Maladomini

The Seventh Layer of the Nine Hells

Maladomini is a realm full of fire pits and smoke under a blood-black sky. Bridges with diabolic faces cross rivers of molten fire, strip mines belch filth, slag heaps burn and filth litters the roads.
The realm is dotted with the ruins of cities and quarries where devils and slaves toil. In the ruins, petitioners hide along with beasts and devils who lost their territories. Some link to tunnels underground where there are creatures who lived in Baator before the time of the devils.
Maladomini is constantly being built and torn down due to Baalzebul’s perfectionism. Petitioners dig without tools, looking for stone and mineral. They build parts of a city and then are told to move on.

Baalzebul, Lord of Flies and Ruler of the Sixth

Baalzebul was the lord of Maladomini, the seventh layer of the Nine Hells, and one of the most powerful archdevils. Formerly a celestial archon known as Triel, he bore the titles Fallen One, Lord of the Flies, Lord of the Lies, and the Slug Archduke. The last refers to the form he was cursed with after the Reckoning of Hell; Asmodeus has made his natural form that of a filth-covered giant slug with tiny arms.

History

Originally an archon named Triel, Baalzebul was cast down into the Nine Hells and promoted to devilhood by Asmodeus himself. Baalzebul was a perfectionist, and this served him well as he climbed the ranks of devilhood. Eventually he ascended to the status of Lord of the Seventh, not just deposing the former Lord but expunging all knowledge of that entity from existence.[citation needed]
Baalzebul was, for a long time, one of Asmodeus's favored. He controlled not only his own layer of Hell but the Sixth as well, through his viceroy Moloch.
During the Reckoning, Baalzebul's forces challenged Asmodeus himself, but were thwarted when Mephistopheles's troops turned on his own. To punish Baalzebul for his insubordination, Asmodeus changed his formerly angelic form into a melted, sluglike one. Suffering from depression, Baalzebul's perfectionism has lapsed, and his layer of hell shows the signs.

Noteworthy Locations

Malagard, The Palace of Filth

A bubble of dung and refuse in Malagard. This is where Baalzebul lives. Malagard is beautiful, full of perfect boulevards and exquisite fountains. It will soon be torn down because Baalzebul strives for perfection. Hidden throughout the city there is filth everywhere. There are entire towers full of reeking debris. Among Baalzebul's large collection of gems and plants scattered throughout the city, cells full of prisoners and larvae to be devoured are hidden.

Mysdemn Wordtwister

The Arch-sophist Mysdemn Wordtwister is the fonder and the ruler of Grenpoli and the head mistress of the Political School. She is a erinyes devil and she is the most devious of the five sophists, the greatest teachers of the school. She is one of the few erinyes that never visits the Prime Material Plane, because her abilities are requested directly in Baator. She rules the city with the politic of the "iron glove covered with silk".

Grenpoli

Violence is forbidden within the walls of Grenpoli, the City of Guile. Much like the city of Dis on the second layer or Tantlin in the fifth, Grenpoli is a place where commerce and intrigue come together. It lies on a broad and easily navigable portion of the Styx, and trade bound from the middle hells to the lower hells often passes through its dilapidated storehouses.
The politics of the Nine Hells flowers in Grenpoli because this city is the place where the infernal bureaucracy established by Asmodeus carries out its business and the emissaries of the Lords of the Nine (and other powers) meet. Grenpoli is ruled in Baalzebul’s name by a powerful erinyes named Mysdemn.

Other Layers of Hell

• Avernus
• Dis
• Minauros
• Phlegethos
• Stygia
• Malbolge
• Cania
• Nessus

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Political School of Grenpoli

Located in Grenpoli, this place teaches you how to think like a devil, and all of the portals in and out of hell. Most erinyes graduate from this place.

Carnival Macabre

Located under a sluice, this place offers dark pleasures and degradation. There is a black market where devils barter for forbidden items such as stolen souls, hidden treasures, writs of safe passage, and books of banned rituals.

Amputees

Over half of the devils here are missing a limb due to Baalzebul’s love of torture and dismemberment.

Tunnels of Maladomini

The winding tunnels of Maladomini eventually connect to the vast, cold cavern of Cania. The tunnels of Maladomini average three to five miles wide, with a ceiling a thousand feet or more overhead. Each tunnel is a long, curving cavern featuring ancient strongholds, crumbling cities, and ruined palaces that climb the tunnel’s steep sides. Rivers of filth and sludge wind through the center of each tunnel. Swarms of biting flies plague all who venture through Maladomini’s polluted ruins. Guttering green flames fed by pitch seep along the river banks and drifting balls of luminous green fire provide a dim, sickly illumination for the layer, but some tunnels lack this natural lighting and brood eternally in foul, cloying darkness.