Hell in Dungeon Fantasy

[Pagan]

Because souls provide power in both heaven and hell. The only way for denizens of hell (demons) to gain this power is through pain and torture of the soul. Heaven has far gentler ways.

[PseudoFenton]

The way I run it is fairly simple. The lower/abyssal planes (there are more places than hell) are just planes inhabited by creatures and gods determined to be 'evil' (by a consensus of all the gods, they have their own sorting algorithm for determining this sort of thing, there is no intrinsic morality in my game).

If you end up in one of these planes its because:

• you either chose to go there (at death, or broke in/found a way in whilst alive for some reason),
• something there has 'claimed' your soul (you gave it up as part of an agreement, had something way more powerful than you 'wrestle' ownership of it from you) which has basically put you there, or is waiting until your death where you'll naturally* end up there,
• something powerful put you there, which tends to be a fairly traumatic experience in itself - and often leaves you in a vulnerable state when you get there.

* The way you 'naturally' end up in one of these planes when you die, even when attempting to escape the 'claim' of an entity from it, is because of the third point. In short, pretty much all the gods, from the celestial and abyssal planes have agreed to uphold any justified claims to a soul, meaning they'll all send you to the 'correct' place if you attempt to enter their domain. This also happens if you have forsaken the god in charge of the domain you're attempting to get into and they are therefore less than pleased with you, or have pledged allegiance to a different god etc. It's in all of the gods interests to uphold this agreement as you often don't want to start wars over a single individuals soul, its rarely worth the headache.

'Suffering' is a result of basically not being powerful enough to rise above the constant turmoil that is the power struggle that rages in these lower-planes, not a direct facet of the planes themselves or even from any sense of 'punishment'.
The forces that reside in these places just want power and if you can't defend yourself, then your soul is it (which is generally not a very pleasant experience whilst it lasts). If you can defend yourself though, then you can attempt to climb the ladder and perhaps rival the guys in charge - and take their power if you can defeat them.

This is why 'evil' minded people often want to go to these planes, it's a chance of becoming more powerful and living out eternity as the guy in charge. Of cause if you tried this in other planes (some of which are 'lower' but are ruled by gods who don't like this means of running their domains), you swiftly get kicked you out by those who are in charge (and generally put in a plane where that sort of thing is encouraged, as so not to get any neighbourly complaints from the owner of the plane you just dumped them in).


EDIT: I should point out that the whole "casting out" from one plane to another is basically you being manhandled out, often making it hard to fight once you reach your destination. This is why its a punishment to be damned and 'cast down', as the god just chooses a plane which doesn't mind extra fodder being added to its ranks because "hey, free food", and knows you wont last very long there once you arrive there. It's also why gods have to fight wars on their home turf when invaded before they can kick everyone out, they're powerful, but they still have to force them out - which is harder to do the more powerful they are.

[Jerander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Uh, I seem to remembering there being a hell-like variant of rebirth that's for cases when being an insect or hungry ghost is not bad enough. At least in some confessions, anyway.

Correct. Just about all types of Buddhism with which I'm familiar recognize the existence of Hell(s) and are the destinations of those who intentionally inflict undue suffering on other beings. Once they've served their time, the souls (even demons) in Hell(s) will be reborn somewhere else (if appropriate).

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Rune

As you say maybe they aren't punished. Maybe they go there and just becomes other demons - soldiers if you like.

The notion of "heaven for good girls", and "hell for bad boys" is a religious concept tied to the Abrahamic religions of our world. For instance Buddhists have no hell,

Except when they do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka_(Buddhism)

I am curious about how to reconcile the opposing views of Hell from myths and from Dungeon Fantasy. In myths Hell is sort of a place of punishment for evil deeds. People who have led wicked lives get sentenced to Hell and must endure punishments for their crimes. In this concept Hell seems to be under control of the gods. In Dungeon Fantasy Hell is a place where the forces of evil live (or were sent to) and it is a place where the gods have no control. In the second concept people who led wicked lives would be rewarded by the demons there. Why would a demon who opposes the gods punish wicked people who refuse to follow the gods? In a Dungeon Fantasy Hell, it seems to function as a base for the forces of evil so why would evil people be punished by demons in this type of Hell? Thanks.

In D&D most people who go to the lower planes become just food for the stronger inhabitants. Those who are strong can make a place for themselves, but are still living in a brutal tyranny or anarchy in which they will never be at the top. Note that in most Christian theologies, God does not punish the unrepentant after death. It simply fails to protect them from the fallen angels who hate them.

[Bruno]

I've always regarded it as "Demons and devil will be horrible to whatever's lying around".

Sending evil souls to hell is like throwing someone you don't like into a pit with hungry lions in it. The lions don't tear him apart because you've ordered them to, they tear them apart because they're hungry and he's prey. You're just exploiting this aspect of their nature by confining them to a pit where they won't inconvenience you and are available for into-pit-throwing days.

The pit is Hell, the devils are hungry lions, and the souls are sent there by gods that don't like them. Or possibly abstract universal soul sorting rules, or whatever.

Devils trick mortals into doing things that gets their soul assigned to Hell because they're hungry lions and they're smart enough to try to get people thrown into their pit.

[William]

In Planescape, petitioners (dead souls) may understand as a word that the name of the place they're in is Hell (or, more specifically, Baator, Gehenna, etc.), but the assumption is that souls belong there. There are numerous flavors of evil, and Hell attracts souls that primarily embraced the concepts that made up that worldview.

The fact that life sucks for human souls on the bottom of the energy-extraction, torture-for-fun, drafted-into-Armageddon social ladder that is Hell is simply a byproduct of the fact that everyone else around them subscribes to the same exploitative, cruel, or selfish outlook that they pursued in life themselves, or something spiritually kin to it. To the extent that fiends understand that the souls beneath them rejected the gods, they regard those souls as having made the correct choice, the one any sane creature would make (or some somewhat similar formulation.) Hell is what the world would be if the fiends were in control.

Why fiends are allowed to do this by gods varies between religions. The chaotic gods tend to regard the consequences of free will as paramount. The lawful gods may regard devils as jailors, or simply as others jailed that happen to be running the prison. The basic conflict between the idea of an entity with infinite goodness and that entity permitting infinite punishment for a finite life's worth of transgressions is, of course, one of the major problems of apologetics and one of atheism's stronger arguments against such setups.

[Jovus]

Actually, souls, or spirits, being simply a form of rareified matter, are subject to Gay-Lussac's law, and so if we assume a constant volume of Hell, it becomes quite easily a very efficient heat engine. This explains both how energy is extracted from Hell and why, even to the uneducated mind, it is understood to be very hot. Thus the explanation of why souls go to Hell rests on the understanding of why this energy is needed.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Jovus

Thus the explanation of why souls go to Hell rests on the understanding of why this energy is needed.

To cook bacon? To hatch a dragon-demon who will consume the world? To make the blobs float about in a huge cosmic lavalamp? Any and all of these are acceptable answers.

[cbower]

In my D&D descended games, Hell is more like Chinese mythic hell, where souls are purified of sin before the immortal part is eligible for reincarnation. There's also an Abyss, where kidnapped* souls are kept for power and used as a currency.

*: Anyone who's not faithful enough to be provided with a psychopomp by the gods has to go stand in a queue that seems to stretch into eternity (current waiting time: 144 years, PLEASE YOU WILL NOT SMOKE.) Demons make raids against the Line and keep whoever they carry off.

What really amuses me is that PCs don't discover religion in my games, as a rule, till one of them dies and I describe the Line. Hell may have its horrors, but apparently a huge, unending queue of bodies is truly terrifying.

[Steven Marsh]

When trying to figure out the locale of Hell, don't forget the wisdom of the sage B'linda Carlisle, whose landmark treatise on the subject asserted that Heaven is a place on Earth.