Malbolge

Malbolge is the sixth layer of the Nine Hells. It serves as the prison of the Nine Hells.

Geography

There is significant disagreement between cosmologies on the nature of the sixth circle of Hell.

Great Wheel

As a Great Wheel layer, Malbolge is a gargantuan tumble of angular black stone blocks, each block ranging in size from a small city to a large metropolis, that forms a pile hundreds of miles thick. The randomly tilted and ill-fitting blocks are honeycombed with angular passages and caverns causing non-flying travelers to frequently need mountaineering skills and risk avalanches. Stinking clouds of vapor rise up from the depths and light the sky with the color of blood, causing cosmologists to speculate that the blocks of Malbolge may rest on an infinite sea of lava. Corroborating reports have been heard of flammable materials left on the ground spontaneously combusting. Most habitations in Malbolge are copper-clad fortresses built from black stone.
The landscape of the layer is similar to the plane of Gehenna: a steep, infinite craggy incline often subject to avalanches that crush most anything that get in the way. The copper-shod redoubts are teardrop-shaped or otherwise engineered to deflect tumbling boulders, but even these cannot long withstand a direct hit from a major avalanche.
Built along the slopes are pillars of adamantine that can support the avalanches, atop which platforms hold suspended cages that hold condemned devils. Prisoners are constantly injured by the incessant rockfalls, but never killed.

World Axis

In the World Axis cosmology view, Malbolge is another huge cavern connected to Stygia by icy canals that run hundreds of miles before reaching their destination. A former inhabitant had shaped the realm into a vast garden with fountains, towers, reflecting pools, and all manner of landscaping delights. With the coming of the devils, Malbolge is still beautiful on the surface but creeping corruption permeates the realm, twisting the beauty, perverting the architecture, and poisoning the pools.

Government

Malbolge is ruled by Malagard the Hag Countess.

Notable Locations

• Garden of Delights: A walled garden adjacent to Glasya's palace. Home of the hellwasps.

• Hair Forest: A closely packed forest of massive, scaled hairs.

• Lake of Bile: Despite its name, it is a group of vile, toxic lakes.

• Maggoth Thyg: A mysterious cavern located at the bottom of one of the many rocky slopes of Malbolge. Devils are terrified of entering this cavern and all who have entered have never returned.

• Ossiea: The Hag Countess's fortress, built near Hair Forest

Type

Dimensional plane

Location under

Nine Layers of Hell

Owner/Ruler

Hag Countess, Lord of the Sixth

Characters in Location

• Hag Countess, Lord of the Sixth