Gehenna

A realm of madness and suffering, Gehenna is a hellscape that was once to **Varimanians** a distant nightmare. Now after the ravages of the Civil War, it is well known to not only be a reality, but one beyond any of the worst considerations of the **Seskantige Preke**. For 15 years the **Lambent Front** was both a prisoner in and the sole observer of this strange place, and now that they have escaped they can share these visions of another world with others.

## **Theology**

### Origins

Gehenna in Seskantige Preke theology was the name for the underworld. However, Gehenna was but one piece of a larger unseen world to the Varimanians. The Geesteryk, or "Spirit Realm" in Old Varimanian, was the realm of concept and ideals to the people of Variman. Hemel, the divine paradise of the High God and the Archons, is believed to be an embodiment of all things good both in and beyond the mortal world. Gehenna then was the opposite, a realm of all the worlds evils and imperfections given form.

In Varimanian theology, all living creatures possessed a piece of the Geesteryk within them, a tie to the metaphysical realm beyond sight. This soul was in turn shaped by the creature, being added to by one's experiences and actions. When someone passed on, that spirit would then return to the Geesteryk, and those memories, ideals, experiences and more would separate into the many realms of the Geesteryk. However, if one's soul was of similar enough substance, being nearly pure, then the whole of the soul would be carried up into the realm of its substance. For the righteous Varimanian, it was aspiration to become of great spiritual purity so one could be carried up into heaven. But if a soul was weighed down by it's sins, then it is thought that one risks all of there self will be sent to Gehenna.

## **The Helmarch**

### Varimanian Civil War

Corrupt individuals, such as cultists and heretics notably attempted to create ways into Gehenna, none more renowned than the culmination of the Varimanian Civil War, where the Cult of Eris succeeded in cursing the blood of man and banishing them to a long march in the underworld.

At the sundering of Variman, the province of Linesse was last to fall amidst civil war, and when the Cult of Eris succeeded in their ritual, it cast it and the city of Roldhass into Gehenna itself. Left to its fate in the twisted realm, leaving it’s people to march on.

### **The Sundering**

Throughout the fifteen years that the remnants of Variman marched through Gehenna, now known as the Lambent Front, their new home amidst the corrupt plane became none other than the previous Capital of Linesse, Roldhass.

An old city, it was at first unfit to protect its people in the harsh climates of Gehenna, but was quickly adapted and improved in order to be defensible in the returning hordes of hellspawn, seeking to end what Eris had started.

### **15 Years of Fortitude**

A lifeless, grey realm that mirrors that of the material world. Crops grow but lack the flavor and color of Variman, livestock are corrupted from their normal counterparts and fail to produce quality meat or dairy with the subpar crop of this wasteland. Not only lacking in vigor, but the dark environments and strange waters had lasting effects on the Front population as redder hair became apparent in young adults who had grown up in the strange landscape throughout their youth.

Not only altered physically, but the constant stress and dangers would harden and even cripple the mind and spirit of those condemned to the frontlines and frequent patrols, causing trauma's untold in the minds of those particularly scarred by the literal hell they fought through daily. Their faith also shaken from the destruction of temples during the Civil War, not all found a way to cope through belief - those that did however, often became more devout than many before the Civil War and would credit their survival in Gehenna to the Archons, despite the lack of long-standing temples.

## Geography

### Nature and Wildlife

DEMONS ARE BOTH BAD PEOPLE WHO'S SOULS FELL TO HELL OR THE AMALGAMATIONS OF VARIOUS SINS

### Weather and Other Phenomena

Weeping rain

Effects on Front wellbeing + GINGER HAIR.

No stars, just eyes.