When you start to compare several different sources, it's pretty clear that there are multiple terms that are used pretty interchangeably to describe the same place (or the same kind of place, or a multitude of several - possibly connected - places, but we'll get to that). Here's a rundown of several major sources and the words they use to describe the place(s) in question:

- “the thousand Hells” are mentioned several times in And Peace Shall Sleep (e.g. p. 197)

- 'Chef’s Surprise' in Distant Planes mentions the terms “the underworld” (p. 56), "Hell", and, more precisely, “this particular one of the thousand hells” (p. 64) as well as ”an underworld” and, in case you needed even more clarification, “this disgusting little hell, which is just one of many, many disgusting little hells” (p. 75). The ruler of the place is strongly implied to be a Lord of the Pit, although the story itself never calls him that (he’s referred to as a “Pit Lord” in the short blurb at the beginning of the anthology, though). He's called Vincent btw (yes, really)

- 'Dual Loyalties' in Distant Planes pretty consistently calls it Hell, but the Demonic Tutor who features prominently in the story (yes, really) refers to black mana as “nether energy” at one point (p. 206)

- 'Angel of Vengeance' in The Colors of Magic calls it "the Pit", and, finally, "the Abyss"

- Perhaps the oldest mention of the term "Abyss" as a synonym for Hell in Magic - but certainly an important one - is on the old calendar blurb for The Wretched where it is said that they are "reputed to come fom the Abyss": http://www.magiclibrarities.net/1117-17 ... tml#return


Let's have a look at how the cards themselves use the terms I just mentioned:



Now, "nether" seems to be the odd one out here. I'm fully aware that "nether" and a lot of those other terms are fairly generic and that I'm retroactively trying to make sense of things like card names and flavour text that probably weren't created with a perfectly consistent cosmological meaning in mind, but when you look at those "nether" cards, there's a pretty clear pattern to them. They all seem to more or less point in the direction of a realm of disembodied spirits rather than a hell-like place like the others, and it's especially clear with Tormented Soul (flavour text), Netherborn Altar (uses soul counters) and Call to the Netherworld (returns black creatures from the graveyard). The last one is interesting because it raises black creatures specifically, and all cards with "nether" in their text are in fact black, which would fit perfectly with the fact that black mana is called "nether energy" in 'Dual Loyalties'. Nether Horror is implied in the flavour text to have originated from a nightmare and might be similar to Netherborn Phalanx. While there is some fuzziness to this whole thing, it would seem that there is a dark, black aligned place (or places) full of tormented souls/spirits. That would actually fit another line in 'Dual Loyalties' that would support this interpretation. The same Demonic Tutor who refers to black mana as nether energy also mentions “voids in which many souls wander, lost and raving” in a different context (Distant Planes, p. 207).

It's not quite clear how the Nether Void fits into the bigger picture here. In the comic Ice Age #2, Leshrac transports himself, Taysir and Kristina to a featureless place that is called "the Nether Void" where it's harder to cast spells, but this is identified as an enchantment (like the card it's based on) when it's destroyed by Kristina's Tranquility spell. I guess we shouldn't read too much into this since those comics just tried to cram as many card references as possible into the available space (and very gameplay-oriented ones at that) and the two volumes of Ice Age in particular have been partly replaced in the canon by the later novels. The broad strokes of the battle on the Null Moon must have happened, I'm just saying that one reference to Nether Void isn't all that helpful. Then again, the old calendar blurb for Nether Void makes it clear that the card represents a spell that transports people to another world, so I guess Leshrac just used an enchantment to access the actual Nether Void ("This spell moves dueling wizards to another world, one where the laws of magic and nature are radically different and mana is far harder to gather and control." http://www.magiclibrarities.net/1117-17 ... ml#return).

Here's a little footnote that I'm also going to mention here because I don't know where else to put it. Since I've been talking about possible connections of both Greensleeves' Abyss and some hypothetical black-aligned Netherworld to sleep/dreams/nightmares, let me also point out other hypothetical dreamrealms, namely, well, "the dreamrealms" that are mentioned on Phantasmal Forces: "These beings embody the essence of true heroes long dead. Summoned from the dreamrealms, they rise to meet their enemies." As mysterious as that sounds, that alone might not be worth mentioning. The calender blurb for Phantasmal Forces, however, has another juicy nugget to offer: "Many scholars believe the Phantasmal Forces are a manifestation of the war spirits that are bound into the Serra angels. Some even report seing the phantasms flying with angels high above the Domains." (http://www.magiclibrarities.net/1118-17533-rarities-tuesday-october-7-zoom-card.html#return). There is truly a lot more going on than the eye can see in the nooks and crannies of Magic's cosmology! No idea whether or how those dreamrealms would connect to the spooky black nightmare stuff, or whether those are somehow a part of the dreamrealms at large. Let's not even get into things like the Cabal's Dementia Space, or the fact that Nightmare is a creature type in Magic...

Now that we've separated this nether stuff from the actual concept of Hell in Magic, I should also point out that there are almost certainly two different places called "the Abyss". One seems to be a synonym for Hell (see above), the other appears to be a different kind of animal that's actually represented by the card The Abyss and that's featured in the novel Final Sacrifice. In a nutshell, it's where Greensleeves sends the Ur-Drago to get rid of it, and we are given the following descriptions:

“It [the Ur-Drago] had to be sent away, so far no human or living thing would ever suffer it again. Greensleeves knew such a place, a dark hole full of fear she’d found in her dreams. She knew it well, for she steered clear of it. [...] So she muttered her spell, an unsummoning spell combined with a distant reaching, a reaching for somewhere so far away she went cold inside to consider it. [...] If she muffed this spell, became hypnotized by the vastness of it, she’d be the one to fall forever” (Final Sacrifice, p. 92)

“This was the abyss, an infinite well of darkness that lay – Greensleeves knew not where. Between worlds? Between planes? Between life and death? Between reality and dream? There was no way to tell. Only in her darkest haunted dreams had Greensleeves glimpsed the abyss, and always she’d recoiled from it as if from a great height, and survived to wake the next morning shivering” (Final Sacrifice, p. 93)

The funny thing is that this place is also implied to have a connection to dreams (like Nether Horror), but it's pretty clear to me that this isn't the hell-like Abyss where demons dwell and where Belzenlok is from. Greensleeves' Abyss seems to be nothing but a black, well, abyss where you keep on falling forever. Maybe the author had that falling sensation in mind that you sometimes get when you're falling asleep. For what it's worth, Brady Dommermuth has implied that The Abyss is a plane, although it's not quite clear which version he was talking about: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2005-06-01

Since he was referring to the Abyss shown on the card, I'm guessing he was talking about Greensleeves' Abyss rather than Belzenlok's, although it's safe to call the latter a plane as well. Oh, and Liana of Minorad battles Ravidel in a place called the Abyss in Wayfarer, but that scene isn't all that helpful either.

With all those names referring to that place, and some that probably don't refer to that place, what is said place actually like?

Well, to avoid some obvious misconceptions, here are some things that Hell in Magic is NOT (mostly judging by the two stories in Distant Planes as those have the only real descriptions of their repsective hells):

- it's NOT some sort of afterlife that dead people go to like Agyrem or the Underworld on Theros
- it's NOT just a subterranean space or cave system that exists as a physical location on a "normal" plane
- it's NOT just a normal plane (or collection of planes) in the multiverse that exists independently, like, say, Dominaria or Ravnica

The Hell in 'Chef's Surprise'

As mentioned above, this story features what is said to be only one of many Hells, the realm of the demon Vincent. Vincent’s realm actually has a sky with a sun and a moon and a day/night cycle (there's even a Bad Moon out one night, which greatly increases Vincent's mood). There's also a garbage chute that leads to the overworld, which in this case means somewhere on Dominaria. It's how the unsold copies of The Underworld Cookbook end up there. Also, those adorable Kitchen Impss as well as the Drudge Skeletons that we see on Discerning Taste are actually featured in this tory as well (the skeletons are terrible at washing dishes, though). Banshees and ghouls are a thing there, too, among other things. Vincent has various monstrous guests for dinner, but I'd say it's not quite clear whether or not those are rulers of other Hells, or how exactly different Hells are connected. There presumably has to be some connection between them since they are aware of each other's existence, though.

The Hell in 'Dual Loyalties'

I'd say this depiction of Hell is similar enough to the one discussed above that they could very well both be a part of the "thousand hells". This Hell has cities, an archduke (it's not quite clear whether he rules all of this Hell or what the exact hierarchy there is, but I assume he might be Vincet's counterpart in this particular Hell), dwarf-like bandits, drudge skeletons, zombies, gonfons (weird little ball-like creatures with teeth), banshees, rag men... There's a lot of overlap with Vincent's Hell when it comes to undead denizens, really. Mortal visitor's see some pretty trippy and disorienting illusions or mirages in some parts of this Hell that it takes some time to get used to.

There is one more character worth mentioning, however, and that is Boris Devilboon (no, not that one), who acts as a bogeyman for Hell’s children, and he and his “hordes of demons” are often sent to punish other demons for failure etc. Wait, did I say children? Yep. Here's the most shocking piece of information we learn in this story: There are demons in 'Dual Loyalties' who have mothers and fathers. Which would imply both the existence of female demons and the possibility of natural reproduction for demons. Let that sink in for a moment. Then again, Miss Highwater exists, we've heard about half-demons on Ravnica, the Azra are a thing now, and Malfegor says hi, too. IIRC, having children was also implied to be possible for humans and angels in Serra's Realm, at least with Serra's permission.

An important thing worth mentioning is that I don't believe the 'overworld' the human protagonist comes from is Dominaria, but some other random plane with some very strange metaphysics of its own. I already touched on this a bit when I covered this short story in my thread about Dominarian geography a while back, so I'll just copy-paste the details again:



If you haven't figured that out by now, 'Dual Loyalties' is one big acid trip of a story, but mostly in a cool way. Just keep in mind for now that the overworld we see here isn't Dominaria and the Hell it connects to is almost certainly a different one as well. Unlike 'Chef's Surprise', this story doesn't entirely gloss over the journey to Hell. The human protagonist is taken along for the ride by the abovementioned Demonic Tutor, who is able to transport them to Hell by means of a ritual in a burning pentagram (because of course that's how you do it!). The protagonist is able to get back to the overworld using the magic stones I mentioned above, along with her adoptive father and her winged pet dog (yes, really).

Further considerations

- Belzenlok is called "an Elder Demon from the dawn of time" and he does indeed have the Elder Demon type. We have no idea what exactly that is supposed to mean or who the other Elder Demons are, but I'd be shocked if one of them wasn't Mephistopheles.

- The Lord of the Pit in 'Unlikely Allies and Unjust Desserts' in The Monsters of Magic exclaims “by the sweet revenge of the dark lord and his minions” (p. 83). Which dark lord, though? Belzenlok? Mephistopheles? Boris Devilboon? I'd say if a Lord of the Pit has a dark lord above him, it could well be an Elder Demon of Belzenlok's caliber, though the hierarchy might be more complicated.

- In Time Streams (chapter 21 or p. 524 in the omnibus edition, emphasis mine), the narrator describes one of the floating islands on Serra’s Realm during the battle with Phyrexia from the perspective of the Weatherlight’s crew: “It seemed Hades or Sheol, a place of shadows, sunless land of the dead”. Add that to the fact that the original flavour text on Wall of Bone reads: "The Wall of Bone is said to be an aspect of the Great Wall in Hel, where the bones of all sinners wait for Ragnarok, when Hela will call them forth for the final battle." We kinda discussed the ins and outs of that in the Kaldheim thread where I already pointed out the part about Hades and Sheol being mentioned in a novel. Yeah, one of them is old flavour text from a time when cards would quote all sorts of real-world things, and the line in the novel is sssort of from the omniscient narrator's perspective, but considering Mephistopheles is a thing in Magic apparently, I wouldn't completely rule out that Hades, Sheol and Hel are all different Hells in the Multiverse. Not that I'd expect that to ever come up again either way.

- While I'm at it, I might as well get back to a suggestion or theory I've been waving around in regards to The Fallen. I'll just quote something I wrote in the thread about Magic's IP:



So, I did hit The Gathering Dark to check. They talk about the Fallen on pp. 236-237, but it's all very vague and there's nothing that would contradict my theory. In fact, the story of the Fallen is actually used as part of a rumour we know to be false, namely that Mairsil supposedly turned Lord Ith into one of them.

“Son of Valharad,” she said as she walked, her voice surrounding him like a chorus of crystal. [...] “Your time upon the earth is not yet complete. You must do one more task before you may drink with your forefathers in the Halls of Valor."

Vannemir was stunned. “So it is true? The tales of the great hall are true?”

“It is so.”

Vannemir hung his head. The thought that many who were dear to him, all those who had fallen in the countless battles against innumerable foes, were waiting for him to come and quaff flagons of ale and tell tales of bravery and blood, pulled at his very soul. “I am weary of battle, and I long to see my father again. I long to hear his laugh and to walk the fields with him.”

The Valkyrie put her hand upon him. “ I do not envy your kind, son of Valharad, for you live between worlds and suffer to gain the wisdom to awaken from your sleep. You walk the hard road of war and blood, knowing little and seeing less, and pain is your lot for it. But there are paths, even within the murderous realm of the age that you live in, paths that lead out of the blinding dark into a place not unlike the realm of the gods. It is one of these paths that you must now walk, and although the path is bloody, it shortens the darkness of your world by centuries.”