Wanted: Infernal contract with a loophole (minor Dragon Heist spoilers)

[Chronos]

Warning: If you're playing through Dragon Heist, and your adventure is set in the summer, this post contains minor spoilers.








So, my party is doing Dragon Heist, and I've decided for reasons that I want the main villain to be the Cassalantars. They want the gold because years ago, they made a deal with Asmodeus, trading the souls of their children for wealth, power, prestige, etc. One of them has already been collected, while the other two will be on their ninth birthday (which is very soon). But there's a clause which lets them buy them back... by sacrificing 99 innocents and a whole bunch of gold instead.

Now, obviously the heroes are going to want to stop them. But the catch is that, if they do, they'll save the 99, but two innocent children will still have their souls forfeit. And I'm pretty sure my players won't be happy with that. So I need a way to save the kids, too. I'm going to leave multiple options open for this: If nothing else, I'll send a few devils to collect on the debt, and give the heroes the chance to fight them.

But then it occurred to me: Asmodeus is certainly smart enough and Lawful enough to be able to write a watertight contract... but would he? He probably enjoys encouraging mortals to rules-lawyer and read the fine print. And so, I'm headcanoning that he always deliberately leaves a loophole hidden somewhere in the fine print. If the players successfully manage to find it, then they'll beat the Devil at his own game, fair and square.

So, any suggestions on loopholes?

[stoutstien]

Moving the 2 that are the focus of the contract to a plane where time moves considerably slower such as the astral plan could buy them so time.

As a general rule the contracts that devil right up our pretty air tight so the loop hole should be structure in a way that it's still benefits asmodeus. Maybe removing a demon Lord from avernus or retrieving a particularly powerful artifact. Find a certain subriex that has acquired some information that he is not comfortable with it having.

[Chronos]

I should also mention that when the party will be expected to do this, they'll be level 5. They'll have some powerful allies who might be willing to use a Plane Shift spell on their behalf, or the like, but any heavy lifting like an adventure into the gates of Hell probably isn't something their allies would do for them, and would be beyond their own capability.

And like I said, I'm well aware that Asmodeus could write up a contract without loopholes, but I'm ruling that he wouldn't.

[stoutstien]

You could just go for the open ended favor. He could nullify the contract in exchange for a favor at some point.
He is banking that the party will be become more powerful in the future.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

You could just go for the open ended favor. He could nullify the contract in exchange for a favor at some point.
He is banking that the party will be become more powerful in the future.

preferably, find a way to hint ahead at what kind of favor it will be. Make it sound specific like you already know what it'll be, but in such a way that it could actually be anything. "One day I will send my child to contact you, on that day you must repay me by collecting a heart." My child, is that like a powerful fiend, or a literal child charmed to deliver a message? Collecting a heart, does that mean killing someone, convincing someone to ally with them, steal a work of art depicting a heart? They don't know, you don't know.

The downside is that this is not much of a quest now, it's not a clever way for the party to overcome their troubles. But a plot hook for later is almost as good...

[diplomancer]

My party played that, and the loophole we came up with was that, since the souls are claimed at the 9th birthday (and birthday refers, necessarily, to the day a specific body was born), it would only trigger when the body reached it's 9th birthday.
So we convinced the Casalanters, after foiling all their plans and depriving them of the hope of fulfilling the contract in time, to kill their kids and have them reincarnated (it was something like a DC 25 persuasion, but with inspiration, guidance, 20 Cha and expertise, we did it).
Still don't know if it worked though, campaign is still ongoing on a different adventure path, and the Casalanters left town to find a high-level druid, and promised revenge on us if it doesn't work :D

[Chronos]

I also thought of the possibility of killing the kids right before their birthday, and then raising them right after. But killing children still seems pretty harsh, even if you're going to raise them again quickly and you're doing it to save their souls.

I've been toying with the loophole being something about them being twins: Maybe have the contract be something about the second and thirdborn, but worded in such a way that there is no thirdborn, because both of the twins are the secondborn. And then make the part of the contract that requires all payment to be made at the same time (meant to apply to the buyback option, requiring the 99 deaths and the gold to be at the same time) sufficiently broad that it also prohibits taking the twins until a thirdborn child exists to also take.

I'm not particularly concerned about the parents agreeing to the plan, whatever it is. I expect that the party will probably see to it that, one way or the other, they're in no position to disagree.

[Evaar]

But then it occurred to me: Asmodeus is certainly smart enough and Lawful enough to be able to write a watertight contract... but would he? He probably enjoys encouraging mortals to rules-lawyer and read the fine print. And so, I'm headcanoning that he always deliberately leaves a loophole hidden somewhere in the fine print. If the players successfully manage to find it, then they'll beat the Devil at his own game, fair and square.


That's actually very clever. You can also say he always puts in a loophole because doing so encourages more mortals to make infernal bargains. If you know that there's definitely no way out, you're much less likely to sign away your soul than if someone told you "Well, it's a one in a million chance, but..."

Sure he gives up that one in a million, but that's 999,999 other souls he got. Lots of people play the lottery.

[diplomancer]

I also thought of the possibility of killing the kids right before their birthday, and then raising them right after. But killing children still seems pretty harsh, even if you're going to raise them again quickly and you're doing it to save their souls.

I've been toying with the loophole being something about them being twins: Maybe have the contract be something about the second and thirdborn, but worded in such a way that there is no thirdborn, because both of the twins are the secondborn. And then make the part of the contract that requires all payment to be made at the same time (meant to apply to the buyback option, requiring the 99 deaths and the gold to be at the same time) sufficiently broad that it also prohibits taking the twins until a thirdborn child exists to also take.

I'm not particularly concerned about the parents agreeing to the plan, whatever it is. I expect that the party will probably see to it that, one way or the other, they're in no position to disagree.

Well, we didn't want to kill the children ourselves, since, as you pointed out that's kind of dark, so we let the dirty work to the Casalanters. Also, in our modified campaign, we had a big emergency that made it actually important that we got the Casalanters' cooperation to stop a greater threat.

I thought the metaphysical detail of requiring a Reincarnation and not a Raise Dead or Resurrection spell quite clever.

[NecessaryWeevil]

In our campaign, the contract referred to "x and y, the natural children of a and b...". The DM dropped a hint that a or b might have been unfaithful, and we did some detective work.

[diplomancer]

In our campaign, the contract referred to "x and y, the natural children of a and b...". The DM dropped a hint that a or b might have been unfaithful, and we did some detective work.

I guess it was Lady Casalanter, or else some sinister magic was going on :p

[Chronos]

OK, now that has some real potential. I'd have to change some backstory, of course, but hey, I'm the DM, I can do that.

[MoiMagnus]

I quite like that "natural children" loophole, but here are other possible loopholes:

1) "your own children" -> time for adoption !
2) "innocent children" -> have the children commit a minor crime and be condemned by a judge to some fine.
3) "99 innocent souls" -> Nothing say human, right? Do animals or insects have souls in your universe?
4) "should they be in this kingdom or in any other land or plane of existence" -> Times to take a boat in high sea
5) "9th birthday [...] And you should accept those terms, with the full moon as our witness." -> that was obviously using the lunar calendar, where years are shorter by ~10 days. The devil is 90 days late to claim its due, so they're not forced to comply.

[NecessaryWeevil]

I guess it was Lady Casalanter, or else some sinister magic was going on :p

Heh! That's true.

[saeval]

Possibly a spell to magically age them up to 10? maybe even just 9 and two days. Really irk that devil.

[diplomancer]

Possibly a spell to magically age them up to 10? maybe even just 9 and two days. Really irk that devil.
Quick! Find me an AD&D 2nd edition Wizard!

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Actually...

Who's in charge of the calendar in this world?

In medieval Europe I'm pretty sure that if the pope and the king of your country agreed on there being no fifth of May this year then their would be no fifth of May. So anyone born on the fifth of May 9 years earlier would still pass the physical point in time where exactly 9 years had passed since their birth, but they would not have a birthday, similar to the plight of people born on February 29.

Depending on the exact wording of the contract no magic may be needed, just some really good diplomacy.

(Similar to Moimagus' suggestion of claiming the contract definitely suggests we're using the lunar calendar.)