Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This time we head into the lowest parts of the planes, deep within the Nine Hells themselves, to the Apostate City, the City of Traitors.
City of Traitors
The City of Traitors has many names: Apostate, the City that Decency Abandoned, and names in a thousand different languages across the multiverse. The most well-known of which is Malsheem. Common to them all is the tale of those who live here: Devils and the lowest of the low: Traitors — sinners of the worst kind. But not just any kind of traitors, for those would be confined to the level that the city is on (though the descriptions vary as to whether this is Caina or Nessus, most agree that it is Nessus, though it is possible that the city spans multiple layers).
But where “normal” traitors are kept outside of Malsheem in both Caina and Nessus, frozen into the ice, those who are useful to the hierarchy of hell and whom they may call upon again are kept in the City of Traitors. Whether these souls are the most powerful or simply the most useful is unknown, but the greatest betrayers of history are all kept here, spanning from those that betrayed their friends, their religion, or their country.
Lay of the Land
The City of Traitors is, by its very nature, a place of betrayal. Nothing is what it seems, trapdoors and pitfalls are everywhere, and those who are unlucky enough to fall into one of these oubliettes may be stuck there for centuries before someone rescues them from it again.
The city itself is designed to be confusing as well. It changes constantly, seemingly at random, though those who have lived there for millennia say that there IS a pattern (it is the LAWFUL Nine Hells after all), but it is almost impossible to discern for those who do not have a divine intellect or foresight. The one constant to the city is the Tower of Treachery though that is in the middle of the city, which supposedly has a direct connection to the lowest part of Nessus, where Asmodeus himself resides, potentially nursing the wounds inflicted on his body when he was cast out of the heavens. The Tower is also home to the Hall of Apostasy where those traitors that are sent back to the mortal realms are taken, before being reborn – their souls to be branded so that they will inevitably return to City of Traitors. In essence, barring divine interventions, these greatest traitors are born and die, in neverending cycles, forever forced to reenact their fall, though with different victims. Rumors that it is possible to escape this cycle are viciously and immediately squashed by Asmodeus’ lieutenants.
Dangers
The City of Traitors is remarkably safe for a city filled with Traitors and Devils. One can walk past pit fiends and greater devils on a regular basis, with them only rarely giving more than a passing glance. These immediate and visible dangers and threats cause most visitors to miss the actual dangers of the city – those dangers that are offered via infernal contracts and which appeal to the nature of the visitors. In the City of Traitors, dangers lurk in the shadows, where your own greed gets you to betray friends and family. Your body is safe, but your soul is at risk. And once the City has its claws in you, it does not let go.
Hopefully, your soul is not tainted by the visit to the City of Traitors, and we’ll see you back next week.
Kim Frandsen
Latest posts by Kim Frandsen (see all)
- Finder’s Archive – Crypt of the Eternals - June 2, 2023
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