Six Hells

You know where I've never taken my players?  Hell.

Hell (at least for the purposes of this post) is a place of supernatural punishment.  The condemned aren't necessarily dead, they've just pissed off a god or other powerful supernatural being and been sent away to suffer forever.  They could potentially escape, or be rescued, or even revolt and take over the damn place.  Imagine Hell as a stronghold for a cross-planes game!

Here are six concepts for places of supernatural punishment that are awful, but not necessarily so awful that player characters won't have time to come up with a plan together.

1. The Bubble
   An air-filled bubble at the floor of a boundless ocean.  A dusty road winds around, over and past itself, forming an endless loop.  Condemned are forced to march without food or rest by harpies with whips.  Periodically, sea leviathans break through the encircling wall of force in search of food.  The harpies beat them back, but any condemned who are injured in the attacks are forced to walk or drag themselves without treatment or any kind of assistance until their wounds heal.  They can't die here.
2. The Chimney
   The condemned are imprisoned in cramped cages that swing on the end of thick chains together like bunches of grapes.  Things like monkeys swing from the bars and climb around the outside, occasionally swiping at the occupants with razor claws. Below is a landscape of fire and ash, sluggishly flowing lava rivers, and thick acrid smoke.  Vast living shapes move purposefully in the darkness like hills of flesh outlined against the firelight.  Sometimes clouds of cinders billow up from below to singe flesh.  The real punishment here is boredom.  For all the awful nature of the place, the condemned are stuck in their cages, watching it.
3. The Ice Caves
   A cavern with an icy floor.  Wolves chase the condemned across the ice sheets, which crack and spall under their feet.  Move too slow, and the wolves catch up.  Death is painful, but temporary.  Move too fast and the floor shatters, sending them tumbling down amidst the frozen boulders to sprawl across a lower floor.  They have only a moment before the howling starts again and they have to struggle to their feet, which sends new cracks racing across the ice.
4. The Labyrinth
   A confused and back-turning maze of rusted iron and ice, sentient but blind and continually hunting for the condemned with other senses.  When it finds them, it creates monsters or twists its walls and corridors into traps that crush and sever.  Hours later, the victims are reborn from metal compartments that dump them back in the maze.  The worst aspect of the labyrinth is the knowledge that there's an exit and if you find it, you can simply walk out and free.  But you probably never will.  No-one else has.
5. The Leviathan
   The condemned are on an island in the stomach of a colossal beast.  They're under constant attack from parasites native to the leviathan's digestive system.  If injured, they mutate into parasites themselves, compelled to join the next attacking wave.  A fatal injury mutates them back into condemned and they have to wade ashore before the leviathan's digestive juices or parasites injure them again.  In between attacks, the condemned build what fortifications they can out of debris the great beast swallows.  They know the next time it feeds there will be an avalanche of wreckage from its throat, smashing their defences and bringing more condemned.
6. The Past
   The condemned are forced to endlessly repeat their final battle.  They know the outcome, but their limbs carry out the scripted actions against their will.  The only freedom is the short period at the end of the battle when the field turns back time and resets for the next set-piece.  It may be only minutes or an hour before the magic takes hold of them and they're forced to march back to their positions for the next play-through.