Gate-town: Ribcage. It's a fortress city nestled in a depression of the Vale of the Spine. Many bright gray stone towers dot this town and the streets are made of blood-red cobblestones. The gate: it's located somewhere in the Citadel (seat of the city government). It is a column of red light with floating silver sparks; someone says these sparks are what remain of planewalkers who tried to bob the ruler of this town.

This plane is known to clueless berks as the Nine Hells. Right, this plane has nine layers. The native baatezu aren't a bunch of stupid fiends, waiting passively for do-gooders to come and clean out the place. These fiends disguise their dark hearts with a foundation of order, that makes the plane one of rigid law, a realm filled with struggles for absolute, total domination, far worse than any Prime world's most overwhelming totalitarian rule.

A cutter has got to know about two groups of beastly folk of Baator. First, there's the Dark Eight, they're eight powerful pit fiends who control large armies of baatezu and other evil creatures. The other group comprises the fearsome beings known as the Lord of the Nine. Each of these rules a layer of Baator, but much is unknown about these beings.

Each of Baator's nine layers has its own environment, but one thing they have in common: they're all inhospitable and deadly. The first layer, known as Avernus, is a blasted plain with red sky and explosive energies coursing through it. A horde of baatezu fills this layer, lead by the pit fiend Bel. Tiamat, dragon queen of darkness, guards the passage to the next layer.

The next layer is Dis, also the name of the iron city at its heart. The place's evil ruler, Dispater, is extremely merciless. A rogue pit fiend is said to be secretly marshaling forces to challenge Dispater's forces.

Minauros is the name of the third layer, a horrible place of acid rain and flesh-slicing hail. An immensely huge stone city, Minauros the Sinking, rests here and the ruins underneath the city are said to contain vast riches.

Phlegethos, a layer of fire and pain, is more akin to the Elemental Plane of Fire than any other place in the multiverse. The city of Abriymoch, built within an nearly extinct volcano, is said to lie on the spot where a power died, and the pit fiend that rules the burg does nothing to give the lie to such tales.

The River Styx flows through the frozen wasteland of Stygia, the fifth layer's cold chilling its fetid waters. Occasionally, icy swamps form in warmer areas where rugged plants manage to survive the harsh climate. The City of Ice, also known as Tantlin, is plagued with warfare among various gangs of baatezu and planars who fight for the control of the city. Despite this, the city remains an important trading point on the Styx.

Deeper into the pits is Malbolge, the sixth layer, an endless rocky slope. Cascades of boulders roll down the slope, crushing anything in their path. Not surprisingly, no cities survive here. The surface is dotted with copper citadels filled with fiends whose main occupation is keeping the boulders from crushing and killing them.

The seventh layer of Maladomini is dotted with ruined cities. Servants of Maladomini's lord again and again tear apart the blasted landscape for minerals with which to build ever-greater cities. In another part of Maladomini stands a burg of greater interests to planewalkers. The policies of Grenpoli, the City of Diplomacy, prohibit weapons or offensive spells and utterly forbid struggle and conflict. The city thrives on politics and political intrigue rather than on combat and destruction. Trickery and deceit reach here the level of art. For the right price, the Political School will teach a basher about maneuvering and deception, as well as, propaganda, legal loopholes and other manipulations.

The eighth and ninth layers remain mostly undescribed; Caina, the eighth, is a frozen realm, much colder than Stygia. The largest and most horrible fortress on all the planes is said to rest in Nessus, the lowest pit.