Go to Hell. Go Directly to Hell. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect 200 Larvae.

[devilish]

*looks around* Eh, it's not so bad.

real world religion comment deleted - dont do it again.

 

[Kemrain]

If anyone thinks their post might be skirting too close to the "no religion" rule, please don't post it.

This thread is fine while it sticks to literary visions of hell and campaign visions of hell, but if it veers towards real-world beliefs it is likely to be closed in short order so please don't go there.

I'd hate to see this thread closed. While some people have missed the idea a little, I've gotten some great answers, too. Thank you, EN World.

A lot of very different ideas. Hell as a place of suffering, as a place of pennance, it's very interesting to see what people think. I'd love to see more answers, and especially mroe answerd about my other question. What are the inhabitants of Hell like? People are focusing on the place, and generally not going into terrible detail about Demons, while both are the point f the thread.

In a game I'm playing in right now, the PC's don't know a lot about Hell. What they do know, however, is frightening. Hell is infinitely large. Hell is a horrible place of extremes, burning heat and freezing cold, airless heights and crushing depths, lethal weather and deadly flaura and fauna. Parts of Hell are uninhabited even by demons because they are so hostile. Hell is coexistant with this prime, and an infinite number of others. Hell is populated by an infinite number of demons. Hell is where the souls of the wicked go upon death. Souls are used as a building material, as food, fuel, currency, and a source of amusement to demons, thus Souls = Power. Most souls in Hell have almost no memory of their former lives (because Telos, God of Death and Knowledge, takes all memories and knowledge he does not already posess from the souls of the dead as they pass through his realm on their way to their afterlife. Some souls are strong enough to keep their knowledge, however, and those that go to heaven are restored upon entering paradise.) Hell is supplied with souls from an infinite number of primes, even if the number from each can become very low. Hell was not created by the Gods, it existed before they createdthe prime, and will exist after the prime is gone.

Demons are creatures born of the stuff of Hell. They hold a piece of the power of hell within them, that fuels them and their powers (Demon powers are counted as Divine magic instead of Arcane, and will work in an Arcane Antimagic field. They also come from the Demon itsself, so severing dimentional ties won't cut off it's power supply. Demons are very powerful foes because of this.) A Demon's body and soul are one and the same, so damage to one is damage to the other. A Demon's level of power, experience, and state of mind shape its corporeal body. A Demon slain somewhere other than Hell is not destroyed, merely shunted to Hell to reform it's body and start anew (many are bound to hell for some time while they reform completely, others are reformed instantly. Those that are very weak or very strong come back the fastest.) A Demon slain in Hell is obliterated entirely and cannot be raised or ressurected by any means other than divine intervention (The power of hell draws the soul back to it, to be remade into other demonic creatures.) A Demon feels no hunger, though they find pleasure in consumption. A Demon feels no thirst. A Demon never wearies. A Demon is immortal. Some Demons are created by the power of Hell, and as such are very inhuman, but others are sould of mortals warped by the powers of Hell that held on and became powerful enough to survive on their own. These Demons, while evil and wicked, are capable of empathy, which arguibly makes them all the more terrible when they disregard it.

- Kemrain the Hellish.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be by AC/DC

Sometimes I think this woman is kinda hot
Sometimes I think this woman is sometimes not
Puts me down
Fool me around
Why she do it to me
Out for satisfaction
Any piece of action
That ain't the way it should be
She needs lovin'
Knows I'm the man
She' gotta see
Pours my beer
Licks my ear
Brings out the devil in me
Hell ain't a bad place to be

Spends my money
Drinks my booze
Stays out every night
But I got to thinkin'
Hey, just a minute
Somethin' ain't right
Disillusions and confusion
Make me wanna cry
The shame you
Playin' your games
Tellin' me those lies
Don't mind her playin' demon
As long as it's with me
If this is hell
Then let me say
It's heavenly
Hell ain't a bad place to be

Late at night
Turns down the light
Closes up on me
Opens my heart
Tears me apart
Brings out the devil in me

Hell ain't a bad place to be
I said
Hell ain't a bad place to be
Hell
Ain't a bad place to be
Hell
Ain't a bad place to be

 

[carpedavid]

My personal vision of hell involves floating alone through a lightless, soundless, airless void for all of eternity. I'm such a sensualist that being cut off from all ability to interact with anything sounds like hell to me.

Game-wise, I like the idea of "hell" that is a dark, unpleasant, all-consuming place where everyone goes when they die. Is there a way to escape it? Not really. Being dead just sucks.

 

[Enkhidu]

4)Hell is what happens when you are outside Heaven but can still see in. Imagine if you had sit on the stoop outside the world's greatest party. You can here people laughing, see them enjoying themselves, but you are locked out. You see people being welcomed in constantly but when you go to the door it is barred. To add to this you can't go far enough not to hear or see them, and some of those outside with you can remember how good the party was before they got kicked out. They hate you because you don't know what you're missing and you hate them because they had it and threw it away.

This is one of the better treatments for fantasy I've seen, and draws heavily from Milton. The idea that demons, booted from the party because they tried to take over the DJ table, are plagued by memories of perfect bliss and get twisted by those memories is a compelling one.

Makes demons three dimensional villians that the PCs can feel truly sorry for once they're done dusting them.

 

[Mercule]

Hell is the gray area between complete oblivion and eternal, ineffible isolation. It exists primarily in n-dimensional space and any glimmer of it that we receive is distorted.

Fiends are semi-divine beings who have been cast toward Hell (by God, a pantheon, whatever), but have enough metaphysical potence that they are able to cling to the "lip" of the "pit" of Hell. They seek to syphon off as much of the rest of creation into Hell as possible, in the (futile??) hope that whatever force consigned them to their fate will be unwilling or unable to follow through with the sentence. Or, maybe, they seek to suck everything in, so Hell reverses itself and they can create a world better to their liking. Or maybe misery just loves company.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I've always imagined Hell to be a place of indescribable torture and horror. A place where a person, who has fallen so far out of grace, goes to be punished for being such an evil bastard his entire life. The form of torture goes and and hand with the atrocities commited during life. Basically, imagine the worst pain, the most horrific beings, and the most evil beings and magnify it a billionfold. That's what Hell is. I can't imagine that even though I have a very good imagination, and that's enough for me not to be too much of a jerk throughout my life!

Kane

 

[Voadam]

I like this answer! I'm not familiar with the series, though; could you elaborate?

To elaborate on my own point I suppose I'm more interested in the Why of Hell then the How. Yes, strapped to a chair forced to watch bad TV for all eternity would be hellish, but why would you be strapped down? By whom? For what purpose? To what end? that is the Why of hell, and that's what I'd like to understand.

- Kemrain the Curious.

Sandman series of Graphic novels by Neil Gaiman, dealing with a cosmology that includes multiple mythologies and real world religions, has a dream setting, fey plane, hell, etc. Satan is the head devil but he has never once done anything to people, does not tempt them, etc. But many still end up in Hell anyway.

In addition to gods, fey, and religious figures there are the Seven cosmic Eternals: Dream, Desire, Despair, Death, Destiny, Delirium, and Destruction. The sandman novels follow Dream. A great series.

 

[Kanegrundar]

IMC, I tend to stick to the Great Wheel cosmology. There is a war between the regimented evils and the chaotic evils. There are those that are evil by inaction that are on a different, but connected plane that serves as a battleground (when the forces of Hell aren't spilled out onto the Material Plane). The three planes are all Hell, but it's the soul's actions in life that get him/her sent to a particular side of Hell. It's all pretty standard D&D fantasy flair, but it works for my games.

Kane

 

[Kapture]

people can't seem to make their minds up about these folks.

My wife is always grumbling about how different storytellers use different mythological creatures in different ways. Like, in some vampire mythos you can change shape, and in others you can't.

My answer is that, since the creatures in question aren't real, authors can use any means necessary to get them to express the ideas behind their story.

Being an atheist, I feel largely the same way about hell and demons. That said, I use the idea of Hell often in games.

It's always seemed reasonable to me that if the gods, and their minions, existed independantly of and well before mortals (most folkloric and and fictional mythos assume this), that they would have "special interests" that would predate and influance those of mortals. Each afterlife would essentially reflect this special interest, much the same way the planes in the traditional DND great wheel cosmology reflect their inhabitants. In fact, the follower of a lawful evil god would essentially go to his version of heaven. The punishment aspect might come into effect if you weren't evil enough: You'd go to hell as a Imp, and be pushed around for eternity, instead of a Malbranche or Pit Fiend. It might also work for a Lawful Good Heaven: who'd want to be a Lantern Archon instead of a Deva... but it might happen if you weren't good enough.

That said, I also like the Classical/Pullman version of hell: a sort of warehouse for souls, infinately dull and egalitarian in that everybody goes. That would really give everybody, good and evil, something to want to avoid.

I also like a lot of the allegorical hells that have been described, but I tend not to like the "Hell is what you make it approach." I prefer it when protagonists have to work against something other than themselves (even if we can be our own greatest enemy).

That said: Gaiman's Hell has all the trappings of a traditional Hellfire and Brimstone Hell, no matter what the impetus to going there,

and Pratchet has two Hells: a sort of Lovecraftian one, the Dungeon Dimension, that has little to do with mortals (you go there and get eaten, not tortured). Then there's reincarnation: if you were bad, you often go back as a bug or a funny shaped root.

Lawrence