Go to Avernian Hex Key Index

C1. MONUMENT OF TIAMAT

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 112

Through the mouth of a colossal dragon’s skull, a tunnel passes back to Tiamat’s Lair. The tunnel is really more of a highway. (The size of the dragon skull really cannot be overstated.) Arkhan the Cruel and his followers are currently in a camp just down the hill from the dragon skull.

Tiamat’s Lair: The mountain is a prison, although Tiamat has successfully tested the limits of that prison many times. Her lair is like an onion, with layers upon layers of caverns always worming their way deeper and deeper towards her five lairs (and many false lairs). Some of these tunnels actually ooze across planar boundaries. In one place, for example, her lair is connected or consanguineous with the Dragonspawn Pits of Azharul (another draconic deity whom Tiamat destroyed and subsumed a century ago).

The highway leads to the outer fortifications of Tiamat’s lair, which stand guard upon the Gate Tower of Dis. This fluted tower stands in the middle of a truly mammoth cavern, surrounded by temporary merchant camps and stockyard-type infrastructure. The tower actually pierces through the planar boundaries between the layers of Hell. Inside the tower, a huge ramp leads down for a seemingly absurd distance (it takes several hours to descend) before emerging out of a tower on the outskirts of Dis, the infernal city which is the second layer of Hell.

At the opposite end of the lair, atop the mountain peaks, are five towers – one for each of Tiamat’s chromatic heads – which rear up into the sky in a crown-shaped redoubt. These towers serve as entrances for draconic followers of Tiamat.

C2. PILLAR OF SKULLS

• Visible 1 (Visible 2 on a clear day, as per a mountain)

A terrifying tower of demon skulls, stacked more than a mile high. These are trophy-skulls claimed during the Blood War and placed in this monument during the time when the frontlines were located along the River Styx.

The Rift Mound: Near the base of the Pillar of Skulls is a second mound, reaching perhaps fifty feet high. These skulls were piled here during the Rift War. Inspection will reveal that they are not demonic (they are actually baatorian, although a DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana) check is necessary to recognize that).

On an obsidian sarsen at the base of the mound are carved the following words in Infernal:

FORGET NOT THE GLORIES OF THE BATTLE OF LOST MEMORIES. SEE BEFORE YOU THE ENEMIES OF HELL AND REMEMBER THEIR FOLLY. WE HONOR FOREVER THE DEEDS OF ZARIEL, SHE WHO ROSE BY HER BLADE. SHE WHO TRIUMPHED IN THE RIFT WAR. SHE WHO IS NEW-CROWNED ARCHDUCHESS OF AVERNUS.

C3. BAAZIT’S CAGE

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 100
• On the Edge of the Pit of Shummrath

There are a dozen iron cages suspended over the edge of the Pit of Shummrath and designed to dunk their occupants into the demonic goo. When the PCs first arrive here, one of them is occupied by Baazit (DIA, p. 100). On future visits, there is a 1 in 4 chance of a new prisoner (which can be generated using the wandering encounter tables for Avernus).

C4. TEMPLE OF DAK-THAEL

• Vysianter’s Guide to the Red Wastes

These ruins were once the sanctum of the Queen of Lilies, who ruled over a verdant paradise before it was swept away by the sands of Avernus.

Design Note: As written, the Queen of Lilies was an ancient Archduchess of Avernus. You might position her as having served in the armies of Ashmedai (i.e., Asmodeus) when he conquered the plane. Alternatively, with even greater revision, the Queen of Lilies might have ruled here BEFORE the Fall of Avernus and the paradise described here is what Avernus was like prior to the events of the Averniad.

C5. CRYPT OF THE HELLRIDERS

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 101-3

MEETING OLANTHIUS / QUESTIONING THE GHOSTS: These conversations are detailed in Part 6D-L: Questioning the Hellriders.

C6. AVERNUS THAT WAS

• Map by Dyson Logos

A narrow crack in the rock leads to a stone stair leading deep into the earth. At the heart of this shrine is a small, verdant patch of the glorious paradise which Avernus once was. Just fifty feet across, this patch of the Avernus That Was has been preserved for eons.

Lore of the Averniad is preserved here, speaking of how the forces of many different planes sought to claim Avernus for themselves; and of Asmodeus’ betrayal that led to Avernus becoming aligned with Hell.

This place is anathema to those with fiendish blood, who simply cannot enter (as if presented with an impenetrable invisible wall upon the threshold). Full fiends cannot even perceive the place unless forced to do so (for example, if they see someone else passing within).

D1. MALIGNANT TRIBUTARY

• Encounters in Avernus, p. 14
• On River

The tributary of the Styx shown on the hexmap here is known as the Malignant Tributary and has strange effects on those who drink from it (as described in Encounters in Avernus).

D2a. WARLORD LAIR: CAROL D’VOWN

• Warlords of Avernus, p. 4
• Map by Dyson Logos
• On the Styx

D’vown has a Heartstone, which she uses in her alchemical experiments.

Carol’s tower squats on the banks of the Styx near where a tributary from the Pit of Shummrath joins the river. She takes samples from the Styx, the Pit, and the effluvium mixture of the two and experiments to see what alchemical “delights” she can discover from them.

Carol is in a relationship with Feonor (Hex I2), having met her at Mahadi’s Wandering Emporium years ago. There is a 1 in 6 chance that Feonor and 1d4-1 members of her gang are visiting Carol here.

For more details on the Avernian warlords, see Part 7E of the Remix.

D2b. THE SHUMMRATH DAM

A huge dam has been erected at one end of the Pit of Shummrath, preventing the ooze from flowing out into the Styx. (Stygian waters are periodically let into the Pit through a similar dam at the other end.) Sometimes the dam leaks and sometimes it overflows; the river canyons beyond this dam are thus lined with a sickly sludge made up Stygian water and Shummrathian ooze, leading to strange mutations amongst the flora and fauna.

D3. DEMON ZAPPER

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 106

A Nirvanan cogbox is part of the apparatus which imprisons the unicorn. Removing the cogbox without damaging it is a DC 14 Intelligence (Arcana) check. Removing the cogbox disables the device.

D4. BLOODY CRESCENT

• Bitter Rivals, p. 5

An enormous rock shaped like a semicircle, providing a sort of half-pipe. The Warlords of Avernus use it for stunt duels on their infernal war-machines.

D5. ULDRAK’S GRAVE

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 109

Uldrak was the son of Gond. The interior of his helmet has been transformed into a tinker’s shop, serving as a pit stop for infernal machines that need cheap repairs. Among his supplies are a set of astral pistons.

There’s a 1 in 6 chance that 1d4 riders from a warlord’s band are here getting their machines checked out. If so, there is an additional 1 in 6 chance that the warlord themself is present.

D6. ELDER TEMPEST

• Dance of Deathless Frost

A mighty, elemental storm rages around this mountain peak to a distance of 1d6+4 miles. At the eye of the storm is the Tree of Life, beneath which lies Kostchtchie’s phylactery, as described in the module.

Go to Hexes E1 thru F6

Go to Part 1

ESCAPE FROM ELTURGARD (DDAL 09-01): It’s not really surprising that both I (in the Avernus Remix) and Rich Lescouflair in Escape From Elturgard conclude that the best way to start the saga of Elturel’s fall is in a refugee caravan heading from the outskirts of the fallen city to Baldur’s Gate. There’s just no better or more immediate way of introducing the PCs to the crisis and, importantly, the lives most dramatically affected by.

Escape from Elturgard employs a clever design that can be used as four stand-alone, one-hour sessions or one longer, cohesive session with the caravan encountering multiple challenges. Three of the scenarios involve gathering supplies for the caravan before it departs, while the fourth takes place on the road.

The custom illustrations of every significant NPC in the caravan are a particularly nice touch and a great resource for this kind of adventure.

The grit in the wheel here, however, are the continuity errors. None of them are particularly large or fundamentally crippling, but they are everywhere – a constant, pervasive annoyance that never really goes away.

A good example of what I mean is the opening paragraphs of the second interlude/adventure, which has the quest giver say, “See that cart? It belongs to Ippon the Miller. Take it to the mill and gather supplies.” So the PCs walk over to Ippon and he says, “See this cart that definitely doesn’t belong to me? I think we should take it.” You can see how that doesn’t really break anything, but is nevertheless remarkably jarring.

The three “prep the caravan” sections of Escape From Elturgard are the scenario’s best parts and easily scavengable for a Remix campaign, with a couple provisos: First, the wacky “go on a shopping trip for paper and ink for a poet who otherwise refuses to join the refugee caravan” is, in my opinion, tonally inappropriate for the post-apocalyptic setting. Second, some of the adventures include devils roaming the countryside around Elturel as if they had “attacked” the city, but the continuity leading to that is a little hazy. (Elturel was sucked into Hell; it wasn’t attacked by devils.)

The fourth section of the scenario involves a secret cultist in the caravan murdering one of the other refugees and the PCs needing to solve the crime. This section of the adventure is not very good. The mystery is simply not handled very well, in no small part because the murder doesn’t actually make any sense.

• Grade: C-

The next three adventures – Stopped at the Gate, Hungry Shadows, and The Day of the Devil – form the Betrayal in Blood series.

STOPPED AT THE GATE (DDAL 09-02): Like other seasons of the Adventurers Guild, Season 9 reflects the events of that year’s major campaign book, in this case Descent Into Avernus. But this one reflects the campaign book rather more closely than other seasons that I’m familiar with, and, frankly, the effect is rather ludicrous.

Whereas Descent Into Avernus features the PCs being hired by a Flame of the Flaming Fist to investigate a Cult of Zariel in Baldur’s Gate murdering refugees under the instructions of a devil named Gargauth, these Adventurers League scenarios feature the PCs being hired by a different Flame of the Flaming Fist to investigate a different Cult of Zariel in Baldur’s Gate who are also murdering refugees for a different reason while being instructed by a different devil whose name starts with G (Gharizol).

With all the fascinating stories that could be told within the period of upheaval created by the Fall of Elturel in both Elturgard and Baldur’s Gate, the fact that the only thing the Adventurers Guild could think of was, “I dunno… I guess just the exact same story?” is not only incredibly disappointing, but also a huge disservice to anyone playing in both an AL and Descent Into Avernus campaign.

And it’s a millstone that none of the individual scenario writers are really capable of overcoming.

In Stopped at the Gate, the PCs need to investigate the murder of Marcus Hallgate. The poor design of the mystery can be exemplified by the first scene. The PCs can get two clues, both delivered by the victim’s wife:

• There have been other murders. The PCs are not expected to investigate any of these, but they can talk to a city watchman who “knows more.” (He doesn’t.)
• A friend of the Hallgates purchased a gift for the wife several days ago. (The gift has absolutely no connection to the murder, but apparently the PCs are supposed to follow up on this out of desperation.)

So the PCs leave the scene with two clues (sort of), and then this happens:

If the characters choose to see Dovis first, he’s at his post by the Heap Gate (Scene C). If they choose to go to Harwin’s shop first (Scene D), they end up encountering Dovis before they get there.

It’s not just that it’s railroading. It’s that the railroading is both transparent and completely pointless. In any case, they (hopefully) go to Harwin’s shop and his assistant tells them:

A couple of days ago, Harwin left to check on the shearing operations outside of town. This was strange; they had wool and Harwin didn’t like the sheep. Harwin must have left before Zook got to the shop this morning, since the tea in Harwin’s mug was still warm.

So he left a couple of days ago, but the tea in his mug was still warm this morning?

It turns out that Harwin is being controlled by a devil named Gharizol. Gharizol hatched a “brilliant” plan for killing Marcus Hallgate:

• Make a fancy dress for Marcus’ wife so that she would go dancing!
• She will not, of course, take her husband to go dancing with her!
• Then, having gotten his wife out of the way, kill Marcus… while he is walking down a busy street and in no way in a location where his wife’s presence or absence would be meaningful!

Just… astounding.

In my opinion, this scenario is completely unusable.

• Grade: F-

HUNGRY SHADOWS (DDAL 09-03): In Hungry Shadows, the PCs are engaged to investigate another murder related to the Cult of Zariel.

The fundamental problem here is the continuity. Initially, I thought it was just presented in an utterly baffling fashion, but having read backwards and forwards through this thing several times, I’m forced to conclude that the whole thing is, in fact, utter nonsense.

A cultist has been “murdered” in their own home with all the doors and windows locked. How did he die? Well, either some sort of devil broke down his door and killed him (what all the evidence says) OR he was casting a summoning spell, it went wrong, and something appeared in the room with him and killed him (which is what the appendix says).

Who found the body inside the locked house that no one had been inside? No idea. The adventure doesn’t say. What we DO know is that the first members of the Flaming Fist on site are actually moles who are loyal to the cult. So what do they do? Well, first they report the murder to their superior officer and wait for the PCs to be called in. And THEN they arrange a meeting with a cult member at a local tavern to tell them that they need to cover up all the evidence of the cult’s involvement.

Where is the cult located? UNDER THE MURDER VICTIM’S HOUSE.

“Features” of this adventure also include:

• A group of moles working within the Flaming Fists who conveniently self-identify themselves as moles by all wearing black kerchiefs around their necks.
• A dungeon map that not only lacks a numbered key, but also labels of any kind, making it ludicrously and unnecessarily cumbersome to run.
• A serious recommendation that PCs pause in the middle of a six room dungeon to take an eight hour long rest while the cultists in the next room politely wait before starting their ritual to summon a devil to fight the PCs.

I would consider this scenario nigh unusable, and certainly not worth the effort required to salvage something vaguely serviceable out of it.

• Grade: F

THE DAY OF THE DEVIL (DDAL 09-04): I talk about this adventure in Part 3J of the Remix, where I loosely adapt the continuity around Duke Portyr’s assassination. And the reason I wanted to adapt it is because M.T. Black has done a bang up job of it.

The Day of the Devil opens with the PCs listening to Duke Portyr give a speech to a large crowd. Midway through the speech, he’s shot by an infernal arrow that causes his body to explode as several devils leap out of it. The PCs’ first order of business is to deal with the devils in the midst of a panicking crowd. It’s both an explosive opening (pun intended), but also handled with great elegance through a combat complications table that neatly captures the chaotic nature of the scene in an easy-to-run mechanic.

This is followed by the revelation that the cultists are also targeting some of the refugees the PCs have befriended, triggering a great chase sequence across Baldur’s Gate to reach the warehouse where the refugees have been staying in time to stop further tragedy. This is followed by a decent siege scenario (with the PCs defending the warehouse from cultists and devils).

The only real false step with the adventure are the loose ties to the other AL adventures, which mostly crop up in the final scene: Dara, who was the leader of the refugee caravan in Escape From Elturgard, has confusingly de-aged into a ten-year-old girl (this is just a continuity error). Then she reveals that two other refugees have secretly been celestials this whole time, she has just been consecrated as a priestess of Ilmater (as a ten-year-old child?), and they’re all heading to Avernus to rescue some souls.

At which point a character the PCs have never seen before blows up one wall of the warehouse (that the PCs have just bled to defend and which the refugees are still living in) and comes riding in on a mule-drawn cart, offering to give them all a ride to Hell.

All of which I recognize is supposed to elicit a response of, “WTF?” But I suspect not quite in the tone of derision I have for it.

But, honestly, if you just ignore that entire tacked-on ending, it’s a good adventure. (It does not, however, bode well for where the series is heading.)

• Grade: B-

Go to the Avernus Remix – Go to Part 3: Behind Infernal Lines

Go to Table of Contents

The Avernian hex key is going to be one of the “hands on” sections of the Remix: We’re going to set up the scaffold here, but there’ll be some finishing work you’ll probably want to do before running it.

To stock the Avernian hexcrawl, I will be:

• drawing locations from Descent Into Avernus,
• pulling material from a variety of Avernus-related supplements on the DMs Guild, and
• creating original content.

Most of the locations in Descent Into Avernus were originally and primarily designed to be part of the Choose Your Railroad structure that the campaign is built around. The key below assumes that you’ll have access to the Descent Into Avernus book, but will be providing notes focused on how these locations should be adapted in the absence of this railroad.

In cases where I’m using material from the DMs Guild, you will similarly need to either obtain the original supplement or swap those hexes out for your own creations. The notes below, once again, focus primarily on how you can adapt the published material to good effect. (Harvesting published scenarios like this is something I almost always do when stocking hexcrawls.)

Original content is also unlikely to be a in a play-ready state, but should be sufficiently detailed that you’ll be able to flesh out the details.

Throughout these locations we will be seeding:

• The four components required to repair the dream machine.
• Clues related to Lulu’s memory mystery.
• Clues related to the Avernian Quest.

INDEX

Hexes A1 thru B6
Hexes C1 thru D6
Hexes E1 thru F6
Hexes G1 thru H6
Hexes I1 thru J6

A1. AVERNIAN TARPIT

A vast tarpit several hundred feet across. The is hot enough to burn (1d6 fire damage) and it is constantly bubbling. Dangers include:

• A large gas bubble explodes, spattering those within 10 feet with hot tar. DC 12 Dexterity saving throw or 1d6 fire damage.
• Getting stuck in the tar. (It counts as difficult terrain and requires a DC 14 Strength check to pass safely or a DC 18 Strength check to escape once stuck. If stuck, the victim will slowly sink into the tar, becoming submerged 3d6 rounds later.)
• Jets of flame spontaneously erupt from particularly strong outgassing.
• The gas itself can be toxic, requiring a DC 16 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, characters are affected as per a confusion spell, rolling on the custom table below once per minute to determine their actions. At the end of each minute, they can attempt another saving throw.

There are several small outcroppings of rock and solid-ish land dotted throughout the tarpit. On one of these is a giant boulder of gold that gleams in the strange, reddish light of Avernus. (The boulder is actually pyrite; fool’s gold.)

A2. OBELISK OF UBBALUX

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 98.

A set of astral pistons within the obelisk are intrinsic to Ubbalux’ prison. The pistons can only be accessed if Ubbalux is freed.

FREEING UBBALUX:

• As described in Descent Into Avernus, Ubbalux has heard of the Mirror of Mephistar (Hex I1) and believes Mephistopheles can unravel the riddle.
• Bel built the prison and could free him. Ubbalux can also point them towards Bel’s Forge (Hex H2). (If it seems reasonable, Ubbalux might still be under the impression that Bel is the Archduke of Hell.)
• You can also solve Bel’s original “riddle” (see below).

INVESTIGATING THE STONES: Bel told Ubbalux that the secret to escaping the prison was hidden in the arcane runes etched across the standing stones. The trick is that crucial information is located on the outside of the stones, where Ubbalux can’t see it.

• A DC 12 Intelligence (Arcana) check indicates that each of the outer standing stones is associated with one of the schools of magic.
• A character who speaks Infernal or succeeds on a DC 18 Intelligence (Arcana) check will notice that each standing stone has a cartouche containing two syllables, one of which is either the first or second syllable of the associated school of magic in Infernal and the other appears to be a nonsense syllable.
• A similar cartouche appear on the inside of the stone (where Ubbalux can see it, although you can also look across the circle and see them from outside) with a similar pairing of the first or second syllable of the associated school of magic in Infernal (whichever one isn’t on the outside) and a nonsense syllable.

SOLVING THE RIDDLE: Combining the two “nonsense” syllables on each stone forms a command word associated with that stone. You can intuit the correct order of the syllables by looking at the matched syllable from the school of magic. (So the syllable in the cartouche with the first syllable of the school of magic should be the first syllable of the command word and the second syllable should be the second.)

To release Ubbalux, you need to place your hand on each stone and speak the associated command word (suffering the effect described on pg. 98 of Decent Into Avernus). Once this has been done with all eight stones, the energy field drops: Ubbalux is freed and the central obelisk can be accessed.

A3. OOZE HARVESTERS

• Pit of Shummrath
• Map by Dyson Logos

Treacherous stone steps are carved into the cliff face surrounding the Pit of Shummrath, leading down to a miserable village which has been built upon a shelf of rock that thrusts out into the green ooze.

A pair of piscoloths and a gaggle of sahuagin overseers dominate a population of enslaved half-fiend goblins who dredge sludge from the Pit and bottle it. These are shipped to the piscolothian cities in the dark waters beneath the ice of Stygia, where the oil-slick-like telepathic emanations of the sludge are a kind of delicacy used to spice food.

Asmodean Cavern: The mouth of a cave at the base of the cliffs in the goblin village leads to several chambers containing ancient fiendish pillars. The four faces of each pillar are covered with worn runes in an archaic form of Infernal and the bas reliefs of various devil faces. Touching the runes causes the devil faces on the matching pillar to animate and recite them. Collectively they tell of the Trial of Asmodeus and the rights given to Asmodeus under the First Law by the ruling of Primus, Lord of the Modrons. This site is recorded as being one of sixty-six such memorials erected to record this epochal event.

The goblins lived in these caverns, but several years ago they were flooded by a sudden undulation of the Pit. Shummrathian ooze still lingers in the depths of the cave, creating a hostile environment for the goblins who still squat here.

A4. ARCHES OF ULLOCH

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 103

The Arches of Ulloch allow the mass transport of entire armies, but they require the use of a tuned keystone (similar to the planar tuning fork required for a plane shift spell) to align them with a particular plane of existence.

One of the arches currently has an ancient Avernian keystone, allowing teleportation to anywhere within Avernus.

Creating a new tuned keystone requires:

• Either the original plans (located in Bel’s Fortress, Hex H2) or a DC 20 Intelligence (Arcana) check to reverse engineer the existing keystone.
• 50 soul coins worth of raw materials.
• An appropriate workshop (such as those located in Bel’s Fortress, Fort Knucklebones, or other Warlord armories).

Note: There is an unkeyed keystone in the Dump (Hex H1).

A5. WARLORD LAIR: THE LOST GOLGARI

• Warlords of Avernus, p. 8
• Map by Dyson Logos

This is the lair of Kolasiah, the Infernal Medusa, and the Lost Golgari, who have come to Avernus from Ravnica. Kolasiah seeks a way of returning home and would value any news of a powerful spellcaster not allied with Zariel.

Entrance Ramp: Infernal war machines come roaring down the ramp and are parked in a cluster around the central stone pillar.

Forge: In the central pillar of the rock at the bottom of the entrance ramp there is a forge and garage run by Malargan the Oni. See Forges of Avernus, p. 4. A set of astral pistons can be found here.

For more details on the Avernian warlords, see Part 7E of the Remix.

Design Note: As written in Warlords of Avernus, the Lost Golgari have been reduced to a fraction of their former strength. You can either lean into that (with chunks of their base here being deserted) or I would potentially go the other way and bolster her to have a larger number of infernal machines and riders.

A6. WARLORD LAIR: BITTER BREATH’S MARAUDERS

• Bitter Rivals, p. 5
• Descent Into Avernus, p. 90

For more details on the Avernian warlords, see Part 7E of the Remix.

B1. ARKHAN’S TOWER

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 110

For Arkhan’s Tower, we would like to prep:

• A complete map of the tower.
• An adversary roster of the denizens. (Descent Into Avernus, p. 110-11 does provide a comprehensive list of creatures to add to the roster.)

For the map, I will recommend PogS’ excellent original cartography.

B2a. FERRYMAN’S PORTS

• On River

There are charonadaemon ferry stations on both shores of the Styx here. There are commissions available for travel up- and downriver, but most regular travel simply crosses the river to the other station.

Sudok’s Mart: The station on the contra-Dis side of the river is larger and contains a small market overseen by a yugoloth named Sudok.

B2b. ALVSKRAEMA CARAVANSERAI

• Map by Dyson Logos
• On Bridge (Across Pit of Shummrath)

The Alvskraema caravanserai is located next to the bridge which crosses the Pit of Shummrath. It is jointly operated by Brarumoch, Haskari, and Meltrus.

Brarumoch: Operates the common room and runs the kitchen. The caravanserai’s specialty is elf meat. Brarumoch has a supplier who hunts and butchers elves on the Material Plane; here they are considered an expensive delicacy known as alvskraema.

(This doesn’t mean that any elf walking through the door will be set upon and butchered. That’s not the sort of thing you do to a customer.)

Haskari: Operates a weapons forge. He specializes in creating cacophonous weapons, which allow those wielding them to speak and understand Abyssal. (See Forges of Avernus.)

Meltrus: Specializes in repairing and building infernal machines. He and Haskari are constantly squabbling over shop space.

Design Note: Note that the name Alvskraema is more or less “Elfscream” in Old Norse. It’s designed to echo the Elfsong Tavern from Baldur’s Gate. Thanks to Flallen from my Twitch chat for the suggestion of Elfscream Tavern.

B3. WITCH-QUEEN’S ABODE

• Dance of Deathless Frost

Tasha keeps a summer home in Avernus, as described in Dance of Deathless Frost. She is aware of Kostchtchie’s phylactery, knows that Baba Yaga knows its resting place, and is able to summon Baba Yaga’s hut.

B4. RED RUTH’S LAIR

• Descent Into Avernus, p. 107

Red Ruth has a heartstone.

B5. BONE CRATER

A large meteor impact crater formed by a huge skull (more than ten feet across) that’s partially embedded at the center of the crater.

B6. WARLORD LAIR: SOUL COLLECTORS

• Warlords of Avernus, p. 2
• Map by Dyson Logos

This is the lair of the warlord Algoran and his gang, the Soul Collectors.

Shrine to Eskarna: Algoran discovered an ancient shrine dedicated to the demon Eskarna. It was built countless aeons ago at a time during which the demons had pushed the front lines of the Blood War deep into Avernus. Long abandoned and forgotten, it was discovered by Algoran and converted into a gladiatorial arena.

Gladiatorial Arena: Watched over by the well-worn statue of Eskarna, Algoran hosts gladiatorial competitions here which attract a varied crowd of visitors and competitors.

Cogbox: Algoran recently acquired a modron slave as a wager during the gladiatorial fights. The modron has a Nirvanan cogbox. The modron might be willing to trade it for anyone who can help them gain their freedom; alternatively, if Algoran learns its value, he will seize it and try to make a deal (or wager) himself.

Shaaksuraar’s Armory: A “mountain of a sahuagin-werebear” called Shaaksuraar oversees a productive weapons forge for Algoran. This is located in the river cavern; Shaaksuraar goes on swims through the subterranean river and also quenches his fresh-forged weapons in the waters here. See Forges of Avernus, p. 3.

For more details on the Avernian warlords, see Part 7E of the Remix.

Design Note: The concept of Eskarna comes from Dyson’s original key for this map, although we have reduced it to an ancient ruin here. In Forges of Avernus, Shaaksuraar manages the Goregut Armory, but the Goreguts’ lair (Hex J3) in the Remix has been destroyed by Princeps Kovik (Hex J5). I’ve reassigned Shaaksuraar to Algoran, but you could also make this part of his backstory: That he worked for Raggadragga until his forge was destroyed by Kovik. (To add extra drama, perhaps Shaaksuraar betrayed Raggadragga to Kovik for a large payment of soul coins before transferring his services to his new forge here.)

Go to Hexes C1 thru D6

Go to Part 1

Let’s consider the Nine Hells as an exemplar and object lesson in how the Outer Planes make use of mortal souls.

Asmodeus is the original architect of Hell’s soul engines, having constructed a massive engine for waging the Blood War and containing the existential threat of the tanar’ri. However, Asmodeus himself is no longer engaged in the soul trade: He merely imposes a quota upon the Archdukes and Archduchesses who rule the other eight layers of Hell (and, by the extension of a fiendish feudalism, all of the devils who serve beneath them).

Zariel, Archduchess of Avernus, is perhaps the most direct example of Asmodeus’ war machine: Evil souls crawl out of the Styx into Avernus as lemures; they are then raised as devils to serve as troops on the front lines of the Blood War.

Dispater, Archduke of Dis, seeks secrets and covets souls which possess them. Having gained these secrets from the souls he controls, he uses those secrets as a temptation to corrupt mortals who, like him, crave secrets. (Or, in other instances, blackmail them into performing evil acts.) For Dispater and the devils of dis, souls are a memetic web of corrupt lore, the acquisition of which fuels its own growth.

Mammon, Archduke of Minauros, is the financier of Hell, profiting from the trade of souls in Hell. His soul-mongers “harvest” unencumbered souls from the Styx and see them either sold through the soul markets of the Sinking City (little different from the slave markets of the Material Plane) or forged into soul coins, the most literal manifestation of the soul economy of the Outer Planes. The regulations and valuations of the soul-monger guilds are managed through The Accounting and Valuation of All Things, a vast mass of ever-shifting regulations which govern the trade of all souls within Hell (and often beyond it).

Fierna and Belial oversee the pleasure places of Phelegethos, where their servitor souls are used as brothel stock, satisfying the terrible perversions of Hell with dark delights.

Levistus, the imprisoned prince of Stygia, is an example of what happens when a scion of the Outer Planes is unable to pay their debts. Levistus has a very limited portfolio of potential souls he can attempt to recruit, having been blocked from more lucrative markets by the decrees of Asmodeus. He is a prime example of how quickly a god’s fortunes can wane if their access to the soul-wells is cut off.

Glasya, Archduchess of Malbolge, is the warden of Hell’s prisons. Here Devils who have broken Asmodeus’ laws or Mammon’s regulations are sent for punishment. Thus the feudalism of Hell is enforced. (Glasya also secretly operates the Coin Legions, which are the thieves’ guilds of Hell.)

Baalzebul, Archduke of Maladomini, oversees Hell’s courts. Here devils are convicted and sent to Glasya’s prisons, but, more importantly, this is where all contracts forged between fiends and mortals are recorded, copied, and filed. If Minauros is the slave market, then Maladomini is the stock market.

Mephistopheles, the Philosopher King of Cania, maintains vast storehouses of lore and focuses his acquisition of souls on those arcanists who can help his laboratories delve deep into the mysteries of the multiverse. What is less known is that Cania is also home to the vast arcane machineries which ensure that the Nine Hells remain aligned with the soul-wells which form the foundation of Hell’s existence.

THE LORE OF LATTER DAYS

You may have noticed that much of what we have built here is based on lore developed in the earliest days of D&D. This lore remained largely self-consistent up until the end of 3^rd Edition.

So what about 4^th Edition and 5^th Edition?

The 4^th Edition of D&D fundamentally overhauled a lot of the game’s lore and metaphysics. The biggest change is the introduction of the Shadowfell, which, according to the 4^th Edition Manual of the Planes (2008), was “the definition of soul loosed from their bodies. It is the domain of the dead, the final stage of the soul’s journey before moving onto the unknown.” Souls linger for a time in the Shadowfell before passing through the Raven Queen’s maelstrom and the “final veil beyond which nothing is known.

… except there were also a bunch of souls scattered all around what were once the Outer Planes. Plus damned souls in Hell. And also damned and exalted souls in the Astral Sea. And also… Well, there wasn’t really a coherent metaphysic here.

In 5^th Edition, what we find (as we often do) is mostly just a tattered palimpsest of the lore which came before. The concept of drift is reiterated in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Monster Manual contains the familiar lemure and larvae as entry-level souls in the lower planes. The Monster Manual also suggests that will o’ wisps and a number of other creatures are mortal souls which have “failed to leave the Material Plane.”

Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes (2018) actually contains quite a bit of planar lore. Some of this is contradictory (for example, demons “generally have no regard for mortal souls and do not solicit them,” but elsewhere we find that exactly the opposite is true), but there are also some interesting tidbits:

• With the Shadowfell no longer serving as the domain of the dead, the Raven Queen has been revamped: She now kidnaps souls from other planes, bringing them back to the Shadowfell to serve various purposes. (This rather delightfully ties into our vision of planar power resting upon the soul engine, with the Raven Queen as the mischievous robber baroness of the planes.)
• Elves have a cycle of reincarnation, harkening back to the original soul vs. spirit cosmology.
• Abishai are specifically identified as souls which have been transformed into servitors of Tiamat: “Each abishai was once a mortal who some how won Tiamat’s favor and, as a reward, found its soul transformed into a hideous devil to serve at her pleasure.” This is superficially similar to the lore of abishai in previous editions, but can be tantalizingly interpreted as Tiamat having a personal channel of souls separate from those normally employed by Hell. Is it possible that there is a soul-well housed within her citadel?

In any case, the cosmology of 5^th Edition is broadly compatible with D&D’s original cosmology, and fits in quite snugly with what we’ve created here.

This post was requested by Alexandrian patron Glenn Rollins.

Go to Part 1

Deities & Demi-Gods is, in fact, the more or less definitive treatment of what happens after death in D&D.

AD&D assumes that the anima, that force which gives life and distinct existence to thinking beings, is one of two sorts: soul or spirit. Humans, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and half-elves (those beings which can have a raise dead or resurrection spell cast upon them) all have souls; all other beings that worship deities have spirits.

The term “anima” didn’t catch on and the split between soul and spirit didn’t last much longer. (It’s somewhat present in the original Manual of the Planes (1987), but by the time Planescape (1994) rolled around in 2^nd Edition the terms “soul” and “spirit” were being used interchangeably.)

Upon death, both souls and spirits travel through the Astral Plane and are drawn towards either the plane associated with their alignment or the plane in which their chosen god resides. (If these are not the same thing, Deities & Demi-Gods and the Manual of the Planes are, at best, vague and contradictory about which one takes precedence. There are also other considerations to consider, like soul-selling contracts signed with devils.) In the 3^rd Edition Manual of the Planes (2001) this process became known as “drift” – the soul drifts towards their aligned Outer Plane.

Drift is not instantaneous. It takes days or weeks for the soul to arrive, and this is the reason raise dead can only work on the recently deceased for a period which increases as the cleric gains levels (1 day per level in 1^st Edition): the more powerful the cleric, the farther they can reach through the Astral Plane to pull back the dead soul.

The powerful resurrection spell, by contrast, can reach all the way to the Outer Planes and pluck the soul back from its “final” resting place. This can anger the gods from whom these souls are “stolen.” For example, there is a 20% chance that Anubis will force an offending cleric to perform a quest, a 1% chance that Tuoni will actually show up in person and forcibly claim the raised person’s soul, and so forth.

What is this journey actually like? According to Deities & Demi-Gods:

The road through the Astral Plane to their destination is clearly marked for the dead, but it is not free of peril. Some monsters roam the ethereal and astral planes at will, which is why burial chambers often include weapons, treasure, and even bodyguards to protect the soul on its journey.

To simplify this, you could perhaps say that souls drift through the Astral Plane in a state of quiescence, which is why characters returned to life with a raise dead spell have no memory of events after their death.  We could formalize this as:

• Souls take 3d10 days to drift from the Material Plane to the Outer Plane they are aligned with (either by their personal alignment or the god they keep faith with). Only souls still traveling through the Astral Plane can be affected by a raise dead
• Souls are not necessarily safe in their journey. Disturbed souls will be roused from their quiescence and able to defend themselves against Githyanki soul-marauders and similar threats with the equipment they carried with them in death and also any resources found in a properly sanctified burial chamber. (Let’s say a 1% chance of an adventurers’ soul being so accosted.)
• Once a soul arrives in the Outer Planes, it can only be returned to life by means of a resurrection Such an individual will carry back with them the memories of what they experienced in the Outer Planes.

If you wanted a more traditional “journey of the dead” to reach the afterlife, then you might have the spirits of the dead arrive through the soul-wells of the plane of Concordant Opposition (also known as the Outlands or Godslands). The soul’s drift will have carried them towards the soul-wells near or controlled by their intended plane of destination.

At some of these soul-wells, gods like Yen-Wang-Sheh catalog and sort the spirits, sending them to their final destinations. In other cases, the dead must continue their journey towards the afterlife (the Egyptian Book of the Dead was basically a how-to guide for this journey). Around others, fiends patrol, capturing the evil souls who emerge near the Abyss or Nine Hells or Grey Wastes and shepherding them to their final punishment.

You can imagine that some souls emerging through the soul-wells instead escape or find themselves diverted from their “intended” destination, perhaps traveling across the Outlands to the legendary city of Sigil or even fighting all the way back to the Material Plane. (If your group has suffered an unfortunate TPK, maybe they find themselves crawling out of an ill-used and little known soul-well, ready to begin the next chapter of their adventure.)

BEYOND THE FINAL FRONTIER

According to Deities & Demi-Gods, the key difference between a soul and a spirit is that the soul will remain in the Outer Planes for the rest of eternity, but a spirit will eventually be sent back to the Material Plane and reincarnated. This is rather difficult to square with other aspects of the cosmology, though, so it probably makes sense to follow the official product line’s lead here and just ignore it.

So what does happen to a soul when it arrives in the Outer Planes?

It’s reincarnated into an extraplanar entity.

We’ve seen this already with demons, devils, and archons. As Deities & Demi-Gods says, “The servants, functionaries, and minions of some deities (demons, devils, couatl, ki-rin, titans, and others) are actually spirits put into those forms for the purposes of the diety.”

Some of these entities closely resemble their mortal forms, like the einheriar of Valhalla and similar “eternal warriors” or those enjoying the changeless paradise of Elysium as a reward for their good deeds on the Material Plane. Others, of course, are completely transformed.

As we’ve seen, these servants, minions, and even the deities themselves can be slain in their home planes, in which case their souls are permanently lost and cannot be restored or raised by any means.

Thus we discover the fundamental soul cycle: The soul lives a mortal life on the Material Plane, then passes to the Outer Planes and lives a second life, which usually features the ability to ascend through many different forms. When that second life is complete (one way or another), the soul either comes to an end or passes on to some other form of existence utterly beyond our ken.

What about the other end of things? Where do souls come from in the first place?

Well, there are a few references to gods “creating” the souls of their worshippers. Moradin’s soul forge, for example, supposedly creates dwarven souls. But even if these tales are true, they don’t appear to be the primary source for the creation of new souls. Perhaps they are a wholly natural creation. Or perhaps the Inner Planes have been created as a vast engine specifically designed for the creation of mortal souls, funneling elemental, positive, and negative energy into the matrix formed through the procreation of mortal life.

Because if we read between the lines here, we can intuit (create) the great hidden truth of the multiverse: The gods are not in control.

THE SOUL ENGINE

Gods are, in fact, merely mortal souls which have ascended. They occupy the highest rungs of the hierarchy to which all beings of the Outer Planes belong, but they are still part of that hierarchy, not separate from it. This is rather brazenly understood in the lower planes – where lemures and larvae ascend to ever higher ranks of devils and demons – but it appears to be true in all of the other planes, too, even when its form is obscured in practice.

Once you understand this, it becomes clear that the economy of the Outer Planes are built entirely around the soul engine: Mortal souls pass from the Inner Planes, across the Astral Plane, and arrive in the Outer Planes. In the Outer Planes they drive towards primordial, ideological compass points — like shards of metal which have been “magnetized” towards those ideological poles by their actions in life.

As these mortal souls arrive in the Outer Planes, they are transformed into servitors or harvested for their power. Once again this is seen most clearly in the lower planes, where souls are transformed into the vast, endless armies of the Blood War and gods like Urdlen, the Crawler Below, eat the souls of its gnome followers when they arrive at its feet. But, once again, the same truth underlies the strength of the upper planes. What difference is there, really, between the devilish soul markets of the Sinking City of Minauros and the Exchequer of Souls in Yetsira the Heavenly City where the virtues of every archon are carefully weighed in a vast bureaucracy which controls the elevation and demotion of the heavenly ranks?

Souls are the labor and fuel of the Outer Planes. In some places they are literally the currency itself. They are the foundation of all immortal power.

Which means that the gods who control the flow of souls into the Outer Planes control that power.

From this, it follows that souls are not cosmologically drawn to dimensional coordinates because the planes are there; rather the planes are there because that’s where the souls are drawn.

Go far enough back in history and you’ll discover an epoch in which the Outer Planes were a primordial morass of demi-planes and proto-planes. As these planes (and the deities which controlled these planes) struggled for dominance, they warred one upon another.

How do you win a war? With soldiers.

And how do you get soldiers in the Outer Planes?

By controlling the soul-wells through which mortal souls are reincarnated.

Each of the eight major soul-well fields became the focal points for conflict. As the wars raged on, the winners slowly grew larger and more powerful. And as they grew, the nature of the conflict began to shift: Whereas previously there were a cluster of planes and powers primarily struggling over the Lawful Good soul-wells, another cluster of planes and powers struggling over the Lawful Evil soul-wells, and so forth, now some of the larger planes began launching assaults on more “distant” soul-wells.

This is, ultimately, why the major planes are aligned into layers today. This is not the result of some natural order: They are the result of planes and powers with like interests forming alliances of mutual interest against the other major powers of the cosmos.

Why layers? Well, each of the major planes is “aligned” with clusters of soul-wells that make up their base of power. Once upon a time, a soul-well could only “belong” to a single plane. By aligning into layers, however, the flow of souls could be directed through all of the aligned planes together. The soul-wells themselves are also the binding agent, which tends to weave them into the fabric of the planes themselves in disparate ways – thus, for example, souls flow into the Nine Hells via the Styx.

Mount Celestia, the Nine Hells, and Mechanus all claim to have been the first to master the cosmological complexities of aligning planes into layers, although some scholars suggest that it was based on lore first perfected by the baatorians, or possibly some antecedent civilization which gave rise to the baatorians.

The Averniad tells one tale from towards the end of this era of history, in which the final major planes were being aligned with one power or another and the Great Wheel as we know it was taking form.

Go to Part 3: On the Use of Souls