Location from baldurs-gate-3 by Larian Studios
The first layer of the Nine Hells — a blasted hellscape of blood war battlefields and infernal machinery where Karlach served as a soldier under Zariel before escaping with a devil's engine for a heart.
Avernus is where hope goes to be weaponized. The landscape is scorched earth, rivers of blood, and war machines that grind souls into ammunition. Zariel rules as Archdevil, waging the eternal Blood War against demonkind with conscripted soldiers — some willing, most not. Karlach spent a decade here as a forced combatant, her heart replaced with an Infernal Engine that makes her a living weapon but is slowly burning her alive. Avernus isn't a place you visit in BG3 — it's a place that visits you, through Karlach's trauma, through Wyll's patron, through the infernal contracts that keep surfacing in the story. The threat of returning hangs over Karlach's entire arc: without a fix for her engine, Avernus is the only place that won't kill her. Some fates are worse than death.
Also known as: The Hells, Nine Hells, First Layer of Hell, Hell