So you might ask why do the Hells need redesigned at all? I think the current incarnation of the Hells is a bit formless, the devils are all over the place, many are too low level and the gaps between the Archdevils and the rest are far too great. Taking us back to the age old question of how can you create encounters against one of the Archdevils when there are no servants high enough level to flesh out such adventures. Likewise the Archdevils themselves (unlike the Demon Princes) really don’t stand for any particular theme, making them seem a bit plain and boring.
The Great Rebellions
The fall of Lucifer from grace was the third (of five) angelic rebellions.
- Satan rebelled against GOD in the rebellion of entropy…that created the Sinistrals.
- Samael rebelled against Tetragrammaton in the rebellion of matter…that created the angels of punishment (yes I’ll need to find a better name for those).
- Lucifer rebelled against Metatron in the rebellion of fate…that created the Devils.
- Semyaza rebelled against Sandalphon in the rebellion of thought…that created the Grigori.
- Gog is prophesised to rebel against Adam Qadmon in the rebellion of time…which will create the Magog. This last rebellion has not yet transpired.
Ten Sins?
I always liked the idea of correlating the Hells with the concept of sin. While most are familiar with the seven deadly sins, after some study I found that there are actually ten sins, with Despair, Discouragement and Vanity being the three lesser known sins.
- Sin – Personification – Related Animal – Related Colour – Related Energy
- Pride – Lucifer – Horse – Purple – Lightning
- Rage – Asmodeus – Bear – Red – Fire
- Sloth – Mephistopheles – Goat – light Blue – Ice
- Gluttony – Baalzebul – Pig – Orange – Thunder
- Vanity – Lilith (or Glasya?) – Cat – White – Radiant
- Despair – Leviathan – Crocodile – Black – Psychic
- Lust – Belial – Bull – dark Blue – Necrotic
- Avarice – Mammon – Frog – Yellow – Acid
- Discouragement – Dispater – Owl – Grey – Force
- Jealousy – Belphegor – Wolf – Green – Poison
So what we have above is a breakdown of the Ten Hells and their various themes. The related animal section shows the features and characteristic’s devils representing that sin will take (see the medieval painting below). Related colours are the dominant colour of that sin. Related energy sources could involve the given layer of Hell as well as powers of the devils. The vast bulk of the above was gleaned from occult sources.
The Archdevils themselves would wield sin like a weapon, but would not necessarily take on the animalistic characteristics, or rather, they might still be able to assume a more humanoid/angelic form for a time.
Variety within the same Sin
Furthermore the sins themselves can be broken down into Cardinal (important) Sins, Sins and Venial (trivial) Sins. This gels nicely with the greater, lesser and least ranks of devils. Note also that each sin can be further broken down into smaller components…
e.g. Rage can be broken down into:
- Denial of Truth
- Self-Denial
- Impatience
- Vigilantism
- Murder
- Revenge
- Suicide
So while Greater Rage Devils may encompass all those above factors, standard Devils may only encompass one of each (thus we could have seven ‘flavours’ of standard Rage Devils. Other sins have a varying number of sub-themes as well.
Ten Hells?
As you can see from the list above, rather than having the familiar Nine Hells, I have adopted ten with Lucifer ruling the final strata of Hell…albeit imprisoned as he is (as per Dante’s Inferno…and also an ancient Dragon Magazine article from about 30 years ago). The tenth Hell wouldn’t be common knowledge and something of a ‘secret level’.
Hierarchy of the Hells
A mathematical puzzle thats been annoying me for a while now is how to balance the guards/inhabitants of a given deity’s realm (or in the examples I’ve been toying with, Archdukes of Hell).
The structure of the Hells is an interesting one in that there are (or were in 1E) clearly defined ranks:
- Nobility (Dukes and Archdukes)
- Greater Devils
- Lesser Devils
- Least Devils
On the face of it you could just assign 10 levels to each group. Least Devils cover 1-10, Lesser 11-20, Greater 21-30, Nobility 31-40.
But thats where you run into the first problem…interactivity. If there is a 10 level gap between monsters then one element cannot be used in conjunction with the other.
e.g. You can’t have a bunch of Level 19 Lesser Rage Devils in tandem with a Level 29 Greater Rage Devil. The gap in the math is too big.
So the first attempted solution is to make group 1 Minions, group 2 standard monsters, group 3 elites and group 4 solo monsters.
- Least Rage Devil = Level 17 Minion (the numbers at this point are hypothetical)
- Lesser Rage Devil = Level 19
- Greater Rage Devil = Level 25 Elite
- Rage Archduke = Level 30 Solo
Again this looks too big a gap, but what we can then do is divide it into two scales. Lets say one is for ‘wilderness’ encounters (in Hell), the other is for organised defenses inside an Archduke’s Fortress.
Wilderness Encounters
Least Rage Devil = Level 17 Minion
Lesser Rage Devil = Level 19
Greater Rage Devil = Level 20 Solo
Fortress Encounters
Lesser Rage Devil = Level 27 Minion
Greater Rage Devil = Level 25 Elite
Rage Archduke = Level 30 Solo
Adjectiveless Devils
These seem to have the missing element of Elite (wilderness) and Standard (fortress) encounters. Which prompts the creation of a fourth strata of devil, one that is neither lesser or greater but something in between.
Rage Devil (wilderness) = Level 20 Elite
Rage Devil (fortress) = Level 24
Nobility
In addition to the above gap between lesser and greater devils we can also see a similar gap between greater devils and archdukes, creating a fifth basic strata. To which I would suggest the following:
- Baron = Greater Devil +1
- President/Viscount = Greater Devil +2
- Count = Greater Devil +3
- Marquis = Greater Devil +4
- Duke/Prince = Greater Devil +5
The slight downside to the above is that some of the stronger nobles will be physically more powerful than the weaker Archdukes.
So the amended classifications are:
- Archduke/King – potentially gargantuan size (monstrous form)
- Noble – potentially huge size
- Greater Devil – large size
- Devil – medium size
- Lesser Devil – small size
- Least Devil – tiny size
Power of the Hells
The power of each Hell is derived from its Archduke, all devils of that corresponding sin, are indirectly empowered by the status of the Archduke within the ten. Also, its not always the case that the lower the tier of Hell, the more powerful the Archduke.
My idea was to base the relative standings of each Archdevil upon their 1st Edition Hit Points.
- Belphegor: n/a (assigned 122 hp)
- Dispater: 144 hp
- Mammon: 139 hp
- Belial: 154 hp
- Leviathan: n/a (assigned 177 hp)
- Lilith (Glasya: 96 hp)
- Baalzebul: 166 hp
- Mephistopheles: 188 hp
- Asmodeus: 199 hp
- Lucifer: 333 hp
The key then is to set a level for the least powerful Archduke and extrapolate the rest from there. But here we run into a number of problems.
Asmodeus is meant to be a Greater God in 4E. So do we then make Lucifer an Overgod (he is a fallen seraphim after all)? This in itself throws up all sorts of minor issues such as interactivity. If Asmodeus is (for example) 5 levels more powerful than the next most powerful Archdevil, then are Asmodeus’ regular devils 5 levels more powerful than the next most powerful devils?
My initial solution was going to have Asmodeus above the other Archdukes, with Lucifer above him again. But the more I wrestled with the problem the more I leant towards the idea that there are two Asmodeii (if thats the plural of Asmodeus?). Or rather that he has two forms. The first is Asmodeus, the second form is the monstrous Aeshma-deva. If Asmodeus is ever slain, Aeshma-deva is released. This way we can keep the hierarchy of Hell relatively intact.
- Lucifer: Level 45 Solo
- Asmodeus: Level 34 Solo (Aeshma-deva: Level 39 Solo)
- Mephistopheles: Level 33 Solo
- Baalzebul: Level 31 Solo
- Lilith/Glasya: Level 26 Solo
- Leviathan: Level 32 Solo
- Belial: Level 30 Solo
- Mammon: Level 28 Solo
- Dispater: Level 29 Solo
- Belphegor: Level 27 Solo
So that would outline the Greater Devils as follows.
- Greater Pride Devil: Level 30 Elite…also Level 40 Elite “Lucifugi” (Avatars of Lucifer)
- Greater Rage Devil: Level 29 Elite…also Level 34 Elite “Heliophobes” (Black Angels)
- Greater Sloth Devil: Level 28 Elite
- Greater Glutton Devil: Level 26 Elite
- Greater Vanity Devil: Level 21 Elite
- Greater Despair Devil: Level 27 Elite
- Greater Lust Devil: Level 25 Elite
- Greater Avarice Devil: Level 23 Elite
- Greater Discouragement Devil: Level 24 Elite
- Greater Jealousy Devil: Level 22 Elite
Nobles would be 1-5 levels higher than Greater Devils. Normal Devils would be 5 levels lower. Lesser Devils 10 levels lower and Least Devils 15 levels lower with maybe the Lemures as the absolute lowest 20 levels below.
Graz’zt would have been one of the Heliophobes who turned on Asmodeus and fled to the Abyss.
Benefits of the Above Approach?
Yes its been something of a ramble on my part. But I think the above ideas as a framework would create a much stronger and interesting Hell.
- It gives all the Archdukes much stronger identities.
- It creates devils of the appropriate levels to populate the Hells (but also allows for variety within the same sin).
- We can split the same devils between Wilderness and Fortress Encounters allowing for different levels of challenge using the same monsters.
- It promotes far better interactivity between the devils, making encounter creation much easier.
- It ups the level of the basic devils which gives the Hells a greater sense of threat and not somewhere you venture to on a whim.
Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this brief glimpse of ideas related to future products (that may or may not see the light of day knowing me). If you have any thoughts or comments feel free to post below.
Eternity Publishing 
Sergey Shakhness
September 1, 2011
BTW, are you familiar with the Dicefreaks’ Hell?
Upper_Krust
September 1, 2011
Hey Sergey,
I’m not familiar with any specifics of the Dicefreaks Hell(s), other than I know they did their own take on it. I am sure I have seen some stat-blocks they did with the Archdevils many years ago, though I don’t really recall much beyond thinking their stats were a bit too powerful.
As noted in my article, most of the ideas above stemmed from occult sources and notes I have jotted down over the past 7-8 years.
omeganian
September 1, 2011
Well, I recommend you read their Hell books (9 free PDF’s). The powers and cosmology described are rather curious ones.
S'mon
September 1, 2011
I like the idea of sin-based deviltry. But on a broader note I find that the Nine Hells really does not work within the 4e cosmology. It feels really shoe-horned in, and doesn’t fit in the 4e Gods vs Primordials paradigm. Asmodeus works ok as an evil god of deceit and devils as his servants, but that’s about it.
Upper_Krust
September 1, 2011
Hey Simon,
Yes I pretty much agree. Fortunately I already came up with the solution ages ago (back in 3E even), wherein we have dimensional natives (in the case of 4E for each plane). Angels (Astral), Primordials (Elemental), Pseudonaturals (Far Realm), Umbrals (Shadowfell), Zodiacal Beings (Feywild) that predate mankind. Some (pantheonic) gods would be sufficiently powerful mortals, albeit not necessarily from ‘your’ world. Others might be former angels, primordials etc.
Wars would have been fought when the dimensions first contacted each other. In addition the influence of one dimension impacting on another would fracture the existing society causing rebellions and schisms. So when the angels became aware of entropy/death as a concept, thats when Satan rebelled against god. When the angels discovered Fate/Predestination thats when Lucifer led his rebellion, his fall creating the Hells.
Of course it wasn’t just the angels who faced such changes, the early primordials would have seen similar epochs: the Great Erosion (Shadowfell influence), the Beast Wars (Feywild influence) – that created the nagas, rakshasas etc, the Rise of the Genies (Astral Influence), the Creation of the Abyss (Far Realm influence).
FieryDragonLord
September 1, 2011
The only problem is there are 5 planes and six dimensions, so where are you going to put the beings from the sixth dimension?
FieryDragonLord
September 1, 2011
I actually like yours better than 4e’s. (I I thought it was odd that there are 9 hells but 7 (10?) sins, but maybe the 3 you added could be more minor than the other 7.
Upper_Krust
September 2, 2011
Hey FieryDragonLord,
Well I’ll be moving Time into one of the Higher Dimensions.
In 4E now we have:
1. The Universe
2. Feywild
3. Shadowfell
4. Astral
5. Elemental
6. Far Realm
7. Time
…and then a few others I’ll sit on for now. 😉
FieryDragonLord
September 3, 2011
I’m not sure you planned this but, will you include this in immortals handbook 4e?
Upper_Krust
September 3, 2011
Hey Fiery Dragon Lord!
I will indeed include this whenever I get around to a 4E Immortals Handbook. Though I may make some tweaks and changes from now ’til then. It won’t be the same cosmology as my 3E stuff just ported over to the new system, it will be something new and fresh.
However, as I mentioned in one of the other thread posts, I think I do need to fix the current Epic Tier before putting any Immortal Tier out there. At the moment I think the best way to do that will be through the various adventures I have planned.
Within those adventures I can not only add new monsters, but also new rules (like super-sized monsters, unit rules etc.) and show them in practice. So there may be a retroactive first adventure released after The Serpent Riders.
1. adventure name undecided (Levels 21-22)…I know the details of this adventure, just haven’t got a name for it yet. Technically I also have ideas for two paragon tier adventures (17-18 and 19-20 respectively) which would make this a trilogy…but you can see how I always get ahead of myself on these things. 😮
2. The Serpent Riders (Levels 23-24)…this will still be the first adventure release
3. No Chance In Hell (Levels 25-26)
4. The Black Pyramid (Levels 27-28)
…Immortals Handbook 4E
5. Isle of the Elder Ones (Levels 29-30)…starts at the end of the Epic Tier to bring you into the Immortal Tier.
6. The Prismatic Prison (Levels 31-32)
7. The Ivory Tower (Levels 33-34)
eduar
September 3, 2011
hi there
I like the idea of ten Hells
by the way, where can I read this mythology?
Upper_Krust
September 4, 2011
Howdy eduar mate!
I think reading about Dante’s Inferno and various occult sources and encyclopedia’s will give you an insight into the ideas I brought together here. There are a lot of associations with the seven sins (like representative colour, animal and so forth) – I just added the final three sins to that.
The study of the origin of the sins can be found on wikipedia. It was helpful in researching the ten.
alzrius
September 3, 2011
This is off-topic, U_K, but you know what’d be nice? If you wrote an article or two about the campaign in which you played your old character, Thrin.
Over the years, we’ve heard bits and pieces about him – that he was a 1E Fighter that you played all the way up to 117th level, and that somewhere along the line he became a deity and started to climb the ladder of divine ascension, but other than a few anecdotes, that’s really all we know.
I think it’d be a lot of fun if you told us more about that in a blog post or two. It could cover the in-game aspects of it (e.g. Thrin’s saga over the course of the campaign), and the out-of-game aspects of it (like, did you actually gain those levels one at a time? How long did such a campaign take? What were some of the challenges involved with playing in such a high-level game? etc.).
Just a thought.
Upper_Krust
September 4, 2011
Good idea Alzrius amigo.
I can call it “Why my campaign was more Epic than your’s!”. Recount some of the reasons and hopefully inspire people in the process.
I definately recall when playing at Demigod and Lesser God level that I went up more than one level in some adventures. But those were a rare occurance and probably involved a massive amount of smackdown. I know Thrin definately went up several levels when he permanently defeated Druaga (maybe even 5 or 6).
In the very end years, most of the gaming was with just me (the group had disbanded for the most part after college).
Also you have to take into account that when multiclassing in 1E, you basically gained the first 10 levels of a class for the XP amount of 1 level of your higher class (although hit points and other things sprang from your highest class so there was not the incentive to just take every class).
I think one of the concerns with 1E immortal play was the complete Russian Roulette feel. It was very exciting at the time but on reflection, if I hadn’t been at the absolute top of my game (I was some supremo min-maxer back then) you wouldn’t last until the end of the adventure. As Simon notes, his campaign was a meatgrinder (anyone who has played under Simon even today in 4E will know what that means). Even with my total knowledge of the rules back then and near memorisation of Legends & Lore and all the Monster Manuals there were so many occasions when my character would have died on a single dice roll its amazing he lasted to 17th-level nevermind 117th-level.
S'mon
September 4, 2011
“In the very end years, most of the gaming was with just me (the group had disbanded for the most part after college)”
One reason I never struggled with DMing deity-level 1e was that at that level I was running mostly solo games for a variety of friends; notably Craig (Thrin) and Bob (Mirv Sheelon) in Belfast and Fergus (Mortis Deathlord, then Thor Sunneson) in Edinburgh, and it’s far easier to challenge a solo PC than a party of demigods. We did play a fair number of team-ups, which for some reason usually ended disastrously – Thor Sunneson & Thrin getting trashed by the Thyatian goddess Vanya when they tried to take out the Thyatian imperial family; Mirv and Thrin’s failed invasion of Druaga’s lair. Although Thrin & Mirv did successfully team up to take down Wotan the Hanged God in a fantasy-alternate-Earth version of World War 2. Notably they did it with clever tactics; Wotan was extremely powerful and could beat both of them combined, so Mirv lured him into a ‘multi db fireball’ trap, the explosion destroyed the physical forms of both Wotan & Mirv. Thrin could then follow Wotan’s silver chord back to Yggdrasil and finish him off.
S'mon
September 3, 2011
alzrius:
“did you actually gain those levels one at a time? How long did such a campaign take? What were some of the challenges involved with playing in such a high-level game? ”
Speaking as Craig/Thrin’s GM: On levelling – I must confess I don’t think I ever used the 1e XP cap rule, where XP awards were capped at 1 XP less than the amount needed to raise a PC 2 levels. I remember I once levelled up an NPC* 3 levels when she successfully negotiated herself acquisition of a 1 million gp gem. I can’t recall any PC ever getting a 1 million XP award, but permanent killing of gods and demon princes etc was worth x10 their standard value in 1e, so awards of around 400,000 XP were not unheard of, which might be 2 levels, depending on class.
*Irene, a LE Wizard. In 4e terms she’d be an Exarch of Mephistopheles.
Mostly though it was more that we were playing daily for years at a time, and in our A-level years we could play for several hours/day in the ‘6th form centre’ at school! And I ran a very meatgrindery campaign, but with commensurate high rewards for the survivors.
Craig can maybe give input on what he found most challenging; IME players tended to struggle with navigating deific politics; it became increasingly harder to remain active because the risks of taking action became so great, one slip could often be fatal, whereas the temptation was to maintain an established position. This explained why NPC deities mostly no longer adventured.
S'mon
September 3, 2011
BTW I think I went over to 2e monster XP while still giving XP for treasure to all classes, that will have speeded up advancement over 1e norms.
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Anonymous
April 27, 2017
I really like this imaginative take on devils, but I have trouble understanding the additional three sins. How are they distinct from the other seven? This seems to clash with your nuanced explorations of each sin, such as listing suicide under rage when it could fall under despair. Vanity sounds like a subset of pride; despair and discouragement subsets of sloth.
Upper_Krust
April 27, 2017
Howdy Anonymous, I think the additional three sins can be seen as derivatives of others, but the 10 Sin format fits the classic 9 Hells of D&D (Or 9 + Lucifer’s Prison) much better than a 7 Sin format and I strongly believe that the Devils of D&D SHOULD be linked to the sins otherwise you miss a massive opportunity to give them more character and personality.
I mean the various Devils as they stand basically mean nothing. They are just monsters. By giving them a stronger identity linked to the sins we create far more interesting role-playing opportunities. So Demons are the corruption of the physical; whereas Devils are the corruption of the spiritual.
As regards various subsets (suicide under rage instead of despair) I was probably working from established lists I have found rather than thinking each through individually. HOWEVER, there is nothing to say there couldn’t be a Rage Devil associated with Suicide AS WELL AS a Despair Devil associated with Suicide.
Anonymous
April 28, 2017
I strongly agree! I just need more to go on, since I have difficulty understanding how the additional three stand out. I think I understand vanity as distinct from pride based on what they focus on: vanity focuses on cosmetic beauty and public relations, pride focuses on refusing to recognize own shortcomings. The trio of sloth, despair and discouragement is the most difficult to distinguish in basic definition and I want each to have their own flavor and varieties. “Acedia” may have physical versus mental/spiritual manifestations, but I am concerned that adding a third would be too similar to the other two.
I have been entertaining modeling the circles of hell after these concepts. One idea is to lift Dante’s Inferno and assign the remaining sins to the last four levels since the four sins they punish overlap with the previous circles: Dis/Heresy = discouragement, Violence = despair (in contrast to wrath and sloth), Malebolge/Fraud = envy and vanity, Cocytus/Treachery = pride. The order is also influenced by the terraces in Purgatorio (in order of severity: pride, envy, wrath, sloth). Vestibule and Limbo are pretty much limited to lost souls that don’t necessarily deserve to be in hell but went there anyway; a neat idea I read in Mongoose’ Book of Hell (which has a detailed corruption point system) is that innocent souls produce tastier tears when tortured (conversely, eviler souls producer tastier tears than less evil souls).
The problem with this is that the politically incorrect “sins” like paganism, unbaptized babies, heresy, suicide, blasphemy, homosexuality and moneylending will need to be explained or reframed into less offense context. Despair being a sin especially needs a better context to avoiding offending people who suffer depression; I figured that despair is another point system like corruption points or sanity points, and the Wood of Suicides is just a naturally occurring ecosystem the demons might prey on but which harbors dangers of its own (similar to the Grey Waste of Hades; because of redundancies like this I prefer to treat the Lower Planes as layers of a single infinite plane rather than making yet another infinite plane for every possible alignment tendency).
The upside of the lost and despairing souls unjustly condemned concept is that it means the GM may arbitrarily condemn otherwise non-evil NPCs to hell in order to justify a journey to rescue them. Perhaps it makes the gods flawed and relatable without being jerks, since situations like this happen in the real world legal system all the time.
My other idea is to build the ten circles from scratch, although the only other time I’ve seen ten circles is in the hell of Chinese folk religion and a barely-remembered livejournal RP post that vanished over a decade ago. The downside is that it lacks the cultural cache afforded to Dante’s Inferno and the Chinese hell is technically a purgatory divided into at least 8.4 million different districts overseen by ten bureaucratic demon kings who work for the Jade Emperor (the sovereign god).
Upper_Krust
April 30, 2017
Hey there again,
apologies for the slow reply (actually my birthday today and been out celebrating since Friday). 😉
As regards the other 3 sins ‘standing out’. From a physical level that’s easy since I already listed energy types, colours, animals and so forth.
On an environmental level:
– Sloth: Swamp or thick undergrowth that always seems to slow your progress to the destination that always seems on the horizon.
– Despair: Dismal ‘blank’ area devoid of colour (black and white) with sobbing or wailing noises in the background, voices whispering there is no hope.
– Discouragement: Battlements and Defenses sometimes arrayed in multiplicity (ie. a Castle on top of a Castle), Murder Holes everywhere. Voices telling you to turn back, go away, only death awaits here, you have no chance of victory.
Secondary effects could be:
– Sloth: Leading to Filth (setting it in opposition to Vanity) and thus also disease; possible connection to the Daemons.
– Despair: Leading to Suicide (setting it in opposition to Lust perhaps)
– Discouragement: Leading to Prison/Punishment. While the Hells are themselves a ‘prison’ of sorts, The discouragement sin must always be the most draconian and least compromising. Perhaps the most lawful of the Hells, setting it in opposition to Wrath which is potentially the least lawful.
As regards diluting the ideas down to avoid offending people that’s something you might want to contemplate if you are considering publishing the material or its for ages 10+. Even then in diluting the Hells/Sins themselves you essentially rob them of their impact. I guess it all depends on your group (for individual DMs) and your audience (for published material). If the concepts are potentially too disturbing for some then those strata of Hell are not the places they want to visit. Personally, political correctness is not something I would pander to, but at the same time I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to offend anyone – so how much of Dante’s Inferno you want to adopt is your choice I guess.
I agree Unjustly Condemned souls do make for good roleplaying opportunities.
I’d generally advise against rebuilding the entire 10 Hells (it would be a very taxing endeavor for even the most determined designer/DM). It would be much simpler to just incorporate the elements you need and make adjustments where necessary. But the best of luck to you whatever you decide.
Anonymous
May 1, 2017
Hey, again, just replying to your reply about distinguishing sloth/acedia and political correctness. The comments don’t allow recursive replies. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for explaining the sloth and acedia. So if I understand you correctly, discouragement is a misplaced sense of guilt or shame that leads to harm to oneself and others? That makes it much easier to contextualize. The equation of despair with the death drive also makes Dante’s circle of violence easier to tweak.
About the political correctness, I just say that because the way gods are portrayed to act in typical fantasy settings owes more to modern secular values than to Christian values. If souls are condemned to hell because they accumulate spiritual corruption from performing evil acts, acts which needlessly and knowingly harm others, then it doesn’t make sense for heresy and homosexuality to be considered sinful in and of themselves. This is one of the problems I had with the module Journey into Maleboldge, which was a straight exploration of Dante’s Inferno that made little attempt to contextualize the sins within a D&D context.
It would probably be more accurate to say I wanted to tweak Hell to be more secular. Arbitrary punishments make sense if I want the party to storm the gates of heaven to kill the gods for being jerks. It’s not sensible for campaigns where the gods are supposed to be unambiguously good by modern secular standards.
buffyfan2001
February 18, 2021
Hi there. Have you done anything with the ten hells concept since?
Also, I think maybe a slightly better name for the sin of discouragement might be “doubt.” The word discouragement has two meanings for despondency and restraint, and the former is synonymous with despair. Although I might be completely misunderstanding your intention here.
Upper_Krust
February 18, 2021
Hey buffyfan2001,
at the moment I am working on my latest RPG Book which I am planning to release next month (fingers crossed)…late March if everything falls into place.
I do have plans for the 10 Hells concept in the future. But I think it will be the end of this year at the earliest before I start work on the book that involves the 10 Hells – but I will get to it. Lots of books coming every few months from now on….I hope.
My intention was to tie the expanded 10 sins into the 10 Hells (which always leaves out Lucifer right at the bottom). I have a specific adventure in mind for the 10 Hells (or at least involving the Hells).
But let me just work on one book at a time and hopefully I can get a few out there in due course.
I appreciate the interest.