#this is a disjointed mess but I have many concepts I can't quite organize yet

[eldritch-spouse]

Does Perdition have a day / night cycle? How does everyone track the passing of time? I imagine there's no sun and stars visible. Does time pass differently there, compared to on Earth?

Are the annexes of the rings separated magically in the same way Perdition is separated from Earth? Like, does it require special transport or magic to go from ring to ring?

If you haven't worked out all the particulars yet I'm happy for a partial answer. Good luck with your exams and I hope you do great! <3

Perdition has a day/night cycle, of roughly the same duration as the one the surface exhibits, though this is more of a recent societal development, as time was tracked differently before Hell made efforts to absorb and appropriate many of the surfaces' customs. The passage of time itself is identical, though again, it wasn't always this way.

Neither sun nor moon or even stars can be seen from the skies of Perdition. And while each Ring has its own peculiar tint to the gaseous mass that is suspended in its air, days and nights tend to be darker than they are on the surface, so there's plenty of artificial illumination in areas that cater to non-demonoids. What you see when you look at the skies during the "day" are amorphous cloud-like structures and strange flickers of illumination that sometimes come from the movements of the Rings themselves.

In fact, although the concept of seasons in Hell is quite diminished, the oscillation of each Ring around its other counterparts causes shocks that produce a similar effect to "weather"- Even if snow or coldness in general is basically nonexistent in Hell as a whole, there are still windy months or extremely sweltering weeks, for example. The duration and effects of these "mini-seasons" are always a little unpredictable, even with the best infernal meteorologists around to advise everyone.

The passage of time is not usually tracked simply by glancing at the skies. Well, natives might be able to do this easily, but foreigners might find themselves thinking it's late evening when it's dawn. You're better off using a watch or app that is attuned to each Ring's "timezone". Not that the difference tends to be very jarring from each dominion to the other.

None of the Rings are physically connected to each other, although they exist spacially very close to one another. This makes invasions and wars extremely chaotic, as one might imagine. The main method of transportation from Ring to Ring ends up being rifts. This is a type of magic you may recall the triplets happen to be extremely and unusually adept at, but it normally takes many years of arduous study and practice to perfect these. To make sure a rift can stay active for prolonged periods of time, handle heavy transportations and remain fixed in one location, said rift has to be maintained frequently. What ends up happening is that there exist "main rifts" in each of the Hells, a service which most residents use, sparing themselves the trouble of having to learn how to create these transportation methods.

The Icons can create these a lot more easily than a common demon, but they prefer to be formally summoned through formal sigilry. It's just etiquette, you know?