Hell

Overview
Hell is a dimension of devils and demons.

Samael was arguably the most favored among the seven archgangels. Yet, when a foothold was established and named the Kingdom of Heaven, Samael wished to rest and did not care to continue the crusade. Samael asked the Presence to bestow him a fraction of Heaven to reign over. When the Presence declined, Samael rebelled. He was defeated by his brethren. Despite Samael's insurgency, the Presence could not strip the favored son of his grace. Instead, Samael was exiled and left to settle in an area rich with infernal essence. Samaelchanged gis name to Lucifer, learned to tame the infernal qualities of the area around him and named this place Hell.

Soon enough Lucifer was joined by his closest conspirators, who were punished much more harshly than their insurgency's leader. Stripped of their grace and original form, they were now beings known as demons. The demons were vindictive and eager to sow chaos. Lucifer realized this for what it was: opportunity. Using his cunning charisma, Lucifer rallied his followers and forged his own anchor to Earth, countering the Presence's efforts and enacting his own deals to lay claim to the souls of mankind.

Though most angels remained loyal to the Presence, even after the Fall, a small number of angels left Heaven to settle in Hell and swear fealty to Lucifer. Some of these angels were truly impressive, Lucifer remained the only archangel in Hell. This meant the others lacked the power to tame the energies in the same way and slowly began to change. Proudly, they took on one of Lucifer's epithets as a name for their race, calling themselves the devils.

Eventually, a ceasefire of sorts was declared between Heaven and Hell. News of this infuriated the demons who still sought revenge against the Presence for their punishment. Of course, Lucifer knew the demons would escape from Hell and unleash chaos in their wake; and if Lucifer made a token effort to contain them, he did not incur the wrath of Heaven. This was the way it worked for thousands of years.

In 1983 Lucifer decided to abandon his claim to Hell. In an effort to appease the Lords of Hell, Lucifer had his wings severed and the feathers and tissue divided up among his lords, granting each of them incredible occult power.

Demons
While they might have different origins, most demons are foul and malicious creatures who live to torment mortal beings. Demons delight in making others suffer and engage in torture, murder and any foul deed that will bring about suffering or chaos, for it is this entropic energy that they feed on. Greater demons are typically more intelligent, conniving and treacherous than their lesser brethren and typically use lesser demons as their minions, and may use humans and other mortals as pawns in elaborate games of corruption, deception, and treachery. It would be a mistake to think that such greater demons are hiding behind the ranks of these minions as greater demons also tend to be incredibly powerful and deadly in their own right.

Devils
Another faction that claims Hell as its home are the supernatural beings known as the devils. Unlike the demons who favor the traditional hellscape of fiery pits, charred earth, rivers of blood, and volcanic rock, the devils tend to be found in Hell's outskirts where the biomes are more diverse, often consisting of kingdoms covered in forests, snow, golden deserts, or consisting of more fantastical elements like seas of glowing green ink, forests of glass, or towering fungal jungles. The devils themselves consist of former angels who were exiled after Lucifer's rebellion as an alternative of being stripped of their grace and punished, or angels who did not follow Lucifer but nevertheless chose to flee later.

Unlike demons, devils still have their angelic grace and their natural physical form but have had both changed by infernal energy. Some have retained much of their angelic features, like feathered wings, but most have taken a more hellish appearance with scaled skin, bat-like wings, hooked or spiked tails, and claws. Whether they appear angelic or not, most devils have kept their sense of honor. Many tend to be benevolent in their own way, having simply chosen to reside in Hell for the greater freedom or in pursuit of a less confining lifestyle than that which is tolerated in Heaven.

Devils usually do not get on well with demons. The two races often squabble at social functions and engage in constant territorial skirmishes. Though the demons are somewhat united under the banner of the Demonic Triumvirate, the devils have a feudal kingdom consisting of sixty-six Great Houses of Hell, each ruling over their own domain and swearing fealty to Lucifer. For the most part, the devils rarely engage in much in-fighting between their own kind, but there are some considerable exceptions to this and most Houses have at least one to three rivalries with other devilish nobility stemming from past conflicts and scandals.

Trivia

 * Only one demon joined Lucifer: Mazikeen.

Links and References

 * Appearances of Hell
 * Residents of Hell