So when your in hell you can here rumours about hell and the spiral path.
Once the party have entered the hellmouth they begin a trek to escape but must bypass moral tests that might trap and damn them in hell.
These rumours also explain the workings of hell, how it functions and how it differs from other planar powers and evils.
Scraps of info will be found all kinds of places especially hen hell is interested in you or you are in hell. Once chosen Hell will reveal i's secrets to you to help you adapt to the hierarchy.
Hell is not as uniform in law and evil as you might belief. Chaotic evil and neutral evil beings can be found but their behaviour is limited by the laws of hell. They risk being trapped and tormented and tainted with law. Worse still is to be trapped in stasis in the ice hell, stagnant without change or cut off from chaos forever. Some beings of law might be found in hell also but obviously they are less interested in sadism or harm. They are better able to resist the taint of evil than lawful good beings. Good beings feel pain and suffering by being in hell and they take great risk by being their. Chaotic good beings suffer the most risk of spiritual harm.
Truth is a tool for evil propaganda
And devils are more trustworthy than demons. a devil lies with purpose but often tells part of the truth to make the lie better
Or lie by omission of some vital facts if not questioned or qualifiers checked
Most of these rumours could be true or partly true. The point is they teach you to navigate about hell better so ignoring them dangerous too. Hell is civilised and urbanised and highly social. It is hierarchical, meritocratic and bureaucratic.
Contracts are essentially honest but may deceive by complexity with clauses or extra terms and conditions
Deceit and gossip are basic currencies and part of the process of social climbing
The point of propaganda is to emphasise a particular narrative so suppressing the rumours you don't want and spreading the ones that you do help
Learning new ways to get around in hell or get through gates or deal with rank devils helps keep players try new things in hell to solve problems, Good for a long hellcrawl
When a demon lies it is habit, and hateful and crude in comparison. A demon is better at using force to intimidate or coerce and they are poorer at cooperation and they prefer quantity to quality. The smart demons might be cunning as a devil but they use truth less often. More their style to consistently lie and only when you trust them to lie might they tell a truth to make you do something tragic as a trick or laugh
Tables are not just a functional sandbox tool. They help establish mood and present information. Many of these ideas are from say late 1st ed adnd and some from my own mythical research and in my setting. So as it is a rumour table up to you which is lie. Lots od good propaganda as true but it paints a particular view serving somebodies interests..
Hell Things to do in The Spiral Paths
1 Trapped in Blackstump village and go through hell to escape
2 Die and be reincarnated over aeons up ranks of diabolic beings till you become powerful
3 Pass the gates by some means using subterfuge or trickery
4 Accept the geases, quests and curses of the gate keepers to get through and go to next
5 Avoid the gate by going through one of the sub planes that interconnect all the hells
6 Try and rescue someone unjustly sent here and help them escape it
7 Serve a lord of hell in a contract and use the status to pass through gates
8 Go on a rampage and fight stuff, battle through lesser gates and be hunted in hell
9 Rescue a relic or artifact form hell then escape without getting trapped or tainted
10 Tricked into hell through some doorway and try to escape
How to pass a level in hell
1 Pay the toll at the gateway, even the gods have done this
2 Pay a ferrymans toll and pay enough to get through layers or even out
3 Sneak through the sewers but it is pretty degrading and horrible
4 Sneak through the boiler room which is one of the most lawless awful places in hell
5 Pass through the black library but you meet more powerful beings there
6 The diabolic bureaucracy intersects all the layers of hell but they are meant to stop you
7 Bribe somebody to let you through a back door or private gate or secret door
8 Become contracted staff of a senior devil and get the paperwork and passport you need
9 Find fabled secret passages but using them is considered a criminal act
10 Pass a exam and get a job in hell do well and you will be promoted to go as you please
Some other possible hell tablesd100 I died in hell but came back as.....
- various damned forms, lesser devil, larvae, orc - special effects of hellish reincarnation
-possibly a spell for diabolic wizards to bring back dead as devilish hierarchy beings
-HD in life possibly = hd new form, powerful adventurers more likely to come back as ranking devils than a common orc and harder to redeem? Possibly 1st birth you are crapp and work your way up with level capping your final form.So you would commit suicide in a form per HD till you reached your old level as a cap. Shedding your evil when this evolved in hell is a problem
d100 Temptations of hell - offers you get from hell
d100 Imps and their schemes - each with own gimmicks and tricks
d100 Hunters of hell - guys sent after trouble makers and interlopers
d100 Tainted treasures of hell
d100 Missions to hell
d100 Missions from lords of hell
d20 How to hear rumours in the mortal world
1 By a well or docks
2 By a gate or doorway
3 At a market or shop
4 At a food stall or dinner table
5 In a bar or from a drunk
6 At workplace or from servants
7 At church or from a priest
8 From a beggar in streets
9 At party or den of vice
10 People on street
11 In a old book or library
12 Graffiti on a toilet or wall
13 Carved on stone or wood long ago
14 Someone whispered it in coridoor
15 Sent a note or letter
16 Found hidden in note
17 Muttered in streets
18 On old hidden parchment
19 Remember someone telling you when young
20 In a strange dream
d20 How to hear rumours in hell
1 At a gate between layers
2 From gossipping devils talking
3 From damned souls talking
4 From a helpful rebel devil
5 In diabolic books
6 In a temple or shrine of evil
7 From cultists
8 On a roadside
9 On a ferry or at the docks
10 In prison or from slaves
11 Whispered from crack or vent
12 Scrawled in blood on wall
13 Signs interpreted from innards or animal or enemy
14 Struck by vision from guardian spirit or god
15 Words form in vomit or maggots or sewerage
16 Tortured damned soul cries it out as a warning
17 A talking black beast whispers it to you
18 Hear words carried on the evil wind
19 A Imp appears to share diabolic trivia
20 Insane chitterlings of insect swarms of tiny bird flocks
d100 Common Rumours in Hell
01 Once you are in hell you cannot escape
02 The only escape is in the centre of hell
03 If you escape hell it will contrived to draw you back
04 Some think they have escaped hell but it is just a trick
05 If you die in hell you will be reborn among the damned
06 The damned cannot be destroyed only changed to serve hell
07 The damned can be rewarded by service through evolving into new forms
08 The hierarchy of hell ranges from the damned though to greater devils
09 Devils will stick to agreements but will twist your words
10 Beware of wishes made in hell for a devil will disappoint you
11 Torture and cruelty is nourishment for devils
12 Devils punish the wicked while angels reward the worthy
13 Devils were once demons but serve the mandate of heaven
14 Devils are the goalkeepers of the underworld
15 By persecuting and tempting the wicked, devils weed out the worst of humanity
16 The weakest damned become mindless larvae or other creatures
17 The strongest and wickedest may join the ranks of hell as imps
18 A hellgate is usually a mouth or sphincter of a giant devilish being
19 Devils war with demons because they are lawless and uncontrollable
20 Hell has many layers each with many nobles
21 Evil gods are imprisoned in hell awaiting the apocalypse to escape
22 To enter a gate between layers of hell you must sacrifice or pass a test
23 Some say you can find secret ways between hells such as the sewers
24 Demons may serve hell as mercenaries or bounty hunters, because they break rules
25 Using relics of hell might taint you forever
26 Each rebirth in hell damns you more and more
27 Devils earn status by tempting mortals and trading in souls or breaking the damned
28 Outwitting a devil can cause them demotions and physical pain
29 The lords of hell enjoy secret identities in the mortal world to seek the wicked
30 Devils will try and corrupt you with terrible choices aimed at damning you
31 Demons long for apocalypse and destruction, devils crave corruption and subjugation
32 If devils cannot corrupt you they will use you as pawns to work other evil
33 Only the greatest devils engage the pure hearted, failure is too great a risk
34 The greatest trick a devil can make is to convince you of helplessness
35 One layer of hell is a gloomy, miserable and eternally twilight
36 One layer of hell is a burning inferno of fire and brimstone
37 One layer of hell is a great frozen lake, lifeless and eternally static
38 One layer of hell is a horrible blasted battlefield with war ravaged city ruins
39 One layer of hell is a horrible corpse choked stinking swamp
40 One layer of hell is a plague ridden, panic strewn waste with starving victims
41 One layer of hell is a turbulent ocean of drowned damned
42 One layer of hell is a pit filled barren wasteland ravaged by storms
43 One layer of hell is a sprawling city of stone and iron and torture chambers
44 There is a sewer in hell that connects all of the various layers
45 There is a horrible boiler room of hell that is connected to all of the various layers
46 The various rivers of hell can be used to travel between the hells and other realms
47 The ferrymen of hell demand the greater the trip the greater sacrifice for the damned
48 Ancient beings of power who battled the gods are imprisoned in hell
49 The greatest prisoners of hell rage to escape endlessly awaiting the apocalypse
50 Some devils weep with sorrow at their damnation and want to spread misery
51 Some damned are naked and helpless eternal victims of torment
52 Some damned are plague ridden living dead who's bodied decay endlessly
53 Some damned are living skeletons stripped of flesh in eternal pain
54 Some damned are phantoms or shades, immaterial and incapable of touching anything
55 Some damned living dead in corpse shrouds they wore when buried
56 Some damned wear the clothing of their status and profession, a mockery of their lives
57 Some races of monstrous humanoids like orcs are welcome in hell
58 Cultists who serve hell hope to gain wishes for worldly treasure and power
59 Cultists who serve hell hope to gain status in hell and work their way up the hierarchy
60 Some nobles of hell are outcasts of the hierarchy and live in hiding and shame
61 Certain beastmen worship hell and gain terrible powers in return
62 Imps visit the earth often in animal form often acting as familiars
63 Devils slain in the mortal world cannot return for decades and are reborn in hell
64 Destroying a devil in hell can take them hundreds of years to reform and recover
65 Devils and Demons often wage war, at least devils value humans as peons
66 Holy men can drive away devils and cause them pain, the greatest can turn them
67 Great ancestor dragons and evil titans are prisoners in hell who long to escape
68 Hell is the great prison of the gods who built it to torment their enemies
69 Hell is a prison so perfect that even the gods are subject to it's laws
70 The ancient gods who once ruled hell used to threaten to release it's prisoners
71 Some gods of the heavens spawned devils to serve as prison wardens and tormentors
72 Many human institutions like money, prisons, writing and torture were hell's inventions
73 There were once less hell's with more existential than physical torments
74 As the celestial city grew and mortals were admitted so the underworld became worse
75 Rebel devils will offer to help you break the rules of hell but be wary
76 The cost of passage through a gate of hell will taint your soul and strengthen hell's grasp
77 Beware of pitting devils against each other, the diabolic hierarchy is the final authority
78 The torment of devils can break a soul down into various parts with different purposes
79 Some of the old gods belong to heaven and the underworld which seems odd today
80 Hell has purpose like a parasite on the cosmos, chaos is a cancer
81 Devils follow the letter of the law to create injustice demons just enjoy pointless pain
82 Slavery and criminal guilds are gifts of devil kind to contaminate humanity
83 Wizards are easy to tempt to the service of hell as they will risk anything for knowledge
84 Devil worshipping priests gain merit in hell by bringing mortals to the service of evil
85 Cults have grown more skilled at infiltration and subversion since the evil kingdoms fell
86 The greater the devil you deal with the more power you call on and the greater the risk
87 The cities of hell are the worst pits of misery and despair best avoided by mortals
88 Larvae are the currency of the netherworld that can be moulded into many evil forms
89 Worse than devils are the fallen angels who still think they don't deserve to be in hell
90 Who escapes hells wrath might have demon bounty hunters sent after them
91 When you flee hells wrath any innocents harmed in the hunt for you taint your soul
92 On very rare occasions the gods might aid a mortal escape but there is always a cost
93 Because devils obey order they can enter the world more freely than demons
94 Sacrificing other to gain benefits from hell does not ultimately avoid the wrath of devildom
95 Devils might trick you into hell with tempting traps that prey on your desires
96 The sweetest victory for hell is to make a good person justify acts of evil
97 Devils need their victims to be complicit to gain their souls, demons just take them
98 Some devil forms are designed to inhabit the dead or living to enter the world
99 Long ago there were whole nations of devil worshippers but they were exterminated
100 There are many magic items in hell but beware they will twist your spirit slowly
d100 Rare Rumours in Hell
01 Mightier people reincarnated in hell will reincarnate greater in hell with every death
02 The more you die in hell the more you are bound to it and party of the hierarchy
03 Nobody knows the exact fate of any damned in hell or how they will be reborn in hell
04 Once you have been reborn in hell you are bound to a layer and escape can be harder
05 Many of the lesser forms in hell are mindless and your spirit can waste millenia like that
06 Spending aeons in various forms with personal tormentors
07 If you are reborn as a orc you can just walk out of hell back to the mortal realm
08 Various spiritual paths in the underworld can decide your form, some become draconic
09 Diabolic mutations are a sign your spirit is tainted and will appear in your next rebirth
10 Being reborn as a ranking member of hells legions can trap yr soulu for aeons
11 There are records of every prescribed torture for punishing those who lived badly
12 There are records of your every bad deed in hell and imps are assigned special cases
13 There are records in hell for every prisoner ever but they are a sprawling mess
14 There are records in hell of bribes paid to corrupted mortals on earth
15 There are records of naughtiest children, krampus is dispatched to fetch the wickedest
16 There are records of who has sold their soul with details on the contracts
17 There are records to who owes hell money filled with nobility and gamblers
18 Every soul contract in hell has a original filed by clerks, the victim has a copy
19 Records of hell's legions show every member and who they must serve in hells wars
20 Records of individual devile include who they were once and how they gained power
21 Department of devils monitor targets with accumulated evil deeds they can recruit for hell
22 When a soul arrives in hell each is monitored by a imp and it assigns the rebirthing form
23 Millions of imps perform calculations predicting useful outcomes for hell's agents
24 The diabolic hierarchy has a bureaucracy mirroring the celestial hierarchy
25 New souls are assigned a tormentor, a torturer and teacher who abuses them for milenia
26 A senior officer of hell will pronounce the new form of souls and why they deserve it
27 Sometimes a higher ranking devil will be assigned to a special case or the gifted
28 You can appeal hells decisions and be sent to limbo for a eternity till it is resolved
29 A soul may make a outstanding effort of betrayal or evil and a judge will promote them
30 You can get passports in hell that show all your comings and goings they just turn up
31 All that torture strips away your weak humanity and concern for others
32 Imp committees determine what kind of temptations are sent to whom
33 Diabolic case managers report to a senior case manager who earmarks special cases
34 Fraudulent documents are very upsetting to hell accounts and records
35 Documents suspected of being tampered with can be held for milenium for investigation
36 Some damned who's documents are lost roam in the wastelandswith reletive freedom
37 The libraries of hell are sprawling as the sewers and pathways of the eternaly damned
38 Document retrieval might have you placed in status for undetermined time if you like
39 Words and rules make up the ultimate structure of hells reality say diabolist wizards
40 Spells are easy ti find in hell but many are traps
41 Important devils can issue passes through hell's gates without tolls
42 The sewers of hell are the best way to get around in hell in secret without the gates
43 The wastelands of hell are crawling with outcastes, rejects, rebels and dragons
44 Some lords of hell have their own private gates
45 Low ranking devils require passports to come and go through layers
46 Higher ranking devils pass as they pleas and have diplomatic baggage
47 Great lords of hell carry diplomatic baggage and servants through gates unquestioned
48 Messengers carry passports and travel documents and are contracted by nobles
49 If you perform a mission for a lord of hell you can bet whatever travel papers you need
50 Gatekeepers can sometimes be bribed but their cost will be high or even a quest
51 The boiler room is crawling with mad spirits, demons, ogres and killer clowns
52 The boiler room is now a run down place where damned are sent to be slaughtered
53 The boiler room of hell is a ruined sub level where hell ran sweatshops to help build hell
54 In the boiler room is corrupted with chaos and wild demons and rebel devils war
55 The boiler room is a slaughterhouse for damned assigned new incarnations
56 In the boiler room is the trash left over from previous cycles of creation predating creation
57 There is no treasure in the boiler room only survival, madness and failure
58 You can get through the boiler room but but it will scar you and take it's toll on you
59 Mostly in the boiler room you sneak and hide but fighting escalates and you have to run
60 just don't take the devils short cuts, it is faster to just pay through hell and pay the prices
61 It is possible to bribe gatekeepers staff or even join the staff by taking a contract job
62 The sewers of hell are revolting and eternal labyrinthe of filth and worthlessness
63 There is a great dark pit under hell where the lost documents and ash and rubbish go
64 If you enter the bureaucracy between the walls of hell you might sneak to another layer
65 The groaning creaking dark libraries of hell have entries on many planes but are strict
66 There are secret doorways and tunnels interconnecting the hierarchy, just have to look
67 Searching for secret doors through layers is foolish and will get you arested in hell
68 Prisoners of hell might be dealt locally or sent to some other hell for torment and storage
69 Devils reward successful schemes but failed plotters can be demoted and reborn
70 Letters from important devils can help you
71 Don't let your soul be stripped and used as building material by some lord of hell
72 Dont let them render your soul down into lamp oil or magic food for seniour devils
73 You can put time limits on devils contracts if they need your service more than your soul
74 Devils find vials of tears delicious and the best torturers make the best kind they love
75 Hell Gems are made from distilled imps so they don't really like them like others do
76 The red metal, hellgems, black metal were all from the hellforge to corrupt humankind
77 Many of the spells in hell are actually traps and offers of temptation to taint your soul
78 The souls of misers make the best hell gems that infect everyone with envy and hate
79 Stealing the pets or favored servants of devils can provide you with leverage
80 Some have managed to send messages and even request help hell to the mortal world
81 The cities of hell are the worst places and secret police and militia are ever alert
82 In hell's cities there are taverns of damned souls being abused by devils over drink
83 In the cities in hel souls are enslaved to all kinds of labour or forms of degredation
84 Public torment is a spectacle even in the everyday streets in great murder mills
85 The slums of hells city are awful places where the desperate losers of the hierarchy live
86 In cities are wonders like soul forges, rivers of tormented soul, bloody gibbets and worse
87 Waters of hell like the rivers and the lake of screaming souls are
88 Past the bridge of bones over the chasm of skulls there is a rebel devil black market
89 A lake of burning fire us used to torture the damned in and devils bath in
90 There is a lake of living liquified malice and devils operate a citidel of vice above it
91 The grand lord of hell is ever scheming and takes many forms all over hell
92 The Arch Devil has spies and secret police every where even on the mortal world
93 Each devil lord has some interest you can exploit to buy their favor
94 Once mortals brought in some weapon and tried to destroy a city making devils wary
95 The great master of hell is worshiped like a god
96 A ancient elder evil from the past or a previous creation has been trying to come back
97 Great imprisoned titans and dragons plot to be released and re-conquer hell
98 A detailed list of reasons two devl dukes of hell hate each other helps deal with both
99 Some say the lord of hell takes the form of a mortal king or royal advisors in many lands
100 Some forces with and outside hell plot to destroy hell and free it's prisoners
