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a highly subjective matter. A farmer has no use for an

arcane spell that could incinerate

a legion of warriors,

but the promise of knowing which crops will sell best

over the coming years might pers uade him to enter into

an infernal compact.

To Dispater, all of r

eality is a contest played out unde r

secret rules. If he

can discover the principles that de-

fine the true nature of the cosmos, he can learn

how to

ascend to the top of the Nine Hells' hierarchy

and then

eventually the entire planar order. He covets

the souls

of those who seek secrets and those who

have useful,

secret information of their own that he

can bargain for.

MAMMON

THE

COUNT OF MY COINS IS MORE RELIABLE TH.AN ANY

roster of mortal hearts or immortal souls.

-Mammon

Mammon is the foremost

merchant and miser of the

Nine Hells, and

perhaps the richest entity in all the

planes. As the

lord of Minauros, Mammon oversees

the soul trade. While those who pledge their

souls are

claimed by the devil they bargained with,

lawful evil

creatures

that aren't bound by any contract emerge from

the River

Styx as lemures. Roving bands of soul-mon-

gers patrol the river's banks, harvest

ing the newly cre-

ated devils. On its arrival, each so

ul passes through the

capital ofMinauros, the Sinking

City, and is recorded.

The soul is then distributed to whoever should claim it,

according to contracts in force and laws in effect. Mam-

mon appropriates any extra lemures for himself and

sells them for profit.

Mammon has accumulated a great treasure hoard

, but

s pends only a small portion of it on maintaining his

do-

main. As a result, Minauros is a fetid, wretched place,

its

structures characterized by cheap construction

, flimsy

materials, and shoddy artisanship.

EVERYTHING HAS A PRIC E

Mammon measures everything in

terms of its value in

gold. He cares only for the material

gain that a trans-

action can provide for him. He never rests, and spends

every waking moment pursuing schemes to fatten his

treasury. He looks for every opportunity to make his

processes more efficie nt,

so that he can rake in more

and more gold in a given

s pan of ti me.

Mammon's obsession

with wealth and e fficiency make

him a dangerous entity to entreat. He enters any

bargain

with the goal of making a profit. Those who wast

e his

time or tarry in

their dealings with him are likely to

incur his wrath.

If he can' t make an acceptable profit in

CHAPTER l J THE BLOOD WAR

return for the time he has spent, he can at least vent his

frustration by grinding the offending party into a thick,

bloody sludge.

FINANCIER

OF THE HELLS

Mammon's wealth is his primary way of exerting

power

and influence.

He offers monetary loans to othe r devils

in return

for service, favors, or items he desires. From

time to time, he dips in to his coffers to

attract merce-

na ries to ensure that a particularly

virulent demonic

advance is stopped-always in the

expectation that the

curre nt lord of Avernus turns loot

and booty obtained

from the defeated demons over to him.

When they bargain with mo

rtals, Mammon and his

m inions can offer irresistible wealth. Devils that are

tasked with harvesting souls for Mammon carry with

them The Accounting and

Valuation of All Things, a

manual that guides the m

in assessing the value of a

soul in gold or other

goods. The amount of gold that

is needed to incite the greed of mortals is a minuscul

e

drain on Mammon's treasury, but the transactions

that

he and his followers

consummate draw in more souls

tha n the efforts

of any othe r Lord of the Nine.

A SHABBY KINGDOM

The layer of Minauros teeters on

the edge of ruin. The

realm is a great swamp, inters

persed with cities and for-

tresses that are in constant need of repair, upkeep, and

replacement. Time and again, structures built on this

layer are left untended and

are eventually drawn into the

bottomless muck of th

e swa mp.

Mammon refuses

to s pend any more coin than nec-

essary to keep the soul marke tplace in the Sinking

City

functioning. Devils and fiends from across the

planes

gathe r here to trade souls. The place bustles

with activ-

ity as caravans

arrive and depart and merchants haggle

over their

wares. Buildings rest haphazardly atop the ru-

in s of those that have sloughed into the

muck. The roads

are little more than huge s tones sunk

into the swamp,

needing constant replacement as

they slowly submerge

until the mud consumes them.

FIERNA AND BELIAL

A PALADIN? How EXQUISITE! SIT, PLEAS£. REST.

TELL ME

about the god that would

send such a bright soul on so long

and dark a journey.

-Fierna

In

the flaming realm of Phlegethos, Fierna and Belia!

rule in strange tande m. They are variously thought of

by mortals as mother and son

, daughter and father, wife

and husband, or ruler and co

nsort, but none of those

terms can capture the pa radox

ical nature of their part-

nership. The Nine Hell

s is a hi erarchy in which two indi-

viduals can't normally hold the same position as rule r of

a single layer. Yet Asmodeus allows these two to

claim

dominion over Phlegethos as partners and rival

s.

Fierna's charisma,

equaled only by that of Asmodeus,

makes her a brilliant

manipulator capable of filling

mortal and immortal hearts with whatever

emotion she

chooses to evoke. Belia!, meanwhile, doesn

' t attempt to