Phlegethos

It's no use dancing around to avoid the flames. If yer trespassin' hereabouts, the fires know it and cuddle up close to you til the baatezu can get around to dealing with you. -Unknown

Phlegethos is the fourth layer of the Nine Hells. A blazing desolation of fire and lava, it contained the divine realm of Inanna, according to the Great Wheel cosmology.

Geography

The layer's climate resembled the Elemental Plane of Fire. It was dominated by a scorching heat that ignited the air itself, creating seemingly sentient and aggressive flames that leapt at visitors but not at the residents. The ground had fissures that spewed jets of flame that flowed into rivers of liquid fire. It contained numerous volcanoes whose eruptive products flowed through rivers of lava into an incandescent ocean of magma.

Government

Phlegethos was ruled jointly by Fierna and Belial, a partnership that was allowed by Asmodeus as an exception to the typical rule that each layer should only have one ruler.

The layer was the center of the judicial system of the Nine Hells. All legal disputes involving devils were discussed in the Diabolical Court, an independent institution under Belial's supervision that only answered to Asmodeus. It was also in Phlegethos that the promotion or demotion of devils took place, through a ritual that temporarily made them vulnerable to the layer's flames.

Defenses

The city of Abriymoch held a reserve of 5,000 hamatulas under the command of the pit fiend Gazra, stationed there to serve as a line of defense in case demons managed to reach the layer.

Type

Dimensional, Pocket