Recently, a band of murderers, thieves, cutthroats, hypocrites, and cultists have waged atrocities in the depths of the Netherworld. Normally, we'd celebrate this kind of behavior, but these were adventurers.
And now the Overfiend is dead. As in, Not Coming Back, Dead. Sans Rez Deceased.
Those self-righteous looters have laid waste to the Carnival Grotesque, sacked the Invincible Fortress, and polluted the Brothel of Ten Thousand Torments with their insipid, aasimar-infested lineages. Suffice it to say, our home and unholy hearth is in ruins.
But Evil Finds a Way. So lay your claim, and bring a blueprint and some damned slave-architects. We're building a better Hell. And this time, we're making this thing Hero-proof.
TLDR version: post Hellscapes and what your GM made of the Lower Planes.
>sacked the Invincible Fortress This feels like a betrayal.
I mean, granted, this is Hell, it's to be expected, but the Invincible Fortress is meant to be one of the places where this happens less
Jacob Brooks
The fortress still stands. Its guardians do not.
Sebastian Stewart
Hell as a gated neighborhood for classier demonfolk.
Grayson Baker
Rouse the Seven Sins! You can't have a proper Hell without them.
Nathan Hernandez
Not without me, at least.
Cooper Wilson
Room for more.... eldritch horrors?
Alexander Nelson
I strongly recommend you read Barlowe's God's Demon.
Not only is the artbook of the same name great for inspiration, the actual story is interesting as well. A couple of interesting features that you might like
>Most greater demons are amorphous beings whose shape can change drastically and constantly >All construction in hell is done using its lost souls. As in the souls are the both the slave labor and the construction material. Particularly disobedient or "worthy" souls are made into bricks and used to build nearly everything in hell >Souls themselves are malleable. Demon's can shape and twist a soul into great war steeds or living war machines. This isn't a pleasant experience >Hell's magic involves glyphs and runes. These glowing sigils can be seen glowing in the air, and a greater demon is always seen first by his great sigil rising high into the sky >Hell was a place before Heaven cast out Lucifer and his cohorts. It was a blighted and awful place before, with its own denizens and wildlife. Abyssal creatures have their own low cunning, but are no match for the new fallen angels, yet frequently prey on any wandering souls or lower demons >There is no sun in hell, the sun is His light. Only a red smudge can be seen, and they say it is His watchful gaze
Chase Murphy
...
Bentley Evans
>Hero-proof
>Hero
>proof
It's all fun and games, ganking Level 12 D&D paladins and RIFTS glitterboys like you're hot shit
Then a CWOD Mage planeswalks into your undefeatable hellmaw powered by trapped archgods and fucks it, hard
Fucks it all into a hell deeper than your most fervent imaginings
Luke Scott
...
Alexander Price
...
Sebastian Campbell
Metal album covers work surprisingly well for this
That's why I breed nullsprites. They get into everything, and they'll ruin any magic items you leave lying around, but they eat the magic right out out of a mortal's head. The best part is, mortals can't even see them without magical assistance, which is one of those problems that solves itself.
There is nothing so satisfying as seeing some self aggrandizing wizard try to defend himself with magic and in so doing ring a dinner bell that summons every damn nullsprite for miles. As if you can use magical force to contain something that eats magic, or magical fire to kill one!
They can be a bit of a hazard, though. One of my nullsprites slipped through a summoning circle I left open and went to one of the mortal worlds when I wasn't looking. Closed the circle and didn't realize my mistake for a hundred years. next time I check in? The place is so infested with Nullsprites that the humans there don't even believe magic is real, because they never get a chance to cast anything.
Egg on my face, I tell you what.
Noah Gutierrez
What was actually sacked was the vast netherworld, the many sprawling infernal realms and places of dread, a plane of evil made into horrible physicality.
Now the remnants of demons and devils have had to flee somewhere else, somewhere deeper and darker, a place that in a past age, a cosmic epoch before all remembered time, in the dust of the first chaos that was the universe, great forces strove to imprison something infinitely malignant into a hole so deep that once they were dead, no one would find it, and its wretched prisoner would never escape. Through only the most distant, foggy memories of the earliest souls, its name seeped into the subconscious of the entire multiverse. It was called Hell.
If we're to rebuild the Netherworld, we'll need capital! Money is the root of all evil, afterall, from the most spiteful sins to the most glorious atrocities! We, the Merchants Malign, say we start by building a treasury, to hold all the wealth we'll stockpile once our incredible empire is reborn, bigger, so so badder, and spikier than before! But what are we to sell? If the Netherworld is to be an empire, it will need an economy to tax!
Xavier Parker
>CWOD Someone suggested nullsprites, I believe - wonderful, then we have our first import!
Jack Green
[muffled e1m1 playing in the distance]
James Reyes
...
Jack Brooks
Well, fuck.
Hunter Cook
I liked the depiction in pic related- >The "Museum of Sin" >Every evil act committed by a mortal is recorded here. >ALL OF THEM >From the biggest war crimes to the little old lady who "borrowed" a few dollars from the church collection plate. >That time you passed a homeless man on the street and avoided eye contact because he smelled funny? Thats here too. >Every rape, murder, and theft. Every time a mortal could have done better but didn't. >All of it, recorded in meticulous detail and preserved FOR ALL TIME.
>Extra bit to make it adventurer proof: its all made with costumes and props (all fireproof material). There is nothing of value to steal, and the exhibits resemble themselves if damaged.
Lucifer's private title for the collection is "winning the argument"
Blake Foster
Well that just made my day a little better
Not my GM or anything, but I recall in one book from my younger days (one of the "Pure Dead" series, if anyone read that), Hell had a massive ring-road, the Hadean Orbital (route 666, obviously, which may have been one-way, and was definitely a massive traffic jam, bumper to bumper with smog-belching vans and SUVs. Whatever its other purposes, it inevitably always made the demons late (and angry), meaning their bosses always had a reason to yell at them.
Dylan Davis
Well i dont see why we need to fix anything, everything is bent and broken in terrifying shapes, everythings is covered in all kinds of fires and theres tons of angry, murdereous, and hungry hellspawn around.
A more perfect hell could exist? Yes, but were evil sans we cut cost corners everywhere.
Nathan Watson
It's just a big boring field of stone. Unpleasant to step on. Easy to get lost in.
Ethan Morgan
Make hell very boring and hook-less. Literally nothing there is of interest to PCs. Any loot is dropped randomly in the most crime infested shitholes in the material plane so now One-Eye the third street rapist now has a sword of unimaginable raping.
Jacob Diaz
Y tho
Jayden Jenkins
Pssh, nothing personal, unmodified human.
Brayden Wright
YES
Charles Myers
...
Xavier Murphy
...
Matthew Bailey
...
Jeremiah Davis
This is pretty close, in-context at least
Robert Cruz
I've always been a bit of a fan of the flesh-and-blood look for hell; makes it seem like one - or more - giant organisms who you're trying to survive in while it does its thing.
Michael Murphy
Barlowe's all well and good, but seriously, how many tables have used this kind of imagery for their Infernal Realm? Most of the games I've been in have had Hell look more like, well, the culture it's tormenting. You know, the whole "dark mirror of mortal life" angle.
Lincoln Parker
>what your GM made of the Lower Planes.
Everything is Flesh. Everything is Flesh, Bone, Blood, Offal, Piss, Shit, and a little bit of Hair. The entire landscape is alive and could be described as a Fleshscape: rivers of blood, cesspools or bogs of filth, formations of bone and muscles- it's a terrible place where it rains blood, but permeates itself every 'dusk' and 'dawn' with a mist of humid, horrible, sweat... And unless you find an orifice if you attempt to dig down you'll be hacking through muscle, skin, and blood. Provided you dig deep enough though you'll eventually found the more 'traditional' hell underneath: igneous stone, rich ores and precious gems, flowing rivers of lava- in some scarred, damaged, or particularly "thin" areas this kind of landscape can be found on the surface... And in some very rare cases even develop into relatively 'normal' looking evironments.
The only other interesting aspect is the uncommon, but sporadic appearance of "dead places" that occasionally enter into hell from above. Small cross-sections of "places" that pierce and wound hell- adding texture and often outside items of particular interest. These can be as small as a porta potty or as big as an entire city.... Understandably; this is usually where Demons "prefer" to make their homes.
Nathaniel Miller
The seven sins aren't enough. Call on the seven princes.
