Nine Hells

The Nine Hells, sometimes Hell or Hells, also known as Baator in Infernal, was the home of the devils. It was a plane of sinister evil and institutional cruelty organized in a strict caste system with a very rigid chain of command. Unlike the demons of the Abyss, the devils were highly organized in their quest for power and status: scheming and plotting power plays, coups, and assassinations. Each of the nine Hells had its own physical laws or properties of matter but all were inhospitable or deadly to outsiders. This plane's place in the cosmology of the Forgotten Realms shifted over time but was always a bastion and incubator for those of the lawful evil persuasion.

Cosmology
First and second edition D&D placed the Nine Hells in the Outer Planes of the Great Wheel between Gehenna and Acheron, with connections to Concordant Opposition and the Astral Plane. Each Hell was a different infinite layer interconnected at barriers much like a nine-layered cake&mdash;the lowest points of one layer manifested barriers that exited high above the surface of the next lower layer. The river Styx flowed through the first layer, Avernus, and also the fifth layer, Stygia, before crossing over into Gehenna.

When the Great Wheel model was overshadowed by the World Tree cosmology model, the river Styx was renamed the River of Blood and it flowed through all the fiendish planes (except for the Supreme Throne and the Demonweb Pits) originating in the Abyss, passing through the Blood Rift&mdash;an unusual plane that connected the Abyss with the Nine Hells &mdash;bringing the devils even closer to their arch-enemies the demons, resulting in the Blood War. Cosmologists verified portals between the Nine Hells and the Barrens of Doom and Despair and Clangor and, by agreement with Kelemvor, to the Fugue Plane. The Astral plane connected all of the fiendish planes to the Prime Material Plane, but not directly to each other.

After the Spellplague, Asmodeus consumed the essence of the fallen Azuth achieving (some say regaining) greater godhood and ended the Blood War by casting the Abyss to the furthest depths of the Elemental Chaos. The World Axis cosmology model described the Nine Hells as an astral dominion floating in the Astral Sea, no longer of infinite size nor consisting of layers, ruled by Asmodeus and his eight archdevil vassals. Once again the river Styx flowed through the Nine Hells and the Abyss, but then emptied its pollution into the Astral Sea.

Description
Each of the nine Hells was unique and usually mirrored the malevolent characteristics of its ruler, or perhaps the archdevils were shaped by the domains they schemed to control, no one can be certain. In early editions, each Hell was a separate infinite layer rigidly joined to its neighbors by barriers at fixed locations. After the Spellplague, the domains of the archdevils were described as territories (large, but finite) or circles. The relationship between layers and circles is not fully known. What follows are descriptions of the nine Hells reported by various cosmologists working under different cosmological models, gathered, collated, and summarized.

Avernus
The first circle of Hell was also the "topmost" because Astral travelers would emerge from color pools on this layer and reaching the next circle required descending to the lower depths to breach a barrier to Dis. According to the Great Wheel cosmology model, this layer was also connected by portal to Acheron, Gehenna, and Concordant Opposition. By the World Tree cosmology model, portals connected Avernus to Clangor, the Barrens of Doom and Despair and the Blood Rift via the River of Blood. It was believed at the time that some of the archdukes maintained portals to the realms of Bane, Loviatar, and Talona, but the ownership and location of those portals was unknown. The World Axis cosmology model posits the Nine Hells were isolated with no direct connections except via the river Styx to the Abyss. Travelers on the Astral Sea who did not follow the Styx likely found themselves falling out of the sky above Avernus to a fiery death.

By all accounts Avernus was a desolate wasteland with rocky terrain, sparse, twisted vegetation, concealed snake pits, caves and warrens, volcanoes, and rivers of magma. The sky was starless, full of choking smoke, and glowed a dark red due to balls of flammable gas that floated about or streaked across the atmosphere, randomly exploding as a fireball. During the Blood War, Avernus echoed with the marching of legions of devil troops preparing for the next campaign against the demons of the Abyss, the ground was littered with the detritus of countless battles, and blood trickled out of the ground in vein-like streams eventually flowing into the river Styx.

Dis
The second circle of Hell, when described as its own layer, was a flat barren plain containing little more than black, stagnant rivers, stretching for thousands of miles/kilometers until it reached some rolling hills. The sky was a cloudy dull green shot through with lightning. In the center of this plain rose the Iron City of Dis, several miles/kilometers in height and hundreds of miles/kilometers wide. The foul rivers radiated from a moat big enough to be called a lake surrounding the Iron City. The World Tree view of the Iron City was much the same but bigger, having been expanded by countless minions following Dispater's grand plan. The walls of the buildings and the stones of the streets glowed the dull red of hot iron; more than brief skin contact resulted in severe burns. Prisoners of war, tormented underlings, criminals, and kidnap victims were kept in underground dungeons where their wails of woe could be heard filtering up through small vents in the iron walls. Above it all rose the Iron Tower where Dispater sat and schemed, untouchable. In the World Axis view, the city of Dis was enclosed in a huge cavern accessible from Avernus through a tremendous iron gate in the side of a mountain.

Minauros
Minauros as a layer was described as an endless bog of vile pollution, decaying bodies, and rotting marsh, repeatedly drenched by rain, sleet, and hail storms. The soggy, bone-strewn, disease-ridden swampland made movement very difficult and was only broken occasionally by serpentine ridges of volcanic rock. Nameless creatures even the devils feared inhabited the swamp. Minauros as a realm was depicted as a broad but low-vaulted cavern connected to Dis. An oily water percolated through the roof of the cave and rained down upon swamps, deserts of mud and oozing black soil, pockmarked by bubbling fumaroles and mud geysers.

Minauros was also the name of the city built of black stone by Mammon on the treacherous surface of this place. Only the efforts of thousands of minions and slaves prevented the city from sinking and being consumed by the bog. The city of Jangling Hiter, also known as the City of Chains, hung by massive links of chain above the noisome fen and was ruled by kytons.

Phlegethos
The fourth circle was the Hell that most resembled the stereotype of a fiery world of eternal damnation, filled with active volcanoes, rivers of liquid fire, molten rock, ash hills, smoking pits, unbearable heat, all wracked by tremors and earthquakes. Even the air seemed aflame and thus Phlegethos was considered to be fire-dominant. In the World Axis view, Phlegethos was a cavern several miles/kilometers below Minauros, where burning lava poured out of fissures in the ceiling. The city of Abriymoch was the seat of power in this realm, built of hardened magma, obsidian, and crystal in the caldera of an extinct volcano which provided visitors some protection from the elemental environment found throughout the rest of the plane.

Stygia
The complete opposite of Phlegethos, Stygia was either a bottomless ocean covered by an ice sheet up to three miles (five kilometers) thick, or a frozen sea salted with huge icebergs buried in a cavern several miles/kilometers below Dis and hundreds of miles/kilometers away from fiery Phlegethos depending on which cosmological model was in vogue at the time. According to the Great Wheel and World Tree models, the river Styx cut across the ice forming a channel. The older model also suggested the Styx supported small but hardy plants and mosses which, after millennia of decay of this vegetation, resulted in swampy areas along the banks of the river. A few floating islands were the only non-frozen ground in Stygia, their peaks wreathed in lightning arcing from the coal-black sky. Where lightning struck, a strange phenomenon called "cold fire" erupted: white flames of extreme cold that "burned" for a short time and then disappeared without a trace. The great city of Tantlin was built upon one of these islands, in the curve of the swampy Styx, or perhaps on a giant ice floe. Due to the proximity of the Styx, Tantlin was a cross-planar trading post for those brave enough to attempt navigating the treacherous river.

Malbolge
There is significant disagreement between cosmologies on the nature of the sixth circle of Hell. As a Great Wheel layer, Malbolge was a gargantuan tumble of angular black stone blocks, each block ranging in size from a small city to a large metropolis, that formed a pile hundreds of miles/kilometers thick. The randomly tilted and ill-fitting blocks were honeycombed with angular passages and caverns causing non-flying travelers to frequently need mountaineering skills and risk avalanches. Stinking clouds of vapor rose up from the depths and lit the sky with the color of blood, causing cosmologists to speculate that the blocks of Malbolge may have rested on an infinite sea of lava. Corroborating reports have been heard of flammable materials left on the ground spontaneously combusting. Most habitations in Malbolge were copper-clad fortresses built from black stone.

The World Tree view of this layer was similar to the Great Wheel plane of Gehenna: a steep, infinite craggy incline often subject to avalanches that crushed most anything that got in the way. The copper-shod redoubts were teardrop-shaped or otherwise engineered to deflect tumbling boulders, but even those could not long withstand a direct hit from a major avalanche.

In the World Axis cosmology view, Malbolge was another huge cavern connected to Stygia by icy canals that ran hundreds of miles/kilometers before reaching their destination. A former godly inhabitant had shaped the realm into a vast garden with fountains, towers, reflecting pools, and all manner of landscaping delights. With the coming of the devils, Malbolge was still beautiful on the surface but creeping corruption permeated the realm, twisting the beauty, perverting the architecture, and poisoning the pools.

Maladomini
The Great Wheel cosmology view of the seventh circle of Hell described it as having vapor-polluted skies similar to Malbolge but the surface was solid. The post-Spellplague view described Maladomini as a colossal maze of passages each several miles/kilometers across that eventually led to Cania, Malbolge, and Nessus. All three models agreed that the seventh Hell was filled with ruins of old cities, stagnant rivers, exhausted and abandoned quarries and strip mines, stone aqueducts and lava canals, decaying fortresses, swarms of biting flies, and black pools of ichor that erupted from the ground. The Lord of the Seventh was never satisfied with the construction of his capitol and repeatedly built and abandoned city after city. The largest and most beautiful was Malagard, a sprawling metropolis/palace/fortress/arcology with myriad black towers linked by a tangled web of bridges and walkways. Malagard was rumored to contain a million rooms and to cap an equally complex dungeon labyrinth.

Cania
Both pre- and post-Spellplague cosmologies agree this Hell was a bitterly cold realm of solid ice mountains, titanic, unnaturally fast-moving glaciers, and nearly continuous snowfall that made Stygia seem balmy by comparison. Unprotected travelers were exposed to temperatures of -60 F (-51 C) but on the positive side there were few creatures that hunted in the icy wastes. Earlier lore described the great citadel Mephistar as being constructed of iron but later reports say the Lord of the Eighth's fortress/palace was made of ice. All accounts seemed to agree the tower had a heated, luxurious interior and sat atop a gargantuan glacier called Nargus whose speed and movement were under the control of Mephistopheles himself.

Nessus
The ninth and deepest Hell was a land of extremes in the Great Wheel view: regions cold as Cania, volcanoes like Phlegethos, a lake of ice, a flaming forest, sheer cliffs, firewinds, and a citadel even larger than Khin-Oin in Hades (later, the Khin-Oin became part of the Abyss ). A progression of rifts, pits, and chasms lead down and down, forming a vertical maze hundreds of miles/kilometers deep that contained great cities, fiendish armies, and the mighty fortress of the Overlord Asmodeus.

Inhabitants
The principal inhabitants of the Nine Hells/Baator were the devils,   and their offspring in varieties too numerous to catalog here. See the main article for descriptions of the myriad devilkind. In addition to the devils, this plane was home to bonespears, gathra, haraknin, hell hounds, imps, night hags, nightmares, and maelephants. Also occasionally encountered: achaierai, barghests, hellcats, mephits, rakshasa, and stench kows.

Afterlife
The journey of souls to the afterlife has also changed with the shifting cosmologies. In the Great Wheel view, souls destined for the Hells arrived as mindless nupperibos or, if they were worthy, as semi-intelligent lemures. In the World Tree view, souls first traveled to the Fugue Plane where they awaited escort to their final rest on the plane of their primary deity. While waiting, devils were allowed to bargain with the souls, playing on their fears and doubts to get them to agree that becoming a lemure with a chance for promotion was a better option than their suspected fate. Strong or crafty souls might negotiate a deal that reduced their time as a lemure or bestow a boon or punishment on those they left behind. After the Spellplague, Shar reshaped the Plane of Shadow and folded in what death energy did not get absorbed into the Elemental Chaos and created the Shadowfell. According to the World Axis view, souls on their way to the afterlife started their journey in the Shadowfell and most made it to the Fugue Plane to await judgment, but a few remained behind or were lost.

Realms
The nine circles of Hell were each ruled by an archdevil of great power, but the Nine Hells were also the home of other powerful beings at various points in the history of the Realms. Listed here in alphabetical order are those that directly or indirectly influenced the course of events in Faerûn, Toril, and beyond.
 * Asmodeus, the Overlord of the Nine Hells, exercised his power from a huge citadel in the lowest rift of Nessus,  named Malsheem.
 * Baalzebul ruled the seventh circle of Hell, Maladomini, from his gargantuan fortress Malagard. Early source material credited Baalzebul as controlling the sixth circle (Malbolge) through his viceroy Moloch.
 * Bahgtru, the strong but dim-witted son of Gruumsh, once resided in the Nine Hells before moving to the astral dominion of Nishrek as described by the World Tree and World Axis cosmology models.
 * Belial was the ruler of Phlegethos, the fourth circle of Hell, based in the basalt palace Abriymoch the "Mount of Leaping Flames", nestled in the caldera of an extinct volcano. Sometime after the Spellplague he set his daughter Fierna up as the ostensible ruler while he directed from the wings.
 * Dispater dominated the second circle of Hell, Dis, from his high stone tower in the city of the same name, also called the Iron City.
 * Fierna, daughter of Belial, was the archduchess of the fourth circle, fiery Phlegethos, as much as her father allowed.
 * Gargauth was thought to have been an archdevil cast out of the Hells long ago for betrayal. He eventually achieved godhood corrupting souls on the Prime Material Plane.
 * Geryon once ruled Stygia, the fifth circle of Hell, from a castle/city called Tantlin. At some point he was replaced or deposed by Levistus before that archdevil was imprisoned in the ice.
 * Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus and former consort of Mammon was the ruler of the sixth circle, Malbolge, sometime after Moloch was deposed.
 * Gruumsh, god of slaughter, chief god of the orcs, once had a realm in the Nine Hells and other Lower planes (see Acheron) before relocating his family to the Iron Fortress in the astral dominion of Nishrek.
 * The Hag Countess held sway over Malbolge, the sixth Hell, after Moloch was defeated. Asmodeus eventually got rid of her and installed his daughter Glasya as Lord of the Sixth.
 * Ilneval, master of strategy and chief lieutenant to Gruumsh, once lived in the Nine Hells before moving to Nishrek as described by the World Tree cosmology model.
 * Inanna, an Untheric goddess of love and war, once had a realm in the fourth circle, Phlegethos.
 * Kurtulmak, god of the kobolds, once lived in the caverns of Avernus where he maintained the appearance of friend and ally to whichever archduke was trying to lure him to their faction at the time. He eventually moved to a new realm called Draukari in Clangor, according to the World Tree cosmology model, but maintained a portal to the Nine Hells.
 * Levistus was the ruler of Stygia before (and perhaps even while) he was imprisoned in an iceberg floating on the frozen sea.
 * Luthic, mate of Gruumsh and orcish goddess of caverns, female orc fertility, and primitive medicine, shared a realm with Gruumsh in the Nine Hells before moving with him and her son to Nishrek.
 * Maglubiyet the Mighty One, Lord of Depths and Darkness, once had a realm in the Nine Hells as well as other Lower planes as part of his wandering (see Acheron), but he maintained a portal to the Nine Hells.
 * Mammon once ruled Minauros, the swampy third circle of Hell,  in a city of the same name built on many huge pillars of black stone that were constantly sinking slowly into the sludge.
 * Mephistopheles presided over the frigid eighth circle of hell, Cania, from his mighty citadel Mephistar, overlooking the Nargus glacier.
 * Moloch ruled the sixth circle of Hell, Malbolge, as the viceroy of Baalzebul  before it was taken over by Glasya.
 * Sekolah, the god of the sahuagin, once swam in the deep waters beneath the ice of Stygia in a realm called Sheyruushk.
 * Set, the jackal-headed Mulhorandi Lord of Evil, once controlled a huge realm in Avernus that he turned into a desert under a blazing sun. He called this realm Ankhwughat.
 * Tiamat once ruled the first circle of Hell, Avernus, from her cavernous lair Azharul, "The Dragonspawn Pits", attended by evil dragons both spiritual and incarnate, and a host of abishai before moving to her Cave of Greed in Dragon Eyrie. After the Spellplague she became a servant of Bane in Banehold.