u/eloiseelf

Hi all, I have been running DiA with heavy modifications including Alexandrian remix (BG only), Avernus as a Sandbox, other sources as well as some homebrew. One such personal change is that instead of having an archdevil make an offer on a failed death save, I have them do it upon actual death- my players seem to be downed a LOT so it would be super overdone if I did it on failed saves. I have rolled a d8 to determine which layer’s arch devil has contacted a dying player. The first time, I got Glasya, and had her demand the player to give up his most prized possession. It was a Bag of Tricks- nothing game breaking, but it meant a lot to the character roleplay-wise, and was an intense moment. I chose this because she is known for her cruelty & enjoyment of the anticipation of loss- he didn’t have to hand over his bag of tricks for a good 8 or so sessions, so he had to live with the knowledge that it was Coming the whole time.

This worked really well for that player- but now I have rolled Mephistopheles for the second player that has died and took a bargain. We ended the session immediately after (the rest of the group doesn’t know that she’s agreed to the deal yet), so I have a week to decide on what her “quest” would be. I think the player is expecting to have to give up an item since that is what the last one was- but that was purely because of me rolling Glasya, who has no interest in the quest to dethrone Zariel due to their history.

In the book as written, Mephistopheles’ only involvement is in getting the party to free Shummrath from the pit- my players haven’t come across anything to do with him before, so we haven’t hit the pit or Mirror of Mephistar or anything like that. Reading the book & supplementary material, I haven’t found a concrete idea of what Mephistopheles’ stake is in this conflict, which is making it difficult to determine what “quest” he would give the character he saved.

Part of me sees the easy route of getting the character to insist on freeing Shummrath, but it seems kind of obvious, and derailing from their current plot (they are currently on their way to meet Arkhan the Cruel to get his vial of Tiamat’s blood).

Sorry for the long post, just keen to see if anyone has any other ideas for what Mephistopheles could gain from the party.

TL;DR: I need a “quest” for Mephistopheles to give my player after saving her life that lines up with his goals but doesn’t fully derail the plot.

Am open to all kinds of ideas, and if you’ve run death save bargains- what kinds of quests have you given your players?

Hello, I’m currently running a fairly off-book rendition of DiA, using bits and bobs from various dmsguild resources- however I haven’t really found much of anything about ways into Bel’s Forge. My players refused a deal with the dao and killed her but are still insisting on going to Bel’s Forge uninvited.

They seem to think that because Zariel stole Bel’s job, he must outwardly hate her and want to overthrow her. I’m planning on having Gargauth explain to them that Asmodeus appointed Bel to help Zariel and therefore he can’t openly oppose her, so perhaps walking up to the volcano and shouting “lets take down Zariel together!” isn’t the greatest idea.

However, I’m now left with a party that has zero plan for entry into the forge, and I’m honestly not sure what to do either. One of my players is going to be absent for a few months after our next two sessions, so I really want them to get into/through the forge before she leaves since she is playing the character who is attuned to the Shield of the Hidden Lord.

AKA I don’t have time to turn it into a dungeon crawl, nor do I want them to be overpowered by guards & resurrected for questioning by Bel. So, for anyone who has run this without the letter of invitation, how did your players get into the forge?

TL;DR my players have zero plan of how to get into Bel’s Forge uninvited & I have very minimal in-game time to get them there, any tips? Am already very off-book so not too concerned about staying super close to as-written.