So, my party is in Avernus right now. They needed some faster transport and a herd of Nightmares was nearby. Their guide showed them how to tame them. And now I will show you ;)

Of course afterwards they used the horsies to ride across Avernus to the next location, and I made a little table to see if anything would happen. I've shared both of these 'encounters' below, hopefully it's useful for you to use in your next game!

Taming Nightmares

Roll a D12: that's how many are in the herd.

Every player can approach a Nightmare one at a time. They can lure them with something to decrease the difficulty to tame them. Standard is DC15. If they think of an especially tasty treat (the GM can decide if the Nightmare thinks how tasty it is) you can decrease the difficulty by 5 or 8 points. Or maybe decide to have it always work?

For my adventure it would be logical to have the Nightmares run away after travelling for a few hours so I gave them the "Unstable" trait. As in you are unable to put them in a stable ;) .

Travel through Avernus

Roll a d4; that's how many hours it takes to go from one location to the next on the back of a Nightmare.

For every other hour of travel in which you do not have Fire Resistance roll a DC12 Constition Save. On a fail add a level of Exhaustion.

Roll a d100;

• 100-75: You watch as thin arcs of hot-white and yellow fire streak across the sky. At this distance it's a beautiful sight.
• 75-50: A group of fireballs light up the clouds above as they burst through the ash and continue their journey across the sky. You can hear them raging from the ground.
• 50-25: The ground shudders as a few huge fireballs crash over a cliff nearby: their debris rockets all around your, missing some of you by only a few feet. You look around, ears ringing and covered in ash and soot. Everyone seems fine, but that was way too close for comfort.
• 25-0: Thinking back you felt an enormous heat behind you in the moment just before the impact. Then the earth blew up and threw you several feet forward. A second impact thundered next to you as rocks pelted you and all the air was sucked out of your lungs. You tried to breathe in but everywhere was fire. Feeling the intense heat burn your clothes and skin you tried to roll and put out the flames, seeming to roll into more burning rock in the process. You found somewhere that was not on fire and through the smoke and flame you could see your companions screaming and trying to put out the flames on their clothes. It would take a good quarter of an hour before everyone was calm again. Avernus had seen you and thrown it's sky down upon you. But at least you've survived.

Have the party roll a DC 15 Dex Save. The fireballs deal 2d6 Bludgeoning and 10d6 Fire damage which is halved if you make the save.

(The picture is a painting by Hieronymus Bosch called Hell. I thought it would be appropriate.)