D&D 5E Brainstorming a Setting's Plane of Hell Based Off of the Seven Deadly Sins

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Okay, I recently had an idea for a cool way to work the Seven Deadly Sins into a D&D 5e setting, which was inspired by my thinking of a way to perfect the D&D cosmology to my liking. I've never really been a fan of the Great Wheel, because I always felt that there were too many planes that shared the same idea. (Acheron and Ysgard as Planes of War, Pandemonium and the Abyss, most of the Upper Planes basically being Heaven, etc.) One of my main thoughts for how to create a "Plane of Evil" that I liked was to combine the ideas of the Devils and Demons, and just have a Plane of Fiends, probably called "Hell" or something like that. And then the idea struck to have the plane have layers, like the Nine Hells and Abyss, but have the layers be unified between one certain idea or "sin". Each layer of the plane would be connected to one of the "Seven Deadly Sins", so the plane is probably going to be called "The Seven Hells". I would also keep some of the typical Archfiends as rulers of these different planes, like Mammon as the ruler of whichever level is connected to Greed and Baphomet as the ruler of whichever level is connected to Wrath.

So, that brought me to create this thread. If you were going to do something like this (create a plane where each layer is based around one of the Seven Deadly Sins), how would you do it? How would you arrange the sins, layer wise (like, how would you order of layers corresponding to the sins)? Here's my current idea for who would rule the layers connected to certain sins (not corresponding to the depth of the layer, though):

1. Pride - Maybe Asmodeus? Or Moloch?
2. Greed - Easily Mammon.
3. Wrath - Probably a demon lord, likely Baphomet.
4. Envy - This one is probably going to be a Green Hag (but a really powerful one). "Green with envy" is too obvious to not do.
5. Lust - Definitely a Succubus/Incubus of some kind, or the creator of them. Maybe Glasya, even though she's never been explicitly stated to be a succubus. Edit: I can't believe I forgot Graz'zt! He would work perfectly, possibly being paired with a female succubus Archfiend.
6. Gluttony - This would probably be Yeenoghu.
7. Sloth - Maybe Baalzebul? He does look like a Slug, which are known to be slow, which is connected to laziness. Levistus could also work, as he is stuck in a block of ice all the time.

Next, the names. Would you just name them after the corresponding sin, or would you do something more "fantastical"?

For the geography, I'd probably do something similar to how Avernus is mapped in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, but make them a bit bigger. I'd probably also include all of the 5 Ancient Greek Rivers of the Underworld; Styx, Lethe, Acheron, Phlegethon, and Cocytus, probably making some ungodly death-spiral on the lowest level of the 7 Hells. (Hmm. Maybe they could be named "The Seven Hells of Tartarus", as all of these do have Greco-Roman roots. I could also do a "Seven Heavens of Elysium" that are connected to the Seven Graces.)

So, any thoughts? I know that the Nine Hells came from the Nine Circle of Hell from Dante's Inferno, which were based off of the Seven Deadly Sins, but that was lost in translation to D&D's Nine Hells of Baator. Any suggestions on any of this?

 

[Davies]

Green Ronin's Book of Fiends bases Gehenna, its take on a Neutral Evil plane, on the Seven Deadlies.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Green Ronin's Book of Fiends bases Gehenna, its take on a Neutral Evil plane, on the Seven Deadlies.

Okay. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be a completely unique/unheard-of idea, but it's good to have confirmation. Care to summarize how they did it, for ideas?

 

[TwiceBorn2]

This might be of interest to the OP... Inferno is a sourcebook for D&D 5E based on the works of Dante

 

[DeviousQuail]

Kind of a whacky idea but what if there are seven layers of hell but none of them correspond to a sin. Instead, the sins revolve through the layers over time. So layer 1 could be pride today, gluttony tomorrow, and wrath next Tuesday while layer 2 is gluttony now and wrath on Monday.

Each layer would have it's own ruler and style that fluctuate in small ways based on what the sin of the moment is. An example could be a medusa that rules over a layer of statues. Each day (or whatever sin cycle you choose) everyone that was turned to stone is revived and tries fleeing from the Medusa again because being turned to stone is awful. But on Envy day that fear of the medusa contends with a heightened sense of envy by the inhabitants. They want to run away but are also filled with extra envy of the beauty of the statues around them. If they give in to their envy they'll stop running to do awful things like smear feces on the statues or whatever. On Wrath day they may try to destroy the statues (who are revived back to normal eventually). On Gluttony day they may be driven to eat the statues. Just really awful stuff while also trying not to get turned to stone.

It's a bit more work because each layer needs 7 variations but the variations don't need to be huge. It also makes traversing hell interesting because it's not just what the layer is like, but what it's like during each sin cycle (revolu-sin?).

 

[Charlaquin]

I would probably just model it after Dante’s Inferno in that case. Granted, Inferno has nine circles, plus the shores outside the gates, but that’s because 9+1 was a pattern he was weaving throughout the Divine Comedy. Inferno was still fundamentally one circle per sin, with an extra couple layers added in to make it fit the pattern.

The thing is though, Baa’tor is already based on Inferno.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

If you want to do something different you could invert the seven deadly sins as the dark side of the seven virtues, Judgemental Self Loalth instead of Pride, Puritanism instead of Lust, Totalarianism Communism instead of Greed, Self Obsession instead of envy, Meekness instead of Wrath, Anorexia instead of Gluttony.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So, any thoughts? I know that the Nine Hells came from the Nine Circle of Hell from Dante's Inferno, which were based off of the Seven Deadly Sins, but that was lost in translation to D&D's Nine Hells of Baator. Any suggestions on any of this?

Love your idea.

Cautionary note- I love Dante's Inferno - weirdly, I was introduced to it a long time ago by Niven & Pournelle, who wrote a sci-fi book based off of the classic.

....but as I'm sure you know, there are some aspects of it that would need careful consideration and change before mapping it to a D&D game given that it was based on a very different mindset. The First Circle (non-believers) and the second Ring of the Seventh Circle (suicide, attempted suicide) immediately spring to mind as ... problematic.

Even trying to map out what is considered lustful might be odd. Just saying- maybe take more of the gist and the atmosphere than the facts.

 

[Davies]

Okay. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be a completely unique/unheard-of idea, but it's good to have confirmation. Care to summarize how they did it, for ideas?

Excerpted:

Gehenna is a great flat plane in the form of a giant circle.
The outer part of this circle is called the war zone, for
the simple reason that all around this outer circle the war
between Hell and the Abyss rages. The war zone forms an
enclosure around six smaller circles that, in turn, encircle
one central circle. They are the Circle of Wrath, Circle of
Envy, Circle of Lust, Circle of Sloth, Circle of Gluttony,
Circle of Greed, and the Circle of Pride.
Each of the internal circles is ruled by one of the
exarchs of Gehenna. These powerful daemons (mostly)
are the lords of the Seven-Circle Realm, though they have
neither supreme authority nor any firm laws. Indeed, each
seeks only to further their own aims and strengthen the
power of their circle.

 

[Umbran]

Anorexia instead of Gluttony.

Mod Note:
Please do not portray mental illness as "sin" on this site.

Anorexia is a thing that happens to people, not an action they willingly take.