Chains of Asmodeus

Encounters

This is the last layer of the Nine Hells in which the characters can use Koh Tam's barge. Their final journey takes them through the frozen landscape, diverting down a tributary of the Styx to the Sorrow Mine. Roll at least once on the Random Encounters in Cania table, near the massive waterfalls or after they divert towards the Sorrow Mine.

Locations

The characters must journey to the Sorrow Mine, once they've learned of its existence from either Tiax or more magical means. The "Key Locations in Cania" section provides the necessary information for you to guide the characters' exploration.

Koh Tam and Tiax

Koh Tam suggests avoiding being noticed by Mephistopheles, fearing the archdevil's unwanted attention. Unfortunately, Koh Tam is less familiar with Cania. If Tiax is still with the party, he speaks up, for he has heard of the famed Sorrow Wine extracted from the Sorrow Mine. He suggests traveling there. He wants to accompany them everywhere but behaves oddly–at each new location he should be grumpy and insulting, but then promptly apologize when called out on his behavior.

Objectives

Make sure you keep track of your player's objectives and lead them to the appropriate areas so they may complete their goals.

The following objectives can be attained in Cania:

Temptations

Have the characters encounter at least one temptation during their time in Cania. You can of course have them encounter more if you want. If the characters give in to temptation, use the information in appendix E to keep track of their corruption level.

Features

Colder even than Stygia, all creatures on Cania face a constant battle with hypothermia. Each time a mortal finishes a long rest, they must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or gain a level of exhaustion.

Mephistopheles keeps a tight watch on any visitors to the realm to ensure no information is leaked. As part of his influence, any Divination spell cast while within Cania has a 50 chance to fail. When a spell fails, its materials and spell slots are consumed, but the spell has no effect. Creatures designated by Mephistopheles are immune to this effect.

Kintyre

Hidden inside some glaciers and bergs are strange beings and massive constructions, alien to the Nine Hells. Some of the more powerful archdevils have learned to harness the glaciers and control their movements, constructing cities atop the most stable. Others have carved caverns into their faces, where some claim Mephistopheles hides laboratories and libraries of ancient knowledge. Largest among these structures is the ancient city of Kintyre, which taunts explorers with its hidden wealth.

The Lake of Wael

Another icy lake resides near the Falls of the Frozen Titan. The characters are directed there to discover items to help protect themselves when they travel to Nessus. Yet something terrible lingers under its surface and the characters must confront it to claim their prize.

Falls of the Frozen Titan

Once the characters are ready to leave Cania, the most obvious option is climbing down the Falls of the Frozen Titan. If the characters are contemplating using The Pit in Mephistar, Koh Tam urges them against it. He offers instead to steer the barge along the River Styx towards the edge of Cania where the Styx plummets over the edge. There they can climb down the frozen river into Nessus. Koh Tam docks the barge at the banks of the river, a little way from where the characters must start their climb. Proceed to the "Tiax's Betrayal" section.

The Sorrow Mine

When the characters first enter Cania, Tiax gives them the following information. If Tiax has been disposed of, adjust the text as needed when Koh Tam delivers the information instead:

For his own furtive reasons, Tiax encourages the characters to travel to the Sorrow Mine.

Advice from Koh Tam

Koh Tam's (or Tiax's) advice to the characters is as follows:

• He suggests the characters make their way to the Sorrow Mines, as he believes it is their best bet to find the last items they seek.
• He warns them to make haste and limit the time they spend here as Cania's cold is dangerous even for the devils of the Nine Hells.

Arriving at the Cliffs

Those who get to the upper reaches of the glacier see the faces of the giants. The expressions of semi-divine entities who understood, at the very last, that they had been deceived—and that they were doomed to this frozen, eternal end.

Sorrow Wine

The mere fact and sight of the Heights of Anakim is enough to bring mortals to their knees, but it gets worse. Whilst devils aren't averse to the idea of just leaving things to be tormented forever, they found a use for the giants. So it is that the sharp-eyed visitor scanning the upper reaches of that appalling cliff finds scaffolding and gantries and excavation. Tunnels and quarries that carve into the literal faces of the giants to get at the treasure within.

Long after the powers of the Nine Hells had tricked the Anakim, Mephistopheles discovered the trapped giants contained a unique resource valuable to the rest of the Nine Hells and beyond. A combination of their semidivine nature, the ancient age they were preserved from and their own vast horror at being betrayed means the minds of the giants are a source of the most concentrated misery to be found anywhere in the planes.

The labyrinthine brains of the Anakim contain blue-silver seams of the stuff, that can be quarried out, rendered down, and condensed into vials and barrels of pure corrosive suffering that the devils jovially refer to as 'sorrow wine'. To mortals, the substance is pure vitriol. Concentrated, it causes wounds that strong magic can't heal, and that burn with fresh agony forever. Diluted into a potion it imposes a burden of existential unhappiness that drives the drinkers to empty hedonism and sin as their lives become hollow and meaningless. To devils, the sorrow wine is a potent beverage, a unique vintage of misery fit for the tables of Mephistopheles and Asmodeus themselves. In the Giant Mine, Cania's ruler has a commodity not to be found anywhere else that he uses for bribery, reward, and leverage across the lower planes. His only challenge is reliably extracting it.

The Sorrow Mine Locations

Locations relevant to this part of the adventure are described below.

The Hellriders

It is assumed that the characters have used the Hellrider's Salvation ability to safely return the Celestials they've rescued to the Material Plane. If they're still with the group for some reason, adjust the following:

The Conclave

It is up to the characters whether they recover all the class-based powerful magic items the Conclave helped them locate. Their group patron objective is considered complete once they've dealt with the Unmaker.

Zythan bows his head a brief moment and then moves about the tent, though it is clear he is actually elsewhere. If the characters have not destroyed the Unmaker's soul, they're asked to place the coin in which they've captured the soul inside the Halruaan Ethereal Vessel. The Halruaans dispose of it now.

The Deathstalkers

The Deathstalker quest is considered completed if the characters have recovered at least 2 of the items—enough to weaken Asmodeus's allies and make the archdevil think twice about swindling the Deathstalkers.

Once the characters select one of the artifacts, Sarevok grasps it, nods his head curtly, and enters the tent.

Parting Ways

The characters, unless they decide otherwise, are still considered as working for their chosen patron, but they no longer have an active mission with them. The characters have fulfilled their obligations, and the patron, by helping them throughout the adventure, has fulfilled theirs. The characters are encouraged to make final purchases from their contacts. The patron remains at this location until the characters return to the barge and sail away.

If spoken to again, the patron encourages the characters to climb down into Nessus, after acquiring appropriate magical protection from Asmodeus's watchful gaze. They're also cautioned to stay focused once they're in Nessus—they should obtain what they need from that place and return swiftly.

The Lake of Wael

[image: What lies beneath the Lake of Wael?]

Some interaction of the Styx's unnatural water and Cania's unnatural ice has created a great flooded bowl, a lake whose surface has become a drifting maze of frozen islands. And sometimes there is a voice.

Whilst crossing the icy lake is still a formidable task, the lack of a rushing current allows the sailors something of a respite, as they pole their way through the creaking ice. However, the lake is the domain of something quite other, and has been for centuries. Waeloquay (see accompanying stat block) is a water Elemental of immense size and age. Exactly how it came to the Nine Hells in the first place is lost to time—brought by some infernal collector or slipping through a temporary portal between planes. It found its way to the Styx, losing all recollection of its own past and nature but not simply dissipating. Eventually it reached the bowl of the lake in Cania and settled there, slowly growing as it incorporated the substance of the malign river into its nature until now it is the lake, and the Styx passes through it on its constant course down.

Waeloquay is obsessed with memory. Although it attempts to sequester its own experiences from the Styx, they slowly leach away into oblivion. Whenever new ships arrive to navigate its icy labyrinth, Waeloquay sees them as a vital source of new experience. It doesn't care what experience. It just seeks to fill the constantly leaking void within itself.

Waeloquay interacts with travelers by manifesting shapes out of water and ice—the forms of those Fiends and mortals that it has previously taken within itself, that become steadily less and less detailed as it forgets their features, until all it is left with are blank-faced mannequins. Alternatively, if anyone has been foolish enough to look down into the water, Waeloquay captures their reflection and creates an icy simulacrum of them. These creations (doppelgangers with immunity to cold damage) crawl onto the ship and seek to ambush individual sailors and throw them overboard into Waeloquay's clutches, or else try to wreck the entire ship against the ice. Anyone ending up in the water faces the effects of a Styx controlled by a hungry Elemental entity. Anyone who drowns in the water here becomes part of Waeloquay's library of memories, at least until the Styx abrades them away.

It is possible to bargain with the Elemental for safe passage and/or for the Amulets of Proof Against Detection and Location that were lost here years ago. Fiendish ships often carry sacrifices to throw overboard to sate Waeloquay's hunger, but it also accepts items of great sentimental value from which it gnaws some mental sustenance.

If the characters don't bargain, then they must fight against a manifestation of the lake. If they defeat it, then Waeloquay quickly moves them to the end of the lake and throws eight amulets into the barge, along with the skeletons still wearing them.

The Attack Against Koh Tam

Tiax has previously cast Mage Armor on himself. Regardless of the characters' affiliation, he approaches Koh Tam in a friendly manner but casts Contagion (using the mindfire effect). The attack roll required for this spell automatically succeeds against the unaware Koh Tam unless the characters are able to warn him. Depending on past character decisions, Tiax may have allies or additional opponents as described below:

• Tiax has bribed one of the crew members (use the veteran stat block) and they assist Tiax in this battle.
• Additionally, if Grinken Eyre (neutral evil Medium-sized empyrean) was encountered in Minauros and not slain by the party, he has masqueraded as the other crew member since then and allied with Tiax. He assists Tiax in this fight. Grinken Eyre's presence makes the battle considerably more difficult if he is fighting the characters, so feel free to omit him.
• If the characters have previously met Sir Calenhad Strongheart in the "A Paladin In Hell" encounter, he may have joined them on the barge. If so, he sides with Koh Tam in this battle and comes to the characters aid if the characters do so as well. Calenhad is a lawful neutral death knight that doesn't have the Marshal Undead trait or the Hellfire Orb action.
• If Grinken Eyre isn't present, Tiax previously called in a favor owed him by an ice devil, who shows up at initiative count 10 of the second round of combat. The other crew member (also a veteran) fights to defend Koh Tam, in this situation.

The characters can choose to side with Tiax or Koh Tam. If they ally with Tiax, it is very likely Koh Tam will perish here and Tiax will serve his role for the remainder of the plot. On the other hand, Tiax is very fond of being alive and if reduced to less than half of his hit points (or otherwise feeling like the battle is going against him) casts Dimension Door in an attempt to retreat.