Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Emir 07-06-05, 05:27 AM	100 days in Abyss Check this out... We play 3.5e My players, all Lawful Good -Human Fighter 14 level -Human Wizard 12 level (Fighter’s cohort) -Human Half-Celestial Cleric level 10 -Trumpet Archon level 14 -Stone-slaughter Construct (CR 12) My players went to one of the Infinite Layers of Abyss (for some reason, nobody could enter this plane accept through portals nor can any teleportation be used in the plane) to locate one NPC and a mysterious book that has some long forgotten knowledge and the instructions on how to build a portal (similar to the way Golem Manuals work, accept you don’t need any material components, just to chant the words, but this doesn’t boost the construction, you still need to spend X number of days working on it)…and well...they encountered a Truly Horrid Umber Hulk. They had very bad luck and some bad moves and they almost got total party killed. Everybody got confused and they attacked each other, and at the end, everybody died, accept the Fighter and his cohort Wizard, which does not have any single spell left, may I add. Now, those two, wounded and without spells, are in the middle of Abyss. While no known way back home, they agreed to rest here in Abyss so that they could heal some wounds and regain their spells. Anyway, during their rest, they encountered a Horned Devil with four Lemures, which were also trying to find that mysterious book. Now since the Horned Devil knows that he needs some expendable allies because the path on retrieving that book isn’t easy, he offers the Fighter and the cohort Wizard to serve him, in exchange, he isn’t going to kill them, and maybe, if they prove worthy, he’ll corrupt them in half-fiends (willing or not ;) ). Of course, they accept and become slaves of the Horned Devil. And so, they journey off in Abyss and soon they do find the structure in which the book lies, after some encounter they finally find the book ! In the mean time, they encountered some creatures with DR X / Silver, so the Fighter used his silver sheen, is Stoneskined and he happens to have a Holy Greatsword ! Now, given the chance, even though slightly wounded, he attacks the not even injured Horned Devil (which is CR 16!) with his trusty crazy cohort Wizard. Well, I though that they didn’t stand a chance, but I was wrong. The Wizard cast Disintegrate, and he managed to penetrate through the SR, and the Horned Devil actually failed its save (he rolled a 4, +16 mod = 20, but the DC was 21), and the Fighter had some lucky rolls to hit the devil and lucky rolls to resist the Stun, they managed to kill the devil. But, unfortunately for the Fighter, he got hit by the Devil’s tail and has a Infernal Wound, which causes continuous blood loss (2 damage per round) until a Heal DC 24 or a cure spell with a caster level check DC 24 is conducted. And the Fighter has no way he can stop that wound accept with a few of his potions…And that’s were we stopped playing. Now, let’s assume that he somehow manages to stop the blood loss, he has no other way home accept for his Wizard to craft that portal using the book…But the problem is, it takes 100 days to do that ! And I must add, they have only a few trail rations left…Oh yeah, they have a Rakshaza as a prisoner, so they’ll try to use its help for them to stay alive, and since the Rakshaza has no other, it may even help, not sure yet, but hey ! Anyway, that’s all a nice heroic story, but what are they going to do in Abyss for a hundred days !!!!??? I have the following problems: -they need food and water. Since their food supply is very short, they will eat the other PCs dead bodies (yummie, cannibals), probably even the dead bodies of the Lemures, Horned Devil and the monsters they encountered. Also, they’ll try to hunt down other abyssal creatures that live there (in one WotC’s adventure, I read that Fiendish Bisons live in Abyss). How should I handle this ?? -they need water. There’s that river in Abyss that actually mad of unholy water. Can they drink that water ? Is there any other water supplies in Abyss ? How should I handle this ? random encounters. People, please. How on earth should I handle this ? I must add that the most of the days they’ll be in this structure in which they found that book, and the rest of the days, they’ll be out hunting. Now, please, I beg for your advise, help and so on. How should I handle one hundred days in the infernal Abyss ??? Oh yeah, if they manage, the are probably going to be faced with other problems like...going nuts, diseases, poisoned abyssal air and so on...Any ideas on how cannibalism is going to effect them ? Eating devils ? Please…
Hochi-min trail 07-06-05, 06:48 AM	Ok, rule number one: DO NOT EAT FIEND FLESH - doesn't it gve you some disease? And now, to continue: There are ponds in the abyss, since the place isn;t a wastelnd, but more of a huge swamp (at least that is how i see it). To find good drinking water, they need to get to water sources. You could simply add a water source next to them. Finding food can be done by killing the fiendish animals that drink from the water (this of course means that you decide they need to drink and don't give diseases, but i would give your players some slack myself). To Not-Being-Killed, i would suggest they begin building defenses around the tower they are in. Use dead beasts, stone, wood, whatver they find, to lock themselves up. They do need one small entrance to let them leave for food and water, and to be an escape route if someone does manage to come in. Now, what about the other players? are they planning to come back? You can let them enter th campaign by playing people who were stranded in the abyss as well, and by luck they find the fighter and wizard. Hope that helps, Hochi.
Emir 07-06-05, 07:17 AM	I've been reading the Book of Vile Darkness :D and I read that eating meat of evil outsiders causes the Soul Sickness, Fort save DC 23 or d6 Cha/Wis Anyway, you made a good point which I ignored...Even fiendish animals need to eat and drink too ;) That's going to be great help for my player...Although I imagine Abyss as some red soil wasterlands, with lots of acid pools, magma pools, unholy water around perhaps, and dirty ponds, with only decayed vegitables and such... now I've got the random encounter problem...I've got the Manual of the Planes and the Abyssal random encounters, but how ofter should I roll for one for a hundred days ? Note that they're only going to be outdoors for about an hour or two a day, just to hunt down, and the eventual intruder ;) Please help...
CJDragon 07-06-05, 07:26 AM	in the latest issue of dragon, it has about eating outsiders hearts, and it sais a DC 10+1/2HD+con modifier fortitude save was needed, or the person takes 1hp/HD of the creature damage. I'd use them rules for the eating of the outsiders... Would using that book mean that the wizard can't be interupted during the time he's working on it? If so then they are probably screwed.... I still say you should just put them out of thier misery, lol. Another point, are there any official rule for eating good outsiders? Since the dead PC's are a half celestial and an archon, maybe that has a side effect on them too... Edit: Oops, I don't have BoVD, so didn't know about that. Stick with them rules :P
Callista 07-06-05, 07:33 AM	Well, there are rules for Insanity in Unearthed Arcana. :D Yeah, they need to hole up somehow... put up defenses, maybe camouflage their presence altogether.. If the Wizard has spells that allow him to do this, so much the better... if you're being merciful, you could give him a scroll of the spell from a random encounter. Illusions also work. 100 days is a long time... you might actually be dealing with player boredom if they have to defend themselves in the abyss for 100 days. So here's what I suggest: Have them play it out until they get themselves established and get their defenses up. Skip most of the 100 days once they solve the major problems, then go to the last day or so, and have them attacked as they attempt to complete their work. Aside: Hmm, an all-LG party? Haven't seen that in a long time! What I don't have any ideas for: You're going to need to integrate the other players again... so does anyone else have ideas?: How do you add party members in the middle of the abyss?
Hochi-min trail 07-06-05, 07:35 AM	For the random encounters, since they don't have healing, i wouldn't give them an encounter everyday. However, weak encounters of low-level demons that happen to spring by can be used and won't be too much of a trouble. You can hev celestials come to their aid, since two of the group were celestials. This way the stand a chance where they are. For major encounters, i would bring them a few high-level demons only once every 10 days or so, cause if not they'll die after the second one fr the lack of faster healing than normal.
Szat 07-06-05, 08:13 AM	First off you shift both the Fighters and Wizards alignments and then you close your book and start a new campaign centered around rescuing a group of adventurers who foolishly entered the abyss and are now presumed dead. Short of a Deus Ex Machina you've painted yourself into a corner. Arguably there are some powerful fiends who could return them but at what cost? Not the mention the fact that the Abyss is a hotbed of activity, the random encounters spike dramatically as there are a multitude of wandering creatures about that are just waiting to eat stuff. They're going to have to find a hole. Build defenses and fend off attackers. When an attacker they can't fend off attacks they bolt out their escape route. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Eventually they'll gain levels and become powerful enough to escape or die trying. In the meantime make the other players play similar adventurers fighting for survival in an inhospitable environment. A cesspool of death where you can't trust anyone or anything and around every corner lurks death in a variety of unpleasant sharp, fanged, thorned, poisoned and pointy claws/teeth. The Abyss is meant to be terrifying so play it thus. Don't be afraid to regularly trounce the PCs and force them to flee. See how long it takes for them to all become CE and reward those that preserve their sanity and morality in a lawless and morality deficient world. But most of all instill a sense in them that all hope is lost and that they truly are damned.
Chobemaster 07-06-05, 09:05 AM	As to what the Abyss "is"...it has infinite layers, each different. This layer could be like the surface of Mars, or a glacier, or a jungle, or anything else, so in terms of what they can find, that's totally up to you. To the comment on alignment change...why? What chaotic or evil acts have they committed, other than betraying the oath to the devil? That would fall a paladin IMO, but hardly adequate to change alignments in and of itself. Agree they've got to fort up, no other strategy has as good a chance of succeeding. I wonder if any demons (or other devils, or daemons) are divining about this book? An ultroloth that learns it's been recovered might be interested in it...maybe he'll agree to send them home in exchange for the book. IMO, super-props to the PC's for enduring and adapting to accomplish the mission...but they bit off more than they could chew, and end up mostly failing, in the end, but live to fight another day.
Emir 07-06-05, 09:35 AM	Well, the chances of the Fighter and the Wizard ending up dead are great. But I don't want to just say, 'hey fellas, you died', I want at least a fair trial :) they're prolly going to die, but still ;) Ok, now I really need your help people, so listen up here and let's get some work done :) First of all, all of the old characters want their characters raised from the dead...And yes, this is the first time through out my DnD playing, DMing that I saw that all players are LG :) But check out the way they ended up :D I don't want to send help in the form of other characters wandering this plane or any other help...of course, if the random tables show that they encounter some sort of monster who is willing to cooperate, so be it, but otherwise, no. It's like sending in the deus ex machina, plus the odds of that happening in Abyss are like...zero ? And I don't want to merciful, especially in Abyss, the plane of doom and destruction ;) And in Abyss, I don't want to hold back monsters on the PC. His chance of survivor are very tight, and I don't want to make any adjustments depending on his level. If I did that, then Abyss would be what it should represent :) Ok, I'll describe this Abyssal layer of mine so that we could work out something: The temperature is above normal, so it's very hot...Not extremly hot so that one cannot bare, but still not a very fansy place for cold creatures, while fire ones may find it interesting. There's day and night, just like on the material plane. This plane was once a celestial plane of some sort, before hordes of demons invaded and took over the plane. But there are still some sort of good in the plane that the demons didn't manage to completly take over. Maybe Holy water can be encountered occasionaly, some part of the plane are good-alligned, some part shed with light, and the sort. Demon, devil and other creatures believe the plain is cursed, because of the true origin of the plane, so it inhabits only those who have no other place to go or those who happened to wander in by mistake, perhaps random portals or such. No teleportation magic works. Any attempt to Plane Shift in or out of the plane simply doesn't work, as well as any teleportation accros the plane. The only way in or out is through portals, which will remain unknown to the PCs, since they are extremly rare. Although they are crafting one themselve ;) Everything else is as normal (time,magic,etc) Now, I've told you everything about the plane. So...What kind of creatures could be encountered ? I never though that actually those plain details above would actually make a difference :) About the creatures...When taking in consideration the following factors: temperature, take into account that devils/demons/creatures believe that the place is cursed and there is no way to use teleportation magic...What do you think ? So how much encounters and what kind of encounters should one encounter here ? Of course, minor encounters won't even be battled, we'll just speed up those ones...
Zalak 07-06-05, 09:50 AM	Your pcs are going to die unless you deus ex machina them. Epic level parties can't survive in the abyss for long. Eating nearly anything on the plane will result in poisoning, cannibalism is assumed to be evil from the book of vile darkness, and if they actually drink from the styx, I say they'd die, no save. If this book is wanted by more then one demon, they will face concentrated attacks by more then one powerful demon leading hordes of underlings. Outsiders don't need to eat, sleep, or breathe, so they won't be affected by the total lack of food and other hazards, but most of the characters are mortal. Random encounters' frequency will depend on the particular layer and how populated it is. Even a nearly empty one will have patrols from other layers there for a number of reasons. If they eat any of the local vegetation, some kind of save vs. poison would be appropriate. Insanaity and alignment change would also fit the setting nicely. If they find a demon patrol, they'll probably be killed. Remember the summon tanar'ri ability and to play demons as smart as they are.
Emir 07-06-05, 10:16 AM	Well, the idea is that the plane isn't very populated, since many believe it is cursed. Cannibalism should be evil, but since this will be done ONLY if really needed to, I can see it through. Just like modern laws ;) And yes, they'll poison themselves, disease themselves, go nuts, for sure, maybe even switch allignments, but that's Abyss... My main problems are encounters ! They'll be out side maybe for a hour or so...And the occasional intruder...
Chobemaster 07-06-05, 10:43 AM	About the creatures...When taking in consideration the following factors: temperature, take into account that devils/demons/creatures believe that the place is cursed and there is no way to use teleportation magic...What do you think ? So how much encounters and what kind of encounters should one encounter here ? Of course, minor encounters won't even be battled, we'll just speed up those ones... No teleportation may be the PC's saving grace. Teleport is the last-resort for MANY of Demons...no intelligent creature will willingly go somewhere that their last line of defense is stripped from them except in dire circumstances...and what circumstances could be so dire as to have effect on the ultimate selfish cowards? Demons value NOTHING above their own skins. They would enter such an area knowingly only if faced with immediate death as the only other option...and constructing such a situation on a victim that can teleport isn't easy. If the plane is like a prison, then I'd expect you have a situation like the Ray Liotta movie where he's dropped off on a prison island...a brutal rule by the strong scenario...but only by the dregs of demonic society...it would take a lot for the tough demons to end up there. Efforts will be focused mainly on escape with making life as comfortable as possible until they escape as priority #2. Hunting for hiding mortals would be low on the priority list most likely. Unless word gets out the PC's have a means of escape....and then, the efforts of the whole infinite plane are going to be focused on them.
Phrennzy 07-06-05, 10:45 AM	What are the other players doing while those last two fight to survive? Since it was once a celestial plane - and some of that goodness remains - perhaps the plane itself reacts to the goodness of the two PCs and provides fresh water and edible plants. I wouldn't think the Abyss would have any water or food source that wasn't poisonous to normal folk. The Abyssal Wound is a big deal. 2 points each round? That's 28800 hit point lost in a day. I doubt he has the potions for that. You might be lenient and allow him to use a tourniquat (SP?) to isolate the blood loss (assuming it was an arm or leg that was hit) in exchange for a penalty to DEX. (Edit: The following ideas came without me noticing the level of the wizard was only 12th. I thought he was 14th. That changes some ideas a bit. Unless he has scrolls...) Another option to stop the blood loss is for the wizard to cast Flesh to Stone. While this isn't the greatest solution, it beats dying. A Break Enchantment spell later carries no risk of system shock like Stone to Flesh. If the wizard has Limited Wish, he could easily use that to stop the bleeding and return the fighter to full health. Sure, it's burning XP, but its worth it. The wizard is in the best position to secure shelter. They only need to last the night. He should memorize every type of helpful/travel/escape spell. (Are they considered extra-planar creatures while visiting another plane? If so, a simple Dismissal spell has an 80% chance of sending them home, and a 20% chance of sending the target to another plane) And speaking of "Sending" there is another good spell for getting some help - or at least contacting the heroes allies back home and explaining what's happened. Dream will also work to communicate. Permanent Image will help greatly with the shelter. If the wizard has Mordenkainen's Magnificiant Mansion, then everything is A.O.K. This spell will last 32 hours per casting, and provides food too. Plus the door can't normally be seen, and if the door is placed in an out of the way spot, the chances of being noticed are much smaller. False Vision is a good spell to aid in remaining undetected. The wizard could also escape by casting Ethereal Jaunt, then Planeshift from the Ethereal Plane to go back home. This screws the fighter - but once he's in stone form, he won't mind. While you don't want the Deus Ex, you do want the game sessions to be fun. If the Wiz/Fighter make attempts to contact any allies, be a little lenient so you can get the other players back in the game - even if they are only playing Temporary NPCs. If the PCs can secure a shelter in a reasonably well thought out way, I would reduce the chances of any random encounters appropriately. 100 days is a very long time. Dont make them sweat each day while you roll and roll and roll for encounters. Come up with one or two meaningful encounters and use those. Perhaps an extraplanar explorer finds their shelter (he is inquisitive, and uses True Seeing all the time) and offers them a ride home for an exhobitant amount - Everything they have, including the wizard's spellbook and the their clothes. Celestial Forces would be more than willing to help them out. After all, how often do you run into 5 Lawful Good adventurers? "Of course, it will take some time to power up my plane shifting portal. And it may attract attention - if you can hold off the oncoming horde while I adjust it, that'd be great." Give the portal 20 round to activate. After 4 rounds a few lesser demons show up, followed in a few rounds by a few more, follwed by a few more a few rounds later until in the last two rounds the Marilith or Nalfeshnee or someother Big Baddy shows up to try and stop the portal. The escape should be scary and not a sure thing, but make this whole trip over soon. Once the Wiz & Ftr are back, they can open a portal to retrieve the corpses of their friends.
Phrennzy 07-06-05, 01:00 PM	By the way...what was the exit strategy in the first place, if plane shifting off doesn't work? Did they have a way out before? And why can't the fighter and wizard make use of it?
Always-Late 07-06-05, 01:16 PM	Every day, use Summon Monster VI to summon a janni. Have it cast create create food and water. Dismiss. Eat. If you need healing, use Summon Monster VI to summon a bralani. Have it cast cure critical wounds twice. Dismiss (and quickly, since the abyssal lords probably have a way to detect good outsiders in the abyss.) Rope trick might solve the shelter problems easy.
Emir 07-06-05, 06:51 PM	Anyone else ?
WindupBird 07-06-05, 11:03 PM	Sounds like the players are hosed. You mention that teleportation is impossible on the plane, so is plane shift. Are all sorts of extra planar travel impossible, i.e. summoning monsters, becoming ethereal? If so then the players have some advantages that go along with that. Someone already mention that devils won't want to hanh around a place that they can't easily escape and thus die, nor will devils be able to gate in help. I cannot imagine characters staying put in the Abyss will survive 100 days, minor devils will find them and alert their superiors and soon the place they holed up will become surrounded by all sorts of evil things. Devils will assume that they are dealing with much more powerful characters than they actually are and overkill will be the result. I recommend changing the adventure into "crawling out of the abyss" instead of "defending a tower in the abyss for 100 days" the first has the advantage of being continually fresh, stressful, and over sooner (one way or another...) have the Rakshasa be the DM mouth piece of advice, "Cut off your friends fingers for resurrection then barter their bodies off to some stupid devils" First give the players a chance, have their prisoner, the Rakshasa, have a way to heal the fighters wound, either with a magic item(generous DM) or using its heal skill (give it one) if that is too heavy handed replace one of its sor spells with owls wisdom, heal dc 24 isn't impossible untrained. Make it obvious the players can't stick around, have swarms of low level devils begin too surround them with an obvious implication that more will show up. Since the plane has some remants of being good (interesting) presumably there are good things in the plane somewhere... I would forgo random encounters and create custom devils chasing the players through custom locals till they stumble through enough custom portals to find a way out. The other players want to be raised? I would say too bad, no way the two living characters could carry them around, and if they figure out a way, have one of the encounters involve bargaining (the players can give up dead comrads to advance or remain stuck and probably die with them) If you follow the suggestion of having the players try to escape from the abyss instead of waiting for 100 days i suggest creating encounters with multiple solutions, try avoid situations totally unacceptable to a LG ( i.e. BBEG: "give us your friends or die") instead create situtations where they can hedge their bets and perhaps begin to take hits to their alignment (BBEG: "If you give me some of those magic items i'll tell you a location of a portal") In the end have the players survive but fail, they lose some of their comrades and the book they came for but one or both survive to return home only now to fix the problem that in x days a portal from the abyss to their home world will open letting in endless hordes of devils. (have some powerful celestial mention that the book was more or less safe in the abyss because only good aligned characters could of activated it...)
Purkake 07-07-05, 03:06 AM	The wound isn't really a problem even if you have a potion of CMW, it is essentially a spell in a bottle so it will stop the bleeding, if a cure spell would stop it. I agree with everyone else here, GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE, and having ANY kind of help, ESPECIALLY celestial, is VERY unlikly. So maybe they find a scroll of haste with long duration or something cool like the heart of the layer that is still partly good. And BTW: HOW IN THE WORLD is a (formerly)GOOD plane a part of the abyss, like WTH? And now that i think about it WTH are DEVILS(LE outsiders coming from the 9 hells, like lemures and horned DEVILS) doing there, DEMONS(CE otsiders native to the abyss) live here and HATE devils
SodaGuy 07-07-05, 03:37 AM	Maybe they just find a different portal out?
MinusInnocence 07-07-05, 04:33 AM	The wound isn't really a problem even if you have a potion of CMW, it is essentially a spell in a bottle so it will stop the bleeding, if a cure spell would stop it.That depends on how many potions the Fighter has. Sure, he could get lucky on the first one but if you read the MM about the Horned Devil's "Infernal Wound," you have to succeed on a DC24 CASTER LEVEL check. If Emir is rolling generic treasure for his game, a Potion of Cure Serious Wounds requires CL5. So, generically speaking, CSWs and CCWs just allow the Fighter the CHANCE to succeed, it's not a sure thing. Once those potions run out, though... the Fighter should be dead within a few minutes. And BTW: HOW IN THE WORLD is a (formerly)GOOD plane a part of the abyss, like WTH?If you read MotP, it has a little bit to say about planes absorbing parts of other planes. I think part of Mechanus was once a layer of Elysium or one of the other good planes. This usually has to do with the alignment of the plane shifting, sending it cascading somewhere else. At the very least, if a plane started to slip on the Good/Evil axis, it would make it much more corruptible by the forces of darkness. And now that i think about it WTH are DEVILS(LE outsiders coming from the 9 hells, like lemures and horned DEVILS) doing there, DEMONS(CE otsiders native to the abyss) live here and HATE devilsI don't care if the book the PCs were looking for was on the first layer of Celestia, if it can open up portals without any resources being spent it would be VERY useful for the Blood War. Of course, I would hate to be the fiend actually sent on that recovery mission... it doesn't seem like success was ever a sure thing. Maybe that Horned Devil made the wrong enemy back home and this was his chance to "redeem" himself (no pun intended).
gamefiend 07-07-05, 12:46 PM	OK, here's another wacky idea from gamefiend that you can discard: Personally, I love turning crazy things gone bad into minicampaigns in and of themselves. What I would do is make a group of PCs for the ones who are dead (or even better, have some entities possess the dead bodies). Give the new PCs backstory and motivations and have them meet up with the Wizard and Fighter. The entities should be lawful good themselves, so they are of a likemind to the players. They help the Wizard and the Fighter, then request help with their mission (I'm not going to be too specific; use whatever fits in your campaign best). If the entities possess the dead players, there might be chance that they become "stuck" and merged with the other PC, essentially transforming the player into something new, but making for potentially interesting rping if the old PC starts to re-emerge. What you have here is a chance to make the tale (which sounds very cool and interesting already) into something truly truly great. Don't waste it with a prolonged TPK.
WizardlyFriend 07-07-05, 01:17 PM	0 level cleric spells. you have a 10th level cleric, at that point eating and drinking shouldnt be worried about that much.
Phrennzy 07-07-05, 02:03 PM	0 level cleric spells. you have a 10th level cleric, at that point eating and drinking shouldnt be worried about that much. Except that the cleric is dead. Otherwise, spot on! :thumbsup:
Always-Late 07-07-05, 02:42 PM	Some summonable creatures have special abilities, like the bralani or the janni. This takes care of food and healing. Oh, by the way... "The continuing hit point loss can be stopped by a DC 16 Heal check, a cure spell, or a heal spell." Do any of you have ranks in heal?
ArtEChoke 07-07-05, 04:03 PM	If I got the story correctly, the Abyssal layer can only be left via a portal, and even the demon natives are trapped there? Maybe try having the players who's PCs die, each pick a demon to play. Anything with a lower HD than their player characters had (Anything from a Glabrezu, Hezrou, etc., right down to a quasit, if they want). The idea being, that once the locals are aware of the Horned Devil being slain, which was the baddest thing around, and an enemy of the demons, they now feel more comfortable searching out the book which can get them out of that particular layer. Now, perhaps a group of demons could kill the remaining two characters, but they don't have the skill and/or knowledge to build and activate the portal. If they can be convinced that the PC's are needed to get it up and running, they can act as bodyguards from the less considerate locals (or other demons who can build the portal on their own... maybe an ambitious Marilith is in the area?) That would give the fighter and wizard 100 days to figure out how they're going to survive the undeniable betrayal at the hands of the demons when the portal is finished. Then at the end of it all, you get the pleasure of refereeing a free-for-all between your players. It could be a fun way to get all the players active again, even if in unusual and very temporary roles. Another option is to similarly have the other players create some demon characters, but have each of them plan an attack on the surviving players camp, and play them out. One assault for each session (doesn't have to be every game day though), and see which of the players gets the right strategy to killing the remaining guy. If the fighter's defenses hold out through all of the attacks, he completes the portal and escape. Provided the fighter survives his infernal wound, the game could get very interesting. Have fun.