Eighteen Hells of Orcus

Map of the Eighteen Hells

**The Eighteen Hells of Orcus**, referred to in Orcish as **iblis**, is a plane of the Otherworld that is reserved for wood elves, orcs and those of silver descent. Specifically, it is for those venerates of Orcus that break their oaths or commit one of the Five Crimes. Depending on the nature of the broken oath, Orcus assigns that individual to one of these specific hells.

In these hells, sinners feel pain and agony as in the material world, even being able to experience death. During this time, their spirit passes into the White Wells, and returns after eleven hours once their bodies are reassembled.

The Eighteen Hells, though ruled by Orcus, are managed by Judge Yama, who archives the deeds and oaths of all adherents to Orcus, and assigns them appropriate punishments depending on their crimes. These areas are divided into the north, south, east, and west and function as a series of labyrinths that inhibit travel and movement between them.

Despite being divided into four regions, the makeup of the plane is far from even. The north and west comprise nearly all of the plane, while the east is purely administrative and the south is but a single building.

Punishments are not for eternity, save for circumstances that would put an individual into the northern hells. However, they are indeed for a considerable length of time. Once their penance is served, the Judge Yama will permit them to enter the Steam Chambers.

## Northern hells

The northern hells are delineated by the fact that they are extremely cold, making up the highlands that actually encompass over a third of the size of the entire plane. The northern hells encircle the southern and eastern hells slightly. These are mainly used for those who are not punished in life properly for their broken oaths, and are marked by the longest punishments. These are sometimes called the **shivering hells** or the **Mountains of Treachery**.

### Hills of Ice and Eternal Lamentation

These miserable mountains surround the rest of the northern hells, continually
swept by blizzards. Inhabitants of this world arise abide lifelong naked and alone, while the cold raises blisters upon
their bodies. These blisters erupt with frozen blood and pus, and the entire region is loud with the noise of chattering teeth.

Those who craft schemes to foil oaths deliberately, such as finding loopholes to excuse themselves from their oaths, are forced to find penance here and reflect on their misdeeds. Their service is done after a length of time equal to the amount of time it takes to empty a barrel of mustard seeds, given that only one mustard seed is removed every one hundred years.

### Sea of Putrid Water and Stone Columns for the Ordeal of the Boulders

Surrounded at all sides by the northern mountains, this wide ocean gives off a stench of urea and death. The columns that rise from the sea are slippery and cold, and inhabitants are made to stand upon these columns carrying a heavy boulder over their heads. The boulder's underside is coated in iron spikes that pierce the hands, and the boulder is heavier on one side.

Those who break their oaths and commit suicide to avoid their proper punishment are forced to carry the boulders here and take upon their burden physically. The time necessary to end one's suffering here is relatively short, being only the time it takes for a stone to sink to the bottom of the sea; however, every time one falls or drops the boulder, the time is reset by the Judge Yama.

### Plains of Dismemberment and Defiled Burial Rites

In the long stretches between the mountains are these ghastly plains, where oni take large woodcutting axes and cut apart the wretched dead sent here. The freezing winds howl and wail, and those awaiting their proper punishment turn the color of a violet before the oni hack at their limbs with dull axes. Once a sinner is hacked apart and their insides spill upon the ground, feral dogs feast upon their bodies, and after they've had their fill, the bodies are toyed with and violated for the entertainment of the oni.

These plains are inhabited by those who run from their punishment and manage to evade capture. Penance is paid only after a length of time equal to how long it would take to pluck all the hairs from a maiden's head, if only one hair was plucked every time the moon eclipsed the sun. The severity of this punishment is one reason that venerates of Orcus are encouraged to face their punishments for broken oaths with dignity.

### Forest of Copper Columns that Blends Together Flesh

Scattered among and between the highest icy peaks are burning copper columns of of considerable heights, which burn so hot that it binds to the flesh immediately upon a single touch. These columns are tended to by oni that thrust stark naked sinners upon the heated copper, where their flesh is blended together through sheer heat until their warped corpses liquefy and dribble down the mountain.

Anyone who leaves the Cult of Orcus after being initiated are subject to torment in this fashion. One of the longest punishments in the Eighteen Hells, the penance is only paid after a length of time it would take a silk-worm to spin enough silk to cover all of the land in the Old World.

### Pit of Muffled Screams Where Hellfire is Fed into One's Gullet

At the bottom of a pit deep in the Hills of Ice and Eternal Lamentation, a stone furnace burning with hellfire bellows out smoke and sulfur into the cold skies of the north. Oni work the furnace and wield large hoses connected to the base of the furnace, which they use to force-feed hellfire to unwilling participants thrown into the bottom of the pit.

Those foolish enough to attempt to escape their punishments in the afterlife are thrown into this pit, making it the only punishment that is levied after one's initial judgment by the Judge Yama. In turn, the time spent at the bottom of this pit is among the longest in the Eighteen Hells: every time the initial sentence would have been served, one thread is weaved in a *kasaya* for the Judge Yama. Once the *kasaya* is completed, the individual is returned to their original punishment.

## Western hells

The western hells are mountains and gorges that cut across and divide the hells of the north. These make up slightly more than a third of the entire plane. These hells are reserved specifically for those who rescind on their oaths, receiving punishments in both life and now in death. These hells are sometimes called **the hells upon the Three Gorges**.

### River of Boiling Blood

Those who commit treason are cast into a long river that divides the northern and western mountain ranges. This river boils hot with the fires of the south, and the air is freezing cold from the blizzards of the north. Those who come up for air are pushed back down by the tending oni with sharp spears. The river runs red with the blood of oath breakers.

Breaking one's oath sworn to civic duty, such as through treason or by abandoning a military post, will result in the Judge Yama sentencing an offender to this boiling river. Penance is paid after a length of time equivalent to how long it would take a tortoise to drink all of the water in a lake, only drinking when it was thirsty.

### Mountains of the Knives that One is Forced to Climb Upon

Tucked among the Mountains of Endless Flames that Char the Skin and Melt the Bones are steep slopes and terrible crags, covered in outward-facing knives and steaming with heat from the other nearby mountains. Oni with long, sharp spears jostle the tips at the damned, forcing them to climb the mountain and impale themselves on the blades. The blades are all razor-sharp and tear at tender flesh easily, making the mountains red with running blood and strewn about with limbs.

The sinners are forced to climb upon the hills, though it is impossible to ever reach the summit before collapsing and dying a second death. This mountain is punishment for those who break their oaths to their family, such as abandoning their child or cheating a relative out of an inheritance. The penance is paid only after the length of time it takes for a flea to cross a mountain.

### Mountains of Endless Flames that Char the Skin and Melt the Bones

Nestled in the highest of high mountains along the River of Boiling Blood are burning volcanic ranges filled to the brim with writhing bodies and desperate screams. Flames engulf the entirety of its many peaks, and a nonstop barrage of raining stones ensure that those attempting to escape the hellfire are forced back down into the pulsating magma. These flames are so hot that bones turn into water and the skin turns black and cracks into shards.

Everyday promises, referred to as *common oaths*, are an important facet of daily life to orcs, ranging from punctuality to fulfilling favors. The breaking of a common oath results in torture and death, and burning in these terrible mountains in the afterlife. However, penance is paid relatively quickly: such torment ends in but eighteen generations, thereafter the Judge Yama invites the damned to the Steam Chambers, where they will spend the next generations in the pagoda.

### Forest of the Iron Cycads that Pierce the Flesh and Mangle the Body

This forest of palm trees is constructed from solid iron, with the leaves and branches being razor-sharp as to mangle and maim the bodies of those who are condemned here. The forest is located past the fiery mountain ranges, between the western and southern hells, in a great valley that's rivers of blood feed tributaries to the River of Boiling Blood to the north.

This place is for those who fail to maintain their marital vows, which typically includes infidelity of a woman or a man not paying a dowry for one of his wives. This punishment involves being tossed into this forest from the highest peak, and the great iron cycads that comprise this forest ensure that a falling individual will lose many limbs and have their flesh torn apart before finally resting on one of the pike-like branches. Penance is served only after a length of time it would take to milk a cow until enough milk is produced to fill the entire ocean.

### Yard of the Stone Mill that Grinds The Body Into Dust and Blood

In a long plateau rising out of the River of Boiling Blood is a flat yard littered with stone mills and many oni turning and grinding wrongdoers in its centrifuge. Blood runs down and is fed upon by feral cats and foxes, while everything else becomes fine powder that blows away with the warm winds blowing off of the mountains.

Failing to keep one's financial or business contracts ensures that one will be sent here by the Judge Yama. The screams of pain and agony rise from these plateaus and fill the void of sound present across the River of Boiling Blood. One's penance is paid for their sins only after a length of time equal to how long it would take for a single down feather to be found in a sea of sand.

## Southern hells

The southernmost point of the Eighteen Hells is a massive, sprawling palace referred to as the **Dark Mansion,** containing five chambers in which the Judge Yama has oni torture individuals who have committed one or more of the Five Crimes. Unlike other punishments, those in the Southern Hells are sequential; that is, they are rendered back-to-back along with other crimes or broken oaths committed. In addition, the Five Crimes are all punished with an equal length of time: a *nalakalpa*, a length of time that is so long, that the Old World is still in the first *nalakalpa*.

### Town of the Long Shadow Cast by Melancholy

When someone "dies" in the Eighteen Hells, their soul passes into the Otherworld and returns to the Eighteen Hells after eleven hours. Unlike when someone dies in the material world, a returning soul is born again and reassembled in the Town of the Long Shadow Cast by Melancholy, a place that occupies the southernmost portion of the plane and sprawls across the edges of its reality and border the physical chambers themselves. Here, a reassembled soul awakes in one of its many houses, where an oni awaits. The oni guides them once again to the place of their torment, and repeats the process the next time they die.

Oftentimes, those who die in the Eighteen Hells will see the remains of their body from the previous iteration of their torture, which can further implicate psychological torment as well as the physical punishment. Here in this town, it is always dark thanks to the pitch-black shadow of the Dark Mansion looming over the town, a stark reminder that even these punishments given to oathbreakers and their ilk pale in comparison to the horrors of the Dark Mansion proper.

### Chamber of Tongue Ripping

In one of the five chambers, oni tie hooks into the tongues of sinners and drag a plow along the chamber, lashing at the individuals to keep up with the plow until inevitably, their tongues are ripped out. Once this occurs, the individuals are forced to sit in their silence in contemplation until the heat of the room and the blood loss from the lashings and the excision of their tongue causes them to die a second time. Like the other chambers, flames lap at the ankles of the room's occupants at all times.

Here, those who use their speech to convince someone to break an oath, commit one of the Five Crimes, or create a schism within the cult of Orcus are given just punishment for their misdeeds committed using their tongues. For this reason, those who worship Orcus will sometimes grab their tongues if they say something they immediately regret, as a sign they recognize the wrong in their actions and that they wish to take it back and not influence the person they are speaking to.

### Chamber of the Saws that Bisect One into Two Pieces

In this chamber of the Dark Mansion, oni nail wrongdoers to a board and invert it so that the individual is upside-down. After taking turns badgering, defiling, and otherwise tormenting the delirious individual, the oni will drape a black thread over the sinner, from the top of the board to the bottom, so that the thread is perfectly in the center. Then, two oni will use a saw to cut the black thread along the middle as to divide it in half, thereby sawing the individual in half as well. This excruciating process rarely ends quickly.

Anyone who kills their mother or their father, whether by mistake or deliberately, is subject to this punishment. For that reason, children born after their mother dies in childbirth are tossed from a high place as to renew them in the Eighteen Hells. Also, frustrated parents will colloquially ask their children to "fetch me a black thread" as a sort of jest indicating that the children are being disruptive and difficult, and that they are "killing" their parents.

### Chamber of the Oxen with Horns to Gore and Split

This condensed chamber is a circus ring with a large number of bull oxen that charge and gore the hapless souls who are condemned here. Oni are largely absent from this room, with sinners sprinting and attempting to flee the oxen before they are ultimately gored, trampled, and maimed. The oxen are often wreathed in flames from the braziers lining the corners of the chamber.

Those who make sacrifices to other, false gods like Moloch will find their way into this terrible chamber. The symbolism of the brazen bull is most often associated with Nebonyses the Great and Moloch, so the punishment is somewhat poetic in nature given the fiery oxen in this room.

### Chamber of Scissors and Snipping of Fingers

Within a cold, clammy chamber in the Dark Mansion, wretched souls are dragged to a dark pit where oni impale them on iron pikes protruding from the ground, coated with barbs and briar. Here in the muggy chamber, groans of agony are punctuated by screams of pain as oni take incredibly sharp scissors and, once every fifty-three minutes, remove one of the fingers of the impaled victim. Here, most individuals are certain to die by the tenth finger, when they are left to bleed to death upon the iron pike.

This chamber is the home to those who raid tombs and steal from the sanctified dead, and as such, cultists who worship Orcus stay clear of any mausoleum or cemetary, as there are concerns that even breathing the air inside a tomb can constitute as theft. Though this area is unclear, it is a pervasive belief nonetheless, and one is certain that a raid was mounted by orcs or other venerates if a town has been razed, but the catacombs and cemeteries are still in pristine condition.

### Chamber of Mirrors Which Show the True Form of Demons that Live within Oneself

Though perhaps apparently one of the least violent of the hells, especially in the Dark Mansion, this chamber is that which produces the loudest screams and the worst disasters in the mortal realm. This chamber is a room of mirrors that surround individuals and show a perfect reflection of them. That is, it is a reflection of their own thoughts of themselves, and these reflections express their deepest condemnations and regrets, growing more vindictive and critical as time goes on. Over time, as the grievances with oneself are stated, the individual's skin grows grey and wrinkled; their hair is ripped out from frustration; their eyes bug out of their heads and fall onto the ground; and their faces are permanently contorted into a scream.

Unlike other tortures, this one is a permanent fixture and the individual's screams will eventually corrupt their mortal body. The body rises as a *bodak*, an undead corpse whose mere presence steals the life from others who gaze upon it. Its scream comes out as a hollow moan, and it is doomed to walk the earth so long as its soul is tortured in this wretched chamber. Anyone who cheats on their imperial examinations will be sent to serve their sentence in this chamber.

## Eastern hells

Between the black facade of the Dark Mansion and the jagged cliffs of the Hills of Ice and Eternal Lamentation are several mesas of solid stone, underneath a shivering waterfall that's water turns to steam before it can touch the scorching surface. Here are the **suitable hells**, which are only two in number: one for the wretched who fail to confess to their sins, and one which acts as a gateway between this world and the previous. This is the realm of the Judge Yama, and where the oni sleep, eat, and gather to worship Orcus.

### Bridge Over The Noxious Stream of Gaseous Bile

Though technically not a hell, as there is absolutely no stated torture in this realm, the nauseating gas given off by the River of Boiling Blood rises over the entirety of the plane, making the sky in certain hells a sickening red. It is here that the souls of the newly dead are said to appear, at the top of the bridge. The souls must walk the bridge of many hundred miles downward and through the gaseous bile until they find the Steam Chambers at its base.

Breathing in the blood and bile enriches the souls of the righteous, as they have nothing to fear; however, those who know they have done wrong and have broken oaths will spend perhaps centuries gagging on the gases, as they will be stricken with fear at what will become of them.

### The Steam Chambers

In a solitary pagoda underneath a waterfall are the Steam Chambers, built upon the end of the River of Boiling Blood. The Bridge Over the Noxious Stream of Gaseous Bile leads directly to this pagoda. In the bottom floor of the pagoda, smoke billows from the burning flesh of the Dark Mansion and fills the pagoda with its stench; the rooms are also heavily obscured with the steam raining down from the northern hells. An individual who has broken oaths or committed one of the Five Crimes will choke and gag on the smoke and steam, which makes it easier for the Judge Yama to read aloud their wrongdoings without protest.

Someone who has lived a life free of sin will return immediately to the material world and be reincarnated; those who have fallen into trouble will find their appropriate punishment and be guided by an oni to the proper place in the Eighteen Hells. After completing their torment, they are to return to the Steam Chambers. The Judge Yama will permit them to ascend one floor of the pagoda, and are obligated to wait in silence and record the oaths of the living for Yama. Orcus is then free to raise their bodies from the dead and use them to his whims; every time their body is raised from the dead, they are permitted to ascend one floor upon their destruction. Eventually, they will ascend all 93 floors, at which point their debt to Orcus has been paid and they will be no longer in his debt. Thereafter, they are finally reincarnated.

### Cauldron of Boiling Oil to Cook and Eat the Worst Among Us

The demons and oni of the Eighteen Hells fry up and cook those whose crimes and broken oaths were never realized in life. This massive cauldron is tucked away in the mountains, with tending oni boiling the oath breakers and eating their victims as they scream for mercy.

Unlike every other punishment in the Eighteen Hells, there is no penance for those who never admit to their broken oaths. This punishment is endured for all of time, and those who are boiled will be cooked twice a day for the rest of eternity. For this reason, Orcus and his mortal disciples warn his clergy to admit to their wrongdoings and broken oaths and accept their punishments with dignity, or else they will never find peace in the next life.