Inferno Project

General metaphysical commitments: Hells are realms of the low umbra where mortal souls can go if they die, depending on their local metaphysics and the actions of mortals and demons in damning them. Besides the souls of the dead they are populated by indigenous spirits called demons. They are generally physical, even if made of ephemera.

General mechanical commitments: I'm weak at mechanics and trust GMs to pitch material at a level suitable for their players, so I'm not doing full statblocks.

The Golden City

The Golden City is a realm of beauty that sacrifices everything for art. Here are found the souls of those patrons who gave to the arts but not the poor, those artists who ruined themselves and others in pursuit of some ideal, those critics who blockade from acceptance all those who do not match their own preferences, and those who pursued 'beauty' on canvases that should never be so abused. Its lords and ladies in their mansions sponsor great artists to buttress their reputations, and great critics to destroy those of their opponents. In the Golden City the fall of an artist into madness and atrocity in search of inspiration is not only an expected part of the creative process - it is itself a clarion note in the beautiful tragedy of her life.

The Golden City is relatively physically safe for visitors, but the scars it leaves on their souls can be subtle and far-reaching.

Geography

The Golden City is indeed a city. A tall curtain wall surrounds it, shielding it from the Wasteland which it abuts in an unusual physical connection of Hells. Just inside the wall, the chaotic but well-kept slums and warrens of Lower Bohemia house the rabble of the city - hack artists, desperate performers and fraudulent back-alley academies all striving in poverty for fragments of precious recognition. No map of this place is consistent or reliable, as it is regularly overwritten by the grant architects and landscapers of the respectable districts.

The higher city has many regions. The Amber Districts all embody some perfected style, and protect it against the intrusion of ugly 'innovation'. The notables of these regions are some of the most reactionary and bigoted in all the low umbra, but are at least predictable in their tastes. They struggle for space against Platinum Eidos, the vision of tomorrow, which has upheld the ideal of the future from the futurist speed cult through postwar utopianism to the modern networked world. Besides these are districts given over to some particular artistic concern, such as the Pavilions of Autosculpture in which the possibilities of transformation of flesh are determinedly explored.

As a backstage to much of the wealthier city lies the Undercity. In this dismal warren run the menials and slaves who keep the facade of beauty running, appearing from their hidden entrances to clean, reorder and polish any damage before vanishing once more.

The golden city does not have any one style of architecture, but everything is architecture, striving for form (and not necessarily function).

Metaphysics

Ugliness is punished in the Golden City. Any working that is not aesthetically pleasing is vulgar without witnesses, any working that is flagrantly ugly is vulgar with witnesses. Mechanically, this might have the following consequences:

• The player must come up with a convincing stunt for why what they are doing is beautiful.
• The GM may require a relevant ability roll (such as perform or expression).
• Working out the artistic side of things may require additional time.

Even in the Golden City taste is relative, specifically relative to the views of local potentates. In a region with a clearly defined aesthetic paradigm such as an Amber District, or the Vicarage in Platinum Eidos, the working must adhere to those principles.

Personages

Dead souls in the Golden City will typically be found either scrabbling for a marginal existence and never-granted recognition, or being incorporated into the artwork of their betters. Ugly ones are forbidden by law from exposing themselves, beautiful ones are forbidden by law from concealing themselves - a law also likely to apply to visitors who cannot claim some kind of right of immunity.

Demons of the city are, of course, extraordinarily beautiful almost without exception. Their tastes tend to the rarified and esoteric, as do their charms, but most possess more than enough graceful lethality to unravel a crude mortal.

The aristocracy of the city are known as Patrons. Each has their own particular aesthetic vision, which they explore at the expense of the health, wealth, sanity and souls of others and themselves. They constantly jostle for credibility and power as arbiters of taste, and the associated power to elevate their allies and destroy their enemies. Not that their judgements are ever biased, of course.

The Vicar

The Patron of Platinum Eidos.

Locations

• The Oubliette is a forebidding brutalist structure which reflects no light, and serves as the city's central prison. Inside is utter darkness and silence, to conceal those who are offensive to the senses and so are condemned to toil here, unsensed.
• The House of Reflection concerns itself not with the production of art but its study and criticism. Within its mirrored halls are found immense libraries of impenetrable criticism one is expected to have read, educational and corrective facilities to improve those who have not. This is the domain of the City's most powerful and dangerous critics.
• The Iridescence is an underground independent and alternative venue. It takes the form of a burrowing insect carapaced in jewels and precious metals, which emerges impossibly from the architecture to nest in next season's hottest location. Whenever its new trend is in danger of hitting the mainstream, it sloughs off its carapace to leave a building shell and vanishes, to emerge elsewhere with a new angle and design.
• The Rosehip Coliseum showcases competitive physical arts, most notably martial arts, but also spectacles of dance or acrobatics, often lethal. Competitors in the arena are graded not on strength, but on style, a distinction that has doomed many a cocksure guest. It is quite possible to give one's life, and still win.
• The Ivory Tower is the highest-security prison and treasury (in the Golden City, where people are objects, these concepts are not firmly distinguished) of the Lord of the City. Thoughts, feelings and things not for the masses are interred here.

Loot

• The Ideal of Oneself is a fetish that preserves the youth, health and beauty of its beneficiary. The Ideal is an ornate but tasteful picture frame and canvas, which can be linked to by having ones portrait (willingly) painted in it. The one so depicted does not age, nor do they suffer disfigurement. Even the most horrific aggravated injuries can be healed without a trace, and so so quickly as if they were bashing damage (supernatural injuries with limited healing conditions are left to the discretion of the GM as to which force is the stronger). However, these deferred effects are transferred onto the portrait, and if it is destroyed or defaced they are immediately returned to the owner. Furthermore, the spirit in the portrait that gives it its powers is a fragment of the protraitee's own soul, and is under the influence of the powers of the City.
• Virgil is a drug that heightens all the senses, including the sense of pain. It grants +2 dice to all perception rolls, and appropriate rolls for artistic appreciation, but increases all wound penalties by 1. Virgil is highly addictive, and withdrawal takes the form of a miserable deadening of all sensation except the craving for more.
• A Muse is a type of familiar, appearing as a beautiful human of any age, sex and demeanour. Besides the typical functions of familiars, they are excellent artistic consultants, though their advice always ultimately leads in the direction of Descent. Muses mostly follow orders, but have true loyalty only to the aesthetic ideal, and are perfectly willing to lead other promising mortals onto the path of the sublime. And jealousy and wrath themselves can be excellent catalysts to the artistic growth of their masters.

Bavaria Megaragusa's Travel Guide

• The food is excellent but be very careful choosing - you don't want to eat something you wish you hadn't.
• Be prepared to sacrifice your dignity, but for God's sake don't let them know that's what you've done.
• Get an up-to-date style guide as soon as possible on arrival. You won't impress anyone if you're working from a book, but it'll keep the fashion police off your back for a bit.
• If you attract the attention of a critic, you may be able to distract them long enough to escape intact by speaking about something made up as if they should have heard of it.