trade them up. For knights, bishops, rooks, queens. Maybe a king. He either wants the PCs to become strong enough to be of use to him, or to provide him with more valuable pieces to use in their stead. That's his goal. It's a long con.

Which leads us to the third point: How do we reconcile them? It's easy. This devil informs the party of their plight. He gleefully informs them that they belong to him when they die.

But they don't have to.

He offers them a chance to pay their way out of the Hells. To buy off their soul-debts. His missions are entirely optional. He doesn't care if they succeed or fail. After all, if they fail, he owns them, and if they succeed, they get him more leverage. And they're free to reject his missions - after all, he owns them anyhow, they're damned unless he chooses to release them. He has all the time in the world, and patience to match - they're the ones facing a ticking clock.

The missions vary. Sometimes, he needs them to eliminate some obstacle to his plans. Others, he needs them to send one of his own damned prey to him a bit early. Or perhaps he just needs a message sent, or new followers brought into his cause. He may tell the PCs everything about a mission, or the bare minimum. He may express surprise and delight with how they carry it out, or disappointment that they managed to do what he wanted while still thwarting his aims. But he always pays for the PCs' work. Because at the end of the day, any mission they do for him nets him more than what he had in the first place.

Each mission pays off some indeterminate amount of their debts. Perhaps at some point they even earn their freedom. Perhaps, alternatively, he puts them in a position to take on another damned soul's debt, buying someone else's freedom with their own. Perhaps, instead, one or more of the PCs discover that they rather like working for the dark forces, and our contractor earns a willing pawn instead of a forced one.

By running it this way, he becomes an NPC they engage with regularly. Maybe they even like him. His missions create plot opportunities, instead of just creating a "find a way to escape from and kill this devil" linear plotline. It's all about opportunities.

And remember. If he does his job right, they won't need his help to damn themselves. Most mortals do it willingly.

[denthor]

I will add this to Red Fels last comment.

They damn themselves by the tactics they use.

[jjordan]

I think it's useful to think of the players as pawns. The devil has an agenda that may be, for all practical purposes, unknowable for the players. He can pay off old debts, he can throw sand in the gears of rivals, he can grow his/her investment, and so on. The utility of the characters may be such that he helps to keep them alive and grow in power.

The players are tools on a plane of existence he normally can't access with any regularity. Some ideas:
-The devil has contacted a new recruit through dreams and now needs the players to deliver on his part of the contract in order to win the new soul. They have to help the new recruit win her love, enact her revenge, or just deliver an obscene amount of gold to her.
-The devil needs the the players to lead a party of paladins to the Chalice of McGuffin in order to make sure it doesn't fall into the hands of another devil.
-The devil needs the players to go reinforce a higher level party of evil adventurers in order to pay off his debt to another devil. He gives them strict orders to watch their backs and stay alive. A good opportunity to see what the character's future might hold in the service of the devil.
-He needs them to raise the alarm and ride like madmen to the source of a demonic break-through into the world, staunching the flow of abyssal power into the world.
-He wants them to collect a set of artifacts that can be used to create a gate/safe-space for him on the material plane and build a temple for him.
-He wants help locating his offspring, hidden from him in the world and protected by a small, but competent, cult that wants to use them to destroy him. Lots of good moral ambiguity to be found here.

[kyoryu]

I basically agree with Red Fel.

I don't think that the devil necessarily has to offer them a way out - I think a situation where he offers them either benefits/rewards for doing his bidding, or gives them tasks they'd want to do anyway, while still furthering his objectives, would be good. Then you can another character, later, start offering them a way out from under the heel - and maybe that way is more costly.

Remember, interesting games are all about making decisions. "Do we do what the demon asks" is an interesting decision, and a repeatable one! "Is breaking the contract worth the cost?" is another fantastic decision. Ideally these aren't "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type situations - they're situations that ask the players what they really want and value. You can have one of these two things, but not both. This shouldn't be a "paladin-falls-no-matter-what-he-does" screw job. It can be "you're probably not going to like parts of what you choose, no matter what you choose. But there will be good as well, whichever way you choose."

But I'd get specific about what the devil wants. Maybe it's Xyrlax, engaged in a millennia-long battle for supremacy with Xalryx. What are they fighting over? What do they have on 'the board' at the moment? How can that be disrupted? Who does each side control? What is their plan to get the upper hand on their opponent? What do they need to do so? If Xalryx controls the church, maybe the PCs are sent to find corruption in the church and bring it down. Which, though it may be a "good" act, strengthens Xyrlax at the same time.

As an interesting flavor, the devil could be "the good guy". No, really. Think of the movie The Prophecy. Gabriel wants to basically defy God's will and get rid of humans. Lucifer ends up opposing him - not out of goodness, but because that would turn Heaven into another Hell, and to quote "two hells is one hell too many, and I can't have that." So in this flavor, Xyrlax opposes a plan of Xalryx that would end up granting all kinds of power to Xalryx - and incidentally causing mass devastation for all of the mortals in the town/kingdom/continent/world/plane/whatever scope you want.


I think it's useful to think of the players as pawns. The devil has an agenda that may be, for all practical purposes, unknowable for the players. He can pay off old debts, he can throw sand in the gears of rivals, he can grow his/her investment, and so on. The utility of the characters may be such that he helps to keep them alive and grow in power.

A little disagreed here. The players should have SOME idea of the plans of the devil, more so as the game goes on. Information turns into interesting decisions. Not knowing isn't fun. Knowing, and what you do with that knowledge, IS.

[Bohandas]

2) "Meh, as long as it is just the plot and not the gameplay that's ok." -> Planting seeds of discord and cults (and political assassination) so that a war happen, ... How to use the party? For example, send them kill some ambassador, and put some fake clues that would lead to it being considered as an aggression.

Bear in mind though, that their agenda isn't going to be war in general but specifically stretegically important wars, and to garner public support for unjust and/or hate-driven wars. For strategically unimportant wars, the injustice and public support are together more important than the actual death and destruction or even the suffering; the point is to get people to support something evil and thereby win their souls for evil. As for wars of strategically important wars these are probably going to take two forms - 1.) wars against strongholds of demonic and eladrin influence, 2.) Installing and removing puppets and patsies. With regard to this second phenomenon of installing and removing patsies, I envision nations trappes in a cycle of tyrants being overthrown by people who are - or become - just as bad; yet since they aren't the old tyrant the people support them - they participate in the new tyrant's sins and thus share in their damnation.

The devil could send the PCs to topple some tyrants who have outlived their usefulness, and at the same time work to corrupt the PCs so that they will be evil by the timw that they win.

[Red Fel]

The devil could send the PCs to topple some tyrants who have outlived their usefulness, and at the same time work to corrupt the PCs so that they will be evil by the timw that they win.

This, and also not necessarily this.

As Bohandas and others have mentioned, the devil's aims for the PCs don't need to be objectively Evil. Toppling a tyrant who has outlived his usefulness seems on the outside like a Good act. And there are other, similar things that this devil could use the PCs to do - things which a normally heroic party would have no objection to, but for the question of who is making the request. On that point, I agree.

Likewise, I agree that, if the objective - or one objective - is corrupting the PCs, that's precisely how it starts. Do the best possible things, for the worst possible reasons and in increasingly questionable ways. Toppling a tyrant? Good thing. Crushing an oppressive merchant? Good thing. Breaking a military blockade on a city? Good thing. But as the situations become more dire, perhaps the methodologies become less heroic. Did you need to kill all the witnesses? Did you need to torture the information out of them? That lie may have sparked a war - was it worth it?

How many bystanders have to suffer or die for you to succeed?

That's the road to corruption, and it's great. If that's what this devil wants. And maybe he does. Maybe he wants the PCs to become willing servants to the Hells. Or maybe he just wants them to be the change he wants to see in the world.

But maybe he doesn't. Maybe he wants them specifically because they are heroes. Maybe he needs people who can pass a Detect Evil check. Maybe he needs people of unimpeachable heroism to go where his more sinister minions can't. Maybe he needs the PCs to become world-renowned heroes so that they can ascend to positions of authority and influence, posts subject to a level of public scrutiny to which his cultists dare not expose themselves.

That's a DM call, naturally. Maybe it's one. Maybe it's the other. Hells, maybe it's a little bit of both. Play it by ear and see what the players are up for.

[kyoryu]

Again, I'm reminded of two examples of fiction of people working for "Evil".

Prophecy - Lucifer wants Gabriel's plan to fail. Not because it will benefit humans (though it does, Gabriel's plan would result in humanity being gone gone), but because he doesn't want the competition. He's not *driving* the protagonists, but he's certainly on the same side.

Dresden Files - Harry initially agrees to three tasks to Mab (and later more), with the caveat that they all be things he agrees to and do not compromise his morals. He does, and they don't, and yet those tasks still further Mab's position. (Mab also isn't technically evil, but she can come pretty damn close. I'd probably make an argument for Mab as "Lawful Evil in the service of a Good end" - she is absolutely committed to the ends in mind, and is not above any means to get there).

[paddyfool]

One thing is, the devil's going to want them to be motivated and on task. If they're generally going to be more comfortable combatting, say, demons or rival devils and their servants than in gathering souls for him or whatnot, then it makes sense for him to primarily use them for this. Although I like the option being there for them to buy their souls back if they bring him enough additional ones from other people he feels it would be useful to have under his control... sort of like a pyramid scheme :-)

[Hunter Noventa]

One thing is, the devil's going to want them to be motivated and on task. If they're generally going to be more comfortable combatting, say, demons or rival devils and their servants than in gathering souls for him or whatnot, then it makes sense for him to primarily use them for this. Although I like the option being there for them to buy their souls back if they bring him enough additional ones from other people he feels it would be useful to have under his control... sort of like a pyramid scheme :-)

I dunno, I like to think devils have more class than to resort to such things.

[GrayDeath]

Are you kidding?

Asmodeus INVENTED that "Thing", just look at Hells "Order of Importance/Merit" ^^

[Anachronity]

I dunno, I like to think devils have more class than to resort to such things.I would imagine that it's not really their first choice, because they assume a heroic sort would never go for it, but then they're totally down for it if someone actually brings it up. Two souls for the price of one, and pretty good odds that the hero is going to end up damned anyways for their heinous misdeed. Maybe they're slightly disappointed that it was so easy. But hey, two new mortals to toy with!


Another fun trick to pull: if the heroes go to slay the devil and reclaim their souls, it could easily pawn them off to a subordinate in anticipation of that so as to make slaying it fruitless; their souls now belong to someone else entirely. Could lead to an interesting twist where the PCs have to make a deal with this entirely different devil holding onto their souls. Now they need to remove whatever leverage its master has over it and then slay the master. That way the subordinate can assume its master's role, an opportunity worth the price of releasing its lein on their souls.


But I agree with the general consensus and with Red Fel's concepts in particular. This devil has no reason to rush, no reason to be overbearing. The onus is on the players to try to weasel out of the deal, not on this devil to offer them freedom. Forget the cult, let the players make an offer instead. How much do they think their souls are worth? Now their egos are working in the devil's favor.

Imply that some souls are worth more than others. Pick a particularly altruistic party member who's likely to remain with the group anyways, then let them off early to create the illusion that it is possible to pay off this debt. If the party is particularly united against this devil then try to disrupt their cohesion. Make a promise that one of them, say, the healer, immediately goes free with no expiration date and no questions asked if the loudest dissenter among the others dies. For any reason. Even if they don't go for it, it makes the devil seem a lot more loathsome for trying.


Or, if they seem more backstabby to start with (or the players just want a more directed campaign rather than something more sandbox-y), the devil could go the opposite direction just because it knows a cohesive group is stronger. Have it free their souls one by one over the course of (number of players) missions that it dictates to them, with the catch that if they willfully betray or refuse to cooperate with the others in their own missions (so long as the mission isn't suicidal, terms and conditions may apply, etc. etc.) then their souls return to the devil. Now the party has a reason to work with the devil (it is actually setting their souls free in a meaningful way in exchange for other gains received) but still have a motivation to remain with the party (to get out of that teamwork obligation). Have an alternate method or loophole become apparent about halfway through these missions that would allow the party to escape their debt early, then pivot into setting up this devil as the big bad.

[kyoryu]

I dunno, I like to think devils have more class than to resort to such things.

Pyramid schemes are pretty much the definition of Lawful Evil.

[Bohandas]

Although I like the option being there for them to buy their souls back if they bring him enough additional ones from other people he feels it would be useful to have under his control... sort of like a pyramid scheme :-)

Wasn't that the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean 2?