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

[Helpful NPC Thom]

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.

Catholicism is not problematic.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Perhaps a better choice for the opposite vice of Gluttony would be somekind forcing others to starve, like in that Ravenloft Domain.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Catholicism is not problematic.

That's not what I said. What I said is that a straight mapping of Dante's Inferno would be seen as problematic to many people today; for an easy example, I don't think I could run a game where I was telling the people at my table that anyone who committed suicide or attempted to commit suicide had been consigned to one of the worst circles of hell.*

That's just not the type of game I run. YMMV.


*And the extent to which Dante is reflective of actual religion, or has some literary license, varies and is not appropriate for this forum.

 

[jgsugden]

You're following my playbook in your initial post. The good news for you: I've made it work for about 35 years.

In my campaign lore, the Hell Plane is a singular plane. It has the 9 Hells at the core (Nessus at the center, surrounded by the 7 'middle' regions, surrounded by Avernus around all of those 7, and then with countless Demonic controlled regions surrounding Avernus - with the Blood War raging in Avernus.) (The Heavens are similarly pulled into one plane, and the Elemental Planes are also unified into one plane).

Those 7 Middle Infernal Regions are controlled by Archdevils that I tied to the 7 deadly sins, putting a spin on the lore of each to achieve my goals. It is not explicit, but players have noted it over the years. My Archfiends have experienced some turnover with new players (homebrew figures) taking control of some of the regions.

I also tied the 7 deadly sins to the Rod of Seven Parts (aka the Rod of Law). Each part of the Rod is tied to a deadly sin, as well as the opposite of the sin (Chastity and Lust, Patience and Wrath, Charity and Greed, etc...). The Rod pieces are actually devoted to the battle between these extremes, not the extremes themselves. It is also tied to a damage type. It plays a huge role in the rise of Asmodeus, and is a central lore artifact in my setting.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

I've never actually read Dante's Inferno, I'm just sorta-familiar with the concept, as most people are with classics that well-known.

I would definitely not include a Layer for Atheism or Suicide. I was not aware that those were in Dante's Inferno. I was more going to base it off of the more well-known 7 Deadly Sins (translated into D&D terms), not anything from Dante's Inferno, really. I was just pointing out that the 9 Hells come from the 9 Circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno, not saying that I was going to base the 7 Hells after any part of Dante's Inferno, really.

So, yeah, having Atheism and Suicide be "deadly sins" is definitely problematic (to say the least), and I would not include that in this plane of hell.

I was going to be careful with Lust. I was more going to do it as overindulgence in the carnal pleasures than the stereotypical "extramarital sex is a sin". Kind of like Gluttony being overindulgence in food (which also has the potential to be problematic if it comes to fat-shaming, which I will absolutely avoid), to the point where that's all that you think about (think Yeenoghu and the Gnolls' never-ending hunger), but applied to sex, drugs, and music. Do you think that would be less problematic?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Excerpted:

Thanks!

Isn't that a bit similar to how Dante's Inferno does it (the Circles instead of Layers)? I'm definitely going to do something different than that, as I'm not a fan of Daemons/Yugoloths, would definitely have the Archfiend-rulers of the layers be the Supreme Authority, and have it be more Cylinder/Cone-shaped instead of a flat-circle.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I was going to be careful with Lust. I was more going to do it as overindulgence in the carnal pleasures than the stereotypical "extramarital sex is a sin". Kind of like Gluttony being overindulgence in food (which also has the potential to be problematic if it comes to fat-shaming, which I will absolutely avoid), to the point where that's all that you think about (think Yeenoghu and the Gnolls' never-ending hunger), but applied to sex, drugs, and music. Do you think that would be less problematic?

Definitely.

If you abstract it a little, then gluttony is taking more than you need (not necessarily food), and lust is desire and coveting- not just carnally, but you can (improperly) lust over your neighbors ox.

Um, I guess that could be carnal too, but ... ewwwww.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

It is sorta-based on Inferno, but not in any real way besides "There are 9 parts of hell". The layers of Baator aren't based off of different "sins", they're layers shaped like a funnel instead of a flat-disk, and so on. IMO, it's a superficial connection, and the 9 Rings of Hell in Dante's Inferno weren't complete translations of the 7 Deadly Sins, either. I would more like it to be based truly off of the Seven Deadly Sins, have it be layered instead of ringed, and have lots of D&Disms in it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Definitely.

If you abstract it a little, then gluttony is taking more than you need (not necessarily food), and lust is desire and coveting- not just carnally, but you can (improperly) lust over your neighbors ox.

Um, I guess that could be carnal too, but ... ewwwww.

A lot of the Seven Deadly Sins are about taking (or wanting) more than you need. Pride is about an overinflated ego, Greed is about wanting more money than you need, Wrath is about an overabundance of anger, Envy is quite literally about wanting what other people want instead of what you have, and so on. The only one that doesn't really fit this mold as well is Sloth, but even then that could be taken as an overabundance of free-time or sleep/relaxation.

But, yeah, definitely eww. That's kind of the point, IMO. The levels are personifications of the worst traits of humankind (well, traditionally, anyway), so it's kind-of supposed to be disgusting from the human-viewpoint.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is sorta-based on Inferno, but not in any real way besides "There are 9 parts of hell". The layers of Baator aren't based off of different "sins", they're layers shaped like a funnel instead of a flat-disk, and so on. IMO, it's a superficial connection, and the 9 Rings of Hell in Dante's Inferno weren't complete translations of the 7 Deadly Sins, either. I would more like it to be based truly off of the Seven Deadly Sins, have it be layered instead of ringed, and have lots of D&Disms in it.

When you say layered, you mean like a slice of cake, or like a planet?