Swan’s Song: Prisoners of Hell

A list of major characters from the first act of Swan’s Song

Swan
Height: 5’10”
“Oro supplex et acclinis, Cor contritum quasi cinis: Gere curam mei
finis.”

Swan was a young apprentice to her blacksmith father before her

village was destroyed by an unknown force, now after having
woken up in Hell she traverses the demonic plains to find whoever
did it and why she is in such a place. Having been blessed with
regenerative abilities, Swan can harness the souls of those she
defeats in combat to heal herself of any and all wounds, no matter
how major or minor. Swan’s arrival in Hell was delayed for many
many years by some unknown force, making her the last person to
ever enter the Afterlife.

She dons a dark blue gambeson with the left sleeve ripped off,
underneath a leather brigandine. Her right arm is protected by a
pauldron and a vambrace, and her legs by greaves, cuisses and
poleyns, all of which she had taken from the local armourers. Her
long brown hair stays tied at the top with bangs covering a scar she
had received during the destruction of her village. Swan is armed
with a longsword made in her father’s forge, graced with a holy
rosary wrapped around its crossguard. Alongside her sword, Swan
has access to a sickle which she can wrap her arm tendon around,
utilising it like a grapple hook.

Barachiel
Height: 7’0”
“O Powerful Archangel, St. Barachiel, filled with heaven’s glory and
splendour, thou art rightly called God’s benediction...”
The Archangel of Blessings and second in command for the Seven
Archangels, Barachiel accompanies Swan on her journey through
Hell making sure she doesn't stray from the holy path. Their high
status within the Seven Archangels and remarkable piousness
makes them a revered figure among those in Hell, Purgatory and
Heaven; many of those in Hell pray daily to Barachiel in hopes of
receiving their blessing and ending their penitence. They have been
described before in Virgil’s personal scriptures as “merciful”, but
none have seen how they act in the most dire of situations.

Barachiel wears a long off-white robe with red stripes that go along
the sleeves, and on the skirt three pieces of red ribbon wrap around
them. On top of their head, a crown of white roses is placed just
underneath their halo. The left arm of their robe is filled to the brim
with white rose petals that litter the ground wherever they go, on top
of Barachiel’s left shoulder a blue shawl sits. Their chest piece is a
highly ornate cuirass, made of gold and silver with long strips of
paper that read Barachiel’s holy prayer. On the front of their armour,
a human heart is chained, and on the back two holes are present
which allows them to extend their wings, made of purely muscle
and a flexible cartilage for the feathers, out of their back. Their
sword, a zweihander affixed with a silver cross and a prayer, stays
at their hip at all times. When not using their sword, Barachiel
carries a golden censer.

As is with all angels and beings of a holy nature, Barachiel’s true

form is a mass of heavenly light. To keep the people of Heaven
safe from blindness, the Angels all cover their “skin” with the
absence of light; pure darkness.

Virgil
Height: 7’0”
Virgil’s role in Hell is to document those that pass through and lead
them each to their destinations. His intimidating height is juxtaposed
to his kind and caring nature, taking the souls he documents
through the layers of Inferno before reaching their final stop, helping
them reflect on their past life and prepare them for their eternal
atonement. Once humans stopped appearing in the afterlife Virgil
had fallen to a life of solitude until Swan’s arrival. The Seven
Archangels have granted Virgil access to their angelic travel,
allowing him to travel between each layer of Hell freely.

Virgil covers his grey, desiccated and slender body with a white
hooded robe, adorned at the top with a gold laurel wreath fashioned
with hands instead of leaves. Instead of a face an empty void stares
back, Virgil uses this void to hold the book he documents the souls
of the damned in.

Phlegyas
Height: 6’0”

Phlegyas’s role in Hell is to ferry those found in Wrath across the

River Styx before pushing them in for their punishment. Unlike
Virgil, Phlegyas is very cold towards those he ferries, taking no
interest in what stories they may tell him and having no qualms with
pushing people directly into their punishment. Although his
apathetic approach to people is a strong one, it seems his
disinterest is only directed towards regular humans as he and Virgil
seem to get along just fine, even letting Virgil talk about his old
poems and new ideas he comes up with.

Phlegyas is, simply put, a walking skeleton. His whole body is

dressed with a large, brown buttoned up duster coat that reaches
the floor, covering his skeletal frame except for his skull which is
topped with a sailors cap, presumably taken from someone that had
arrived in Wrath ages ago. Phlegyas carries a large stick on which a
lantern hangs, the stick has a curved bottom which doubles as a
hook so he can pull people up from the water if they mistakenly fall
in.

Aphrodite
Height: 6’0”

Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty, is

imprisoned in the Lust layer of Hell, Her sins of adultery and vanity
were deemed heretical by the Archangel. Her punishment, as
judged by the Seven Archangels, is to be chained up by barbed and
razor wire against the harsh winds of Lust. Because of her
punishment, Aphrodite has been left as a bitter and hate filled
woman, believing there to be no love left, even from those whose
purpose is to take care of “lesser souls”. She has taken it upon
herself to free those “wrongfully” imprisoned in Lust as they don’t
deserve to be in such a place.

Aphrodite obscures her face with bandaging and has long, wild
blonde hair that dangles down to her feet. She wears only a pair of
dark red baggy pants with a giant lock strapped around her hips to
keep them on tight. Her whole body is wrapped in barbed wire and
razor wire, subjecting her to terrible lacerations which has left her
body scarred all over. She can control those same wires, utilising
them as whips.

Cerberus
Height: 60ft
Length: Seemingly infinite

Cerberus is a three-headed worm-like creature that lives in the layer

of Gluttony. They have been allowed by the Archangels to gorge on
all the viscera and sinners that are available to them in Gluttony, but
the Archangels secretly fear that while Cerberus is currently more
than happy to eat all they can, their palate may be getting bland for
them and that they may seek out something new to feast on.
Cerberus may have three heads but they all think with one mind.

Their skin is thick and leathery but also coated with a mucousy
substance, allowing them to manoeuvre through the filth and pulp of
Gluttony. Cerberus’s mouths are filled with rows and rows of razor
sharp fangs which are capable of taking gigantic bites out of
anything in their path.

Plutus
Height: 6’2”

Plutus, Greek god of abundance and wealth, is imprisoned in the

layer of Greed. Plutus, although being a kindly god, was blamed for
the effect that Greed can have on humans whether that be making
them wasteful of wealth or hoarding it. Thus, his punishment
granted by the Seven Archangels is to be eternally submerged in
molten gold, his skin forever screaming. This has left Plutus with a
deep seething hatred for holy beings, his insatiable greed for their
deaths powering the machines in the layer.

Plutus wears nothing but the burned flesh on his body and the
flowing golden slag covering it. He can swim through the gold that
he was punished in and can control it to create waves, shooting jets
of it or quickly harden them to create weapons.

Apate
Height: 7’0”
Apate, Greek goddess of deceit, is imprisoned in the layer of Fraud.
Her creation of deception and trickery was used against her, the
Archangels blaming her for allegedly co-conspiring with Satan to
trick Eve into eating the Forbidden Fruit, whether this was true or
not this landed her eternal punishment in Fraud. Although her
naturally deceptive self could not fool the Archangels, Apate
successfully convinced the Holy Knights sent to imprison her fully to
let her go, leaving Fraud as her own domain and its inhabitants as
her playthings, using them for her own entertainment.

Apate’s human appearance is but another one of her tricks, as her

whole body is made up of red and black snake-like tendrils. She
hides her “face” behind a marble and gold split comedy/tragedy
mask. On top of her head she wears a traditional jester’s cap with
red and black colouring. Protruding from her back are many sharp-
tipped tendrils that envelope the walls, used to control those in
Fraud like puppets, making them do her bidding.

Ares
Height: 7’0”

Ares, Greek god of war and courage, is imprisoned in the layer of

Violence. His “sin” of being the fuel of war and the courage of battle
caused the Archangels to send him directly to Violence. While his
original punishment seems lost to time, Ares used his natural war
morale to convince the denizens of the layer to fight against the
ones torturing them, taking Violence for themselves and turning it
into a colosseum, the Archangels have been stuck on how to stop
Ares’s takeover of the layer as they are unsure of how truly
powerful Ares is. He uses the colosseum to find a warrior to match
his strength in gladiatorial combat as he adores seeing what kind of
fighters there are out there.
Ares is a tall, muscular man who hides his body underneath a large,
dark red cloak with a white mane around the collar. Beneath the
cloak, Ares wears a traditional Spartan pteruges with red cloth
beneath it. Across his whole bare body, Ares has deep trenches in
his skin that act as aqueducts for the boiling blood beneath the
sands of Violence, which he utilises to create his assortment of
weaponry.

Phobos & Deimos

Height: 8’0” (Phobos), 6’0” (Deimos)

Phobos & Deimos, Greek gods of Fear and Panic and Dread and
Terror respectively, are imprisoned alongside their father, Ares, in
the layer of Violence. Both their devotions to their Father and to
cause disorder in battle were recognised by the Seven Archangels
as sinful, leading them to be trapped within the underbelly of
Violence’s colosseum, endlessly fighting the hordes of the violent.
Despite this, Phobos & Deimos thrive in combat, daring anyone
brave enough to battle them and either receive an honourable
Spartan’s death or give the two brothers theirs.

Phobos appears to be an extremely tall amalgamation of flesh and

muscle, covered in patches of skin taken from multiple bodies sewn
together like a poncho, blood seeping through the seams. Deimos
has become a weapon for Phobos; a sword of meat with sharpened
bone running down the edge of the “blade”, as well as a row of
teeth in the middle of the sword allowing it to open like scissors as
well as being Deimos’s mouth. A singular eye sits just above the
hilt, providing Deimos sight.

The Hooded Shade

Height: 5’10”
Not much is known about The Hooded Shade, other than the fact
that they were first spotted in the layer of Wrath around the time
Swan first stepped foot into Hell. They appear to be quick on their
feet and incredibly violent to anyone that approaches them.

They wear a large red cloak with golden accents that covers their
body from the head to the knees and wields a blunted, bloodstained
longsword.

Satan
Height: Immeasurable

Satan, known by many other names such as Lucifer, The Devil,

Beelzebub and more, is Hell’s first prisoner and is imprisoned in the
deepest layer of all, Treachery. A fallen angel cast from Heaven
before the material world was created, Satan was guilty of rebelling
against God and attempting to become equal to them, as well as
tricking Eve into bringing the knowledge of good and evil to
humankind. For this, the Archangels kept Satan in the lowest
depths of Treachery, stuck in the middle of the vast, frozen Lake
Cocytus and subjected him to view every sin that would be
committed in human history. The things Satan saw caused by his
own actions, Man defiling and tearing apart their own kind, drove
him to be deeply and truly remorseful for what he did all those
millenia ago.
Yet his imprisonment would remain eternal.

Satan’s size had drastically changed during his time in Hell, the sins
committed by Man fueling his punishment and remorse. Ultimately
this morphed his body until its size grew too big for the lake he was
sentenced to, the rest of his body hidden beneath the ice. The only
indicator of the size of this great being is what lies where his body
originally was; a giant, gaping maw jutting out of the ice.