Sample file Classic Play The Book of Hell Adrian Bott Contents Credits Introduction 2 Editor Entering the Infernum 3 Infernal Environments 16 Richard Ford Lower Levels 38 The Creatures of Hell 47 Line Developer The Organisation of the Devils of Hell 60 Richard Neale House Astyanath 67 House Carthenay 71 Studio Manager House Haimon 75 Ian Barstow House Glabretch 84 House Oblurott 90 Cover Art House Riethii 94 Vincent Hie House Sturrach 98 House Zethu 102 Interior Illustrations The Four Great Princes 107 Devil Species 111 Jim Brady, Danilo Moretti, Ricardo Jaime, Demon Species 128 Randy Nunley, Moises Donoso Segundo, Demon Bikers From Hell 135 Stephen Shepherd, Joey Stone, Alejandro The Laws and Customs of Hell 139 Villen Corruption 145 Sympathy for the Devil 160 Production Director Infernal Secrets of Magic 174 Alexander Fennell The Harvest of Souls 189 Sample file Infernal Equipment 207 Infernal Transfiguration 223 Proofreading Adventure Hooks 247 Mark Quennell, Sarah Quinnell Designer’s Notes 249 Index 251 Additional Support Licence 256 Ian Belcher, Matthew Sprange Open Game Content & Copyright Information Classic Play – The Book of Hell ©2004 Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. Reproduction of non-Open Game Content of this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. Classic Play – The Book of Hell is presented under the Open Game and D20 Licences. 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 and the System Reference Document are considered to be Open Game Content. All other significant characters, names, places, items, art and text herein are copyrighted by Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. If you have questions about the Open Game Content status of any material herein, please contact Mongoose Publishing for clarification. ‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are Trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and are used according to the terms of the d20 System Licence version 5.0. A copy of this Licence can be found at www.wizards.com/d20. The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. Dungeons & Dragons® and Wizards of the Coast® are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. in the United States and other countries and are used with Permission. Printed in Canada. Mongoose Publishing Mongoose Publishing, PO Box 1018, Swindon, SN3 1DG, United Kingdom [email protected] Visit the Mongoose Publishing website at www.mongoosepublishing.com for additional rules and news 1 INTRODUCTION torment the damned? Are all devils members of the Introduction same monolithic force? What actually happens to the soul of a person who sells his soul to the Devil and what can he expect in return? s an adventurer, you will be used to hardship. You can wade up to the neck through leech- Between these covers, you will find an exhaustive Ainfested swamps; you can shiver on an arctic guide to Hell in which all of these questions are plain with nothing to eat but the stiff body of your answered. The Book of Hell is a bestiary, spellbook, companion, who was lucky enough to die first; you resource guide, gazetteer and Who’s Who for the can struggle through seemingly endless desert, place we have chosen to call Infernum. Although blinded by the sun and dried crisp as a mummy by it reflects our own ‘take’ on the outer planes, it is the heat, while scorpions and venomous fully compatible with other works on the subject. In reptiles lurk in wait and vultures particular, the concept of what a ‘devil’ is has been circle overhead. In all of these expanded immensely. The terrible straits, one thought may civilisation, social conduct serve to comfort you: no matter and objectives of these how bad this is, it could be fascinating beings worse. have been fully investigated. They There is one place where are far more than mere even that thought cannot scaled and horned bring comfort, because warriors of darkness. it is the worst place that can be found Those who are anywhere. It is a familiar with such place so dreadful things will note that its very name that a good deal is a curse and has been adapted good folk fear to from authentic mention it. That sources. This place is Hell. simply perpetuates Sample file the established tradition All too often, in d20 of drawing from Hell is merely the folklore of the real glimpsed from afar. world to expand the Legends, frequently game’s mythos. We must, contradicting each of course, insist that other, tell of its this is a game and that many awful sights. any reference to infernal So varied are these powers and rituals is to accounts that one might be understood entirely in that wonder whether they were context. Irresponsible and wilful describing the same place. meddling with genuine occult It is a realm of endless fire, material is not condoned. though insectoid ice devils dwell within its confines. It is all chaos and horror, yet the devils Classic Play are fundamentally lawful, or else why do The Book of Hell is the latest in the highly they always work with contracts? The place is acclaimed ‘Classic Play’ series from Mongoose supposed to be inescapable, yet fiends are often to be Publishing. Each volume in the series covers found walking the material plane. The souls of evil one field of central importance to any d20 game people go to Hell when their body dies, yet evil ghosts in unprecedented depth and detail, providing an are often reported, so why are they not in Hell? abundance of readily usable material, new rules mechanics and background information. With this Other questions beg to be answered; for what series, we intend to produce the definitive works on purpose, other than sheer sadism, do the fiends subjects relevant to any Games Master. 2 ENTERING THE INFERNUM From the sea of flame emerge outcrops of red-black Entering The rock. Some are nothing but craggy, featureless peaks in the middle of a sea of roaring flames, while others are large enough to support a multitude of cities, Infernum outposts and estates. These islands are the territories that the infernal powers claim. Each one has a hough Hell is immense, it is not without form population and a character that varies according to and boundary. The features of Hell remain who has claimed it. The lands of the devils develop Tconstant enough for the various powers and culture, civilisation and industry, building structures principalities to claim certain regions as their own and making the torment of the damned into a refined and establish borders. There are features of Hell occupation, while the lands of the demons remain in known to all cultures of the Prime Material plane, chaos, with an ongoing orgy of torment and gluttony such as the Sea of Fire and the Shrieking Peaks. sprawling over the surface. Beneath these lands lie This is one reason why so many accounts of Hell the sub-planes inhabited entirely by fiends of one from the various different worldly religions have so alignment. The hells of the devils do not connect many details in common, even when the cultures have with the hells of the demons, except in the topmost grown up separately. level. What Is The Infernum? The Infernum is thus a middle ground. Those The realm referred to as ‘the Infernum’ is the Hell who enter it are not necessarily treading upon the with which this book deals. It is not a part of any sovereign territory of any of the infernal or demonic of the established lower planes, such as have been powers. Only a few creatures count it as their home covered in other publications. The Infernum has no plane. It is easiest to think of the Infernum as a form alignment other than ‘evil’. It occupies a vast realm of satanic no man’s land or colonised nation, where that lies between the Astral and the various lower different factions compete for territory and resources. planes, feeding into all of them. Each of the lower There is one resource that the Infernum will never run planes, from the hells of the demons to those of the short of, not so long as human beings are prone to devils, opens on to the Infernum. As a result of this, give in to the temptations of evil: damned souls. the Infernum is both a realm of transport between the lower planes and a battleground where the wars Where The Bad People Go between devils and demons are fought out. There are Normally, when a person dies, their soul simply also openings from the Prime Material plane intoSample the departs filefor the plane where their deity lives, or the Infernum. plane that corresponds to their alignment. Where the good and neutral planes are concerned, this is a fairly Most of this book is given over to detailing the straightforward matter. The soul instinctively knows topmost level of Hell, since this is the one that which way to drift. There is usually a manifestation travellers from other planes are most likely to of some sort that it can follow, such as a bright light, encounter. It has the most resemblance to the Prime or a long tunnel that leads to the soul’s ultimate Material, though the materials, colours and elements resting place. The evil planes are, however, not so are very different. Other levels of Hell are literally benignly organised.