As an adventurer, you will be used to hardship. You can wade up to the neck through leech-infested swamps; you can shiver on an arctic plain, with nothing to eat but the stiff body of your companion, who was lucky enough to die first; you can struggle through seemingly endless desert, blinded by the sun and dried crisp as a mummy by the heat, while scorpions and venomous reptiles lurk in wait and vultures circle overhead. In all of these terrible straits, one thought may serve to comfort you: no matter how bad this is, it could be worse.
There is one place where even that thought cannot bring comfort, because it is the worst place that can be found anywhere. It is a place so dreadful that its very name is a curse and good folk fear to mention it. That place is Hell.
All too often, Hell is merely glimpsed from afar. Legends, frequently contradicting each other, tell of its many awful sights. So varied are these accounts that one might wonder whether they were describing the same place. It is a realm of endless fire, though insectoid ice devils dwell there. It is all chaos and horror, yet the devils are fundamentally lawful, or else why do they always work with contracts? The place is supposed to be inescapable, yet fiends are often to be found walking the material plane. The souls of evil people go to Hell when their body dies, yet evil ghosts are often reported, so why are they not in Hell?
Other questions beg to be answered; for what purpose, other than sheer sadism, do the fiends torment the damned? Are all devils members of the 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?
Between these covers, you will find an exhaustive guide to Hell in which all of these questions are answered. The Book of Hell is a bestiary, spellbook, resource guide, gazetteer and Who’s Who for the place we have chosen to call Infernum. Although it reflects our own ‘take’ on the outer planes, it is fully compatible with other works on the subject. In particular, the concept of what a ‘devil’ is has been expanded immensely. The civilisation, social conduct and objectives of these fascinating beings has been fully investigated. They are far more than mere scaled and horned warriors of darkness.
Those who are familiar with such things will note that a good deal has been adapted from authentic sources. This simply perpetuates the established tradition in d20 of drawing from the folklore of the real world to expand the game’s mythos. We must, of course, insist that this is a game and that any reference to infernal powers and rituals is to be understood entirely in that context. Irresponsible and wilful meddling with genuine occult material is not condoned.
The Book of Hell is the latest in the highly acclaimed ‘Classic Play’ series from Mongoose Publishing. Each volume in the series covers one field of central importance to any d20 game in unprecedented depth and detail, providing an abundance of readily usable material, new rules mechanics and background information. With this series, we intend to produce the definitive works on subjects relevant to any Games Master. |
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