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D&D Ideas — Hell

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is hell, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. We’ve got one hell of an announcement to make this week. We dealt 10d4 slashing damage to the price of our Nerdarchy Metal DND Dice Set! As part of the wildly successful Out of the Box Kickstarter we goofed and ordered a lot of extra sets. And they’ve got to go! There’s a limited supply left so if you want to add an awesome set of exclusive dice to your collection now is the time. The awesome Patreon community can take advantage of even more savings! We created a special discount code for our fantastic supporters to receive an additional $25 off. That’s a total savings of $50! Find out more about it here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

From the heights of heaven to the depths of hell we go this week. Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons has a bit of hell baked right into the 5E D&D Player’s Handbook. We get the tiefling race and The Fiend Otherworldly Patron for the warlock. Tiefling has nine subraces. You can play with a whole group of tieflings and still all have different subraces.

When we search monsters on D&D Beyond with the fiend and devil filters on we get 41 entries ranging from challenge rating 0-26. As players and Dungeon Masters we’ve got plenty of hell-fueled ammunition to work with in our games. This is without even getting into Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus — a whole adventure where we can go to hell.

The fun thing with high concepts like heaven and hell is you can begin working them into your game right from the beginning. We get three monsters with the devil tag that are challenge 0, ½ and 1. Without going directly to the denizens of hell we can use cultists, fanatics and priests of these dark beings. Again we have very manageable CRs to work with. The cultist comes in at a ⅛, the cult fanatic is a 2 and the priest is a 2. Add in some devil worshipping monstrous humanoids and we’ll be able to keep our players busy for a long time.

Let’s look at an adventure idea involving the powers of hell.

Murder Mystery: What the Hell Happened?

A notable figure is clearly murdered clearly. They have been stabbed with a dagger.

It shouldn’t be a problem since they are extremely wealthy and a raise dead spell ought to get them back on their feet in no time. But there’s one problem — the spell fails.

Adventurers are sent to help investigate the murder. In addition a local cleric is brought in who can cast speak with dead. This can be handled in one of two ways. The players can now interrogate the corpse or they are handed five clues gleaned from someone else who already asked.

The NPC was murdered with a hellfire dagger. Upon their death they were reborn as a lemure devil in hell. The raise dead spell didn’t work because they aren’t technically dead anymore. The adventurers could be tasked with tracking down the assassin, sent to retrieve a specific lemure devil or both.

An old rival with a grudge wanted our NPC to really suffer so they had them murdered and then summoned the newly created lemure and are holding them captive like some kind of grotesque pet.

This could quickly turn from a murder mystery to a heist style adventure. The rival is probably powerful or at least employs powerful minions. Kicking in the front door is a bad idea. The adventurers will have to try to steal away the lemure devil in order to bring it back. Next, they might be charged with finding an item that can transform the notable NPC back to their living non-devil version of themselves. This one plot thread could be a huge part of a 5E D&D campaign if not the whole campaign itself.

From Ted’s Head

What the hell are we talking about? Hell? The minions of hell are here for your souls. I mean, they could be, right?

Using hell in your 5E D&D game is quite easy. It is actually easier to use hell and its hellish minions because they do believe in rules and follow certain expectations. As these fiendish creatures are typically lawful they are can better understand negotiations and agreements. This makes them better able to offer and keep pacts in relatively good faith.

Feats in 5E D&D could technically apply to the warlock class or any class to add warlock flavor and themes. A feat could be offered for services rendered or for a future favor. If you have a spot where a high ranking devil could communicate with the characters then bargains can be made. The players can feel they got one up on the DM because they got a free feat while the DM feels they got one over on the players since they now tied themselves to a fiend. Who wins? The decision is yours.

That is only one way the forces of hell can be used. There are so many more. Invasion, political takeover, possession…the list goes on. Devils are intelligent, logical, patient and thinking schemers. Need I say more?

Looking on this from the players’ side can be a little bit more fun but not as many things to play with classwise. We have all the tieflings Nerdarchist Dave mentioned so racially a party can be tied to the hells through blood. For classes warlock and sorcerer are the standout winners to me with straight up class features derived from your choice of the Lower Planes. To me the paladin with some of its more evil like options (Oath of Conquest and Oath of Vengeance come to mind) could easily be flavored with some hellish power.

If you want to incorporate more hellish concepts into your 5E D&D character but you have not gone with these options or want to play a different class we have to think outside the box. Is your character being hunted by devils? Perhaps they merely think devils are hunting them. It is easy to roleplay a character’s paranoia. Maybe they are good at Perception because they are ever watchful. This could just as easily explain a low Perception because they are always distracted.

The great part here is you do not need buy in from the DM but careful enough talk — even inaccurate — could draw their attention. This gives the player room to create fun fiction, provides a reason to always be on the move and also a reason to want to gain power and items to defend themselves. This line of thinking also gives ample opportunity to the DM to cause grief because planar travel can appear anywhere and devils can disguise themselves.

There are loads of ways the devils and other forces of hell can affect a backstory. Kidnapping and killing are two easy to use examples. Want to go in another direction? Suppose a character’s sibling became a tiefling. The character develops a fear as a youth that on any day they are going to wake up and see a new face — a tiefling face — instead of their own looking out of the mirror. What does this mean if they do? What are their links to the bloodline and how far back do they stretch?

The options are endless when you talk about using devils and other minions of hell minions no matter what side of the DM screen you are sitting on.

From the nerditor’s desk

I’ve got to thank awesome Nerdarchy community member Bryan Smith for making this one easy. Bryan regularly hangs out in chat during our weekday Live Chat Revivified, our live stream gameplays and shares thoughtful comments in videos. When Nerdarchist Dave and I discussed hell as regards 5E D&D Bryan offered a terrific idea:

“Nerdarchy needs to make The Mustachioed Devil.”

Thanks to our popular Beardomancy line of content this ought to be a snap. One of the many components of these wild and wooly material is a Hirsute Horror template a DM can slap onto any creature and imbue them with strange energy from the Beard Dimension. Over at Nerdarchy the Website we’ve got a post with a beardomantic encounter called Hairable Terrain and one of the monsters is a hirsute bearded devil because of course it is, right? (Whenever possible we use material from the free Basic Rules to maximize accessibility.)

Here you go, Bryan: one Mustachioed Devil coming right up!

Mustachioed Devil (Hirsute Bearded Devil)

Medium fiend (devil), lawful evil

Armor Class 13 (Natural Armor)

Hit Points 52 (8d8 +16)

Speed 30 ft.

• STR 16 (+3)
• DEX 15 (+2)
• CON 15 (+2)
• INT 9 (-1)
• WIS 11 (+0)
• CHA 11 (+0)

Saving Throws STR +5, CON +4, WIS +2

Damage Resistances Cold; Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks that aren’t Silvered

Damage Immunities Poison

Damage Vulnerabilities Fire

Condition Immunities Poisoned

Senses Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 10

Languages Deep Beardic, Infernal, Telepathy 120 ft.

Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)

Proficiency Bonus +2

Devil’s Sight. Magical darkness doesn’t impede the Mustachioed Devil’s darkvision.

Hair Form. The Mustachioed Devil can enter a hostile creature’s space and stop there. It can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing.

Hair Whip. As a bonus action the Mustachioed Devil can make a melee weapon attack with its hair. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) bludgeoning damage. The target is grappled (escape DC 12) if it is a Small or smaller creature.

Magic Resistance. The Mustachioed Devil has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Steadfast. The Mustachioed Devil can’t be frightened while it can see an allied creature within 30 feet of it.

Actions

Multiattack. The Mustachioed Devil makes two attacks: one with its beard and one with its glaive.

Beard. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned in this way, the target can’t regain hit points. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Glaive. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d10 + 3) slashing damage. If the target is a creature other than an undead or a construct, it must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or lose 5 (1d10) hit points at the start of each of its turns due to an infernal wound. Each time the Mustachioed Devil hits the wounded target with this attack, the damage dealt by the wound increases by 5 (1d10). Any creature can take an action to stanch the wound with a successful DC 12 Wisdom (Medicine) check. The wound also closes if the target receives magical healing.

Mane Attraction. Hirsute creatures become obsessed with their newfound tresses and the hair of other creatures, feeling an intense urge to examine it closer. Hirsute creatures are as likely to admire the hair of another creature as fly into a rage and attack. They may feel threatened by particularly good hair, egregiously offended by bad hair or anything in between.

*Featured image — A fiend lures heroes into selling their souls for a night in a club, but they face a hellish ensnarement in Devil’s Hospitality, one of 55 dynamic encounters ready to drop into your game in Out of the Box. [Illustration by Kim Van Deun]

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