The Circles of Hell

## Description:

The Circles of Hell, commonly known as The Nine Hells, Gehenna, etc., is the dominant Abrahamic Torment-Type Afterlife Hinterland, contained within the Abrahamic Hell. The Hinterland is comprised primarily of nine (9) Circles, or Layers, which serve to punish the Souls of deceased mortals; an unknown number of Circles exist, each dedicated to their own sin, and each primary Circle has an unknown number of sub-sections. The Souls are contained within the Circles and attended to by special Demons, who oversee the punishments and prevent Souls from escaping; these Souls are then condensed and minted into Suffers, the currency used by Demons and their cultist worshippers.

The JPCU became aware of the Circles prior to the organization's founding, as the Circles were a known part of the Catholic Church's doctrine for several centuries by the time the JPCU was founded.

### Physical Description & Attributes:

Each of the Circles, described below, has differing appearances, sizes, features, and methods of torturing the Souls contained within it. However, as the Circles are still contained within Hell proper, the entire Hinterland has some universal traits. For instance, the Circles are all covered in a constant drift of ash and embers; the entire Hinterland smells of brimstone and Sulphur; agonized screaming can be heard no matter where one is; the Hinterland's "sky" is hidden by a massive cloud of black smoke, which hangs over the top of the upside-down cone-shaped Circles. The Circles have no set dimensions, and expand and contract to fit as many Souls as is necessary; the Circles have expanded considerably over the years, but the Demons that run the Circles keep tight records regarding the size, occupied areas, dominant sins, etc.

Weather throughout the Circles varies slightly depending on the Circle, but there are some consistent patterns that have been observed. Most prominently, the temperature of the Circles drops as the Circles get deeper; the deeper the Circle, the worse the crime. All weather patterns in the Circles are predetermined according to the sin being punished, and can vary greatly and change in a matter of mere moments.

The Circles have many known entrances around Hell, although most have been found and shut down on Outkast's orders in recent years. Instead, almost all the remaining entrances are found within The Spire, the corporate headquarters of Ninth Rung Liquidation Inc. Some entrances remain open across Hell, however; most famously, the River Acheron, River Styx, and River Phlegethon serve as the primary means to physically enter the Circles from Hell proper. Additionally, several known entrances to the Circles exist on Earth in the Material Realm, and there is a direct entrance to the Circles from Heaven, although no one from the Circles can use that entrance to access Heaven; moreover, the Circles can be accessed via teleportation or Demonic Magic, methods most commonly employed by high-level Demons.

#### Circle #1, Sloth:

The Circle which was previously called "Limbo" has since been changed, altered by the changing tides of the world. Where before the Souls in Limbo would eternally pray to God in the hopes that he would save them from Hell, the First Circle now serves as the primary Circle used to punish the Deadly Sin of Sloth; the Souls which would ordinarily be in Limbo, the virtuous-but-unbaptized pagans and nonbelievers, are instead found elsewhere in Hell or reserved to Purgatory for eternity. This Circle has three (3) primary sections, dedicated to the aspects of Sloth which are most reviled: Spiritual laziness, Intellectual laziness, and Physical laziness.

##### Cathedral of Despair:

Those Souls who expressed an unending laziness or neglect for their spiritual duties find themselves in this section. Those who failed to attend Church, pray, conduct the right rituals, read the Bible, etc. while alive are now chained, nailed, or otherwise painfully attached to infernal pews within a colossal Cathedral; stuck to the pews, these Souls are forced to pray for God to save them, all the while being tormented by Demonic "priests" who chant infernal hymns and declare that the Souls' God is long dead, a fact which the Souls cannot ignore. As a result of this incessant chanting and yelling, the Souls despair and grieve over their dead God and feel guilty and shameful, as the Demons blame these Souls for God's demise.

##### Idiots' Library:

Those Souls who expressed an unrepentant habit of willing ignorance, neglect of their studies, and rejection of knowledge are punished at this section of the First Circle. These Souls are strapped, nailed, adhered, and/or tied to desks or tables in an unending library, classroom, lecture hall, or office and are forced to take an unending test on information the Soul never learned while alive with the "promise" of being let into Heaven if they pass; these unfair tests are punctuated by abuse by Demons, who harass the Souls about "running out of time," despite the fact that the clocks on the walls change to fit the Demons' needs. Furthermore, the Souls are berated, beaten, shamed, and tortured if and when they get answers wrong or fail to complete a section before "time runs out." The promise of Salvation is also, of course, a lie; no one has ever passed a test here.

##### Labyrinth for the Lazy:

Those Souls who expressed a refusal to remain physically active in life, and wasted their time on Earth doing nothing with no one, are punished in this part of the First Circle. These Souls are chased through all manner of locales and locations, many of which are from the Soul's life, by monsters, creatures, Demons, and the visages of people they knew in life; these pursuits are rigged against the Souls, who are weighed down by excessive fat, frozen limbs, diseased flesh, and inactive or atrophied muscles. When the Souls fail to escape their pursuers, they are tortured, ridiculed, terrified, and forced to start running again in a different location by different creatures.

#### Circle #2, Lust:

The Second Circle is reserved for the lustful, those Souls who fell victim to pleasures of the flesh while alive. These Souls were selfish lovers, promiscuous individuals who prioritized sex over God, sexual deviants, and those who went back on their holy marriage vows and cheated on their spouse with someone else.

##### Field of Promiscuity:

Those Souls who were addicted to sex, who could not help but sleep with as many people as they could, find themselves tortured in the first section of the Second Circle of Hell. These Souls are thrown onto an open field with all the other Souls in this section of the Circle, naked as the day they were born, and unnaturally attracted to anyone and everyone they can find; if someone manages to resist the supernatural lust of this section, Demons will force the resistant Soul to copulate with them instead of another Soul. Once two (2) or more Souls begin fornicating, they can undergo the deed but feel almost no pleasure from it; instead, they feel nothing until they approach climax, at which point the pleasure increases dramatically before a powerful gust of wind, Demonic interruption, sudden teleportation, etc. splits up the lovers before anyone can finish.

##### Gallery of Adultery:

Those Souls so overcome with lust that they could not resist the urge to break their holy vows and violate the Sacrament of marriage are punished in this section. Said to be built like a gallery at a museum, tortured Souls are forced to copulate with monstrous approximations of human beings, Demons and beasts which constantly change their shape and look like any number of different people at a time. While this strange fornication occurs, the Souls are ridiculed and shamed by their shapeshifting "partner," images of their families, their true spouses, Angelic beings, and depictions of God himself.

##### The Prey Pen:

Those Souls who found themselves attracted to children during life are punished in this section. Those pedophilic Souls, who preyed upon the weak and vulnerable, are reduced to mere toddlers or even infants by the power of the Circle, and preyed upon by monsters, Demons, visages of the Soul's family members, and especially those who may have abused the individual during life. These tortured Souls are beaten, sodomized, raped, cut, drowned, burned, and subjected to all manner of tortures imaginable to reflect the heinous nature of their past crimes.

#### Circle #3, Gluttony:

The Third Circle is reserved for those Souls who consumed without end and never gave anything back, eating or wasting without consideration. Unlike other Circles, the Third Circle's primary sections are divided not by the method of expression but by the medium of expression: did the damned Soul waste food, waste inorganic objects, waste people, or eat people?

##### Compost Pile:

Those Souls who gorged themselves on culinary pleasures and spent exorbitant amounts of money in the name of cuisine are punished in this section of the Third Circle of Hell. As the section's name suggests, Souls are dumped into an endless field of human sewage; their fatness is immense, and prevents them from moving towards the mirage of a tantalizing royal feast just a few hundred feet away. While tempted by the supernaturally attractive feast, the Souls are forced to consume the sewage and refuse which surrounds them, all the while becoming more and more fat, diseased, and unhealthy as they sit in and then eat their own excrement and drink their own urine. No Demons interact with these damned Souls directly, to represent the isolation and selfishness that Gluttony creates.

##### Infernal Landfill:

Those Souls who could not help but be overcome by a desire for worldly possessions, those people who cared not for the environment or their surroundings if it meant hoarding more items or buying, breaking, and then throwing away and replacing any number of objects are punished in this section. These Souls find themselves trapped in an endless landfill, tied or nailed or strapped to the ground, as they are crushed by continually growing piles of garbage and waste; Demons laugh and jeer at the Souls, and may even force-feed these Souls inedible items to increase the torment. If a Soul dies from the crushing weight, they respawn and repeat the process forever.

##### Auction of the Worthless:

Those Souls who treated other people as worthless, replaceable, or meaningless are punished in this section of the Third Circle. These Souls find themselves paraded into an infernal auction house, where a crowd of Demons, monsters, and recognized people from life sit in the audience; the auctioneer starts the bidding, but rather than increase the price to purchase the Soul, the price goes down as time goes on. The crowd and the auctioneer list the Soul's negative traits, which are exaggerated and explained with examples from their lives, until the auction concludes with the final price being some absurd negative value. The auctioned Souls are then taken away, used in whatever twisted manner the "owner" wishes (Note: "Uses" includes manual slave labor, scientific or Magical experimentation, sexual slavery, etc.) before the "owner" once again sells the Soul back to the auction house, restarting the process ad infinitum.

##### Cannibals' Butchery:

Those Souls who indulged in the flesh of their fellow men are punished in this section of the Third Circle of Hell in a manner seemingly befitting Wrath as well. Here, Souls are placed in bloody pits and made to fight and kill one another so they can consume the body for sustenance; observing Demons may also choose to make the Soul consume live animals, garbage, or even parts of their own bodies as part of the punishment.

#### Circle #4, Greed:

The Fourth Circle is reserved for those Souls who sought wealth above all else, who valued gold and jewels over the lives of others or over the infinite value of God's favor. This Circle's sections are divided according to the nature of the Greed being punished; the first section punishes those who obtained wealth through corruption, the second section punishes those who obtained wealth at the expense of others, and the third option punishes those who spent their entire lives chasing wealth but never felt satisfied with what they had.

##### The Font of Fools' Gold:

Those Souls who hoarded their wealth and obtained it through illegitimate or corrupt means are punished in the first section of the Fourth Circle of Hell. Here, Souls are strapped down to chairs or tables around a massive infernal fountain, from which spouts molten gold. Demons and visages of legal authorities grab buckets, cups, and handfuls of the molten metal and pour it down the throats of the damned Souls forever, burning their insides and melting their organs with the very material they so craved in life.

Alternatively, the Souls are made to eat all manner of wealth, from stacks of cash to gold ingots or string of pearls and gilded jewelry. This consumption is incredibly painful and inevitably rips the person's insides apart, tearing them open and spilling the contents out onto the ground; once this occurs, the Souls are beset upon by visages of their "friends" and allies from life, who rummage and shred the Soul in order to scavenge the precious gems and metals from the bleeding Soul.

##### City of Gaps:

Those Souls who accrued vast fortunes of useless wealth at the expense of others are punished in the second section of this Circle. These Souls are all placed in the same normal-looking city and made to watch as their endless wealth is redistributed among the poorest of the other citizens; this redistribution of wealth also makes the punished Souls the new poor and homeless, and are made to live in squalor and destitution as the new aristocrats demean, abuse, kidnap, kill, harm, rape, and experiment on them without repercussions, much as the Souls did to others in life.

##### The Rat Race:

Those Souls who wasted their lives in the fruitless pursuit of temporary, useless wealth are punished in the third section of this Circle, where the Souls are cursed to appear as Ratmen, similar to the Ratlings of the Mole People, and participate in endless races around an ovular track, goaded on by Demons in the rear and tempted by dollar bills suspended from fishing poles by Demons in the front. These Souls run around and around forever, never reaching their destination and forever being ridiculed and whipped by their Demon tormentors.

#### Circle #5, Wrath:

The Fifth Circle is reserved for those Souls overcome with anger and rage, unable to pull themselves free from their addiction to the adrenaline of combat or blind fury. The sections of this Circle are divided according the target of the Souls' anger: anger towards others, and anger towards God.

##### The Rage Cage:

Those Souls who were quick to anger, short-tempered, and addicted to the thrill of fighting, conflict, and violence, are punished in the first section of the Fifth Circle of Hell. These Souls are held in captivity below The Rage Cage, an infernal colosseum of massive proportions, and made to train and wait for long periods of time before they are forced, by Demons, to fight in unfair, rigged deathmatches against monsters, creatures, Mutants, Demons, and even other damned Souls; these fights are rigged against the Souls, who are rarely given weapons or armor to defend themselves against the onslaught of horrors which they are made to battle. In the case that a Soul manages to put up a real fight against a particular foe, the Rage Cage itself is loaded with traps, guards, gimmicks, and all manner of gadgets to ensure defeat; unlike all other Circles, The Rage Cage is open to the rest of Demonkind and is actively owned by [REDACTED], a Demon Prince of Wrath, who oversees The Cage and its operations. When a Soul inevitably loses the fight and dies, the Soul respawns in its barracks and made to fight and die over and over again. During The Festival of Battle, Demons from all across Hell attend a month-long series of deathmatches at The Rage Cage, where Souls and Demons alike participate in hundreds of bouts; the festival is an opportunity for [REDACTED] to make a lot of Suffers from the excessive bets made on all the matches, but also offers up-and-coming Demons the chance to prove themselves and earn some power, Suffers, and/or notoriety in a semi-controlled environment.

##### River Styx:

Those Souls who were enraged at God and projected that fury at their fellow man are punished in the second section of the Fifth Circle. Here, Souls are kept under the surface of the River Styx, one (1) of three (3) rivers which runs through Hell and the Circles, and made to fight other Souls whilst drowning. These Souls are kept under the surface by Demons of both the aquatic and aerial variety, who drag the Damned down into the River's deeper sections, where they struggle to fight the Demons and one another; the primary punishment is symbolic, here, as the thick sludge blinds the Souls and dampens their punches, preventing them from actually hurting anyone or anything as they thrash about unendingly in the dark.

#### Circle #6, Envy:

The Sixth Circle is reserved for the Souls who were overcome with jealousy and envy in life, never happy with what they had and always attempting to take what others had. The sections of the Sixth Circle are divided according to those who envied but never stole, and those Souls who stole what they wanted from others.

##### The Greener Pasture:

Those Souls who were envious of their neighbors, who never felt happy at what they had, are punished in Hell by being deprived of anything they could want, whether it be food, shelter, security, family, love, happiness, fulfillment, etc. in an illusory parallel to the Soul's original life. The Soul's illusory neighbor, however, has the perfect life that the Soul so craves; the Souls are then made to watch on as their "neighbor" lives the life they want but can never have, tormented further by disguised Demons, who point out the Soul's imperfections and make constant comparisons between the Soul and the perfect version.

##### The Perfect Crime:

Those Souls enraptured by criminality and kleptomania are punished for their sticky fingers in this section of the Sixth Circle. Here, Souls are placed in front of a tantalizing item or crime which they are supernaturally attracted towards; when the Soul inevitably falls for the trap, they find the theft or crime to be rigged from the start, or discover that their crack team of robbers have betrayed them, or find that there are far more traps or guards than they expected. Regardless of the details, the Soul always fails their attempt at stealing, and suffers any number of punishments as a result, from "death" to torture, "prison" time, the loss of their hands, etc.

#### Circle #7, Violence:

The Seventh Circle is reserved for those Souls obsessed with forms of violence; while technically a sub-section of Wrath, the Seventh Circle is reserved for those whose violence stems not from rage or blind fury, but from despair or disdain, pity or apathy. This Circle's sections are divided according to the target of the violence: violence against others, violence against oneself, and violence against God.

##### River Phlegethon:

Those Souls obsessed with conquering, political violence, acts of tyranny, and needless killing are punished in the first section of the Seventh Circle, where the Souls are punished by being forced to stay in a lake of fiery, boiling blood known as the River Phlegethon. Centaur-like Demons armed with barbed, poison-tipped arrows patrol the banks of the River and shoot any wayward Souls that manage to break free and try to flee.

##### Forest of Suicides:

Those Souls overcome with despair or self-hatred that needlessly took their own lives on Earth are punished in the second section of the Seventh Circle of Hell. Here, the suicidal Souls spring up from the soil as saplings, quickly growing into full-grown ashen trees with their own dead corpse hanging, dangling, lying atop, or impaled upon their branches; these Souls are immobile, and cannot communicate with anyone or anything unless they are in pain or bleeding, a symbolic punishment for their previous use of self-harm as a means of communication in life. This forest of Souls is also harassed by aerial and subterranean Demons, who break branches off the Soultrees or strip them of their bark for fun.

##### The Burning Desert:

Those Souls who fought against God and dedicated their lives to harming His Church and Clergy are punished in the third section of the Seventh Circle of Hell. These Souls are placed together amidst an endless desert, heated by a blinding sun which never sets and burned by the constant rain of fire which falls from the sky. Aerial Demons claw at the fleeing Souls while subterranean Demons attempt to bury the Souls in the burning sand.

#### Circle #8, Fraud:

The Eighth Circle is reserved for those Souls who spent their lives fraudulently, lying in excess and hiding their true selves from the world. This Circle is divided according to the target of the fraudulence: lies about others, and lies about the self.

##### Valley of Sticks and Stones:

Those Souls who became instinctive liars, who slandered others and gossiped behind others' backs, are punished in the first section of the Eighth Circle by suffering their own medicine made literal. Visages of the people the Soul lied about in life stalk the top of a tall valley on either side of a deep ravine in which the Soul walks, while the visages yell lies about the person and throw rocks or spears down the ravine at the Soul; voices of the Soul's family falling for the lies and ruining the Soul's life echo down the valley, as more and more sticks and stones are added to the unending volleys. If the Soul dies, they simply respawn at the beginning and are made to run the gauntlet over and over again.

##### Pedestal of Masks:

Those Souls who lied about themselves, concealed their true selves from the world, exaggerated their feats and acted hypocritically, are punished in the second section of the Eighth Circle of Hell. Here, Souls are placed in rooms or illusory buildings full of people and put on stages, made to perform or give speeches, etc.; these Souls quickly find that everyone in the audience wears beautiful clothes and delicately crafted masks which hide their negative traits, while the Souls wear no masks and no clothes. Their negative traits bared to the world with no way of protecting themselves, the Souls are ridiculed for their imperfections and have their hypocrisies brought to life time and time again.

#### Circle #9, Pride:

The Ninth and Final Circle of Hell is reserved for those Souls who committed the worst Deadly Sin, the source of all other evil, the lion's Sin of Pride. The River Phlegethon also runs from the Seventh Circle (Violence) to the Ninth. The sections of the Ninth Circle are divided according to the target of the pride: superiority over others, pride in physical appearance, God-Complex, and Treachery.

##### The Helping Hands:

Those Souls who became addicted to controlling others, those megalomaniacs who required that they exert superiority over others at all times, are punished in the first section of the Ninth Circle. Here, prideful Souls are enslaved by visages of the people they controlled and manipulated in life, treated as little more than property to be mistreated or puppets to be played with and dangled about for all to see; Souls are relentlessly abused and ridiculed by their old friends, families, and enemies alike.

##### The Room of Self-Reflection:

Those Souls who obsessed over appearances, who held too much pride in their own perfection and beauty, are subjected to never-ending mutations in a room made of unbreakable mirrors. The prideful, lonely Souls are forced to stare at themselves as their beauty shifts and disappears, never to be seen again beneath the tentacles, extra eyes and limbs, tumor and chunks of scales or fatty flesh.

##### Church of Humility:

Those Souls who thought themselves above God in life are punished for their infinite pride in the third section of the Ninth Circle. These Souls are laid low by the "divine" visage of "God," forced to kneel and take in His "divine" majesty. These Souls are forcibly made into clergy of the Catholic Church, made to spent their time worshipping a god to which they feel superior, and forced to live their lives according to the Church's tenets; deviations from this punishment, or a failure to adequately pray or prostrate themselves before God, are met with "divine" retribution and excruciating agony in the form of incinerating light, madness, etc.

An alternate punishment involves those Souls who claimed to be prophets, or the Second Coming of Jesus; these Souls are crucified outside the Church of Humility, not allowed even to endure the "lesser" humiliating punishment as they are tortured and killed, slowly, forever.

##### Lake Cocytus:

Those Souls who committed acts of betrayal in life are frozen in Lake Cocytus, the deepest part of the Circles where Satan himself was previously imprisoned. The lake is sourced from the River Phlegethon, and contains the frozen Souls of the Damned tormented here; the worse the treachery, the deeper in the ice the Soul is frozen; it is said that the Soul of Judas Iscariot sits at the very bottom of the frozen lake, so deep that no light from even the fires of Hell reaches him.