Nine Hells

The **Nine Hells of Baator**, or the Infernal Plane, is one of the traditional seven planes of existence, the home dimension of devils and a place of lawful evil. It is traditionally known as a plane of sinister wickedness and institutional cruelty, its denizens organized in a strict caste system with a rigid chain of command.

The Nine Hells are also referred to singularly as Hell and known by many other names, including Perdition, Damnation, and Torment.

Devils' philosophical stance is that good-aligned faiths don't sufficiently explain why there is suffering in the world, why do babies die in the womb and things like this, while as lawful evil they explain that the point of existence is suffering, pain gives meaning to life, without pain there is no perspective

Asmodeus was enraged at the dragons for taking humans because they also took them from the Nine Hells, causing a soul economic crash

In the time since Lucina Occolor's sacrifice of her soul to be split among the seven planes, the Legions of the Damned have made incredible progress in conquering other beings and planes. They conquered the Abyss finally, and subjected demons to slavery. They also captured Tiamat from the Astral Plane. They brokered a deal with the Phantasmal Plane.

But vampires are draconic beings at heart, and they are not diabolical, Asmodeus does not trust vampiric magic and though he has used his daughter's sacrifice to further his ends, he knows she is not a devil at heart, but a vampiric, draconic thing.

What Asmodeus has kept secret is that for a very long time, he has held a contract with the dragons. His capturing of Tiamat was a usurping of that contract. He feels he has gone against his morals in usurping the contract, but that he had to do it to save the multiverse from destruction.

the cruelty on hell is very bureaucratic, tons of paperwork, registrations, hearings, reports, soul taxes, jury duty,

Devils have to manage their kids, commute to work, deal with existential dread.

Sometimes I ask myself "is this all there is? I like going out on Fridays for a nice torture night with the guys but I come back to work on Monday like why am I even doing this?"

The opening of the planes and letting in new souls is causing an economic crash in the Nine Hells, hyperinflation

Avernus is known as the party part of the Nine Hells, it's where devils go out to torture, it's where the Blood War front existed traditionally but the war has been over for a while

Pandemonium is the second layer, a red hot city always on fire, where most of hell's business is done, middle class, financial, literally covered in red tape, the city moves across the lava wastes by standing atop a spiderlike layer of souls' arms that were cut off from their bodies but still experience pain, "Greed Is Good" is the motto of the city. Devils are cokehead stockbrokers who listen to yacht rock.

Minauros is like the soul processing factory, extremely polluted and toxic, working class, where soul money is minted by pressing great machines down on new souls

Phlegethos is like a hell wilderness, natural volcanic features, Lake of Fire is where souls are tortured and also a hot spring like oasis for hell travelers

Sadisto is a BDSM pleasure/torture maze of chambers and heinous clubs, heavy metal culture

Malbolge is the prime prison and torture chamber, like a mountain of bones formed from dispelled soul bodies and demigods, caverns of bones, Abyss demons once secretly tunneled through and won a Blood War battle here

Maladomini is the archives, a mazework of ancient ruins and documents, like ancient Volcan ruins polluted by ashen skies, like Pompeii, ruins of hopes and dreams lost

Cania is an inhospitably icy layer with a bottomless ocean of drowning souls, those that somehow find bottom are spilled in the canyons of Nessus, it is also a laboratory for hellish experiments, with souls plucked from the ocean

Nessus is the deepest layer, a great canyon and home to the royal palace of pain, home to Bael and Ashar and Lucina Occolor