Just some more character concepts for southern gothic hell, a few of the supporting demons. The seven major demons who would appear in the story each represent one of the seven deadly sins because, naturally, that’s the way you do things in stories like this.

Pride: Big Daddy Scratch, plantation owner. Mysteriously vanished, possibly deceased, at the start of the story. Left behind his sprawling estate and his granddaughter Kitty.

Scratch’s theme: Man in the Long Black Coat (Steve Hackett)

Greed: Judge Mammon, corrupt judge and politician. Current guardian of Kitty Scratch and trustee of Scratch’s plantation in the absence of a will. Has most of hell in his pocket.

Mammon’s there: Superstition (Blanche)

Sloth: Doc Astaroth, traveling patent medicine huckster. I was really unsure how what Fauknerian archetype should represent sloth in this story. My initial concepts were as either the town drunk or some sort of effeminate fop, but ultimately I liked the snake oil salesman idea best. I know that’s more of a western trope, but Astaroth has a bit of a voodoo flair here, because I needed to work that in somewhere. It’s rather a non-taditional sloth depiction, but the idea isn’t so much that she’s slothful in being lazy as she’s being slothful in shirking honest work.

Astaroth’s theme: A Demon Like Me (Blair Crimmins and the Hookers)

Lust: Madam Leviathan, proprietor of a floating riverboat casino/brothel on the river Styx. I was just talking to trickunicorn the other day about how obnoxious it was when people depict six of the sins as gross ugly guys and then lust as a TOTALLY SEXY WOMAN. And then I went and kind of did that. Leviathan isn’t overtly sexualized. Besides, I think it makes more sense to have lust as someone who’s peddling sex and facilitating lust rather than as random horny person.

Leviathan’s theme: Hadestown (Anais Mitchell)

Gluttony: Mama Abaddon, Kitty Scratch’s mammy. Yeah, I know. She’s the matronly cook who’s always plying her charge with treats. She has pac-man eyes because of RACIST 1920s CARTOONS.

Abaddon’s theme: Y’all Motherfuckers Need Jesus (Goddamn Gallows)

Wrath: General Asmodeus, confederate general in The War of Downward Aggression. I based his look on a photo of some confederate soldier I saw online, I forget who, but that guy’s nose was obviously smaller.

Asmodeus’ theme: Let’s Go Kill that Bastard (Ravenous soundtrack)

Envy: Parson Belphegor. This was a tough one, you can’t have a southern gothic story without a fire-and-brimstone preacher and I really liked the irony of having churches and sermons and Jesus freakery in hell. He’s a grasping, wheedling old man always desperately prattling about salvation, the one thing you can’t get as a demon, so he seemed to fit for envy.

Belphegor’s theme: When the Man Comes Around (Johnny Cash)