D&D General How do devils actually get to the world from hell?

[Micah Sweet]

I like to think they use public transport, but like, think of the city with the worst public transport you know, it's worse in hell. Devils trying to get to the prime plane to start possessing people but the train out of hell has broken down... again.

Still working on that Interplanar Hellport.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This why I preferred TSR's monster entries, particularly 2e's work. They didn't assume the only thing that mattered was combat.

In my opinion, it is not about lore, but perceived permission. Up until 3.x it was taken for granted that a DM could make up their own lore but 3.x had rules for everything and making rules up was frowned upon. I remember the RAW vs RAI arguments here. I remember adventure reviews where there would be a long list of monster build mistakes listed. 4e continued this.
5e as far as I know encourages reskinning and making whatever changes to monsters and so on to make the adventure work.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

imp-o-grams is how I would do it.

adjust them to act as messagers for hell as a whole.

make it easier to open a portal to release them at key locationss, and let them wander the planet.

 

[Emerikol]

I don't (personally) believe they ever lost the ability to teleport without error, it just got shifted to a more narrative thing. For me, they still have it. For someone else, they might decide a hell portal is the only way.

This works for the prime material plane but still doesn't explain how they get to the prime material plane.

 

[AlViking]

Very powerful or very lucky fiends can travel as they wish in my campaign because there will always be options not listed in the books. Other fiends are summoned by foolish people and escape and of course they're always trying to get someone to open a portal for them. A few were once mortal and had such dark hearts that they were gifted, or cursed depending on your POV, with becoming a permanent vessel for a fiend.

 

[SkidAce]

Well, they are stuck there cause (insert mythos) fell/banished and took them all into Hell with them.

So it would seem on a cosmic level they just cant walk out.

I use the loophole of needing to be summoned or invited by a mortal. (proper ritual, strength of emotion, etc.)

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Stuff might be easier to move across planes than creatures, so if fiendish essences are being infused into some items, they might get shipped over and some cultists could perform a ritual, and viola, your fiend is loose in the world. If you use a teleporting spell that lets you take one willing creature with you, and you have a sentient weapon, the weapon usually doesn't count as your +1.

The downside is that the item might get lost or some caster with planar binding might get it instead of your cultists, so I can't see mid to high level fiends doing this themselves; this is the kind of thing you inflict on imps, quasits, maw demons, spined devils, and maybe the odd bearded devil, hell hound, or nightmare. It might be an award to some noncasting cultist to get their own "servant."

I really like this idea. It also ties into real world superstitions about certain objects being associated with evil forces.