Baator (PWH)

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Here's another place every smart planewalker wants to avoid—but sometimes a body has to go places and do things he doesn't want to in order to get by. This plane is known to clueless berks as the Nine Hells. Clueless as they are, it's usually the first plane they want to visit.
It's true that the place has nine layers, but that's about all the Clueless have right. The native baatezu ain't a bunch of stupid fiends, waiting passively for do-gooders to come and "clean out" the place. No, a fouler and cannier bunch of creatures a blood won't find anywhere—even in the Abyss. These fiends disguise their dark hearts with a foundation of order, which at first might sound encouraging. Instead, it makes the plane one of rigid and unyielding law, a realm filled with struggles for absolute, total domination far worse than any Prime world's most terrible totalitarian rule.
A cutter's got to know about two groups of beastly folk when talking about Baator. First, there's the Dark Eight—eight powerful pit fiends who control large armies of baatezu and other creatures. These eight direct the baatezu forces of the Blood War. The other group comprises the fearsome beings known as the Lords of the Nine.
Each of these rules a layer of Baator, hovering in status somewhere between the greatest of pit fiends and actual powers themselves. Much is unknown regarding these beings (including most of their names), but that may be for the best—a planewalker's better off not even referring to the Lords at all. Each of Baator's nine layers has its own unique environment, but they're all inhospitable and deadly. The first layer's known as Avernus, a blasted plain with a red sky and explosive energies coursing through it. A host of baatezu fills this layer, lead by the pit fiend Bel. Tiamat, dragonqueen of darkness, guards the passage to the next layer. Planewalkers would do well to avoid her, and rumor has it that a conduit to the second layer can also be found near a monstrous landmark known as the Pillar of Skulls—but considering that Bel's troops have an iron grip on the layer, it's probably guarded.
The next layer is Dis, also the name of the iron city at its heart. It's a realm of endless toil and hardship for the petitioners found here, and the place's evil ruler, Dispater, is merciless in the extreme. A rogue pit fiend is said to be secretly marshalling forces to challenge Dispater's rule.
Minauros is the name of the third layer, a horrible place (by now a body should begin to sense a theme) of acid rain and flesh-slicing hail. An immensely huge stone city, Minauros the Sinking, rests here, forever descending into the foul bog that fills the layer. The ruins underneath Minauros are said to contain vast riches—some say that the city under the city was not originally of Baator, but of the Outlands (though none know how or why it ended up where it is). Another city, Jangling Hiter, is made entirely of chains and suspended from unknown supports over the marshy landscape. If a basher needs chains of quality, Jangling Hiter makes the best in the multiverse.
Phlegethos, a layer of fire and pain, is more akin to the Elemental Plane of Fire than any other place on the Great Ring. The city of Abriymoch, built within an nearly extinct volcano, is said to lie on the spot where a power died, and the pit fiend that rules the burg does nothing to quell such tales. If a planewalker has the misfortune of finding himself in Abriymoch, he should look for a place marked by a simple sign with the word "Greth." This mysterious little sign is a front for a hidden magic shop, where the proprietor (Greth?) sells items of surprising power right under the noses of the baatezu who run the town. Presumably, the shopkeeper has some magical item or spell that keeps the fiends from scragging him and customers from pulling a peel.
The River Styx flows sluggishly through the frozen wasteland of Stygia, the fifth layer's cold chilling its fetid waters. Occasionally, icy swamps form in warmer areas where rugged plants manage to survive the harsh climate. The City of Ice, also known as Tantlin, is plagued with warfare among various gangs of baatezu and planars who fight for control of the city. Despite this, the city remains an important trading point on the Styx. Merchants (and their caravans) travel to and from Tantlin with goods from the other Lower Planes. The chant is that the lord of this layer is forever frozen within an ice floe, but even so, continues to rule his domain in such a state.
Deeper into the pits is Malbolge, an endless rocky slope. Cascades of boulders roll down the slope, crushing anything in their path. Not surprisingly, no cities survive here, unless one believes the rumors of the ancient places built underneath the slope, where monsters older than even the baatezu supposedly dwell. One thing is for certain—the surface is dotted with copper citadels filled with fiends whose main occupation is keeping the boulders from crushing them.
Ruined cities dot the seventh layer of Maladomini. Servants of Maladomini's lord constantly tear apart the blasted landscape for minerals with which to build ever-greater cities. As each is finished, however, the dark lord's dissatisfaction forces his subjects to begin anew. It's said that the ruins around and under the newest city of Malagard swarm with all sorts of terrible creatures.
In another part of Maladomini stands a burg of greater interest to planewalkers. The policies of Grenpoli, the City of Diplomacy, prohibit weapons or offensive spells and utterly forbid strife and conflict. That might make the place seem like a paradise of peace, and in some ways it's just what it appears to be, but there's more here than meets the eye. (There always is on Baator, friend.) The city thrives on politics and political intrigue rather than on combat and destruction. Trickery and deceit reach the level of art, wielded with uncanny finesse to become more dangerous than any physical weapon. For the right price, the Political School will teach a basher about maneuvering and deception, as well as propaganda, legal loopholes, and other tricks and manipulations. Supposedly, the school also keeps the dark of every gate in and out of Baator and other knowledge unique to the baatezu, though a mortal basher shouldn't count on learning those secrets.
The eighth and ninth layers remain mostly undescribed; not too many cutters have returned to tell tales of things this deep in Baator. Caina, the eighth, is a frozen realm, much colder than Stygia. And the largest and most horrible fortress on all the planes is said to rest in the lowest pit, Nessus.
Tarsheva Recommends: Remember, no safe place exists on this plane. Period.