Nine Hells; two editions

I wanted to do some comparison-shopping between D&D and pathfinder, so I whipped this up real fast. It’s pretty under-detailed.

Both	D&D	Pathfinder
1st Layer
Avernus	Portal-strewn fireball wasteland	Volcanic wasteland where souls are judged
	Former: Bel (Pit fiend general); Current: Zariel (Burned angel)	Barbatos (Ragged tentacled hobo)
2nd Layer
Dis	Iron City in a wasteland	Similar
	Dispater: humanoid devil type with control issues	Same
3rd Layer
	Minauros: Bog; acid rain; Jangling Hiter	Erebus: Sewers of Dis, counting houses
	Mammon: Serpent with human torso	Mammon: Wealth-possessing spirit
4th Layer
Phlegethos / Phlegethon	Fiery wasteland, torture plain	(Soul-)Forges of hell
	Fierna and Belial, incestuous	Belial; shapeshifting construct
5th Layer
Stygia	Freezing cold	Temples & Libraries of sin & heresy
	Levistus (frozen prince) and Geryon (bat-winged snake, though as a vestige a triple oni)	Geryon: snake coils, with a triple body above
6th Layer
Malbolge	Avalanches & Copper fortresses; now Hag Countess Ossuary	Smouldering forest of false reward
	Former: Beherit (Destroyed), Moloch (generic fiend), Hag Countess Malagard (turned into geography); current: Glasya (daughter of Asmodeus)	Moloch: Flaming bull armor
7th Layer
	Maladomini: Ruins and despoil	Cocytus: Frozen hell
Baalzebul	Slug-punished perfectionist	Cloud of flies; prince of Hell
8th Layer
Cania/Caina	SUPER frozen hell of lost cities	Iron torture hell with sentient darkness
Mephistopheles	Lord of hellfire	Same, but linked to his plane
9th Layer
Nessus	Rifts and Malsheem, the citadel of hell	Desolate volcanic wasteland
Asmodeus

Everyone that I would like to poison is immune

I’ve posted about my vision of the great cities of Hell before.

Hell, you see, is other people. But D&D has enough magic in it that it’s not just people-people; it’s hornéd and scaléd devils, undead liches and wights.

So let’s talk about these creatures. You have your diabolic metropolis. You have your crèche of the undead. These are creatures for whom life is cheap; the zombies have no sense of self, the liches rejuvenate, the devils literally respawn. This is a setting where an assassin’s guild would fit, because knifing someone in the dark is only moderately aggressive.

And I had this whole thing! The Master of Poisons as the center of power! And you can sort of kind of squint and do it, because maybe they do potions too, and maybe some potions (Enlarge/Reduce stuck on reduce, gaseous form if it isn’t labeled, and so forth) make interesting not-quite-poisons, and so on. But mostly: devils are immune to poison. Most undead are immune to poison.

Back to the drawing board.