The vaults of the evil gods are bound together. They are seven hells intertwined for one purpose, the forging of mortal souls into the infernal.
The vault is dominated by a great mountain. The mountain is larger than any on Erebus, it is steep, rigid and punishing. The pinnacle is called the throne of hell (not an actual throne) and is the main gateway between the hells and Erebus (in the Fane of Lessers) and the portal through which souls are drawn into hell.
The mountain gets colder the higher you climb, and its base and rocky spires are hunted by the remaining servants of Mulcarn, frost giants, frostlings, aquilan and the nive.
Below a vast waste slopes away from the mountain. The rough tundra turns into a swamp. Each step through the swamp is a battle and the languid pools pull at anyone trying to get through them. Beneath the surface the largest source of petitioners in hell are trapped, this is the purgatory for the non-committal. They lay here for ages, consuming their own excrement and feeling nothing but slight pain and lethargy. In time they will overcome their passive nature and continue down into hell, but for now they are victims of their own inaction. Tar demons are pulled form these pools, gelatinous blobs with little humanity remaining.
There are creatures in the swamp, mites and bugs that leaving horrid burning blisters where they bite. They are not deadly, most that travel here are immortal, but the creatures steal the strength of those that pass through the swamp, inviting petitioners to lay beneath the black waters and succumb to mindless eternity that this realm offers.
There is one great city in hell and it dominates this entire world of Mammon. The wastes of Mulcarn’s realm lead down into it and eventually the souls will be drawn to the city. As they get closer to the city they are transformed from ethereal spirits to a physical manifestation similar to their body in life.
As each petitioner enters the city he is given a coin, and the only way to progress through the city is to give seven coins to the Balors that guard the gateway at the cities heart. As such the entire plane is a trial to gather the seven coins needed to escape (little do they know that only worse lays beyond). Balors guard the city and maintain some illusion of order. This keeps wars from breaking out and makes for some safe areas where you can’t simply attack people to take their coins.
The point of this realm isn't to teach the petitioners how to effectively get the coins, but to have them spend years, decades and centuries wanting them. Getting them to the point where they are completely subject to their greed and unbound by any morale constraints in getting them. They will lie, they will steal, but mostly they will become ruled by their desire in a city full of lies, false hope, and degradation.
Some few never leave this stage of hell and intentionally become permanent citizens of this city. They occasionally rise into powerful positions, slave traders, dream merchants, cult leaders, etc. Mammon may take those that seem stuck and wipe their memories, forcing them to restart their entry into the city, but sometimes he leaves them be. Mammon is quite proud of his city, and one of the few (along with Esus) who views it as something more than just a part of a great machine.
Oddly the city features a long street full of various temples. There are hundreds of gods represented, and temples are reguarly switched from one religion to another. Most of the "religions" are unique to this city. Some worship various demons that may or may not be in the city, some worship petitioners pretending to be gods. All of the gods of Erebus are represented except one, though most in blatant parody of the real religion. There is a temple to Lugus, for example, that claims that Lugus is dead and they worship hideously disfigured statues of their fallen god.
The only god without a temple is Mammon. Mammon believes that the entire city is his temple.
Petitioners who pass through Mammon's trial are dropped into the eternal war of Camulos. There is no order here, there is little logic or reason. Only pain, hatred and battle. The world is as chaotic as those that fill it and volcanoes blast the sky while earthquakes raze and create mountains.
The point of this hell is to desensitize the petitioner to any form of pain. To go beyond any moral qualms at hurting or killing anyone. To delight in inflicting pain and build a need to torment others. To enjoy feeling pain themselves.
A petitioner that is born here begins small and weak. Their exact form and abilities vary widely based on the personality of the soul. There is little pattern to them. They are the subject of pain for a long time before they ever have any chance to inflict it. They start as little more than savage beasts, their memories are lost when leaving Mammon's world and they are reduced only to their base nature. In time that nature will grow, but the memories of life will be faint or gone altogether from this point on. In time they become stronger until eventually their conquests will be legendary. If Mammon's hell is the corruption of the mind, this hell is the corruption of the spirit.
Land is held by the powerful warlords of the plane, who travel in bands that are constantly betrayed by their members. Once a petitioner has grown strong enough they will simply be swallowed by the earth and surrounding warlords will be quick to step in and fill the void of the missing warlord.
Occasionally powerful demons will come to this vault on hunting expeditions. They hunt the greatest or least of the spirits here and take them as servants (to fight in their own arenas as they aren’t worth much else) or merely for the pleasure of killing them. There are occasional wastelands here, the shallows, where some spirits hide to escape the constant battle. Whatever peace they find doesn't last long, and the hell hounds and demon hunters make regular trips into the shallows to gather new slaves. Sometimes demons pull petitioners directly out of this vault to serve them in Erebus. These are enraged, wild demons. Strong, but without reason.
The pits and tunnels beneath this vault are filled with vast prisons were the victims of war are kept. Here they suffer the worst physical torments and are forever unable to die. If there is any art in this violent hell it is in the perfection of torture. Trapped within dark holes, blood pouring through the ground like water and with the walls trembling with earthquakes and explosions you find the least fortunate of hells denizens.
The chaos is ended. The vault of Aeron is formed to train demons in all the skills they will need on Erebus. It could be thought of as a great academy, but its closer to say that it is a great temple. Demons learn to fight, lie, and channel power. They learn the great deceptions, and to subjugate themselves to their superiors. Through this training they become a part of the infernal hierarchy. Priests as well as warriors, commanders and soldiers.
Many demons are tasked with missions in Erebus as part of this training. Imps are students early in their training. Many of the intelligent demons in Erebus are just in a stage of their training here. Those that have passed beyond this vault are the most rare and powerful of processed souls, demonic lords and princes.
Occasionally particularly vile petitioners (priests of the veil, etc) will skip all the earlier stages and start here in Aeron’s vault ready for training.
This is the conclusion. Agares takes little interest in the powerful figures that make their home in the mutable surface of his world. From the runs of Nyx the demon princes raise dark palaces and lay claim to their own small fiefdoms. There is little beyond this, the demons are drawn to it because of their affinity to Agares but few remain here long. Instead they begin their plots on Erebus or join the ranks of a god that appeals to them. In time their fiefdoms vanish and their palaces fade back to dust.
Bhall lays burning in this realm and her corrupted angels with her. It is at the edge of her influence that the most demonic activity happens. As was never true before her fall the demonic denizens of this realm have begun to act together, impassioned by her presence they now delight in their schemes and have taken a much greater interest in creation. Cabal's have formed and even Hyborem seeks to challenge Erebus itself.
Ceridwen's vault is the largest and has no size at all. It is what binds all the hells together, and them with Erebus. It is not what’s on either side of the doorway, but the space between, the doorway itself.
Though there are no physical bounds to her world there are shadowy gaps within it, places between worlds. The laws of nature are not fixed within these worlds, that which is set in the laws of creation is mutable here. By drawing from these places, pulling them into creation these laws can be bent. Fire can be made to move and leap, the dominions that were once subordinate only to the gods can be commanded by men.
Esus may be the god of deception, but Cerdiwen is the queen of secrets. Even her highest angels are only privy to tiny parts of the vast web of portals and hidden spaces that make up her world. It is known that she has countless passages into Erebus and the hells, but most suspect that she travels between many more worlds. Perhaps even beyond those created by the gods of Erebus.
Occasionally a petitioner refuses the processing of hell and attempts to escape. A handful of fallen angels have risen, or petitioners have triumphed over hell by manifesting the virtues that each vault attempts to remove from them and going through it backward until they climb the mountain of Mulcarn’s realm and pass by the throne of hell itself back into Erebus. But this is an incredibly rare event.
Most commonly those wishing to escape hell find their way into the illusionary world of Esus. This world appears as Erebus in every way. It is even populated by simulacrum’s of the people the petitioner knew in life. They can return to their life here, they can believe that they have escaped from hell. But such joy will be short lived.
The function of this hell is to remove any motivation that is keeping a petitioner from his processing. Those that escape hell for love will find their love again, but it will sour and fade. Those that escape to follow their duty will find their tasks to be eventually flawed and meaningless. Those that are searching for a new faith will find their worship empty and hollow.
Everything in Esus’s realm is a lie, and it is the most cunning trap of hell.
The vault is dominated by a great mountain. The mountain is larger than any on Erebus, it is steep, rigid and punishing. The pinnacle is called the throne of hell (not an actual throne) and is the main gateway between the hells and Erebus (in the Fane of Lessers) and the portal through which souls are drawn into hell.
The mountain gets colder the higher you climb, and its base and rocky spires are hunted by the remaining servants of Mulcarn, frost giants, frostlings, aquilan and the nive.
Below a vast waste slopes away from the mountain. The rough tundra turns into a swamp. Each step through the swamp is a battle and the languid pools pull at anyone trying to get through them. Beneath the surface the largest source of petitioners in hell are trapped, this is the purgatory for the non-committal. They lay here for ages, consuming their own excrement and feeling nothing but slight pain and lethargy. In time they will overcome their passive nature and continue down into hell, but for now they are victims of their own inaction. Tar demons are pulled form these pools, gelatinous blobs with little humanity remaining.
There are creatures in the swamp, mites and bugs that leaving horrid burning blisters where they bite. They are not deadly, most that travel here are immortal, but the creatures steal the strength of those that pass through the swamp, inviting petitioners to lay beneath the black waters and succumb to mindless eternity that this realm offers.
There is one great city in hell and it dominates this entire world of Mammon. The wastes of Mulcarn’s realm lead down into it and eventually the souls will be drawn to the city. As they get closer to the city they are transformed from ethereal spirits to a physical manifestation similar to their body in life.
As each petitioner enters the city he is given a coin, and the only way to progress through the city is to give seven coins to the Balors that guard the gateway at the cities heart. As such the entire plane is a trial to gather the seven coins needed to escape (little do they know that only worse lays beyond). Balors guard the city and maintain some illusion of order. This keeps wars from breaking out and makes for some safe areas where you can’t simply attack people to take their coins.
The point of this realm isn't to teach the petitioners how to effectively get the coins, but to have them spend years, decades and centuries wanting them. Getting them to the point where they are completely subject to their greed and unbound by any morale constraints in getting them. They will lie, they will steal, but mostly they will become ruled by their desire in a city full of lies, false hope, and degradation.
Some few never leave this stage of hell and intentionally become permanent citizens of this city. They occasionally rise into powerful positions, slave traders, dream merchants, cult leaders, etc. Mammon may take those that seem stuck and wipe their memories, forcing them to restart their entry into the city, but sometimes he leaves them be. Mammon is quite proud of his city, and one of the few (along with Esus) who views it as something more than just a part of a great machine.
Oddly the city features a long street full of various temples. There are hundreds of gods represented, and temples are reguarly switched from one religion to another. Most of the "religions" are unique to this city. Some worship various demons that may or may not be in the city, some worship petitioners pretending to be gods. All of the gods of Erebus are represented except one, though most in blatant parody of the real religion. There is a temple to Lugus, for example, that claims that Lugus is dead and they worship hideously disfigured statues of their fallen god.
The only god without a temple is Mammon. Mammon believes that the entire city is his temple.
Petitioners who pass through Mammon's trial are dropped into the eternal war of Camulos. There is no order here, there is little logic or reason. Only pain, hatred and battle. The world is as chaotic as those that fill it and volcanoes blast the sky while earthquakes raze and create mountains.
The point of this hell is to desensitize the petitioner to any form of pain. To go beyond any moral qualms at hurting or killing anyone. To delight in inflicting pain and build a need to torment others. To enjoy feeling pain themselves.
A petitioner that is born here begins small and weak. Their exact form and abilities vary widely based on the personality of the soul. There is little pattern to them. They are the subject of pain for a long time before they ever have any chance to inflict it. They start as little more than savage beasts, their memories are lost when leaving Mammon's world and they are reduced only to their base nature. In time that nature will grow, but the memories of life will be faint or gone altogether from this point on. In time they become stronger until eventually their conquests will be legendary. If Mammon's hell is the corruption of the mind, this hell is the corruption of the spirit.
Land is held by the powerful warlords of the plane, who travel in bands that are constantly betrayed by their members. Once a petitioner has grown strong enough they will simply be swallowed by the earth and surrounding warlords will be quick to step in and fill the void of the missing warlord.
Occasionally powerful demons will come to this vault on hunting expeditions. They hunt the greatest or least of the spirits here and take them as servants (to fight in their own arenas as they aren’t worth much else) or merely for the pleasure of killing them. There are occasional wastelands here, the shallows, where some spirits hide to escape the constant battle. Whatever peace they find doesn't last long, and the hell hounds and demon hunters make regular trips into the shallows to gather new slaves. Sometimes demons pull petitioners directly out of this vault to serve them in Erebus. These are enraged, wild demons. Strong, but without reason.
The pits and tunnels beneath this vault are filled with vast prisons were the victims of war are kept. Here they suffer the worst physical torments and are forever unable to die. If there is any art in this violent hell it is in the perfection of torture. Trapped within dark holes, blood pouring through the ground like water and with the walls trembling with earthquakes and explosions you find the least fortunate of hells denizens.
The chaos is ended. The vault of Aeron is formed to train demons in all the skills they will need on Erebus. It could be thought of as a great academy, but its closer to say that it is a great temple. Demons learn to fight, lie, and channel power. They learn the great deceptions, and to subjugate themselves to their superiors. Through this training they become a part of the infernal hierarchy. Priests as well as warriors, commanders and soldiers.
Many demons are tasked with missions in Erebus as part of this training. Imps are students early in their training. Many of the intelligent demons in Erebus are just in a stage of their training here. Those that have passed beyond this vault are the most rare and powerful of processed souls, demonic lords and princes.
Occasionally particularly vile petitioners (priests of the veil, etc) will skip all the earlier stages and start here in Aeron’s vault ready for training.
This is the conclusion. Agares takes little interest in the powerful figures that make their home in the mutable surface of his world. From the runs of Nyx the demon princes raise dark palaces and lay claim to their own small fiefdoms. There is little beyond this, the demons are drawn to it because of their affinity to Agares but few remain here long. Instead they begin their plots on Erebus or join the ranks of a god that appeals to them. In time their fiefdoms vanish and their palaces fade back to dust.
Bhall lays burning in this realm and her corrupted angels with her. It is at the edge of her influence that the most demonic activity happens. As was never true before her fall the demonic denizens of this realm have begun to act together, impassioned by her presence they now delight in their schemes and have taken a much greater interest in creation. Cabal's have formed and even Hyborem seeks to challenge Erebus itself.
Ceridwen's vault is the largest and has no size at all. It is what binds all the hells together, and them with Erebus. It is not what’s on either side of the doorway, but the space between, the doorway itself.
Though there are no physical bounds to her world there are shadowy gaps within it, places between worlds. The laws of nature are not fixed within these worlds, that which is set in the laws of creation is mutable here. By drawing from these places, pulling them into creation these laws can be bent. Fire can be made to move and leap, the dominions that were once subordinate only to the gods can be commanded by men.
Esus may be the god of deception, but Cerdiwen is the queen of secrets. Even her highest angels are only privy to tiny parts of the vast web of portals and hidden spaces that make up her world. It is known that she has countless passages into Erebus and the hells, but most suspect that she travels between many more worlds. Perhaps even beyond those created by the gods of Erebus.
Occasionally a petitioner refuses the processing of hell and attempts to escape. A handful of fallen angels have risen, or petitioners have triumphed over hell by manifesting the virtues that each vault attempts to remove from them and going through it backward until they climb the mountain of Mulcarn’s realm and pass by the throne of hell itself back into Erebus. But this is an incredibly rare event.
Most commonly those wishing to escape hell find their way into the illusionary world of Esus. This world appears as Erebus in every way. It is even populated by simulacrum’s of the people the petitioner knew in life. They can return to their life here, they can believe that they have escaped from hell. But such joy will be short lived.
The function of this hell is to remove any motivation that is keeping a petitioner from his processing. Those that escape hell for love will find their love again, but it will sour and fade. Those that escape to follow their duty will find their tasks to be eventually flawed and meaningless. Those that are searching for a new faith will find their worship empty and hollow.
Everything in Esus’s realm is a lie, and it is the most cunning trap of hell.
