AD&D A Paladin in Hell.pdf

Introduction

When the ADVANCED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS ® Player's Handbook

was first published in 1978, it included an illustration titled "A

Paladin in Hell." Most printings put the title of the piece at the

bottom of the page.

For many people, this illustration defined the paladin character

class. The image of a lone holy warrior fighting off a horde of fiends

right there in the pit of Hell was both an evocative icon and a

powerful ideal. It told us that a paladin would fight against any

odds, never swerving in his devotion to the forces of good and

justice and his opposition to evil and darkness.

This adventure takes its name from that illustration. The in-

tention is to capture the devotion of the truly honorable and good

and the wonder and mystery of strange places. The player

characters must travel to Hell aboard a demon ship to rescue the

wrongfully condemned soul of a paladin and restore a trapped

temple and its innocent inhabitants to the Prime Material Plane.

A Paladin in Hell was intended for four to six characters of very

high level-roughly 15th to 20th. PCs will need a great deal of

physical power and experience to complete this adventure.

Groups embarking on this adventure should also be well

equipped with magical items and weapons. At least one weapon

with a bonus of +5 is necessary if the characters are to defeat some

of the adversaries, and another one or two of +4 quality may be

handy. If the party is mostly 15th or even 16th level, the DM

should make sure that they have magical items to supplement their

abilities. Much of the challenge in this adventure involves terrible

dangers and battles that are not encountered one at a time, but one

after another with little or no rest between them. Also, because of

the restrictions on clerics so distant from their deities, consider

compensating with a special item (a staff of curing helps) or an

extra scroll.

A Paladin in Hell playtesters started with 1,800,000 experience

points each to create characters. This turned out to be low;

characters with 2,250,000 experience points had a better chance to

accomplish the objective in the time allowed (and had a better

survival rate). PCs created solely for this adventure should also

have about 50,000 XPs' worth of magical items. Any player who

creates a cleric for this adventure should consider using the rules

for generating specialty priests of Neheod.

find in the adventure lack the power to really unbalance a campaign

where characters are level 16 or higher. Also, because of the

weakening effect of travel on the planes, some may have very little

power when the adventurers return home.

Further, much of the treasure found in the adventure has a

dark, unpleasant, fiendish look that reflects its origin. Will a

well-known group of noble heroes like the PCs really want to

wander about with black-iron weapons covered in demonic

flanges, armor with skulls and spikes, and helmets that make the

wearers' eyes glow red? Fiendish coins bear the images of

demons, devils, or other horrors (about 50% of the treasure found

in this adventure fits this description, the rest comes from Prime

Material worlds). Jewelry and works of art have similar problems

of taste (or distaste). Finding the right buyer may not be easy, if

the characters decide to sell their loot.

Lastly, if the DM fears adding certain items permanently to a

campaign, they can be tied so closely to the Lower Planes that

they no longer function at all on the Prime Material. Some might

even hold demons or devils bound inside them, which burst free

once removed from their home plane. Others might carry terrible

curses triggered by distance.

Adventure Overview

This adventure uses what many people call a "keyed map"

format. That is, the text describes locations that are presented on

numbered maps. This does not mean that the inhabitants are

cemented in place where their descriptions and statistics appear.

The denizens of these areas possess the intelligence and the

motivation to move around as needed, round up reinforcements,

and prepare for the PCs in unexpected ways.

In A Paladin in Hell, the PCs must travel to an obscure part of the

Nine Hells to rescue the missing Temple of Neheod, which brims

full with trapped innocents stolen away from their world.

First, however, they must find and speak with the legendary

mage Emirikol the Chaotic. Emirikol gives them De-monwing, a

demon-wrought ship that can take them to Stygia. Although he

speaks the truth, what he does not say is that the ship's demon

crew wants freedom from its owners, who now happen to be the

PCs.

PCs who expect the trip to Hell to be short and uneventful are,

of course, mistaken. In order to even exit the ship, they must ply

its inner recesses (which stretch much larger than one would first

expect) and probably defeat many hostile demons within.

Demomving, unfortunately, cannot take them all the way to the

temple. Once near their destination, PCs can use the ship's diving

spheres to plunge into the frigid waters of the fifth layer of Hell to

get down to Citadel Coldsteel, built by the deposed arch-devil

Geryon in anticipation of the temple's arrival in Hell. To reach

the temple, PCs must fight their way through the fortress.

In the Temple of Neheod, PCs learn that the spirit of a single

paladin-ironically, the one whose funeral was being held in the

temple at the time of its disappearance-has single-handedly held

off much of the diabolic forces' attacks. Through exploration and

experimentation, they also realize that by undoing the evil in the

temple they can restore it to its world and perhaps even send the

dead paladin to his proper, eternal reward.

Running the Adventure

A Paladin in Hell presents some interesting challenges for both the

players and the Dungeon Master. As PCs move away from the

Prime Material plane, magic behaves differently. These changes

(detailed in the appendix) can be complicated for the DM (do not

feel bad about referring to the lists of alterations frequently: the

designer certainly did). Many of the PCs' opponents possess vast

arrays of powers and the intelligence to use them wisely,

preparing defenses, traps, and tactics ahead of time. These are

discussed in the text, but the DM can also devise his own tricks

and strategies.

Magical Weapons and Other Treasure

Magical weapons present two different problems.

The first arises when the PCs discover that their items tem-

porarily lose two 'pluses.' This is even worse than it sounds,

because only magical weapons can harm the majority of foes the

heroes will face! Fortunately, opportunities abound to obtain new,

potent weapons.

That brings up the second problem. Hell and the Abyss teem with

magical weapons and items for the taking. The amount of magic

here could be unbalancing if PCs bring back home even half of it

(some DMs may think there is too little magic and will want to add

more— vine la difference'.). Most of the items the PCs

DM's Background

In the deepest pit of Hell, the Lord of the Ninth, Asmodeus,

brooded long and hard over the loss of an object called the Vallis

Crystal. Within this simple item the arch-devil had placed an entire

Prime Material world, hoping to corrupt the

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