A paladin in Hell? (actually the Abyss. . .)

Ok, due to the circumstances in my last session, I now have a player running around through the abyss. His character is a Paladin, who is carrying shield of command. Since the shield's glow cannot be hidden, its going to draw a lot of attention. His cohort is with him (an archer) and they are hauling around the body of a dead cleric.

It'll be at least a week before anyone comes looking for him.

What kinds of encounters should he have? Please refrain from posts along the lines of "massive swarms of demons overrun him". I realize how easy it would be to kill the two chracters off, and if their actions dictate it, that's what will happen, but I don't want to just automatically kill the guy.

Also, there is a Winter Wight who is probably looking for the guy, so that will play into things as well.

[Edit]Changed references from "Hell" to "The Abyss"... Sorry for the mixup.

why not have the demons actually come up and talk to him. Tell him "Why are you here? Do you honstely think we will let you live? Go home before you hurt yourself" and have them all laugh and mock him. Make him feel most unwanted...

that and start throwing small encounters at him, lemures, lil demons/devils, just irk him on while the big guys stand and laugh...

A paladin trapped in Hell is a rare opportounity. Any reasonably intelligent demon should be doing their best to make the Paladin fall, turn on his god, sell his soul, etc.. They should throw any temptation or torture that they can at him. A really god one is to have the Demons show him scryed images of horrible things happening to his friends back on the home plane, to help them all he needs to do is renounce his god and the demons will send him home.

Another good one is for them to torment him with images of his friends doing nothing to help him, lounging around at the tavern. All in all they should take the opportounity to mess with him mentally. Failing that they should just capture him and torture him for a feww decades. The last thing they want to do is kill him, if they do that his spirit goes back to his diety.

First off if he is in Hell, devils live there. Demons may be there fighting the Blood War. What would happen if he came upon demon hiding from the devils as well. This demon is there to destroy a powerful magic device the devils are creating but is waiting for the right time. Now the demon doesn't want to found. Fighting a paladin can draw attention.


Will the paladin and demon work together to both remain hidden in Hell? Could make an interesting encounter.

One word comes to mind:

Pawn

I can see different devils (this is Hell not the Abyss) trying to use the Paladin and party as pawns on all kinds of complex games. They may try to trick him into assasinating their political foes or recovering items for them.

Also I would remember that Hell is Lawful Evil. So as long as the Paladin obeys the laws the devils might not even mind him being around that much. Obviously he is not going to make friends very often but I can see various devils enjoying the fact that the Paladin has to see all kinds of awful things happen and yet not be able to do anything about it since open revolt would result in his death.

Depending on your cosmology, Hell could be purely unpleasant for the paladin. For instance he comes upon a group of devils holding down a soul, its tongue pulled out with tongs and molten steel being poured onto its tongue and down its throat. The devils see the paladin draw his sword and say "Hold! This sinner is reaping the just punishment for the lies he spread in his lifetime, do not interfere with divine retribution and justice! It is our role to punish evil after death, just as it is your role to fight evil in life. We have different parts to play but in the end we serve the same cause. Do not stay justice or you place your soul in jeopardy of ending up here as well. You seem unsure, would you like me to list the crimes this man committed in his life? Would it enlighten you to know what damage and vileness he has caused before and the true workings of the afterlife according to the divine plan?"

Voadam said:

Depending on your cosmology, Hell could be purely unpleasant for the paladin. For instance he comes upon a group of devils holding down a soul, its tongue pulled out with tongs and molten steel being poured onto its tongue and down its throat. The devils see the paladin draw his sword and say "Hold! This sinner is reaping the just punishment for the lies he spread in his lifetime, do not interfere with divine retribution and justice! It is our role to punish evil after death, just as it is your role to fight evil in life. We have different parts to play but in the end we serve the same cause. Do not stay justice or you place your soul in jeopardy of ending up here as well. You seem unsure, would you like me to list the crimes this man committed in his life? Would it enlighten you to know what damage and vileness he has caused before and the true workings of the afterlife according to the divine plan?"

Click to expand...

oooo....that's good. I'll have to remember that one.

Great ideas so far. Sorry for the misleading title (it was an homage to an old adventure). The paladin is actually in the abyss, although he wouldn't know the difference himself.

I think I'll use the roleplaying ones. Hopefully we'll be able to take care of it during the week so the rest of the players (whose PCs are currently dead) won't have to sit around and watch the whole time.

Keep 'em coming folks!

If he's in the abyss, and isn't a sage when it comes to Knowledge (Planes), he's probably mincemeat. Demons aren't too willing to talk, they'd rather stick you and play twister with your vitals.

You might want to take a look at the old Planescape module "The Deva Spark." As a brief overview, the PCs accidentally end up in a demonic tavern on the Abyss. After getting to see the finer points of demon entertainment, a newly dead mortal soul comes running into the bar, looking panicked. He's folloed by a hungry bebelith, which promptly eats him.

Here's where it gets interesting. There was a celestial who gave his angelic essence to a mortal of supreme goodness in order to masquerade as a demon, to spy for his god. The problem was, the mortal of supreme goodness was Chaotic Evil, and just happened to be on a good upswing at the time the deva saw him. He promptly died, carrying the essence to the abyss, just in time for an unlikely reunion between the deva (who is polymorphed in the bar) and his spark.

When the bebelith kills the petitioner, it gets a hold of the spark too. The deva doesn't want that, but can't beat a bebelith in combat. He gets messed up trying to recover his spark, and needs the PCs (the paladin in this case) to help him. Of course, the bebelith won't make it easy, because the spark of pure goodness inside of it kind of warps its evil mind towards good.

It's one of the few modules I ever ran for my players in 3E, and it's a great one. The only forseeable problem with it is that Planescape is much different in feel from all the other ways of mapping the planes. If you can, get a hold of the module though. It might be worth it just for a rough plot that you can trace.

-nameless

place a blind cleric that promises to raise the dead cleric in return with him being escorted out of the abyss.

blind cleric is a demon hiding from the others, he's hoping to find a way to the prime plane and make a foot hold and a name for himself and thus become one of the movers and shakers of the abyss.

the raise dead ploy is fake. he'll put a servitude demon into the dead cleric's body. the "raised" cleric will say that he is too far removed from his/her god/dess to be able to get any spells until they are out.

alone the way they will be accosted by small roving bands of demons and or undead. crawling claws and skeletal stirges come to mind.