Nine Hells The Nine Hells , sometimes Hell or Hells , also known as Baator in Infernal , was the home of the devil s . It was a plane of sinister evil and institutional cruelty organized in a strict caste system with a very rigid chain of command . Unlike the demon s of the Abyss , the devils were highly organized in their quest for power and status — scheming and plotting power plays , coups , and assassinations . Each of the nine Hells had its own physical laws or properties of matter , but all were inhospitable or deadly to outsiders . This plane ' s place in the cosmology of the Forgotten Realms shifted over time but was always a bastion and incubator for those of the lawful evil persuasion . Cosmology . The Great Wheel cosmology model placed the Nine Hells in the Outer Planes between Gehenna and Acheron , with additional connections to Concordant Opposition and the Astral Plane . Each Hell was a different infinite layer interconnected at " barriers " much like a nine - layered cake — the lowest points of one layer manifested barriers that exited high above the surface of the next lower layer . The river Styx flowed through the first layer , Avernus , and also the fifth layer , Stygia , before crossing over into Gehenna . When the Great Wheel model was overshadowed by the World Tree cosmology model , the river Styx was renamed the River of Blood and it flowed through all the fiendish planes ( except for the Supreme Throne and the Demonweb Pits ) originating in the Abyss , passing through the Blood Rift — an unusual plane that connected the Abyss with the Nine Hells — bringing the devils even closer to their arch - enemies the demon s , resulting in the Blood War . The layers were still described as being infinite but with a central pit of finite size that opened to the next lower layer in a tiered fashion , with a drop of many miles / kilometers between layers . Cosmologists verified portals between the Nine Hells and the Barrens of Doom and Despair and Clangor and , by agreement with Kelemvor , to the Fugue Plane . The Astral plane connected all of the fiendish planes to the Prime Material Plane , but not directly to each other . After the Spellplague , Asmodeus consumed the essence of the fallen Azuth achieving ( some say regaining ) greater godhood and ended the Blood War by casting the Abyss to the furthest depths of the Elemental Chaos . The World Axis cosmology model described the Nine Hells as an astral dominion floating in the Astral Sea , no longer of infinite size nor consisting of layers , ruled by Asmodeus and his eight archdevil vassals . Once again the river Styx flowed through the Nine Hells and the Abyss , but then emptied its pollution into the Astral Sea . Description . Each of the nine Hells was unique and usually mirrored the malevolent characteristics of its ruler , or perhaps the archdevils were shaped by the domains they schemed to control , no one can be certain . In earlier cosmologies , each Hell was a separate infinite layer rigidly joined to its neighbors by barriers at fixed locations . After the Spellplague , the domains of the archdevils were described as territories ( large , but finite ) or circles . The relationship between layers and circles is not fully known . What follows are descriptions of the nine Hells reported by various cosmologists working under different cosmological models , gathered , collated , and summarized . Avernus . The first circle of Hell was also the " topmost " because Astral travelers would emerge from color pools on this layer and reaching the next circle required descending to the lower depths to breach a barrier to Dis . According to the Great Wheel cosmology model , this layer was also connected by portal to Acheron , Gehenna , and Concordant Opposition . By the World Tree cosmology model , portals connected Avernus to Clangor , the Barrens of Doom and Despair and the Blood Rift via the River of Blood . It was believed at the time that some of the archdukes maintained portals to the realms of Bane , Loviatar , and Talona , but the ownership and location of those portals was unknown . The World Axis cosmology model posits the Nine Hells were isolated with no direct connections except via the river Styx to the Abyss . Travelers on the Astral Sea who did not follow the Styx likely found themselves falling out of the sky above Avernus to a fiery death . By all accounts Avernus was a desolate wasteland with rocky terrain , sparse , twisted vegetation , concealed snake pits , caves and warrens , volcanoes , and rivers of magma . The sky was starless , full of choking smoke , and glowed a dark red due to balls of flammable gas that floated about or streaked across the atmosphere , randomly exploding as a " fireball " . During the Blood War , Avernus echoed with the marching of legions of devil troops preparing for the next campaign against the demon s of the Abyss , the ground was littered with the detritus of countless battles , and blood trickled out of the ground in vein - like streams eventually flowing into the river Styx . Dis . The second circle of Hell , when described as its own layer , was a flat barren plane containing little more than black , stagnant rivers , stretching for thousands of miles / kilometers until it reached some rolling hills . The sky was a cloudy dull green shot through with lightning . In the center of this plane rose the Iron City of Dis , several miles / kilometers in height and hundreds of miles / kilometers wide . The foul rivers radiated from a moat big enough to be called a lake surrounding the Iron City . The World Tree view of the Iron City was much the same but bigger , having been expanded by countless minions following Dispater ' s grand plan . The walls of the buildings and the stones of the streets glowed the dull red of hot iron ; more than brief skin contact resulted in severe burns . Prisoners of war , tormented underlings , criminals , and kidnap victims were kept in underground dungeons where their wails of woe could be heard filtering up through small vents in the iron walls . Above it all rose the Iron Tower where Dispater sat and schemed , untouchable . In the World Axis view , the city of Dis was enclosed in a huge cavern accessible from Avernus through a tremendous iron gate in the side of a mountain . Minauros . Minauros as a layer was described as an endless bog of vile pollution , decaying bodies , and rotting marsh , repeatedly drenched by rain , sleet , and hail storms . The soggy , bone - strewn , disease - ridden swampland made movement very difficult and was only broken occasionally by serpentine ridges of volcanic rock . Nameless creatures even the devils feared inhabited the swamp . Minauros as a realm was depicted as a broad but low - vaulted cavern connected to Dis . An oily water percolated through the roof of the cave and rained down upon swamps , deserts of mud and oozing black soil , pockmarked by bubbling fumaroles and mud geysers . Minauros was also the name of the city built of black stone by Mammon on the treacherous surface of this place . Only the ceaseless efforts of thousands of minions and slaves prevent the city from sinking and being consumed by the bog . The city of Jangling Hiter , also known as the City of Chains , hung by massive links of chain above the noisome fen and was ruled by kyton s . Phlegethos . The fourth circle was the Hell that most resembled the stereotype of a fiery world of eternal damnation , filled with active volcanoes , rivers of liquid fire , molten rock , ash hills , smoking pits , unbearable heat , all wracked by tremors and earthquakes . Even the air seemed aflame and thus Phlegethos was considered to be fire - dominant . In the World Axis view , Phlegethos was a cavern several miles / kilometers below Minauros , where burning lava poured out of fissures in the ceiling . The city of Abriymoch was the seat of power in this realm , built of hardened magma , obsidian , and crystal in the caldera of an extinct volcano which provided visitors some protection from the elemental environment found throughout the rest of the plane . Stygia . The complete opposite of Phlegethos , Stygia was either a bottomless ocean covered by an ice sheet up to three miles ( five kilometers ) thick , or a frozen sea salted with huge icebergs buried in a cavern several miles / kilometers below Dis and hundreds of miles / kilometers away from fiery Phlegethos depending on which cosmological model was in vogue at the time . According to the Great Wheel and World Tree models , the river Styx cut across the ice forming a channel . The older model also suggested the Styx supported small but hardy plants and mosses which , after millennia of decay of this vegetation , resulted in swampy areas along the banks of the river . A few floating islands were the only non - frozen ground in Stygia , their peaks wreathed in lightning arcing from the coal - black sky . Where lightning struck , a strange phenomenon called " cold fire " erupted : white flames of extreme cold that " burned " for a short time and then disappeared without a trace . The great city of Tantlin was built upon one of these islands , in the curve of the swampy Styx , or perhaps on a giant ice floe . Due to the proximity of the Styx , Tantlin was a cross - planar trading post for those brave enough to attempt navigating the treacherous river . Malbolge . There is significant disagreement between cosmologies on the nature of the sixth circle of Hell . As a Great Wheel layer , Malbolge was a gargantuan tumble of angular black stone blocks , each block ranging in size from a small city to a large metropolis , that formed a pile hundreds of miles / kilometers thick . The randomly tilted and ill - fitting blocks were honeycombed with angular passages and caverns causing non - flying travelers to frequently need mountaineering skills and risk avalanches . Stinking clouds of vapor rose up from the depths and lit the sky with the color of blood , causing cosmologists to speculate that the blocks of Malbolge may have rested on an infinite sea of lava . Corroborating reports have been heard of flammable materials left on the ground spontaneously combusting . Most habitations in Malbolge were copper - clad fortresses built from black stone . The World Tree view of this layer was similar to the Great Wheel plane of Gehenna : a steep , infinite craggy incline often subject to avalanches that crushed most anything that got in the way . The copper - shod redoubts were teardrop - shaped or otherwise engineered to deflect tumbling boulders , but even those could not long withstand a direct hit from a major avalanche . In the World Axis cosmology view , Malbolge was another huge cavern connected to Stygia by icy canals that ran hundreds of miles / kilometers before reaching their destination . A former godly inhabitant had shaped the realm into a vast garden with fountains , towers , reflecting pools , and all manner of landscaping delights . With the coming of the devils , Malbolge was still beautiful on the surface but creeping corruption permeated the realm , twisting the beauty , perverting the architecture , and poisoning the pools . Maladomini . The Great Wheel cosmology view of the seventh circle of Hell described it as having vapor - polluted skies similar to Malbolge but the surface was solid . The post - Spellplague view described Maladomini as a colossal maze of passages each several miles / kilometers across that eventually led to Cania , Malbolge , and Nessus . All three models agreed that the seventh Hell was filled with ruins of old cities , stagnant rivers , exhausted and abandoned quarries and strip mines , stone aqueducts and lava canals , decaying fortresses , swarms of biting flies , and black pools of ichor that erupted from the ground . The Lord of the Seventh was never satisfied with the construction of his capitol and repeatedly built and abandoned city after city . The largest and most beautiful was Malagard , a sprawling metropolis / palace / fortress / arcology with myriad black towers linked by a tangled web of bridges and walkways . Malagard was rumored to contain a million rooms and to cap an equally complex dungeon labyrinth . Cania . Both pre - and post - Spellplague cosmologies agree that Cania was a bitterly cold - dominant realm of solid ice mountains , titanic , unnaturally fast - moving glaciers , and nearly continuous snowfall that made Stygia seem balmy by comparison . Unprotected travelers were exposed to temperatures of - 60 F ( - 51 C ) but on the positive side there were few creatures that hunted in the icy wastes . Earlier lore described the great citadel Mephistar as being constructed of iron but later reports say the Lord of the Eighth ' s fortress / palace was made of ice . All accounts seemed to agree the tower had a heated , luxurious interior and sat atop a gargantuan glacier called Nargus whose speed and movement were under the control of Mephistopheles himself . Nessus . The ninth and deepest Hell was a land of extremes in the Great Wheel view : regions cold as Cania , volcanoes like Phlegethos , a lake of ice , a flaming forest , sheer cliffs , " firewinds " , and a citadel even larger than Khin - Oin in Hades ( later , the Khin - Oin became part of the Abyss ) . The World Tree view did not contradict this description of Nessus but focused more on the blasted and torn landscape out of which rose Malsheem , the Citadel of Hell . It was said that Malsheem could hold millions of devils within its mountainous edifice , from the lowest warrens deep in the trench to the soaring spires miles / kilometers above the tortured plane . The World Axis model agreed that a progression of rifts , pits , and chasms lead down and down , forming a vertical maze hundreds of miles / kilometers deep that contained great cities , fiendish armies , and the mighty fortress of the Overlord Asmodeus . Inhabitants . The principal inhabitants of the Nine Hells / Baator were the devil s , and their offspring in varieties too numerous to catalog here . See the main article for descriptions of the myriad devilkind . In addition to the devils , this plane was home to bonespear s , gathra , haraknin , hell hound s , imp s , night hag s , nightmare s , and maelephant s . Also occasionally encountered were achaierai , barghest s , hellcat s , mephit s , rakshasa , and stench kow s . Afterlife . The journey of souls to the afterlife has also changed with the shifting cosmologies . In the Great Wheel view , souls destined for the Hells arrived as mindless nupperibo s or , if they were worthy , as semi - intelligent lemure s . In the World Tree view , souls first traveled to the Fugue Plane where they awaited escort to their final rest on the plane of their primary deity . While waiting , devils were allowed to bargain with the souls , playing on their fears and doubts to get them to agree that becoming a lemure with a chance for promotion was a better option than their suspected fate . Strong or crafty souls might negotiate a deal that reduced their time as a lemure or bestow a boon or punishment on those they left behind . After the Spellplague , Shar reshaped the Plane of Shadow and folded in what death energy did not get absorbed into the Elemental Chaos and created the Shadowfell . According to the World Axis view , souls on their way to the afterlife started their journey in the Shadowfell and most made it to the Fugue Plane to await judgment , but a few remained behind or were lost . Realms . The nine circles of Hell were each ruled by an archdevil of great power , but the Nine Hells were also the home of other powerful beings at various points in the history of the Realms . Listed here in alphabetical order are those that directly or indirectly influenced the course of events in Faerûn , Toril , and beyond .