The HellGame Rulebook

Table of Contents

2.0 Playing Pieces
3.0 General Rules
4.0 Winning The HellGame
5.0 Set Up and Sequence of Play
- 5.1 Setting up The HellGame
- 5.2 Sequence of Play
6.0 The Hell Phase
7.0 The Soul Phase
- 7.1 Receive Favours
- 7.2 Souls
8.0 The Summoning Phase
9.0 The Action Phases
10. Random Movement & Independent Units
11. Combat
12. Petitions
13. The End Phase
14. Favours and Disfavours
- 14.1 Effects of Disfavours During Play
- 14.2 How to Lose Disfavours
15. It Is All Lost!!!
16. Special Cases
Cast of Characters

2.0 Playing Pieces

This chapter describes in detail all the components of the game. You may want to return to it later instead of trying to learn every facet of it right away.

2.1 List of Components

Each kit of The HellGame consists of the following components:

A Map of Hell — "The Board."
One sheet of small counters.
One sheet of large counters.
One deck of 21 Daemon Cards.
One deck of 45 Sectio Cards.
One deck of 45 Hell Cards.
One deck of 109 Arcana Cards.
A fine cardboard box to store your game in.
This rulebook.
Six Dice.

2.2 The Map of Hell

The map shows Hell and its vicinity. It also has several charts, tables and boxes printed around its edges. The play-area consists of Hell Proper as well as the shapeless wastes surrounding it known as the AnteHell.

Example: Counting from the outer rim, THE ENVIOUS is located in the Fifth Circle. It is also located in the Second Quarter since the bright point of the Pentagram points at LOWER DUNGEON OF THE RACIALLY SUPERIOR in the Fifth Circle and THE ENVIOUS is one step away clockwise.

2.2.1 Quarters and Circles

Hell itself is divided in nine concentric Circles, the ninth and innermost Circle being surrounded by the eighth, the eighth by the seventh and so on, all the way out to the first Circle that is in turn surrounded by the AnteHell. Each Circle is named after the predominant kind of sinners it cares for and is in turn divided into five Sectio, each named after the special kind of sinners the Sectio contains.

Hell is also divided into five Quarters, each one containing one Sectio from each Circle. The points of The Pentagram, the five-pointed star in the centre of Hell, each point toward one of these Quarters. The shaded point of the Pentagram points at the Quarter known as The First Quarter, the next point clockwise at The Second Quarter and so on.

Note that "Quarter" is not used in the mathematical sense here (people in Hell can count), but in the same sense as "French Quarter," or "Latin Quarter." "Sectio," on the other hand, can be traced back to "Sector" — the Latin word for "cut" or "slice." It is used as either singular or plural, depending on the context.

2.2.2 The Sectio

Sectio are the sections into which each of Hell's Circles are divided, and since control of these in turn leads to control of Hell's Circles, they are the battleground upon which the struggle for control of Hell is waged. Each Sectio has the following information printed in it.

Each Sectio also has a small square printed on it known as the Control Box. The player who currently owns the Sectio places one of his Player Markers in this box. In this way, anyone can easily tell who owns the Sectio; if a Control Box is empty, no one owns that Sectio.

2.2.3 The Borders

All of the Sectio have borders, shown as solid black lines. Any Sectio that share a border are considered to be adjacent for the purposes of movement. No movement can take place between Sectio that only touch each other at corners (such as between THE ENVIOUS and IDOLATERS).

2.2.4 AnteHell

AnteHell ("Ante" as in "before") is the name of the wastelands surrounding Hell. Lost Souls, odd incorporeal beings and a few stray Daemons populate it. One of the few reasons to visit AnteHell is that you can find and tame the fearsome Hellhounds there.

2.2.5 The Pentagram

The five-pointed star, the Pentagram, in the centre of Hell marks the location of the Infernal Court. It may not be entered.

2.2.6 Charts, tables and holding boxes

Outside of AnteHell and the actual play area there are several playing aids.

These are:

Two boxes summarizing the Sequence of Play and two listing the Actions a Daemon may take during the Action Phase.
Three boxes, labelled "Heaven", "Earth" and "Hell" to hold Hell Cards that cause Permanent Events.
Two boxes summarizing the Soul & Summoning Phases.
Two boxes summarizing the Combat procedures.
A ladder-like track called the "Rank Track", used to ensure that the Daemons take their Actions in the proper order.
A box labelled "Lieutenants Available" used to hold Lieutenants.
"The compass" — a cross-shaped device used to regulate fleeing and random movements.
A box for holding Hellhound counters.
A box detailing the antics of Uriel the Mad Angel.
A box featuring the procedure for determining Lilith's Aspects.

2.3 The Counters

2.3.1 The Player Counter-Sets

In The HellGame each player runs a "Triumvirate" - a trio of Daemons has its own set of counters marked with a unique icon to distinguish them from the others.

The Legions. Each player has twelve large square Legion Counters with shields on them representing the Legions of lost Souls and minor daemons fighting for him. All Legions in The HellGame are of equal strength, but each Legion is marked with a number to help tell them apart. No matter what happens a player may never have more than twelve legions in play.

The Player Markers. Each player has twenty small square Player Markers, all of the same design. These are either placed in the Control Boxes on the Map to indicate which Sectio are owned by the player (as described in 2.2.2), or used to mark the player's Daemon Counters on the Rank Track. They have no bearing on Combat and are only used to indicate ownership.

2.3.2 The Soul Counters

The Soul Counters represent lost Souls and function as The HellGame's "currency." They are used to pay for raising Legions, empowering magic and so on. Soul Counters come in various denominations that can be used as change just like any other, more pedestrian currency. The counter mix does not limit these exchanges in any way.

2.3.3 The Favour/Disfavour Markers

These markers come in two versions. One black "Favour" version with a white Pentagram on it and one pale white "Disfavour" version with a fish on it. Players receive these markers when they do things in The HellGame that are regarded by Lucifer as particularly good/amusing or bad/tasteless. Should you run out of Favours or Disfavours during a game, use any other marker as an emergency solution.

2.3.4 Daemon Markers

These markers each bear the name of one of the Daemons in the game together with a number indicating the Daemon's rank, and an icon for its gender. These markers are used on the Rank Track to keep track of the order in which Daemons take their Actions.

2.3.5 The Freebooter Counter-set

This small extra set of Player Markers and Legions using a distinct "Hellfire-and-pirates" look is used for smaller rogue forces, known as "Freebooters".

2.3.6 Uriel & Lilith

These two are unique entities: Uriel, Avenging Archangel and Guardian of Paradise Abandoned; and Lilith, the first wife of Adam, also known as the Daemoness of Whores or the Mother of Daemonkind.

2.3.7 Lieutenants

Some warlike lesser daemons are easily lured into serving the major players in Hell. Untrustworthy as they are, these lesser daemons are still very useful for leading a Triumvirate's Legions. Hence they are referred to as Lieutenants.

The number in the black Circle on a Lieutenant's counter indicates how many Legions that Lieutenant may command, that is to say, either drag along during movement or inspire during combat. It is sometimes referred to as the Lieutenant's "Leadership Number." The number in the square box is the bonus the Lieutenant gives to Combat Rolls of Legions fighting under his command.

2.3.8 Hellhounds

These vicious beasts are Kerberos' vile offspring. They roam the AnteHell and can be lured to join the struggles inside Hell. Care must be taken to keep them restrained, else they run amok.

The number on the Hellhound's counter shows how many Combat Rolls the Hellhound will make in combat.

2.3.9 The Warning Sign

This counter does not represent any creature, but serves only as an aid to mark areas of Hell that have, for one reason or another, become temporarily dangerous or impossible to enter.

2.4 The Cards

There are four sets of cards in The HellGame: Daemon Cards represent individual Daemons; Sectio Cards grant the owner possession of certain Sectio; Hell Cards call for Random Events and Phenomena; and Arcana Cards enable magic, diplomacy and dirty tricks.

2.4.1 The Daemon Cards

The Daemons on the Daemon cards represent the powerful creatures that make up each player's Triumvirate (team).

Each Daemon Card contains the following information:

The Daemon's sex.
The Daemon's name.
The Daemon's titles.
The Daemon's Rank, a number from 2 to 443.556.000. The lower the number the higher the rank.
The Daemon's skill at warfare displayed as a number of Skulls, the more the better. Skulls of War are used in combat and to determine how many Legions it may move during a Move Action.
The Daemon's magical skill displayed as a number of Stars, the more the better. Stars of Magic are used in conjunction with Arcana Cards.
The Daemon's charisma or influence displayed as a number of Hearts, the more the better. Hearts of Charisma are used in diplomacy and when influencing mortals.
A description of the Daemon's special advantage or unique ability.

Note that Rank Number "1" belongs to the First Fallen. The notion that Beelzebub rules Hell and that Lucifer is somehow his dispossessed antagonist is utterly false. There is no hope in Hell that an energetic but still second rate Philistine deity could compete for the title "Ruler of Hell" with a bona fide fallen archangel. Beelzebub's fancy title of "Sovereign Ruler of the Infernal Empire" is more honorary than anything else. This actually holds true for all the spectacular titles among Daemonkind. Most of them were distributed (or just dreamt up) during the Middle Ages, when Hell, in its constant mimicking of what happens on Earth, turned into a feudal kingdom. Before that, Roman titles were popular, with Lucifer holding the title of Caesar, Sammael being Pontifex Maximus and so on.

Also note that there are several sexes in Hell (some scholars have counted twelve — something that can most likely be attributed to the deranging effects of extended celibacy), but this rule book will refer to any Daemon as "he" simply to avoid endless repetitions of "he/she/it/don't know."

2.4.2 The Sectio Cards

The Sectio Cards represent the actual deeds and agreements signed when Hell's Sectio change hands. Whoever has a Sectio Card in hand controls the Sectio in question and should place one of his Player Markers in that Sectio's Control Box.

Each Sectio Card contains the following information:

The name of the Sectio.
The Circle where the Sectio can be found.
A number indicating how many Souls can be collected from the Sectio during each Soul Phase.

NOTE: The Sectio card called THE WISE MEN has some unique information printed on it that will be explained later.

2.4.3 The Hell Cards

The Hell Cards are used to generate various random events, either major Events or minor Phenomena. The details of these rules are explained in chapter 6.0.

Each Hell Card contains the following information:

A box top left on the card indicates if the Event is Permanent and, if so, what area it affects (Hell, Heaven or Earth).
The name of the Event.
A brief description of the Event.
The effects, in game terms, of the Event.
A Phenomena and its effects is described in the grey box on the lower part of the card.
The bottom of the card determines what Quarter, Circle or Sectio a Phenomena affects.

2.4.4 The Arcana Cards

The Arcana Cards are used by Players to cast black magic and perform various dirty tricks during The HellGame. Each Arcana Card contains two different spells: one Minor Arcana and one Major Arcana. Therefore each card has in effect two different roles, and when one of these is referred to in the rules, the other one is for all purposes ignored.

The information on the card is arranged in the following way:

The top right box on the card shows the Minor Arcana Spell it may be used for. Sometimes a number appears, showing the cost in Souls for casting the spell.
The rest of the card deals with a unique Major Arcana Spell:
The Major Arcana Spell is named.
The Major Arcana Spell is described.
The grey box first describes in bold type when the Major Arcana Spell may be performed (either in the Action or Combat Phase), as well as its cost and other prerequisites. Then follows, in normal type, the effects of the Major Arcana Spell. The details of these rules are explained in chapter 9.8.
A few cards have the number "6" printed on them. The effects of these are discussed in 4.0.

3.0 General Rules

Glossary

AnteHell - The area outside of Hell. (2.2.4)
Arcana (Card) - Cards for casting spells or perform various dirty deeds. (2.4.4 & 9.8)
Circle - Hell is divided into nine Circles. (2.2.1)
Daemon - An evil spirit. Daemons are the main characters in this game. (2.4.1)
Disfavour - A counter signifying special recognition from The Fallen One for acts which work against his Plan, or which generally waste everyone's time. Possessing Disfavours will make it harder for you to succeed in the game. (2.3.3 & 14)
Duel - Struggles between Daemons. (3.4)
Favour - A counter signifying special recognition from The Fallen One for acts which further his Plan. Favours can be used to help you work toward specific goals in The HellGame. (2.3.3 & 14)
Freebooters - Daemon warriors that have become rogues and therefore are beyond player control. (2.3.6 & 10.4)
Flee – A move away from combat or advancing enemies. (9.5.1 & 11.2.4)
Hearts (of Charisma) - Symbols on the Daemon Cards used to measure a Daemon's skill at diplomacy. (2.4.1)
Hellhound - Mindless monstrous hounds from AnteHell. (2.2.8 & 10.3)
Incapacitated - A Daemon that is knocked out cold for one reason or another is known as being "Incapacitated." (3.3)
Legion - A band of daemonic warriors in a player's service. (2.3.1)
Lieutenant - A lesser Daemon powerful enough to command Legions, but too weak to hold his own in Lucifer's court. (2.3.7)
Lilith - The mother of all Daemons. (2.3.5 & 10.2)
Macina - A large piece of machinery. (16.4)
On Earth - A Daemon can be "Walking the Earth", collecting new souls for the Fallen One, or spending time in Hell, matching wits and battling with other Daemons. (9.6)
(The) Pentagram - The centre of Hell. (2.2.5)
Petition – Asking the Ruler of Hell permission to take control of a Sectio. (12)
Quarter - Hell is divided into five Quarters. (2.2.1)
Sectio - A part of a circle of Hell. It can also be used in the plural (one Sectio, two Sectio...). (2.2.2)
Skulls (of War) - Symbols on the Daemon Cards used to measure a Daemon's skill at warfare. (2.3.1)
Soul (Souls) - The currency used in Hell and therefore this game. (2.3.2, 7 & 8)

3.1 Triumvirates

Each player's team of three Daemons is known as a "Triumvirate." In effect the terms "Triumvirate" and "Player" mean the same thing.

3.2 Stacking

In order for to maintain a general resemblance of order (especially in the inner Sectio), the following rules must be adhered to:

A Sectio's Control Box must contain a Player Marker from the owning Triumvirate. If the box is empty the Sectio belongs to The First Fallen.
Any number of Units might exist in the same Sectio. Each Triumvirate should stack all their Units in one pile to avoid congestion.
Hellhounds under player control must always be stacked on top of the Legions that tamed them. A Hellhound that is not stacked with a Legion is considered to be on a Rampage, acting on its own delirious whims.

3.3 Other Conventions

Any time the rules refer to "Units" it means any type of being on the board: Lieutenants, Legions (including Freebooters) and Hellhounds, as well as Uriel and Lilith.
Once a card is played, discarded or ceases to have effect it must immediately be placed at the bottom of the appropriate deck. This applies to the occasional killed Daemon as well.
Any time a number is to be halved, all fractions are lost. For example, half of 5 is 2. Additions and/or subtractions are done before this.
Daemons are sometimes "Incapacitated" by accidents or other events. They cannot affect, or be affected by, play in any way as long as this condition persists. An Incapacitated Daemon is signified by turning its Daemon Card face down. Note that a Daemon's special ability ceases to function and may not be used while it is Incapacitated.
Sectio may, for one reason or another, be "Revoked" during play. This simply means that ownership of the Sectio passes back to the Ruler of Hell. The disenfranchised Triumvirate must immediately return the Sectio Card and remove its Player Marker from the Sectio Control Box.

3.4 Special Die Rolls

SOUL ROLL: Roll one die and immediately collect the number of Souls equal to the number shown on the die.
DISFAVOUR ROLL: Roll one die, rolling higher than the number of Disfavours your Triumvirate has in order to succeed.
COMBAT ROLL: When in combat, players make combat rolls, usually one per Unit involved. A roll of 6 scores a hit.
ROLL AGAINST HEARTS: Roll equal or less than the number of Hearts printed on the Daemon Card for that Daemon to succeed in whatever it is trying to do.
ROLL AGAINST SKULLS: Roll equal or less than the number of Skulls printed on the Daemon Card for that Daemon to succeed in whatever it is trying to do.
ROLL AGAINST STARS: Roll equal or less than the number of Stars printed on the Daemon Card for that Daemon to succeed in whatever it is trying to do.
DUEL OF HEARTS / SKULLS / STARS: Two Daemons settle a conflict by each rolling as many dice as they have skulls, stars or hearts. Add the numbers up: the Daemon with the highest score wins. Re-roll all dice if the result is a tie.

Example: Duelling. Moloch the Devourer and Grand Duke Baal are going to slug it out in a Duel of Hearts. Moloch, with two Hearts, rolls two dice and scores a total of 11. Baal, with three Hearts, rolls three dice and scores an abysmal total of 5, making him lose the duel.

3.5 Keeping and Breaking Promises

The HellGame is a game involving creatures of diminutive moral standing. Therefore any promises a player makes to other players may be broken at any point during The HellGame, provided that no game rule is violated.

3.6 Honorary Functions

Certain Daemons, when in play, require the player controlling them to handle certain honorary functions. These things are a matter of protocol, and players should observe them as a matter of principle.

The player who controls Master Paymon passes out and reclaims Sectio Cards. He also keeps the Rank Track in order.
The player controlling Princess Ashtaroth acts as Treasurer and handles the "bank" of Soul and Favour markers.

4.0 Winning The HellGame

The winner of The HellGame is the first Triumvirate that at the end of a turn to controls all five Sectio of a Circle.

Should several Triumvirates accomplish this at the same time, the winner is the Triumvirate with the most Favours in hand. Should two or more Triumvirates control a complete Circle and have the same number of Favours, the winner is the Triumvirate with the fewest Disfavours. If the issue is still undecided, the winner is the player who controls the innermost Circle.

Additionally, should any player manage to collect three Arcana Cards with the number "six" printed on them, he may show these to the other players during any End Phase, and win the game. Just like that.

5.0 Set Up and Sequence of Play

5.1 Setting up The HellGame

The HellGame is set up as follows:

Separately shuffle the three decks containing the Sectio, Arcana and Hell cards. Place each deck somewhere along the edge of the map.
Draw three Hell Cards. Place the cards with "Permanent" effects on them in their respective places in the Heaven, Hell or Earth boxes on the map. If more than one card drawn affects the same area, pick one at random and discard the other(s). Note that this will most likely leave some of the boxes empty. (Skip this step while you are still learning the game.)
Shuffle all the Hellhound counters and pile them (somehow) face down in the Hellhound Box. Likewise shuffle the Lieutenant counters and place four counters face up in each of the three "Lieutenants available" boxes.
Each player chooses a set of Legions and Player Markers and then gets five Souls and one Favour.
Shuffle the deck of Daemon Cards and deal three cards to each player. Place these cards face up in front of each player so all can see which Daemons are in his Triumvirate. Since this hand is crucial to the course of The HellGame, each player may, after examining his hand, discard one Daemon and draw a different one. However, this additional draw will cost one Favour. Once all the players have established their Triumvirates, they need to collect the corresponding Daemon Markers.
Players place their Daemon Markers in their proper order on the Rank Track, then place Player Markers on top of them so everyone knows which Daemon belongs to what Triumvirate.
Deal five Sectio cards to each player. Place Player Markers on the corresponding Sectio on the map to show what areas of Hell each player now controls.
Each player rolls one die. The highest scoring player places one Legion on any one of the Sectio he controls. The second highest scorer then does the same and so on, until each player has one Legion on the map.
Deal five Arcana cards to each player. Discard, but do not replace, any card marked "Play Right Away."
You are now ready to play!

5.2 Sequence of Play

The HellGame is played in turns called "Game Turns." Each Game Turn contains the following "Phases." The Phases always occur in this order. Events and Actions may only take place in the proper Phase during each turn.

Hell Phase. Draw Hell Cards to determine what random events and phenomena affect play this turn. The players then receive new Arcana Cards. (This Phase is skipped in the first turn of The HellGame.)

Soul Phase. All Daemons on Earth receive a Favour. Players collect Souls and pay for the upkeep of their Legions.

Summoning Phase. Players raise Legions and other monstrosities. They may also buy additional Arcana Cards. The wealthiest player goes first.

Action Phase(s). Players have their Daemons perform one Action each, in order of Rank.

Random Moves Phase. Certain Daemons and other entities outside of the players' control act and move according to set rules.

Combat Phase. Combat is resolved in Sectio where two or more players have Legions. The largest combat (in terms of Legions involved) is resolved first.

Petitions Phase. Players may ask Lucifer to recognise their claims to various Sectio. If necessary, this is done in order of Rank.

End Phase. Unless Lucifer declares one player the winner, the board is now prepared for the next turn of the HellGame. Players may cash in Favours to get rid of Disfavours and roll to recover from Incapacitation.

The following chapters of the rules will now discuss each of these Phases in detail.

Example: Narrated Game Turn. Each turn of The HellGame (except the first) starts with the Hell Phase. In this phase Hell Cards are drawn in order to cause Events and Phenomena, ranging from political incidents to minor earthquakes. At this point each Triumvirate (each player and his team of three Daemons) also draws new Arcana Cards, used to cast magic of various kinds later in the turn.

After the Hell Phase comes the Soul and Summoning Phases where the Triumvirates collect Souls (the game's currency) and then spend them. But first all Daemons on Earth earn their Triumvirates "Favours" - a token that shows you are in good standing with the Ruler of Hell. Souls are earned by owning Sectio (parts of Hell) and by having Daemons walk the Earth. Souls can be spent to recruit Legions (troops), bribe Lieutenants and empower magic.

After these preliminaries comes the Action Phase, the essence of The HellGame. During this phase the Triumvirates' Daemons each take one "Action." An Action may be to cast Magic, move Legions, send a Daemon to the face of the Earth or engage in various kinds of Diplomacy. These Actions are taken in order of the Daemon's "Rank". This means that Daemons belonging to the different Triumvirates take their Actions not one Triumvirate at a time, but in what appears to be a more helter-skelter fashion.

After all Actions are over, beings and monsters outside of player control take their moves according to set patterns. Combat is then fought in Sectio where there are forces from more than one side. These Combats rage on until only one side remains in each Sectio.

At this point comes the Petition Phase, where Triumvirates can ask permission to take official control of Sectio they occupy. This is the only time during play when Sectio change ownership. To get permission to take over a Sectio, one needs to have won a Combat in it or be capable of spending a Favour for it.

When this is done the Players check to see if any side has managed to take control of all five Sectio in one Circle and therefore win the game. If not, it is time to start a new turn.

6.0 The Hell Phase

Three Hell Cards are drawn from the Hell Deck to determine what happens in Hell this turn. The effects are applied. Players then receive new Arcana Cards.

6.1 The Event Card

On the first Hell Card drawn, the large "Event" portion of the Hell Card is used to determine what Event has taken place. Read the card and resolve the effects before drawing the next two cards. Note that events never affect Incapacitated Daemons.

Allways use a die as tie-breaker if a card needs to pick a target and has run out of criteria (most Souls, fewest Deamons, and so on). Also note that an Event may in fact never happen if there is nothing for it to affect; if there are no Daemons on Earth, Events affecting Daemons on Earth have no effect and so on.

6.1.1 Permanent Events

If the Event Card drawn is marked "Permanent," its effects last until a new card of its kind replaces it. There are three kinds of Permanent Events that affect Heaven, Hell or Earth respectively. Place the card in the corresponding Permanent Event Box on the board. It remains there until it is replaced by another Event Card affecting the same area.

6.1.2 Contradicting Events

If the effects of different Events, Permanent or otherwise, contradict each other, the non-permanent cards have precedence over the Permanent ones. In the case of Permanent Events contradicting each other, the cards have precedence in this order: of Heaven, Earth and Hell. In case they contradict each other Events also have precedence over Phenomena.

6.2 Phenomena

The grey boxes on the next two Hell Cards drawn specify what additional minor disturbances take place in Hell. The first card will determine what Phenomena occur, and will be described as affecting:

Quarter - all Sectio in one particular Quarter.
Circle - all Sectio in one particular Circle of Hell.
Sectio - one individual Sectio.

A look at the bottom of the second card will show exactly which Quarter, Circle or Sectio is affected. If the Phenomena's effects last through the entire turn, The Warning Sign may be used to mark the affected area.

Example: Event & Phenomena. During the Hell Phase, the first card drawn is the WRATH OF ANGELS, a card permanently affecting Heaven. Its effects are resolved (to the dismay of all Daemons walking the face of the Earth) and since the card is Permanent, it is placed in the Heaven Box on the Board, replacing any card that was there before it. From now on, the Earth will now be a distinctly dangerous place for Daemons, at least until another Permanent card affecting Heaven replaces the WRATH OF ANGELS.

The first of the two cards drawn to determine Phenomena is CAVE-IN (SECTIO), so somewhere someone is going to get crushed. The question now is, where? The second of the two cards says LIARS at the bottom. Consequently, all beings in the LIARS Sectio die and are removed from the board.

6.2.1 Uriel, Lilith & Phenomena

Lilith and Uriel are impervious to all Phenomena except cave-ins and landslides. Events calling for destruction of Units for one reason or another never harm these two.

6.3 Draw new Arcana Cards

After the powers of Hell have done their worst, each player draws as many new Arcana Cards as his Triumvirate has non-Incapacitated Daemons. The draw can be done in any order the players desire. If the player has any Disfavours he must make a successful Disfavour Roll in order to get each card.

No player may have more than five Arcana Cards in his hand at any given time, so players must immediately discard any cards they have in excess of five. This is true every time a player receives new cards. Players may examine their new cards before deciding which one(s) to throw away.

6.3.1 "Play Right Away" Cards

If you draw an Arcana Card marked PLAY RIGHT AWAY, you must immediately show the card to the other players and directly apply its effects. This is also true if such a card is drawn at any other point during the turn.

NOTE: PLAY RIGHT AWAY cards drawn during the set-up of the game are immediately discarded and not replaced. They have no effect at all.

7.0 The Soul Phase

The Triumvirates receive Favours and gathers up the Souls of the Damned.

7.0 & 8.0 General Note: Depending on the situation (and player trust), a lot of the activities in these two phases can be carried out simultaneously. That is, after the Hell Phase has been completed, all players compute their income and recruit Units by themselves, anticipating the Action Phase. The "wealthiest first" rule for recruitment should then only be used when players want to see what someone else is doing.

7.1 Receive Favours

Since Lucifer likes his minions to be up and about instead of squabbling in his backyard, each non-Incapacitated Daemon currently Walking the Earth earns his Triumvirate one Favour, provided he makes a successful Disfavour Roll. This of course means that if a Triumvirate has no Disfavours, it will get its Favours automatically.

7.2 Souls

Souls are the "currency" of The HellGame, and are used to raise Legions and empower magic. Players use Soul Counters to keep track of how many Souls they possess. Players can gather Souls from the Sectio they control, from having active Daemons on Earth as well as from various cards and events.

7.2.1 Collecting Souls and paying for upkeep

Each player follows the sequence below when collecting and spending Souls. Players can conduct these activities simultaneously.

Step 1: Gathering Souls from Sectio. Every turn, each Sectio yields the number of Souls found in the Circle below the Sectio's name. However, isolated Sectio yield two Souls less than the printed value. An isolated Sectio is one that is not directly adjacent to any other Sectio owned by the same Triumvirate.

NOTE: If a rampaging Hellhound or another Triumvirate's Legions (not just a solitary Lieutenant) occupy a Triumvirate's Sectio the Sectio will not produce any Souls.

Step 2: Daemons on Earth Gather Souls. Daemons that are "Walking the Earth" collect Souls. Each Daemon on Earth collects the number of Souls equal to its Hearts of Charisma plus a Soul Roll. A Daemon cannot collect Souls if it is Incapacitated.

Step 3: Souls collected from other sources. There are several other ways players can collect Souls: some Daemons have special skills in one way or another; some Events and Phenomena can increase or decrease the number of Souls a player collects; some Arcana Cards can also affect the collection of Souls.

Step 4: Pay your Legions and Lieutenants. Legions and Lieutenants need to be paid each turn. Therefore each player must spend a number of Souls equal to the number of Legions and Lieutenants in his service in order to keep them happy and fit. Hellhounds require no pay.

Special Case: Not Enough Souls. See page 28 for more details.

Soul Math: 1. Add up the numbers on all your Sectio cards. Do not count those sectio that has enemy Units in them. 2. Deduct 2 for each isolated Sectio. 3. Add "one dice + hearts" for each Daemon you have walking the Earth. 4. Deduct 1 for each Lieutenant and Legion you have on the map.

Example: Soul Phase. First: gather Favours. As the Void Triumvirate has one Disfavour it cannot collect a Favour for having a Daemon (Grand Duke Baal) walking the Earth until it executes a Disfavour Roll. In this case, the player needs to roll anything but 1 on one die to get the Favour.

Then: Souls. The quite wealthy Void Triumvirate controls DOGS OF WAR, ATHEIST'S SURPRISE, TEMPLE OF FALSE PREACHERS and THE FOREST OF SUICIDES for a total of 4+4+4+6=18 Souls. This is reduced by 2 Souls, since THE FOREST OF SUICIDES is isolated from the other Sectio. Furthermore, the Triumvirate has Grand Duke Baal with three Hearts of Charisma on his card Walking the Earth. Rolling "4" on his soul roll Baal can send 3+4=7 Souls screaming all the way to Hell, bringing the Triumvirate's total income to (18-2)+7=23 Souls.

The player must now pay one Soul for the upkeep of each of the four Legions the Triumvirate has on the board, as well as an additional Soul to keep its Lieutenant happy and fit. This reduces the Triumvirate's income to 18 Souls.

7.2.1 Borrowing Souls

A Triumvirate may not borrow Souls from the Treasurer, nor may it in any fashion lend Souls to or borrow Souls from another Triumvirate. On the other hand, giving any thing but Favours and Disfavours away is perfectly acceptable, for free or otherwise. However, such transfers may only take place during the Soul Phase.

NOTE: A Triumvirate may not give away his last Sectio or non-Incapacitated Daemon in order to deliberately trigger rules 12.3.1 or 13.2.1.

7.2.2 The Wise Men

THE WISE MEN Sectio does not produce Souls like a normal Sectio: it produces Arcana Cards. In each Soul Phase, THE WISE MEN Sectio's owner rolls one die and consults the table printed on the Sectio Card to see how many Arcana Cards he can collect. Note that this roll is unaffected by all Hell Cards unless the Hell Card states that "No Souls" may be collected from the Sectio. Should another Triumvirate's Units occupy the Sectio while the owning player has no Unit there, the first card earned is given to the occupying Triumvirate.

Once income has been computed it is now time to look at expenses.

8.0 The Summoning Phase

Players summon new Legions of the Damned and other creatures to fight for their Triumvirate's cause. New Units are paid for with Souls (in most cases) and then placed on the map.

8.1 Order of Summoning

Players may do their summonings and buy cards in any order they see fit, but if necessary summonings should be done in order of wealth, with the player that came out of the Soul Phase owning the most Souls going first, the second wealthiest going second, and so on.

NOTE: Newly recruited Units may never be placed in a Sectio that already has Uriel, Lilith or another Triumvirate's Units in it.

8.2 Summoning Legions

It costs three Souls apiece to summon a Legion, and the Legion is placed in any Sectio free of un-friendly Units the Triumvirate controls. Given that he can afford them, a player may summon as many Legions in one Summoning Phase as he pleases (Up to the maximum twelve allowed by the countermix.). A player may not place more than one new Legion in any Sectio until he has already placed one new Legion in each of the Sectio his Triumvirate controls.

8.3 Other Summonings and Expenses

Players may also tame Hellhounds, recruit Lieutenants and acquire extra Arcana Cards at this point. The special procedures and requirements in each case are discussed below.

8.3.1 Recruiting Lieutenants

In order to recruit a Lieutenant, a player needs to play a Recruit Lieutenant Minor Arcana Card and pay the cost in Souls printed on it. He then turns to the "Lieutenants Available" boxes and rolls one die. The top Lieutenant in the box chosen by the die now joins the player's side and may be placed in any Sectio in which the Player has Legions.

Should there be no Lieutenant in the indicated box the recruitment attempt has failed. Should any recruitment empty a "Lieutenants available" box, any Lieutenants currently in the "Return" box are moved to the empty box.

8.3.2 Taming Hellhounds

Any Legion in AnteHell may try to tame one of the Hellhounds that roam these wastelands. There is no cost in Souls; the player simply states his intent and rolls one die.

On a roll of one to four, the Legion captures a Hound. A Hellhound counter is picked at random from The Hellhounds box and placed on top of the Legion.
On a roll of five nothing happens.
On a roll of six the Legion is destroyed by forces unknown and removed from play.

Taming Hellhounds — Roll: 1-4 You get a Hound! / 5 You don't get a Hound! / 6 A Hound gets you!

If there are no Hellhounds in The Hellhounds box, none can be captured.

The Legion stacked under the Hellhound is known as the Hellhound's "Minder." Since a Legion may only control one Hellhound, a Legion may not recruit more than one Hound per visit to AnteHell.

8.3.3 Buying Arcana Cards

A player may use Souls to draw additional Arcana Cards by paying five Souls for each new card. Should a player badly want a particular card, (such as a Walk The Earth Minor Arcana spell), he may continue to buy one card at a time as long as he has Souls to pay for them. (Remember to discard after each purchase, if necessary, to ensure that you have no more than five cards in hand.)

8.3.4 Bonus Pay

In order to keep a Lieutenant loyal; a player may elect to pay him more. These "extra Souls" are placed on top of the specific Lieutenant Counter and are not removed until the End Phase. The advantages of this are discussed in 9.7.1.

Besides saving for future expenses, it is a very good idea to keep a few Souls in hand through the Action Phase, as many activities will require the expenditure of Souls.

Example: Summoning Phase. The Key's Triumvirate has a staggering 26 Souls to spend in the Soul Phase.

For starters, the Triumvirate summons three new Legions at a cost of 9 Souls. The Legions are distributed among the Sectio owned by the Key's Triumvirate.

The Triumvirate now has 17 Souls left and would very much like to recruit a Lieutenant. But the Triumvirate does not have a "Recruit Lieutenant" Minor Arcana Card in hand and therefore spends 5 Souls to buy a new Arcana Card. The card's Minor Arcana spell is "Walk the Earth," so the Triumvirate throws the card away and grudgingly coughs up 5 Souls for another Arcana Card. This time they draw a "Recruit Lieutenant - 3" and immediately pay an additional 3 Souls to get their Lieutenant. Rolling a 5 they must pick Sulla who is the top Lieutenant piled in the middle one of the "Lieutenants Available" boxes.

Since the Triumvirate has one Legion roaming AnteHell, it tries to tame a Hellhound, but rolls a 6 and loses the Legion. To end the Phase, the Triumvirate places one Soul Counter on it's new Lieutenant as bonus pay, just to keep him happy.

The Triumvirate now has 3 Souls left.

How art thou fallen from Heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! How art thou cast down to the ground, That didst cast lots over the nations! And thou saidst in thy heart: 'I will ascend into Heaven, Above the stars of God Will I exalt my throne; And I will sit upon the mount of meeting, In the uttermost parts of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High' Yet thou shalt be brought down to the nether world, To the uttermost parts of the pit.

9.0 The Action Phases

Choosing and timing these Actions is the greatest challenge of The HellGame!

The Player's Daemons now take turns performing Actions. An Action might be of several kinds, such as moving Legions, travelling to the surface of the Earth, or casting Magic. Each one of a player's Daemons may conduct only one of these Actions per turn.

NOTE #1: Incapacitated Daemons may not take Actions and therefore do not participate in this phase in any way. Remove the Incapacitated Daemons' markers from the Rank Track to show this.

NOTE #2: Certain Major Arcana Cards labelled "Counter" may be used outside this sequence as described in 9.8.2.

9.1 Order of Actions

Daemons are obsessed with etiquette and protocol. Therefore Actions are taken in the strict order of the Rank Numbers printed on the individual Daemon Cards. The Daemon of the higher rank (lower Rank Number) will always conduct his Action before the next Daemon, regardless of whether or not it is very smart of him to do so.

At the start of the Action Phase the players must compare the ranks of their Daemons in order to determine in what order they will take their Actions. The order is displayed in the Rank Track set up at the beginning of the game, where Player Markers also identify which Daemon belongs to what Triumvirate.

9.2 Actions

When it is a Daemon's turn to perform an Action, the player must first state what kind of Action he wishes the Daemon to carry out.

The Actions to choose from are:

Pass For Good
Pass
March
Walk the Earth
Diplomacy
Cast Magic

Be assured that the overall ranking of Daemons in Hell is rigidly maintained - it's one of the few pleasures they have.

Example: Order of Actions. The player using "The Void" Player Markers has Orias, Ukobach and Ashtaroth in his Triumvirate. These three are ranked 41, 50 and 11 respectively, meaning that they will take Actions in the order Ashtaroth (11), Orias (41) and Ukobach (50). Another player using "The Beast" Player Markers has Beelzebub (8), Naburos (61) and Baal (14) in his Triumvirate, and the player using "The Keys" Player Markers has Caim (29) and Sammael (2) (his third Daemon is Incapacitated, inside an Armenian relic box).

This situation would result in the Daemon Markers being placed on the Rank Track in the following order: Samuel (2 - Keys), Beelzebub (8 - Beast), Ashtaroth (11 - Void), Baal (14 - Beast), Caim (29 - Keys), Orias (41 - Void), Ukobach (50 - Void), Naburos (61 - Beast).

This procedure may seem complicated, but it will quickly become second nature, since all players (barring accidents and drafts) will control the same Daemons for the entire game.

9.3 Pass For Good

Should a player have absolutely no idea what Action his Daemon should take he may declare that the Daemon is "Passing For Good" as soon as it is the Daemon's turn to take an Action. A Daemon may not Pass initially and then Pass for Good later during the Action Phase.

9.4 The Pass Action

During play players will often like their Daemon to take their Actions later in the turn. (Most likely because the Player wants to see what someone else does before he makes his own move.) The player can therefore postpone his Daemon's Action by playing a Minor Arcana "Pass" card and paying the cost required for it to work. A "Pass" will allow the player to take his Daemon's Action after the next Daemon in line on the Rank Track. Some cards will move the Passing Daemon even further down the queue. These are called "Double Pass" (pass two "slots"), "Triple Pass" (pass three "slots"), and so on. Only one "Pass" card can be played at one time.

Double Pass — 2 slots; Triple Pass — 3 slots; Quadruple Pass — 4 slots; Quinary Pass — 5 slots; Senary Pass — 6 slots; Septenary Pass — 7 slots; Octonary Pass — 8 slots; Nonary Pass — 9 slots.

The Daemon bypassed in this way may, in turn, also Pass, requiring the Daemon that passed in the first place to take his Action. It is perfectly legal for a Daemon to pass again and again each time he is asked to take his Action, provided the player has enough Arcana cards to do so.

NOTE: Note that the changes created by passing are not permanent. The Rank Track is reset after each turn.

Example: Very Complex Passing. Four Daemon's Actions remain in a turn and they are lined up this way on the Rank Track: Ashtaroth (11), Baal (14), Caim (29), Orias (41).

In her Action Phase, Ashtaroth plays a "Septenary Pass -4" card and pays the required four Souls for it. This allows her to pass all three of her competitors placing her at the end of the queue. Note that as it only took three "steps" to move Ashtaroth to end of the queue, the four passes she has left are lost. She is not moved four extra spaces down the Rank Track.

With Baal's Action Phase coming up, the Rank Track looks like this: Baal (14), Caim (29), Orias (41), Ashtaroth (11).

Baal, who at all costs wants to take his Action after Caim, plays a "Pass - 1" and pays one Soul to move past him. Caim in turn also takes a Pass Action, plays a "Pass –1" and pays one Soul to pass Baal. Baal says "enough of this" and plays a "Double Pass - 2" card (price: two Souls), making the Rank Track look like this: Caim (29), Orias (41), Baal (14), Ashtaroth (11).

Caim is now out of cards she can use, so she takes her Action, choosing a March Action. It is now Orias' turn, and he plays a "Double Pass - 1" card (and pays one soul) making the queue look like this: Baal (14), Ashtaroth (11), Orias (41).

Baal takes his Action and, since all Daemons are out of Pass Arcana Cards (or choose save them for another turn), he is followed in turn by Ashtaroth and Orias.

9.5 The March Action

It takes some effort to make armies move about in Hell. Therefore, a Daemon must take a March Action in order to move his Triumvirate's Units. A Daemon taking a March Action may move one Unit per Skull of War on his Daemon card. A Legion may move two Sectio (two "steps") and a Lieutenant three Sectio (three "steps"). All such moves must be from one Sectio to an adjacent one and may not be along diagonals (e.g. from THE ENVIOUS to BANKERS AND BROKERS) or into the Pentagram.

As Daemons themselves are never actually placed on the map, taking a March Action should be thought of as "ordering a march" or "guiding one's troops," whether it's by actually being there in person, sending a winged messenger or making a phone call.

Movement Rates — Legions: 2 Sectio; Lieutenants: 3 Sectio.

NOTE: A Unit may only be moved once per March Action. However, you can use several Daemons to perform additional march actions to move a Unit further.

A Lieutenant may "carry" or "drag" as many Legions with him as his Leadership Number indicates. It still costs only one Skull to move the Lieutenant and these Legions may move as many steps as the Lieutenant does. The Lieutenant may also pick up new Legions along the way or drop some off. Legions should always be placed on top of the Lieutenant's counter to indicate that they are under his command.

A Unit may always start moving unless it is in a Sectio containing Lilith or prohibited from moving by an Event or Phenomena.

A Unit must stop as soon as it enters:

AnteHell
A Sectio containing a Hellhound on rampage
A Sectio struck by a "Quagmire" or similar Phenomena.
A Sectio containing Lilith.
Another Triumvirate's Legion(s).

Moving about in AnteHell is almost synonymous with "getting lost" since it is very easy to wind up nowhere when you walk through nothingness. The roll to re-enter Hell takes into account such things as the availability of ferries, ferrymen and copper-coins, as well as the rather erratic currents of the Styx.

In the last case the Unit may keep on moving as long as the player controlling Units in that Sectio allow the player to do so. This "right to pass" must be granted before the Unit(s) enter the Sectio. Units may not be tricked into entering a Sectio and then prevented from moving on.

9.5.1 Fleeing

As soon as a Unit (excluding solitary Lieutenants) enters a Sectio containing another players' Units by means of a March Action, all the non-moving Units may try to flee. Units may try to flee every time new Units enter the Sectio they occupy, but fleeing Units never cause flight. Should all Units in a Sectio successfully flee, the Unit that caused the flight may continue moving.

The rule of thumb here is that fleeing Units must keep on fleeing until they either fail to leave a Sectio or enter one that is free of enemy Units.

To try to flee the non-moving player rolls one die for each Legion in the Sectio and consults the Compass printed on the map. The Legion rolled for will then move to the next Sectio in the direction shown by the Compass. The fleeing Legion may not enter the Pentagram, nor move into the Sectio from which the Units that caused the flight entered from. A roll of 5 or 6 obviously means that the attempt to flee has failed. Units may flee to AnteHell.

A Lieutenant wishing to flee rolls two dice to pick direction and may then choose between the two results, obeying the rules above. The Lieutenant may take as many Legions as his Leadership Number allows along with him when he flees, but should both his rolls fail the Legions remain with him.

Units fleeing into a Sectio occupied by other, unfriendly, Units (excluding solitary Lieutenants) must attempt to flee again. This may cause them to wind up in the Sectio they originally fled from, forcing them to flee again. This may in some cases also lead to quite lengthy flights, which is perfectly legal.

Example: Movement. In The Void Triumvirate, Balban, with two Skulls of War to her name, takes a March Action and moves one of the Triumvirate's Legions in SPIES via MIRACLE WORKERS to FALSIFIERS, a total of two Sectio. She then moves a Lieutenant stacked with one Legion from SEA OF LARD to ADDICTION, picks up another Legion there and moves on via EXPLOITERS OF LAND AND SEA to SWAMP OF USELESS RAGE, a total of three Sectio.

If there had been, say, a Legion belonging to the Horned One Triumvirate in EXPLOITERS OF LAND AND SEA when Balban's Units entered, one of three things can happen:

a) If the Horned One Legion stays in place, Balban's Units have to stop and can move no further.

b) If The Horned One Player states that he will try to flee, Balban's Units may or may not be able to continue to move depending on whether or not The Horned One's Legion gets away. To flee from EXPLOITERS OF LAND AND SEA the Horned One player must roll a 1, 2 or 4 to make good the Legion's escape (to the SWAMP OF USELESS RAGE, THIEVES or SNAKE EYES SALOON respectively).

c) If the Player controlling Balban asks for and gets permission from The Horned One Player to pass through EXPLOITERS OF LAND AND SEA, the Units may enter the Sectio and move on to SWAMP OF USELESS RAGE.

9.5.2 Leaving AnteHell

A Unit wishing to re-enter Hell from the AnteHell must roll one die. A roll of 1 to 5 shows what Quarter of Hell the Unit will enter and a roll of 6 means that the Unit has become lost and does not enter Hell at all during this March Phase. This case applies to all Units and beings.

Special Case: Solitary Lieutenants

Special Case: Uriel and Lilith And Movement. See page 28 for more details.

9.6 The Walk the Earth Action

Daemons walk the Earth for a variety of reasons, most commonly to collect Souls or earn Favours or to use Major Arcana spells that require the caster to be among men on Earth.

Lucifer likes Daemons that work up front, hence the Favour for being on Earth. Due to an odd mix of distorted physics, tradition and geographical anomalies, it requires serious effort for a Daemon to leave Hell and walk the Earth. Conversely, getting back to Hell is a very simple process. Some people say the whole problem is in the mind of the Daemon.

In order to send a Daemon to Earth the player must play a "Walk the Earth" Minor Arcana card and pay the required cost in Souls printed on the card. Instead of discarding the Arcana Card the player places it under the appropriate Daemon's card, sticking up slightly so that the "Walk the Earth" text is visible. The Daemon is now on Earth and may affect anything that goes on there in his next Action Phase. To return to Hell the Daemon simply takes an Action that affects something in Hell. As he takes the Action he discards the "Walk the Earth" Arcana Card to show that he has fallen back home.

In other words: a Daemon on Earth may perform any Action he wants, but any Action that affects Hell will cause him to descend to Hell again. If a player wants a Daemon to stay on Earth he needs to either Pass for Good or Pass, or take a Diplomacy or Cast Magic Action that affects Earth.

NOTE: Daemons may take Walk the Earth Actions the Action Phase immediately after Uriel has cleansed the Earth (10.1). The Angel is busy burning his way towards Hell and does not care about a few Daemons leaving it.

Example: Walking the Earth. There is a big, interesting war raging on Earth, and the player controlling Marquis Andras feels that a Daemon with a talent for quarrels could make things even more interesting up there. So, when it is Andras' turn to take an Action, the player plays a "Walk the Earth - 1" Minor Arcana card and pays its cost of one Soul. He then places the Minor Arcana card under Andras' card to show where he has gone and Andras' Action is over. In the next Soul Phase, Andras is on Earth and personally sends 10 Souls (Andras' four Hearts of Charisma plus a Soul Roll of six.) to the Netherworld and collects a Favour for his Triumvirate.

9.6.1 Leave the Earth

A Daemon who for some reason feels an urge to return to Hell but cannot think of an Action to perform there may take an Action just to remove his Walk the Earth Arcana card. The Player does not need to play any card to do this.

Example (continued): Now it is Andras' Action Phase again, and since he wants to stay on Earth, he chooses to Cast Magic, playing a Major Arcana card that requires a Daemon on Earth to work. (It also had the nice effect of binding another player's Daemon on Earth into a small wooden box, leaving it unable to do anything for a while.) The turn ends with Andras still on Earth, so in the next Soul Phase he will collect new Souls and another Favour. However, in this Action Phase things are getting messy in Hell, so Andras is needed back home. By taking a March Action, Andras falls back to Hell and can immediately start moving his Triumvirate's Legions.

9.7 The Diplomacy Action

There are four kinds of diplomatic missions. In Hell, a player may send a Daemon to try to make other players' Units change sides (Influence Units) or beg Lucifer to revoke Disfavours (Atonement and Supplication). A Daemon Walking the Earth may either do bad things to gain extra Favours (Do Evil Deeds) or manipulate the Hell Deck to try to affect what goes on in the world (Conspire).

Note that in The HellGame the term "Diplomacy" is used very loosely to describe all kinds of vulgar things such as graft, backstabbing and downright brown-nosing. On the other hand, most Daemons would argue that they just see Diplomacy for what it is: things such as graft, backstabbing and downright brown-nosing.

9.7.1 Influence Units

While in Hell a Daemon may try to influence any one of the other Triumvirate's Units to either disband (remove them from the map) or change allegiance to another Triumvirate. The player names the Unit he wishes to influence and states whether he wants to try to disband the Unit or change its allegiance.

If a Daemon tries to influence a Unit that is "at home," that is, in one of it's own Triumvirate's Sectio, the Daemon must pay one Favour in order to try to influence it.

This means that a Unit "at home" is immune to outside influence unless a Favour is invested to lure it.

To disband a Legion the player must successfully Roll Against Hearts. To make a Legion change allegiance the player must successfully Roll Against Hearts twice. If an attempt to make a Legion change allegiance succeeds on the first roll, but fails on the second, the attempt fails. A disbanded Legion is removed from the map. A Legion that changes allegiance is replaced by one of the receiving player's Legions. A Unit that changes its allegiance may join any side, solely dependent upon the whim of the influencing player and the countermix. He may also grant the Unit(s) independence and turn them into Freebooters (15.4).

A Unit that disbands is assumed to have strolled off to indulge in some nameless pastime.

NOTE: Legions stacked with Lieutenants may not be influenced. Instead the Lieutenant must be targeted.

Lieutenants are harder to influence: one needs to Roll Against Hearts twice to convince a Lieutenant to disband and thrice to change his allegiance. A Lieutenant that disbands simply leaves play and is placed in the "Returned" box. Any Units he was stacked with are left on the board.

A Lieutenant that changes allegiance does so along with as many Legions (influencing Daemons chose which) as his Leadership Number allows. There is nothing other (previously) friendly Lieutenants in the Sectio can do about this except look a bit surprised. The Legions affected are simply replaced by Legions bearing the new Triumvirate's icon.

Lieutenants are harder to influence as they have their sometimes considerable reputation to think about.

Hellhounds are beyond being influenced (they are not very bright). If their Minder changes allegiance, they will follow. If their Minder is disbanded, they will go on a rampage.

Example: Influencing Units. Duchess Gomory, with four Hearts of Charisma on her card, is part of The Devourer Triumvirate. In her Action Phase she tries to lure a Horned One Legion located in one of the Sectio controlled by The Horned One player. Normally, she would need two rolls of 4 or less, but since the Legion being influenced is on the Horned One's home turf, Gomory must also pay a Favour in order to win the Legion over. To make things a bit easier, Gomory's player bribes the Legion by throwing three Souls into the bargain, deciding to use two Souls to modify the first roll and one to modify the second.

Gomory now has a -2 modifier on her first roll and a -1 on the second. Rolling a 6 (-2 = 4) and a 5 (-1 = 4), she just makes it and exchanges the Horned One Legion for one of her own Triumvirate's Legions.

9.7.1.2 Bribes

The influencing player can sweeten his deals by offering Souls. Each Soul paid (to the Treasurer, but in real life to the Unit in question) gives the player a –1 modifier on one of his die rolls. All bribes must be paid before the rolls are made. The owner of the Unit being influenced cannot counter this unless the Unit is a Lieutenant that was given Bonus Pay during the Soul Phase. In that case each Soul paid as a bonus gives an extra +1 modifier on all of the influencing player's dice rolls.

9.7.2 Atonement and Supplication

While in Hell a Daemon can take a Diplomacy Action to try to get rid of one or more Disfavours by begging Lucifer to forgive or overlook the mistakes his Triumvirate has made. A Daemon taking this Action states his intent to perform "Atonement and Supplication" and rolls two dice. The player then looks at the table printed here (as well as on the map) and compares the result with the number of Hearts of Charisma on his Daemon Card, applying the stated results.

The results in this table are based on statistics gathered from 684 known cases of Daemonic dust-crawling, most of them taken from Verita's Liver Ignii and the notes of John Dee.

9.7.3 Conspire

A Daemon on Earth may choose to "conspire against" the Hell Deck to try to change the Permanent Event Cards currently in play. The player draws twice as many Hell Cards as his Daemon has Stars of Magic. He may then use one of the cards he has drawn to either replace one of the Permanent Event Cards currently in play or place a new Permanent Event Cards in a currently empty box. The Hell Cards the player can not use are discarded. Resolve whatever commotion the new card creates before continuing play.

It is quite possible that none of the cards drawn will suit the player's purposes and he is not required to use any of the cards he drew. Instead, he may opt to discard all the cards.

NOTE: Non-Permanent events can not be manipulated in this way.

Example: Conspire. To all the Triumvirate's dismay the Permanent Event Card "Red Peril" is currently affecting Hell. Lord Ukobach, with two Stars of Magic, has decided to do something about it. When it is her turn to take an Action she states that she will Conspire and then draws four Hell Cards. Two of them ("Twelfth Night" and "Orgasmatron") are not Permanent and can therefore not be used. The other two cards are "Tempers" (Permanent Hell) and "The Bees" (Permanent Earth). Ukobach can play either one of these cards. She can place "The Bees" in the currently empty Permanent Earth-box, or use "Tempers" to replace "Red Peril." Ukobach chooses the latter and the effects of the new card are immediately imposed.

9.7.3.1 Alternate Conspire: Rigging Events

Players wishing to spice up conspiring a bit are urged to use the following rule. A Conspiring Daemon may instead of do a normal conspire draw as many Hell Cards as he has Stars of Magic. He must then chose one of those cards to be placed face down at the top of the Hell Card Deck while discarding the others. Barring other conspirers the Daemon has now chosen the Event of the next Hell Phase.

Note that though Conspiring and Doing Evil Deeds are some of the more entertaining parts of a Daemon's job, they are handled very abstractly here. The characters featured in this game are a very imaginative lot, and the sheer range of their outrages are beyond the designers' ability to depict.

9.7.4 Do Evil Deeds

A player wishing to indulge in Doing Evil Deeds must have a Daemon Walking the Earth. The player states his intent and simply rolls as many dice as the Daemon has Hearts of Charisma. Every 6 rolled earns the Player a Favour as his Daemon perpetrates some gruesome, degrading or just plain nasty thing on mankind.

Example: Do Evil Deeds. Lord Moloch, with 2 Hearts of Charisma, is walking the Earth. Since he is in a foul mood he decides to spend his Action Phase Doing Evil Deeds. He rolls two dice, rolling a 3 and 6. The 6 earns Moloch's Triumvirate a Favour and you can now spend a turn or so gleefully imagining what Moloch might have actually done to earn the First Fallen's approbation.

Example: Action Phase. Picking up from the example on page 16, the start of an Action Phase finds the following Daemons on the rank track: Sammael (2 - Key), Beelzebub (8 - Beast), Ashtaroth (11 - Void), Baal (14 - Beast), Caim (29 - Key), Orias (41 - Void), Ukobach (50 - Void), Naburos (61 - Beast).

Prince Sammael and Madam Ukobach are Walking the Earth. The Key Triumvirate also has Mistress Balban in the game, but as she is currently Incapacitated, she is out of the picture.

Since Sammael is the highest-ranking Daemon in play, it is his duty to begin. The player in charge of The Key Triumvirate decides that the only proper way to use a Daemon of Sammael's calibre is to have him stay on Earth and Do Evil Deeds. Rolling five dice for Sammael's five Hearts of Charisma the player rolls 1, 3, 5, 6 and 6, thus earning two Favours for The Key Triumvirate. The turn now goes to Lord Beelzebub, who takes a March Action and moves a total of 4 Units (including a Lieutenant dragging two legions along), wanting all of them to participate in a large attack on the Void Triumvirate's holdings in the Fraud Circle. The ball passes to Princess Ashtaroth who plays a "Walk The Earth - 1" Minor Arcana Card and pays the cost of one Soul. The card is placed under Ashtaroth's card and Ashtaroth is from now on considered to be on Earth.

Duke Baal is up next and The Beast Triumvirate would like him to take his Action after the Void Daemons coming up. Therefore he plays a "Triple Pass - 2" Minor Arcana Card and pays two Souls before sliding two slots down the Rank Track, landing between Ukobach and Naburos. President Caim, who likes to mess things up, plays the "Jones' Device" Arcana Card (her Triumvirate controls a Sectio in the Circle of the Lustful, a requirement for the card to work) against Baal. At this point Marquis Naburos intervenes to help his colleague and plays the "It Did Not Work" Arcana Card to counter Caim's card. (As Naburos has not taken his action yet, he could do this to counter any card.) This ends both Caim's and Naburos' Action Phases.

Since the Void Triumvirate badly needs to have one Daemon on Earth in addition to being able to counter whatever Baal does, the Void has Marquis Orias play a "Walk The Earth - 3" Minor Arcana Card and pays three Souls. The card is placed under Orias' card and it is now Ukobach's turn. Ukobach, who is on Earth, plays a "Pass" card to slide past Baal. As The Beast Triumvirate has no more Pass Cards to play, they have Baal take a Magic Action and play the "Defection" Arcana Card, targeting one of The Void Triumvirate's stacks of Units that could interfere with The Beast's plans. The card costs one Favour to play and since it always succeeds, the hapless Void player can only watch as his best Lieutenant suddenly embraces the Beast's banner.

Ukobach is now the only Daemon left to take an action. Being on Earth, yet wanting to affect things in Hell, the Triumvirate declares that for starters Ukobach falls down to Hell, and her "Walk the Earth" card is removed. Then the Triumvirate declares it will try to Influence one of the Beast Triumvirate's Legions which threaten to take over a Sectio. Since Ukobach needs to roll equal or less than her two Hearts of Charisma to disband the Legion, she sweetens the deal with two Souls. Now, needing to roll 4 or less (2+2), she rolls a 3 and the Beast Legion is removed, concluding the Action Phase.

9.8 The Cast Magic Action

A player may use a Daemon's Action to play a Major Arcana card that is playable during the Action Phase. In most cases, the player states that his Daemon will take a Magic Action, plays one Arcana Card and applies the effects as described. (The exceptions will be discussed below.)

Note that the term "Magic" is used very loosely here, since the Arcana Cards involve all kinds of dirty tricks.

NOTE: No part of these rules has any bearing on using Arcana Cards as "Minor Arcana" cards for Passing, Walking the Earth or Recruiting Lieutenants. Each Arcana Card has two functions, and players must sometimes make hard choices as to which function to use.

9.8.1 The Arcana Cards

In most cases each card is self-explanatory, but some points will be discussed here. The first line in the shaded box on each card always describes when the card may be used, and often where and at what cost.

Arcana Cards that may be played as an Action are labelled "Action." Those that may be played during combat are labelled "Combat" and may only be used in the Combat Phase (See Chapter 11).
Several Arcana Cards specify where the caster must be to use the card, either "In Hell" (including AnteHell) or "On Earth." If this is specified, both the caster and target of the Magic Action must be in the same locale, that is, both must be on Earth or in Hell. (Note that Daemons On Earth may take a Magic Action affecting things in Hell and simultaneously descend as described in 9.6.1.)
Several cards specify if the player must pay any cost in Souls or Favours the instant he uses it. Should the use of a card force the Caster to suffer a Disfavour, his Triumvirate collects one immediately.

9.8.2 Counters

Some Arcana Cards are labelled "Counter" and may be used to interfere with another player's Actions. Some of these cards also have restrictions similar to those listed in 9.8.1 and function in exactly the same way. A Counter may always be used by any Daemon targeted by an Arcana Card, provided the Daemon is not Incapacitated. Should a player wish to interfere with a Card not targeting one of his own Daemons or Units, he must designate one of his Daemons that has not yet taken an Action in order to use the Counter. The countering Daemon is then considered to have taken his Action for the turn "out of sequence" and may not perform another Action later this turn.

Example: Magic and Counters. When it is her turn to take an Action, Mistress Balban, who is currently Walking the Earth, decides to take a Magic Action. She plays the "Incubus" card, targeting Princess Ashtaroth, who is also on Earth (something that is necessary for the spell to work). Furthermore, Ashtaroth has only two Stars of Magic, compared to Balban's four, which the spell description says is necessary for the spell to work on Ashtaroth. Without further ado Ashtaroth succumbs to untold pleasures.

If Ashtaroth's Triumvirate had had a Counter Arcana Card in hand, she could have countered Balban's spell despite having already taken an Action. For another Triumvirate to counter Balban's spell the Triumvirate must have a daemon that has not yet taken any action this turn.

9.8.3 Supporting Actions

For some cards to work, Daemons other than the Caster need to be convinced to take "Supporting Actions," usually to gather up a certain number of Hearts, Skulls or Stars. Any Daemon can take a Supporting Action, but it must be done before the Caster's Action: a Daemon simply takes a Cast Magic Action and states support for the appropriate card to be played. A supporting Daemon must be in same locale as the Caster (Hell or Earth).

If, at the time of casting, the Caster for one reason or another finds himself short of the requisite number of Hearts, Skulls or Stars, the whole project is scrapped. The Caster may take any other Action he wants, and his supporters are considered to have just wasted their turns.

NOTE: There is no penalty for fooling people into taking Supporting Actions and then just saying "Sorry!" when the time comes to do what you had promised.

Special Case: Macina (Expansion Deck Only). See chapter 16 for more details.

Example: Supporting Actions. After much dealing and cursing, the player controlling Mad Ereshkigal has convinced two other players to have their Daemons take Supporting Actions so she can use her Love for Lilith Arcana card. This card requires ten Hearts of Charisma (as well as a Favour, provided by Ereshkigal's Triumvirate) to cast. During their Action Phases, both Madam Asmodeus and Lord Belphegor announce their support, bringing five and three Hearts respectively to the spell. As Ereshkigal's turn comes up she declares that she will take a Magic Action and plays the card. Adding Ereshkigal's two Hearts of Charisma to the eight of Asmodeus and Belphegor is enough to make the card work. The spell takes effect and Lilith arrives, very much to the amusement of all involved.

A summary of the Actions and how they work are printed on the back of the Rulebook. Feel free to photocopy this page as a reference. It will help Players get into the game more easily. Printable versions of the summary can also be found on The HellGame webpage.

Hell's use of the five-pointed star as a trademark has a long and very confused history. Stars with varying numbers of points have been used as magical symbols since time immemorial, mostly as a protective sign or to symbolise the element earth. (In the latter form it is featured in the Tarot and has since morphed into the diamonds of a normal deck of cards.) But it is unclear when the magician's circle, the inverted five pointed star inside a circle, was adopted as one of Lucifer's many symbols. Or indeed, if it was more "thrust upon" than adopted. The fact that the Pentagram can be found in old Hebrew and Babylonian scriptures does not prove either thesis, and the truth may lay somewhere in between. Like many other pagan symbols and rituals, it most likely woke up one day and found that it had been branded as evil through clerical rather than Daemonic intervention. The image of The First Fallen as a horned thing with cloven hooves has similar ancestry. The Horned Beast is of course a distorted version of the relatively harmless Greek satyr, whose cheerful manners, low morals and skill at organising great orgies made it a natural enemy of the early church's growing influence.

Useful Advice

These hints may come in helpful.

A Good First Turn. The first time one plays The HellGame the sheer range of possibilities can be a bit overwhelming. A good start in any game is to use the Action Phase to send one of your Daemons to Earth. One of your other two Daemons should take a March Action. Try to capture a Sectio that will link together some of the Sectio you already own. These initial moves will prepare you well for the nefarious deeds and outright evil onslaughts that you should expect from your Daemonic opponents.

Circles are Round! It might be an odd and quite disorienting experience to read the map, since the (modern, western-world) brain has a tendency to think in straight lines rather than concentric Circles. Use this optical illusion to your advantage: three steps along the Circle of the Lustful takes you further than anyone busy closer to the centre would think.

Work up front! Have at least one Daemon on Earth at all times. It will bring you Favours and improve your economy.

Get the Leader! Foster a pack-mentality and make sure everyone knows who currently stands the best chance of winning. Any player who starts a turn with four Sectio in one Circle should be flattened by the rest of the players as a matter of course.

BIG ARMIES... ...is not the key to winning a HellGame. Competent play will always defeat a wannabe warlord. If you find yourself sitting on a big pile of Souls don't waste them on Legions a-plenty. Instead buy Arcana Cards to improve your hand as there is no such thing as a "perfect" hand of Arcana Cards.

Disfavours. You might be able to get along with one Disfavour, but get rid of it as soon as you can. Before you know it, you could find yourself with two or three and a life in misery to go along with them. By the same token, no effort should be spared to put the opposition out of favour.

Keep Promises. Yeah, right. In a game about Daemons in Hell? OK, let's rephrase: make few promises, and keep those. No one will blame you for acting perfectly selfish most of the time, but if you can't even be trusted to give the time of day, you will have serious problems.

10. Random Movement & Independent Units

Uriel and Lilith, Rampaging Hellhounds and any Freebooters stacks are collectively known as "Independent Units." After the Action Phase has been completed, all these Units will make their moves. Die rolls and the Compass are used to regulate these movements. Before each step the Unit has to move, roll one die and consult the Compass to see to what Sectio the Unit will move. A roll of 5 or 6 means that the Unit doesn't go anywhere that step, but instead stays and does something in line with its nature before moving on.

This chapter sums up all the activities of independent Units. Independent Units are: Uriel, The Avenging Angel; Lilith, The Mother of All Daemons; The Hellhounds, Monsters from AnteHell; Freebooters, Rogue Legions.

The Independent Units are moved in the following order.

Uriel
Lilith
Hellhounds (Strongest Hound first)

Freebooters never move, but being Independent they are handled here anyway.

10.1 Uriel

A Hell Card can make Uriel the Mad Angel go on a private crusade. When this happens, place Uriel in the Uriel Box on the map. Uriel will now immediately cleanse the Earth. All non-Incapacitated Daemons on Earth must Roll against Skulls to avoid being destroyed. The survivors immediately return to Hell and must take Pass for Good Actions in the coming Action Phase. During the Random Movement Phase of the same turn, Uriel moves on and wipes out everything in AnteHell.

Uriel is one of the four original Archangels (a title that the church revoked in year 745) and is known under many names, among them "Regent of the Sun" and "The Flame of God." He is known to have warned Noah of the flood and to have quarrelled with Moses, but has spent most of the last 6000 years guarding the destroyed Paradise. Asking the very embodiment of purity to guard something not pure at all has slowly unhinged Uriel to the point where he is quite out of his head with frustration and rage. He dreams of clean things like acid and nuclear fire, and longs for that Final Day when he is destined to lead the assault on Hell.

In the next Random Movement Phase, Uriel enters Hell in a Sectio determined at random (re-roll sixes). He moves four steps per turn and treats all rolls of 3 on the Compass as a roll of 1.

All Units in a Sectio that Uriel enters will immediately try to flee individually (due to the panic created Lieutenants cannot take Legions with them, and Hellhounds automatically go on Rampage). Units that fail to flee are destroyed. Also, Sectio entered by Uriel are cleansed enough to make them useless to anyone, and therefore their ownership is revoked.

Furthermore, the number of Legions each Triumvirate loses this way during a turn contributes to the chance that Uriel may destroy the lowest ranking Daemon in that Triumvirate. That is, if Uriel destroys three of a Triumvirate's Legions, the player must roll above 3 to save his lowest ranking Daemon currently in Hell. (If Uriel destroys six or more of a Triumvirate's Legions, one of the Triumvirate's Daemons is automatically destroyed.) This is rolled for after Uriel has finished moving.

Should a roll make Uriel enter the Pentagram or a Sectio containing Lilith, he finally meets beings he cannot cleanse and is removed from play. If the Permanent Hell Card that initially invoked him is replaced, Uriel is likewise removed from play.

Example: Uriel Attacks. During a Hell Phase a card calling for Uriel to arrive is drawn and Uriel is promptly placed in his box on the map. This immediately affects Duchess Gomory and Duke Prufflas, currently on Earth. They both Roll Against Skulls to save themselves and both roll a 2. This means that Gomory is destroyed and is removed from the game while Prufflas returns to Hell and needs to take a Pass for Good Action this turn.

During the following Random Movement Phase Uriel moves to AnteHell wiping out the poor Legion that was not lucky enough to leave the place. For one turn now Uriel mucks about in AnteHell, much to the dismay of those in the outer Circles of Hell.

The next Random Movement Phase, Uriel rolls one die to see which Sectio his first step will take him to. He rolls a 4 and enters THE WISE MEN, which is empty and not under any Triumvirate's control. For his second step Uriel rolls a 2 taking him to THE FOREST OF SUICIDES, where there are two Legions and a Hellhound belonging to the Keys Triumvirate. All these now try to flee, rolling 2, 6 and 1. This takes one Legion to UNDERACHIEVERS, one Legion nowhere at all and the Hellhound to MOLESTERS PURGATORY. The Legion that did not get away is eliminated, and the Sectio that belonged to the Keys Triumvirate is revoked. Uriel's third step is a roll of 3, interpreted as a 1, taking him to MOLESTERS PURGATORY. The Hellhound once again gets away by rolling a 2 and fleeing to SADISTIC PLEASURE PIT. Uriel's fourth step is a 1, taking him to ADDICTION, which is empty but under the control of the Devourer Triumvirate. The Sectio is revoked and Uriel's move is over. Since The Keys Triumvirate lost a Unit to Uriel, it must now roll higher than the number of Units lost or have its lowest ranking Daemon destroyed. The Keys player rolls 2 and manages to save his Daemon.

10.2 Lilith

Lilith is the mother of all Daemons, and some Hell and Arcana Cards allow her to come and visit her children once in a while. When the "invoking" card is played draw a Hell Card to see in which Sectio she shows up. Regardless of when during the turn a card calls for Lilith to appear, she will always move in the Random Movement Phase.

Lilith will always appear in one of her three aspects: as Mother, Virgin or Crone. Being a somewhat confused creature, this aspect will change each turn. Lilith's initial aspect is determined either by the card calling her or by a die roll made before she moves.

Lilith's Aspects — Roll one die to determine which aspect Lilith is in. 1-2 = Virgin; 3-4 = Mother; 5-6 = Crone. Do not re-roll results that do not change Lilith's Aspect.

During the Random Movement Phase Lilith will move four steps at random. Should she happen to enter AnteHell or the Pentagram, she is removed from play. Should she happen upon Uriel, the Angel is destroyed.

While moving about, Lilith affects each Sectio she enters in a way that is dependent upon her aspect. This happens every time she enters a new Sectio, but not if she should spend a step idling in the same Sectio or at the moment she changes aspect.

The Crone will give one Arcana Card to the owner of each and every Legion encountered.
The Virgin will slay all and everything in the Sectio entered. Units may not try to flee from Lilith.
The Mother will double the number of EVERYTHING in each Sectio entered, up to the limits of the countermix.

10.2.1 Courting Lilith

Before Lilith's aspect is determined, the Triumvirates may court her to make her move as they wish. It costs one Favour to court Lilith, and if several Daemons wish to court her, they must fight a Duel of Hearts for this privilege.

Lilith is then courted by Rolling against Hearts, and the successful Triumvirate may now move Lilith four steps as it sees fit during this Random Movement Phase. The next turn Lilith will have tired of this and must be courted again.

Example: Lilith at Large. Lilith has wandered about for a while in Hell and this turn's Random Movement Phase finds her in the FALSIFIERS Sectio. No Triumvirate feels like courting her, so instead her aspect is decided on right away. A roll of 4 means that for this turn Lilith is in the Mother Aspect. Now it is time for her to move, and one of the players starts rolling to see which direction her four steps will take her. The first roll is a 2, meaning that Lilith enters MIRACLE WORKERS and, being the Mother, instantly turns the lone residing Hellhound into two Hounds (don't ask how). The next roll is a 5, meaning that Lilith stays in MIRACLE WORKERS admiring the scenery. The third roll is a 1, taking Lilith into SPIES where she finds two Legions from the Void Triumvirate and one from the Key Triumvirate. Lilith quickly turns these into four Void and two Key Legions before her last die is cast. The last roll is a 1, meaning that Lilith has entered the Pentagram and is therefore removed from play.

Do not think of Lilith's behaviour as erratic. Spending 6000 years screaming in a desert gets to you after a while.

All in all Lilith's character is somewhat hard to come to grips with, since she has been the target of millennia of misogynistic clerical slander. Here is the basic story: Lilith was created to be Adam's first wife, but she had too many ideas of her own (as well as opinions of Adam's qualities as a lover) and was kicked out of Paradise. Outraged, Lilith went to live in a cave by the Red Sea. Back in Paradise, Adam scared off another wife (the mysterious "nameless" second wife) before settling on the compliant Eve.

Over the years Lilith has, without any male assistance, given birth to Daemonkind, nightmares, Incubii and Sucubii. She has very complex relations with most of Hell's inhabitants and is quite insane.

10.3 Hellhounds

Red eyes he has, and unctuous beard and black, And belly large, and armed with claws his hands; He rends the spirits, flays, and Quarters them.

Hellhounds are found in AnteHell and can be tamed as described in 8.3.2. Hellhounds under player control move and fight in unison with their "Minder," the Legion in charge of its behaviour. Hellhounds without a Minder are always considered to be on a Rampage.

Should a Hellhound lose its Minder, it goes on a Rampage. The instant this happens the Hellhound makes one move using the Compass. If it doesn't leave the Sectio, it suffers no ill effects, though other Units in the Sectio may experience a certain discomfort. (This move is not considered "fleeing.") If it winds up in another Sectio full of Units it will stay there.

While on a Rampage, each Hellhound moves six steps according to the Compass. A Hellhound must cease moving if it enters a Sectio containing Units that do not immediately flee (other Rampaging Hellhounds do not try to flee). A Hellhound that starts its move in the same Sectio as other Units will only stay there if it rolls a 5 or 6 on the first roll of its move. Should a Hellhound enter the Pentagram or AnteHell, it is destroyed (this is also true if a Hellhound is moved to there by accident). While Hellhounds are by their very nature quite self-destructive, they have enough sense to re-roll any roll that would make them enter a Sectio containing Lilith or Uriel.

A Rampaging Hellhound may "bounce about" a lot during a turn, but must always end the Combat Phase alone in a Sectio.

During Combat Hellhounds make as many Attacks as the number printed on their counter. They save themselves from hits on a "4" or less. Rampaging Hellhounds fight all and everyone in a Sectio until they or their opponents are destroyed. Destroyed Hellhounds are instantly returned to the "Hellhounds Available" box.

Example: Hellhound Rampage NOW! During the Action Phase a Hellhound in THE ENVIOUS had its minder disbanded, and when it rolled to Flee it wound up in THIEVES. Now comes the Random Movement Phase and for its first two steps it rolls 4 and 4, moving it through EXPLOITERS OF LAND AND SEA to SNAKE EYES SALOON. Both these Sectio are empty. The third step rolled, a 1, takes the Hound into FURNACE OF BOOKBURNERS where a Legion resides. The Legion decides to Flee and rolls a 2, hurrying away to SWAMP OF USELESS RAGE. The Hound rolls a 5 for its fourth step, meaning that it sits idling among the burning books. Its fifth roll is a 1, taking it into MEGALOMANIACS where there is another rampaging Hellhound. Since Hounds never flee, this means that the rolling Hound's move is over, despite the fact that it had one more step to go.

10.4 Freebooters

Units that for one reason or another have left player control are known as "Freebooters." They will stubbornly stay in their Sectio regardless of what happens. They will never flee (except from Uriel) and never grant a "right to pass." Should they survive into the Petitions Phase they will take control of the Sectio they occupy. Remove any Triumvirate's Player Marker in the Control Box and place one of the Freebooter Player Markers there instead.

If there is a Lieutenant present among the Freebooters they will use the Lieutenant's die roll bonus for saves, that is, a Lieutenant with +3 will save his Units with a roll of 3 or less.

11. Combat

Combat Summary: Before combat both sides send Daemons to join the fight. (Largest army first.) Each Daemon may bring Arcana Cards equal to his Stars of Magic.

Combat Round — 1. Cast Magic: Most Stars of Magic decides order. 2. Make Attacks: Simultaneous - Units hit on rolls of 6. 3. Make Saves: Simultaneous - Hit Units survive on rolls of 1 or equal or less than Skulls of War of own Daemon. (Hellhounds and Lieutenant always save on a roll of 4 or less.) 4. Decide to Flee: Most Skulls of War decides order. 5. Start New Round.

After all Actions and random moves are completed, Combat will take place in all Sectio were there are Units belonging to two or more Triumvirates. These combats are resolved in the order of "biggest first," that is, the combat involving the most Legions (at the start of the Combat Phase) is resolved first, then the next largest and so on. A die is used to break ties.

When all combat among the Triumvirates has been completed, combat is then resolved in any Sectio containing only Rampaging Hellhounds.

Combat never takes place in AnteHell.

11.1 Daemons Joining Combat

Before each combat is joined, each side involved must declare if any of their Daemons intend to join the fighting. The side with the largest army goes first (again in terms of Legions – roll if tied) and states whether any Daemon will join the fighting, and how many Arcana Cards that Daemon will bring along with it. Players then take turns sending Daemons until all Daemons the players wish to send to the combat have been dispatched.

A Triumvirate may send any number of Daemons to a Combat and each Daemon may bring as many Arcana Cards into Combat as it has Stars of Magic, but is in no way required to use them all. Once a Daemon joins in Combat it may not join another Combat later the same turn regardless of what happened to it during the Combat. The same holds true for the Arcana Cards brought to the Comabt.

A Daemon on Earth may not join in any Combat.

Example: The Battle for Sugar Hill. The Beast player has three Legions and the Lieutenant Verin on SUGAR HILL. At the same time The Sign of Mu player has four Legions in the Sectio along with one Hellhound bearing the number "3."

As the Mu player has more Legions, he must first decide if he wants to send a Daemon to the combat, and he declares that President Caim will join the fight. Since Caim has four Stars of Magic she may bring up to four Arcana Cards to the fight, but in this case the Mu player decides to only send three cards with her. The Beast player in turn sends Ukobach to the fight along with two Arcana Cards. The Mu player can now send another Daemon, but since there are several important Combats happening elsewhere this turn, he refrains from doing so. The Beast player does likewise.

11.2 Combat Procedure

Combat is fought in "rounds" until only one side remains in the contested Sectio. After the Units involved in the combat have been lined up on a convenient spot, the following procedure is followed for each round of Combat.

11.2.1 Cast Magic

The side who has the Daemon(s) with the most Stars of Magic involved (use die as tiebreaker) decides which side should cast magic first. The players then take turns playing "Combat" Arcana Cards. There is no limit to the number of cards that may be played before each round.

Daemon's "special skills" always take effect before any magic is cast.

Since Caim of the Mu Triumvirate has more Stars than Ukobach of the Beast Triumvirate (four Stars to two), Caim's player gets to decide first whether or not he wants to play an Arcana Card. He does so, and Caim plays one of the cards she brought with her to the fight: it is the "Frenzy" Arcana Card that will give the Mu player +2 on all combat rolls during one round of combat.

Smiling, Ukobach in turn plays the "Daemonic Distraction" Arcana Card against Caim, and since that card is impossible to counter, Caim is out of the battle, although the card she played will still remain in effect. Ukobach decides not to use her last card at this point.

11.2.2 Make Attacks

Both sides now try to wipe each other out. All attacks are considered to be simultaneous, so that two Legions may destroy each other even though the players took turns rolling dice.

Only Legions and Hellhounds may make attacks. Legion attacks by making a Combat Roll and Hellhounds make as many Combat Rolls as indicated on their counters. Lieutenants and Legions minding Hellhounds may not attack at all.

Each round each side makes his alotted number of Combat Rolls. Each die scoring a 6 is a hit.

Lieutenants may add the bonus printed on their counters to the Combat Rolls of as many Units as their Leadership Number (a controlled Hellhound counts as one Unit). Certain Arcana Cards also add to these rolls.

Count the number of hits each side made and move on to the next step.

The players now count Combat Rolls. The Mu player gets six rolls, three for the Hellhound and one for each of his three Legions that are not busy minding the dog. The Beast player get three rolls, one for each Legion.

The players now roll.

Mu rolls: Hellhound 3 (+ 2 for Frenzy Card) = 5 - MISS! Hellhound 2 (+ 2 for Frenzy Card) = 4 - MISS! Hellhound 6 (+ 2 for Frenzy Card) = 8 - HIT! Legion A 5 (+ 2 for Frenzy Card) = 7 - HIT! Legion B 4 (+ 2 for Frenzy Card) = 6 - HIT! Legion C 6 (+ 2 for Frenzy Card) = 8 - HIT!

The Beast rolls: Legion 1 2 (+ 2 for Verin) = 4 - MISS! Legion 2 4 (+ 2 for Verin) = 6 - HIT! Legion 3 5 (+ 2 for Verin) = 7 - HIT!

As one can see, The Beast player managed to score two hits, while at the same time The Mu player managed to score four. Despite his trickery, things look bleak for The Beast Triumvirate. (Continued below.)

11.2.3 Saving Hit Units

After both sides have made their attacks, each side rolls for saves. Each player may distribute the hits his side has suffered as he sees fit as long as he obeys the two following rules.

If the player's side took only one hit, that hit may not be taken by a Lieutenant.
All the player's Units must be hit once before any Unit is hit twice.

If a side has no Daemon involved in the Combat, each hit Legion saves itself from destruction on a roll of 1. If there is a Daemon involved, a roll against the Daemon's Skulls saves the hit Legion. Several Daemons may not add up their skulls to improve the odds of saving their Units.

Hellhounds and Lieutenants always save themselves on a roll of 4 or less, regardless of any Daemons present.

Should a Hellhound lose its Minder, it will go on a Rampage and try to leave the Sectio. Roll one dice and use the Compass to see where it goes (as if the Hound was trying to flee). If the Hound does not leave the Sectio it will count as a separate side (see 16.5) for the rest of the Combat Phase.

(Continued from above.) Both players now try to save their Units:

Since the Beast has suffered four hits and has four Units each Unit takes one hit. He rolls against Ukobach's two Skulls of War for the Legions and against four for Verin the Lieutenant: Legion 1 2 = SAVE! Legion 2 1 = SAVE! Legion 3 4 = OUCH! Verin 3 = SAVE!

The Beast player throws away one of his Legions. Since there are no Mu Daemon present (Caim was distracted), the Mu player now has to roll one to save two hit Legions. (He wisely decided to not hit his Legions not minding the Hellhound.)

Legion A 3 = ARRRGGH!! Legion B 5 = GRRRGLH!!

The Mu player throws away two Legions. As neither side is in the mood to flee, they line up their Legions up for the next round. The Beast player has two Legions and a Lieutenant and the Mu player has two legions and a Hellhound. Without further ado the players go at it.

Mu rolls: Hellhound 5 (no more Frenzy) = 5 - MISS! Hellhound 4 - MISS! Hellhound 1 - MISS! Legion C 6 - HIT!

The Beast rolls: Legion 1 4 (+ 2 for Verin) = 6 - HIT! Legion 2 6 (+ 2 for Verin) = 8 - HIT!

The Beast has suffered one hit that he must take on one of his Legions. He rolls against Ukobach's two Skulls of War: Legion 1 1 = SAVE!

The Beast player smiles. The Mu player now has to roll one to save a hit Legion and four or less to save his Hound.

Legion C 3 = ARRRGGH!! Hellhound 6 = ARGH-WOFF!!!

The Mu player swears and removes another Legion and his beloved Hellhound. Things look grim on Sugar Hill.

11.2.4 Choosing to Flee

After each round of combat, any side may declare that it will try to flee. The order of these declarations is again decided by the Daemon with most Skulls of War. The flight is conducted as normal, but the Units may flee in any direction. As usual, all fleeing Units must keep on fleeing until they either fail to leave a Sectio or enters one that is free of enemy Units.

Note that these flights may create new combat situations that must be resolved later during the Combat Phase. This can create messy but perfectly legal situations. In an extreme case, a Unit may flee into a Sectio that is occupied, fail to leave it and cause a combat there, and then flee from that combat back to the Sectio it once fled from, causing a new combat there.

Should a Lieutenant find himself alone in a Sectio at the end of a Combat Round he must immediately try to flee. If he fails he is captured, destroyed and sent to the Return box.

Example: Fleeing. In the ADDICTION Sectio things are going badly for The Mu Triumvirate. Its three remaining Legions have decided to try to get away. If the Triumvirate had a Lieutenant in the Sectio, it could have made two rolls for direction, picking one, and allowing the Lieutenant to drag the Legions with him. But as things are, the Triumvirate must roll once for each Legion. The three rolls are 1, 4 and 5, meaning that one Legion flees to EXPLOITERS OF LAND AND SEA, one to SEA OF LARD and one doesn't get away at all. Furthermore, since a rampaging Hellhound is chasing its own tail in SEA OF LARD, (well, up until this very moment, anyway) the Legion that fled there must try to flee again. The poor Legion rolls a 5, meaning that it does not get away and that it will have to fight the Hellhound later in the Combat Phase.

11.2.5 Start New Combat Round

If there are still opposing Units remaining in the Sectio, a new Combat round starts. Once only one side remains, that side has won and the Combat in that Sectio is over.

11.3 Speedier Combas

In order to speed combat up simply drop the hit chance for all Combat Rolls in a round from 6 to 5 or 4. This is very usefull when you have lots of small Lieutentant-free fights going on all over the board and you just feel like getting on with things.

Special Case: Avoiding Combat

Special Case: Solitary Lieutenants

Special Case: Winners from several Triumvirates

Special Case: Rampaging Hellhounds. See chapter 16 for more details.

Some notes on fighting in Hell. The reason Units may leave combat in any direction is that combat in Hell is a rather chaotic thing with very little notion of such concepts as "front" and "rear." Daemons sometimes lead armies, but are powerful enough to survive through even the worst of disasters. The possibility of Lieutenants getting hit illustrates how close they are to the fighting, as well as how much more corporeal they are compared to their supreme commanders.

The Hellhounds can be thought of as the elephants used by ancient generals: tough, intimidating and hard to control. The roll to flee made by a Hellhound that has lost its Minder simulates the Hound trying to use its diminutive brain to decide whether to leave the violent commotion around it or to join in.

Freebooter Saves: Freebooters including a Lieutenant will use the Lieutenant's die roll bonus for saves.

12. Petitions

After all combats have been resolved, The First Fallen may give Triumvirates control of new Sectio, provided he can be persuaded that the Triumvirates have earned them. This mix of boasting, diplomacy and outright brown-nosing is known as "Making a Petition" or just "Petition".

This is the only time during play Triumvirates may assume Control of previously unclaimed Sectio or take over another Triumvirate's Sectio.

Each Triumvirate may petition for any number of Sectio each turn using one of the two methods described below. This can take place in any order the players wish. In order to petition for a Sectio, a player must have one or more Legions in the Sectio and there may be no unfriendly Units in it, be they Hellhounds or other player's Units. Players may Petition for Sectio which are unclaimed or currently belong to other players.

When a Sectio changes ownership, place the appropriate Player Marker in the Sectio's box and remove any other Player Marker. Also ensure that the new owner receives the proper Sectio card.

Example: Petitions. The Devourer of Worlds Triumvirate has won a battle in the LIARS Sectio and may therefore Petition for ownership, snatching it from the grasping hands of The Void Triumvirate. The Devourer of Worlds Triumvirate also has one Legion in each of the PARLIAMENT OF INTOLERANCE and FALSIFIERS Sectio. While the Devourer of Worlds claims ownership of the LIARS Sectio through victory in combat, it must spend a Favour for each of the other Sectio it desires to control through simple unopposed occupation.

Since the Triumvirate has only one Favour, it may Petition for only one of these two charming locales. Wishing to have two Sectio in the Circle of Fraud (remember, the object of The HellGame is to control an entire Circle), the player cashes in its Favour to Petition for the FALSIFIERS Sectio. The player places Player Markers in the LIARS and FALSIFIERS Sectio boxes on the map and receives the Sectio Cards that go with his new territories.

12.1 Petition Using Favours

If a player occupies a Sectio, he may Petition for that Sectio provided that he has a Favour to spare. In this case the Triumvirate cashes in a Favour and takes over control of the Sectio.

12.2 Petition Using "Victor's Right"

If a player occupies a Sectio, he may Petition for that Sectio provided that he won a combat in it (against anyone or anything that fought for at least one round before dying or fleeing). In this case, the Triumvirate simply takes control of the Sectio, provided the player successfully makes a Disfavour Roll. Having Units fleeing before you during movement is not considered a victory for these purposes.

12.3 Freebooters taking over Sectio

Should any Freebooter Units survive into this phase, they will take control of the Sectio they occupy.

13. The End Phase

Players first of all check if any player can be declared the winner. If this is the case, celebration is in order. If not, play continues, and players may carry out a few activities.

13.1 Getting Rid of Disfavours

Players may cash in Favours to get rid of Disfavours. This may be done at a ratio of two to one. That is, for each two Favours a player returns to the Treasurer, he may also return one Disfavour.

13.2 Recovering from Incapacitation

Incapacitated Daemons may roll to return back to normal. The die roll required is 5 or 6, unless the Incapacitating card says otherwise. Any other result and the Daemon remains Incapacitated until the next End Phase.

13.3 Clean Up

Put all Daemons' markers back to their proper places on the Rank Track. Remove bribes to Lieutenants, The Warning Sign and any other things that may clutter the board. You are now ready for a new turn.

Example: End Phase. The Beast Triumvirate is taking stock of the turn. No one has won the game, so it is time to clean up. For starters the Beast player removes two Souls she had placed as bribes on her favourite Lieutenant, and then she rolls to try to make poor Baal recover from being Incapacitated in the legendary jar of jam. The roll is a 4, so unfortunately Baal must stay in the jar for another turn. Then The Beast player uses two hard-earned Favours to get rid of a perfectly undeserved Disfavour. She is now ready for a new turn of The HellGame.

14. Favours and Disfavours

These represent a Triumvirate's standing in Lucifer's eyes. And as in most other places, a bad reputation is much harder to get rid of than a good one. While the effects and uses of Favours have been discussed in previous chapters, this chapter discusses how Disfavours cancel them out and generally bog down the suffering Triumvirate.

When it comes to Favours and Disfavours, what is considered good or bad in these Circles can be a bit tricky to understand. The First Fallen has a horrible temper, a strange sense of humour, and never forgets minor insults.

Furthermore, the ruling that one Disfavour equals two Favours is based on simple empirical research. As we all know, no matter how many good deeds you do each day, once you have become known as the person who once exposed himself in a public place, people will remember only that. You'll be the "flashing charity guy" for ages.

14.1 Effects of Disfavours During Play

Having Disfavours in hand creates five problems for the afflicted Triumvirate:

Each Disfavour binds one of the Triumvirate's Favours to it. That Favour may ONLY be used when cashing in Favours to get rid of that Disfavour.
A Daemon on Earth must now roll a successful Disfavour Roll to obtain a Favour during the Hell Phase.
When drawing Arcana Cards during the Hell Phase the player must now roll a successful Disfavour Roll to obtain each card.
When a player uses "Victor's Right" to claim a Sectio he must now roll a successful Disfavour Roll to have that claim recognised.
Having Disfavours in hand when the winner of The HellGame is determined puts a player at a disadvantage. See 5.0 for details.

Example: Favours and Disfavours. The Devourer of Worlds Triumvirate starts an Action Phase with one Favour. During the Action Phase the Triumvirate manages to collect another Favour by doing evil deeds but also gets a Disfavour from a slandering competitor. This means that one of the Triumvirate's two Favours is for all purposes blocked by the Disfavour and that during the Petitions Phase the Triumvirate may use only one Favour to get a new Sectio.

The Devourer Triumvirate may choose to live with its Disfavour for the time being. After all, they need only roll more than one to receive each new Arcana Card or petition for Sectio using Victor's Rights. Should the Triumvirate decide to get rid of the Disfavour, they may do so by cashing in the two Favours they have in hand.

14.2 How to Lose Disfavours

Disfavours are removed by cashing in two Favours as described in 13.1, using Arcana Cards, or by Atonement and Supplication as described in 9.7.2.

15. It Is All Lost!!!

15.1 All Daemons Dead or Incapacitated

If a Triumvirate is about to end the turn with all Daemons Incapacitated, The Morningstar will step in and revive one of them at random. Furthermore, should a Triumvirate end a turn with all it's Daemons destroyed, it will immediately be restarted with three new Daemons drawn at random.

Make no mistake thinking The Morningstar does these things out of kindness. It is all politics. Besides, constant conflict keeps Hell's inhabitants in shape.

15.2 Losing your Last Sectio

Should a Triumvirate lose its last Sectio at any point during the game, The First Fallen will immediately step in to even things out. The one Sectio currently containing the largest number of Units is given to the suffering Triumvirate, complete with all the Units in it and twice as many Souls as the Sectio would normally give a player in income.

Again, it is all politics.

15.3 Cursed Dice

Should any player manage to roll "1" on a die six consecutive times he instantly collects one Favour. These rolls do not need to take place during the same phase or even turn, as long as they are made in one row. (The logic behind this is that the Powers That Be feel that a Triumvirate with such abysmal luck needs a break.) This rule should only be used in games where players can be trusted to keep track of their rolls among all their other chores.

16. Special Cases

16.1 Not Enough Souls

Should the player lack the required number of Souls to pay his Units, the unpaid Units (player's choice) desert at the end of the Soul Phase to the Triumvirate who is the richest (in Souls). The deserting Legions demand pay from that Triumvirate and if that player refuses to spend one Soul per Legion to win them over, the Legions pass the offer on to the next richest Triumvirate, and so on. If no one wants them, the Units disband in disgust. Remove them from the board and return any accompanying Lieutenants to the Lieutenants "Return Box."

Losing Legions in this way causes the unfortunate Triumvirate suffer one Disfavour. Refusing to take on any deserting Legions will cause those players to suffer one Disfavour each.

16.2 Moving Solitary Lieutenants

Solitary lieutenants are treated somewhat differently from other Units when it comes to obstructing and being obstructed by other Units. A solitary Lieutenant may enter (sneak through) Sectio containing non-friendly Units without permission, but may not stop there.

Furthermore, should a marching or fleeing Unit enter a Sectio containing a solitary Lieutenant, the Lieutenant must immediately try to flee (roll two dice, pick one, as usual) and can therefore not interfere with the marching Unit's movement. Should a Lieutenant fail to flee in this situation (or when he tries to "flee on" from an occupied Sectio he fled to), he is captured and done away with. Place him in the "Returned" box.

For those having trouble understanding the workings of solitary lieutenants, it might be useful to remember that a solitary demonic warrior attracts less attention than six-times-six-hundred Legionaries or a tank-sized monstrosity with multiple heads.

16.3 Uriel and Lilith And Movement

No Unit may voluntarily enter a Sectio where Uriel is located, and any Unit fleeing into his Sectio is destroyed. Units may enter, but not pass through a Sectio with Lilith in it. Units may never try to flee from Lilith, but must flee from Uriel.

16.4 Macina

Some Arcana Cards have the word "Macina" printed at the top of the box describing the spell. A Macina card may be played like any other Arcana Card and is placed in front of the Player. The card will start to function (as described on the card) after "maintenance" has been paid in Souls during the next Soul Phase and will keep on working as long as maintenance is paid every Soul Phase. If the Macina is not maintained the card will remain in play but cease to function until maintenance is paid again.

The term "Macina" harks back to the Greek word for "lever" and is in Hell used to describe any device more complex than a mechanical can-opener. While most Daemons find mechanics and physics both amusing and interesting, they have a bit of trouble with the technological developments of the last two centuries. To most of them, steam-power is mechanical enough to make perfect sense, as is a motor car or an assault rifle. On the other hand, everything electric is more or less a mystery, not to mention even the basic concepts behind all things "micro", be it micro-chips, micro-biology or micro-waves.

16.5 Assigning Sides

When more than two Triumvirates have Units in the same combat situation, all Triumvirates must choose sides. The player with the most Units in the Sectio starts by naming one of the other Triumvirates he intends to fight. These two Triumvirates are now on opposing sides. The Triumvirate with the most Units that has not yet picked a side now chooses to join one of the opposing sides.

This way all participants will organise themselves into two opposing forces.

Freebooters and Rampaging Hellhounds each count as separate entities in these situations, and each use a die roll (fifty-fifty, regardless of the odds) to pick a side. This is rolled for once per Combat for any group of Freebooters, and each Combat Round for each Rampaging Hellhound.

Example: Assigning Sides. There are Units from three Triumvirates plus a rampaging Hellhound in ORGASTICA. The Key Triumvirate has four Units, the Devourer Triumvirate three Units and the Void Triumvirate one Unit. This means that the Key Triumvirate must start to choose whom to fight, and without hesitation the player vows to fight the Devourer Triumvirate. Since the Devourer has had its side in the fight chosen for it, the turn to choose now goes to the Void Triumvirate. The Void player decides to join the Key Triumvirate in its attack on the Devourer Triumvirate, leaving the Hellhound to choose sides by a die roll. The players decide that a roll of 1 to 3 will make the Hound join the Key/Void side and a roll of 4 to 6 will make it side with the Devourer. The roll is a 4, so for the first turn of the Combat the Hellhound will help the Devourer Triumvirate in its uphill struggle.

16.6 Winners from several Triumvirates

When a side formed by the procedure described above has won a combat, all fighting in the Sectio is over for the turn unless the former allies feel an urgent need to start fighting each other. There must of course be no Freebooters or Rampaging Hellhounds still alive in that Sectio.

16.7 Rampaging Hellhounds And Combat

Rampaging Hellhounds fight all and everyone in the Sectio they are in until either they or everyone else in the Sectio is destroyed. In cases where a Sectio contains nothing but Rampaging Hellhounds, one may speed things up by rolling as many dice for each Hound as it has attacks and adding up the scores. The highest scoring Hound is then declared Last Dog Barking and all others are removed. During combat Rampaging Hellhounds will always attack as many enemy Units as possible.

Finis

Cast of Characters

Sammael. Prince of Demons. Tempter of Eve. Lover of Lilith. Angel of Death.

Origin: Sammael is known from Hebrew folklore. He is sometimes mistaken for Lucifer and has consequently been blamed for starting The Revolt. This is giving him more credit than he deserves.

Career: In the beginning Sammael was the highest-ranking Throne Angel, and was therefore given the prestigious job of tempting Eve in Paradise. After playing a prominent role in the events that led to The Fall, Sammael had an affair with Eve's predecessor, Lilith, and fathered a lot of the creatures now inhabiting Hell. Later on, he most likely killed Moses before settling down to a life of excess and the occasional appearance as Judge or Harbinger of Death. He was last seen in London in the late 1890's.

Character: Known be very handsome, Sammael has six pairs of wings. He is devious, charming, totally devoid of morals, and has a weak spot for writers and young, dead men.

Symbols and attributes: A large sword, dripping of gall.

Baal. Grand Duke of Hell. Daemon of Thunderstorms and Hail. High General of the Infernal Armies. Supreme Dominator. Commander of Sixty-Six Legions. Knight of the Order of the Fly.

Origin: Baal appears time and time again in the Bible. But since the name means "Lord" in a very general sense, Baal is most likely a conglomeration of several gods turned into one seriously hostile entity.

Career: Early on Baal realised that being a Daemon suited him, and his fondness for human sacrifices has made him a scourge throughout history. He has never abandoned his native Middle East and is still active there, especially during times of war. In the 1980's he held court in Beirut for a while, and he is still worshiped in remote parts of Syria and Anatolia.

Character: Baal is regal, sophisticated and egoistic, and enjoys war and magicians. He is known to be bloated and obese, while having thin, spidery legs. He teaches his disciples stratagems and instructs them on how to become invisible.

Symbols and attributes: Thunderbolts as well as bull's horns. Some people also claim that he (as well as most other Daemons) has three heads. This, however, is just a medieval stereotype that caught on sometime around the year 950 when triplet heads was fashionable among Daemonkind. The whole fad soon went out of fashion when it was discovered that no creature could stay sane while having to cope with three separate brains. Once that was finally settled, Daemonkind then applied themselves to the task of staging the Crusades.

Asmodeus. Goddess of Lust. Sister of Kain. Mistress of Succubi and Incubi. Mistress of Lies. Madam of Hell's Gambling Halls. Inventor of French Fashion. Commander of Seventy-Two Legions.

Origin: Asmodeus' background is shrouded in contradictions. Most likely she was one of the Seraphim, originally male, and known in Hebrew mythology as Ashmedai, "the destroyer."

Career: Early in her career, Asmodeus was tasked with slaying men who entered marriage only out of lust. She had a tendency to get carried away, and on one occasion she killed seven men who lusted after a righteous young girl. She later took the role as the prime advocate of lust, inspiring men to betray their wives and brothers to fight to the death over sinful women. She is still active and was last seen in New York in 1981.

Character: Beautiful and charming, and possessing a strange sense of humour, Asmodeus likes the Fine Arts. She revels in all acts motivated by desire for pleasure.

Symbols and attributes: Known to use both dragons and swords as her attributes, but has recently taken to use various brands of clothing and perfumes as her "trademarks."

Moloch. The Abomination of the Ammonites. Daemon of Fire. Devourer of the Canaanite Children. Bringer of Plagues. Lord of the Land of Tears. Devil of Pain and Sadness. Knight of the Order of the Fly.

Origin: Like Baal, Moloch was one of the Hebrew's archenemies, and is also most likely a conglomerate of several fire, sun and fertility gods turned into one nasty monstrosity. It might even be that the Punic "mlk" is the word for "sacrifice" rather than a specific god.

Career: Unlike Baal, Moloch never quite managed to come to terms with his Daemonhood, something that has made him slightly unstable. He has, for instance, become quite convinced that humans burned in his honour are somehow transformed into angels. When he does not unleash raging fires (for no reason whatsoever), Moloch will on occasion try to redeem himself. These attempts at redemption have all been spectacular failures: among other things, Moloch has been credited for unintentionally bringing about the Black Death and the Russian Revolution. Since the early 1930's he has mostly been brooding.

Character: The "sphinx of cement and aluminium" is known for both his lousy temper, fits of mindless rage, and a rather overactive imagination. He is seldom lucid these days.

Symbols and attributes: Fires of all kinds.

Beelzebub. Lord of Flies. Chief of false gods. Sovereign Ruler of the Infernal Empire. Grand Master of the Order of the Fly. Commander of Fifty-Nine Legions.

Origin: Beelzebub is one of the few Daemons to be frequently featured in the Bible, and was originally the God of the Philistine town of Ekron. His role in The Fall is unclear.

Career: Beelzebub has always been around and was recognised very early as one of Lucifer's most prominent and energetic Lieutenants. Despite this, Beelzebub has always followed his own rather erratic agenda, being powerful enough to do as he pleases as long as he doesn't get directly in the way of the First Fallen. (The True Hell cult of 1890's Lapland which envisioned a newer and better Hell under Beelzebub's aegis was not of his creation.) He was very active in Europe during the Middle Ages and has often been involved in spectacular possessions, the best known being the case of the nuns of Loudun. He is still hard at work and was last seen in 1998 harassing clergy in Bern.

Character: Described as bloated and horrible, and from time to time attributed with bat wings, flaming nostrils and almost any other inhuman feature imaginable. He is quite tasteless and enjoys all things destructive. He is overbearing, brutish and just plain mean.

Symbols and attributes: Any monstrous attribute will do. Beelzebub is not that fussy.

In the deepest pit of Hell, Dante claims that the three ultimate sinners are forever being gnawed on by one of Lucifer's three heads. Besides the fact that this is not at all the case, Dante's choice of The Ultimate Sinners may be a bit surprising to modern readers. Apart from the obvious choice of Judas Iscariot, M. Junius Brutus, the prime instigator of Caesar's murder, might not strike one as the foulest of persons. And Cassius (G. Cassius Longinus, d. 42 BC), who was involved in the same plot to kill Caesar, is practically unknown these days. But these two guys had whacked Caesar, a man who would later enjoy superhero status in medieval Italy. Caesar was most likely one of Dante's heroes.

In reality The First Fallen has only one head and would not even consider such a menial task as gnawing on someone for time eternal. Besides that, who deserves the title of "Ultimate Sinner" is an open question among Hell's inhabitants. As attitudes have changed so have the choices, but Dante did get one thing right: bent popes have always been among Hell's favourites.

It is worth noting that Pontius Pilate, Governour of Judea and Samarita from 26 to 36 AD, never went to Hell for his involvement in certain tragic and unfortunate events. According to all Roman sources, Pilate was an abominable character. But fingering a Roman as the Bad Guy of a faith that at the time was being sold to those very same Romans was judged to be a Very Bad Idea by all involved. His case was dropped. He disappeared into obscurity after being sacked for cruelty and embezzlement by Emperor Tiberius, something that was actually considered an achievement of sorts in his circles.

Ashtaroth. Goddess of Lust and Sloth. Princess of Accusers and Inquisitors. Treasurer of Hell. Commander of Forty Legions. Knight of the Order of the Fly.

Origin: Ashtaroth (Astagoth) is Inanna, the Sumerian Goddess of love and war, later known as Astarte. Corrupted beyond recognition, some misogynistic medieval scholars even made her male.

Career: Ashtaroth is the sister of Ereshkigal and bride of Thamuz. She was very early made a Duchess of Hell and given the title Princess of Thrones. She was intimately involved in the court of the Roman Empire and later enjoyed making monks bury themselves alive to avoid temptation. Being a slothful creature, she has never been particularly active, unless some very interesting summoner has called her. For instance, Madame de Montespan, Louis XVI's mistress, reputedly made human sacrifices to Ashtaroth to obtain influence over the king.

Character: Described as being half black, half white and quite beautiful, Ashtaroth is most fond of doing nothing.

Symbols and attributes: An eight-pointed star. Venus.

Most scholars agree that Daemons are impossible to kill. Some scholars have further reached the conclusion that Daemons live for about 9570 years. Just how they did that is hard to tell. However, considering these same scholars agree that Creation in it's entirety took place in late October 4004 BC, we could conclude that all Daemons will die in 5566 AD. In Hell, this apocalyptic event is referred to simply as "The Big One".

Belphegor. Lord of Discovery and Invention. God of Licentiousness.

Origin: Originally Baal-Phegor, "The Lord of Mount Phegor," a fertility god worshipped by the Moabites.

Career: Despite being worshipped in the form of a phallus and often being depicted as a monster sitting on a lavatory, Belphegor prefers to walk the Earth in the form of a rather ordinary looking woman. He does this a lot since she enjoys humankind in an almost philanthropic way. Belphegor supports the thesis that Man's undoing is in his own acts, and he likes to meddle with scientists and inventors. Lately, Belphegor is known to have been the mistress of several of the men involved in the Manhattan Project.

Character: No matter what form he is seen in, Belphegor has very fine nails and an air of flatulence about her. He is clever and curious and is known to give her conjurers gifts of discovery and ingenious invention.

Symbols and attributes: Any kind of (preferably big) phallic symbol or a pile of steaming excrement.

Orias. Great Marquis. Daemon of Divination. Protector of Astrologers. The brother of Nybbas.

Origin: Of obscure Babylonian origins, Orias knows many things about the future and some people suspect that he invented astrology. This is of course completely wrong. As we all know, astrology originated in Sumeria and has somehow survived five millennia despite both human and divine efforts to dismiss it as nonsense.

Career: Before The Fall, Orias knew all too well what was about to happen but kept quiet about it, something that brought him down as well. After the Fall, Orias has served the First Fallen as his astrologer and has from time to time made extended journeys among mankind. During these sojourns he is known to have inspired John to write the Revelations and to have taught Robert Johnson how to play guitar. Orias has in later years grown fond of the Montemartre area of Paris.

Character: A tall, dark and foreboding figure with eyes in the palms of his hands. Aloof and dry-humoured, Orias contemplates the past and the future. Convinced that no one can handle the future that he knows all too well, he still enjoys letting humans see glimpses of it.

Symbols and attributes: Two snakes.

Thamuz. Infernal ambassador to Spain. Inventor of artillery and instigator of the Inquisition. Commander of Fifty Legions.

Origin: Originally Dumuzi, Thamuz belongs to the same group of Akkadian/Sumerian deities as his sometime bride, Ashtaroth. Being kingly, hedonistic and boastful, he was demonised in no time.

Career: In the beginning, Thamuz assumed the function of Daemon of Wanton Lust, but eventually got bored with all the fainting maidens. (According to some sources he was forced to change aspect after he tried to seduce Asmodeus and had to spend a few hundred years reassembling his manhood. The same sources claim that inventing artillery brought him back into favour.) Finding the Goths interesting, Thamuz eventually found himself in Spain and decided to stay there. He has since taken great enjoyment in Spanish culture, befriending all kinds of people from Queen Isabella to Goya. He was last seen in Catalonia in 1938.

Character: Devious, charming and passionate, Thamuz loves Spain, women and debauchery, but not necessarily in that order. He likes to dress up as a bullfighter.

Symbols and attributes: A wreath of flowers.

Caim. Grand President of Hell. The Sophist. The Black Bird.

Origin: One of the 72 Spirits of Salomon. Or an Angel. Or both.

Career: After taking the path of least resistance during the Fall, Caim found herself picking a new career as Sammael's spy master. (It was during this period that Caim's sex seems to have been decided upon, shifting from slightly male to somewhat female. This probably had to do with Caim's realisation that even sane male beings are prone to act like idiots in front of a fair woman.) Over the years Caim has founded several secret societies, most of them ending disastrously, and is known to have trained John Dee, Elisabeth the First's magician.

Character: Pale, androgynous and skinny, Caim enjoys intellectual arguments immensely and revels in making philosophers despair. She also understands the speech of animals and the sounds of waves.

Symbols and attributes: Associated with birds (mostly Blackbirds).

Agares. Grand Duke of the Eastern Regions of Hell. Commander of Thirty-One Legions.

Origin: Also Aguares. One of the Order of the Virtues, Agares seem to have lost any sense of gender over the ages. This bothers some people, but Agares does not care.

Career: Fond of dancing and war, Agares represents the Eastern parts of the world and has been known to skilfully mingle with both Chinese Emperors and Mongol Khans. Acting subtly behind the scenes, it has through the ages protected many warlords and helped them win great victories. Since Agares is hard to spot, its whereabouts is a bit of a mystery, but it is known to have been involved in such later events as the Boxer Rebellion and last century's wars in Indochina.

Character: Agares is a plain character (some would say it has no character at all). It prefers to be that way since it believes that the artist is less interesting than the art.

Symbols and attributes: Often rides a crocodile. Lizards and hawks are its symbols.

Just to straighten things out: there is no Purgatory where minor sinners can roast for a while before going to Heaven. Medieval monks came up with the whole arrangement when it occurred to them that the moral standards they had developed were impossible to uphold, even for themselves. Hence started the practice of keeping a balance sheet of one's sins and good deeds. You would always know how many years of fiery agony you could expect if for some unexpected reason you would die next Tuesday. This in turn led to the practice among dying nobles of dubious morals of settling their Heavenly scores by giving massive gifts to the church. This has made a lot of churches very pretty and very rich and has also become a great source of amusement for the denizens of Hell.

Balban. Demon of Delusion. Mistress of the Beast. The Messenger.

Origin: Originally from Persia, Balban (or Balbon) was one of Ahriman's mistresses and was known to Hebrew scholars as "The Beast's Bitch." The Hindi know her as Shakti, Shiva's perpetually orgasmic mistress.

Career: It is not clear how Balban was made to join the Infernal pantheon, but she was eventually sent to cause misery among "Tommas' Christians" in Southern India. After she got bored setting off civil wars, Balban moved on and briefly resided in the Indian Court, reputedly fathering the King bearing her name. She has since moved on, never really settling down anywhere - one of the reasons being that the worshipers she gathers tend to die at an alarming rate. She is known to enjoy asylums and other such places, and was also seen in Lubjianka in the late 1950's.

Character: Jaded and constantly bored, Balban is something of a thrill seeker. She currently likes to appear as a shivaesque dominatrix.

Symbols and attributes: An enormous, unseeing eye. A leach.

Gomory. Duchess. Temptress of Temple Maids.

Origin: Gomory was reputedly conceived when Lilith tried to seduce Eve, something that is denied by all parties involved. Her name may somehow be related to Gomorrah, and according to some stories she was a goddess of that town.

Career: Forsaking her talent for telling the future and finding lost treasures, Gomory has spent most of her career corrupting young women. Since she is very good at this and enjoys it immensely, no one, including Gomory herself, can think of any reason why she should bother with anything else. Other than Beelzebub, she is one of the Daemons most frequently involved in cases of possession. She has been frequently seen in California over the last few decades, indulging in her newly acquired taste for young actresses.

Character: Skinny and slightly neurotic, Gomory enjoys her niche of depravity and is also known to own a priceless collection of Roman pornography. It amuses her a lot to appear dressed as a nun.

Symbols and attributes: A white lily.

The fact that Hell with its nine circles is not built to conform to the famous "seven deadly sins" or the Seven Heavens might seem odd to some people. Attempts to explain this discrepancy include blaming Matthew and his preoccupation with the number seven; claims that Hell, being mostly stolen from Babylonian myth, was built using sexadecimal math; and the flawed numerological theory that the 63 corners of the Dead Sign of Mu fit together in seven groups or "chapters", each made up of nine corners. The fact is that there is no deeper truth behind this other than Lucifer's desire to have "more levels" in his realm.

The "deadly" sins are a relatively new and rather Catholic invention. The idea is that there are two kinds of sins: "forgivable" minor sins and "deadly" major ones. And while the latter will send you to straight to Hell, the former can eventually be redeemed by prayer and good deeds.

To mess this up, the deadly sins themselves are actually emotions, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. For example, if they both want more money, are not the beggar and the millionaire both guilty of Greed? On top of that, the whole concept of "redeemable" minor sins went to the dogs the moment a crafty monk said, "Dreamt of the neighbour's wife, did you? That will be five prayers. And for a modest sum we can say them for you." It was just a matter of time before someone would show up and ask the going price for starting a war.

Ereshkigal. Goddess of the Netherworld. Insatiable Mistress of Decaying Flesh.

Origin: Formerly the Babylonian goddess of night and decay. In the rites surrounding the coming and going of the seasons, she impaled the sister of Ashtaroth on a meat hook.

Career: As times changed and her older worshipers died out, Ereshkigal went mad, most likely because she was no longer part of a cosmology that gave her destructiveness reason to exist. Without that rationale she became mindless destruction incarnate, which drove her to bury herself alive in Hell's muddy catacombs. Try as she might, she did not die, and has remained in the mud ever since. The raw psychic energy generated by her constant nervous breakdowns makes the lower regions of Hell an exceptionally dangerous place. Ereshkigal seldom leaves Hell, although the only thing actually preventing her from doing so is her own fear.

Character: Totally out of her head most of the time, Ereshkigal spends her days mired in dirt, somehow sustaining herself by eating the muck in which she has submerged herself. In her lucid moments she is wrathful and rude, and enjoys exposing her horribly bloated body to anyone in sight.

Symbols and attributes: Filth and nudity. A meat hook.

Paymon. Master of Ceremonies of the Infernal Regions. Knight of the Order of the Fly.

Origin: Of obscure, pre-Islamic Arab origin. How Paymon wound up in Hell is not known.

Career: Paymon has always been at the Infernal Court and has over the ages accumulated a great following of Daemons and other fallen souls. This despite the fact that he has little real influence with the First Fallen, and his primary task is to keep beings from bothering his Lord at all. Obsessed with rank and protocol, Paymon constantly struggles to keep order among the Daemonic Nobility, and it is no secret that he is fond of bribes and gifts. His ambition has made him many enemies, especially among the old school biblical Daemons, who consider him to be a vulgar upstart. Since it is believed Paymon has his master's ear, he has over the ages been seen on Earth a lot. For instance he is known to have haunted Alistair Crowley's Bolestine Manor in 1900, causing Crowley's servants to run away. His last known appearance being in Warsaw in 1988.

Character: Paymon is fussy and mad about status and insignia, often to the point were everything but proper procedure becomes insignificant. Lacking all taste, he wears both a beard and thick, vulgar make-up. He speaks far too loud.

Symbols and attributes: Sometimes symbolised by a crowned dromedary. Or depicted riding one.

Zagam. Grand King and President of Hell. Demon of Counterfeit. Commander of Thirty Legions.

Origin: Of unknown origin. Some claim that he was somehow born out of Lucifer's mirror.

Career: Before the invention of coinage, Zagam was just a minor, rather irritating daemon, fond of turning things into their opposites. He has since taken a great interest in the more shady sides of the monetary economy. He is known to have been an advisor to several Roman emperors, Diocletian among them, as well as being intimately involved in the development of the mercantile system, befriending among others, the Fugger Family. Lately Zagam has been one of the few major Daemons to take any interest in computers, and was seen a lot in California during the 1990's.

Character: Zagam is known to be clever and devious, but somewhat single minded. Enjoying fine things of all kinds, he usually appears as a man with a bull's head dressed in elegant but slightly outdated clothes. Zagam is also known to have one of the largest collections of forged art in the world.

Symbols and attributes: Coins and mirrors. A Janus-faced man.

Ukobach. Lesser Daemon. Lord of the Marches. Inventor of fireworks and fried foods.

Origin: Originally a wicked Khazar fire deity of low status. When her worshipers all of a sudden converted en masse to Judaism, Ukobach was rescued from obscurity by Beelzebub and has remained very loyal to him ever since.

Career: Since she entered Hell, Ukobach has been hard at work carving out a niche for herself as the Meanest Daemon. Fond of coming up with innovative methods of torture, Ukobach allegedly discovered the art of frying meat during a particularly gruesome torture session. These achievements aside, Ukobach's career has been a long stretch of outrages, taking place mainly in Hell. But she is also known to have held court in Haiti during the rebellions of the early 1800's, where some people claim she invented Voodoo.

Character: Despite the fact that she prefers to appear as a huge female cook, and is cheerful, noisy and fond of burlesque jokes, Ukobach is evil in the meanest sort of way. Besides a casual interest in spicy cooking, she mainly enjoys inflicting excruciating pain and causing misery.

Symbols and attributes: Anything bloated and fat.

Prufflas. Grand Prince and Grand Duke. Former Ruler of Babylon. Commander of Twenty-Two Legions.

Origin: Once an owl-headed Babylonian deity worshiped by various royal families.

Career: After he had been the driving force behind the military might of the Assyrian empires, Prufflas went into retirement. He most likely did so since he was convinced he had caused man to do its destructive worst, a conclusion that soon turned out to be premature. Since then Prufflas has been through the very same cycle time and time again, each time with more sophisticated means creating more significant destruction. Prufflas was last seen on the Gumrak airfield outside Stalingrad in early 1943.

Character: Mounted on an enormous horse, Prufflas looks very much like the eternal intellectual officer, despite his square Babylonian beard. He has an obsessive passion for warfare and cares about very little else.

Symbols and attributes: Various martial badges.

Andras. God of Quarrels. Grand Marquis of Hell. Commander of Thirty Legions.

Origin: A lesser angel. Claims to have provoked Lucifer into starting the Revolt in Heaven.

Career: Andras has always been very active and has meddled in things both large and small since the dawn of time. Since his favourite pastime is getting friends to kill each other, he is quite unpopular in most circles. Being shunned in Hell he therefore spends a lot of time on Earth causing calamities and discord. Among the many wicked things he enjoys is impersonating religious leaders and saying horrible things in the name of this or that belief. As this is being written, he is known to be at large in the Philippines.

Character: Andras is a deplorable character, even as Daemons go. He usually appears as a quite heavy-set man with an owl's head.

Symbols and attributes: A black wolf.

Xaphan. Baroness. Keeper of the Furnaces of Hell. Daemon of Arsonists.

Origin: An angel. During the revolt in Heaven, Xaphan managed to shock all involved when she argued that the Morningstar ought to set fire to the Heavens and get it all over with.

Career: In the early days of Hell, Xaphan tried to fire its furnaces using lava from the depths of the Earth. The experiment left her terribly disfigured, and some say she decided to appear as female during the millennia it took her to rebuild at least part of her once angelic looks. Responsible for the daily maintenance of Hell, she seldom leaves her laboratories. No one knows as much as she does about the Inferno's mazes and corridors. She is known to have invented the humidor, but her long running project to connect Hell directly to Earth using long tunnels has so far led only to spectacular disasters. She is known to have shown a keen interest in the work of Marie Curie and claims that she often visited the great scientist.

Character: Imaginative and innovative, Xaphan considers herself something of a scientist and delights in solving problems in unexpected and violent ways. Consequently she is fond of fellow female scientists as well as anyone that can challenge her to solve a truly complex problem. She is very testy about her rather patched looks.

Symbols and attributes: A pair of crossed bellows.

Naburos. Marquis of the Empire. Protector of the Gates of Hell. Keeper of Dilmun.

Origin: Most people think Naburos (or Nabueiros, or Nabarus) grew out of Hell's ashen soil when Lucifer got bored with keeping track of Hell's sprawling geography by himself. Another theory is that he was a lesser angel trusted with the key to Paradise, but wanted the place for himself and was damned for his selfishness.

Career: Throughout the ages Naburos has been Lucifer's loyal servant, but has received little recognition for this. Neither has he amassed a great following, mostly because of his own lack of ambition. He has seldom walked the Earth since few things there seem to attract his attention. The one exception to this is his keen interest in massive bureaucracies. One of his few known escapades on Earth is his involvement in setting up Charles the Bold's Burgundian dukedom in the late 15th century.

Character: Looking the part of an elegant clerk, Naburos is somewhat withdrawn and always busy with some endless administrative task. He is known to be fond of dogs and claims to have either created or fathered Cerberos. Most Daemons regard this as a boring clerk's desperate attempt to make himself sound interesting.

Symbols and attributes: A Raven. Various keys.

Some further notes on Pontius Pilate: As previously mentioned Pilate disappeared into obscurity after being recalled to Rome in 36 (?) AD and there are three different theories concerning his fate. The Roman sources speak little of him, but it is believed that he committed suicide to avoid being sentenced to death by Tiberius. Medieval lore also has Pilate committing suicide, but when his dead body was thrown into the Tiber, the daemons in it became restless. The shaken Romans then retrieved it and took it to Helvetica (Switzerland) where it was sunk into a small lake. Supposedly Pilate's ghost appears there once a year, and if you see it, you'll die before the year is out. A 16th century law in the Lucerne and Unterwalden cantons forbids anyone from throwing stones into the lake for fear of Pilate's ghost bringing a tempest on the country. Last but not least, the Coptic Church considers Pilate to be a martyr (celebrated on June 25) that was most likely killed by Nero in 69 AD and the Greek Orthodox Church considers his wife, Claudia Procula, to be a saint. Regardless of the details both churches agree that the couple repented, converted and lived peacefully until the end of their days. This is in both cases based on "The Acts of Pilate", one of the Pseudepigrapha (part of the Gospel of Nicodemus).

Mt. Pilate in Switzerland is 2,073 meters high.