A shroud of darkness blankets the world. Smoke and brimstone spews from the yawning gates of Inferno, enveloping the lands where people have abandoned God and openly wage war against His Creation. It is a grim reality that a full third of humanity has bent its knee before the idols of Hell. The main military force of Satan on Earth is the Heretic Legions, raised from amongst these citizens of the damned.
Under special absolution from the Cardinal Protector, many spies have been dispatched into Hell’s domains over the years. Most are never seen again, though the eternally screaming heads of some have been returned to New Antioch, branded with bleeding runes that mock the Holy Trinity.
Yet some do make it back to the light, whispering of the horrors they have witnessed: of firstborn cast into the mouths of the burning statues of Baal and human flesh sold by the pound in dreadful markets. They speak of the great idols of the Golden Calf and rapturous men and women who prostrate themselves before them, carving layers of their own flesh in ecstatic offering. Inverted pyramids and towers plunge into the depths of these cities, built of iron and black stone. Within these pits stand sacrificial altars where weeping captives are slowly sliced to death over agonising days and weeks with wicked knives made of infernal basalt. Cathedrals to the Princes of Hell hang from great arches of volcanic stone, while condemned are crucified on hundreds of upside-down crosses.
