Jangling Hiter

Colloquially known as the City of Chains or Torture City, Jangling Hiter has hit upon a bizarre solution to its infirm foundations. A network of jagged, razor-augmented chains rises from a series of slimy posts positioned throughout the city to the underside of Dis, the layer above Minauros. The residents of Jangling Hiter regard this feat of engineering with a remarkable lack of curiosity. To ask what holds the posts in place or how exactly the other ends were attached to Dis is to reveal oneself as a foreigner and therefore a potential victim.

Jangling Hiter is populated mostly by chain devils. Pain devils, their chief rivals as torture masters, are distinctly unwelcome here. In massive, factory-style installations, kytons fillet the souls of the damned with long-honed precision. Hiter's kytons are so famously skilled at their craft that other archdukes—most notably Asmodeus and Levistus—farm out much of their soul-torturing work to them. Thus, tumbrels bearing raw or processed souls teeter regularly into and out of the city. In Jangling Hiter, transport is an industry second only to torture.

So many souls are tormented here that their agonized shrieks constitute a harrowing form of noise pollution. Undercover adventurers traveling in the city risk exposing themselves by reacting to the screams with fear or pity.  Once every 1d6 hours, the combined groans of the tortured rise to a crescendo, necessitating a Will save from any nonevil characters. On a failure, the character is visibly horrified, and any observer can readily penetrate her guise. (These checks need not be attempted if the characters are safely unobserved at the time a check is called for.) The DCs for these saves vary by alignment, as given on the following table.

Alignment—DC
Chaotic good—35
Chaotic neutral—30
Lawful good—25
Lawful neutral—15
Neutral good—30
True neutral—20

The city is divided into three neighborhoods: the Fiend, Merchant, and Visitors Districts.

The Fiend District: Every guidebook warns even the best-protected planar tourists not to venture into this area. A popular pastime in Torture City is to chase foolish new arrivals until they stupidly attempt to escape by climbing up
the chains. Bellowing laughter ensues as the victims slash themselves to ribbons. Any creature climbing the chains takes 2d8 points of damage per round.

The Merchant District: If any part of Jangling Hiter can be called safe, it's the Merchant District. Traders, some of whom ply their wares across the planes, are granted limited bills of safe passage sponsored by the influential devils with whom they trade. A devil that bothers a protected trader incurs the wrath of that individual's diabolical business partner. Unfortunately, the frequency of demotions in Minauros can mean a sudden loss of protection should a patron suddenly be reduced from barbed devil to mewling nupperibo. Because of this risk, merchants employ entourages of easily swayed, expendable mortals as spiritual decoys. Their hope is that the resident devils will spend their time corrupting these hapless nobodies and leave their masters in peace.

The Visitors District: Travelers who have improbably made it into the heart of Minauros without bills of passage are kindly invited to stay in the Visitors District. Those who know its nicknames—the Abattoir, or Meat District—give it a wide berth.

City Layout

A basic layout of Jangling Hiter appears on the accompanying map. The named areas are described below.

Gate: A clattering, clanging metal gate bangs constantly in the wind, providing an incessant percussive accompaniment for the city's activities. The wall, which has been breached elsewhere, is no longer actively guarded.

The Sluice: This broad avenue into the city runs through the heart of the Meat District. Troughs in the street run slightly toward the middle of the city, where a rusty metal grate drains away the blood spilled when city residents feast on unprotected mortals.

Broken Wall/Dump: The city's forbidding stone walls exist for decoration only, as proven by this 1,500-foot-long breach in the wall. The rancid refuse piled here attracts squirming hordes of fiendish vermin.

Stone Devil: This 30-foot-tall stone pit fiend is not a statue; it is all that remains of a former ruler of the city who failed to deliver his soul production quota. Mammon petrified him as punishment, then enlarged him to serve as a towering reminder to others of the consequences of failure. Once a year, on the anniversary of the pit fiend's downfall, the statue weeps tears of smoking bile.

Sagirsa's Monument: This statue is a mammoth sculpture of the city's present ruler, the paeliryon Sagirsa. Superstitious minor devils believe they can increase their chances of advancement by leaving offerings in the statue's cupped hands.