The confrontation between Asmodeus and my paladin didn't go like I'd hoped. It's left kind of a sour taste for me at the very end of this campaign, and I want to convey the whole story here to see if others feel like I got as raw a deal as it feels like for me.
Our Hell excursion was an attempt to deal with an old enemy, a hag named Mother Midnight, who got away during our last encounter with her attempt to start an expanded coven. It turned out that she was actually Malagard, the hag countess who previously ruled over Malebolge, the sixth layer of Hell, and after our "main" campaign was over, she issued a sort of challenge/taunt to our party sorcerer and we figured we'd better deal with it before something terrible happened. In addition, at one point during our "main" campaign, our party sorcerer's wild magic summoned a tiny imp calling himself Moloch--and Moloch also had a grievance with Malagard, since it was her foul advice to rebel against Asmodeus that led to his demotion from archduke of Malebolge to a tiny, powerless imp.
Moloch plotted the route to Malagard's lair for us: an arrival in Avernus, the standard first layer, then a trip down the river Styx would shortcut us to Stygia, the fifth layer, from which point we could travel overland through a tunnel to Malebolge, the sixth layer and Malagard's lair. Naturally, the route wasn't as simple as that and we got mixed up in all sorts of things in each of those three layers, including a disastrous fight against Zariel and her forces in Avernus. My paladin went down first during this encounter, which was a huge problem since the rest of the party has no healing. "Luckily," as soon as my turn came around again, the current ruler of Malebolge, Glasya, made me an offer. In exchange for bringing me (and my steed, which also went down) back to full HP, she wanted me to kill Moloch after we'd finished our business with Malagard. I agreed, to the horror of the party sorcerer, who's pretty good friends with Moloch by this time. My paladin tells her about it in character (he's just that kind of asshole) and it's a big point of tension between the two of our characters, with us trying to figure out if there's any loophole in my paladin's deal with Glasya--and if not, whether the sorceress will side with her familiar or me, because if I don't make good on my part of the deal, Glasya gets my paladin's soul.
Fast forward past a bunch of other stuff happening, and we're about to make camp in Malebolge with a clear shot at Malagard the next day. Asmodeus suddenly appears, grabs Moloch, and the two of them vanish together. My paladin is now totally fucked. There's no chance of us going past Malebolge to Nessos in a bid to win him back, and all Asmodeus has to do to get my paladin's soul is to keep Moloch locked down there for the next 50 or 60 years. But at the end of the same session, Asmodeus also teleported my paladin to his audience chamber to see what I'd be willing to offer him in exchange for Moloch back. Cue the cliffhanger while I had a week to think about what I'd be willing to do here: this is where we were when I mentioned upthread that the next session might begin with an attempt to intimidate the Lord of Hell.
What I came up with, and what I offered, was peace. The alternative, I suggested, was that my paladin would gather up an even bigger party and start doing raids on Hell every year. I'd never get close to Asmodeus, but during this weeklong (in game time) trip the four of us redeemed Zariel, slew Levistus, defeated Demogorgon twice, and were about to take our Malagard too. I told Asmodeus that if I had a finite number of years left before my soul was his, I'd feel duty-bound to make sure that his losses would far outweigh whatever value he got from one mortal's soul. Or he could give me back Moloch and I'd pledge never to voluntarily enter his domain again. I was prepared to make a Persuasion or Intimidation check after this pitch, but the DM never gave me that chance. Instead, he had Asmodeus make a counteroffer that I couldn't see my paladin ever accepting--basically, my firstborn child would be some kind of tiefling beholden to Asmodeus. I rejected it, and that was that.
The whole thing kind of feels like a reverse deus ex machina to me. I had just gotten an exciting idea for how to resolve the deal with Glasya, when in swoops the Lord of Hell and upsets the whole playing field. It all makes sense within the fiction (Asmodeus has it out for my paladin pretty bad, due to the whole aforementioned "redeeming Zariel" thing) but it's going to make any kind of ending for my character when we wrap up this campaign in a few sessions feel pretty hollow, because he knows that in the end, he's damned. You could say, rightfully, that I invited this possibility upon myself when I made that first deal with Glasya...but I thought that was going to be a story about my relationship with the sorcerer, not with Asmodeus. And not giving me the opportunity to roll for it during the negotiations still feels kinda cheap to me.
I dunno, what do y'all think?
Our Hell excursion was an attempt to deal with an old enemy, a hag named Mother Midnight, who got away during our last encounter with her attempt to start an expanded coven. It turned out that she was actually Malagard, the hag countess who previously ruled over Malebolge, the sixth layer of Hell, and after our "main" campaign was over, she issued a sort of challenge/taunt to our party sorcerer and we figured we'd better deal with it before something terrible happened. In addition, at one point during our "main" campaign, our party sorcerer's wild magic summoned a tiny imp calling himself Moloch--and Moloch also had a grievance with Malagard, since it was her foul advice to rebel against Asmodeus that led to his demotion from archduke of Malebolge to a tiny, powerless imp.
Moloch plotted the route to Malagard's lair for us: an arrival in Avernus, the standard first layer, then a trip down the river Styx would shortcut us to Stygia, the fifth layer, from which point we could travel overland through a tunnel to Malebolge, the sixth layer and Malagard's lair. Naturally, the route wasn't as simple as that and we got mixed up in all sorts of things in each of those three layers, including a disastrous fight against Zariel and her forces in Avernus. My paladin went down first during this encounter, which was a huge problem since the rest of the party has no healing. "Luckily," as soon as my turn came around again, the current ruler of Malebolge, Glasya, made me an offer. In exchange for bringing me (and my steed, which also went down) back to full HP, she wanted me to kill Moloch after we'd finished our business with Malagard. I agreed, to the horror of the party sorcerer, who's pretty good friends with Moloch by this time. My paladin tells her about it in character (he's just that kind of asshole) and it's a big point of tension between the two of our characters, with us trying to figure out if there's any loophole in my paladin's deal with Glasya--and if not, whether the sorceress will side with her familiar or me, because if I don't make good on my part of the deal, Glasya gets my paladin's soul.
Fast forward past a bunch of other stuff happening, and we're about to make camp in Malebolge with a clear shot at Malagard the next day. Asmodeus suddenly appears, grabs Moloch, and the two of them vanish together. My paladin is now totally fucked. There's no chance of us going past Malebolge to Nessos in a bid to win him back, and all Asmodeus has to do to get my paladin's soul is to keep Moloch locked down there for the next 50 or 60 years. But at the end of the same session, Asmodeus also teleported my paladin to his audience chamber to see what I'd be willing to offer him in exchange for Moloch back. Cue the cliffhanger while I had a week to think about what I'd be willing to do here: this is where we were when I mentioned upthread that the next session might begin with an attempt to intimidate the Lord of Hell.
What I came up with, and what I offered, was peace. The alternative, I suggested, was that my paladin would gather up an even bigger party and start doing raids on Hell every year. I'd never get close to Asmodeus, but during this weeklong (in game time) trip the four of us redeemed Zariel, slew Levistus, defeated Demogorgon twice, and were about to take our Malagard too. I told Asmodeus that if I had a finite number of years left before my soul was his, I'd feel duty-bound to make sure that his losses would far outweigh whatever value he got from one mortal's soul. Or he could give me back Moloch and I'd pledge never to voluntarily enter his domain again. I was prepared to make a Persuasion or Intimidation check after this pitch, but the DM never gave me that chance. Instead, he had Asmodeus make a counteroffer that I couldn't see my paladin ever accepting--basically, my firstborn child would be some kind of tiefling beholden to Asmodeus. I rejected it, and that was that.
The whole thing kind of feels like a reverse deus ex machina to me. I had just gotten an exciting idea for how to resolve the deal with Glasya, when in swoops the Lord of Hell and upsets the whole playing field. It all makes sense within the fiction (Asmodeus has it out for my paladin pretty bad, due to the whole aforementioned "redeeming Zariel" thing) but it's going to make any kind of ending for my character when we wrap up this campaign in a few sessions feel pretty hollow, because he knows that in the end, he's damned. You could say, rightfully, that I invited this possibility upon myself when I made that first deal with Glasya...but I thought that was going to be a story about my relationship with the sorcerer, not with Asmodeus. And not giving me the opportunity to roll for it during the negotiations still feels kinda cheap to me.
I dunno, what do y'all think?
