04-chapter-3-avernus

Chapter 3: Avernus

Source: Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus, p. 74

Guided by Lulu the hollyphant and discoveries made in Elturel, the characters trek across Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells, to recover the Sword of Zariel and free Elturel from its chains. Navigating the wastelands of Avernus might seem like a difficult proposition, but thankfully the characters have the map given to them by Sylvira Savikas in chapter 1. For more information on how to use the Avernus poster map, see “Using the Poster Map”.

Elturel and Fort Knucklebone aren’t marked on the poster map, as Elturel was not present when the map was drawn, and the cartographer who drew the map never encountered Fort Knucklebone. You can situate Elturel anywhere along the River Styx, and Fort Knucklebone anywhere within ten miles of Elturel.

Running This Chapter

This chapter opens with information about Avernus that you need to run the encounters and adventure locations that follow.

The story picks up where it left off in chapter 2, with the characters embarking on a quest to save Elturel while Ulder Ravengard and Reya Mantlemorn stay behind to organize survivors and defend the city. Lulu guides the characters to Fort Knucklebone, home to a pair of kenku junk scavengers named Chukka and Clonk, whom Lulu thinks can provide assistance. Mad Maggie, the night hag who runs the fort, oversees the construction and repair of infernal war machines. If the characters agree to make a deal with the night hag, they can acquire one or more of these vehicles. Mad Maggie can also help Lulu unlock some of her forgotten memories.

From Fort Knucklebone, Lulu guides the characters to the place where she thinks the Sword of Zariel is hidden: Haruman’s Hill. There, they meet Jander Sunstar, a vampire with some information. They also meet Jander’s torturer, Haruman—a fallen Hellrider and one of Zariel’s infernal generals. Lulu eventually realizes she’s made a grave mistake and led the characters to the wrong place. She suggests two possible paths going forward: the Path of Demons and the Path of Devils. Each path features a number of locations across Avernus that the characters must visit in sequence to learn where Zariel’s sword is hidden.

At any time during their exploration of Avernus, the characters and Lulu might encounter the Wandering Emporium, a marketplace that wanders Avernus on the backs of giant infernal war machines. The Wandering Emporium provides a good place for the characters to rest and gather supplies that are otherwise hard to find in Avernus.

At the conclusion of this chapter, the characters learn that the Sword of Zariel is hidden in a place called the Bleeding Citadel. If she’s still alive, Lulu helps them get there. See chapter 4 for details about the Bleeding Citadel.

What Is Avernus?

Avernus serves as the front line of the great clash between the evil forces of chaos and law known as the Blood War. Demons from the Abyss use the River Styx to enter Avernus, where they hurl themselves against infernal legions of devils.

Avernus was not always the blasted, war-torn battlefield it is today. Long ago, it was a plane of lush gardens and bucolic beauty created by Asmodeus to tempt mortals. The intrusion of the River Styx followed by endless waves of slavering demons destroyed this paradise, leaving layer upon layer of bones, ruins, and shattered war machines. Pieces of cities stolen from other planes, tiny remnants of Avernus’s lost beauty, evidence of destroyed celestial armies, and tombs of ancient travelers all dot the Avernian wasteland.

Avernus is not a place expressly for the punishment of evil souls; instead, it represents a “next level” for evil souls after the end of their wicked lives as mortals. The Nine Hells allows souls to exist in a concentrated form, where they can work through their spiritual bondage to express their dark desires such as cruelty, covetousness, the need to control, the craving for power, and uncontrolled greed. Hell offers an eternity of fulfillment from the most insignificant desires to the seven deadly sins. Every shred of evil is used in the Nine Hells, and each layer specializes in some way to accommodate and exploit the vices and weaknesses of mortals. The devils of Avernus seek to exploit pride and wrath, promising the aggrieved, enraged, and egotistical the power to fulfill their darkest obsessions. Such fulfillment, however, comes at a price.

Anyone entering Avernus finds a battlefield unlike anywhere else in existence. Evidence of past carnage, such as the ruins of enormous war machines and fields of bleached bones, stretches across the horizon. Through it all, the River Styx winds its way across the plane as knots of demons and devils skirmish along its fetid banks.

Most devils in Avernus serve Zariel, though other Lords of the Nine send forces here to help repel demonic invaders. Devils who are not part of Zariel’s legions serve as emissaries from the other layers or as spies for archdevils seeking signs of weakness that they can exploit to further their dreams of power.

Visitors to Avernus

Extraplanar travelers come to Avernus from time to time. Such visitors include war profiteers looking to get rich trading weapons and armor, mad wizards who want to test their latest spells, clerics on missions from their gods, treasure hunters searching for lost artifacts, grim-faced merchants who deal in slaves, smugglers of soul coins, and scholars seeking firsthand knowledge of the machinations of the diabolical realms. Adventurers come here to negotiate with powerful fiends, meddle in the Blood War, and free poor souls trapped in the Nine Hells.

Zariel’s War

By bringing Elturel to Avernus and potentially gaining a choke hold on Baldur’s Gate, Zariel aims to capture as many evil mortals as she can, turn them into devils, and swell the ranks of her battle-depleted legions. Through Thavius Kreeg, Zariel found a way to exploit the gullible nature of mortals by appealing to their need to follow a leader who proclaims spiritual power. Because of Kreeg, the residents of Elturel are bound by the Creed Resolute to fight and die for Zariel in her endless war.

Zariel’s Struggle

In some ways, Zariel is a jewel in Asmodeus’s crown—a former angel, now an archdevil, in his infernal service. Given her origin, Zariel has more than the normal share of devils plotting to overthrow her, the first among them being the pit fiend Bel, whom she displaced. By Asmodeus’s decree, Bel now serves Zariel as an advisor, though the two can barely stand to be in each other’s presence.

Despite the conflict within the diabolical ranks, Zariel runs a tight ship and instills fear in her legions. Retribution against those who attempt to betray her is swift and terrible.

War for Souls

Souls are the most prized commodities in the Nine Hells. The Blood War taxes Zariel’s armies, so she must ensure a fresh supply of souls as replacements. To this end, Zariel looks for evildoers in the mortal realms who can deliver more souls to her.

Because devils can’t simply walk out of Avernus and step onto the Material Plane, they must rely on minions such as cultists and evil wizards, who can contact them and do their bidding in exchange for wealth and power. A select group of devils and mortal followers who seek to cause strife and destabilize harmonious communities serve as Zariel’s chief corruptors. By funding evil groups, making and distributing weapons, and causing random acts of violence in the name of some enemy to ignite the spark of war, devils swell the capacity for mortals to commit acts of evil, corrupting souls by the thousands and thus ensuring the legions of devils are full of diabolic soldiers for the Blood War.

Yoke of Evil

Under constant pressure from both the Abyss and her infernal peers, Zariel and her high-ranking vassals work to keep her armies constantly in the fight. Zariel’s wrath and pride have limits, however, and this offers her an opportunity for redemption. Zariel has, in a twisted way, achieved her dream as an angel—to fight face-to-face against the demon hordes in the Blood War. But the burden is a heavy one, and if given the chance, Zariel could be convinced to set it aside, release Elturel, and return to the light with a completely transformed perspective.

Infernal Order of Battle

Whereas demons attack in disorganized mobs, relying on shock and overwhelming numbers to carry the day, devils organize into a basic unit called a legion. Each legion contains one thousand devils organized as follows:

• 1 legion = 10 cohorts, commanded by a legate
• 1 cohort = 10 lances, commanded by a signifier
• 1 lance = 10 devils, commanded by an optio

Ranks of miserable lemures and nupperibos compose the base of dreg legions, while bearded devils and merregons make up the bulk of regular legions. Each legion sports a unique name, usually denoting its purpose and numerical designation. Examples include the following:

• 5th Infantry Legion, “Infernal Absolution”
• 13th Cavalry Legion, “Bel’s Fury”
• 47th Dreg Legion, “Piteous Fodder”
  

Features of Avernus

The hellscape of Avernus sits under hideous clouds that obscure the vault of the sky, from which the occasional meteor streaks before crashing into the ground. Ambient light continually swells up from just below the horizon as though lit by nine setting suns, yet no actual celestial bodies fill the sky—no sun, moons, or stars. This constant twilight makes it difficult for the denizens of Avernus to track the passage of time.

The atmosphere reeks of brimstone and burning tar, and hot gusts of wind shriek across the hellscape to scour the land below. Sometimes these winds swirl into immense sandstorms, which can strip flesh from bone and plunge everything into darkness.

Biting flies, hellwasps, and blood-sucking stirges patrol the air, hunting for any source of blood to feed on. Swarms of them can grow so large that they blacken the sky and deafen the ears with the sound of their wings. On the ground, wandering bands of nupperibos—blind, bloated castaways of the damned—move in the thousands like living lakes of groaning flesh in their agonizing search for food. Bone fields, quicksand, bubbling tar pits, lakes of lava, canyons of wailing souls, and salt flats made from the tears of the damned all await those who wander the hellscape.

River Styx

The River Styx courses through the Lower Planes, frustrating every attempt to map it or predict its course. Getting lost while sailing the Styx isn’t the only danger the river presents. Simply tasting or touching its waters can shatter a creature’s intellect and personality, as well as strip away its memories. Certain fiends are immune to the river’s effects, but most creatures have no defense against it.

Unless immune to the river’s effects, a creature that drinks from the Styx or enters the river is targeted by a feeblemind spell (save DC 20). A creature must repeat the saving throw whenever it starts its turn in the river, until it fails the save. A feebleminded creature can drink from the Styx and swim in its waters without suffering any additional deleterious effects.

If a creature fails its saving throw and remains under the spell’s effect for 30 consecutive days, the effect becomes permanent (no save) and the creature loses all its memories, becoming a near-mindless shell of its former self. At that point, nothing short of a wish spell or divine intervention can undo the effect.

Water taken from the River Styx loses its potency after 24 hours, becoming a harmless, foul-tasting liquid. However, arcanaloths, night hags, and other fell creatures might know rituals that can prolong the water’s potency, at your discretion.

Alterations to Magic

Avernus is the entrance to the Nine Hells, a battlefield drenched in eldritch energy. The magic of the Weave works differently here, manifesting in unusual ways.

Cosmetic Spell Modifications

At your discretion, a spell can be modified cosmetically to enhance the corrupting nature of Avernus. Here are some examples:

Bigby’s Hand. The conjured hand is a fiendish claw.

Find Familiar. The familiar is an imp.

Find Steed. The steed is a nightmare.

Find the Path. An imp appears and begrudgingly guides the caster to the desired location while complaining the whole time, disappearing when the destination is reached or the spell ends.

Fog Cloud. Moaning faces appear and fade in the yellow fog that smells like sulfur.

Hellish Rebuke. The cackling of imps accompanies the fire unleashed by this spell.

Mage Hand. The summoned hand is shaped like a claw.

Rary’s Telepathic Bond. Characters linked together by the spell can hear vague, infernal whispering in the background, but can’t make out what’s being said.

Telepathic Communications

Archdevils can eavesdrop on communication spells such as message and sending sent from or within the Nine Hells. Because of this, those engaging in telepathic communication always have the feeling that they are being listened in on or watched by some infernal presence, even if an archdevil isn’t eavesdropping on their communication.

Telepathic communications via magic items such as sending stones or a helm of telepathy can be overheard by an archdevil as well. Communicating with a serpentine owl, an orb of dragonkind, or a sentient weapon also runs the risk of being overheard in Avernus. Rings of mind shielding work the same in Avernus as they do on any other plane and are highly valuable items in the Nine Hells, coveted by all fiends to avoid the prying minds of their masters.

Demon Ichor

See the entry on the Traps and Hazards page.

Food and Drink

Wisdom (Survival) checks to forage in Avernus are made at disadvantage. Water exists, but it tastes foul and is hard to find. Food can likewise be scrounged, but the flora and fauna taste revolting no matter the manner of preparation. Even rations brought to Avernus taste bitter and ashen.

Rests in Avernus

There are no “days” or “nights” in Avernus, but time should still be tracked in hour increments. Thus, the characters can take long and short rests as they do normally.

Optional Rules

Here are some optional rules that you can use to reinforce the flavor of adventuring in Avernus.

Commerce

When it comes to the souls of mortals, the Nine Hells is always open for business. In Avernus, the business is war, making sure the front lines of the Blood War are continuously replenished with fresh troops, weapons, armor, and war machines. The main drivers behind this infernal commerce are treasure and soul coins.

Treasure is only valuable to devils because of its efficacy in tempting and twisting mortals (humans in particular) toward lives of corruption, ultimately leading them to forfeit their souls. Because gold has been used for millennia in the Nine Hells, adventurers can find gold coins from civilizations long lost to history.

Silver is harmful to devils. Nevertheless, devils trade silver to those wishing to eliminate rivals in their path.

Bargain-Basement Death Saves

Whenever a character fails a death save in the Nine Hells, an archdevil may contact that character telepathically and offer its assistance. The character must agree to perform a task for the archdevil afterward. The nature of the task is not revealed until the character agrees to these terms.

A character who agrees to the archdevil’s terms automatically rolls a 20 on their next death save. At the same time, the character falls under the effect of a geas spell (no saving throw allowed). If this spell ends prematurely, the character immediately drops to 0 hit points and is dying. The task that the character must complete is usually simple and straightforward, and always for the benefit of the archdevil who struck the deal. Sample tasks include delivering a soul coin to one of the archdevil’s minions, refusing to help someone the character is fated to meet in the future, or destroying something the archdevil abhors (such as a holy symbol).

Exhaustion

Avernus’s combination of oppressive heat and supernatural malevolence weighs on the bodies and souls of those who are not evil. A non-evil creature treats normal travel through Avernus as a forced march and must make a Constitution saving throw at the end of each hour of travel. The DC is 10 + 1 for each hour of travel. On a failed saving throw, a creature suffers one level of exhaustion.

Pervasive Evil

Evil pervades the Nine Hells, and visitors to this plane feel its influence. At the end of each long rest taken on this plane, a visitor that isn’t evil must make a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature’s alignment changes to lawful evil. The change becomes permanent if the creature doesn’t leave the plane within 1d4 days. Otherwise, the creature’s alignment reverts to normal after one day spent on a plane other than the Nine Hells. Casting the dispel evil and good spell on the creature also restores its original alignment.

Gallery

Using the Poster Map

The poster map depicts a region of Avernus, a wasteland of dizzying proportions that has been warped by eons of demonic invasion. Travelers face a hellscape that disorients the senses and defies attempts to map it accurately.

Standard cartographic methods are useless, since distances in Avernus are impossible to gauge and locations sometimes shift supernaturally. As such, the map shows pictorial impressions of locations that only hint at their distances from one another. It is by no means something that can, or should, be taken literally.

No scale is marked on the map, and the placement of locations is based on the memories of an intrepid yet insane cartographer. Distances and travel times between locations cannot be determined by studying the map and can change with each journey, at your discretion. Your players should never feel like they understand Avernus geographically, providing an unsettled and disorienting feeling as they roam the hellscape.

The poster map is riddled with strange imagery and unique iconography. These are the cartographer’s artistic impressions of Avernus, and their meanings, for the most part, remain a mystery. While exploring Avernus, the characters discover a peculiar property of the map: it talks! Whenever they arrive at one of the locations described in this chapter, the voice of the cartographer emanates from the map to reveal a clue. The map speaks only to utter its clues, so the characters can’t query it or engage it in conversation. The cartographer’s mad ramblings precede the description of each adventure location marked on the map. If queried about a location not drawn on the map, the cartographer mumbles incoherently, screams madly, or whimpers in despair.

Mapping Avernus

Celestials and demon lords alike wish for a working map of Avernus, but attempts to map the layer have consistently met with failure.

If a character attempts to map Avernus, madness begins to set in. After each mapping session, the character must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the character contracts a random form of madness determined by rolling on the Short-Term Madness table in chapter 8 of the “Dungeon Master’s Guide”. If the character fails this saving throw a second time, roll on the Long-Term Madness table instead. If the character fails a third time, roll on the Indefinite Madness table.

Charting a Course

Using the map to chart a course from one location to another is unreliable at best. It helps if the characters have visited a destination before, but even that is no guarantee they’ll end up where they intended.

When charting a course through Avernus, ask the player whose character is overseeing navigation to roll two dice:

• Roll 2d4 if the characters are traveling to an unvisited destination marked on their map.
• Roll 2d8 if the characters are returning to a destination they’ve visited previously.
• Roll 2d10 if a native guide is leading the characters to their destination.

If the rolls of both dice don’t match, the characters arrive at their destination as intended. If the dice match, they wind up somewhere else: pick one of the other locations.

Fort Knucklebone

After leaving Elturel, the adventurers head to Fort Knucklebone, a junkyard stronghold on the edge of a desolate expanse of Avernus ravaged by rival gangs of scavengers. Fort Knucklebone doesn’t appear on the poster map of Avernus, as the map’s cartographer never found or visited this location.

Fort Knucklebone provides shelter to a gang of wasteland marauders called the Knucklebones, serving as a garage where they build and repair infernal war machines. The Knucklebones answer to Mad Maggie, a night hag warlord who has an agreement with Zariel: the archduke of Avernus leaves Fort Knucklebone alone as long as Mad Maggie keeps the other warlords in the area in check.

Lulu believes that the kenku from the visions reside in the fort and may be able to help, which is partially true. They can bring Lulu and the characters to Mad Maggie, who can in turn provide them with assistance.

Areas of Fort Knucklebone

The main feature of the fort is the hand-shaped hill, between the fingers of which are caves where Mad Maggie oversees repairs to several infernal war machines (see appendix B for infernal war machine rules and stat blocks). Around this hill is a ring of debris that serves as a crude rampart. This barrier is 15 feet thick, and its height averages 20 feet.

Built into the rampart is a ramshackle gatehouse (see “Entering the Fort”). One of the redcaps that guards the gatehouse stands next to an iron gong that can be struck to warn of impending attack. A 15-foot high, 20-foot-wide, entryway passes through the gatehouse. A wall of junk on rollers can be pushed in front of the entryway to seal it in case of attack.

Within the rampart, surrounding the hill, are hovels made of junk and scrap metal. These quarters are mostly empty except for a few cots, since only the kenku require food, drink, and sleep. They are used when members of Mad Maggie’s gang need privacy. Amid the hovels are the plundered wrecks of several infernal war machines that have been picked clean for parts.

Arrival at the Fort

When the characters get within sight of Fort Knucklebone, describe the location as follows:

Readaloud

A fortified compound sits atop a low plateau that rises out of a crater-pocked landscape. At the center of the compound is a hill of rust-colored stone that resembles a hand clawing out of the ground, with gaps between the fingers. A jagged wall made of rock, bones, and metal debris surrounds this hand-shaped hill. Other highlights visible from this distance include a gatehouse, atop which stands a half-dozen small figures on watch.

When the characters are ready to approach the fortress, see “Entering the Fort” below. First, however, review the following summary of how to run this scene to maximum effect.

Running the Fort

In this part of the adventure, the characters must carefully tread the social milieu of a night hag and her cadre of crazed followers.

This scene resolves around a factor essential in any negotiation: leverage. Mad Maggie possesses several things the characters could use, including infernal war machines, provisions, temporary shelter, and information. The characters have something Mad Maggie desires greatly: Lulu’s memories.

One way to run a complex social encounter like this one is to imagine a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 representing the worst possible outcome and 10 the best. The characters start at 5, and as they progress through the scene, they may move up or down the scale. Positive and helpful interactions move them up the scale, and antagonistic or unfriendly exchanges lose them points, as you determine. Where they end determines the consequences of the encounter. For example, if the characters end at a 10 on the scale, they get everything they want from Mad Maggie: one or more vehicles to expedite travel across Avernus, all the information they need, monetary or magical gifts, and provisions. If they end at a 1 on the scale, they anger Mad Maggie and get nothing. They might even have to fight their way out of Fort Knucklebone. As long as the characters still have a path forward, a spectacular failure can be just as memorable as success.

The following sections detail the important NPCs and creatures within Fort Knucklebone. Included in these descriptions are the personalities and goals of the NPCs, as well as what they have to offer the characters. These descriptions also allow you, as the DM, to determine how the characters can gain leverage in the negotiations and get what they want or need.

Use the 1-to-10 scale as a barometer for rating the overall success of the characters in dealing with the strange, intriguing, and dangerous world of Mad Maggie and the Knucklebones. Let the characters’ decisions, insights, knowledge, roleplaying, successes, and failures move the slider up or down the scale as you see fit.

Entering the Fort

The gatehouse serves as the entrance to Fort Knucklebone. Six redcaps stand guard atop it. One redcap yells down at the characters as they approach, asking for the password. After a few moments, a different redcap says, “We don’t have a password!” All the redcaps fall over in peals of mirth.

The redcaps on guard duty give the characters a difficult time, asking them to do ridiculous things to gain entrance. After a few minutes, when the characters get fed up with the nonsense, the redcaps tell them to quit standing around like idiots and come inside.

Seeing the Kenku

When the characters enter, they see the following scene within the fortress:

Readaloud

The area enclosed by the rampart is littered with trash and mechanical parts, some put together in a way that resembles a vehicle. Ramshackle structures, built from the same junk as the outer wall, provide shelter.

A platoon of small fey creatures mills about, all looking like feral gnomes. Several them sport tall red caps, some of which drip with vile ichor.

A pair of kenku examine one of the strange vehicles, chattering to each other in high-pitched squawks. These kenku carry an assortment of strange tools. When they see you, they turn and stare in wonder.

The kenku Chukka and Clonk instantly recognize Lulu, since they’ve met her previously. Before the characters can act, Clonk squawks at them:

Readaloud

One of the kenku waves in your direction as if telling you to remain where you are. “What a deal! Patience is a virtue! Can’t keep the boss waiting!” He runs off into one of the trash structures.

Moments later he returns, leading a tall creature wearing a long, tattered shift covered in mud, blood, mold, and worse. The hag’s eyes seem to move independently of each other as she approaches, her straggly brown hair hanging in front of them. Resting on each shoulder are red-eyed ravens that scrutinize your group. Behind her, a hulking creature built of disparate fiendish parts trudges, moaning and hopping as it walks.

Then both of the hag’s eyes focus keenly on your group, and on Lulu specifically. “My goodness!” the hag croaks, spittle dribbling from her mouth. “Where did you find such a treasure?”

The characters can explain their predicament, and Mad Maggie can offer to unlock Lulu’s memories, joyfully telling the characters about Lulu’s possible relationship to Zariel. Before she does that, however, Mad Maggie tells the characters she needs to gather supplies for the ritual of memory unlocking. This gives the characters a chance to interact with the other members of Mad Maggie’s gang and maybe earn some good will with them as mentioned under their individual descriptions below.

Mad Maggie

While Zariel’s attention is focused on the Blood War, power-hungry warlords of the Avernian wastes cobble together heavily armed gangs and lead packs of infernal war machines in brutal combat, carving out vicious fiefdoms for themselves. Mad Maggie is one such warlord.

Mad Maggie is a night hag with the demeanor of a kindly grandmother, but her warm smile masks a cruel cunning. In addition to her heartstone, the hag carries a black soul bag (see the “Night Hag” entry in the “Monster Manual” for more information on this magic items. The bag contains nine soul coins, which Mad Maggie uses to power her infernal war machines.

Years ago, a thirst to experience the ultimate misery brought the night hag to the first layer of the Nine Hells. Followed to Avernus by scores of bloodthirsty redcaps, Maggie found pieces of a beautiful tapestry that chronicled the fall of Zariel. It recounted the angel’s descent into Avernus, her betrayal at the hands of the Hellriders, and her submission to Asmodeus, which led to her becoming an archdevil worthy to rule Avernus. Mad Maggie is obsessed with Zariel’s cataclysmic saga and scours the wastelands of Avernus for more such relics. In the crucible of the Avernian wastelands, Mad Maggie has risen to become a respected warlord.

Maggie’s Goals

Driven by her lust for misery and her delight in the corruption of the valiant, Mad Maggie seeks to collect more artifacts tied to Zariel’s fall from grace. When she becomes aware of Lulu’s relationship to Zariel, the night hag tries to dig up Lulu’s lost memories, believing they might hold the most exquisite emotional records of Zariel’s descent. As the characters assist Maggie in this endeavor, they gain favor with—and leverage over—the hag.

Maggie’s Offers

Maggie has the means to unlock the memories Lulu struggles to remember. Once the memories are retrieved, the characters learn the destination of the next step of their journey.

Maggie also can furnish the characters with one or more infernal war machines, which would make their trip across the wastelands more manageable. Additionally, if the characters have no means of creating provisions, Maggie can supply them with food and water as well. Maggie could also offer information about the dangers the characters might face in the wasteland, including other gangs, if the characters gain enough leverage and delight Maggie with their offerings.

The Knucklebones Gang

Maggie’s band consists of Chukka, Clonk, a fiendish flesh golem named Mickey, a pair of conniving imps, a flameskull, and a host of murderous fey creatures.

Chukka and Clonk

These two kenku are loyal, longtime associates of Mad Maggie’s. She refers to them as the Magpies. Clonk, the bigger of the two kenku, is the strong, silent type who sometimes drives Mad Maggie’s infernal war machine. Chukka is animated, irritable, and takes care of repairs around the fort.

Chukka and Clonk lost their weapons and replaced them with the following weapons salvaged from infernal battlefields:

• Chukka wields a silvered pike (+2 to hit) that has a reach of 10 feet and deals 5 (1d10) piercing damage on a hit.
• Clonk wields a hellfire warhammer (+2 to hit) that deals 4 (1d8) bludgeoning damage on a hit, or 5 (1d10) bludgeoning damage when used with two hands. For more information on hellfire weapons, see “Hellfire Weapon”.

Chukka and Clonk’s Goal

The kenku live to build, fix, and drive infernal machines. At some point during their visit, the characters see the kenku angrily hammering on a nonfunctional Demon Grinder. It isn’t working, and they can’t figure out why. They would be very grateful to anyone who could help them discern the problem.

Helping the Kenku

One of the parts in the Demon Grinder—a spiky gear—is disrupting the flow of infernal energy through the vehicle. The gear, comprised of spikes from a hezrou demon, surges with demonic energy to cause the malfunction. A successful DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana or Investigation) by a character who spends at least 10 minutes examining the vehicle reveals which part is to blame.

Chukka and Clonk appreciate the help in identifying the problem. Characters can further assist by finding a way to remove the demonic essence from the gear. Spells such as dispel magic or protection from evil and good, or other methods that the characters might imagine, could make the part usable. If the characters help the pair get the infernal machine running, the kenku express their pleasure to Mad Maggie, who becomes even more likely to help the characters in their quest.

Mickey the Flesh Golem

Shortly after arriving in Avernus, Mad Maggie created Mickey, a fiendish flesh golem comprised of fiendish body parts scavenged from the battlefields of Avernus. Mickey is a sweet, dumb brute who follows Mad Maggie’s orders.

Mickey’s Goal

Unknown to anyone else at Fort Knucklebone, Mickey has a large piece of a destroyed bone devil lodged in his foot, which makes walking difficult for the brute. Unable to speak, he moans as he walks and does a bit of a hopping dance. The madcaps and redcaps think this is wonderful, and they occasionally accompany him in a vile song and dance. Characters who witness this and succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom (Insight) check realize Mickey’s plight. They can then attempt to remove the bone fragment without permanently inhibiting Mickey’s stride. A successful DC 15 Wisdom (Medicine) check allows for the successful removal of the bone. After that, Mickey can walk without moaning or hopping, making Mad Maggie more amenable to assisting the characters. The redcaps and madcaps, however, become angry that they can no longer “do the Mickey.”

Pins and Needles

Mad Maggie cut a deal with a pit fiend to secure the services of two shrewd but lazy imps named Pins and Needles. Mad Maggie treats them with such kindness that the imps can’t imagine wanting to work for anyone else. In Mad Maggie’s presence, the imps usually assume the forms of ravens that nest in her hair or perch on her shoulders.

When not loitering around Fort Knucklebone, Pins and Needles keep tabs on the Blood War and spy on Mad Maggie’s rivals. Unlike most devils, Pins and Needles aren’t gunning for promotions. They shun the infernal hierarchy and crinkle their noses in disgust when anyone tries to foist more responsibility onto them.

The Imps’ Goals

As much as they love their lives at Fort Knucklebone, the imps have a problem. They foolishly played a prank on one of the madcaps, Wazzik. Now they fear that Wazzik and a small group of his irrational friends are plotting revenge. The imps don’t want to tell Maggie because she warned them not to pick on the madcaps, so they see the characters as a potential solution to their situation.

Helping the Imps

As events play out in Fort Knucklebone, the characters notice that Pins and Needles lurk about at a distance, whispering to each other and staring at the characters. If confronted, the imps make a big deal of revealing a secret. Of course they lie, telling the characters that a madcap named Wazzik is planning to kill Lulu and urging them to take care of this threat first.

A successful DC 14 Wisdom (Insight) check reveals that the imps are lying. If called on the lie, the imps reveal the truth about why they want Wazzik dead. They tell the characters exactly when and where to find Wazzik alone, and they promise to put in a good word with Maggie if the characters kill the madcap.

The imps’ information is sound, and the characters can take care of the problem quickly and quietly. However, if anyone witnesses the murder, the characters might have to deal with consequences and complications. Fortunately for the characters, Maggie cares little for the madcaps and ignores the death, although it might lower the characters in her esteem a bit when it comes time to reward them.

Barnabas the Flameskull

Barnabas, once a powerful wizard, had his crypt defiled by an evil nemesis who stole his skull and turned it into a flameskull. Mad Maggie struck a bargain with this rival wizard and took Barnabas as payment. Now he’s a part of her gang.

Barnabas is forgetful and a bit pompous, but every now and then he has amazing ideas and remembers remarkably useful things from his arcane past.

Barnabas’s Goal

The redcaps like to hurl things at Barnabas, and after getting hit in the jaw with a loose gear, Barnabas lost one of his teeth. He saw a redcap, Grubba, grab it and run off. Barnabas is too embarrassed to tell Mad Maggie about it, though she suspects something is amiss because Barnabas has starting whistling when he speaks.

He quietly asks the characters to help him find his missing tooth. He points out Grubba the redcap but admits that all the little sly creatures look similar to him.

Helping Barnabas

Characters can question the redcaps, starting with Grubba, to find out who has the tooth. Each time they question a redcap, there is a 50 percent chance that the redcap gets angry and attacks the characters, backed up by 1d4 additional redcaps.

The redcaps believe the tooth is a lucky charm, so they frequently pass it from one to the next to keep Barnabas from finding it. Because of this constant transfer of the tooth, there’s little hope of the characters finding it by confronting one redcap at a time. However, a character who quietly observes the redcaps for 10 minutes can attempt a DC 11 Wisdom (Perception) check. On a success, the character sees one redcap passing a bloody pouch to another redcap, who tucks it in a pocket. This pouch contains Barnabas’s tooth.

A character who moves within reach of the redcap can attempt to pick its pocket and obtain the pouch without its knowledge, doing so with a successful DC 14 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check.

No redcap relinquishes the pouch willingly, though it can be magically charmed into doing so. The redcap attacks any character who tries to take it by force, and twelve other redcaps join the fight on the next round. Mad Maggie won’t break up such a fight unless the characters have done something nice for her, although if the dreamscape ritual has not taken place yet, she won’t allow the redcaps to kill a character.

Redcaps and Madcaps

Redcaps are murderous fey creatures that soak their caps in fresh blood. Madcaps are redcaps that drench their caps in demon ichor instead. Mad Maggie currently commands sixty redcaps and thirty madcaps, although a third of them operate outside the fort, patrolling the areas of the wasteland controlled by Mad Maggie. As battles deplete this force, Mad Maggie has new redcaps delivered to her from the Feywild, courtesy of powerful fey with whom she has struck bargains. For this reason, the night hag has no concern for the well-being of her redcap and madcap minions. See appendix D for more information about redcaps and madcaps.

Redcap and Madcap Goals

These creatures don’t have many goals, being mad fey creatures that revel in chaos and slaughter. Their interactions with the characters should reflect that. One might offer a character a severed finger as a token of friendship, then accuse the character of stealing it afterward. Only their love and fear of Mad Maggie keeps the creatures under a loose sort of control.

Mad Maggie understands the nature of these beings and she does not hold it against the characters if they kill them, especially when acting in self-defense.

Mad Maggie’s Infernal War Machines

Fort Knucklebone contains the hulks of infernal war machines in varying states of disrepair and cannibalization. Of the lot, two appear relatively intact. The smaller one is a Devil’s Ride, the bigger one a Tormentor. The wheels of the Devil’s Ride are missing. The Tormentor is missing its harpoon flinger, and its armor plating is corroded as though eaten by acid, reducing the vehicle’s AC to 15.

If the characters earn enough gratitude from Mad Maggie, one or both of these war machines might be gifted to them. Chukka and Clonk can attach wheels to the Devil’s Ride and a weapon to the Tormentor, if Mad Maggie instructs them to. Replacing the armor on the Tormentor can be done as well, but only after efforts are made to salvage scrap metal from the battlefields of Avernus. Any such salvage operation is likely to attract unwanted attention from other warlords (see “Warlords of the Avernian Wastelands”).

In addition to the war machines described above, Mad Maggie has several infernal war machines in drivable condition that are undergoing regular maintenance and upgrades in her garage under the hill. These vehicles are not for sale or trade, though brazen adventurers might try stealing them. These vehicles include two Devil’s Rides, three Tormentors, the aforementioned Demon Grinder (which Chukka and Clonk have been trying to repair), and a Scavenger that Mad Maggie uses for salvage operations.

Lulu’s Dream Quest

Before they can retrieve the Sword of Zariel, the characters must learn the location of the Bleeding Citadel, which is trapped in Lulu’s hidden memories. When Mad Maggie becomes aware of the characters’ interest in accessing these hidden memories, she offers to perform a ritual that creates a dreamscape in which the hollyphant’s memories can be perceived. For Mad Maggie, the ritual is its own reward, as the hag longs to know everything Lulu knows about the fall of Zariel.

After making some preparations, Mad Maggie creates a fiendish circle on the ground, and arranges several comfortable black cushions at the center. She orders Lulu to rest on the cushions, which the hollyphant does with a bit of trepidation. Maggie then places two skulls on the circle, noting that she’s sure her sisters won’t care if she picks their brains about this problem.

The hag instructs Lulu and the characters to take up places within the circle. Mad Maggie tells the characters to close their eyes and keep them closed, that the ritual should last about ten minutes, and that during the ritual all within the circle will be joined by a telepathic bond. If anyone leaves the circle, the ritual is interrupted and she’ll be forced to start over. An incomplete ritual yields no insight into Lulu’s memories.

As the hag initiates the ritual, the characters sense the telepathic bond forming between themselves, the hag, and Lulu. Their eyes still closed, the characters sense a brilliant flash of light, then darkness. A tingling sensation sweeps over the characters’ bodies as vibrant rainbows appear within their minds and they see Lulu’s first dream unfold. Mad Maggie isn’t in the dreamscape with them, though characters can hear the hag’s disembodied voice whenever she speaks.

Within this conjured dreamscape, characters can take psychic damage from hostile dream-creatures and other effects. A character reduced to 0 hit points by this psychic damage is unconscious but stable, and unable to proceed to the next dream in the sequence. If all the characters fall unconscious, the dream quest ends. Mad Maggie can start over once the characters have regained consciousness and recovered from the ordeal.

Dream 1: Rainbow Angels

Read the following boxed text when the characters first enter Lulu’s dreamscape:

Readaloud

As the rich, radiant light of a hundred dancing rainbows slowly dissolves, warm sunlight fills the area. Within that space, Lulu flies lazily in a lush meadow at the shoulder of a beautiful, blindfolded angel. As the pair strolls through the tall green grass, the voice of the hag fills your mind, “Push through this vision. It only represents what Lulu wishes was true. We need to see more.”

Each character must make a DC 10 Intelligence saving throw. If one or more of the characters succeed, the sunny meadow fades to black as the dream sequence progresses toward the next dream.

If all the characters fail the saving throw, each character takes 11 (2d10) psychic damage, and all of them must attempt the saving throw again. If at least one character succeeds the second time, this dream fades and the next one begins. If everyone fails the save again, all the characters take the psychic damage again. This process continues until at least one character succeeds or everyone falls unconscious.

Dream 2: Betrayal!

Characters who are conscious when the first dream ends proceed to the second dream:

Readaloud

A flame-encircled battlefield appears on a barren hellscape. At the center of the circle, Lulu and the angel lie unconscious and prone, horribly injured. You see yourselves standing in defense of Lulu and the angel, facing outward as six small, spine-covered devils creep closer. In the distance, a formation of battered and retreating human warriors disappears through a portal.

“The devils!” hisses the hag’s disembodied voice. “You must defeat those devils!”

The characters must defend Lulu and Zariel from the six spined devils. At this point, the characters and the devils should roll initiative. The dreamscape combat that follows pits the characters against the dream-devils. The characters begin combat at full hit points, minus any psychic damage taken in the previous dream. All damage dealt by the dream-devils converts to psychic damage. The devils let out dying screams and fall dead when reduced to 0 hit points.

This dream ends when half of the spined devils are reduced to 0 hit points. When the dream ends, the battlefield fades to black as the dream sequence proceeds with the next dream.

Dream 3: Devil Deal

Characters who are conscious when the second dream ends proceed to the third dream:

Readaloud

A landscape filled with thick, black smoke and the smells of death and decay expands to encompass everything. The small devils that survived the previous dream kneel before you and offer to serve you if you spare their lives.

If the characters agree to accept the devils’ terms, the devils take the sky and fly away, returning to help the characters in the next dream. Otherwise, the devils fade away into nothingness and don’t reappear later on.

Once the characters make their choice, this dream ends and fades to black as the dream sequence continues with the next dream.

Dream 4: Desolation

When the fourth dream begins, read:

Readaloud

You wander a vast, barren landscape of utter devastation. Black sludge rises rapidly out of the ground, enveloping your feet and gripping you tightly, overwhelming you with a horrible sense of loss.

“Don’t let the sludge consume you!” says Mad Maggie’s disembodied voice. “You must push through her defenses. She must look!”

Have the characters roll initiative for their dream-selves. Each character is restrained by the black sludge. On its turn, a character must use its action to try to get free of the sludge, doing so with a successful DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If at least one character accepted the devils’ terms in the previous dream, spined devils swoop down from the sky to help the characters pull free, granting advantage on each character’s ability check.

A character who gets free of the sludge rises up into the air and quickly shakes off the sense of horrible loss. For the rest of this dream, the freed character can do nothing except use the Help action on each of its turns to assist another character still trapped in the sludge.

A character who fails the initial check to escape the sludge must repeat the check at the start of each of its turns. With each failed check after the first, the character takes 22 (4d10) psychic damage as the sense of horrible loss intensifies. If a character is reduced to 0 hit points by this psychic damage, its dream-self becomes completely submerged in the sludge and is lost.

The dreamscape can continue into the final dream provided at least one character’s dream-self escapes from the sludge.

Dream 5: Revelation

Characters who are conscious when the fourth dream ends proceed to the fifth and final dream, which is as follows:

Readaloud

Lulu rests on a black cushion at the center of an inky void. She is unconscious and alone, a beam of brilliant white light shining down upon her. Next to Lulu, a large gleaming brass spyglass rests atop an ornately carved tripod.

Lulu awakens and looks peacefully around her. Seeing the spyglass, she approaches it, pressing one eye against the eyepiece. Lulu then steps back suddenly, eyes wide, mouth open, her face alight with excitement. She cries out, “The sword, the sword! I know where it is!”

As the dream ends, the characters and Lulu wake up in the ritual space. Lulu can barely contain her joy at rediscovering what she believes is the location of the Bleeding Citadel, and she impatiently begs the characters to start the next leg of their journey.

If none of the characters’ dream-selves made it to the end of the dreamscape, Mad Maggie is eager to repeat the ritual. Conversely, Lulu might regain enough of her memory to lead characters on the next leg of the journey without having to endure the ritual a second time. Mad Maggie is unhappy if she doesn’t get to see the whole dream, and is less likely to help the characters get to where they need to go if they refuse to see the dream sequence through to the very end.

If the characters made it to the end of the dreamscape, then Mad Maggie did as well. Experiencing the agonies of such pure suffering, the hag oozes contentment. As long as the characters have done nothing to displease her during their stay at Fort Knucklebone, Mad Maggie provides them with one or more of the available infernal war machines. If they have assisted her troops in other ways, she can provide any or all of the following as well:

• As many as three soul coins, which the characters need to fuel their infernal war machines
• A silvered weapon of the characters’ choice, to assist in battles with devils and lycanthropes
• Two weeks of rations per character (the rations taste awful but retain their nutritional value)
• Warnings about other warlords (see “Warlords of the Avernian Wastelands”), plus the name of someone who might help them (see “Roaming Encounter: Smiler the Defiler”)

Farewell

The manner in which the Knucklebones bid farewell to the characters depends on how pleased Mad Maggie is with the characters. This attitude ranges from a near-tearful goodbye if they gave Maggie and her gang everything they wanted, to being chased away by rabid madcaps if everything went wrong.

Vengeful Pursuits

If the characters take one or more infernal war machines from Fort Knucklebone without Mad Maggie’s consent, the night hag organizes a posse to run them down and get back what’s hers, plus “interest.” Mad Maggie chases after them in her Scavenger, with Mickey in the passenger seat behind her while she drives. Barnabas the flameskull operates the Grappling Claw with his mage hand spell, Chukka and Clonk operate the Harpoon Flingers, and six madcaps cling to the outside hull, ready to leap onto enemy vehicles. If Chukka and Clonk got the broken Demon Grinder working, that vehicle comes after the characters as well and is manned entirely by redcaps and madcaps.

Raggadragga Attacks!

As the characters reach a half-mile or so away from Fort Knucklebone, trouble comes looking for them in the form of an enemy warlord:

Readaloud

A plume of red dust billows in the distance, created by a large infernal war machine barreling in your direction. Its crew consists of boar-headed and rat-headed humanoids, all wearing goggles.

The incoming infernal war machine is a gore-spattered Demon Grinder with gnashing metal teeth at the front and a wrecking ball swinging behind it. As it moves to intercept the characters, the vehicle is not trying to be stealthy.

If the characters have one or more infernal war machines, they can try to outrun, outmaneuver, or destroy the approaching enemy vehicle. If they are on foot, they must find a way to disable the vehicle and defeat the creatures inside. If they do so, they can claim the Demon Grinder for themselves.

The Demon Grinder is driven by the warlord Raggadragga, a wereboar with 120 hit points. He leads the Goreguts Gang, which consists of two other wereboars named Jibbs and Oozywog (who operate the vehicle’s Chomper and Wrecking Ball stations) and two wererats named Finnik and Yeegha (who operate the vehicle’s Harpoon Flingers). Avernus has no moons, so the Goreguts Gang isn’t beholden to lunar cycles. Its members prefer their hybrid forms.

If he defeats the characters, Raggadragga gets whatever information he can out of them before attempting to ransom them back to Mad Maggie. The night hag may or may not pay for them, depending on her disposition toward the characters when they left Fort Knucklebone.

If the characters defeat the Goreguts Gang, they can take possession of the Demon Grinder, which burns through its remaining fuel in 6 hours.

Treasure

Raggadragga carries three soul coins that he uses to fuel the Demon Grinder. He also carries a circlet of blasting, which he can don and use to make ranged attacks. The other members of the Goreguts Gang have no treasure.

Warlords of the Avernian Wastelands

As the characters cross the wastelands of Avernus, they will likely run afoul of petty warlords scavenging for soul coins and scrap metal to fuel and repair their infernal war machines. Mad Maggie and Raggadragga are two warlords whom the characters meet early on. The following sections describe three other warlords who prowl the Avernian wastes: a wingless horned devil named Bitter Breath, a human necromancer named Feonor, and a chain devil named Princeps Kovik. These warlords are as cruel and merciless as the hell they inhabit. All share a “survival of the fittest” mentality.

In Avernus, a warlord’s power is measured by the strength and size of its gang, and the threat posed by its infernal war machines. As one warlord bites the dust, another inevitably rises to take its place. Bitter Breath, Feonor, and Princeps Kovik are merely the latest in a long series of warlords to plague the Avernian expanse. If Zariel wasn’t so busy fighting the Blood War, she would rid Avernus of these roaming pests; as things stand, she’s content to let the warlords wipe each other out instead.

If you need to add some excitement to the adventure, have one of these warlords show up to challenge the characters. One warlord might be after soul coins to fuel its infernal war machines, while another might be eager to forge an alliance with a capable band of adventurers against a greater foe. With the exception of Mad Maggie, these warlords have no lairs, so they can be encountered anywhere at any time.

Avernus has more warlords than the ones described here. You can create new ones, each with their own gangs and infernal war machines. Don’t worry about throwing too many infernal war machines at the characters. You can curtail the characters’ reliance on infernal war machines by restricting their access to soul coins, which the vehicles burn as fuel. A typical warlord has 2d6 soul coins and 2d6 flasks of demon ichor (see “Demon Ichor”) at any given time.

Infernal War Machine Combat

All the warlords described in this adventure use infernal war machines to strike fear into their rivals, fend off demons and other threats, and flee from Zariel’s devil patrols. The rules for infernal war machines in appendix B are meant to help you adjudicate situations that arise during encounters, but combat involving infernal war machines works best with “theater of the mind”-style play, where it’s more important to capture the emotion of a chase than know the exact location and orientation of every vehicle on the battlefield.

If a situation arises that the vehicle rules don’t cover, fall back on the core rules. For example, if a character wants to leap from one moving vehicle to another, determine whether the character succeeds or not with a Strength (Athletics) check, setting the jump’s DC based on the distance between the two vehicles (as well as other factors, as appropriate). Keep it fun and fast-paced, and push the rules aside when they get in the way.

Bitter Breath

Bitter Breath is a resentful, vindictive warlord that fell prey to the cutthroat politics of Avernus. Formerly a pit fiend named L’zeth, it strove to undermine Zariel while courting Bel. Shortly after claiming rulership of Avernus, Zariel demoted L’zeth to a horned devil.

For a while, L’zeth nursed its damaged pride. Eventually, the despondent devil reignited its ambitions and became involved in a plot to overthrow Zariel. The archdevil’s spies learned of the plot. As further punishment, Zariel removed L’zeth’s wings and cursed the horned devil so that it could no longer enter into deals. Any document that L’zeth signs melts away, and any words it utters turn to smoke in its mouth. Thus did L’zeth become known as Bitter Breath.

Bitter Breath’s Marauders

Zariel has declared that no other devil may associate with Bitter Breath. However, Zariel’s decree hasn’t stopped the fiendish outcast from joining forces with a gang of marauding hobgoblins under the command of a battle-hardened hobgoblin warlord named High Graj Karkajuk.

Bitter Breath drives a Tormentor that has an Infernal Screamer (see “Infernal Screamer”) instead of a Harpoon Flinger. Hobgoblins round out the Tormentor’s crew. High Graj Karkajuk drives a Devil’s Ride and commands a pair of Scavengers driven by hobgoblin captains and crewed by ordinary hobgoblins. See appendix B for the vehicles’ stat blocks.

Feonor

Feonor is a willowy, neutral evil archmage with milky-white eyes and a parasol made of bones and human flesh. Her rivals know her as a powerful necromancer. They suspect that she fled the Material Plane to escape some horrible fate, but the truth is she was invited to Avernus by Mahadi, the rakshasa master of the Wandering Emporium (see “The Wandering Emporium”). During a visit to Feonor’s world, Mahadi fell head-over-heels in love with her zombie-like indifference. Not long after arriving in Avernus, Feonor grew bored of Mahadi’s attempts to impress her. Without so much as a farewell, she took to the Avernian wastes on one of the rakshasa’s infernal war machines and never looked back. Years later, Mahadi still refers to her as “the one the got away.”

The scowl on Feonor’s face hints at her constant annoyance with the multiverse around her. She prefers not to speak, and when she does, it’s typically only in whispers, her short sentences interspersed and punctuated with frustrated sighs.

Golden Doom

Feonor rides around in a Demon Grinder called Golden Doom, so named because Mahadi fitted it with gilded death armor (see “Gilded Death Armor”). The vehicle is driven by a ghast, and its other stations are operated by ghouls. She also commands a force of ten crawling claws. A pair of Tormentors crewed by mezzoloths provide escort.

Princeps Kovik

This particularly cruel chain devil commanded the Nine Hells’ 8th Infantry Legion, “Terror Incarnate,” which was crushed on the banks of the River Styx by the demon lord Kostchtchie. Blaming its superiors for the defeat, Princeps Kovik gathered the surviving members of its legion and formed the Eighth Remnant, a marauding gang of devils no longer beholden to the infernal hierarchy.

The devils that serve under Kovik do so willingly because the chain devil has earned their trust. Newly disenfranchised devils regularly flock to Kovik’s banner. The chain devil’s emblem is the numeral 8 made out of iron chain on a crimson field. Kovik aims to gather enough strength and infernal war machines to do what no archdevil has been able to do: drive the demons back to the Abyss for good.

The Eighth Remnant

The Eighth Remnant chases down any potential source of soul coins. Targets who give up their soul coins freely are allowed to continue on their way without further harassment, provided there are no demons lurking among them.

Kovik has a Devil’s Ride and travels with two bearded devils on similar vehicles. The rest of the gang consists of four barbed devils on a Tormentor and eight bearded devils on a Demon Grinder. Members of the Eighth Remnant never use demon ichor in their vehicles.

Quest for the Sword

Lulu’s dreams lead the characters on a wild goose chase to Haruman’s Hill in search of the Sword of Zariel. Realizing that the Bleeding Citadel isn’t where she remembers it, the hollyphant offers the characters a choice of paths. Both paths eventually lead to the Bleeding Citadel, but only through a combination of deal making, daring, and dumb luck.

Diagram 3.2 and diagram 3.3 are flowcharts that show the two paths characters can take through Avernus to reach the Bleeding Citadel: the Path of Demons and the Path of Devils, respectively. Neither is literally a “path,” but rather a sequence of locations that the characters must visit in order. If the characters wander off these paths, use optional encounters to pull them back (see “Other Locations,” and “Roaming Encounter: Smiler the Defiler”).

Each encounter location tied to a path has a recommended character level, as noted in diagram 3.2 or diagram 3.3. If your group’s average character level is lower than the recommended level of their destination, introduce some random encounters or reroute them to another location first to raise their level.

Allow characters the opportunity to explore locations on the poster map of Avernus in any order they please, or let them jump back and forth between the paths as they see fit.

Haruman’s Hill

Behold! Zariel’s dog crucified those who betrayed his mistress in battle.

—The Cartographer

Haruman’s Hill is marked on map 3.1. When the characters arrive at this location, read or paraphrase the following boxed text to the players:

Readaloud

Wrought iron trees line a trail that leads to the summit of a steep hill. Anguished knights are impaled on the trees’ metal branches, their bodies writhing in torment as bloated stirges feast on their blood.

Haruman, a human paladin of Helm, was one of Zariel’s most devoted Hellriders. He crucified deserters to Zariel’s cause on “Coward’s Way,” a line of tortured souls leading to this desolate hill. Each soul is pinned to a barbed, metal tree. Inscriptions above their heads attest that most of them were mortal knights who abandoned Zariel during her assault into Avernus. Flocks of stirges buzz between the branches, feasting hungrily on the screaming, crucified victims. The stirges attack the characters only if they try to free the captives (see “Haruman’s Arrival” below). Roll 2d4 to determine the number of attacking stirges.

Jander Sunstar

Near the summit of the hill, the vampire Jander Sunstar is impaled on one of the largest iron trees. This elf warrior, cursed to an eternity of undeath, tried to redeem his corrupted soul by swearing to hunt down his own kind. Later, he volunteered to join Zariel on her crusade into the Nine Hells. Stirges now swarm back and forth from Jander’s body, preserving his existence by injecting him with the blood of his traitorous companions.

Jander pleads for the characters to cut him down so that his soul can move on from this accursed place. He reveals the following information:

• Jander and Haruman were both part of a host of warriors who joined the angel Zariel in her assault on the Nine Hells.
• After charging through the portal into Avernus, Jander panicked and fled back to Elturel. He betrayed his braver comrades by sealing the portal behind them.
• Jander and his fellow deserters never revealed their shameful retreat and betrayal of Zariel. It was a badge of shame that the Hellriders, as they were came to be known, would wear in secret until the grave.
• After years of anguish, Jander chose to face the sun and throw himself on Lathander’s mercy. The prayer fell on deaf ears, and his soul was condemned to the Nine Hells to suffer for his sins.

When she beholds Jander impaled on the iron tree, Lulu’s memories of him return. She remembers his betrayal of Zariel and gives him a pitiful look. She then admits to the characters that she’s made a mistake leading them here and needs to ponder her dreams in more detail to discern the Bleeding Citadel’s whereabouts.

Haruman’s Arrival

If the characters free Jander or any of his companions, their bodies crumble to dust in grateful release. In response, twenty stirges attack the group. When the second round of combat begins, any crucified souls remaining on the trees wail in terror as Haruman, a narzugon, swoops down from the sky on his nightmare steed to punish the interlopers. He begins the encounter 300 feet away and orders the nightmare to close the distance between him and the adventurers as quickly as possible. As Haruman attacks, a hellwasp appears from a nearby nest and tries to grab Lulu and fly off with her (see “Development” below).

If a character damages Haruman with an attack, a fresh tree bearing the character’s name sprouts from the ground nearby, listing the character’s crime as “assaulting an officer.” Any character who sees their name on a tree for the first time must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened of Haruman for 1 minute. A character who fails this saving throw can repeat it at the end of each of their turns, ending the effect on them on a success.

Treasure

Haruman uses infernal tack to ride his nightmare.

Development

If the hellwasp abducts Lulu, it takes the hollyphant to its nest. If the characters wish to rescue Lulu, they must storm the nest (see “Hellwasp Nest”).

If the characters thwart the hellwasp’s abduction of Lulu, the hollyphant is grateful and apologizes for leading them to the wrong place, admitting that her memory of the Bleeding Citadel is hazier than she initially realized. Having pondered her dreams further, she says that two sites in Avernus seem important to finding the Citadel: a place where demons manifest (see “Spawning Trees”), and another where demons are destroyed (see “Demon Zapper”). Lulu has no preference which to investigate first, so she points out both locations on the characters’ map and leaves the decision to the characters. Each of these locations opens a different branch of investigation that ultimately leads to the Bleeding Citadel. See diagram 3.2 and diagram 3.3 for overviews of the two paths—the Path of Demons and the Path of Devils.

Hellwasp Nest

Fallen angels are meat for hellwasps. Steer clear, lest you nourish their young with your flesh.

—The Cartographer

Throughout Avernus, aggressive hellwasp colonies shape enormous nests from the cocooned carcasses of slain angels and other fallen celestials. Such structures are magically buoyant and must be tethered by chains to the surface of Avernus. The cocooned angels writhe unpleasantly from the motion of the larvae gorging on their insides, creating the false impression that they still live. Because of this, the mere sight of a hellwasp nest has been known to drive mortals mad. This entry describes a typical nest, such as the one Lulu is carried to from Haruman’s Hill.

When the characters encounter their first hellwasp nest, read or paraphrase the following boxed text to the players:

Readaloud

A gigantic sac of wet, papery material floats high above the surface of hell. Angelic figures with feathery wings stick to its surface like flies in amber, their bodies struggling futilely underneath layers of gunk. Iron chains at the bottom of the structure tether it to the hellish landscape.

A typical hellwasp nest contains eight hellwasps, although twice this number are typically out hunting when the characters arrive. If they paralyze every character in the party with their stings, the hellwasps move them to their larder at the top of the nest (area N4) to be used as food for their larvae.

Encounters in the Nest

The following descriptions correspond to the areas marked on map 3.2. A hellwasp nest has no stairs, so the characters must fly or use climbing gear to traverse between levels. Each level of the nest is basically one large chamber. Map 3.2 includes a side view of the nest that shows how the various levels stack atop one another.

Map 3.2 shows where dead angels are entombed in the hellwasp nest’s translucent walls. The angels’ well-preserved corpses, which are visible to creatures inside the nest, keep the nest aloft. Removing them from the walls causes the nest to slowly sink to the ground.

Gallery

N1. Entry Level

The nest’s entrance is on its underside, where one or more heavy chains tether the nest 100 feet above the surface of Avernus. The hellwasps keep this level mostly clear to avoid blocking off the hatcheries above. Even so, discarded gear accumulates here among the gory effluvia expelled from the wasps’ devoured captives.

Treasure

Anyone searching through the junk finds a backpack containing five healer’s kits and a fully charged wand of magic missiles.

Development

Too much noise here alerts the hellwasps in area N2. Creatures rooting through the junk must succeed on a DC 12 Dexterity (Stealth) check or alert the wasps. Once the colony is placed on alert, call for initiative rolls. All the hellwasps act on the same initiative count. At the start of each of the hellwasps’ turns, one hellwasp arrives from area N2 to defend the nest until all three appear. The rest of the colony remains on high alert for two hours.

N2. Drone Cells

This level is honeycombed with octagonal cells crafted by the hellwasps from a regurgitated mulch of bone, sand, and fat. Three hellwasps are here unless they were drawn to area N1 by the characters’ intrusion.

N3. Hellwasp Larvae

This level of the nest is always on high alert and contains three hellwasps.

Hellwasp larvae are incubating inside the angel carcasses on this level. If a character takes piercing or slashing damage within 15 feet of an angel carcass or moves within 5 feet of one, the carcass explodes and releases 2d6 hostile hellwasp grubs (use the giant centipede stat block to represent them).

N4. Larder

The hellwasps gum their victims to the walls of this level using the same regurgitated bile that forms their nest. Two hellwasps are stationed here at all hours.

If Lulu was abducted and brought to the nest, the characters find her here, stuck to a wall (see “Development” below). Any creature that ends up gummed to the walls can use an action to try to free itself, doing so with a successful DC 20 Strength (Athletics) check. A character can also make this check to pull free a companion within its reach.

Treasure

Ruined gear belonging to previous abductees is scattered across the floor. Characters who search through the gear find three soul coins and a helm of telepathy.

Development

If the characters free Lulu, she admits that her memory of the Bleeding Citadel is hazier than she initially realized. Having pondered her dreams further, she says that two sites in Avernus seem important to finding the Citadel: a place where demons manifest (see “Spawning Trees”), and another where demons are destroyed (see “Demon Zapper”). Lulu has no preference which to investigate first, so she points out both locations on the characters’ map and leaves the decision to them. Each of these locations opens a different branch of investigation that leads to the Bleeding Citadel. See diagram 3.2 for an overview of the Path of Demons and diagram 3.3 for an overview of the Path of Devils.