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[Egan_BW]

Naturally, they would have to go into contract with THAT devil.

[Rolan7]

That'd be a good fallback, actually, because the devils have a secret reason to want to do that- according to 3.5's Fiendish Codex 2, every deal is building a secondary case for their mortal souls.

It is also possible for a defendant to win her case on merit, only to suffer condemnation to the Nine Hells on unrelated grounds if her corruption score or obeisance score (see page 30) equals or exceeds 9. Much diabolical laughter then ensues.

Currently I think they're fine- the corrupt act would have been allowing the devils to run amok.  They... didn't play along

So maybe a devil offers them a really good deal to get them out of this.  But what corrupt action could a devil convince the party to actually perform?  "Stealing from the needy", unlikely and low-value.  "Torture", "Murder", no way...
How about "Perverting justice for personal gain"
I've gotten distracted but basically- if a "third party" devil can convince the party to cheat at trial, that's secretly corrupting them.

Two ways I could see that going:
An actual rival in the devil hierarchy gives the party blackmail material... or maybe just lies for their benefit (if they don't call out the lies, they're complicit).  This is tricky because devils are lawful creatures, but they're also constantly scheming against each other so I'm not sure what they're physically capable of.

A "rival" does the above, and it seems to work, but it's actually a collaborator working with The Alchemist to play the long game on their souls.  The case is intentionally lost, but legally, and for evil purposes.

It's not (RAW) nearly enough corruption to actual damn them, but maybe it's still something the devils would do and it gives the party a temporary reprieve if they were otherwise losing the case.  If they figure out that they're corrupted, the atonement spell can help but maybe they need to demonstrate they regret breaking the law.  since this is infernal law, that might be very difficult

[Egan_BW]

Cleanse your corruption by atoning sincerely for cheating hell, which naturally causes more corruption itself.

Actually, how *would* cheating at hell cause corruption and bring you closer to the LE plane? Lying to bad people for good reasons is literally CG.

[Rolan7]

Cleanse your corruption by atoning sincerely for cheating hell, which naturally causes more corruption itself.

Actually, how *would* cheating at hell cause corruption and bring you closer to the LE plane? Lying to bad people for good reasons is literally CG.

Ooh this is why I enjoyed reading the Fiendish Codex 2 just for lore stuff.  Devils are LE yeah, and theoretically their reason for existence is to enforce the law...  but not to promote the law.  They want mortals to break the law because that's how they get souls, and souls mean personal advancement in the devil hierarchy.

Asmodeus would probably say it's all for a good vital cause- those souls fuel the eternal war against the infinite forces of chaos (demons).  According to the devils, the gods created them for this war and then got all whiny when they got pragmatic about waging it.  Reminder that devils and angels are essentially the same creatures, and some devils are literally fallen angels.  Demons are *not*, haha.  The Fiendish Codex 2 says demons were just always there, and that everything that *is* is simply a tiny zone carved out of that infinite chaos.  But they're explicitly framing the story in a way that centers their importance and justifies their actions- and only Asmodeus and the gods know how much of the story is even true. 

And then the fey/eladrin are something else altogether, depending on setting probably.  I know more about guardinals which are celestials but somehow neutral regarding law/chaos- so, still essentially angels, but NG (and almost always furries lol).  Eladrin appear to be a different creature from angels/guardinals/devils.
tldr; Lying to devils isn't an evil act at all- however, devils can still claim mortals for being unlawful enough when divine law (such as pacts) are involved, even if they knew the mortals would be unlawful.  Devil justice doesn't have any problem with entrapment actually DX

The Pact Primeval between devils and the gods empowers them to do that "in defense of divine law".  (dunno how that works with chaotic gods, but I think the gods maintain a general alliance against demonic victory since even chaotic evil gods value their own existence, and demons would eventually destroy everything)

[Egan_BW]

I thought that "outside of everything that is" is where the eldritch horror enemies come from, which are not demons. :p
Hmm, I suppose that with a lot of different planes making up reality, there could be different directionality or different meanings of what the Outside is? Like in one sense the outside is infinite chaos filled with demons, but in a different sense the outer realms are outside, or maybe the more vital planes are on the inner edge and the material plane emanates from it...

[Criptfeind]

Probably some of that and some of the fact that D&D cosmology depends on which setting your running.

[Kagus]

Probably some of that and some of the fact that D&D cosmology depends on which setting your running.

Yeh. It was my understanding that you basically have the various elemental and material planes that exist sorta within the greater astral plane (inasmuch as a potentially-infinite dimension can be "within" something else), and then beyond the edges of the (also infinite) astral plane you start getting into the far realms. The Abyss is infinite, yes, but it's also just as much its own separate, "contained" dimension as Inferno et al.

Then again, I can't say I ever really dug that deeply into D&D cosmology, so most of that's pulled directly from my ass plane.

[Rolan7]

Haha, same here really.  We mostly stuck to Elysium and the elemental planes when we got high-level, though we had to go to Baator once and it sucked.

(later in 5e we did a module about trekking through hell at low level.  I think the 8th circle?  It was interesting, the devils were fairly polite since we "didn't belong here yet".  I think we mostly fought infernal ants and birds and those recently-digested souls)

Probably some of that and some of the fact that D&D cosmology depends on which setting your running.

That and I think even the Fiendish Codex 2 implies that the devil story isn't the *whole* story.  It's a legend in-universe.  I doubt it's entirely untrue, since Asmodeus was there and allows devils to tell it, but... I mean it frames devils as noble guardians, wrongly vilified, essentially responsible for all of existence.  How convenient

The topography of planes in relation to each other is always weird (particularly when they're "close" and form natural or stable gates??).  The eldritch planes definitely seem more Outside than most Outsiders, heh.  But IIRC they aren't typically chaotic- they're vast and alien, about as metaphorically far from the Material Plane as you can be, yet they share its mix of order and chaos.

I just realized the devil legend starts in an interesting way.  First there's infinite primordial chaos (including demons, who DO have some form...) and then: "A state of raw chaos was intolerable to the universe, so a force arose to combat it—the power of law." [the first gods]

Uh-huh.  There was only a primal force of creation and destruction, and then suddenly there were gods- and they definitely totally 100% didn't come from the chaos.  Suuuuure.  The beings which profit by fighting chaos couldn't possibly have a warped view of whatever happened there.

[Digital Hellhound]

I might need to get my hands on the Fiendish Codex 2, since it appears to have very juicy stuff for our Hellish detour. Thanks for all the ideas!

But yeah, trying to figure out DnD cosmology in 5e is doomed to failure. The 5e books which talk about gods and timelines are Forbidden Realms-focused and even there not very detailed, but supposedly the universe is bigger than that. It doesn't help that the big wiki is extremely unclear and contradictory about everything. It tries to form some kind of coherent timeline across editions out of conflicting information for some godawful reason. Also, it's written in the past tense which annoys me immensely.

5e Spelljammer also made the decision to scrap the old lore for the most part and provide minimal explanations for its new setting. Do all planes exist in every Wildspace system/world? Are there separate Shadowfells and Feywilds for each world? Do the gods exist everywhere? What are these celestial domains drifting around the Astral Plane, where gods apparently live - except separate Outer Planes that you can enter through color pools also still exist? So many questions, absolutely no answers.

I've just stitched together my own version of how everything works (mixing 4e material, Planescape stuff, the barebones 5e Spelljammer lore and my own ideas). Definitely going back to full homebrew settings after this campaign, lol.

[Loud Whispers]

One possible addition you could do as a little side-quest is demand a jury of their peers. Whether that means kidnapping mortals from other planes or choosing devils and demons most alike the party in personality could be up to them.

Devil prosecutor: "The defendants stand accused of breaching the terms of their contract and assaulting servants of Keresiar with intent to cause mortal harm,"
Yugoloth on jury duty: "Haha, nice. Fuck you Keresiar,"

An Egyptian scales of Anubis type thing would also be neat. So they could weigh up the morals of your players and the more lawful-evil they are the more the court will look favourably upon them as a respectable mortal with a nice, dark and diabolical future career ahead of them

And one inconsequential detail, that I just think is flavourful. It'd be nice if you have in the background a devil-clerk who is a living book, who keeps writing down all of the proceedings as a court transcript in their own internal organ-pages

[Digital Hellhound]

One possible addition you could do as a little side-quest is demand a jury of their peers. Whether that means kidnapping mortals from other planes or choosing devils and demons most alike the party in personality could be up to them.

Devil prosecutor: "The defendants stand accused of breaching the terms of their contract and assaulting servants of Keresiar with intent to cause mortal harm,"
Yugoloth on jury duty: "Haha, nice. Fuck you Keresiar,"

An Egyptian scales of Anubis type thing would also be neat. So they could weigh up the morals of your players and the more lawful-evil they are the more the court will look favourably upon them as a respectable mortal with a nice, dark and diabolical future career ahead of them

And one inconsequential detail, that I just think is flavourful. It'd be nice if you have in the background a devil-clerk who is a living book, who keeps writing down all of the proceedings as a court transcript in their own internal organ-pages

I love these. I think I could even them choose someone for the jury if they can justify their choice as being a peer - one of the party is hosting the essence of a god, so that could get interesting. The kind of weighing up morals could be nice, though they'd still have to clear the charges - it'd be more of a character witness kind of thing.

Book devil will be screaming horrifically from pain every time they transcribe something with the locals just smiling along. Alternatively, the devils could be using the flesh of still-living damned souls as their parchment.

I also just realized one of the party has a devil they almost took up a pact with in their backstory. They'll definitely offer to sponsor the defense!

[Great Order]

I can imagine the jury using jury nullification and the devils just sitting there absolutely dumbfounded because nobody's ever done that to them.

[Loud Whispers]

I love these. I think I could even them choose someone for the jury if they can justify their choice as being a peer - one of the party is hosting the essence of a god, so that could get interesting. The kind of weighing up morals could be nice, though they'd still have to clear the charges - it'd be more of a character witness kind of thing.

Does it count as a conflict of interest if you get a shard of a god to sit in the jury judging a host of another shard of the same entity?

Book devil will be screaming horrifically from pain every time they transcribe something with the locals just smiling along. Alternatively, the devils could be using the flesh of still-living damned souls as their parchment.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

:]

I also just realized one of the party has a devil they almost took up a pact with in their backstory. They'll definitely offer to sponsor the defense!

Get the best defence lawyer money can't buy!

I can imagine the jury using jury nullification and the devils just sitting there absolutely dumbfounded because nobody's ever done that to them.

"We maintain that any devil who can be swindled and cheated in contracts is no devil at all, therefore no crime has been committed"

[Digital Hellhound]

I also just realized one of the party has a devil they almost took up a pact with in their backstory. They'll definitely offer to sponsor the defense!

Get the best defence lawyer money can't buy!

For sure. They can get Sul Skewertongue, falxugon master defense attorney, to help them with their case. I'm going to try to re-enact this scene in an infernal courtroom. I've a mind to have him suggest the 'cheat at the trial (so we get corruption points on you)' thing - he'll immediately proceed to reveal the cheating before the court, but only to argue that such accomplished and daring cheaters should be embraced as the future pride of Hell and thus cleared of all charges for the time being. Because you absolutely should not trust your devil lawyer, even if they win you the case.

[Grim Portent]

I would have gone with a Lionel Hutz inspired Imp for their attorney myself. An incompetent lawyer, other than being a source of levity, puts more of the onus on the players to find their own argument for why the case should be thrown out or ruled in their favour.