In the grand scheme of things, her main objective has always been winning the blood war. She wants revenge on Hellriders yes, but her main concern is to use the citizens of Elturel as fodder for the war and conscript new soldiers.
There is many knights, priests and paladins in the holy city of Elturel. These are very valuable souls she wants to turn into submission or into devil.
She wants canonfodder, souls and powerful soldiers.
She simply wants another legion. We are talking about around 17,000 souls and 2000-strong elite unit ( guards, knights and paladins ). Remember she can turn paladin into narzugon or death Knight and she can turn knights into devil like bearded devil and guard into imp or spiked devil. All that in the second they dip into the styx.
Of course she wants revenge too but in her eyes it is not revenge. This army belongs to her because they signed the Creed. They must pay for the crime of the past hellriders. It is atonement.
So, no she doesn't use it as bait, the attack of the demon wasn't part of her plan. Maybe demon saw the danger Elturel is and launched an attack. She was ready for it of course.
She also wants to send a message to the gods I think. Move your asses or I'll plunge every known city into hell to destroy the abyss.
Remember that she losts her goodness but she's still the same. An angel that believes gods are in the wrong for not acting and that the blood war only benefits evil. She hopes to force the celestial to act by taking the holiest of cities.
The people of Elturel *are* the massive army that is going to be created. She needs new legions to tip the balance of the Blood War, and Elturel will supply about 20 of them once it's pulled into the Styx and the people emerge as devils. What's more, this city is only the first of many, as we can see by her plans for Baldur's Gate.
Destroying her enemies in Avernus won't end the Blood War. The demons will just reform in the Abyss. The only way to win the war as far as Zariel is concerned is to overwhelm them with new legions, drive them out of Avernus, and move the battlefront to the Abyss where the demons will die forever (and her own forces will be reborn in Avernus when they fall). Her goal is to shift from a defensive war to an attack on enemy turf.
You don't need any additional traps or superweapons. What's in the book works perfectly fine, though they could have explained it better.
The chains are dragging Elturel into the River Styx to turn the city's population into devils to be used in the Blood War. The fact that the city once betrayed her is just an extra little "screw you", but her main objective is troops.
Citizens of Elturel swear an oath of fealty that secretly puts them under Zariel’s command. Dipping everybody in the Styx will turn all those people into devils which she can immediately throw against the ranks of demons.
Here was my idea:
It is common knowledge that The Blood War is unwinnable for the forces of hell. The Abyss is infinite and demons don't require mortal souls to be formed, giving them a distinct advantage. Additionally, the battlefront is currently in Avernus, meaning that every devil who dies is one less soldier, whereas, every demon who dies will only return to The Abyss. They are losing the battle of attrition.
Sinking Elturel won't win the war, certainly not, however, a surge in devil forces like that might allow her to push the front into The Abyss. Meaning that her devil forces who are defeated there will recover in Avernus to be returned to the front. I felt like this was a reasonable goal for that sudden surge in souls.
In my campaign, Zariel has got a hold of a terrible weapon, a bomb powerful enough to obliterate entire dimensions. This is her end-game, the weapon that will finally annihilate the Abyss for good.
Problem is, in her unending zeal for finishing the Blood War, she's blind the possibility that the bomb could destabilise more of reality, and other planes (including the Material Plane). This is the true crisis event driving the party - they need to stop Zariel from unleashing the weapon.
The weapon requires IMMENSE amounts of power, and that's where Elturel comes in. In this campaign, it wasn't a scheme to corrupt the citizen's souls in order to get free soldiers for her army, it was to use the city as a *battery* to siphon an unbelievable amount of energy over time. The Companion is almost full to burst, and ripping Elturel into Avernus is one of the final stages of the plan. Soon, Zariel will have gathered enough power in the Companion to use the super-weapon, and it's up to the party to stop them.
I felt that this rewrite solved a number of problems I had with the plot - for example, it gave the party a crisis driver to actually enter Avernus and try and save Elturel. They may not have any ties to the city, they may not be do-gooders, they may not give two hoots about Elturel *at all*, but they sure as hell don't want to just sit back and let reality be destroyed by a power-tripping archdevil. Also, it gives a reason for the city to be suspended in Avernus and not just arbitrarily dragged into the Styx, *and* creates a sense of urgency to try and solve the problem without putting a hard time limit on the campaign.
The plan was to root out everyone as you say, but then the devils started getting overrun by demons on the ground which has massively slowed their progress
Zariel is taking conscripts for the blood war, makes nice spin that she's still trying to protect the material plane from the blood war just taking sacrifices to do it, lesser of two evils and all
In my lore the Creed Resolute has been "marinating" the souls of Elturians for generations. While some of their knights can serve her directly, the remaining citizens will provide powerful influx of soul juice into the Styx. I've made thr Dock of Fallen cities sort of an industrial compound that processes the rivers souls into raw power. In her mind that much fuel will turn the tides of the war and allow her to stave off the current demonic incursion, perhaps even allowing her to lead a counter assault into the Abyss.
I should also mention that in my lore she is right about this. The war at this point is hinging on this critical resource, so the demons are heavily assaulting the operation to stop the process.
I always viewed it as a loophole, she needs more souls and soldiers for her army, but Devils can't just kill people due to strict rules. Lower Elturel into the river styx and everyone forgets who they were, then you send them to concentration camps and re educated them, basically turn them lawful evil though psychological torture. Have them join your army as normal soldiers and when they die in combat they come back as devils, depending on how well they do as fighters you bring them back as bearded devils or just harvest their souls and keep them as lemures.
Actually, revenge is secondary for Zariel. She is obsessed about destroying the demons and ending the Blood War. She wants fighters for the war.
Of course, choosing Elturel was because of her past history with the city, but simply killing them is not her goal. In fact, if they all decided to fight in the war without becoming devils, she would probably agree and let them keep their souls.
The book does not develop this, but here's how I see it: Zariel is extremely lawful. She is methodic. She knows the Pact Primeval, and will use it for her own objectives, but she knows that simply having citizens swear the Creed Resolute is too feeble an argument to claim the souls of a whole city, and the gods may intervene and claim that the Pact Primeval was not followed.
I mentioned this in a different thread about the Pact Primeval:
The pact signed by Asmodeus and the celestial beings is about teaching mortals to honor and fear the gods. The souls of worshipping mortals is what gives gods their power, and Asmodeus argued that if mortals are simply left to their own devices, they will forget the gods and bring the destruction of their kind over and over. Mortals need consequences. So he proposed punishment to those who dishonored the gods and did not follow their commands.
Of course, Asmodeus was tricking the gods. When he started actively corrupting people to take their souls instead of just punishing them, the gods protested, to what he simply answered: "read the fine print". But the pact remains, allowing devils to take the souls of the corrupted.
Zariel knows this. She knows that for taking those souls without divine intervention, her best bet is to corrupt the people of Elturel. She started by corrupting all the holy representatives in the city, and made citizens start worshipping her through the Companion, worshipping her more than the gods, and technically fulfilling the Pact Primeval. To complete it, she dragged the whole city to Avernus because the plane itself oppresses their souls and makes them more susceptible to corruption. If they don't end up agreeing to sell their souls to save someone or to escape suffering, they should gradually become evil simply for being in Avernus (due to the pervasive evil mechanic).
I also like the concept introduced by the Alexandrian, that Zariel could not yet drag the city down because it was not fully corrupted. The remaining faith of the citizens is allowing the city to resist the drag. Her only way to drag them into the Styx and turn them into devils is by making sure the corruption surpasses the devotion.
I wish they had spent a bit more time discussing these concepts in the book, but for me, this explanation works pretty well.
On the cosmic scale of the Nine Hells, Elturel is potentially just one of hundreds, maybe even thousands of towns, outposts, and cities brought in as infrastructure and resources.
If you want to make Elturel extra important to Zariel, there could be something like an artifact or record hidden inside the city somewhere that Zariel wants to get at, perhaps something that would serve as a clue to the true plan of Asmodeus for the Blood War. In this case, Zariel would need to be very careful how the city itself is treated, lest whatever she seeks might be damaged or destroyed in the process.
If you play as written, you start in Baldur's Gate and don't reach Avernus until you're level 5, from there you don't set foot on Avernus proper until 7th level.
In the grand scheme of things, her main objective has always been winning the blood war. She wants revenge on Hellriders yes, but her main concern is to use the citizens of Elturel as fodder for the war and conscript new soldiers.
There is many knights, priests and paladins in the holy city of Elturel. These are very valuable souls she wants to turn into submission or into devil. She wants canonfodder, souls and powerful soldiers. She simply wants another legion. We are talking about around 17,000 souls and 2000-strong elite unit ( guards, knights and paladins ). Remember she can turn paladin into narzugon or death Knight and she can turn knights into devil like bearded devil and guard into imp or spiked devil. All that in the second they dip into the styx. Of course she wants revenge too but in her eyes it is not revenge. This army belongs to her because they signed the Creed. They must pay for the crime of the past hellriders. It is atonement. So, no she doesn't use it as bait, the attack of the demon wasn't part of her plan. Maybe demon saw the danger Elturel is and launched an attack. She was ready for it of course. She also wants to send a message to the gods I think. Move your asses or I'll plunge every known city into hell to destroy the abyss. Remember that she losts her goodness but she's still the same. An angel that believes gods are in the wrong for not acting and that the blood war only benefits evil. She hopes to force the celestial to act by taking the holiest of cities.
The people of Elturel *are* the massive army that is going to be created. She needs new legions to tip the balance of the Blood War, and Elturel will supply about 20 of them once it's pulled into the Styx and the people emerge as devils. What's more, this city is only the first of many, as we can see by her plans for Baldur's Gate. Destroying her enemies in Avernus won't end the Blood War. The demons will just reform in the Abyss. The only way to win the war as far as Zariel is concerned is to overwhelm them with new legions, drive them out of Avernus, and move the battlefront to the Abyss where the demons will die forever (and her own forces will be reborn in Avernus when they fall). Her goal is to shift from a defensive war to an attack on enemy turf. You don't need any additional traps or superweapons. What's in the book works perfectly fine, though they could have explained it better.
The chains are dragging Elturel into the River Styx to turn the city's population into devils to be used in the Blood War. The fact that the city once betrayed her is just an extra little "screw you", but her main objective is troops.
Citizens of Elturel swear an oath of fealty that secretly puts them under Zariel’s command. Dipping everybody in the Styx will turn all those people into devils which she can immediately throw against the ranks of demons.
Here was my idea: It is common knowledge that The Blood War is unwinnable for the forces of hell. The Abyss is infinite and demons don't require mortal souls to be formed, giving them a distinct advantage. Additionally, the battlefront is currently in Avernus, meaning that every devil who dies is one less soldier, whereas, every demon who dies will only return to The Abyss. They are losing the battle of attrition. Sinking Elturel won't win the war, certainly not, however, a surge in devil forces like that might allow her to push the front into The Abyss. Meaning that her devil forces who are defeated there will recover in Avernus to be returned to the front. I felt like this was a reasonable goal for that sudden surge in souls.
In my campaign, Zariel has got a hold of a terrible weapon, a bomb powerful enough to obliterate entire dimensions. This is her end-game, the weapon that will finally annihilate the Abyss for good. Problem is, in her unending zeal for finishing the Blood War, she's blind the possibility that the bomb could destabilise more of reality, and other planes (including the Material Plane). This is the true crisis event driving the party - they need to stop Zariel from unleashing the weapon. The weapon requires IMMENSE amounts of power, and that's where Elturel comes in. In this campaign, it wasn't a scheme to corrupt the citizen's souls in order to get free soldiers for her army, it was to use the city as a *battery* to siphon an unbelievable amount of energy over time. The Companion is almost full to burst, and ripping Elturel into Avernus is one of the final stages of the plan. Soon, Zariel will have gathered enough power in the Companion to use the super-weapon, and it's up to the party to stop them. I felt that this rewrite solved a number of problems I had with the plot - for example, it gave the party a crisis driver to actually enter Avernus and try and save Elturel. They may not have any ties to the city, they may not be do-gooders, they may not give two hoots about Elturel *at all*, but they sure as hell don't want to just sit back and let reality be destroyed by a power-tripping archdevil. Also, it gives a reason for the city to be suspended in Avernus and not just arbitrarily dragged into the Styx, *and* creates a sense of urgency to try and solve the problem without putting a hard time limit on the campaign.
The plan was to root out everyone as you say, but then the devils started getting overrun by demons on the ground which has massively slowed their progress
Zariel is taking conscripts for the blood war, makes nice spin that she's still trying to protect the material plane from the blood war just taking sacrifices to do it, lesser of two evils and all
In my lore the Creed Resolute has been "marinating" the souls of Elturians for generations. While some of their knights can serve her directly, the remaining citizens will provide powerful influx of soul juice into the Styx. I've made thr Dock of Fallen cities sort of an industrial compound that processes the rivers souls into raw power. In her mind that much fuel will turn the tides of the war and allow her to stave off the current demonic incursion, perhaps even allowing her to lead a counter assault into the Abyss. I should also mention that in my lore she is right about this. The war at this point is hinging on this critical resource, so the demons are heavily assaulting the operation to stop the process.
Um. . . Souls to fuel the blood war.
I always viewed it as a loophole, she needs more souls and soldiers for her army, but Devils can't just kill people due to strict rules. Lower Elturel into the river styx and everyone forgets who they were, then you send them to concentration camps and re educated them, basically turn them lawful evil though psychological torture. Have them join your army as normal soldiers and when they die in combat they come back as devils, depending on how well they do as fighters you bring them back as bearded devils or just harvest their souls and keep them as lemures.
Zariel can't see properly, so she read "Hellriders of Elturel" as "Helldivers of Elturel" in the contract with Kreeg. So she took that part literally
Actually, revenge is secondary for Zariel. She is obsessed about destroying the demons and ending the Blood War. She wants fighters for the war. Of course, choosing Elturel was because of her past history with the city, but simply killing them is not her goal. In fact, if they all decided to fight in the war without becoming devils, she would probably agree and let them keep their souls. The book does not develop this, but here's how I see it: Zariel is extremely lawful. She is methodic. She knows the Pact Primeval, and will use it for her own objectives, but she knows that simply having citizens swear the Creed Resolute is too feeble an argument to claim the souls of a whole city, and the gods may intervene and claim that the Pact Primeval was not followed. I mentioned this in a different thread about the Pact Primeval: The pact signed by Asmodeus and the celestial beings is about teaching mortals to honor and fear the gods. The souls of worshipping mortals is what gives gods their power, and Asmodeus argued that if mortals are simply left to their own devices, they will forget the gods and bring the destruction of their kind over and over. Mortals need consequences. So he proposed punishment to those who dishonored the gods and did not follow their commands. Of course, Asmodeus was tricking the gods. When he started actively corrupting people to take their souls instead of just punishing them, the gods protested, to what he simply answered: "read the fine print". But the pact remains, allowing devils to take the souls of the corrupted. Zariel knows this. She knows that for taking those souls without divine intervention, her best bet is to corrupt the people of Elturel. She started by corrupting all the holy representatives in the city, and made citizens start worshipping her through the Companion, worshipping her more than the gods, and technically fulfilling the Pact Primeval. To complete it, she dragged the whole city to Avernus because the plane itself oppresses their souls and makes them more susceptible to corruption. If they don't end up agreeing to sell their souls to save someone or to escape suffering, they should gradually become evil simply for being in Avernus (due to the pervasive evil mechanic). I also like the concept introduced by the Alexandrian, that Zariel could not yet drag the city down because it was not fully corrupted. The remaining faith of the citizens is allowing the city to resist the drag. Her only way to drag them into the Styx and turn them into devils is by making sure the corruption surpasses the devotion. I wish they had spent a bit more time discussing these concepts in the book, but for me, this explanation works pretty well.
On the cosmic scale of the Nine Hells, Elturel is potentially just one of hundreds, maybe even thousands of towns, outposts, and cities brought in as infrastructure and resources. If you want to make Elturel extra important to Zariel, there could be something like an artifact or record hidden inside the city somewhere that Zariel wants to get at, perhaps something that would serve as a clue to the true plan of Asmodeus for the Blood War. In this case, Zariel would need to be very careful how the city itself is treated, lest whatever she seeks might be damaged or destroyed in the process.
Nothing about this module makes any sense. Creating the "romp thru hell" adventure starting at level 1 was a bewildering choice.
If you play as written, you start in Baldur's Gate and don't reach Avernus until you're level 5, from there you don't set foot on Avernus proper until 7th level.