| In the Abyss, any un-repented
crimes which visitors may have committed are public knowledge. Misbehavior will probably
result in transformation of the perpetrator. All pure things, unless they are specially
sanctified, become corrupted. Primitives will find the most degenerate of their kind.
Mottos are unprintable. Public portals between the layers and to remote planes may take
any form. Portals to "Pandemonium" are typically activated by jumping off a
cliff into the wind (be sure you have good information before trying this). Portals to
"Carceri" are caves. Other gateways exist between and within planes, some of
them activated by killing the guardian. Dirty yellow pools to the astral appear at random
here, and can be moved freely. There are innumerable, unending slum, slave, and prison
riots. Because evil is so powerful here, the locals lack even the ordinary loves of our
world -- family, friendship, romance. These instead become ways in which a stronger being
preys on a weaker being. The locals will talk a lot about cruelty as a way of
"building character." The residents of the Abyss find the whole idea of
unselfish love to be utterly disgusting. The uppermost layer is a wasteland, from which
the evil creatures project to other worlds. Cities in the wasteland are copies of the
worst parts of all the universe's towns. Prices are preposterously high. The plane
between contains holes, mostly filled with unpleasant liquids of various kinds, which lead
to deeper layers. The town of Broken Reach, governed by a succubus, contains the portal to
the Outlands. Combat is forbidden inside the city walls. There is also a massive forge.
The planes below are tremendously varied. There are deserts of weird colored sand. There
are the "Iron Waste" glaciers of weird colored ice in perpetual night, the
spiritual homes of a few evil frost giants. There are worlds of nothing but air, without
gravity. There are maelstroms, like other chaotic universes, but which do not respond to
normal sentience. There are rocky universes of volcanic lava. There are universes of solid
rock, with caves and tunnels. There are ocean-bottom worlds. There are vacuum universes
where ordinary visitors explode. There are universes of delusion which appear wholesome,
but in which all features will try to kill visitors. There are private homes where
visitors are not welcome. There are realms full of undead, including icy "Thanatos,
the Belly of Death", formerly the realm of Orcus, where the central palace has
walls of flesh and carpets of hair. Any creature dying in Thanatos becomes undead.
Somewhere in Thanatos is the Book of Lies, where all the lies ever uttered by any being
are listed, but not in context. ("No, I don't think you're too fat.") There are
universes of extreme evil -- good creatures cannot enter, neutrals are imprisoned, and
evils become bodaks (there are warnings). There are lost planes, from which no captive can
escape, and where a "gate" merely open to another point on the same plane. Woeful Escarand is a place of judgment for dead sinners.
Gnoll heaven ("Yeenoghu's realm" of saw-grass savannah and bones) and
dark elf heaven ("The Demonweb Pits") are both here. Troglodyte heaven
("Rotting Plain") is a festering swamp ruled by a gigantic, hungry lizard. The
motherland of the evil beholders is the "Realm of a Million Eyes". The
"Phantom Plane" is a realm of evil lizard folk indifferent to the politics of
the rest of the abyss. "Twelve-trees" is a realm in which twelve of the
holy angels were supposedly caught and crucified, and where weapons against other unholy
creatures are forged.
The "Slime Pits" are a morass of sludge,
home to the Juiblex and Zuggtmoy cults. "Sulfanorum" is a realm of
low-burning fires and massive amounts of smoke. The "Worm Realm" of twisting
tunnels is home to the evil gnome "Urdlen" cult, and visitors get malignancies
or fungal infections.
The "Caverns of the Skull" is home to the
Kali cult, where the evil dead kill one another and are reincarnated immediately after.
"Azzagrat" is the three planes of an evil
tyrant-illusionist, which keeps the appearance of an orderly, cosmopolitan, decorous
police state. In one of these, fire is cold and ice is hot. "The Plains of
Gallenshu" is a realm of centaur fiends, gangs on eternal forced march. The ground
here is made entirely of rotten body parts, and the air is a "stinking cloud".
Everything except metal and material of Abyssal origin rots within a month. The town of
Blackmane is neutral territory for the centaur fiends. The town of Oxblood produces
cavalry fiends.
"Torremor" is a realm of pillars and
perches, with gravity (which changes from time to time) but no ground, where flying
creatures and perpetual freefall are the norm. Falling water produces beautiful rainbows,
and falling guano and corpses are nuisances, while a cult strings razor wire. It is
breeding territory for fly fiends. Portals to the Outlands, Pandemonium or Tarterus in the
uppermost layer are holes in the ground. |
