| Layer #
| Sub-Plane
| Short Description
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| 1
| Avernus
| rocky wasteland with a dark red and starless sky, though the landscape is lit by spheres that weave and flare into fiery explosions. The blasted plain is scoured by savage legions, ready to repel invaders. This host is led by Bel, a pit fiend, eagerly earning honors from the infernal archduke of the plane. Vast charred wasteland of rubble over which the iron towers of the Dukes of Hell stand. Legions of devils march across the plains in continual readiness for the next battle of the Blood War. A red light suffuses the sky and huge fireballs fly across the layer, randomly exploding wherever they hit. The Bronze Citadel is a huge fortress city, housing massive numbers of devil troops and war machines. It is constantly being added to in the form of new fortifications against attacks.
Tiamat, Pillar of Skulls, landmark of trophy-skulls of those killed in the Blood War that reaches a height of more than a mile near the second layer. Draukari, realm of kobold deity Kurtulmak, goblin deity Bargrivyek's The Peacable Lands, and Abthalom, the Nether Reaches, realm of dragon-queen goddess Takhisis, Unique devils cast from the hierarchy of the Hells, known as the "rabble of devilkin"
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| 2
| Dis
| The smoking black walls of the iron city Dis, which is also the name of this layer, rise into the ashgreen sky, and narrow streets run as far as can be seen. Condemned petitioners toil at meaningless labor, one team tearing a building down as fast as another erects it, and all work is done without tools. The fiery iron burns the flesh, and the streets echo with cries of agony. The archduke of this layer rules the Iron City from a tower of lead and stone.
Burning city of iron known as the Iron City of Dis. The walls radiate extreme heat, as do the stones of the streets; more than brief skin contact results in severe burns. The Archduke Dispater rules this layer from the Iron Tower, an impregnable fortress that reaches far into the sky and can be seen everywhere on Dis (literally; by looking to any direction in the skyline you can see the Iron Tower).
God Street, a place filled with buildings that are actually the godly realms various lawful evil deities that have not earned enough worsihppers to earn a realm on another layer of Baator or another plane entirely.
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| 3
| Minauros
| This is the layer of greed. Foul rain, oily sleet, and razor-sharp hail sweep across the layer. All is bog, save the ridges of volcanic glass that slither through the landscape. The only city is Minauros the Sinking, built of black stone, forever settling into the mire. Fiends drive petitioners onto the bottomless bog to find ever rarer stone to bolster the city's structures. Decayed bodies gurgle to the surface, filling the air with disease.
The third layer of Minauros is an endless bog of vile pollution. The weather on Minauros consists of acidic rain and harsh winds.
The city of Minauros the Sinking is located here, so called because the weight of the city causes it to continually slip beneath the slimy waters; only the endless efforts of thousands of slaves prevents it from doing so. The kyton city of Jangling Hiter, City of Chains can also be found on this layer.
Mammon the Viscount is the ruler of Minauros, he resembles a long serpent with a human torso. He rules from the centre of the city, within a huge mausoleum-like structure made of gold.
Aeaea, the secondary realm of the goddess Hecate is on Minauros.
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| 4
| Phlegethos
| Here is the legendary realm of fire, filled with volcanos and rivers of liquid fire. It's virtually the same as being on the plane of Fire. The only city is Abriymoch, built in the caldera of an almost extinct volcano.
Phlegethos is a fiery wasteland filled with active volcanoes and rivers of molten lava. Lady Fierna and Archduke Belial are the lords of this layer. Few can exist here for long without suitable protection from the extreme heat. The city of Abriymoch is composed of hardened magma in the caldera of a volcano and is somewhat more bearable than the rest of Phlegethos. Fierna and Belial reside in a palace of pure obsidian high up on one side of the city.
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| 5
| Stygia
| This is the realm of ice, a great frozen sea, although there's open water where the River Styx flows. Small plants grow here, creating an icy swamp. Lightning scours the sky. On a great ice floe stands the ice-crusted city of Tantlin.
Stygia, the fifth layer is a freezing layer of cold and ice dominated by a murky ocean fed directly by the River Styx. The dark sky is constantly filled with lightning storms. Tantlin, the City of Ice, is built on a huge ice floe with a large harbor to the river Styx, and is ruled over by a huge pit fiend. The lack of any kind of law enforcement leads itself to gangs controlling much of the city.
Prince Levistus rules over this layer, frozen in a giant iceberg floating in the harbor as punishment for betraying Asmodeus. For many centuries, his realm was given over to the fiend Geryon. Geryon was recently deposed, and Levistus was reinstated, though he remains in his iceberg.
Godly realms on this layer include Sheyruushk, realm of sahuagin deity Sekolah, and Ankhwugaht, realm of Set.
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| 6
| Malbolge
| This layer is a great rockfall, immense in size. With no clear path, travelers must scale a constant parade of building-sized boulders or wind through the dark tunnels they form. The sky burns with clouds of red steam. There is no single city on this layer, but a series of copper-clad fortresses among the scree.
Malbolge is an endless mountain where rockslides and avalanches of boulders are common. Numerous copper fortresses provide some refuge from the avalanches. Once ruled by Moloch, he was deposed during the Reckoning of Hell and replaced by The Hag Countess Malagard. Malagard has since been disposed of, and Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus, currently rules Malboge. Now, the realm is alive, being formed from the flesh and bones of the Hag Countess.
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| 7
| Maladomini
| This is the plain of ruins. Under the blood-black sky, petitioners quarry, carve, and build new cities for the archduke of this layer. The land, once fertile, is scarred by mine pits, slag heaps, brackish canals, and half-destroyed ruins. Cities are built upon cities, but only one, the newest, Malagard, stands above the surface. Beneath, the ruins are dungeons so extensive that even the lesser fiends fear what lurks in them.
Maladomini is a barren landscape scarred by countless forgotten ruins, abandoned mines and gruesome subterranean dungeons. The city of Malagard is the layer's primary settlement. Archduke Baalzebul presides over this layer.
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| 8
| Caina
| Worse than Stygia, this layer is solid ice. Exposure here is equal to that on the plane of Ice. Huge glaciers grind at the jagged mountains that hold them. The archduke of this layer rules from the citadel of Mephistar, overlooking the glacier Nargus.
Cania (or Caina) is an unimaginably cold wasteland, where few living things can survive more than a few moments in an unsheltered area. Huge fast moving glaciers crash around the layer sending snow and ice up in the sky.
The layer is ruled over by Mephistopheles, from his great citadel of ice Mephistar. It sits upon a giant glacier called Nargus, the movement of which is controlled by Mephistopheles himself. Inside Mephistar huge heated baths and fire warm the citadel, providing quite a comfortable environment.
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| 9
| Nessus
| a plain shattered by rifts deeper than the deepest ocean trench. At the lowest depth sits the palace of Baator's current overlord, a citadel even greater in scope than Khin-Oin on the Gray Waste. It's unmapped and undescribed, which suits its fiendish master just fine. The citadel stands on the shore of a lake of fluid ice that feeds the River Lethe. This layer is a land of extremes - the coldest freeze, the hottest fires, the steepest cliffs, etc.
Nessus is the ninth and deepest layer of Baator. It is a place of pits and ravines of virtually endless depths. The great city of Malsheem lies immediately below the layer between Cania and Nessus and is the largest city in all of the Outer Planes. Here, Asmodeus rules over the entire plane, and thus the entire race of devils.
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