D&D 5E Waterdeep: Dragon Heist subplot "Hell of a Summer"- should this be possible? (spoiler alert)

[Lord of Nessus]

In one of the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist subplots, "Hell of a Summer", two wicked parents pledge the souls of their children to Asmodeus in exchange for riches and prestige. The eldest son (who I guess was twelve) had his soul taken immediately and his body turned into a Chain Devil; the two youngest will have their souls taken and be turned into Lemures when they turn nine unless a large sum of money and (other) souls are sacrificed. The PCs can choose to help or hinder this.

Now, my understanding was that in order for one's soul to wind up in the Nine Hells, you had to do something yourself, personally, to deserve to be there; i.e. Devil worship/service or other "Lawful Evil" deeds. Somebody else couldn't just pledge you. Other D&D sources have suggested that if an innocent soul is offered up to a evil god as a sacrifice, the soul goes to the plane of its alignment, not to the evil god in question. But here the parents are allowed to give up the souls of their presumably Good-aligned kids, and it seems profoundly unfair. I looked in other sources and found nothing that stated that you could condemn other people's innocent souls to the Nine Hells in exchange for rewards, so is this even legal under Hell's own laws? I would think that the other gods of Good and Law would have issues with this as well. But what do you think? Reasonable plotline, or not?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sounds like an idea for a courtroom drama...

 

[Fanaelialae]

I agree that it's unfair. That said, these are devil's and if anyone would know how to contractually bind a child's soul via a parent's concent, it would be them.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's not unprecedented. The plot of Beamdog's Siege of Dragonspear involves innocent souls stolen by devils, and one assumes that innocent souls will be taken to Hell in Siege of Avernus too.

 

[TheSword]

I would flip this and say, clearly because it has been done in dragon heist, it can be done.

It maybe because parents have stewardship over their children until their maturity it is an exception to the normal rule of only being damned by your own actions.

How evil... how perfect.

 

[Lord of Nessus]

It's not unprecedented. The plot of Beamdog's Siege of Dragonspear involves innocent souls stolen by devils, and one assumes that innocent souls will be taken to Hell in Siege of Avernus too.

All right, but that was in a videogame. Since it was licensed, it guess it should count, but I'd really like to see something from a pen-and-paper adventure module or the like that validates this. As TheSword points out, "Hell of a Summer" itself counts, as it's "official". My issue is not "Did this really happen?" - clearly it did, but "Should this have happened, is this reasonable given what was written prior?" I wish they had at least put in a sentence or two stating that the PCs could go to Hell and contest it if they wanted. (Which could give the PCs an additional reason to go there besides what's slated to happen in the upcoming Descent to Avernus adventure - who knows, maybe the adventure will allow just that.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the Siege on Dragonspear CRPG drew on an earlier Dragonspear PnP module, but since I'm not familiar with the earlier Dragonspear module I can't say what or how much.