Sample File Contents

Sample file Contents

Gareth Hanrahan

Credits Contents Editor A Passage Into Hell 2 Richard Ford Introduction 14 Cover Art Tony Parker Part I: Into the Infernum The Basics 18 Logo & Cover Design Races of the Infernum 24 Anne Stokes Demon Breeds 33 The Houses 44 Interior Illustrations Mortals 60 Eric Bergeron, Chamonou, Ryan Horvath, Kythera, Fallen Angels 67 Tony Parker, Chad Sergesketter, Christophe Swal, Simon Taylor SamplePart II:file To Live & Die in the Pit Studio Manager Skills 72 Ian Barstow Feats 98 Combat 113 Production Director Survival in the Infernum 141 Alexander Fennell Miscellaneous Rules 147 Equipment 164 Proofreading Ron Bedison, Mark Lewin Part III: Lore of the Nine Circles Demonic Mutations 188 Playtesters The Downward Spiral 219 Tanya Bergen, Mark Billanie, Andre Chabot, Mark Sorcery 231 Gedak, Robert Hall, Daniel Haslam, Mark Howe, Trevor Kerslake, Patrick Kossmann, Kent Little, Character Sheet 250 Alan Marson, Alan Moore, Murray Perry, Mark Index 252 Sizer, Daniel Scothorne, Sam Vail, Michael J Young License 256

Open Game Content & Copyright Information Infernum – Book of the Damned ©2005 Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. Reproduction of non-Open Game Content of this work by any means without the written per mission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. Infernum – Book of the Damned is presented under the Open Game Licence. See page 256 for the text of the Open Game Licence. All text paragraphs and tables containing game mechanics and statistics derivative of Open Game Content are considered to be Open Game Content. All other signifi cant characters, names, places, items, art and text herein are cop y right ed by Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. Printed in China.

1 A Passage Into Hell

A PASSAGE INTO HELL PROLOGUE never recover. You’ll see those wretches as we travel. Your memories may return – mine did.’ He smiled at Wherein our narrator awakes to fi nd himself in Hell, some unknown pleasure. and meets a guide who shall bring him through the Nine Circles; also, the nature of the clouds of Hell. I THE EMPTY CIRCLE I awoke on a plain of hot dust. My mouth was full The narrator and De Rais cross the First Circle of of bitter ash, my tongue was swollen and parched. I Hell on a riding spawn; there, they meet three demons rolled onto my back and looked at the tortured clouds who are bypassed by De Rais, who then explains the far overhead. A contrail of purplish vapour spiralled terrible purpose of the agonies of the damned. down from the lowest cloudbank to my prostrate form and I surmised I had fallen from some great height. He pulled my body to the side of a strange lizard- like creature and strapped me to its fl ank. ‘This is I lay there a while, broken in body and mind. I could a riding spawn,’ he explained, ‘a mindless beast of not remember who or what I was; but I knew this was burden akin to a demon.’ The creature appeared to be damnation. in some discomfort – its legs had been stretched out as if by a rack until they were three times their natural The wind sounded like a scream. length, to increase the riding beast’s stride. De Rais slipped his transparent heels into the stirrups, prodded A shadow fell across my face, cast by a pale man in it with wicked goads and the beast began to lumber dusty clothes. By his slight translucence I surmised across the dusty plain. he was dead. Curiously, his beard was slightly blue in colour. ‘You have fallen, sir,’ he said, ‘and cannot get up.’

I acknowledged that this seemed to be theSample case. file

‘I shall assist you,’ he offered.

I observed that I had not expected such charity in Hell, to which he replied that he would most likely trade me to some avaricious demon anyway, but that accepting him as guide and captor was a better option than waiting for some desperate stalker to come upon my shattered form. I acquiesced, and he reached down and picked me up with some diffi culty.

‘My name is De Rais,’ he said.

‘I cannot remember my name,’ I replied, apologetically.

‘That is because of the Lethe Clouds,’ he said, pointing to the curious yellow-purple cumuli above. ‘The waters of the River Lethe are vaporised by great factories and pumped into the air above the First Circle. All those who fall into the Infernum are stripped of their memories for a time; indeed, many

2 A Passage Into Hell

From my raised perspective, I could see that this De Rais rode up, careful to keep me on the far side great plain extended to the horizon, but was dotted of the riding beast from the demons so they could not with massive buildings outlined against the seething see me. I heard him hail them, and they replied in sky. Some were great chimneys, belching out clouds. guttural voices. Others resembled fortresses piled up on fortresses, all towers and walls and bastions defending‘What aresome you doing on that spawn?’ challenged one, anonymous stretch of dust. The tallest‘you structures should be down here! This pathetic scrap of were brass pillars that reached up beyondplasm the won’tclouds feed all of us! How would you like to and were wreathed in crackling lightning. have the hairs of that little blue beard used to tie your organs together, so that when we shake you, they’re ‘This is the First Circle of the Pit,’ said De Rais gaily, all torn apart?’ as if he were showing me around some charming city or oral fl garden. ‘The Empty Circle. Not the ‘Touch me,’ said De Rais quickly, ‘and you risk the most imaginative of names, but who’d waste poetry wrath of my lord and master.’ I saw him reach down on such a barren place? Still, you get a lot of soulsand draw back his shirt, revealing a brand on his landing here, so it’s worth the demons’ while buildingchest. The demons recoiled. He spurred the spawn fortresses.’ He gestured at one particularly impressiveand it began to scuttle on, chittering little gasps of barbican. ‘That belongs to Savar of the Sturrach.pain with each step. Charming fellow. He’s up here as a punishment for eating too many of his troops.’ Once we had left the demons in our wake, I ventured to enquire what the demons were doing with the ‘So Hell is as the poet Dante saw it?’ I asked. unfortunate soul. ‘Torturing it, of course,’ replied De Rais, ‘the very meat and coin of this whole empire De Rais shook his head. ‘Of course not. He wasis torment. Bleed a soul, force it into paroxysms of Italian, and therefore misguided. He got the shape of agony, and it gives up a piece of itself. Demons need the Pit right, but the Pit is not Hell.’ I asked him to that to survive. Every soul in torment is food and fuel expand on this, and he did (De Rais quite loved the for the demon-kin. If a demon does not eat, it starves sound of his own voice). ‘The Infernum is the empire and that is not a pleasant sight. They live to torture shared and quarrelled over by the Nine Great Houses and they torture to live.’ of the demon-kin. The Pit is a vast chasm divided into nine circles, which makes up the majority of the ‘But you are a dead soul, De Rais,’ I observed, ‘why territory claimed by the Infernum. And Hell… HellSample are you filetoo not being tormented?’ is the Pit and all points beyond, for ever and ever, amen.’ ‘The demons permit certain choice servants a measure of… freedom,’ he said, and would elaborate ‘What made the Pit?’ no further.

‘The same force that raised those brass pillars,’ he said After some hours of travel, we came to the brink of cryptically. ‘Now hush – some demons are about.’ I the Pit, and I looked down into Hell. looked, and saw three fi gures hunched over a fourth. One was the size of a man, but its limbs were those II THE TEMPEST CIRCLE of an insect, its hide was rugose and scaly, and its head resembled that of a bird. The second was on The pair enter the Second Circle, a land of howling fi re, and looked like a burning stick fi gure beneath winds, towering mountains, and sharp rocks. De Rais the fl ames. The third measured nearly ten feet tall describes the Nine Great Houses of the Infernum, their while hunched over and was covered with plates of different natures and current dispositions; also, the black iron clumsily bolted to its grey skin. They were infamous Free Cities and the current trials besetting gathered around a vaguely humanoid fi gure composed demon-kind are discussed. of whitish spirit-stuff. It resembled De Rais’ form to a degree, but where he was shaped as he must have The vertigo of staring down into the Pit was almost been in life, this soul was sexless and anonymous. enough to kill. It could have been anyone. The demons had pinned the soul down with stakes and the second demon was The memory of standing on a high mountain and seeing pushing its burning fi ngers into the soul’s stomach. all the kingdoms of the world fl ashed into my mind. All the kingdoms of Hell were spread out beneath me. Mile upon mile of black industrial wasteland,

3 A Passage Into Hell of blasted heath, of tortured fi eld and burning land ‘There are nine Great Houses and innumerable lesser – the terrain was infi nitely varied, but there was no ones orbiting them. We’re technically in Haimon pleasure or comfort to be found anywhere that did not territory at the moment, but they take little interest come from the suffering of another. Standing there in their holdings here in the Second Circle. The big on the brink of the Pit, I was deafened by the chorus Haimon estates are in the next circle, with all the dead. of screams and buffeted by waves of rising heat from Haimon’s power comes from their legions of damned the raging inferno beneath. souls. They put the dead to work for them.

I do not know how long I was transfi xed there. In the ‘House Astyanath and House Riethii have equally uttermost dark I saw a light – a gout of fl ame which few holdings this far up in the Pit. They don’t like to rose towards me. I watched as a great rolling ball travel too far from the entertainments of the capital, of flame slowly rose up through all the circles until Pandemonium. Astyanath likes pain and Riethii it passed by me. The heat of its passage seared my prefers pleasure, but they share enough common face, and I felt the fl ank of the riding spawn quiver interests to work together much of the time. and singe. ‘Glabretch, on the other hand, are permitted only a ‘Ninth dawn,’ said De Rais in a hushed tone. ‘Each handful of fortresses below the Fifth Circle. They’re morning, the Morningstar rises from the palace at the plague-makers and disease-mongers, not to mention heart of the city of Pandemonium. It rises through the fl esh-crafters. They’d pay well for a slave like you, Nine Circles, bringing light to each in turn.’ actually; they need lots of raw materials and test subjects. The border between the fi rst and second Circles was marked by a line of castles and fortifi cations. As we ‘Carthenay could pay the most, of course. There’s passed them, I saw that the pre-eminent feature of no banker like a demon banker and the Carthenay these buildings were all the dungeons, prison yards coffers are bottomless. They own most of the Seventh and forges turning out links of chain. We passed Circle, which makes them almost as popular as the through this region slowly, waiting in line behind Glabretch.’ huddled masses of captive souls and their demon keepers. Beyond the gates of the fortress, we came upon a rocky landscape, lashed by winds and storms. De Rais’ path wound its way through twisted stone outcrops and over deep ravines. Sample file

‘This is the Second Circle, Tempest. The storms here are eternal.’

I inquired as to the nature of the brand that De Rais bore. He evaded the question, but it did cause him to launch into a lengthy discourse on Infernal politics.

‘The Houses are the real powers in the Infernum. They’re not quite the same as mortal dynasties, but all the demons in a House share some common heritage. It is said that the House founders were once commanders in the old legion, but you don’t want to go repeating that in polite company. The nobility doesn’t like any implication that they weren’t around since the start.

4 A Passage Into Hell

De Rais paused in his discourse to take a sip from a Our mount toiled up to the peak of one particular waterskin. ‘I don’t need to drink, of course, being sharp mound of broken glass and then collapsed in a dead, but the Limbo dust does so stick in one’s throat. heap. De Rais sighed. ‘We’ll have to walk down to Where was I? Ah, Carthenay. the Third Circle.’

‘Carthenay would be besieged by half the other I looked down the scree of shattered glass and beheld Houses if it weren’t for the Carthenay mercenary a vast muddy plain sloping down into the Pit. In the bands and their on-again, off-again alliance with distance, the Morningstar’s light glittered off a river the Sturrach. The Sturrach are Hell’s pre-eminent snaking through the land. warriors and generals, so they’re as insufferable as you can imagine. No style, no grace, just IIIa lot THE of CIRCLE OF TEARS marching up and down and blowing things apart. House Sturrach holds much of the Fifth Circle; every Their riding spawn having died from neglect, the so often they’d gang up with Carthenay and try to take pair progress by foot to the Third Circle of mud and the Sixth, but all that’s changed now.’ monsters; putting off a discussion of monsters for a future time, they talk about mud and the rivers of the ‘Things change in Hell?’ I asked, somewhat Pit. The narrator begins to recall something of his surprised. past. They take ship upon the river Acheron and so come to Moloch. ‘Yes. And quite drastically of late. The Sixth Circle holds Dis, the great forge city. The lords of Dis have We soon found a road leading from the edge of the declared themselves free from the rule of the Houses, Second Circle. The mud had swallowed the road and have somehow managed to break free of the in several places, and De Rais seemed increasingly Covenants holding them. nervous. ‘There are wild spawn roaming around here. I spent several decades being endlessly eaten ‘A Covenant,’ he clarifi ed, ‘is a sworn and unbreakable by carnivorous blind children and have no desire to bond.’ He rubbed his chest. ‘To be held in a Covenant repeat the experience. We should hurry.’ means you owe your soul to the debt-holder. It’s one of the few things that keep the Houses together, so Dis’ As we slogged through the clinging mud, I inquired freedom is an abomination to the whole Infernum. as to the nature of spawn, and how they differed from demons. He shushed me, saying that he had no time ‘Now, Dis’ rebellion has spread to half a dozen other for such a digression as we might both be devoured circles, and freedom and the Breaking of Oaths isSample on by some file renegade beast. The muddy plain was cut the lips of half the younger demons. It’s quite upset with many trenches and embankments, and by means the whole anthill. House Zethu, especially, is in of these shelters we avoided the spawn that De Rais trouble – they used to rule in Dis. The Free Cities feared. have taken half of Zethu’s holdings and the greater part of its infl uence.’ ‘Haimon or Oblurott should do something about those things,’ muttered my guide, ‘but both are more ‘Why have Carthenay and Sturrach not conquered interested in sending monsters rampaging through the Dis?’ I wondered. other’s holdings than in making the roads of Hell safe for honest travellers.’ ‘House Sturrach has been under pressure from the Eighth House, Oblurott, for a while. It’s unlike the fat ‘But you are not an honest traveller, De Rais,’ I cried slugs of Oblurott to stir themselves for long enough out, and in saying it I knew it to be true. He started to make war, but they’ve marched their forces down to reply, but was interrupted by a yelping horde of from the Third Circle to threaten Sturrach holdings amorphous damned souls, who came swarming up on the Fourth, and Sturrach’s always been vulnerable the channel in the mud-fi eld. The herd of souls was to starvation. driven by a trio of hulking, brutish demons wielding barbed whips. ‘Haimon diggers,’ said De Rais hastily, ‘The Ninth House, the Lictat, is a coalition of ‘souls looking for souls.’ lesser houses. They’re upstarts, and would have been crushed by the other eight if it weren’t for the As we watched, the herd of souls began snuffl ing and crisis in Dis – which makes certain parties such as rooting around in the mud. They made animal grunts myself very suspicious of the Lictat. Their holdings of pain as they worked. Suddenly, one of them called are primarily behind us, on the marginal land of the out as she found something hidden in the muck. A Second Circle.’ 5