Which is your favorite Hell?

[Flyspeck23]

I'm quite partial to Dante's classic nine-level version. The more terrible sins you've comitted, the further down you end up.

I prefer Dante's, of which Baator is the most reasonable facsimile. I just like the whole idea of particular layers of punishment and an orderly hierarchical Hell.

Pretty classic, and pretty cool. You could lessen the lawful aspect of Baator to some degree (perhaps only for a few of the Nine Hells), and personally I'd change the rulers (the Lords of the Nine) into deities.
The whole concept of the River Styx is great, and I like the fact that while it's technically one hell, every layer feels different.

 

[nopantsyet]

The Hell of Low Bandwidth. I ask you, how are you supposed to build a decent pr0n collection at 9.6kbps? ASCII art?


Hong "animated... ASCII art" Ooi

I've finally been honged! I think this is the very first.

And don't make fun--some of us grew up on 300kbps ASCII art pr0n, and we liked it!

 

[diaglo]

i don't like it but i'm currently stuck in the Hell that is d02.

maybe this is purgatory until the rest of the world achieves enlightenment and returns to OD&D.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm quite partial to Dante's classic nine-level version. The more terrible sins you've comitted, the further down you end up. According to him, the 9th level holds only one damned soul; that of Judas Iskariot. Encased in ice; frozen but awake for all eternity, and utterly aware of the enormity of his crime...

You'll have to come up with somebody else to occupy the 9th level for your campaign setting (presumeably), but finding nothing but that block of ice with its one doomed soul would still make a great end to campaign through Hell!

Role Aids did Demons, a product line up with it's own hell and demon lords. Good stuff. They also did a D&D version of Dante's Hell in one of their products.

Mongoose also has the Book of Hell, which is being set up into it's own setting with three hardcovers I believe. This doesn't count Green Ronin's Book of Hell or Chris Pramas early book of Hell for 2nd edition.

 

[Henry]

Hmm. One Hell of a question! (Sorry, I couldn't help it.)

The image of Hell as the 9-level Baator has always been my favorite; however, if you are looking for alternate views:

How about a hell where the damned are pursued constantly by wild animals with demonic visages, who hunt them in packs, eventually catch them, tear them to pieces, only to leave them without eating them, to heal up, and as soon as they can stand or are whole, they get scented and hunted again, to be torn apart yet again if they don't run?

Or a Hell where the damned are just standing in an open courtyard, screaming eternally, because they are reliving their greatest nightmares eternally, as demons walk amongst them, monitoring every soul, and making adjustments as needed to keep the nightmares going? These monitors are unholy velociraptor like things which are quite magically powerful, and willing to add visitors to the damned, unless told otherwise?

 

[Piratecat]

I have my PCs dealing with Baalzebub's Hell of the 7th circle. There, wailing souls are chained together right next to one another as if on a slave ship. The lines of chained souls reach as far as the eye can see in every direction N S E W and upwards; they descend downwards into the fiery tar that is the ground; and you can pass through them along narrow aisles less than 5' wide that are used by fiends for tormenting the ones on the outside. Anyone passing through these aisles is continuously clutched at by the souls on either side. If the souls aren't moaning for someone to help them, they're screeching in hideous pain from the trillion of thumb-sized carrion flies who fill the air like a thick fog, feasting on any flesh nearby.

Not a nice place. Then again, it IS Hell. Baalzebub lives there in a palace made of living flies, and he sees everything the insects see. Fear him.

 

[Mercule]

Damnation Army, of course.

Seriously, though, I rather like both the Eberron afterlife (forget the planar name) and Wraith: the Oblivion. Torture, pain, and humiliation are tolerable. The complete cessation of existence (or even forgetting everything, which is close enough) really sucks. It means that everything you've done in your life is worthless and will eventually be washed away. Oblivion does not just punish you now and in the future, but in your past, as well.

Being made aware of the truth just before it comes to pass would be the worst horror I can think of.

 

[nopantsyet]

Literarily speaking, I do like Dante's hell, and those inspired by it. But I'm not sure that concept of Hell meshes well with my view of D&D. I mean, how is it a hell if it has no teeth? If it's just a really nasty place, but holds no inevitable grasp on mortals, then it's just a really sucky place.

What makes a hell a hell? Must it necessarily be a destination for souls of the dead? Must it be a place of deliberate torment? Or is it some place that happens to have certain characteristics that make it utterly unendurable to most sentient beings?

Can hell still be transcendant in a vast multiverse?

That's what I'm getting hung up on. I want hell in D&D to still feel like "HELL!!!" A place you fear because of its inevitable horror. The slow drumbeat of imending doom.

That's what I want hell to be. But it's hard to reach that without recreating Judeo-Christianism on a larger scale. Hell, being powerful, evil, and organized, would--at some point in an eternity--eventually conquest for more power. Unless its power were arbitrarily limited, or its role in the universe somehow unique--transcendent.

You wouldn't want to have it oppose Heaven as in the J-C tradition, because then it could either turn into the Hatfields & McCoys on a planar scale, or it break down into a complete planar war, as per WWII.

So it's got to hold a transcendent place in the multiverse, and have an inevitable grasp on everyone. Maybe it's the bureaucracy of the multiverse? They are sadistic, aloof, and rigid--and eventually...inevitably you have to go there for something. Just like the RMV/DMV.

Now that's a hell to be afraid of!

Though I can't think of what kind of bureaucracy a multiverse needs. The image fits, but what would they would actually do? Torment you for a thousand years then take your picture and give you a laminated card?