In the furthest north, beyond the boundaries of sanity and the laws of nature, stands the wrecked gateway of the Old Ones, oozing with darkness and spewing forth mutating energy: the raw stuff of Chaos. It is a bleeding wound, a tear in the fabric of reality, a gateway into another dimension. The shattered gate appears as a great ring circled by stone machineries, dwarfing the mountains around it. It is covered in runes of unimaginable potency that glow in the darkness, their dancing shapes altering reality. From the dark reaches of the gateway pours out the winds of magic and mutating clouds of warpstone dust.
I am the way into the city of woe.
I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred Justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence,
Primordial love and ultimate intellect.
Only those elements Time cannot wear
Were made before me, and beyond Time I stand.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred Justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence,
Primordial love and ultimate intellect.
Only those elements Time cannot wear
Were made before me, and beyond Time I stand.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
— The Divine Comedy, "Inferno, Canto III", inscribed on the Gates of Hell
"There's never been anything like this before. Some of the friggin' California vamps tell me about something called a Hellmouth. This'll make their Hellmouth look like a dentist's nightmare."
— Vladislav, The Vampire of Steel
"Woe be unto him who opens one of the seven gateways to Hell, because through that gateway, evil will invade the world."
— The Book of Eibon, The Beyond
"There are 666 portals that connect this world to the other side. These are concealed from all human beings... But there are some who notice their existence. And some are willing to open the door and try to gain the power of darkness... Somewhere in Japan exists the 444th portal, known as The Forest of Resurrection. It was a long time ago when the evil soul uncovered its existence..."
It was a huge, hideous, dark expanse, and it had seething, weird edges; it took the lights pattering over them for me to see that the edges of the hole were enormous human teeth [...] The teeth shivered and trembled, like the hole was slavering. And that hole had nothing in it; that hole was blacker than space, that hole was an eaten-away tunnel of reality.
"Legend goes that somewhere beneath these mountains lies a gateway between heaven and hell. It is said that a sacred sisterhood guards this portal, and the power of their prayers keeps the damned from tormenting the living. Trouble with the damned is... they never stay put."
— Aman, Gallowwalkers
"It's not the girl, Peter, it's the building. Something terrible is about to enter our world, and this building is obviously the door."
— Egon Spengler, Ghostbusters (1984)
