Hunt of Stygia

Hunt in Stygia (level 9)

You are a group of Royal Adventurers. A new role where a band of adventurers who work directly for a monarch go out and fight the kingdom's enemies, collect powerful artifacts, find places for new towns to begin, and whatever your sovereign asks. This position is new and not common nationally so you're a pretty recently assembled party. You have each been tested on your skills on only one easy job, investigating a recently abandoned temple to some infernal entity; nothing but a few weak monsters and animals and a locked tome inside. After you took it back to the castle the court wizard discovered that the book required true sight to read and him reading some infernal lines ripped the entire castle out of the Material Plane and into Hell! Now you must escape the constant threat of devils while in a freezing, inhospitable, hunting ground; possibly finding a way back home in the process!

 
Starting Equipment

Class and background starting gear

1 potion of uncommon rarity or lower

1 spell scroll of a 3rd level spell for full casters only

 
Plot Overview

1. The party awakens on an ice cold, steel floor surrounded by the scattered persons of everyone in the castle you were just in! Sitting on a throne made of steel in the back of the room is the hulking body of Geryon! He laughs as every maid, butler, and soldier panics and tries to avoid his monstrous devil form.

2. He explains how everybody is now trapped in his fortress Coldsteel and that he will be hunting them in an hour to scare them more. The King (Warlord with +2 plate and a Vorpal great sword) and the Court Wizard (Archmage) rallies the few knights and veterans there to fight the Archdevil while telling everyone else to leave.

3. Geryon accepts the challenge as futile as it is and walls off the area by casting a wall of ice (crushing some of the commoners. The party should run away, and the mass of commoners follow them around the fortress as long as they live.

4. After an hour and 2d4+3 rounds of combat Geryon sends his hunting dogs in a pair of Winter Wolves after the group to reduce some of their numbers and leave only the strongest prey for their master (they attack only commoners and will happily use their ice breaths on the dead so they can have cold meat)

5. The party will easily be able to escape the wolves by hiding in one of the many rooms of the devil's palace. Plus, the walls of the smaller, interior rooms are lead lined so locate objects from the Lord of the Fifth can't find them.

6. The tower is massive and labyrinthine so exploring for a exit will take days and during those nightmarish days weaker devil saboteurs try to monopolize on the influx of mortal souls by killing some remaining commoners unless the party can protect them (bearded devils, imps, and spine devils)

7. Within the rooms are hell iron weapons and implements of torture but there may be some magical items that were stolen or earned by Geryon. Using these would increase the characters' chance of escape (magical weapons that the devils don't resist, wands, and potions that Geryon enhances his army with).

8. Some close encounters with Geryon almost finding the party can be stopped by using his own traps against him (luring him into his own Symbols, freeing his demonic trophies he abducted, releasing some werewolves he's trying to convert to worshiping him)

9. When the party nears the exit of Coldsteel: A cambion named Deimos tries to arrest “the prey leaving the hunting grounds,” and fights the party until he dies, or everyone is unconscious/surrendered.

10. The party has a desolate, icy Hell to live in now but at least Geryon won't find them any time soon unless the devils they run into (and away from) stop them. If they travel far enough and are able to cross the River Styx, then they will be able to enter the part of Stygia Levistus owns.

11. The large, handsome, humanoid devil is trapped on a throne in an indestructible iceberg. This is Levistus, the true ruler of Stygia, and contacts the party telepathically and offers them a bargain: their souls are pledged to him, and he'll send them back home. He's forced to always help those in need by Asmodeus, so he is genuine in the face of the party's desperation.

1. Any member who accepts this pact Levistus uses Wish to send them to the smoking crater where the castle once stood. Leaving them rebuild the now leaderless kingdom

2. Those who refuse are doomed to wander the arctic of the layer until they freeze, get caught by Geryon, are hunted by Levistus' Erinyes assassin, or crawl back to The Frozen Prince and beg for the bargain which he'll oblige