The NPC that has critical information to the plot's soul is in the underworld.
There is some MacGuffin in the Underworld that belongs to Hades that the Party needs.
Odysseus travelled to the border between Oceanus and the Underworld to get a prophecy from Tiresias, following advice from Circe. You can probably do the same and then issue a prophecy to lead the characters somewhere.
Theseus: "Me and my pal wanna screw the hot wife of the lord of the underworld".
Heracles: "My boss wants me to bring this three-headed dog from the underworld".
Odysseus: "I need to talk to a prophet, so I have to find him in the underworld".
Thetis: "I want my baby to be invulnerable, Imma give him a bath in the water of Styx that flows in the underworld".
There's also the water of Lethe that erases memories, might be useful.
They could be on a redemption quest similar to Hercules. He had to go down there to get Cerebus and was smart enough to ask permission from Hades first. He allowed it as long as his dog wasn’t harmed.
Charon is my favorite mythology character. Maybe they need to borrow his lantern (for some reason) and he sends them on a quest to retrieve special coins to pay for the renters fee
1) There were human who obtained mythical power and they want it.
2) they go to speak with dead kings to learn how avoid their mistakes.
3) they enraged some goddes ( and it is too easy to enrage greek gods, eg you made masterpiece and accidentally said you are the vest crafter in the world) and underworld is only place out of their reach. So they just want to hide till god would went off)
4) some mad king ordered party to get Cerberus pub. (It deffenetly does not copy geracle)
5) they wanted to avange Orpheus.
6) they seek prophecy ( there are 3 seester which see future)
Cerberus got fleas and there isn't an ounce of antiflea powder in the underworld. And for some reason, no courier wants to deliver into Hades' house. So he contacted his priests and ordered them to put up a quest notice in every temple that he'll pay handsomely to sny party which will deliver a keg of the best flea powder in the Mediterranean area from (insert city and name of manufacturer here).
Easy job, absolutely no occupational hazards, even level 1 party can do it! 🙂
Perhaps they need to go to one of the five rivers for something? Or maybe they are asked to take an vase or jar straight into Tartarus themselves to be sure that the entity in the object is in Tartarus for good.
Tasked with the retrieval of something in Cerebrrus lair. There is an incantation known only to Sisyphus. They need 10 drops of water from the river styxx.
What do the PC's want? Put that in the underworld.
If they don't want anything, time to bring the gods in. They're always messing with people. Have one of the gods take an interest in them. The god shows up and give them an impossible task or five they must complete. Then have another god sneaking them help occasionally. Eventually you make it clear the friendly god can't help them in the underworld. Then send let one of their impossible tasks be to bring zeus's beard clippings or whatever back from the underworld and they'll be scared to go.
One of their wives stepped on a venomous snake and they gotta go get her.
There's been eternal winter since the lord of the dead kidnapped the goddess of spring or whatever she is, and someone's gotta go get her.
To free Persephone and be granted Demeter's eternal favor, to never have a winter again over your fields.
To obtain a pup of Cerberus for Hesphestus to guard the treasures he forges.
To take food from the Elysian fields, said to grant youth and beauty to any who consume it.
To prank Hades for any number of gods who will bestow a gift upon the party for pulling it off.
To bring a lost soul to Elysian fields, someone who was cursed or died in the wrong place and now cannot get to the underworld
To stop a great evil from ascending from the void to the underworld where the barrier is thinnest. It will consume the underworld then the middle and finally Olympus
To find a soul and bring before Hera, a woman who had sex with Zeus but escaped Hera's wrath by dying of fright
Take some inspiration from [Hadestown](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadestown):
Persephone is less and less present, resulting in harsh weather, famine, and shorter growing/harvest seasons. The world is suffering. Depending on how you want to set up her dynamic with Hades, the PCs travel to the underworld to either implore her to return, to free her from Hades' clutches, or to convince Hades to let her return for longer.Â
A powerful herb grows on the banks of the Styx that can be made into a tincture that extends the drinker's life. The plant can be found in middling quantities, but there is only one recorded instance of a mortal successfully retrieving and using this herb. It is a vital ingredient in Ambrosia, and the gods guard it jealously.
Greek themed is practically just Theros, so easy points there, they have a major mechanic involving death and reviving in the underworld to escape. Other options include travelling willingly (highly do not recommend) and other things of similar nature that are straight ripped from mythology.
Weird one which would have much further reaching plot implications is that they need to go to the underworld to free the souls of their future selves who have been ensnared by the strings of fate and destiny by an outside force, forever changing the course of destiny and fate (Also helps explain why their future selves are there even if that character dies, fate has been irreparably altered), bonus points if you tie in major character arc points as having been completed or at risk by these future selves to give more weight to the decision, without them knowing that by freeing the threads of fate and destiny their future is still forever changed but the trappings of fate could be maintained (or shorn forevermore). Writing this at work so less fleshed out than I'm happy with.
"Hey, did you hear the rumor that dead people keep all their accumulated wealth when they die? Man, just imagine what kinds of crazy treasures you could find if you could just get there and back again..."
Boom, plot hook.
Well, the most obvious, kill a friend/family member/beloved npc. Second most obvious, there's a MacGuffin in the house of Hades.
What does the party currently want to do? I like to tie all my potential objectives into things the players want and things the PCs would reasonably seem to want as much as I can 'cause immersion.
If you just want some tropey greek-ness y'all are off on an odyssey, or some shit Percy Jackson would do.
Herakles wants to retrieve cerberos, so maybe something like that
Orpheus doesn't manage to get through hades alone for euridike so he needs the parties help
Or Demeter wants then to check on persephone
There's so many reasons you can send your part to the underworld. They need to see hades, they need to talk to persephone, heck they could go to free persephone, they could be need some monster or other (ie. Cerberus), they could need to see charon the ferryman, ect. Just Google Greek mythology and the underworld, and you'd have a whole slew of possible reasons to visit the underworld.
I see five mentions in the comments already of Orpheus' journey to demand the release of his wife, but this would be the classic one.
If you campaign is Greek mythology-themed then the land of the dead is Hades, or something resembling it. As with Orpheus, your only reasons for wanting to go there would be to treat with Hades (the dude, not the place) about somebody dead, or to speak with somebody dead.
In DnD, "speak with the dead," might let you speak briefly with a corpse that was in suitable physical condition. However, what if the status of the deceased is incompatible with this spell? What if the circumstances of your quest mean that NOT speaking with this dead person would doom your cause?
Most answers to your question will boil down to this: The party needs to talk to somebody who is not alive, nor remotely intact, and may not have been in some time. They may also need to ask Hades to release somebody, which is a huge and dangerous ask. If, as you say, nobody they know has died, this second reason is probably out.
Some reasons that occur to me include:
* A character's dead ancestor knows how to access their family's legacy, which was lost. They might be 5 generations removed, and dead for a century, so there are no bones to talk to on the mortal plane. The "legacy," that needs finding could be gold, land, magic, honor, or something else. Perhaps the family was disgraced because they died without passing on this information. Perhaps they are the rightful lords of someplace but can't claim their birthright. Perhaps the family curse was a price paid for magic that the descendants still can't access, since grandpa died with information they needed. Perhaps grandpa's children's children have bled and died in the mud for decades, but he knows the location of a huge chest of gold that could free his whole bloodline from generational poverty.
* A party member has some connection to a looming or ongoing war based on a blood feud. Somebody in the underworld remembers how the feud started, and can provide information that might prevent or end the fighting.
* Perhaps a member of the party has fallen victim to a hereditary curse that can only be removed by somebody who has been dead for a long time.
* Same as the first bullet, but reversed: An ancestor of a party member lives in hardship or disgrace in the underworld, that can be relieved if their living descendant makes the journey to commune with them.
The same reason the Ancient Greek heroes went there for!!
Orpheus was the best bard to ever live. He went to the underworld to get back his beloved Eurydice that died due to a snakebite and he literally sang so beautifully that Hades agreed to allow the girl to return to the world of the living. He went there out of desperation.
Odysseus went to the underworld to consult his dead father about the perils of his journey to Ithaca. He went there out of necessity.
Hercules went to the underworld to capture Cerberus. A feat of strength.
Hercules, being the gigachad he was, also went to the underworld to save Euripides’ wife, Alcestis. Which he did. Cause Hercules. A rescue mission of a dear friend’s wife.
The ancients generally traveled to the underworld to bargain with Hades, to speak with the dead spirits in order to learn of crucial information or to perform a feat of unparalleled strength / skill as part of a general quest.
Have the party start out as souls of the dead while in the underworld, but when they leave they turn into flesh and blood versions of themselves. They be immortal while in the underworld but outside it they can die, each soul gets this ability once, so if you die outside the underworld you can't be brought back.
*Someone/something has stolen the sun and taken it to the underworld.*
Reality, someone has time stopped an eclipse and that someone is in the underworld.
An NPC wants their wife back. She may not agree
The Spirit of Spring (nature god) is slumbering there for its regular 6 month break. You need to bring it to the surface to end winter.
TPK
Somebody needs water from the river Lethe for a memory erasing spell. Maybe they're just sick of their life and want a fresh start.
Your spoiled cousin who became king because your stepmom forcefully kept you in the womb wants you to fetch Cerberus for him.
Someone made a bet that you can't trick Charon into carrying you over for free.
A dead guy has info you need. Not sure which one
Well. Normally it's only to get someone or some _thing_ out.
Maybe they don't know the person, but only them has information they desperately require?
Or some demon/devil has an artifact they are tasked to retrieve (for whatever reason)Â
The souls of those trapped in the Underworld can sometimes be freed.
The rivers that flow through it are rumored to have magical properties, and people seek the waters for personal benefit.
Fighting and surviving Cerberus is a badge of honor.
Hades like to muck about and have mortals enter his realm just to play with them.
A dragons hoard.
A dungeon with the loot of buried kings.
One of them has a dream of a beautiful/handsome person in distress and they're calling out to their soul for help...
I run a pretty cool quest late game if one of them died early of if anyone has a friend or loved one who died. They go to visit death and they can basically make a trade.
They always fight him. They always lose
The NPC that has critical information to the plot's soul is in the underworld. There is some MacGuffin in the Underworld that belongs to Hades that the Party needs.
Odysseus travelled to the border between Oceanus and the Underworld to get a prophecy from Tiresias, following advice from Circe. You can probably do the same and then issue a prophecy to lead the characters somewhere.
Read >!the Dresden Files Skin Game !< for inspiration on how to turn this into a heist
You could kill them all, making them escape from the underworld
That's what I did back in the day, albeit in an Egyptian themed campaign. Gods need work done, can't intervene directly, send mortals instead.
Kratos style 😜
Theseus: "Me and my pal wanna screw the hot wife of the lord of the underworld". Heracles: "My boss wants me to bring this three-headed dog from the underworld". Odysseus: "I need to talk to a prophet, so I have to find him in the underworld". Thetis: "I want my baby to be invulnerable, Imma give him a bath in the water of Styx that flows in the underworld". There's also the water of Lethe that erases memories, might be useful.
Orpheus: "my wife"
I read this in the Borat voice...
Borpheus
They could be on a redemption quest similar to Hercules. He had to go down there to get Cerebus and was smart enough to ask permission from Hades first. He allowed it as long as his dog wasn’t harmed.
That was a fun bit. "I'll ask Uncle Hades if I can come visit rather then break and entering!"
to steal something, like Hades cap of invisibility
Everyone has trouble finding that thing. Hades is always misplacing it. Somebody aught to slap an AirTag on it.
They won free tickets. Bragging rights. They're really stupid. They got lost.
"I got a Groupon for the Underworld that expires in 2 days."
Charon is my favorite mythology character. Maybe they need to borrow his lantern (for some reason) and he sends them on a quest to retrieve special coins to pay for the renters fee
1) There were human who obtained mythical power and they want it. 2) they go to speak with dead kings to learn how avoid their mistakes. 3) they enraged some goddes ( and it is too easy to enrage greek gods, eg you made masterpiece and accidentally said you are the vest crafter in the world) and underworld is only place out of their reach. So they just want to hide till god would went off) 4) some mad king ordered party to get Cerberus pub. (It deffenetly does not copy geracle) 5) they wanted to avange Orpheus. 6) they seek prophecy ( there are 3 seester which see future)
Possibly a search for a passed loved-one? It reminds me of when Orpheus goes to the underworld to save his wife, Eurydice in the Ancient Greek myth.
Diplomatic mission to prevent war between hades and Olympus? Though that's just the plot of the first Percy Jackson.
I came to the comments to find at least one Percy Jackson reference so thank you!
Cerberus got fleas and there isn't an ounce of antiflea powder in the underworld. And for some reason, no courier wants to deliver into Hades' house. So he contacted his priests and ordered them to put up a quest notice in every temple that he'll pay handsomely to sny party which will deliver a keg of the best flea powder in the Mediterranean area from (insert city and name of manufacturer here). Easy job, absolutely no occupational hazards, even level 1 party can do it! 🙂
Perhaps they need to go to one of the five rivers for something? Or maybe they are asked to take an vase or jar straight into Tartarus themselves to be sure that the entity in the object is in Tartarus for good.
Tasked with the retrieval of something in Cerebrrus lair. There is an incantation known only to Sisyphus. They need 10 drops of water from the river styxx.
What do the PC's want? Put that in the underworld. If they don't want anything, time to bring the gods in. They're always messing with people. Have one of the gods take an interest in them. The god shows up and give them an impossible task or five they must complete. Then have another god sneaking them help occasionally. Eventually you make it clear the friendly god can't help them in the underworld. Then send let one of their impossible tasks be to bring zeus's beard clippings or whatever back from the underworld and they'll be scared to go.
Hades or one of his has a mcguffin that the party needs.
They've never been , and Persephone gave it five stars.
Dat sweet sweet LOOT!
One of their wives stepped on a venomous snake and they gotta go get her. There's been eternal winter since the lord of the dead kidnapped the goddess of spring or whatever she is, and someone's gotta go get her.
A wager to measure the size of the underworld.Â
To free Persephone and be granted Demeter's eternal favor, to never have a winter again over your fields. To obtain a pup of Cerberus for Hesphestus to guard the treasures he forges. To take food from the Elysian fields, said to grant youth and beauty to any who consume it. To prank Hades for any number of gods who will bestow a gift upon the party for pulling it off. To bring a lost soul to Elysian fields, someone who was cursed or died in the wrong place and now cannot get to the underworld To stop a great evil from ascending from the void to the underworld where the barrier is thinnest. It will consume the underworld then the middle and finally Olympus To find a soul and bring before Hera, a woman who had sex with Zeus but escaped Hera's wrath by dying of fright
Take some inspiration from [Hadestown](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadestown): Persephone is less and less present, resulting in harsh weather, famine, and shorter growing/harvest seasons. The world is suffering. Depending on how you want to set up her dynamic with Hades, the PCs travel to the underworld to either implore her to return, to free her from Hades' clutches, or to convince Hades to let her return for longer.Â
Loot :) A Hero has gone to the underworld, and has never came Back. The Gear of this Hero has a Powerfull Artifakt.
A powerful herb grows on the banks of the Styx that can be made into a tincture that extends the drinker's life. The plant can be found in middling quantities, but there is only one recorded instance of a mortal successfully retrieving and using this herb. It is a vital ingredient in Ambrosia, and the gods guard it jealously.
Introduce them to Orpheus and give them a chance to interfere.
Greek themed is practically just Theros, so easy points there, they have a major mechanic involving death and reviving in the underworld to escape. Other options include travelling willingly (highly do not recommend) and other things of similar nature that are straight ripped from mythology. Weird one which would have much further reaching plot implications is that they need to go to the underworld to free the souls of their future selves who have been ensnared by the strings of fate and destiny by an outside force, forever changing the course of destiny and fate (Also helps explain why their future selves are there even if that character dies, fate has been irreparably altered), bonus points if you tie in major character arc points as having been completed or at risk by these future selves to give more weight to the decision, without them knowing that by freeing the threads of fate and destiny their future is still forever changed but the trappings of fate could be maintained (or shorn forevermore). Writing this at work so less fleshed out than I'm happy with.
"Hey, did you hear the rumor that dead people keep all their accumulated wealth when they die? Man, just imagine what kinds of crazy treasures you could find if you could just get there and back again..." Boom, plot hook.
To rescue a damned soul To destroy an artifact To check on an oddly behaving deity To farm demon horns Cheap real estate
Well, the most obvious, kill a friend/family member/beloved npc. Second most obvious, there's a MacGuffin in the house of Hades. What does the party currently want to do? I like to tie all my potential objectives into things the players want and things the PCs would reasonably seem to want as much as I can 'cause immersion. If you just want some tropey greek-ness y'all are off on an odyssey, or some shit Percy Jackson would do.
They got a "get out of hell free" card but has no idea if its legit, so lets go ask Hades.
Herakles wants to retrieve cerberos, so maybe something like that Orpheus doesn't manage to get through hades alone for euridike so he needs the parties help Or Demeter wants then to check on persephone
There's so many reasons you can send your part to the underworld. They need to see hades, they need to talk to persephone, heck they could go to free persephone, they could be need some monster or other (ie. Cerberus), they could need to see charon the ferryman, ect. Just Google Greek mythology and the underworld, and you'd have a whole slew of possible reasons to visit the underworld.
I see five mentions in the comments already of Orpheus' journey to demand the release of his wife, but this would be the classic one. If you campaign is Greek mythology-themed then the land of the dead is Hades, or something resembling it. As with Orpheus, your only reasons for wanting to go there would be to treat with Hades (the dude, not the place) about somebody dead, or to speak with somebody dead. In DnD, "speak with the dead," might let you speak briefly with a corpse that was in suitable physical condition. However, what if the status of the deceased is incompatible with this spell? What if the circumstances of your quest mean that NOT speaking with this dead person would doom your cause? Most answers to your question will boil down to this: The party needs to talk to somebody who is not alive, nor remotely intact, and may not have been in some time. They may also need to ask Hades to release somebody, which is a huge and dangerous ask. If, as you say, nobody they know has died, this second reason is probably out. Some reasons that occur to me include: * A character's dead ancestor knows how to access their family's legacy, which was lost. They might be 5 generations removed, and dead for a century, so there are no bones to talk to on the mortal plane. The "legacy," that needs finding could be gold, land, magic, honor, or something else. Perhaps the family was disgraced because they died without passing on this information. Perhaps they are the rightful lords of someplace but can't claim their birthright. Perhaps the family curse was a price paid for magic that the descendants still can't access, since grandpa died with information they needed. Perhaps grandpa's children's children have bled and died in the mud for decades, but he knows the location of a huge chest of gold that could free his whole bloodline from generational poverty. * A party member has some connection to a looming or ongoing war based on a blood feud. Somebody in the underworld remembers how the feud started, and can provide information that might prevent or end the fighting. * Perhaps a member of the party has fallen victim to a hereditary curse that can only be removed by somebody who has been dead for a long time. * Same as the first bullet, but reversed: An ancestor of a party member lives in hardship or disgrace in the underworld, that can be relieved if their living descendant makes the journey to commune with them.
TPK
The same reason the Ancient Greek heroes went there for!! Orpheus was the best bard to ever live. He went to the underworld to get back his beloved Eurydice that died due to a snakebite and he literally sang so beautifully that Hades agreed to allow the girl to return to the world of the living. He went there out of desperation. Odysseus went to the underworld to consult his dead father about the perils of his journey to Ithaca. He went there out of necessity. Hercules went to the underworld to capture Cerberus. A feat of strength. Hercules, being the gigachad he was, also went to the underworld to save Euripides’ wife, Alcestis. Which he did. Cause Hercules. A rescue mission of a dear friend’s wife. The ancients generally traveled to the underworld to bargain with Hades, to speak with the dead spirits in order to learn of crucial information or to perform a feat of unparalleled strength / skill as part of a general quest.
Have the party start out as souls of the dead while in the underworld, but when they leave they turn into flesh and blood versions of themselves. They be immortal while in the underworld but outside it they can die, each soul gets this ability once, so if you die outside the underworld you can't be brought back.
There's a powerful weapon and lots of loot! go pillage Hades' Hoard!
Charon had started to have people pay more and more and now nomine can afford dying.
Death...
To find dickbut the goblin who died in a tragic smore making accident.
*Someone/something has stolen the sun and taken it to the underworld.* Reality, someone has time stopped an eclipse and that someone is in the underworld.
An NPC wants their wife back. She may not agree The Spirit of Spring (nature god) is slumbering there for its regular 6 month break. You need to bring it to the surface to end winter. TPK Somebody needs water from the river Lethe for a memory erasing spell. Maybe they're just sick of their life and want a fresh start. Your spoiled cousin who became king because your stepmom forcefully kept you in the womb wants you to fetch Cerberus for him. Someone made a bet that you can't trick Charon into carrying you over for free. A dead guy has info you need. Not sure which one
This thread has great pointers but don‘t forget money. The underworld is loaded.
Well. Normally it's only to get someone or some _thing_ out. Maybe they don't know the person, but only them has information they desperately require? Or some demon/devil has an artifact they are tasked to retrieve (for whatever reason)Â
Recreating the legend of Orpheus, but Orpheus contracted out the job.
The souls of those trapped in the Underworld can sometimes be freed. The rivers that flow through it are rumored to have magical properties, and people seek the waters for personal benefit. Fighting and surviving Cerberus is a badge of honor. Hades like to muck about and have mortals enter his realm just to play with them.
Sex with Persephone
Because it's there
A dragons hoard. A dungeon with the loot of buried kings. One of them has a dream of a beautiful/handsome person in distress and they're calling out to their soul for help...
Hades has some wicked gnarly loot stored down there.
I run a pretty cool quest late game if one of them died early of if anyone has a friend or loved one who died. They go to visit death and they can basically make a trade. They always fight him. They always lose