Six Heavens of Sitaram

The **Six Heavens of Sitaram** are a collection of sacred and recognized locations overseen by the Sorjachani in Sitaram famed as oases of prosperity, beauty, and indulgence within the war-torn and poverty-struck region. The Heavens are microcosms of luxury and pleasure where the strife of daily living is forgotten. The Heavens are façades of abundance and calm, and the most desperate and hopeful of Sitarans long to live within them, the myserious sanctums belying the dark machinations that fuel their infrastructure and mystique.

Abroad, they are known as the **Six Hells of Sitaram** because of the reported treachery, slaughter, enslavement, and torture that sustain these capitals of the Underworld, each built shamelessly upon the suffering of mankind.

## The Six Heavens

### The First Heaven: Tantara

In western Sitaram, basketed in the tropical sub-region of Chiandar is the port of **Tantara**, a verdant swamp of flowering willows, mango groves, banana trees, and colorful animals. Tantara had long observed a strong tradition of fertility rites, emphasized in their art and literature, centuries before the fandrays assumed control and enslaved the locals to capitalize on the diamond trade. The brutal work of diamond mining came with a morbidly high mortality rate, and as the Tantarans dwindled, the overseers arranged for the replenishment of their labor force by stock-breeding their thralls, setting the children to work at as early as ten years of age.

Seeking new pedigrees, the fandrays became involved in piracy along the Detara Sea, abducting sailors from merchant ships to diversify and multiply their stock. Eventually, traders began to dock again at Tantara on their own, charmed not by siren songs from the salt-sprayed coast but by the tales of the exotic fare and, more importantly, diamonds.

Brothel-temples are the main attractions of Tantara, where boys and girls of all ages and races are prostituted to visitors from around the world to appease every fantasy and whim, however vulgar or depraved. The cambion population in Tantara is startlingly dense, descended from the myriad foreigners brought to shore. Because of their strange parentage, the society of Tantara is peculiarly familial. The morose Orphans of Tantara are fiercely loyal to their demonic mothers and fathers, knowing no other parent, and obey all that is asked of them with monk-like devotion.

There are three major ports in Tantara, Asmod, Adram, and Dantha.

### The Second Heaven: Ar-Garuta, the Tower of Salvation

A failed attempt at recreating the World Pillar in Sitaram, **Ar-Garuta** is a monumental tower and observatory neglected by its builders. The disunity of the Sorjachani ensured the project was left unfinished, a jagged spire scraping forlornly against the cloudless sky. The holiest among the Sorjachani make pilgrimages to Ar-Garuta, the lost hope of their fractured people, and futilely consult the stars for answers.

### The Third Heaven: Diz, the City of Dreams

> *"The City of Shame*"
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Originally a remote trading outpost in the desert of Khioma, **Diz** was put on the map when Gahenadesh was made Tyrant Zuzupa's new capital. Nestled in the quiet Epo Valley in between Gahenadesh and Moloccho, Diz was overtaken by Zuzupa's triune and destined to serve as a retreat for his generals. After enslaving its people, Diz underwent colossal renovation projects, vastly expanding the humble camel town into a glittering utopia of palatial estates and villas, staffed by collared thralls to attend the ravenous appetites of their alien masters.

Erected over a single artery of water from the aquifer below, the landlocked Diz betrayed convention and sense to gratify the archdemons, who required regular imports of necessities, such as grain and water.

In DATE, the dromut Baltenazga challenged and overthrew Zuzupa, proceeding to exterminate his rival's vassals as they fled across Sitaram. Baltenazga hunted several to Diz where he butchered them in their homes, soaking the paved streets of the city in their blood. After the massacre, Baltenazga decided maintaining Diz wasn't worth the exorbitant cost, and abandoned it to the sands.

Years later, the Triune of Baalshiba returned to Diz and reclaimed the derelict city for use as a waypoint between the two former capitals once again. In the meantime, the ghost town had become a trove for bandits and marauders, and after a violent cull, Baalshiba saw to restoring the various estates and manors of the fallen archdemons. Seeing no feasible way to cover Diz's expensive upkeep through tribute alone, Baalshiba shifted his triune's pact-making strategy and established several high-risk gambling parlors, fight arenas, and other amusements to draw travelers.

Despite the illegality of traveling to any parts of Sitaram, Diz in particular is forbidden—and thus all the more popular to visit. The city's otherworldly entertainment and the ever-illusive promise of fortune are captivating lures for peoples all over the world eager to tempt their fates in games of chance. The unlucky, however, face any manner of suffering, ranging from a forceful flogging in an alley to being tethered to an unpayable blood debt. While the odds are always unlikely, to be sure, the lords of Diz always collect.

### The Fourth Heaven: Temple of Eten-Memek

Situated in the heart of Sitaram and encircled by the most expansive sheols in the country, the holy **Temple of Eten-Memek** is a center of healing and medicine and the base of the Unholy See, where travelers from all corners of the world journey searching for cures to their every ill. Claiming to house every vaccination, antidote, and treatment to almost any disease or injury imaginable, Eten-Memek's commodity has a universal audience that preys on both paupers and princes. A massive complex of triage halls and monastic hospitals, the Eten-Memek is one of the most densely defended bastions of the Sorjachani, containing the demons' entire pharmacopeia from Alaniji, a comprehensive index of treatments and anatomical manuscripts worth centuries of research and testing. Hidden within the underground levels of the temples as well are vaults sealed to the world, where diseases and viruses are cultivated and studied. It is even believed that some of the diseases in the world were engineered inside the Eten-Memek, weaponizing famines and plagues to weaken their enemies.

The entrance to the Eten-Memek is daily crowded by hordes of the desperate awaiting admittance into the temple, refugee camps stretching beyond the more permanent shelters flanking the way into the main temple, which is barred by two magnificent bronze doors inlaid with a legendarily ornate *bas relief* depicting imagery of mythical animals in reverie with angelic youths. The **Gates of Ninash**, elsewhere infamously known as the **Gates of Hell**, are protected by the Yogarans of Mannea, the faction of gnolls still affiliated with the Sorjachani. Determining Eten-Memek to be the sole site of imperial power worth defending, due to its headquartering the heads the demonic intelligentsia, the Shorthair gnolls have consolidated their operations to the temple grounds, fortifying the surrounding walls into a self-contained garrison that is socially separate from the interior.

Supplicants seeking medical aid are queued according to potential and social status, and the **Paeantari**–the sorjin-channeling physicians apprenticed to the archdemons that manage the healing rituals of the facilities–perform audits and diagnoses of the gathered patients agonizingly awaiting attention. The truly fortunate among the terminally ill are offered the gift of rebirth by the lords of Eten-Memek, promised life in perpetuity after transcending their physical forms.

The lucky few who are determined worthy of treatment face a second challenge: payment. The blood debts accrued by the Temple of Eten-Memek are more infamous than its gates, with pacts being the only currency the demons accept. Infirmary wards are like detention blocks, and torturous experiments are conducted with objective impunity on the hapless souls with outstanding debts. Within the Eten-Memek, research and development remains the driving priority of the Sorjachani scientists. Dwelling in the upper levels of the temples, surgeons operate on the living with advanced techniques from their world, while morticians study the vivisected remains of the dead, documenting the intricate physiological profiles of mankind.

Outside, the River Phelogatha runs alongside the western banks of the Eten-Memek, where the contaminated bodies of the deceased are burned to ash over the murky waters. Pyres are lit daily on platforms overlooking the water, and the horse-skull masked paeantari are constantly at work feeding the carnal flames.

### The Fifth Heaven: Aklarra

> *"They conjured winds from beneath the mountain and let it howl over the peaks, swelling into thunder and fire and storms of rain."*
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High in the Jayandur Mountains is rumored to be an anchorage built deep in a secretive snow-capped valley, besought by ascetic *omathi* and sheiks on their journeys to enlightenment and power. Warlocks from around the world come to study in the **Aklarra**, called the *Scholomance* by Easterners, an unparalleled library of secret knowledge and college of magic antipodal to the magisteria of ArEm and the promanaea of old supervised by masters of black magic. Situated over the frozen Lake Kosi and under the shadow of Mount Pradesh, the Aklarra is the highest school for sorcery and is known to be a source of sorjin production, distributing across Sitaram and even into the Underworld of Salavia.

The waterways and halls of the Aklarra are enchanted for warmth, keeping the cold outside at bay. Those few who survive the rigorous pilgrimage through the ice and petition entry at the gates are privy to the sanctum inside, a magnificent garden that defies reason, otherworldly flora surging off the sides of temple walls and lyceums, in shifting colors and redolent aromas.

### The Sixth Heaven: Water Gardens of Anutshi

The **Water Gardens of Anutshi** were built by the incubus prince Asmodattiya as a mausoleum for his deceased bride. Filled with pools of lilies and exotic plant-life, the gardens were meant to honor the memory of Queen Anutshi and to give their succubus children a place to grow. The cooling canals and ponds of the cemetery are flush with bright, floating gardens, wading flamingos, apple and lemon orchards, and the soft chords of music. The fragrant gardens are filled with the scent of its intoxicating lotus flowers, eaten compulsively by the entranced denizens.

The River Lethevathi supplies the cistern which fills the pools and fountains in the gardens.

## See also

* Sheol, the ghettos surrounding most Sitaran cities and strongholds.
* Underworld

## Trivia

* Inspired partly by the Nine Circles of Hell in the *Inferno* by Dante Aligheiri.