The Nine Hells

The Nine Hells are the home of the terrible race of immortals known as devils. The hells are housed within a tormented world called Baator that is clouded in ash and smoke. Within this fuming orb lie cauldrons of lava, bitter seas of ice, and cities of scorching iron. Each hell (except Avernus, the first) is a buried continent, a cavern of tremendous size. Each lies deeper than its predecessor. Nessus, the ninth, is a fiery rift at the center of the devils’ planet-sized dominion. Some hells are fiery, some are bitterly cold, some are poisonous mires, and some are cruel fortresses—but all are terrible beyond mortal endurance, and only the greatest and most foolhardy of heroes dare venture within.
The color veil of the Nine Hells is a roiling cloud of red smoke that occasionally parts to permit glimpses of the orb below: the burning desert of Avernus, which forms the surface of this tortured world. Astral travelers that pass through the plane’s color veil find themselves dozens of miles above Avernus. Vessels (or individuals) that can’t fly in worlds with normal gravity plunge to the ground in a fiery, buffeting whirlwind. Oddly, many travelers survive this descent—it seems the Nine Hells are not so merciful as to kill their victims too quickly. The only safe way to enter the Nine Hells is to locate the storm churning above the Lake of Despond, birthplace of the Styx, and descend through its churning funnel. Vessels alight on the lake, but travelers without a vessel drop painfully onto the stony shore.
Unless the traveler can fly, it is much easier to enter the Nine Hells than it is to leave. Ascending the storm above the Lake of Despond is impossible, but some stories claim that the Styx pours back out into the Astral Sea after its frozen passage through Cania.
Avernus, The First Hell The first layer of the Nine Hells is Avernus. It is the surface of Baator’s ruddy orb. It is a desert of stone, pumice, and ash broken by the occasional range of low, jagged mountains or a flowing river of lava. The fortresses of devils dot its landscape surrounded by the debris of countless battles. During the most fierce outbreaks of the Blood War, hordes of demons often invade Avernus. Consequently, it is defended by legions of infernal warriors and daunting strongholds.
Unlike the deeper hells, Avernus has a sky. In the sky, sullen, roiling clouds of red and black constantly flicker and burn with gouts of orange flame. Streaking fireballs posing a significant threat to any creatures caught out in the open pelt the barren landscape below at odd intervals. The air is hot, dry, and acrid, fouled by volcanic fumaroles.
The mighty pit fiend ruler of Avernus is Bel, chosen by Asmodeus for his loyalty and his military genius. Bel is a cool, calculating creature that carefully avoids the intrigues of the other lords. A circle of pit fiends known as the Dark Eight serve as Bel’s vassals and councilors. Bel governs only at their pleasure, and he must constantly consider whether his actions will meet with the approval of the Dark Eight.
Avernus is also home to a number of lesser archdevils currently in disfavor, such as Azazel, Moloch, Nergal, and Raamoth. Most are deeply engaged in various plots and schemes to seize a place of true power again or at the least discredit any Lord of the Nine they perceive to be vulnerable to such tactics. Avernus is the largest and most desolate of the hells, so many outcast devils or those few damned who escape their torments hide in its barren mountains.
Dis, the Second Hell A road littered with skulls leads twenty miles or so from the Gates of Malsperanze down to the vast cavern of Dis. The cavern is illuminated by the ruddy glow of sluggish lava streams and red-hot iron. The cavern is more than a hundred miles wide and easily ten miles tall, and jagged mountains and sheer ravines break up its floor. Bridges of iron span dizzying drops until the road reaches the walls of the Iron City of Dis, from which the whole layer takes its name.
Dis sprawls over miles of steep hillsides. It is a tangled maze of iron ramparts, black towers, and ramshackle alleyways. Vast dungeons of iron lie beneath the crowded streets. Travelers must be careful to avoid brushing up against walls, gates, and other such objects within the city, for most are searing hot.
The master of Dis is the archdevil Dispater, Father of Strife. Dispater rarely leaves his Iron Tower, preferring to govern his domain through minions and functionaries. Patient, deceitful, and meticulously careful of his personal safety, Dispater has survived the politics of the Nine Hells for ages uncounted. He rules over a small court of lesser archdevils, including Titivilus, Nuncio of the Iron Tower, and Biphant, the provost of Dis.
Minauros, the Third Hell A road lined with gibbets leads from the lower gate of Dis and descends deeper and deeper as the city’s cavern gradually broadens into the even vaster cavern of Minauros. Dank and brooding, Minauros extends for three hundred miles or so beneath a ceiling that is rarely more than a few hundred feet overhead. Towering columns of rock scattered every mile or two support the ceiling above. The only light comes from the faint luminescence of stinking, yellow-green swamp mists. Oily, foul-smelling water seeps down through the ceiling and falls as an endless rain to create a black, muddy bog throughout most of Minauros. In some places, warmth rising up from below heats the bogs of Minauros into stinking mud geysers.
Minauros is the domain of the archdevil Mammon, the King of Greed. Given to insatiable lust and avarice, Mammon is a vile, duplicitous creature that retains his position only by shamelessly fawning before Asmodeus. Despised by the other Lords of the Nine, Mammon must find his allies beyond the Nine Hells. Consequently, he seeks to corrupt powerful mortals through avarice and lust. Mammon constantly promotes and casts aside lesser devils, so the mires of Minauros are full of devils hoping to win their way back into his good graces.
Phlegethos, the Fourth Hell Dripping steps cut into the muddy geysers of Minauros descend for scores of miles to the fiery cavern of Phlegethos. Curtains of lava pour down from fissures in the ceiling of this hell to pool in great lakes of molten rock or race riverlike along slag-splattered courses. Mountainous volcanoes that contribute to the fiery destruction rise from the cavern floor. The air is scorching hot and flecked with ash.
Phlegethos is a long, twisting cavern world about thirty miles wide, two hundred miles long, and one to ten miles in height. It descends steeply from its upper end—where stairways from Minauros emerge at the feet of great rocky columns—down to a black plain of cracked and cooling lava. Amid this desolation stands the city of Abyrimoch, the only one in this nightmarish landscape. The Road of Cinders runs from the depths of Abyrimoch. The Road is a broken maze of old lava tubes that wind into the darkness. This maze serves as the corridor linking Phlegethos to Stygia, the fifth hell, but it is a dangerous path indeed. Sudden floods of lava spill down into this maze often to overtake travelers far from the layer’s normal boundaries.
The archdevil Fierna rules over Phlegethos, but her father Belial stands beside her throne. Belial is the patron of secrets and seduction, an old and canny archdevil indeed. Fierna is the patron of fire and pleasure. Belial has long schemed against Levistus, the Lord of Stygia, but Fierna has little interest in that frozen domain. She instead courts the favor of Glasya, who rules the domain of Malbolge.
Stygia, the Fifth Hell The tortuous Road of Cinders wanders for hundreds of miles through the broken maze of lava tubes and rifts. As the traveler leaves behind the furious heat of Phlegethos, the Road grows darker and colder until at long last it emerges on the shores of a frozen sea—Stygia, the fifth of the Nine Hells. Stygia is an icy domain, dotted with jagged icebergs and dimly lit by green-blue auroras of frostfire that flicker in the upper reaches of the miles-high vault.
Stygia is a vast layer, and it extends for more than fifteen hundred miles. Its ceiling is supported by a handful of mountainous columns that rise like islands from its frozen seas. It lies at about the same depth as Phlegethos, but due to the twists and turns of the Nine Hells’ caverns, it underlies the layer of Dis. Hidden stairs of ice-covered iron in one of Stygia’s mountain-columns lead up many long miles to link the two domains. At its farther shore, several long, icebound canals lead off into the darkness toward distant Malbolge.
The archdevil Levistus is master of Stygia, but he is imprisoned in his own domain. Long ago he murdered Bensozia, the consort of Asmodeus and mother of Glasya. In punishment, Asmodeus entombed Levistus in one of the layer’s towering icebergs and gave his domain to the archdevil Geryon. However, a century ago Asmodeus dismissed Geryon and restored Stygia to Levistus’s rule—but he did not free the Prince of Betrayal from his icy prison. Levistus is still frozen, but he is awake and aware, and he rules through intermediary devils he commands with the power of his mind.
The powerful pit fiend Amon serves as Levistus’s seneschal. He oversees armies of bone devils, ice devils, and storm devils, which are all common in Stygia. Most other devils avoid the layer. Its bitterly cold seas can quench even a devil’s fire.
Malbolge, the Sixth Hell Hundreds of miles from the frozen sea of Stygia lies the great cavern of Malbolge. Long icebound canals link the two layers. They thaw gradually as the traveler approaches the sixth hell. Malbolge is a poisoned garden, a realm that seems fair at first glance, but which conceals terrible rot and despair. Its trees are twisted and brown, its ponds and streams hold poisoned waters, the fragrance of its flowers brings dark, drugged sleep and nightmares, and its white cities and proud towers are charnel houses.
Malbolge is one of the smaller of the Nine Hells. It is a cavern kingdom less than a hundred miles wide. Dozens of great lamps burning with a yellow-green radiance hang from the ceiling a mile overhead. The cavern floor is covered in dead forest and meadows dotted by ruined palaces and abandoned pavilions. This domain was once a beautiful garden in truth, cherished by the deity who ruled over this dominion before the rebellion of Asmodeus, but it is beautiful no longer.
The archdevil Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus, rules Malbolge. She is brilliant, seductive, manipulative, and thoroughly wicked. She delights in playing with those who fall into her power by mixing subtle mockery and cruel teasing with queenly hauteur. She may seem decadent and uncaring, but Glasya surrounds herself with devils (and other servants) who leap to do her bidding. Her chief lieutenant is Tartash, the high marshal of Malbolge. He is an archdevil who commands the elite palace guard of brazen devils and war devils.
Although devils of all sorts can be found in Malbolge, monstrous insects and hellstinger scorpions also plague the layer.
Maladomini, the Seventh Hell A great marble boulevard lined with grotesque statues known as the Road of Perdition leads from Malbolge to Maladomini, the seventh hell. This layer consists of dozens of vast tunnels that meet and diverge in a maze stretching for hundreds of miles. Maladomini is one of the largest of the hells, and its branching passages link all the lower hells together— in various spots its tunnels reach Malbolge, Cania, and even Nessus.
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.
Many infernal fiefs are located in Maladomini, and the strongholds of many quarrelsome pit fiends and war devils are located here. The ruler of the layer is the archdevil Baalzebul, the Lord of Flies. Decades ago Asmodeus caught Baalzebul plotting against him. In punishment, Asmodeus transformed the lord of Maladomini into a horrible, sluglike form. Thoroughly beaten, Baalzebul now focuses his attention on wriggling back into the good graces of Asmodeus and earning release from his wretched state. If he can do so by ruining his ancient rivals Dis or Mephistopheles, so much the better. Baalzebul’s consort is the powerful archdevil Lilith, who counsels the Lord of Flies in his plotting so that he (and therefore she, too) might be restored to his former glory. Other archdevils in Baalzebul’s entourage include Barbatos (marshal of Maladomini) and Nebaz, the Herald of Lies.
Cania, the Eighth Hell The winding tunnels of Maladomini eventually connect to the vast, cold cavern of Cania. This great vault is a mountain-floored gulf several hundred miles across and dozens of miles in height, an icy kingdom shrouded in eternal night. Only a dim blue-white radiance glimmering from the mighty glaciers of the layer alleviates the darkness. In places where no glaciers are nearby, Cania is lightless. Violent, howling winds that quickly overcoming all but the hardiest of creatures blow a stinging spray of ice and dust over Cania’s mountains and icefields.
Much like Maladomini above, Cania was once a realm of great cities before the rebellion of Asmodeus. Although the cities of the seventh hell have crumbled into unrecognizable ruin, the cities of Cania are preserved in the icy depths. Here the remnants of the ancient domain that existed before the fall of the devils still exist in the form of icy tombs, forgotten libraries, and ghost-haunted palaces. Many of the angels who refused to rebel were condemned to torment and death here, and they linger in Cania’s depths as undead creatures of terrible power. Even devils fear to delve too deeply into Cania’s depths, preferring to leave these ancient ruins alone.
Because of this legacy of buried powers, the archdevil Mephistopheles—second in might only to Asmodeus himself—chose Cania for his own realm millennia ago. Some whisper that the treasures Mephistopheles has unearthed from the depths of his domain include the secrets of hellfire, as well as baleful weapons strong enough to deter even Asmodeus from interfering in this layer. Proud, handsome, and princely in demeanor, Mephistopheles has made a long career of tempting mortals with power, especially magical power, and is the patron of many infernal pact warlocks.
Mephistopheles’s great strength lies in his command of the ice devils, or gelugons. These were once a mercenary race of demons akin to mezzodemons, but he entrapped them in perpetual servitude millennia ago, transforming them into denizens of the Nine Hells. Although Mephistopheles permits ice devils to serve other archdevils, they are bound to obey him before any others—a significant bit of insurance for the lord of Cania. Mephistopheles also commands the loyalty of several important archdevils, including Adonides (steward of Cania), Bifrons (commander of a great legion of ice devils), and Belphegor (warden of the hellfire fonts beneath Mephistopheles’s palace).
Nessus, the Ninth Hell Hundreds of miles below Maladomini and Cania lies Nessus, the ninth hell. Black, icy rifts beneath Cania’s glaciers plunge down to the fiery heart of the hells to link the two layers. Nessus is home to the mighty Asmodeus and countless legions of powerful devils. Few indeed are those who have looked upon its flaming rifts and infernal fortresses and returned again to the mortal world.
Nessus is spherical in shape, a cavern surrounding the dark core of the poisoned world of Baator. It consists of winding crevasses and great, flame-filled gulfs. It is similar to the tunnels of Maladomini, but the tunnels of Nessus more often than not have no floor and instead drop scores of miles down to rivers of molten rock. Citadels of iron inhabited by numberless legions of powerful devils cling to the sides of these terrible precipices, and great bridges span the dizzying drops.
The archdevil Asmodeus, Prince of Evil, personally rules over Nessus. On the rare occasions that he appears in person, he takes the form of a red-skinned humanoid with small black horns dressed in bejeweled robes and affecting an urbane manner. He is a calm, chillingly reasonable creature whose modest appearance is completely at odds with his true power. Asmodeus commands the loyalty of a number of able archdevils, including Alastor (executioner of Nessus), Baalberith (chancellor of the Nine Hells), and Phongor the Inquisitor. He is also served by scores of pit fiends and war devils.