Pandemonium - Definition and Overview

Alternate meanings: See Pandæmonium

In the standard cosmology of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Pandemonium is the Outer plane where Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral petitioners are sent after death. Pandemonium is a large, complex cavern that never ends. Compounding this problem, howling winds that screech drive most that live there mad. There are few creatures that are native to this plane; those individuals who do live there usually have no choice in the matter.

In the Planescape campaign setting, Pandemonium houses the headquarters for the Bleak Cabal faction.

Each of the four layers of Pandemonium is successively deeper within the caverns.

1. Pandesmos is the largest and (relatively) most hospitable of the layers. The headwaters for the Styx are found here.
2. Cocytus is also known as the "layer of lamentation", for this is where the winds are the strongest.
3. Phlegethon
4. Agathion mainly contains holes, which double as portals to other planes.

Historical inspiration

The name Pandemonium comes from the capital of Hell in John Milton's Paradise Lost.