Inferno

Inferno is a nation on Devoted Hell well known for being the largest and longest lived nation on the server. It is famous for its shopping mall, soul speed racing track, and cute lava-front buildings.

Pre-History (December 28th, 2020-January 15th, 2021)
The idea of Inferno began almost as quickly as the server of Devoted Hell was announced, with prawny331 wanting to start a nation that could tide him and his friends over until the next version of CivEx came out. As Devoted Hell was aptly "Hell" themed, prawny331 decided to base his nation off of the description of hell from Dante's Inferno.There would be 9 circles, each a city in its own right with a Lord to rule over it, embodying each circle's respective sin.

prawny331 asked a gathered selection of his old FSA compatriots if any would like to join, and several responded they would like to. Some disagreed, as they were playing rival server CivUniverse that launched around the same time as Devoted Hell. Among the people who were to become Lords were SwordMaster7777, WNS2, IKEA_FRIDGE, and MrJeremyFisher, the latter two coming from prawny331's realms nation of Otonabee. prawny331 himself would also be a Lord, highest among them all.

They then would discuss plans of how they wanted to approach building the "9 Circles of Hell" and after much discussion came up with an acceptable design. In order to properly know how to survive this new version of the nether, they set up a survival world and played on it for a couple hours to get acquainted with the new items and mechanics. The day they had this survival preparation also happened to be the day the trailer dropped, and so all stopped what they were doing to watch the trailer part way through the session.

The Cursed First Day
Many players from Inferno showed up at the 1PM Pacific start time of the server on the opening day, the 15th of January. The lobby of the server had been open to the public for about 36 hours beforehand, and a couple of players had already done the lobby quests, which just left the portal to hell at the center of the lobby to be opened up so that the descent to hell could begin. The barriers to the portal were removed, and the dozens of players flooded down into the maw of hell, however, the portal didn't work. The players, unperturbed, kept jumping down into the portal, only to be teleported back up to fruitlessly try again. This led to the admins telling the players to run the command /worldspawn, which allowed the playerbase to actually enter the nether. As this hilarious event was completely unexpected, nobody recorded video of it happening. These brave pioneers were met with many bugs, a particularly laggy server, and a great trek north up to what they determined to be the most valuable shard: Cerberus. Many people spawned in A or B shard, so it took a great many hours for most to even get to C in the first place. The Inferno voice channel proved to be the one of the most popular voice channels on the discord on opening day, with a great many people proving for a bit of a hectic VC for the first several hours. A player named Coldboy had his game sounds on which could be heard through his mic with the addition of the narrator option turned on. This led to interjections of the phrase "Narrator narrates chat" which became a running joke for the day.

A location on the northern side of the shard in a warped forest was found that seemed good enough, However Arcation also desired to settle here. Two of their members came upon Ikea, who was in the area awaiting his fellow compatriots, with swords drawn intent to show force. Ikea then pulled out his diamond sword he found while looting surrounding nether structures in a show of greater force, though he was outnumbered. It was decided that it was better to just let Arcation have the location, and so Ikea peacefully went on his way.

Prawny331 and SwordMaster then entered the shard, having met up at the northern border of B shard and subsequently working together to navigate the treacherous terrain. They had seemingly found another good spot on the edge of a crimson forest, though it was also close to where another nation, Mercer, wanted to settle. They then proceeded to get murdered and pearled by a pvper from Mercer with an enchanted sword as prawny331 and SwordMaster were discussing the issue of Inferno and Mercer being too close with the leader of Mercer in voice chat, being the first people to be pearled on the server. They were quickly released and their stuff chested at the location, though prawny331 and Sword would have to randomspawn to find it again. The first place Sword respawned after being pearled actually proved to be a near perfect location, and they decided that this spot would be where Inferno was to be located. Luckily, nobody else was settling nearby. Everyone then slowly made their way there, and after 6 grueling hours, all the first day players had made it. The first house was constructed by Sadie on one of the upper levels, with the other settlers carving a cave into a basalt cliff which would become the central base of operations, and pretty it up with wood from the surrounding warped forest, making basic roads as necessary. Nothing except the chests and the respawn beacon were reinforced, as the netherbrick reinforcement was bugged, requiring one netherbrick block as opposed to the item. Not wanting to waste netherbrick, reinforcing would generally be avoided at this time, unless it was valuable enough to be reinforced with gold.

Sometime after the pioneers got settled, one of the many server crashes that plagued the server at this time fried namelayer to the point that nobody had any access to previously created groups, and so they had to play a few hours not being able to access any of the items they had collected. Luckily, new groups created after the crash worked, and this was used to store items in the meantime. Namelayer did not have a GUI at this time in addition to other problems, generally making the use of namelayer a scuffed experience compared to previous iterations.

A small monument was built where prawny331 and Sword were pearled in dedication of the event. It still stands there to this day. Mercer would later move to a different location, making that part of the odyssey near pointless, although Inferno did end up with a better location in the end.

The Great Grind
Despite the plans for the server to be pay to play, the admins decided that until they fixed all the problems plaguing the server, it would effectively be free to play in the immediate future. This allowed people who had bought/won subscriptions and those less fortunate alike to grind out the foundations of what Inferno would become. The first fruits of this long grind would be a series of basic factories to make coal and exotic building blocks, with preparations already made to start gathering goods for the more advanced factories. The various Inferno grinders would be hard at work gathering materials to fuel the budding nation, digging various mines, farming various food and XP goods, and chopping trees. Inferno Citizen Greltam proved to be an impressive grinder in this regard, rapidly chopping enough trees to be the first person to be able to buy bamboo from the jobs shop and being the top lumberjack on the server, a position he still keeps to this day.

A player named Grace would be recruited, with Grace having a silk touch pick looted from a bastion. This silk proved to be a boon that accelerated Inferno progress by at least a week, though the pick would stay longer than it's wielder, as Grace would raid the cave base after only a couple days. Grace was booted, but the diplomatic prawny331 managed to acquire the silk pick as recompense, and so overall this event would seemingly be a minor hiccup. However, this raid wouldn't be the first, and definitely not the worst. With this silk pick, enough ore was collected to make an ore smelter, the second to be made on the server. An intermediate XP factory would also be made at the same time, allowing for the first diamond tools to be enchanted. Among all the ores, redstone was surprisingly the hardest to collect for the ore smelter due to it's extreme rarity and terrible optimum y level.

Another citizen, Alberlb, dug a giant quarry right near base, a quarry that happened to encompass the optimum y levels for gold, diamond, and ancient debris. SwordMaster would construct the first major build project outside of the cave base in this quarry: a mall, complete with a ghast spawning arena in the middle and soul soil roads lining the length. He would build the first shop here, selling soul speed boots and books gained from piglin trades. This shop was pretty terrible and made no profit. JeremyFisher would design the Inferno flag at the behest of prawny331, one of the only nations to have a flag at this time besides Mercer. SwordMaster would be the first person to finish a house, and would begin to transition out of the communal living of the time.

Raiding and Building
Bad luck would strike Inferno, however, in the form of a serial raider named Pwigie. Pwigie had been raiding civ servers for years, and the Inferno crew quickly knew he was trouble, especially after he raided a couple other nations beforehand. This raider was particularly dangerous as he had an enchanted diamond sword, a weapon with the power to instakill practically every player due to the tech level being iron armor at best. His first strike would be on the 23rd of January, in which he killed Greltam in the cave base by sneaking into a broken window caused by a newfriend. He then proceeded to run away, but it appears he took a particular liking to Inferno and would soon return the next day. In the second strike, He came upon an unprepared WNS and SwordMaster, with the two Infernals unsure of what to do. WNS had grabbed several valuable items and managed to run away, logging off just outside of Inferno, not logging back in for the duration of the raid. SwordMaster was pearled.

Pwigie then had his fill trying to break into various chests, though he seemed to be unfocused and didn't do too much damage. He broke into the cave base and broke a chest with a great deal of warped wood, easily the greatest casualty of this second strike. He broke into Sword's house as well, though only broke a chest of fire pots. He dug into the chest vault, but did not attempt to steal anything from here when met with the resistance of diamond reinforced chests. SwordMaster, after dying enough times to cause the memory usage of minecraft to inflate dramatically, happened upon Inferno and distracted Pwigie for a solid 15 seconds. He would then have to play spawn roulette a second time, due to pearled players being disconnected from their respawn beacon. Pwigie also killed the Piglins that were being stored in the staffroom of the mall as a barter kiosk.The carnage was finally stopped when Greltam rolled up and shot Pwigie with a single arrow. Pwigie logged out immediately, and as combat tag had not been ported to the sharded setup in devoted hell, he vanished just outside of Sword's house. A logbox made out of obby and nether wart blocks would be constructed around the general area he logged out in, however because snitches were broken, the Infernals did not know exactly where he logged out, and so the logbox was way bigger than it should've been. This also unfortunately blocked off the tunnel up to Sword's house, and was genuinely pretty ugly. Sword would construct a second house soon after and connect the two with a gold block elevator. The Infernals waited for the raider to log back in, but Pwigie would not prove to be a nuisance at this time. As minimum damage was done overall, there was no need for any grand restoration projects, although it was determined that certain invaluable infrastructures should be rebuilt or remodeled to make them more secure from future raids. Among these was a replacement for the piglin bartering kiosk, an auto-barter that would automatically trade gold for precious resources.

Later that week, it was announced that there would be a build competition over the next weekend with build XP being tripled and the top 3 nations receiving prizes as Convoy wanted nice screenshots for advertisements. The Infernals determined that as they were one of the most active nations and had some decent builders, they would surely win one of the prizes if they put in the effort. Everyone started planning various builds, with the general theme being a lavafront town along the eastern edge of town on the level directly beneath the base. Through a combination of the efforts of prawny331, WNS, and Sword, various builds were constructed, including: a sea wall, strider docks, a library, a lighthouse, and a newfriend inn. The bridge to the dig site of the circles was prettied up as well, creating an overall excellent view to be proud of. The mall was also finished, adding a food court at the very end with a lookout over the nether wastes outside the mall. Greltam, having gathered sizeable wealth from his intense grinding, created an XP Exchange referred to as the "Void Shop". Despite the mall being relatively empty of shops otherwise, this would prove to be extremely popular with many of the server's denizens in the coming weeks. Greltam also constructed a small gambling kiosk and a soul speed race track in the mall, which entertained Convoy when he visited to judge.

Inferno would place third in this contest, winning a bit of netherite, some gold, and a few prismarine lanterns, all precious materials. A chicken spawn egg was also included, but chicken breeding technology had already been acquired at this time, although it was not effectively used. Alexandria, the second place winners, had grinded enough build levels to acquire trees through their effective leader, TTastic. As Inferno and Alexandria had friendly relations and shared materials in the past, Inferno was quickly able to acquire trees, which would also unlock bees and bee resources. Some other miletstones were achieved at this time, with Greltam being the second person to get a shulker box, the farmer Fuji first to get spider eyes, which would be helpful for potion making, and the creation of diamond armor and transportation factories. Things were going well and Inferno was improving at a good pace, but a few more roadblocks would stand in the way of the developing nation. Pwigie would later be pearled, returning after Inferno had progressed to diamond armour factories, by a coalition of allies lead by Mercer's 1drop, but not after threatening prawny331 in a DM, requesting a full set in exchange for leaving Inferno alone.

Digging to y32 (February 8th, 2021- March 19th, 2021)
With the base established, a site was chosen for the construction of the circles of hell. The lords of Inferno had been discussing how best to achieve this design, eventually settling on a circle of circles, with each circle roughly 25 blocks radius within a larger circle of radius 150. This would require a truly gargantuan effort to clear this space, but as much of the tech tree required large quantities of diamonds and netherite, mining would prove one of the most important grinding tasks. An inital goal was set to mine out from y128 down to y32, to cut the task into more managable pieces.

All mining was diverted to the site of the circles, with free enchanted picks and repairs granted to any citizens who took part in the mining operations. Development of the main base would not stop, however, with a public factory room and the creation of the disco bunker, a basic skybunker for advanced factories made of multicoloured glass. Access to this would be granted to trusted citizens and allies, due to the expense in setting up many factories, and the risk this posed. A lords' bunker at bedrock under Izalith, and another supply bunker made of honeycomb (as it was readily available and decently hard to break) was made at the centre of the dig site. Several build projects were completed in Izalith, with the construction of the Church of Cola around Diet_Cola's logbox, and an Oblivion Gate at the entrance of the 2048 turnoff. The name of the city was also chosen, with the citizens holding a vote to decide on their favoured name. Izalith was chosen, narrowly beating out Hell's Gate as the runner-up.

International works would continue, with Inferno being one of the first cities connected to the inter-shard superhighway called the 2048, that ran the length of all four shards at x2048. An alliance was created with the nations of Mercer, Carbon and Alexandria, jokingly named newFRIENDS. The existence of this alliance was not publicly distributed, but the alliance worked together on major progression points, sharing important factories and the resources needed to create these. International trade also boomed with Greltam's shop, and as time continued and activity dwindled, Inferno remained the primary active nation.

Monthly movie nights were held to build the circles, and these proved a roaring success, single-handledly boosting player population on the server. Between these and regular recruitment, including a print commisioned from Archie celebrating the circles of Hell, the addition of new players such as Kai, iFab and PIC's Mokman would supercharge digging progress. This recruitment would result in minor raiding, with one such new player making the trip to Helios to raid, causing a minor international incident. The player, DREAM_150, would be pearled by SwordMaster and brought to Inferno's only trial, where he was sentenced to a week's exile pearl.

Clearing the Lava (March 20th, 2021 - Present)
Progress down to this height was rapid, but the server's population continued to dwindle until Inferno was the sole active nation. At reaching lava height, the clearing of land slowed to a crawl. To date, only the bottom left quadrant was ever cleared, mostly by SwordMaster and Kai, who was promoted to be the lord of Heresy. Eventually all work halted, as the server died. Plans remain to return once more for a final movie night to celebrate everyone's time on the server.

Government
Inferno is an absolute Aristocracy, with lords chosen for their contributions to their nations by the perpetual lord of Treachery (the lowest circle of Hell), prawny331.

The Lords of Hell
Lords have higher discord access and access to a common lord's bunker, and act as judges in the Infernal Court. Each lord is encourage to exemplify the particular sin of their circle. It was originally planned that lords are granted responsibilities that align with their circles, such as newfriend recruitment for Limbo, or running the militia for Violence - but this plan was abandoned early on. Each lord is described in descending order

The Lord of Limbo
Limbo--a region on the edge of hell (limbus means "hem" or "border") for those who are not saved even though they did not sin - the residence of the Virtuous Pagans and Unbaptized Souls.

WNS2 is the lord of Limbo, taking this role early on in Inferno's development. WNS built the library of Inferno before going inactive to focus on his work in Amyr

The Lord of Lust
The lustful in hell, whose actions often led them and their lovers to death, are "carnal sinners who subordinate reason to desire"

SwordMaster7777 is the lord of Lust, being one of the first lords approached for the role. He was by far the most active lord, and was considered most like a second in command to prawny331. Sword worked extensively on the excavation of the circles of hell, and constructed Inferno mall and lighthouse.

The Lord of Gluttony
''(The) souls overindulged in food, drink, or something else in their lives. Their punishment is to wallow in disgusting mire created by eternally falling rain, hail, sleet, and snow.''

CAM_AL is the lord of Gluttony, and remained inactive for the nation's lifetime.

The Lord of Greed
''Their punishment is that they are rolling enormous weights at one another, the Wasters shouting, "Why do you hoard?" and the Hoarders shouting, "Why do you waste?" After they clash, the souls hurry their weights back again, only to repeat the action, all the while screaming.''

Greltam is the lord of Greed, taking over from dustyrayton1, due to his inactivity. Greltam was by far the biggest grinder in Inferno, constructing several massive farming complexes and running the exchange in the mall.

The Lord of Anger
''(Anger) is where the wrathful and sullen are punished for their sins. Transported on a boat by Phlegyas, Dante and Virgil see the furious fighting each other on the surface of the river Styx and the sullen gurgling beneath the surface of the water.''

IKEA_FRIDGE is the lord of Anger, taking the role at a similar time to WNS2 and SwordMaster. IKEA would remain partially active, helping defend Inferno in the Pwigie raids.

The Lord of Heresy
(In Heresy) Dante and Virgil see heretics who are condemned to eternity in flaming tombs.

Kai would be granted the role of the lord of Heresy, as it remained unfilled for much of the nation's history. Kai would be a very active member of Inferno, contributing massively to both the excavation of the circles and government spending, from frequent deaths in lava.

The Lord of Violence
"In the first round of the seventh circle, the murderers, war-makers, plunderers, and tyrants are immersed in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood and fire. Ciardi writes, "as they wallowed in blood during their lives, so they are immersed in the boiling blood forever, each according to the degree of his guilt"

ComradeRick would be granted the role of the lord of Violence in the final attempt to keep the server (and the nation) active, taking over from the inactive binchymonkey.

The Lord of Fraud
''Physically connected by bridges, the ditches of circle 8 contain fraudulent shades whose particular vices and actions similarly serve to interconnect the cantos and their themes in this part of the poem. Thus the pimps and seducers, whipped by horned demons in the first ditch, relate to the flatterers--disgustingly dipped in the excrement of the second ditch.''

MrJeremyFisher is the lord of Fraud, assisting with the development of several automatic farms and a snitch bot for Inferno, the latter of which was soon abandoned.

The Lord of Treachery
''At the base of the well, Dante finds himself within a large frozen lake: Cocytus, the Ninth Circle of Hell. Trapped in the ice, each according to his guilt, are punished sinners guilty of treachery against those with whom they had special relationships''

prawny331 is the sole lord of Treachery, running the nation.

The Infernal Court
This kangaroo court serves as the nation's justice system. Cases are considered more for show than an actual genuine system, as Inferno lacks both a constitution and any actual laws. Instead, the court operates off a moral/common sense standpoint to simplify proceedings and limit excessive technicalities. Court proceeds with each crime being assigned a judge from the relevant circle of hell the crime originates - for theft (Greed), murder (Violence) and so on.

Religion
The unofficial religion of Inferno is the Church of Diet Cola, a cult dedicated to the only admin who could save the people from the horrors of launch bugs. Diet frequented the burgeoning Inferno, later being logboxxed in the 'diet cage' just underneath the base. Diet would return to his cage to afk, allowing for citizens to pray and leave offerings. This logbox would later be turned into the site of the Church of Diet Cola, complete with a more extravagant cage to truly match his awesome power.

Diet remaining AFK in the city would frequently cause masses of magma cubes to spawn on the fringes of a basalt delta, inconveniencing several citizens.

Regions
Inferno is located in a layered warped forest between two lava lakes, and is spread out over several biomes.

Izalith
As the capital city of Inferno, Izalith is the largest and most populous. Being in a small warped forest biome, the city is arranged vertically around the large Izalith tower, split into several distinct floors, as well as the Lavafront and docks.

Upper Floors
The floors highest in the base contain the public factory, disco factory bunker and scattered housing. Here too is the temple of death, a structure built to contain ███ ██████.

Sadie Floor
Sadie floor contains Sadie's house, and is named as such as it was the first structure built. This floor contains Fuji Inc, a large wart farm, as well as a massive crimson vine farm.

Base Floor
The base floor contains the public storage and farms that make up the original Izalith base, as well as the soul speedway and access to Izalith's mall. This mall contains the sprawling Void shop and exchange, and is near SwordMaster's house and the piglin farm. Here too is the Church of Diet Cola, and access to the 2048 through the oblivion gate.

Topher Floor
This lower floor contains mostly housing, including Topher's massive incomplete house it is named for, as well as access to the Lavafront.

Lavafront
The lavafront contains WNS2's abandoned newfriend hotel (the Innferno) and the lava wall that runs to Izalith Library out over the lava lakes.

North Inferno
North Inferno contains Greltam's primary base of operations throughout a large nether fortress, with giant warped and crimson tree and vine farms.

The Circles of Hell
The circles of hell are off to the east of Izalith along the suspended bridge with direct access to the dig site.