Hi all,
So during tonight's session of Dungeon of the Mad Mage, I had three players. They began exploring the 16th floor, where a bunch of githyanki have set up camp. There are several pits full of silvery mist. Fall in a pit and you are transported to the Astral Plane. There are some githyanki gish who can cast telekinesis. One did so and yanked a PC over a pit and then let go. The PC fell in. Naturally, the other two PCs followed. So now they were in the Astral Plane. They drifted for a while. A psychic wind battered them. They ended up finding a color pool. It was a russet colored pool. They decided to enter the pool. Now they are on Gehenna without knowing they are on Gehenna.
While I could have Halaster deus ex machina them back into Undermountain, how else can I have them escape from Gehenna? There's not a lot of info on the plane in the 5e DMG. I've looked online but there seems to be a dearth of information. I suppose I could have them encounter some yugoloths. Since the yugoloths on their home turf and not being paid, I expect they would not automatically be hostile and could potentially tell the PCs that they're on Gehenna. Perhaps they meet a night hag who offers to help them get home but at some dreadful cost.
Can anyone point me to some good resources for fleshing out an unplanned stop on the plane of Gehenna?
Thanks!
Dump Stat has a decent intro to Gehenna. And I always appreciate what Ed the PathGuy writes about the planes - here's his
Li Po's Guide to Gehenna.
A lot of what I've posted about Gehenna on Mimir and Planewaker and ENWorld was lost during site crashes.
Let me see what I can find... ok, here's what I posted for the Planar Renovation Project renewal on Gehenna from 2012...
From here (using Internet Archive's Wayback Machine):
Some great clearly defined unique themes came out of this: Exploitation. Libertarian dystopia. Organized crime. Illusion of free will. Plane of scoundrels & illusion. Stealing everything, including land from other planes/worlds. Ecological devastation and savage landscape between towns.
One poster brought up that the Rakshasa make a great fit for this interpretation of Gehenna, and could definitely see them as being architects behind the current face of the plane...Also, I've always wondered about the rakshasa / raavasta (arcanoloth) connection...
What if the "asteroids" and other bits of stolen planes/worlds were part of an experiment that ravaged Gehenna? Sounds like the sort of thing yugoloths would be involved with, an ancient Plane Breaker spell or artifact, stealing bits of worlds to stem the decay of Gehenna due to over-exploitation of its resources.
...
Gehenna was re-imagined as a libertarian dystopia, with Exploitation the main theme.
With its inverse plane being Bytopia (a realm of honest free-willed hard work and spiritual commerce where every interaction benefits boths parties), Gehenna was re-imagined as a nexus of slavery and industrial exploitation. "It's nothing personal, just business" and "honor among thieves" tend to be catch phrases petitioners use. Some described the petitioners as mafia underlings, and emphasized crooked businesses/enterprises as a common theme.
With its mirror plane being the Beastlands, Gehenna was re-imagined as a polluted apocalyptic nightmare where petitioners are self-absorbed and distanced from nature. A series of ecological disasters happened on Gehenna and will continue to happen, making the existing resources harder and deadlier to extract. Mining, smelting, forging, liquid pain extraction, slave markets, sinister lotteries, gambling halls, black markets, and even some kind of geothermal power were among the potential enterprises discussed. "Survival of the fittest" is a common catchword.
It all makes me think the Rakshasa should have a stronger presence on this plane. The old 2e MM entry for rakshasa said their Maharajahs dwell mostly on the Outer Planes. I would suggest that Gehenna is their plane of preference or perhaps origin. The old "Ecology of the Rakshasas" article in Dragon doesn't mention the Outer Planes at all, so as far as I know the only official material linking rakshasa to a plane is the Planes of Law boxed set which gives one of the maharajahs a cube on Acheron. However, D&D rakshasa aren't about never ending pointless conflic...they are about exploitation, slavery, grinding people's spirits to dust before devouring them, maintaining a facade of civility while evil lurks beneath the surface, and organized crime. That screams Gehenna to me.
...
In keeping with the theme of organized crime and exploitation that seems to fit Gehenna, I am basing a thieves guild in my campaign there. I'm imagining the guild has a headquarters in Sigil's Lower Ward, an old blind tiefling Guildmaster named Old Graycloak, and lots of thieves working for its smuggling, racketeering, and slaving rings, with an emphasis on the thieves stealing abstract things (e.g. Lady Kindernis' shadow) or magical things (e.g. horn of a Baku) rather than normal goods. I imagine them as operating child sweatshops in Gehenna which are connected to Sigil via portals, circumventing any laws against such things. I also imagine them trading in nymphs trapped in glass cylinder enchanted with continual darkness, and other creatures who could be used in fiendish rituals, magic experiments, or as slaves. While Old Graycloak is the nominal master, the true power behind the guild is a rakshasi maharani (female version of maharajah) named Virushya who also controls the remnants of the Tacharim (from Great Modron March) and the Sarex of Bedlam (the shadow fiend Hrava being one of her agents), and manipulates behind the scenes of the Sodkillers.
I'm re-examining the barghests for how to use them in my campaign and make them a more compelling aspect of Gehenna. Their PSCS entry has very little on their habitat/society in regards to what they actually
do on Gehenna...just that the ones that do return from feeding on the Prime have 12 HD and become lords of valley rifts living in isolation.
I guess they hunt petitioners, fued with (or get exploited by) yugoloths and/or rakshasa, and raid divine realms or planar settlements?
I remember some lore holds the barghest as an expression of mankind's own sin, so that might be an interesting link between the barghest strongholds and the planar communities of Gehenna?
