GRAY WASTE OF HADES
It is where evil springs eternal.
It is a plane of endless apathy and despair.
It is the great battlefield of the Blood War.
Hades sits at the nadir of the lower planes, halfway between two races of fiends each bent on the other's annihilation. Thus, it often sees its gray plains darkened by vast armies of demons battling equally vast armies of devils who neither ask nor give quarter. If any plane defines the nature of true evil, it is the Gray Waste. In the Gray Waste of Hades, pure undiluted evil acts as a powerful spiritual force that drags all creatures down. Here, even the consuming rage of the Abyss and the devious plotting of the Nine Hells are subjugated to hopelessness. Apathy and despair seep into everything at the pole of evil. Hades slowly kills a visitor's dreams and desires, leaving the withered husk of what used to be a fiery sprit. Spend enough time in Hades, and visitors give up on things that used to matter, eventually giving in to total apathy. Hades has three layers called “glooms.” Uncaring malevolence that slowly crushes the spirit permeates each gloom.
HADES TRAITS[]
| Gravity | Normal |
| Time | Changes by layer |
| Shape & Size | Infinite, composed of countless layers Hades may extend infinitely, but its realms are finitely bounded. |
| Morphic Traits | Divinely Morphic (Only deities, or demigods can alter terrain) |
| Elemental Energy | None Dominant |
| Alignment | Neutral Evil Strongly Evil-Aligned: Nonevil characters in Hades suffer a –2 penalty on all Charisma-, Wisdom-, and Intelligence-based checks. |
| Magic | Apathy and despair are enhanced, while Resurrection magic fails unless cast by divine proxy or planar artifcat; |
Planuar Phenomenon[]
Entrapping Vile Transformation: This is a special trait unique to Hades, although Elysium has a similar entrapping trait. A nonoutsider in Hades experiences increasing apathy and despair while there. Colors become grayer and less vivid, sounds duller, and even the demeanor of companions seems to be more hateful. At the conclusion of every week spent in Hades or at the end of each long rest taken on the plane, any nonoutsider must make a will saving throw (DC 10 + the number of consecutive weeks in Hades). On a failed save, the creature gains one level of exhaustion, which can’t be removed while the creature remains in Hades. If the creature reaches six levels of exhaustion, it doesn’t die. Instead, the creature permanently transforms into a larva, whereupon all levels of exhaustion afflicting the creature are removed. Travelers entrapped by the inherent evil of Hades cannot leave the plane of their own volition and have no desire to do so. Memories of any previous life fade into nothingness, and it takes a wish or miracle spell to return such characters to normal. Evil creatures are especially vulnerable, and have disadvantage on this saving throw, creatures such as plants, oozes and undead are immune to this effect entirely.
Entropic Decay: Unattended objects and unattended souls in Hades slowly erode, gradually losing cohesion and purpose. This decay even affects memories and identities over prolonged exposure. Over time, days or weeks, depending on the soul’s strength, visitors begin to feel a creeping void where thoughts once lived. Despair, fatigue, and emotional numbness take hold, eventually leading to a complete spiritual collapse. Once a mortal succumbs, their soul becomes a larva: a pale, mindless husk, ready for use in the currency of the Lower Planes.
Aura of Despair: Visitors must resist Hades’ oppressive gloom. Each day, non-native creatures risk succumbing to apathy and hopelessness, which slowly strips away their will to continue.
Rivers of Oblivion: Water taken from the plane’s rivers can erase memories and identity, similar to the River Styx. Drinking or prolonged contact causes forgetfulness or permanent loss of self.
Ashen Wastes: Extended exposure to the drifting ashes may cause spiritual exhaustion, sapping vitality and emotion until victims become mere shades.
Color Decay: All hues fade to gray within days. Magical items or divine relics may resist this erosion temporarily, but nothing escapes it forever.
Links[]
The River Styx flows through the uppermost layer of Hades, and a few of its small tributaries may lead deeper into the plane. As with everywhere else along the Styx, sinister ferrymen ply its length, granting passage to other planes. Portals to other planes are fairly common, at least on the uppermost gloom, Oinos. Portals usually appear as great spinning coins of color. Golden coins lead to Carceri, silver ones lead to the Outlands, coppers go to Gehenna, and rare platinum ones connect to the Astral Plane. Because everything else in the Gray Waste is leached of color, the coin-portals glitter for miles.
Inhabitants[]
Foul creatures of every sort can be found in the Gray Waste. Because this is the battleground of the lower planes, demons, devils, slaadi, formians, and even the occasional deva can be found here, spying for the war effort or deserting their unit. Of course, yugoloths also abound, despite the fact that most of the race has moved from this plane, their original home, to the neighboring plane of Gehenna. Night hags are also thick in Hades. They constantly seek special petitioners called larvae, which they use as a special form of spiritual currency in their dark dealings with evil beings and deities. Besides Blood War detritus, night hags, and petitioners, Hades hosts herds of fiery nightmares.
Hades Petitioners[]
Petitioners in Hades are mostly grayish ghosts, spirits so depleted by the Waste that they lack solidity. They rarely speak, instead crowding around visitors like moths around a candle, seeking the warmth of emotion and hope that living beings possess. Spirits of particularly selfish and malicious mortals that come to Hades become a special form of petitioner called a larva. Larvae appear as Medium-size worms with heads that resemble the heads on their mortal bodies. Larvae serve as the currency of the Lower Planes, especially among night hags, liches, demons, devils, and yugoloths. Most are as likely to be used as food as to power a spell. The rare “lucky” larva is sometimes promoted to a lower form of fiend.
Normal petitioners in Hades gain only one special petitioner quality: incorporeality.
But larvae have the following special petitioner qualities:
Additional Immunities: Cold, fire. Resistances:
Electricity 20, acid 20.
Other Special Qualities: Wounding, disease, no planar commitment.
Wounding (Ex): Every time a larva deals damage, the wound automatically bleeds for 1 additional point of damage every round until a Heal check (DC 15) is made or magical healing is applied.
Disease (Ex): Following a battle with larvae during which the larvae dealt any damage, wounded characters must make a Fortitude save (DC 17) or contract devil chills (see Disease in Chapter 3 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide, for the effects of devil chills).
No Planar Commitment (Ex): Unlike most other petitioners, larvae can be removed from Hades. Often, they are taken elsewhere to serve as food, barter, and basic “soulstuff” for fiendish projects, both demonic and devilish, that require such an esoteric component.
Movement and Combat[]
Movement and combat in Hades are much like movement on the Material Plane. The hateful nature of the plane makes combatants less likely to flee, even if gravely wounded. Most fights here are to the death.
Features of Hades[]
The glooms of the Gray Waste are just that: dull gray lands. The earth is gray, the sky is gray, and the petitioners are gray. Color is foreign here, as if vision itself is subverted. When visitors step into the plane, everything goes from color to white, black, or gray. There is no sun, no moon, and no stars above—just a bleak gray radiance emanating from the sky. This grayness affects more than vision; it is a spiritual grayness. It reaches into the hearts of all who spend time in Hades. Those who spend more time here than they should, such as all the petitioners, are devoid of feeling. They don't laugh, don't cry, and just don't care. All they do is despair, their hope gone and never to return. Both the entrapping trait of Hades and the spiritual sickness called “the grays” are manifestations of the grayness of Hades.
Oinos[]
The first gloom of Hades is a land of stunted trees, roving fiends, and virulent disease. But more than anything else, it is a plane ravaged by war. This is the central battlefield of the Blood War. Fiends, warrior-slaves, trained beasts, and hired mercenaries gather here to wage horrific battles on an epic scale. These battles despoil the already bleak terrain. The sounds of rending claws, clashing weapons, and screams echo across the entire layer.
Divine Realms[]
Oinos is the location of a number of godly realms, including Incabulos' realm of Charnelhouse, Kelemvor's realm of the Crystal Spire (formerly Myrkul's Bone Castle), the orc deity Yurtrus' realm of Fleshslough, the dwarf deity Abbathor's realm of The Glitterhell, and the urd deity Kuraulyek's realm of Urdrest.
Settlements[]
- The Spires of White Bone town
- Saurum town
Locations[]
Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower[]
A twenty-mile-high tower, Khin-Oin looks like nothing so much as a freestanding spinal column. Some say that's exactly what it is: the backbone of a deity slain by yugoloths. Khin-Oin plunges as deep into Oinos's gray soil as it ascends into the air, so the tower's sublevels tunnel twenty miles deep. The Wasting Tower is ruled by an ultraloth prince named Mydianchlarus. In fact, some stories hint that the entire yugoloth race was birthed here, arising in a pit at the absolute bottom of Khin-Oin. None but yugoloths have ever held the tower, despite the constant array of fiendish armies outside. The rooms and the floors of the tower seem to have no end. Spawning vats, magical laboratories, and meditation chambers can be found here, as can orreries, suites of rooms for yugoloths, and floors that are themselves battlegrounds and drill fields. Mydianchlarus rules from the tower's zenith, and the token of his rulership is the Siege Malicious. Whoever rules the Wasting Tower is often referred to as the oinoloth. Any creature that can successfully invade the Wasting Tower and make it to the top chamber has the opportunity to claim the title for himself. Claiming the title involves defeating the current ruler, then sitting on the Siege Malicious. The Siege Malicious is a throne of artifact-level power, and as such, it may grant powers over the layer of Oinos.
The Siege Malicious[]
The Siege Malicious is a major artifact. It is a gargantuan, immovable throne carved from the stone of the Wasting Tower itself. The throne is inlaid with tarnished silver, base copper, and brass. A circular crown of rubies adorns the top of the high seat, which is just large enough to sit a Huge creature. (Many Mediumsize creatures would look ridiculous sitting on the Siege Malicious with their legs dangling several feet off the floor.)
Creating or Modifying a Disease: The oinoloth may conceive of or modify a disease at will as a free action (though coming up with just the right name is an exercise of intellect that could take longer). The important parameters for creating or modifying a disease are infection, DC, incubation, and damage; for more information, see Disease in Chapter 3 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide. Generally, new or modified diseases must possess a standard infection type, have a DC no higher than 20, have an incubation time of no less than one day, and have damage not greater than 1d8 temporary points of any ability score damage except Constitution (1d6 if the disease deals permanent ability drain). Secondary visual effects of a new disease are up to the oinoloth. Secondary effects can include deafness, blindness, muteness, and other sensory deprivations (one per disease), on a second failed saving throw against the initial disease DC.
Infecting: Once a disease is created or modified, the oinoloth can set it loose. The oinoloth can infect a living target within 300 feet as a standard action, and the target gets no saving throw to avoid infection.
Powers of the Throne: In order to operate the Siege Malicious, a character sitting on the throne must have defeated the previous oinoloth. If the previous oinoloth yet lives, the sitter suffers 3d6+6 points of permanent Charisma drain, as a consequence of being infected with a particularly virulent strain of the disease called gray wasting. Characters immune to disease don't take damage, but the Siege Malicious seems powerless to them. If the character sitting on the throne has defeated the previous oinoloth, then the powers of the siege malicious are his. But the throne forever changes those who sit on it. The Siege Malicious deals 1d4 points of permanent Charisma drain as part of the sitter's skin sloughs off in a rather grotesque manner. This disfigurement is the mark of the oinoloth and may not be magically healed without forsaking the title of oinoloth. But with the disfigurement comes absolute control of disease on the layer of Oinos. The new oinoloth (whether yugoloth or not) commands the diseases of Oinos, creating, modifying, or nullifying diseases as he sees fit. New or modified diseases could potentially spread beyond the layer of Oinos, but the oinoloth only has this power while in Hades. The oinoloth has power over disease whether sitting in the Siege Malicious or not. GRAY WASTING
Gray wasting, in its normal form, is quite dangerous and visually unappealing, as the victim's skin wastes away into so much mucus and rotting flesh. It has the following characteristics: Infection: Contact. Fortitude Save DC: 20. Incubation: 1 day. Damage: 1d4 points of permanent Charisma drain. THE GRAYS
A spiritual poison affects any creature (including outsiders) in Hades that does not possess spell resistance of 10 or more. Creatures without spell resistance 10 must make a Will save (DC 13) every twenty-four hours they spend in Hades. A failed save deals 1 point of temporary Wisdom damage to the victim. A victim can be drained to a minimum Wisdom of 1 in this fashion. Unlike most ability score damage, Wisdom damage dealt by “the grays” does not heal until the victim has left Hades behind. Each point of Wisdom damage dealt in this fashion represents growing apathy, hopelessness, and despair. This effect is concurrent with the entrapping trait of Hades. Wisdom damage taken from the grays makes it harder to make the weekly saving throws to resist the loss of all hope that the entrapping trait represents.
Niflheim[]
The second gloom of Hades is a layer of gray mists that constantly twist and swirl among sickly trees and ominous bluffs. The thin fog limits vision to 100 feet at best, muffles sound, and eventually saturates everything with dampness. Niflheim is not as war-ravaged as Oinos, probably because the mist hinders combat. Many predators prowl the lands, hidden amid the mist, including fiendish dire wolves and trolls. Vision (including darkvision) is limited to 100 feet in Niflheim, and Listen checks suffer a –4 circumstance penalty due to the muffling nature of the fog.
Divine Realms[]
Niflheim is the location of a number of godly realms, including Hel's realm of Niflheim, after which the layer is named, Shar's realm of The Palace of Loss, Panzuriel's realm of Rezuriel, Mask's realm of Shadow Keep, Arawn's realm of Annwn, the Isles of the Cursed, and Ratri's realm of Dark of Night. Furthermore, Yggdrasil, the World Ash, has its roots in Niflheim, accompanied forever by the wingless dragon Nidhogg, who will ultimately gnaw away the roots.
Steelments[]
- Death of Innocence: A small town tucked away in the misty pines, Death of Innocence is constructed of hewn pine taken from the surrounding forest. The town holds more than 5,000 mortals and (nonlarva) petitioners, though they mostly remain inside their dwellings, giving the city a vacant feel. Strangely, those who live behind the protection of the town's walls sometimes strive to improve their lot and break out of apathy. Great wooden gates bar entry to Death of Innocence, and both the gates and the outer wall bristle with spikes. Inside, a broad avenue leads to the town's center, where a gray marble fountain stands. The wood of the buildings and gates oozes blood, as if sap, confirming the belief that petitioners are trapped within the wood. Neither the grays nor the entrapping trait of Hades can penetrate the walls of Death of Innocence.
Pluton[]
The third gloom of Hades is a layer of dying willows, shriveled olive trees, and night-black poplars. It is a realm where no one wants to be and no one can remember why they came. Of course, petitioners have no choice in the matter. Usually, the Blood War does not reach this lowest gloom, though some raids have occurred when one side or the other wished to retrieve the spirit of a fallen mortal captain who possessed particularly sharp tactical skills.
Divine Realms[]
Pluton is the location of a number of godly realms, including the hag goddess Cegilune's realm of Hagsend, Hecate's primary realm of Aeaea, and the god Hades' realm of Hades, the Underworld.
Furthermore, Mount Olympus is based in Pluton.
Locations[]
Underworld: The Underworld is contained within walls of gray marble that stretch for hundreds of miles and are visible for thousands of miles beyond that. A single double gate pierces the marble walls of the realm. Constructed of beaten bronze, the gates are dented and scarred by heroes intent on getting past. However, the gates are also guarded by a terrible fiendish beast, a Gargantuan three-headed hound made from the squirming, decaying bodies of hundreds of petitioners. Beyond the gate, the inside of the realm appears much like the outside. Blackened trees, stunted bushes, and wasted ground dominate the landscape. Larvae are everywhere, writhing in the dust, as are gray, wraithlike petitioners who are on the verge of being sucked completely dry of all emotion by the spiritual decay of the plane. When they lose the last shred of emotion, their remaining essence becomes one with the gloom of Pluton. Sometimes, great heroes or desperate lovers from the Material Plane travel to this layer via a tributary of the River Styx or portals hidden in great volcanic fissures. They come to the Underworld because they believe that they can find the spirit of a friend or loved one and extricate that spirit from a hopeless eternity. Besides larvae, faded petitioners, and the occasional foolish mortals, demons, yugoloths, and devils roam the land, looking for choice morsels.
Spell alterations in the Gray Waste[]
Every spell cast will have the most evil effect possible. All color-based spells fail. Summoning spells bring participants from the nearest never-ending war, the power of the spell has nothing to do with the power of what is brought, and they are resentful. Divinations need not be true, and will always given the saddest answer. Charms are saved against at +3, or if no save is allowed elsewhere, a normal save applies here. But when a charm succeeds on someone who's been under the gloom's influence for less than two weeks, it snaps the object out of it. Or perhaps (my idea) the only "charm" that really works is the effectively role-played preaching of a good cleric or lay minister. Objects enchanted are at bonus effectiveness, so long as they could be used for evil. If they are strictly enchanted for good, the enchantment fails. All undead are free-willed and evil-aligned, and "Animate Dead" produces ghouls. Wizardly necromancy fails if cast for a good purpose. Pseudoelementals are always evil, and are free-willed. Spell keys probably can overcome some of these problems.
Wizardly spell keys are variable for each school and layer, involving taking something away from somebody. Power keys are unholy symbols, with some indication of the single sphere for which each one functions, and are rarely given.
Third edition "Manual of the Planes" focuses primarily on simplifying and encouraging individual campaign creativity. Ideas include:
* The suggested color for pools from the astral is rust. Ethereal curtains might be dark red.
* The dead are immune to cold and fire, and as an additional ability are incorporeal.
* The plane is "strongly evil-aligned". Non-evil creatures have -2 on all intelligence, wisdom, and charisma checks.
I respectfully suggest that the actual effect might be
-1 on all intelligence, wisdom, and charisma checks for all non-good, non-evil creatures
-2 on all intelligence, wisdom, and charisma checks for all good creatures
Good-based spells simply fail.
Evil-based spells work as if caster were 4 levels higher.
Law-based spells (non-good) are unaffected.
Chaos-based spells (non-good) are unaffected.
Lore[]
The Gray Waste is the hidden mist, the underside of the mortai born on the bottom of the Tree of Runes. Nightmares came from there, who birthed hordlings. The corruption of the nightmare egg by the Wicked Spore (the Heart of Darkness, also known as the Apple of Eris and the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is the same as the Tree of Runes or Yggdrasil) resulted in the baernaloths, who made the ultraloths from hordlings. Their children were the arcanaloths, who brewed the rest of the yugoloth castes in their tower.
The story of the Heart of Darkness is a parable for the seed of knowledge that sparked the alignment wars. It's not to be taken literally, except by eladrin and by those who seek to find the gem (it exists, but it isn't safe to use, being a parable).
Great columns were built in the Waste by the King of Despair, who uses them as fuel for his realm City-in-the-Center, though some columns are older still.
chthonia (Realm)
Character. Loss. Betrayal. Waiting. Hope. Gestation.
Power. The principal power of Chthonia is none other than Demeter, the sister of Zeus and an extremely high-up power among the Olympians. Most know Demeter in her aspect as the Great Mother, the goddess of the harvest and of all of nature. She is kind and terrible, but all look to her for her maternal sustinance, aware that she can cause both fertility and blight. Demeter Chthonia is a far darker creature. Not evil -- just dark. She represents the death that comes with birth and the waiting that precedes it in the womb. She represents the deep ties that bind death with fertility and the warm earth with the grave. As such, she has two realms. The Great Mother lives among the passions of Arborea with her siblings. Demeter Chthonia lives in the Gray Waste, near her daughter. It seems that Demeter's daughter was abducted and raped by Demeter's brother Hades. After this crime, Demeter withdrew all support to the material worlds under her jurisdiction, and allowed them to become as cold as bitter as her own Arborean realm, and her heart. Meanwhile, Demeter Chthonia welcomed her daughter into the deep mysteries of darkness, and taught her much about supporting the primal cosmic forces. It came to pass that Persephone -- initially a creature purely of the light -- evolved into a dual entity like her mother. With the balance restored, the Mother restored springtime to the worlds. The question of why a creature as plainly Neutral as Demeter Chthonia should dwell in the Waste begs itself. The answer is simple, my ill-lanned friends: this is where she's needed.
Description. Chthonia is a dark mass of tunnels adjoining Hades' Underworld in the layer of Pluton, made mainly of limestone and lined with dark, rich soil. Cutters that gather some and bring it to the light will find it blooms almost immediately. The feature of the realm that visitors notice right away is the pigs. Pigs of all shapes and descriptions fill most regions of the realm, oinking and rutting like pigs do everywhere, feeding on the exotic and common forms of fungi (of all shapes and sizes!) beneath and above the soil. The petitioners here (and there are many, all worshippers of Demeter and Dionysus with appropriate dispositions) variously claim that this realm is the origin of all pigs, and that these pigs are pig petitioners sacrificed to the goddess on the Prime. Some will make both claims in the same sentence. One thing that will surprise some is the presence of myconids and moldmen. It seems that many of those strange races are devotees of Demeter as well.
Principal Towns. City of the Voice of the Feminine Mystery. City of the Watchers of Death. City of Death Reborn. Cities in Chthonia tend to be female-themed villages heavily emphasizing a sense of community and sharing over the desires of the individual. They are lead by matriarchs, most of whom have significant ESP abilities.
Special Conditions. Death in Chthonia isn't final. Instead, a deader can look forward to being instantly born as a human, swine, or fungoid of some type. While the corpse doesn't get to choose, it's better than living with the Wyrm forever.
Principle Nonplayer characters. Matriarchs,
Services. One surprise to greedy berks is that Chthonia ain't got a currency. All trade is by barter, and there's precious little Demeter's blessed need. Those who want something from them, like exotic mushrooms or favor from the Underworld next door, had better expect to do some hard work in the middens or have a bit of exotic water or fertility-related magic.
niflheim
Niflheim ("house of mists") is the far northern region of icy fogs and mists, darkness and cold. It is situated on the lowest level of the universe. The realm of death, Helheim is part of the vast, cold region. Niflheim lies underneath the third root of Yggdrasil, close to the spring Hvergelmir ("roaring cauldron"). Also situated on this level is Nastrond, the Shore of Corpses, where the serpent Nidhogg eats corpses and gnaws on the roots of Yggdrasil.
Niflheim is the plane of frozen potential. It is the Fimbulwinter that will come to pass. It is the paradise that will emerge from it.
Digging into Niflheim's icy soil reveals millions of never-seen creatures and fully grown civilizations not yet born, requiring only the activating power of Muspelheim's flame to become new worlds and realms.
Muspelheim and Nifflheim faced each other in the midst of nothing, and they were everything: twins, lovers, and eternal opposites. Nifflheim is pure potential, and it contained all that would be. Nevertheless, it remained cold and still as death until its twin awakened it. Muspelheim is the power of creation, insight and inspiration. It is the spark of creativity that can, with skill and determination, be shaped into sagas and cities and sacrements; into worlds and wonders.
The region where the two met was called Ginnungagap. Two archetypes frozen in Nifflheim's potential -- Ymir and Audumla -- became the multiverse in between Muspelheim and Niflheim, which is all of it.
In the beginning, before the world of men and gods existed, the spring Hvergelmir, deep in the frozen wastes of Niflheim, gave rise to eleven rivers known as the Elivagar. Over a long period of time, water of the Elivagar ran across Niflheim and poured into the northern part of Ginnungagap. The water froze, forming vast sheets of ice in the void. Hot air from Muspell melted some of the ice, creating a zone of meltwater amid the ice and snow. Here life began, and the first living thing was a frost giant.
Helheim ("house of Hel") is one of the nine worlds of Norse mythology. It is ruled by Hel, the monstrous daughter of the trickster god Loki and his wife Angrboda. This cold, dark and misty abode of the dead is located in the world of Niflheim, on the lowest level of the Norse universe. No one can ever leave this place, because of the impassable river Gjoll that flows from the spring Hvergelmir and encircles Helheim. Once they enter Helheim, not even the gods can leave. Those who die of old age or disease, and those not killed in battle, go to Helheim while those who die bravely on the battlefield go to Valhalla.
The entrance to Helheim is guarded by Garm, a monstrous hound, and Modgud. The giant Hraesvelg ("corpse eater") sits at the edge of the world, overlooking Helheim. In the form of an eagle with flapping wings he makes the wind blow.
Hel = great goddess, reincarnation, cold serpent, poison, Loki's head. Hellkings, Helkyries, Helequins.H'elves.
Doomguard fortress at the roots of Yggdrasil
City of Glass and vine (Town)
Chant. Seek the Staff of the Sun, a lost artifact of good or evil, for it holds great power. It is believed to be in the City of Glass and Vine and guarded by a half-glimsed thing, a degenerate shadow-fiend or quickened hordling. . Then travel at the Pillar of Thieves where we may study
it. Destroy it!
We will await you in the Never. We offer a bag of gold.
Character. Transparant destruction, taunting prisons leeching, voyeurism, chokings, suffocating, lucid nightmares, tainted visions, warped conduits and connections, etc. Ruler. Polly the Wraith, a night hag, and her hordling lover Chickenneck Spook. The two have many children, both night hags sired by Chickenneck and hordlings formed from larvae Polly gave birth to parthenogenically. Behind the Throne. Penaroch the Chill, a tiefling spectre. Penaroch (sometimes called thethe Penaroch) lives within Chickenneck Spook somehow, and at the same time without him. Penaroch is a child of Polly the Wraith yet not a child of Polly the Wraith, because I'm an asshole. Description. Covered in razorvine, a city of geodesic domes and gothic towers. Behind the glass, gray shapes swirl. A great number of hordlings live in this town, filling a wide variety of roles from menial labor to high ministers of torment and destruction. Special Conditions. Principle Nonplayer Characters. Services.
the Never
(Realm)
Character. Denial, rejection, nihilism, paradox, Power. The Never is ruled by a thin, wasted human-appearing creature with no name. He is a demigod without worshippers, a self-created power who once created worlds and peoples but now sits more or less alone, mourning his lost love. Description. The Never is exactly like most of the rest of the Gray Waste, with a single tower rising in its center like the Spire. The Lord of the Never dwells there with his ravens. Principal Towns. The towns of the Never exist along its edges, for none dare desturb the Lord. The properties of the realm attract a crowd that relishes secrecy and the idea that things can exist and not at the same time. A few homesteads have sprung up around the borders, mostly inhabited by Bleakers attracted to the character of the place. Some enterprising Merkhants have found that bottled water from the Never's springs are very fashionable among certain classes in Sigil. Special Conditions. The Never is very hard to find, making it a secure place to hide things from the outside world. Even more useful (and dangerous) are the paradox waves that flow through the realm, randomly erasing things from existence. Principle Nonplayer Characters. ravens Services. Elimination. Secrecy. Securities. Banking.
The Pillar of Joy thieves {Site)
Heresay. This is said to be one of the few places on the plane where objects of extreme good can be touched by fiends. As a consequence, many valuable holy items are secreted here.
Description. A tall pillar, similar to others found on the Gray Waste.
Special Features. Good-aligned items do not radiate an alignment here, and cannot shock or destroy evil or neutrality.
The city of witches (Town) Character. We are. We are power. We are wickedness incarnate. We are pride. We are made to be what we are. We will defend our right to exist. Ruler. The Scarred Ones are the ruling caste of Witches. The broken spiral pattern on their faces is congenital. Every Scarred One is thus easily recognized from birth and raised in the optimum manner to ensure that they are the most qualified for the job. Despite the constant bleeding, Scarred Ones wear their scars with pride. They rule equally, and solve disagreements through contests of skill. The most powerful currently is the self-styled Rozvankee II, who is probably not related to the famed wizard Rozvankee the Strategist, rumored creator of the vargouille. Behind the Throne. The Witches' yugoloth allies have controlled the city's major issues of policy for centuries. The Witches tolerate this with great reluctance, but fear expelling the 'loths would force them to submit to the hags once again. History. Once there was a night hag, a powerful mistress of her kind, known as Hateful. Hateful was known throughout the Gray Waste as a builder of cities, a shaper of bodies and a creator of beasts. The reason she was known for this is threefold. The first reason was a city of embryos. The seed of humans, diakka, and vaporighu were mingled to create her brood. The long rows of unformed life that filled the city were just an experiment on Hateful's part, but it was sufficiently impressive that bloods took notice. Attempts by the yugoloths at killing her were thwarted when they found the city destroyed. The second reason was a city of warriors made from the stock of the first civilization with the addition of ogre and mezzoloth essences. This was the first complete creation the hag had made, and it was skillful enough to provide an able defense against any invasion the yugoloths, angry at the unauthorized use of their substance, could afford to muster. Still the hag itched to create something greater. She desired to see a city that could be her equals in all things, that could share her dark fascination with creating new life. She destroyed her second city and began work on its replacement. The City of Witches became the third reason for Hateful's renown. Unfortunately, it didn't last. The yugoloths infiltrated the city Hateful had built and convinced the Scarred Ones that this city, too would be destroyed to make way for their mother's next work. When her own troops turned on her, the ancient hag was forced to flee to the plane of Ash. Several samples were found missing, but not enough to upset any of the Witches' current projects. Description. The city is divided into a rigid caste system. Witches, male and female, are born to a caste, fulfilling a design built into them by Hateful at the city's founding. On top are the aforementioned Scarred Ones, all proficient wizards specializing in divination. Except for their faces, the Scarred Ones are tall and beautiful, with the essences of the root ogre race of Krynn and the ultraloth Purgus, slain in a failed siege, mingled in their dark blood. The next caste has no authority to rule, but is considered to be the most important, the reason for the existence of the city and its people. These are the Shapers, made from elves, humans, diakka, gnomes, Purgus' arcanaloth aides, and Hateful's own tainted eggs, who labor without sleeping, endlessly creating new entities for the city's use and pleasure. Beasts of burden, slave laborers, courtesans, experimental witch castes, blooming gardens, tall trees, and heavy, perfumed fruit make the spiraling pathways of the city a riot of sensations in every conceivable shade of gray. The smooth, circular buildings and roads themselves are designed by a caste of elementalists with the blood of svirfneblin, githyanki, and piscoloths called the Bowed Ones after the shape of their legs and their lowly status. Militia. A caste of war wizards specializing in invocation and necromancy, the Lords of Ichor, almost purely human except for the illithid-like tentacles growing where one would expect to see beards or hair. Soldiers identical to the ones that guarded the Witches' predecessors fill the rank and file of the city's armies. Services. The Witches have thrown away more unique organisms than most planewalkers will ever see. A high proportion of them are completely useless, and others go in and out of fashion among the city's residents and the somewhat behind times yugoloth settlements elsewhere on this plane and Gehenna. Still, the City of Witches has proven itself to be a valuable asset for the yugoloth hosts. Current Chant. An ash witch, one of the last creations of Hateful before her ignomious death in the Inner Planes, has come to the city claiming kinship. She also has some very interesting darks about the yugoloths she's willing to share, for a price...
saurum (town)
Character. Visit a great city whose culture has been perverted in the name of greater evil. See how it infects the settlements it trades with like a virus.
Ruler. Saurum is ruled by Missy's Tongue, a night hag named after a favorite organ. Mme. Tongue is said to be a very nasty customer, responsible for many acts of despotism. Saurum is a gloomy town with wiry towers, broad streets, and cool Stygian waters. Other areas are mazelike warrens nearly as confusing as Sigil's Hive. The previous rulers were driven out by Missy's Tongue and her yugoloth allies.
Behind the throne. Yugoloths infest most of the positions of power in Saurum. Missy's Tongue rarely makes a move without consulting her arcanaloth advisor, and most of the city's wards are controlled by yagnoloth "bosses" who ensure that things are managed to the general detriment of all.
Description. The contributions of Saurum to the culture of Oinos are great. Missy's Tongue, and her great Library, has provided this part of the Styx river valley with a common measuring system, a common currency, and common way of dealing with the problem of aesthetics on a plane where all passions die. The Yugoloth Gallery of Evil is a- showcase of all things Evil, including torture and massecre choreographed in intriguing patterns. Of particular note is the Showcase of Vulgarities, a display of cutesy-wootsy puppies and children that even inhabitants of the Upper Planes admit does more to discredit Good than to promote it. Another series in this vein is Artificial Beauty, a succession of empowering and inspiring images filled with rot and decay. The Wall of Heads is a pile of skulls that lies against Saurum's entire western wall. The tower of silent bells. Saurum's Mouth: a library. hag canal, hag mount, hag ride. Hag tgable, hag dinner
Militia. Saurum is defended by yugoloth mercenaries with nightmare mounts. They patrol the land and skies with great regularity, ensuring that the town is not violated.
Services. The work of dark artisans without peer is available in Saurum. This is also a good place to get destroyed by critics. Knowledge is available here, but it is always twisted by the propaganda of Missy's Tongue.
Current Chant. The old leaders of Saurum, petitioners who ruled the town before their decadence pulled it into the Gray Waste long before the coming of the Tongue, still exist. They travel the city in secret and disguise. While Saurum seems to be fully under the control of the fiends, they have hope they can change things by instituting a new decadence; artworks and knowledge based on honest principals of good and neutrality. A growing underground of petitioners, tieflings, and diakka have indulged themselves in this "new" style, and Mme. Tongue's suppression of it seems to have actually improved its noteriety.
The Land of Eternal death (Realm) Pluton: The Land of Eternal Death, where all who enter die over and over again in a thousand ways until they are either rescued or until they waste into larvae form. Once they die, they find themselves at the edge of the realm again, right where they began.
Bleakers in Hades. Hades -- RoseFields Mayan lords of Evil. The Waste Giant is one of the few living remnants of his ancient race. Dead specimens can be found lining the Sea of Drown'd Mothers and forming the base of several cities, including Ribcage.
the plains of form (realm)
The diakka construct their own reality which changes with their mood. They build it out of the dust of the Waste. Sometimes, their realms are completely diverse without any overriding theme or discernible common ground. Other times, one fad or movement will dominate the realm to the exclusion of all others. An adaptor hires the PCs to recover something from it (his fated love). Locate and recover an entire city. Be mindful of sentient spam. Three knights will try to stop you. Seek aid fromEldunn. I offer half my kingdom to whoever solves this problem. Three Knights are yugoloth warriors. Eldunn is an enormous hordling, fully a mile in diameter, grown fat by devouring his cousins. Eldunn has devoured the Crossed-Out City. Accessing it requires disguising oneself as something tasty and impregnable, like a Wooden Hordling created in Enzog's Decoy Shop, in the City At the Edge of Torment. Sentient Spam refers to unsolicited advertisments sent via Crowded Women from the yugoloths in an attempt to corrupt the diakk thought-constructs to their own ends. About the Women the landscape shifts into preprogrammed illusions.
Crossed-out city (Town) Character. is an unfinished metropolis created by the diakka just before one of their great mood shifts.
Moonroads of the NighthagsParasites of Hag Gut.planar spider traders and pretty saucer ships
The Spires of White Bone (Town)
Character. Secrets of the bone: Memories, the falseness of protection.
Ruler. The current ruler is Neboim, a stunted thing with a tapir-like trunk and boneless limbs (male tanar'ri (Nalfeshnee) ring-giver, W9, CE). Neboim rules by a Saxon code of keeeping his warriors placated with gifts, while remaining a respected warrior. Neboim is a 9th-level earth elementalist.
Behind the Throne. Factions. Yugoloth ascendents.
Description. This is a city caught in the Blood War because of secrets long forgotten by its inhabitants The yugoloths built it in a place where the Styx flowed more or less directly from the Abyss to the Waste. They fortified it with strong cannon and wards against teleportation and then awaited the rewards of their cleverness. Although they expected retaliation from the tanar'ri when the baatezu seized the Slope of Flayed Children in Gehenna, the idea that an Abyssal Lord would empty its entire layer in order to occupy one corner of the Gray Waste was dismissed by the arcanodaemons as laughable. The stategic value of the site, as well as tantalizing rumors of the purpose of its spires, drew them in. The lord in question (a petty, toadlike thing called Anasquat), now defenseless, lost its throne quickly, but the Spires of White Bonewere firmly in the claws of the much-reduced tanar'ric host. The Yugoloth builders styled much of the settlement in the Evil Overlord school of monumental architecture, complete with enormous columns and facades decorating with leering skulls and great iron spines. The rest of the city followed the Labyrinth of Madness tradition of endless tunnels spiraling and twisting about one anoth, reflecting the ghastly disintergration of a broken mind. It is the latter areas the tanar'ri made their base of operations, while the old grand halls and vast arenas are left empty and hollow except for the wandering descendents of beasts and tieflings created by yugoloths, asssisted by their vassals from the City of Witches. The white spires of the city's name predate the settlement by several ages. They are the color of old ivory and taller even than the tallest of the abandoned structures of the modern era, scrimshawed with stylized friezes of dancing, eating, and copulating 'loths of many breeds, some currently extinct. They cannot be ddestroyed by any means the tanar'ri have come up with, and tanar'ric ingenuity is proverbial (unlike their foresight or coordination).
Militia. Cannon. Weapons of viral hate. Dark engines that steam with synthetic fluids unrelated to water. A tanar'ric host.
Services. Drugs, weapons, cattle, tiefling slaves, unusual critters.
Current Chant: There truly are secrets within, though many have begun to doubt it. Breaking the obelisks isn't enough to unleash them: the ancient ivory must be devoured. This causes the devourer to transform into one of the elder yugoloths originally trapped within. The released yugoloths are perfectly willing to use their knowledge to help one side or another, for a price...