Infernium
Infernium is a vast infinite plane of 9 individual layers that make up the layers of hell within the divine realms of Pondera. Each layer is devoted to a different cardinal sin, and the greatest of punishments to those who commit those sins. Infernium is the great vast plane from which Devils arise, and take form, going out into the mortal realms to conquer the spirit to ensure that the hells are the final resting place for weary mortals.
Unlike the Infinite abyss, and the abyssal hordes, the devils within Infernium are law abiding. They take souls that they own, and prevent the abyssal hordes from supplimenting their forces with the souls of the living. Instead, they punish those who have embraced evil according to the laws of The Pact Absolute.
Each layer has its own ruler, and its own set of bi-laws on how people are to be punished for their transgressions. Zasslic the Seven runs the first 7 layers, with 8th layer in control of the devil lords, who lied cheated and stole to get to the power level that they were at. And finally, the 9th layer, home to the traitors of the world.
Iramen
Also known as the layer of Wrath, this circle punishes those who hold wrath the highest in their hearts. This layer is home to the majority of devils and quite a few souls bound for punishment. As this is the closest layer to chaos itself, right next door to the infinite abyss, this realm also happens to be the most chaotic. Fireballs blaze across the sky as suns, and land upon random individuals throughout the layer. It is said that it is because of the first layer that so many demons and devils have resistance, or even immunity to flames.
Souls who end up in Iramen are either there to be transported from the river styx, that surrounds the entirity of the layer, or brought directly into the realm to seek punishment. There they can be tortured for an eternity until they turn into Vile Lemures, the ugliest and largest of the cannon fodder within the devil armies. Those who are transported to the plane of wrath are eaten as food, and regrown every day, to feed the masses of devils and sometimes demons that inhabit the plane. Others may be impaled through large, burning spikes, or travel within the blazing fireballs above. Sometimes more unique torture methods are imposed depending on the devil that owns their soul.
Avarum
The second layer of Infernum, Avarum is the layer of Dis, the grandest of cities within the entirity of Infernum. Dis is home to a great majority of the Devils within Infernum, claiming an entire quarter of devilkind to meet the goals of Infernum, to gather souls and bring them into the folds of devilfolk. The layer itself is ringed with the impossible mountains, with the inner circle being the walls of law. The city is made of red hot metals and is constantly expanding to keep up with the forever expanding landscape of infernum. Towers are constantly built and destroyed by legion after legion of devils, sworn to upkeep the city to its maximum size and proficiency, always.
Souls in Avarum fare no better than those within Iramen. Souls are brought by boat from the chaotic realm on the outskirts of the plane, and processed internally to their final resting place should they not have found their way towards salvation in one form or another, or were not already residing in Iramen.
Souls of this layer are subject to terrible torments of those who held greed in their hearts. So far of known torments, those who forced others to break contracts, are to have their left arm strapped down, their fingers removed, the skin from their arm flayed, and they are to write binding contracts for all eternity, using their blood as ink. This is the primary source of a devil contract throughout the mortal and divine realms. Those who stole from another, thieves especially, are bound by the hands and stretched to a thinness like that of silk, their bones constantly breaking and shifting. They are woven into fabrics and beaten on the hands, or woven into ropes, and strung upon hot metal where they silently burn for eternity.
Gulantium
As the third layer of Infernum, Gulantium is known as the swamplands of hell itself. It is also known as the realms of Gluttony and consumption. The majority of Gulantium is overrun by vast currents of swamp, with even vaster clusters of trees and wild, dangerous fauna & Flora. Home to The Worm of Gulantium the swamps prove themself equally dangerous to mortals and fiends.
Gulantium, similar to Avarum, is also home to Five cities that are primarily ran, and controlled by, large masses of Chain Devils. They take metals from Liboscula, and turn it into the chains neccessary to keep them occupied forever. Each city is also holding up liboscula and the remaining layers via the massive chains of Mammon. Excruciatingly sharp spiked chains that those who consume in the most grand of excess, get turned into the vehicles that traverse up and down the chains themselves. The cities are named, and are based on the sin of gluttony as follows:
- Limiobo: The gluttony of consuming in excess
- Sermperium: The gluttony of always consuming
- Capriosiam: The gluttony of consuming for status.
- Deforet: The gluttony of consuming for the sake of Consuming
- Pabulum: The gluttony of wasteful consumption
Souls that travel to Gulantium have many many ways they are tortured for eternity based on the city they belong too. Should they not belong to a specific city, they are given to the swamps, and chained forever under the swampwater to drain the swamps for eternity, which always seem to wish to refill themselves. Other torments include being turned into vehicles for transportation up and down the chains, that even the devils cannot seem to avoid the pain of torment upon them. Also, they can be infused into trees, and eaten alive by the multitude of creatures that reside within the rotten cores of the swamp trees themselves.
Liboscula
Called the land of fire and lust. The torments of this realm await those who carry lust most dearly in their hearts. This fourth layer of Infernum is a vast plane of fire, held up by the chains of Mammon from Gulantium. These chains disperse the nearly immesurable heat from within Liboscula, away from the swamplands. Liboscula itself is crowded not with souls like other layers, thanks to a social acceptance of the sin in the public view, and turning the souls away from the hells and bringing them towards the light. But instead, liboscula is crowded with rivers of molten metals and lava, erupting volcanoes, firey pits that burn down to the core of ones soul, and a multitude of firety dooms for those who inhabit the wasteland that is Liboscula.
There are sparse ammounts of towns throughout the realm, closer to the center of Liboscula, usually just a few societies run by intermediate or lesser devils attemping to continue trade relations with the towns upon the chains of Mammon, in order to keep the economy of hell thriving. The cities along the edge, on the chains of Mammon are mostly ash, but a few sparse devils inhabit these cities in order to keep the metals flowing freely. However, towards the dead center of Liboscula lies the hellfire pits, that fall into the depths of Gulantium, yet these are surrounded by the molten mountains. Everflowing volcanoes that endlessly spout torrents of flame and molten metals, pouring the metals into the rivers of the world itself and carrying on the economy of hell. These mountains are protected by a family of Hellfire Wyrms, which are under the protection of Zasslic the Seven to protect their realm. Those looking to get past these monstrous creatures must leave a sacrifice of all material wealth they own, and more than likely a sacrifice to allow those looking to go into Gulantium to pass.
Souls that end up in Liboscula are subject to a wide variety or torments. From those who derived pleasure from pain, they are sequestered for near eternities until madness overtakes the soul itself. For those who derived pleasures of the flesh from the pain of others, they are melted repeatedly using the molten rivers of metal and stone, or given more unique, personalized treatment in the layer.
Gelporis
The fifth layer of Infernum, Gelporis is a grand sea, nearly frozen over by the immense cold of the layer. It contains a vast many glaciers along its cost, and more often than not, transportation over the sea requires sleds instead of ships itself. Towns dot the landscape in small amounts, being that Gelporis contains only one sixth the devil population of Infernum, possibly due to the harshness of the environment itself, there are a few distinct landmasses within gelporis that support said civilization. Of those landmasses, the most prevalent happens to be the landmass of Maderlinqua, a vast forest that is beset by thousands of trees, constantly ravaged by fiendish harpies. Within the center of this mass however lies the great fortress of Firigis, which acts as both a staircase, descending into Invana, and as a central tower, considered the last bastion of defense for the lower 4 layers of Infernum.
Souls in Gelporis have an interesting fate depending on their circumstances. Because of the lack of souls going towards slothful ways, the majority of souls that come to Gelporis happen to be through Suicide. Those that commit suicide are bound to the forests of Maderlinqua, where they are turned into trees, and continually frozen to the point of bursting, infected with bugs and the like, and are picked apart by fiendish harpies throughout eternity. These sources of wood are the primary, albeit only source of wood located throughout infernum.
Invana
Land of Envy, Vile things, and Secrets.Reperbia
The crumbling wastes of Pride.Verala
The land of Lies and falsehoods.Creastatis
The final layer of Treason. The Graveyard of the Gods.Geography
As Infernum is split into nine different inner layers within itself, it carries upon it some interesting landscapes, as well as transportation between the individual lairs. First, around the outer edge, and quite a bit weaved in and throughout all 9 realms of Infernum is the river styx, which, with enough time, can grant a person access to every layer of infernum, should one wish to traverse it.
From this outer ring of petulant waters we come to the other main geographical features of Iramen. Namely, its vast planes of viscera and bloodshed, due to the infinite war against the hordes of the abyss. Near the center of Iramen lies the impossible mountains, stone behemoths so impossibly big that it is near impossible to climb or travel over them. The only way in and out of the forward layers is by secret tunnels underneeth the mountains that are as much a maze to gods as they are to mortals, or by following the river styx directly into Avarum.
From Avarum, along the outskirts of the city of Dis lies the impossible mountains, which always seem to move away from the forever expanding green city of greed. It is here that yet another impossible structure, the grand walls of Dis, tower towards forever, preventing those who wish entrence from entering past into the remaining seven layers. The only way through these walls are to be granted access by the lords of this realm giving pathway into the swamps of Gulantium.
Gulantium has several interesting features inside the walled off area. Firstly, the great swamps which are sickening to the smell, and ghastly to see, which consume the great walls in as infinite a progress as the walls tower above the swamps themselves. The trees are gnarled, and twisted, and hail constantly downpoors along the swamplands themselves. At the innermost ring of Gulantium lie the chains of Mammon, holding up the rest of the layers of Infernum to the first three layers, and preventing them from falling into the void itself.
From the chains of Mammon we reach the great floodplains of Liboscula, which, unlike other floodplanes are filled with fire, molten metals and stone, and rolling hillsides of flame and unbearable heat. In the center of Liboscula lie the Hellfire Mountains, forever protected by a family of Hellfire Wyrms, who only allow passerby in the event that they give tribute. It is said that they will take all coin belonging to the tributers, as well as a sacrifice should the coin not be significant. But this protects the great ice pit, which travels directly into the sea of Gelporis.
This vast sea underneeth Liboscula is leagues beyond the scope of mortal mans vision, dissapearing nearly into the blackness, as this realm does not cary much light, and always has dark storm clouds above to expand upon the absolute certainty of the cold harshness under them. Gelporis is nearly completely frozen over, save for the bit of heat from directly below where Liboscula permiates into the realm, where it balances out to reasonable temperatures. The vast sea beneth Gelporis seems infinite however, and massive glaciers dot the waterscape. This is broken however by the sole landmass in Gelporis, Maderlinqua, containing the weeping forests of Zesilla. In the center of this mass and forest however, lies a grand staircase, leading to the ruined realm of Invana.
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