The Planes of Hell
The home of the Hellspawn, a place of horrific beauty
There exists a world beyond our own. I sound mad, no? Well, I mayhaps am mad but that don't stop me from being right. There's devils out there, child, and you best watch out for them. They don't play games.The Planes of Hell are a realm that exists around the outskirts of reality. At least that is the best definition that can be given for it, in the most simplest of terms. Most of the time it never even touches what is known as the mortal plane but sometimes portals open randomly that allow access into it or someone/something manages to slip across unnoticed. While the Planes themselves are organized into what are technically eight regions, these regions don't necessarily act in the same way that a region or area of a planet in the mortal plane does. Despite all of them existing within the same space, most of the Planes are largely separate entities. While the Planes may be named after the place of suffering mortals are sent to when they die from one of the Old Terran religions, this is not how the Planes truly work. The Planes are certainly connected to the mortal realm but this is not where mortal souls go once their bodies have reached the end of their lifespan. It is where ideas go to die. Where the fragments of an emotion from a few mo or a hundred cycles ago may drift forever. As Hellspawn are often born from fragments of mortal life, so too is the realm littered with it. While sometimes a mortal spirt may drift through the Planes, it is not necessarily the soul as was believed to go to Hell by the old religion. It is merely a shadow of a mortal life, sometimes reformed into an Impian but sometmes simply left to drift.
Geography
The Planes of Hell are split into eight truly distinct regions. Some are conneceted to others permanently, others never touch, and some temporarily will connect with each other...or to the mortal plane.
The Nine Spires of Dukaru
The Spires of Dukaru are just that. They are nine enourmous spires that rise up out of the ground, curving and rippling their way towards the sky. While they do resemble something like the towers of an Old Terran castle at a glance, they are far more complicated than any mortal tower could ever hope to be. Each tower is essentially its own system, ruled by a Hellspawn from the Bhurid. These Bhurid, however, follow the orders of Aehor, a massive Hossum born of air and stone who bears a shape most akin to the Old Terran canids...but with eight limbs and eight glowing blue eyes. There are almost inumerable rooms in each tower, the spiraling stairs inside stretching all the way up to the tapering heights of the top and also deep into the ground. Located at what is usually the heart of the Planes, the Nine Spires are most often a place of birth or teaching. Many Hellspawn come into existence within this part of the Planes and are taken under the wing of others to learn what they must.The Howling Tower
There is unlikely to be any mistaking it with its name: the Tower is a place of pain. Much like the Spires of Dukaru, the Tower itself very much resembles an Old Terran castle tower. The stone of the Tower, however, ripples with spikes and corpses that appear to be Hellspawn and mortal alike. The Amite, born of murder, largely reside here in the Tower and are led by the Hossum Horlach. Horlach is a beast of hunger, born out of the dark and fire of the Planes, their body appearing in the guise of a massive boar covered in gnarled horns and spines that drip deadly venom. Underneath their reign, torture and other such things are the go to, all efforts to do anything else ignored. It is here that, in an echo of the forms of the Amite, that the horrors of the Planes occur.The Abyss of Hiraie
While the Abyss may seem like it goes on forever, in truth it does not. The fall to the bottom is long, however, and takes approximately five hundred of the feeble mortal years (or cycles, as they now call them). Despair, fear, and desperation are all that is found in the Abyss and that is what lives in Morgar, the Hossum that rules the region. It is said that they have no true form, appearing only as a massive flickering blob of shadow. Other stories tell of them appearing as different things to others: to one they might appear as a massive spider with poisonous mandibles and to another being they might be a massive ancient Terran armored fish. It is also the Bhurid who hold power here under Morgar's rule. As Hellspawn formed of loss, they know all too well the power the emotion holds.The Mountain of Chains
Despite the name, the Mountain is not merely a single mountain but a section of the Planes that is covered in them. Rising high above everything else in the Planes (except the Fell Monolith), higher than any mountains on the mortal plane dare go, the Mountain is a cold, bleak place. Despite the image that the name might suggest, there are not chains festooning each peak. The Mountain is the prison for the Hellspawn. As per any living and thinking creature, there are those that go outside the realm of the rules that have been put into place. One of the rules of the Hellspawn is that while they may meddle in mortal affairs, they are not allowed to become truly involved in them. For example: while a Rukbil may spawn the chaos that causes a new war on the mortal plane and leads to new versions of their kind forming, they may not fight in such a war on behalf of the mortals. Hellspawn who have broken such rules are bound in the Mountain, chains wound through horns and flesh and bone to bind them to the cliffs. Above it all sits the massive form of Castoor, a Hossum of wind and fire who appears as a massive bird of prey, large enough to snatch up a Rukbil in their claws.The Seven Calderas of Amsuilkil
While the Spires are often located at what is usually the heart of the Planes, it is said that the Calderas are the origin of the Planes itself. All of the other Planes are technically contained within the Calderas but, due to the nature of the Planes, they are also not. The other Planes are of them but also not of them at the same time. Despite being the potential origins of all the Planes, the Calderas are not a pleasant place to be. They are a place for lost things: lost time, lost memories, shadows of lost objects. Bodvoc, the Hossum that rules here, is a hoarder of these things, a collector. They move from caldera to caldera, a massive sinuously flowing thing of half-molten and half-igneous rock, an echo of the massive volcanos that once stood there.The Conflagrant Island
Truly disconnected from the other Planes, the Conflagrant Island is exactly what its name implies it to be. Hovering above the border between the Mountain and the Calderas, the Island is a massive section of rock and stone that simply decided it did not want to be bound to the rest of the Planes. Atop of this rock and stone is what would be a forest paradise to the eyes of a mortal - full of lush trees and grasses - but this is a lie. Every inch of the Island is born of Hellfire and of the memory of mortal tragedy. Look closer and see that the leaves of the trees ripple with heat waves, ever curling and uncurling, burning and then reforming to burn again. The water mists and steams, blue in color, yes, but so hot that it could melt the flesh from the bones of a mortal in an instant. Yet, it is here that the Impian are most comfortable, the heat soothing to them, a balm to the fragments that make up their forms. Under the Hossum known as Thorn - a mortal moniker taken during the first years when the Island formed, a connection made to the beauty of the burning roses that bloomed there after a tragedy in the mortal plane - the Impian are protected from potential misuse by other Hellspawn. Thorn's true name, whatever it was, is lost to time and now the name is a part of them as much as their true name was.The Fell Monolith
It is said that the Fell Monolith is a remnant of a plane that came before the Planes of Hell came into existence. By and large, the realm it exists in is a smooth, flat plain that the monolith itself rises from the center of. The Monolith towers over everything else in the Planes, a massive piece of seemingly solid obsidian that rises from the ashen colored ground. Even the massive Hossum do not reach the height or strength to topple the Monolith. The plains of the Monolith are usually where wars between the Hellspawn are fought, armies stretching across as far as the eye can see. While usually such battles are fought with little seriousness, sometimes they can be such. Barbaggi, once the Hossum who watched over the Tower, fought a campaign there millenia ago to tear control of the neighboring Spires from its then watcher Morgoth. Both Barbaggi and Morgoth were killed in the campaign, Morgoth sacrificing themself in order to slay their opponent. The crystalized remains of their massive forms still remain, forever locked in the last throes of their conflict. Naugrifenn, the Hossum who rules the Monolith, is perhaps the most ancient Hellspawn. The largest of their kind, they have a form akin a mortal felid only one with the head more akin to a reptile (long-snouted and rippling with razor-sharp teeth, capable of breaking even Hellspawn bone with a simple snap). While Naugrifenn may have once been made of something else, now they are made of sleek obsidian, a mirror of the ancient Monolith that rises from the center of their domain.The Vile Maw
Stretching across underneath all of the rest of the Planes of Hell, the Vile Maw is the region that even the Hellspawn fear. Something even more ancient than the Hellspawn themself lurks there, hiding within the shadows and only striking when it is most irritated. Because of this, the Maw is typically off limits...unless permanent punishment need to be meted out upon someone. Not even Naugrifenn, the eldest Hellspawn, has no idea what lurks within the dark depths of the Maw. It is the one part of the Planes that is not ruled by the Hossum but held under the rule of whatever ancient thing lurks within its depths. The Hellspawn only hope that whatever lies there, is content to remain there.Climate
The so-called climate of the Planes varies by each Plane itself and - more often than not - by the whim of the Hossum that rules it. One moment one may be cold enough to freeze flesh solid and another moment it may be hot enough to burn with merely the air.
The only exception to this is the Conflagrant Island, which is consistently warm.
Credits: Banner was created in Illustrator with images generated using Artbreeder. The map was created with art by Terion and a stock photo by Eberhard Grossgasteiger from Pexels.
Hossum of Note
- Aehor of the Nine Spires
- Horlach of the Tower
- Morgar of the Abyss
- Castoor of the Mountain
- Bodvoc of the Calderas
- Thorn of the Island
- Naugrifenn of the Monolith
Type
Plane of Existence
Comments