Avernus
Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells, serves as the front line of the great clash between the evil forces of chaos and law known as the Blood War. Demons from the Abyss use the River Styx to enter Avernus, where they hurl themselves against infernal legions of devils. Anyone entering Avernus finds a battlefield unlike anywhere else in existence. Evidence of past carnage, such as the ruins of enormous war machines and fields of bleached bones, stretches across the horizon. Through it all, the River Styx winds its way across the plane as knots of demons and devils skirmish along its fetid banks.
However, Avernus was not always the blasted, war-torn battlefield it is today. Long ago, it was a plane of lush gardens and bucolic beauty created by Asmodeus to tempt mortals. The intrusion of the River Styx followed by endless waves of slavering demons destroyed this paradise, leaving layer upon layer of bones, ruins, and shattered war machines. Pieces of cities stolen from other planes, tiny remnants of Avernus’s lost beauty, evidence of destroyed celestial armies, and tombs of ancient travelers all dot the Avernian wasteland.
Most devils in Avernus serve Zariel, though other Lords of the Nine send forces here to help repel demonic invaders. The layer is also home to numerous petty warlords, beings who scavenge for soul coins and scrap metal to fuel and repair their infernal war machines and vie for power and territory. Many of the warlords of the Avernian wastelands are non-devils, though some are exiled and ostracized devils who once served in the Blood War.
Demographics
The majority of the devils on Avernus are abishai, imps, lemures, nupperibos, spined devils, or merregons.
Government
Avernus is ruled by the archduke Zariel, Lord of the First. She is both the ruler of the territory and the ultimate authority on military affairs within the layer. Former rulers of Avernus include the pit fiend Bel and the dragon goddess Tiamat, both of whom still reside within the plane.
History
Avernus was originally a garden of delights designed by Asmodeus to lure souls to the Nine Hells for temptation. However, the constant Blood War skirmishes tarnished and eventually destroyed the paradise, and it became the battle-scarred plane that it is today. During this transitional period Tiamat, who is imprisoned within Avernus, served as the Lord of the First, but Asmodeus was quick to replace her with one of his own, a tactically-minded pit fiend named Bel. However, when Bel was part of an uprising against Asmodeus known as the Reckoning of Hell, he was demoted to Zariel's second-in-command.
Geography
The hellscape of Avernus sits under hideous clouds that obscure the vault of the sky, from which the occasional meteorite streaks before crashing into the ground. Ambient light continually swells up from just below the horizon as though lit by nine setting suns, yet no actual celestial bodies fill the sky—no sun, moons, or stars. This constant twilight makes it difficult for the denizens of Avernus to track the passage of time.
The atmosphere reeks of brimstone and burning tar, and hot gusts of wind shriek across the hellscape to scour the land below. Sometimes these winds swirl into immense sandstorms, which can strip flesh from bone and plunge everything into darkness.
Biting flies, hellwasps, and blood-sucking stirges patrol the air, hunting for any source of blood to feed on. Swarms of them can grow so large that they blacken the sky and deafen the ears with the sound of their wings. On the ground, wandering bands of nupperibos—blind, bloated castaways of the damned—move in the thousands like living lakes of groaning flesh in their agonizing search for food. Bone fields, quicksand, bubbling tar pits, lakes of lava, canyons of wailing souls, and salt flats made from the tears of the damned all await those who wander the wastelands.
Map of Avernus
Alternative Name(s)
The Avernian Wastelands, The First Hell
Inhabitant Demonym
Avernian
Owner/Ruler
Characters in Location
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments