In need of adventure ideas: slaying Graz'zt

[MrBoogles]

Hi, I'm new to this place and I hope I'm not posting in the wrong place...

I'm running a campaign in which I'd like to use Graz'zt as the big bad evil guy. The characters are currently at 6th level and I have already started to foreshadow future events involving my favourite demon lord.

Graz'zt is responsible for trapping the unliving souls of many material plane powers, including some relatives of the player's characters. He is using these souls to fuel his plans to turn the material plane into a dread realm of hatred and pleasure (enslaving all who live there). In the final adventure (probably at 20th level) the characters will have to travel to Azzagrat to free these souls and defeat Graz'zt himself.

As I like to prepare well ahead of time I wanted to ask you if you have any cool ideas for the final stage of this campaign in which they will confront Graz'zt. I'm looking for interesting plot ideas, characters and so on because I don't want to play a simple go-there-and-slay-quest. It should feel as memorable as possible.

Maybe you have some ideas by yourself or you know published adventures that would fit well with some modification (maybe in dungeon magazine?).

Would be thankful for any help!

 

[fafhrd]

Go here and bring mining equipment.

 

[happyelf]

Why don't you drop one of the cubes of Acheron on his castle?

A big one.

 

[Imruphel]

There's also a free 2E adventure, For Duty & Deity, on the WotC website that is largely set in Graz'zt's realm. It might give you some ideas.

 

[Shemeska]

Conspire with one of Graz'zt's children, deal with another rival Abyssal Lord, perhaps Pale Night as a way of testing her child has decided to topple him from power simply to make him crawl back up again to prove his worthiness to the Abyss.

Sure you're fighting Graz'zt, and you're also at that point fighting the entirety of the three layers of Azzagrat which might as well be him and him them. So a conventional one up fight isn't going to work.

Strike a deal with a long forgotten Obyrith lord, perhaps Pale Night betrayed the other Obyriths millennia ago and seeks to see her own spawn placed atop the power structures of the Abyss, and a resurgent Queen of Chaos wishes to hunt down the Hollow Lady's spawn, aiding the PCs in the process to go after Graz'zt.

Strike a deal with a mad Baernaloth, learning something of Graz'zt's past, a weakness etc during one of the rare moments of the Gloom Father's lucidity.

Deal with an Eladrin who was dealt a terrible crime by Graz'zt in the eons past, and gain their aid to take him down.

Etc, etc.

 

[Ry]

Introduce as much as you can early on. Like a quick, dangerous teleport into a tiny overgrown ruin in the forest of serpents on one of Graz'zt's planes, having to fight those serpent-headed tree-like things long enough to figure out how to reverse the effect of a puzzle box that sent them there.

 

[Nightfall]

Hey better yet, use Orcus! Yeah you know the guy that Graz'zt can never seem to get rid of? Get him to fund you some mercs from his place (especially soul demons) in a bid to increase his own holdings in the Abyss.

I mean come on, next to Demogorgon, Orcus is your next logical choice.