Escaping the Pit in Infernum—or breaking out of Greenwood’s Nine Hells—is never clean. The threshold between Hell and the mortal realm is a bio-mechanical shear zone, and the Pit always leaves its mark. Whether physical mutation, spiritual contamination, infernal pursuit, or psychological scarring, something follows every escapee back through the portal.
This table is designed for d20/d100 dark fantasy, OGL/3.5e, or SIEGE Engine campaigns (such as Infernum or Amazing Adventures). Roll 1d100 whenever a character successfully exits Hell into the mortal world or another plane. This is a follow up for
OSR Adventure & Commentary - Can Amazing Adventures rpg be played with Mongoose's D20 Infernum rpg!? And The Nine Hells, Part 1 & 2 by Ed Greenwood from Dragon magazine issue 75?!
d100 Random Consequences of Escaping Hell
01–15: Physical & Biomechanical Mutations
Ash-Lung: Your breath constantly exhales a fine, cold volcanic ash. You suffer a permanent –1 penalty to Stealth when hiding silently.
Hellfire Scars: Your scars glow like cooling embers (faint red light in dark settings). Cold damage heals 1 point slower per die.
Iron-Skin Patches: Portions of your skin fuse into rusted, metallic plating. +1 natural AC, but you take 1 extra point of damage from lightning/electrical attacks.
Blood-Solder: Your blood thickens to black, oily sludge. You are immune to normal bleeding effects, but magical healing heals 2 fewer hit points per casting.
Sulfuric Sweat: When under physical exertion, your sweat secretes a mild sulfuric acid that tarnishes silver and burns paper or fine cloth.
Bone-Spurs: Jagged obsidian or bone protuberances burst through your joints. Natural unarmed strikes deal 1d4 piercing damage, but wearing heavy armor causes constant discomfort.
Phantom Tail/Vestigial Limb: You sprout a withered, non-functional barbed tail or vestigial third arm that twitches when demons or devils are nearby (within 60 ft).
Eye of the Pit: One of your eyes transforms into an oily, pupil-less black sphere with darkvision 120 ft, but bright daylight causes light sensitivity in that eye (–1 to Perception/spotting in bright sun).
Infernal Brand: An intricate House coat of arms or infernal rune burns itself into your palm or chest. It cannot be obscured by non-magical cosmetics.
Gilded Teeth: All your teeth fall out and are replaced over 24 hours by jagged brass or iron teeth that can bite for 1d3 damage.
Barbed Tongue: Your tongue becomes split and lined with tiny chitinous barbs. You can speak Infernal natively, but sweet foods taste like dust and decay.
Smoke-Veins: Your veins show black against your skin like ink. When bleeding, smoke rises from the wounds.
Cold-Blooded: Your body temperature drops to near-freezing. You no longer show up on heat-based thermal perception, but suffer –2 on Fortitude/Con saves against cold environments.
Fused Shadow: Your shadow moves slightly out of sync with your body, occasionally extending sharp talons or horns when you aren't looking directly at it.
Husk-Flesh: Your skin feels cold, dry, and leathery like a preserved corpse. You gain resistance to non-magical disease, but animals instinctually fear or hate you.
16–30: Spiritual & Arcane Contamination
Soul-Leached: You leave a cold draft behind you wherever you walk. Small hearth fires dim or extinguish when you enter a room.
Demon-Attractor: Fiends within 1 mile can sense your presence as a lingering scent of spilled brimstone.
Unsanctified Ground: Holy water burns your skin as if it were acid (dealing 1d4 damage), and stepping onto consecrated ground causes mild nausea.
Curse of the Sinner: You radiate a faint aura of corruption. Paladins, Clerics, or Detect Evil spells register you as an evil outsider, regardless of your actual alignment.
Ether-Spill: Whenever you cast a spell, a brief whiff of ozone and charred flesh fills a 15 ft radius.
Soul-Tether: A faint, invisible ethereal chain remains fastened to your breastbone. Ethereal or extraplanar entities can follow this tether directly to you.
Inverted Reflection: Mirrors do not reflect your physical body; instead, they reflect a twisted, demonic version of your soul.
Brimstone Footprints: Plants and small vegetation wither beneath your boots within 24 hours of walking across them.
Flickering Halo: A faint, broken ring of dark, anti-light hovers over your head during nights of a new moon.
Dead Magic Magnet: When targeted by beneficial spells, there is a 10% chance the spell fizzles out, absorbed by the lingering planar residual void around you.
Haunted Shadows: Unintelligent undead (skeletons, zombies) ignore you unless provoked, mistaking you for a denizen of the underworld.
Hell’s Resonance: Sound vibrates oddly around you. Your voice carries an unsettling harmonic echo, imposing –2 to Persuasion checks with righteous NPCs.
Static Corruption: Simple electronic or mechanical devices (clocks, compasses, lanterns) flicker, misalign, or malfunction within 5 feet of you.
Arcane Burnout: Arcane spellcasters who attempt to read your mind or inspect your soul must make a Will/Wis save or take 1d6 mental damage from the hellish feedback.
Unquiet Ground: Earth and mud loosen under your weight; buried corpses within 10 feet shift or groan in their graves as you pass by.
31–45: Psychological & Sensory Aftereffects
Screaming Silence: Absolute silence terrifies you. If you enter a zone of total silence, you must make a Will/Wis save or become panicked for 1d4 rounds.
Phantom Agony: Every night at midnight, you experience 1 round of intense phantom pain where your escape wound was inflicted.
The Hunger of the Pit: Normal food satisfies your caloric needs, but tastes like ash. You crave raw meat, iron-rich marrow, or bitter gall.
Paranoia of the Chain: You cannot abide being tied, restrained, or wearing tight jewelry/heavy collars without making a save against claustrophobia.
Whispers in the Wind: You constantly hear low, ambient whispers in Infernal rating the sins of the people around you.
Insomnia of the Damned: You can only sleep for 2–3 hours at a time before waking up from visions of screaming soul-furnaces.
False Light Phobia: Bright sunlight feels blinding and oppressive. You prefer dark, subterranean, or heavily shaded environments.
Blood-Scent: You can smell fear and spilt blood up to 300 feet away, but it distorts your ability to smell floral or pleasant scents.
Obsessive Hoarding: You compulsively collect small trinkets, bones, or metal scraps, convinced you will need them to barter for your life again.
Name-Dread: Hearing your true birth name spoken aloud causes a momentary involuntary shudder and –1 on your next d20 roll.
Hyper-Vigilance: +2 bonus to initiative, but you can never drop your guard during rest, requiring twice as long to gain the benefits of a full rest.
Merciless Instinct: When an enemy surrenders, you must make a Will/Wis save to resist striking them down immediately out of sheer survival reflex.
Language Bleed: When stressed, angry, or startled, you blurt out violent phrases in ancient dialectical Infernal rather than your native language.
Illusion of Safety: You no longer trust closed doors or secure rooms, feeling safer out in the open or hiding in narrow crawlspaces.
Loss of Empathy: You find human tears or pleas for mercy mildly perplexing or annoying. –2 on Diplomacy checks involving emotional appeals.
46–60: Pursuers, Anchors & Infernal Debts
Huntsman’s Mark: A lower-tier Fiend/Huntsman is assigned to track you down. It manifests in the mortal realm every full moon.
Bounty of the House: A specific Great House (or Archdevil) has placed a soul-bounty on your head. Imp or quasit spies follow you secretly.
Collateral Anchor: Someone you loved while alive is now held in your place in the Pit as punishment for your escape.
Contractual Debt: You escaped, but you left behind an unpaid contract. Every 30 days, 10% of any gold/wealth you acquire vanishes into thin air.
Soul-Tracker: A minor imp is physically fused to the back of your collar or cloak as an invisible, silent observer.
Forged Key: The method you used to escape left a micro-rift open. Small vermin and minor hell-bugs spill out of your shadow once a week.
Marked for Recapture: Hellhounds can track your scent across planes, ignoring standard illusion/disguise spells.
Rival Escaper: Another soul escaped alongside you, but they are corrupted and actively framing you for their mortal atrocities.
The Collector's Toll: An infernal tax collector periodically sends dream-messages demanding you return specific artifacts or souls to settle your tab.
Vassal Debt: A rival House Lord considers your escape a personal insult and sends flesh-bound construct assassins every time you reach a major city.
Stolen Artifact: You accidentally carried a small piece of infernal tech or a dark relic out with you. It pulses with dark power and draws collectors.
Breach Warrant: Celestial or angelic forces treat you as a dimensional anomaly and seek to imprison or quarantine you to prevent contamination.
Bound Companion: A minor devil's consciousness is trapped inside one of your non-magical items (e.g., your dagger, belt, or boots), constantly giving bad advice.
Chrono-Slip: You escaped, but time moved differently in the Pit. You return 1d10 years later (or earlier) than when you left.
Planar Tether: If you are ever knocked unconscious (0 HP), your spirit is briefly pulled back to the brink of the Pit before revivifying.
61–75: Environmental & Spatial Distortions
Gravity Drag: You feel 1.5x heavier than normal. Your speed is reduced by 5 feet, but you get +2 against being pushed/tripped.
Rust-Aura: Non-magical iron and steel items kept on your person corrode and rust twice as fast as normal.
Ozone Trail: A sharp smell of electric ozone and burning copper lingers in any closed room you occupy for longer than an hour.
Thermal Sink: The air temperature around you drops by 10 degrees Fahrenheit in a 10-foot radius.
Distorted Compass: Magnetic compasses spin wildly within 15 feet of you, making nautical or wilderness navigation nearby unreliable.
Shadow Stretch: In flickering torchlight, your shadow stretches twice as long as it should and points toward the nearest planar portal.
Warped Glass: Looking through glass or crystal near you distorts images into hideous, monstrous shapes.
Sound Dampening: Your footsteps make no natural sound on stone, soil, or wood (+2 to Stealth movement), but loud noises you make sound muffled.
Rotting Harvest: Fresh fruit or milk spoils within 1 hour of being brought into your living quarters.
Spores of the Pit: Your clothes carry invisible microscopic spores from the Iron Marches; small black fungus grows wherever you sleep.
Curse of the Hearth: Fires lit in a fireplace where you are resting burn with a strange, green flame that produces heat but no light.
Water-Aversion: Fresh spring water turns brackish and stale when poured into a container you are holding.
Unstable Doorways: Standing in a doorway causes the frame to creak loudly as if under immense structural strain.
Brimstone Fog: When you are at low health (below 25% HP), a light sulfuric mist automatically billows out around you in a 5 ft radius.
Static Discharge: You accumulate intense static charge; touching metal doors or NPCs deals 1 point of non-lethal electrical shock.
76–90: Social & Mortal Rejection
Animal Hostility: Horses, dogs, and domestic livestock bared teeth, whine, or refuse to let you ride or approach them.
Children’s Insight: Infants and young children cry uncontrollably in your presence, sensing the horror of the realm you left.
Involuntary Stares: Strangers instinctively distrust you, giving you a –2 penalty on first-impression Charisma/Social checks.
Mark of Cain: Clerics and Holy Orders instantly recognize you as a planar escapee and may deny you entry to temples or sanctified towns.
Curse of Poverty: Merchants double their prices for you, claiming they feel an unexplained urge to charge you more.
Deadly Reputation: Local rumors spread rapidly before you arrive in towns, falsely painting you as a murderer, outcast, or black magician.
Cold Touch: Your handshake is as cold as a corpse. People who touch your skin instinctively draw their hand back in disgust.
Uncanny Resemblance: You look identical to a notorious deceased criminal or disgraced noble from the region you returned to.
Shadow-Eater: Stray cats and ravens aggressively follow you at a distance, scavenging scraps of food you drop.
Tongue of the Outcast: When attempting to speak softly, your voice carries a harsh, rasping quality that sounds like grinding stone.
Divine Rejection: You cannot benefit from sanctuary spells cast by standard good-aligned deities without suffering a brief blinding headache.
The Sinner's Stigma: People sitting near you in taverns become unusually prone to argument, greed, or sudden outbursts of anger.
Blighted Touch: Flowers wither within minutes if you hold them in your bare hands.
Unresting Sleep: Sleeping in inns causes other guests in adjacent rooms to suffer horrible nightmares, lowering their mood toward you the next day.
Hunted by Inquisitors: A local order of witch-hunters or paladins receives a divine vision that a "fiendish anomaly" has entered their region.
91–00: Strange Curios, Bizarre Blessings & Eldritch Anomaly
Iron Gut: You can swallow and safely digest rot, raw meat, poison, and foul water without getting sick (immune to ingested poisons).
Pain Transmutation: When you take fire or hellfire damage, you gain a temporary +1 bonus to attack rolls for 1 round.
Hellfire Breath: Once per day, you can exhale a 15-foot cone of brimstone smoke that blinds targets for 1 round (Save negates).
Sight of the Damned: You can see invisible spirits, ghosts, and fiends, but you cannot turn this vision off; the ethereal world constantly overlaps your sight.
Flesh-Forge Affinity: You gain a +2 bonus on checks related to crafting, repairing, or identifying bio-mechanical gear, cybernetics, or dark artifacts.
Dead Man's Pulse: You have no detectable heartbeat. Spells or abilities that detect life functions classify you as dead or undead.
Iron Blood: Your blood can be used as a special component in dark alchemy or gun-crafting, adding +1 damage to crafted ammunition.
Fiendish Tongue: You can converse with vermin, rats, and crows, though they only offer cynical, paranoid observations.
Shadow Slip: Once per week, when in total darkness, you can step through a shadow and teleport up to 30 feet to another dark space.
The Pit’s Favor: Roll twice on this table! You gain both consequences, but you also gain permanent Resistance to Fire damage (or +2 on saves against infernal magic).
