The Nine Hells

**The Nine Hells,** often referred to as The Nine Hells of Baator, Hell, Hells, and named Baator in Infernal, is the home of Devils and the plane of existence that embodies lawful evilness. It is a plane of sinister wickedness and institutional cruelty, with its denizens organized into a strict caste system with an extremely rigid chain of command. Each of the layers of the nine Hells has its own physical laws, or properties of matter, but are all inhospitable and deadly to outsiders.

## Cosmology

The Great Wheel Cosmology model places the Nine Hells in the Outer Planes, between Gehenna and Acheron. 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.

Each layer of the Nine Hells is a different infinite layer interconnected at barriers, much like a nine-layered cake. The lowest points of one layer manifest barriers that exit high above the surface of the next lower layer. The River Styx flows through the first layer, Avernus, and also the fifth layer, Stygia, before crossing over into Gehenna.

## Geography

Each layer of the Nine Hells is unique and usually mirrors the malevolent characteristics of its ruler. Although it is speculated that the Archdevils are shaped by the domains they schemed to control, but no one can be certain.

### Trade

Inhabitants of the Nine Hells produce goods and export them across the planes, including to the planar City of Doors, Sigil. Baatorian Green Steel is smelted and mined in Avernus. Another notable export of the Nine Hells is its alcohol, the two most famous being Red Whiskey and Infernal Wine.

### Avernus

Main article: Avernus

The first layer of Hell, and is considered the "topmost" because Astral travellers would emerge from colour pools on this layer and reaching the next layer requires descending to the lower depths to breach a barrier to Dis. This layer is also connected to Acheron, Gehenna, and Concordant Opposition. Travellers of the Astral Sea who do not follow the River Styx are likely to find themselves falling out of the sky to a fiery death.

### Dis

Main article: Dis

The second layer of Hell, described as a flat barren plane containing little more than black, stagnant rivers, stretching for thousands of miles until it reaches some rolling hills. The sky is cloudy dull green and continually shot through with lightning. In the centre of this plane lies the iron City of Dis, several thousand miles in height and hundreds of miles wide. The walls and streets are known to glow the dull red colour of hot iron; and more than the briefest of skin contact results in severe burns. Prisoners of war, tormented underlings, criminals, and kidnap victims are kept in underground dungeons where their wails of woe could be heard filtering up through small vents in the iron walls.

### Minauros

Main article: Minauros

The third layer of Hell is 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 makes movement very difficult and is occasionally broken up by serpentine-like ridges of volcanic rock. Nameless creatures that even the devils fear inhabit the swamp. The layer is described as a low-vaulted cavern connected to Dis, with oily water that percolates through the roof of the cave that rains down upon the swamps, deserts of mud, and oozing black soil, pockmarked by bubbling fumaroles and mud geysers.

### Phlegethos

Main article: Phlegethos

The fourth layer of Hell has the most resembles of the stereotypical fiery world of damnation that Hell is often described as, filled with active volcanoes, rivers of liquid fire, molten rock, hills of ash, smoking pies, unbearable hear, wracked by tremors and earthquakes. The air is Phlegethos is described as seeming aflame, and thus the layer is considered to be fire-dominant. The city of Abriymoch is the seat of power in this layer, built from hardened magma, obsidian, and crystal in the caldera of an extinct volcano; which provides visitors some protection from the elemental environments of the rest of the plane.

### Stygia

Main article: Stygia

The fifth layer of Hell is the complete opposite of Phelgethos. It is a layer of a seemingly bottomless ocean covered by a thick sheet of ice up to 3 miles thick, salted with huge icebergs. The River Styx cuts across the ice, forming a channel of blackened water. There are a few floating islands, considered to be the only non-frozen ground in Stygia, their peaks wreathed in lightning arching from the coal-black sky. Where lightning strikes, a strange phenomenon called "cold fire" erupts; white flames of extreme cold that "burn" for a short time and then disappear without a trace. The great city of Tantlin is built upon one of the aforementioned islands, within a curve of The Styx. Due to its proximity to The Styx, Tantlin is considered a cross-planar trade post, for those brave enough to attempt navigating the treacherous river.

### Malbolge

Main article: Malbolge

The sixth layer of Hell is akin to the plane of Gehenna; a steep, infinitely craggy incline, often subject to avalanches that crush most anything that gets in the way. The copper-shod redoubts are teardrop-shaped or otherwise engineered to deflect tumbling boulders, however these defences are often not capable of withstanding direct hits from a major avalanche. It is believed that a former godly inhabitant had shaped the realm into a vast garden with fountains, towers, reflecting pools, and all manner of landscaping delights. However, with the coming of Devils came a creeping corruption permeated the realm, twisting the beauty, perverting the architecture, and poisoning the pools.

### Maladomini

Main article: Maladomini

The seventh layer of Hell has vapor-polluted skies similar to Malbolge, but its surface is solid. The layer is filled with ruins of old cities, stagnant rivers, exhausted and abandoned quarried and strip mines, stone aqueducts, lava canals, decaying fortresses, swarms of biting flies, and black pools of ichor that erupt from the ground. The Lord of the Seventh is never satisfied with the construction of his capital, and repeatedly builds and abandons 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 is rumoured to contain a million rooms and to cap an equally complex dungeon labyrinth.

### Cania

Main article: Cania

The eighth layer of Hell is a bitterly cold-dominant realm of solid ice mountains, titanic, unnaturally fast-moving glaciers, and nearly continuous snowfall that makes Stygia seem balmy by comparison. Unprotected travellers are exposed to temperatures of -51 ℃; but there are few creatures that hunt its icy wastes. The great citadel of Mephistar is built of ice, with a luxurious heated interior, atop a gargantuan glacier called Nargus; whose speed and movement is under control of Mephistopheles himself.

### Nessus

Main article: Nessus

The ninth and deepest Hell, home of Asmodeus himself, with regions as cold as Cania, volcanoes like Phlegethos, lakes of ice, a flaming forests, sheer cliffs, firewinds. Out of the blasted and torn landscape, the Citadel of Hell, Malsheem, rises. Malsheem can can hold millions of Devils within its mountainous edifice, from the lowest warrens deep in the trench to the soaring spires miles above the tortured plane. There is believed to be a progression of rifts, pits, and chasms lead down and down, forming a vertical maze hundreds of miles deep that contained great cities, fiendish armies, and the mighty fortress of the Overlord Asmodeus.

## Inhabitants

Main article: Devil
The principal inhabitants of Baator are Devils, and their offspring. Unlike the Demons of The Abyss, they are highly organized in their quest for power and status - scheming and plotting power plays, coups, and assassinations. In addition to the myriad of Devils, The Nine Hells is home to bonespears, gathra, haraknin, hell hounds, imps, night hags, nightmares, maelephants, achaierai, barghests, hellcats, mephits, rakshasa, and stench kows.

As befits incarnate expressions of law and evil, Devils work in the strictest of hierarchies. Even the most pitiful imp or wretched nupperibo can trace a line of loyalty from itself through various superiors to one of the nine fearsome Lords of Hell. Eight of those nine in turn owe their ultimate fealty to Asmodeus, the unquestioned master of Baator.

## The Infernal Hierarchy

Devils recongize three broad divisions of status.

### Least Devils

    At the bottom of the heap are the least devils - the hoards of minor baatezu, few of which will ever advance from their state of supreme wretchedness. Victimized by all above them, they rarely find opportunities to prove themselves and rise through the ranks.

* Lemure
* Nupperibo

### Lesser Devils

Above the least devils are the lesser devils, a more select group that enjoys greater autonomy. Through their roles in the soul trade, lesser devils tend to have regular opportunities for advancement.

* Barbed Devil
* Bearded Devil
* Bone Devil
* Chain Devil
* Harvester Devil
* Excruciarch
* Imp
* Legate Devil
* Pain Devil
* Spined Devil

### Greater Devils

Near the top of the hierarchy are the greater devils, which occupy positions of authority in the infernal power structure. The most powerful are the pit fiends, which manage diabolical forces in every enterprise from the Blood War to the corruption of entire nations.

* Adjudicator Devil
* Erinyes
* Horned Devil
* Ice Devil
* Jurist Devil
* Orthon
* Magistrate Devil
* Amnizu
* Pit Fiend

### Dukes

Whithin the category of greater devils are dukes; handful of unique Devils that fall below Lords of Hell in the hierarchy. Whether presently schemeing in this direction or not, all dukes of Hell dream of the day when they can displace one of the current Lords of Hell and rule an entire layer.

### Lords of Hell

Otherwise referred to as archdevils, each lord of Hell rules over an entire layer.

* Zariel - Archdevil of Avernus
* Dispater - Archdevil of Dis
* Mammon - Archdevil of Minauros
* Fierna and Belial - Archdevils of Phlegethos
* Levistus - Archdevil of Stygia
* Glasya - Archdevil of Malbolge
* Baalzebul - Archdevil of Maladomini
* Mephistopheles - Archdevil of Cania
* Asmodeus - Archdevil of Nessus

### Promotion and Demotion

The only Devil that does not covert a promotion is Hell's master of masters, Asmodeus. Any of the other eight lords would be happy to topple him from his sear of power in Baator's deepest pit and take over, should the opportunity ever arise. While entertaining forbidden thoughts of ultimate power, dukes and pit fiends mustr in turn look out for their own positions. Other greater devils are always schemeing to advance through the hieracrchy, and the elevation of a new pit fiend is usually accompanied by the demotion of its disfavored counterpart. Furthermore, while the most powerful devils have frequent chances to prove themselves and continue their upwards ascent, they are also exposed to the direct scrutiny of their lords. Punishment for failure is invariably swift and terrible, so greater devils live in a constant terror of summary demotion. They take their fears out on their subordinates, who in turn bully those below them, and so on. This chain of merciless subordination continues all the way down to the pathetic, mindless lemures, which have no inferiors to lash out at.

### Procedures for Advancement

The typical advancement up the infernal hierarchy is from lower to higher form, as outlined in the Infernal Advancement Path. To qualify for advancement a devil must win the approval of its direct superior. In every case, the newly authorized promotion can be countermanded by any higher-ranking devil.

A promotion to a least devil form is authorized by the subject's lesser devil superior. Greater devils generally consider the fate of the lesser devils beneath them, so they rarely interefre with such a promotion.

Every promotion to lesser devil form must be approved by the subjects greater devil superior. Higher-ranking devils, including the Lords of Hell, sometimes countermand or reverse promotions approved by greater devils.

Any promotion to greater devil form must be approved by the subject's lord. Thus, no lordless greater devils exist. When in doubt, a greater devil reports direct to Asmodeus.

Pit fiends are the highest-ranking type of greater devil in the Nine Hells. The most powerful of their number are accorded the rank of duke. A pit fiend seeking to rise further in the infernal hierarchy must be promoted by an archduke into a unique form with its own powers. Every unique Devil has a gender and a well-developed personality. On the rare occasions that Asmodeus chooses a new archduke, he or she is invariably drawn from the unique Devils in the ducal ranks of the Nine Hells.

Devils customarily advance one rank at a time, but superiors authorized to make promotions can break from common practice as they see fit. However, Devils that have leapfrogged in rank typically face resentment from their peers and immediate underlings, and they must often expend considerble energy watching their backs.

### The Politics of Promotion

Superiors at all levels award promotions for fulfillment of missions and for loyalty - in reverse order of priority. The ideal candidate for promotion demonstrates sufficient compentance to serve as a value subordinate, but not enough to contitute a threat to its boss's position. The upper ranks of the hieracrhy are relatively stable in number for two raasons. First, no boss wants to command more competent underlings than he can monitor for trasonous intentions. Second, promoting a devil from one form to another requires a considerable expenditure of the divine magic harvested from the breakdown of corrupt souls.

Accordingly, the vast majority of promotions to greater devil form occur to fill positions recently made vacant. Vacancies can occur through demotion or fatality. Thus, an ambitious Devil either bides its time until one of those unfortunate events befalls a superior, or takes active measures to engineer one. It goes without saying that the later option is extremely dangerous. Failed machinations usually result in the schemer's death. Demotion, even to the horrid nupperibo state, is an unexpected and incredible mercy in such situations. Devils caught trying to assassinate their bosses are always slain, with the exception of assassin devils.

The Lords of Hell vie constantly for supremacy. Alliances are temporary and based on advantage, not affection. Advacement-seeking Devils willing to accept serious risks can leapfgrog up the ladder of forms by switching loyalties, though they usually choose new superiors serving the same archduke. Promotions in form are the most common inducement for these acts of betrayal. Sometimes a lord who finds himself without sufficient help to run an operation simply poaches talent from a rival. More commonly, however, the lord requires the prospective new sevitor to remain at their post for awhile, until they complete one or more missions as a spy, saboteur, or assassin. The lord considers himself fortunate if the would-be underling is killed in the line to duty, thus sparing him the need to shove another vassal aside to make room for the new one.

When their lords enjoy prolonged periods of success, devils can advance into newly created positions. A lord whose soul intake is ont he increase can afford for promotions than one whose operation is foundering. Growing diabolical ventures require both more bosses and more underlings than stagnant ones do.

### The Ceremony of Promotion

The promotion ceremony requires a ritual led by the approving superior. This process lasts a number of hours equal to the new rank. This, it takes three hours to promote a Lemure to an Imp. The promotion ritual wracks the lucky recipient with indecribably agony. The Devil experiences the full pain of its old form breaking apart from the inside and sloughing off in a shower of viscera and shattered body parts. The new form emerges from the mess like a larva or parasite, often nourishing itself on the remains of its old form.

The recipient of the promotion retains full memories of all its previous diabolical forms, beginning with its first post-lemure form. However, Devils never share the memories of the corrupt souls from which they originally came. The sly and cunning imp turns into the wily, skulking, spined devil, which in turn transforms into the faceless merregon. Devils embrace this process as the ultimate triumph of law and hierachy over mere indivduality. Nevertheless, some degree of continuity persists among a single devil's forms. Tastes and personality quirks developed at one stage might recur inthe next, or vanish from only one to reappear later in another. The most important components of a Devil's personality - the grudges it holds against rivals and others who have thwarted its progress - remain set in stone, no matter how else its persona changes.

### The Shame of Demotion

Any Devil authorised to approve promotions can also make demotions. Asmodeus can demote any Devil, at any time. Any of Lord of hell can demote ay Devil that ultimately owes him or her fealty, regardless of its rank. Greater devils can demote any subordinates under their direct comand, but they cannot demote the servants of a colleague - even those in the service of the same lord.

Most demotions are punishments for failure. No meritocracy is more demanding or ruthless than Baator. Those who fail to perform soon find themsevels trapped in forms of wretched nupperibos and assigned to the most degrading duties available. Because the Nine Hells are resolutely lawful, violations of the multitudinous prohibitions in effect on the plane might, at minimum, call for demotion. Transgressions that undermine existing authority generally result in servere demotion or even death. However, any devil that performs their duties in exemplary fashion and obey all rules can still be unfairly demoted. Political demotions occur when a Devils' superiors fear its ascent. When hard times strike their layer of Hell, individual Devils can suffer demotion through no fault of their own. Demotions, unlike promotions, free up a quanitity of that corrupt force. The greater the drop in ranks between form, the more energy is regains. Thus, a lord whose soul-collecting operation has slowed might be forced to demote otherwise fervent lackeys to free up energy for other purposes. This well-known fact serves as a powerful motivator, spurring worried devils to greater heights of productivity.

## The Economy of Hell

    Main article: Soul Harvesting
When someone on the Material Plane dies, their soul is taken to the Fugue Plane, whereby it awaits transportation to their final rest on the plane of their deity. The Nine Hells are reserved for lawful evil beings and others in the service of Devils; regardless of their alignment or religious beliefs. These souls materialize on one of a series of cold, blood-soaked rocks protruding from the River Styx. This entry point for damned souls, known as the Shelves of Despond, is located on Avernus, the blood-drenched first layer of Hell. The souls that go straight to the Hells are often referred to as "coin", "treasure" or "clank". Traffic in souls underpins the entire hierarchy, through which all Devils yearn to advance. Every Devil is either a bestower or a recipient of magic extracted from the damned. Thus, the constant need to harvest new souls motivates nearly every action undertaken by devilkind, especially on the Material Plane.

### Distribution of Souls

Most lawful evil souls have been assessed as the property of a particular Lord of Hell even before their arrival in Baator. Such previously optioned souls once belonged to mortals who were corrupted by the active, though sometimes indirect, influences of Devils operating on their home planes. Some sold their souls to Devils through Faustian pacts, others took sinister advice of imps, and still others belonged to diabolical cults. Quite a number of souls merely adopted the lawful evil alignment in societies molded by the influence of Devils. A mortal soul corrupted by a Devil acquires a telltale mark that identifies both the Devil responsible for its damnation and the lord it was serving at the time of its decisive corruption. Any Devil with a semblence of intelligence can detect and read these taints of corruption.

When a new soul arrives on the Shelves of Despond, several barbazu (commonly referred to as bearded devils) pole tracherous-looking but well-sealed boats out onto the Styx's turbid waters. Upon reaching the rocky, blood-soaked islands, they scrabble across the rocks, snigging the wretched arrivals to find out which lord they belong to. The soul collectors then haul the damned souls ashore and pile them into caged carts for transport to the layers of Baator ruled by their lawful owners. Souls destined for the layers of Stygia or Nessus, through which the River Styx runs through, are instead moved by barges down the river by fearsome merrenoloth. Although some this cargo is occassionally hijacked, or otherwise diverted, most souls quickly reach their intended destinations. Soul collectors take firece care to ensure that their charges, which are called soul shells, do not drink from the oily, reeking, waters of the River Styx during this process, for it will forever erase the memories of any soul coming into contact with it, and soul shells yield much for devine energy if their identities are intact when their torumnet begins. Thus, barbazu brutrally beat back any terrified soul shells that try to escape into the dark waters.

## The Blood War

Main article: The Blood War
Aside from harvesting souls, the other primary activity in Baator is fighting the eternal Blood War against against the demonic horde of The Abyss. Each layer of the Nine Hells boats its own army, and has large portions of it deployed on Avernus, Baator's blood-soaked first layer, where the bulk of The Blood War battles in devilish territory are fought.