Game starts in a city, which is then devoured by a giant beast summoned by a warlock dedicated to

Hell, and sent there. The party arrives as the remaining fragments of their city crash into the lake of
blood and wash up ashore of the capital, Elturel.

If there’s a Fiend Warlock or a Tiefling: hopefully bound/descended from Tiamat, he visits her (or the
actual devil noble/archdevil comes to find them), and she informs him it’ll cost 15 soul coins to get the
party through the gate to Dis (20 - the Warlock thanks to nepotism). The only way out, is to seek an
audience with Asmodeus and explain the situation to him. Luckily, anyone who finds their way to
Nessus is entitled to an audience, alive or dead (probably!). Asmodeus is a busy man, the archdevils
could speak with him personally…in about a thousand years. There’s a lot of paperwork in Hell! Side-
quests ho!

Goals: Find the warlock, return the people of the city to Earth, keep those people safe and alive.

Side-quests:
An old man died after his daughter. He thinks she managed to survive, but she’s out in the wastes.
Turns out, she’s become indebted to a soultaker gang and she’s a hellrider now - and she kinda likes
it. The party only gets payed if they bring her back.

Nine layers, each ruled over by an archdevil (who commands barons, dukes, etc.).
Avernus - Tiamat
Dis - Dispater
Minauros - Mammon
Phlegethos - Belial
Stygia - Tantlin
Malbolge - Baal
Maladomni - Moloch
Cania - Mephistopheles
Nessus - Asmodeus (also the king of Hell)
Technically, the tenth layer is Caput, the gaping maw of the Beast which consumes any soul unlucky
enough to fall this deep.

Hell is powered by the souls of the damned, which are consumed at Foundries and converted into
soul coins. When this soul coin is consumed (to power the vehicles of hellriders, to run the magical
defenses of cities, etc), the soul congeals in the next layer. Soultakers roam the wastes of every plane,
devils and corrupted mortals who sell other souls to maintain their freedom. Other threats include
demons, who form naturally from the body of the Beast and are basically orcs - dumb, destructive,
and only cooperative enough to gather into hordes and threaten the devil cities. Mortals killed by
demons will generally be consumed, destroying their soul then and there.

Cosmology: Heaven (absorption into the body of the Sovereign, ruling god), Earth (managed by the
Incarnae, fragments/aspects/avatars of the Sovereign which are the mortals’ direct interaction with
Him), and Hell (where the sinful go to suffer until they are redeemed or destroyed, ruled by Asmodeus
but built of the body of the Beast, the enemy of the Sovereign, who is kept in check only by the work
of the devils to maintain his metaphysical chains).