In the standard cosmology

Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...

 of the Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 role-playing game

Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

, Pandemonium (or, the Windswept Depths of Pandemonium) is the Outer plane

Outer Plane

In the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, an Outer Plane is one of a number of general types of planes of existence. They can also be referred to as godly planes, spiritual planes or divine planes. The Outer Planes are home to beings such as deities and otherworldly creatures such as...

 where Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral petitioners are sent after death. Pandemonium is a large, complex cavern that never ends. Compounding this problem, howling wind

Wind

Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...

s drive most of its residents mad

Mental illness

A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...

. There are few creatures that are native to this plane; those individuals who do live there usually have no choice in the matter. It is one of a number of alignment-based Outer Planes that form part of the standard Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) cosmology, used in the Planescape

Planescape

Planescape is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, originally designed by Zeb Cook. The Planescape setting was published in 1994...

, Greyhawk

Greyhawk

Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game...

and some editions of the Forgotten Realms

Forgotten Realms

The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories...

campaign settings.

In the Planescape campaign setting

Campaign setting

A campaign setting is usually a fictional world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame campaign. A campaign is a series of individual adventures, and a campaign setting is the world in which such adventures and campaigns take place...

, Pandemonium houses the headquarters for the Bleak Cabal faction.

Layers

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

The gnoll

Gnoll

A gnoll or gnole is a fictional humanoid creature - a cross between a gnome and a troll. They first appeared in Lord Dunsany's story in The Book of Wonder: How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art upon the Gnoles and subsequently reappeared in Margaret St. Clair's, The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles...

 deity Gorellik

Gorellik

In many campaign settings for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Gorellik is the gnoll deity of hunting, hyenas, and hyaenodons. It was he who taught gnolls to tame hyenadons for purposes of hunting...

 wanders throughout Pandemonium.

• Norebo
  Norebo
  In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Norebo is the Suel god of Luck, Gambling, and Risks. His symbol is a pair of eight-sided dice.-Publication history:...
  
  's realm is in Pandemonium.

Pandesmos

Pandesmos is the largest and (relatively) most hospitable of the layers. The headwaters for the Styx

Styx (mythology)

The Styx is a river in Greek mythology that formed the boundary between Earth and the Underworld . It circles the Underworld nine times...

 are found here.

Pandesmos is the location of a number of godly realms, including Loki

Loki

In Norse mythology, Loki or Loke is a god or jötunn . Loki is the son of Fárbauti and Laufey, and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. By the jötunn Angrboða, Loki is the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr. By his wife Sigyn, Loki is the father of Nari or Narfi...

 and Auril

Auril

Auril, the Frostmaiden, is the goddess of cold and winter in the Forgotten Realms, for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.-Publication history:...

's realm of Winter's Delight, Talos' realm of Towers of Ruin, and Ho Masubi's realm of Uchi-bi.

Cocytus

Cocytus is also known as the "layer of lamentation", for this is where the winds are the strongest.

Cocytus is the location of a number of godly realms, including the god Erythnul

Erythnul

In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting and the default pantheon of deities for the third edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Erythnul is the Oeridian god of hate, envy, malice, panic, ugliness, and slaughter. He is known as the Many, and is worshipped by many gnoll,...

's realm of the Fields of Malice, the bugbear

Bugbear (Dungeons & Dragons)

The bugbear is a type of fictional monster for player characters to encounter in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.A bugbear is depicted as a massive humanoid distantly related to goblins and hobgoblins...

 deity Hruggek

Hruggek

In many campaign settings for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Hruggek is the chief deity of bugbears, the deity of violence and combat. His symbol is a morningstar.-Publication history:Hruggek was created by James M...

's realm of Hruggekolohk, Cyric

Cyric

Cyric is a deity in the fictional Forgotten Realms campaign setting, a branch of Dungeons & Dragons. Cyric has many titles, including the Prince of Lies, the Dark Sun, the Black Sun, the Mad God, and the Lord of Three Crowns...

's realm of the Shattered Castle.

Phlegethon

Phelgethon is the location of a number of godly realms, including the Queen of Air and Darkness's realm of the Unseelie Court, Zeboim

Zeboim

Zeboim can refer to a number of things:* Zeboim , the biblical meaning* Zeboim , a location in the game Xenogears* Zeboim , a Goddess from Dragonlance...

's realm of The Maelstrom, and the derro

Derro (Dungeons & Dragons)

The derro are a fictional species of monstrous humanoids in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. They were first devised for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition adventure Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth...

 deity Diirinka

Diirinka

In many campaign settings for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Diirinka is the derro deity of magic, savants, knowledge, and cruelty. His symbol is a spiral of gray, black, and white...

's realm of Hidden Betrayal.

Agathion

Agathion is the deepest area of Pandemonium and is generally sealed off from the rest of the plane. Where Pandesmos has wide-open caverns, Agathion has narrow caves that eventually dwindle to pocket spaces within the infinite rock. It is said that deities use these sealed off areas, which are nearly impossible to get to, to store indestructible artifacts or deity-level monsters that could not be killed. Entry to these pocket areas is notoriously hard; each space only has one portal in and out, while some areas are so ancient that their portal could have been destroyed eons past.

Historical inspiration

The name Pandemonium comes from Pandæmonium

Pandæmonium (Paradise Lost)

Pandæmonium is the capital of Hell in the epic poem Paradise Lost by the 17th century English poet John Milton."Pandæmonium" stems from Greek "παν", meaning "all" or "every", and "δαιμόνιον", meaning "little spirit" or "little angel", or, as Christians interpreted it, "little daemon", and later,...

, the capital of Hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

 in John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

's Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

. The name means "all-demons" in Greek.

The Styx

Styx

In Greek mythology the Styx is the river that forms the boundary between the underworld and the world of the living, as well as a goddess and a nymph that represents the river.Styx may also refer to:-Popular culture:...

, Cocytus

Cocytus

Cocytus or Kokytos, meaning "the river of wailing" , is a river in the underworld in Greek mythology. Cocytus flows into the river Acheron, across which dwells the underworld, the mythological abode of the dead. There are five rivers encircling Hades...

, and Phlegethon

Phlegethon

In Greek mythology, the river Phlegethon or Pyriphlegethon was one of the five rivers in the infernal regions of the underworld, along with the rivers Styx, Lethe, Cocytus, and Acheron...

 are rivers from Hades in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, and Cocytus is also the name of the lowest level of Hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

 in The Divine Comedy.