[Guide] Hell

Hell is a place of torment and purification, agony and rigid perfection, a plane where reality’s laws subsume themselves and kneel to a darker structure. Souls are tormented not for the sake of petty malice, but for a reason and an ultimate plan, slowly, progressively, inevitably carried out by Hell’s fiendish inhabitants. Hell is said to have has nine layers, though the party has not yet visited them all. Layer 1: Avernus A plain of endless sorrows and confused terror, Avernus is the gateway to Hell. Here souls receive their first taste of eternal damnation. The endless, terrified masses of the newly dead tread a vast volcanic desert of pitted iron and molten rock, pleading for salvation from deities they lacked the foresight to embrace during life. The terrifying citadels of infernal warlords rise here, their armies mustered in eternal readiness while their hunters scour the plane for souls to enslave and shuffle off to torments upon Hell’s lower layers. The Forked Pyre: The iron fortress of Duke Furcas straddles a powerful cascade of roaring lava. Three spiked black towers pierce the layer’s poisoned clouds, one home to the burning armories of Furcas himself, another housing the barracks of his 20 legions, and the third a dungeon packed with ages’ worth of tormented rivals and useful souls

The following compiles many of the diabolical tyrants known to rule in Hell. Gods Asmodeus Asmodeus reigns as the unquestioned lord of Hell, the emperor and god of the damned. He is the most powerful entity to reside within the infernal realm, and even the other deities who make their home within the Pit do so at the Prince of Darkness’s allowance. Archdevils Barbatos Few dare speak Barbatos’s name, as legend says he is the most likely of Hell’s archfiends to hear. Of Asmodeus’s lieutenants, the mysterious lord of Avernus's true nature remains one of Hell’s greatest mysteries, a secret supposedly known by Asmodeus alone, and some say not even by him. Barbatos appears as an ancient humanoid man wrapped in filthy robes made from wrinkled skins flensed from the souls of long-dead travelers. From the sleeves of his leathery rags stretch withered, seven-fingered hands, each digit bearing an extra joint and gnarled claw. Infernal Dukes Furcas Furcas is an infernal duke in the service of the archdevil Barbatos who makes his home in a fortress called the Forked Pyre, which straddles a cataract of lava on Hell's first layer, Avernus. He appears in the form of a cruel old man with a long beard and a hoary head, riding upon a pale-coloured horse, with a scythe in his hand. His office is to teach the Arts of Philosophy, Astrology, Rhetoric, Logic, Chiromancy , and Pyromancy, in all their parts. He sometimes favors mortals with a Boon, that increases their power so long as they are loyal to him.