Into the Abyss

There's a tanar'ri living in Sigil called Rule-of-Three. For a fiend he's almost a decent sort, and he knows the dark of the Abyss better than most. Catch him at the right moment and he'll even pass on some helpful advice about the place. According to old Rule-of-Three, a berk's got exactly three priorities in the raging madness of the Abyss: surviving, finding an exit portal, and getting out.

Only a barmy or a Bleaker goes into the Abyss more than once. Sure, there's always some addle-cove who won't believe it's that bad. A blood knows it's worse. Even in the Abyss there's bad and there's worse places to be. Some layers steal memories, others rot bodies from· within, some slowly freeze all living things into stone. Those are the good layers. On the bad layers, the water's poisonous, the sunlight burns, or the air is pure smoke. Fires, lightning, and poison don't bother tanar'ri, so some of the layers that they inhabit aren't what anyone else would call tolerable. Still, the dark of it's that most layers of the Abyss are desolate but not unlivable, at least not for bloods with priestly and wizardly magic at their disposal. Trouble is, eventually a berk's bound to walk through the wrong gate and wind up on a layer she can't survive. A trip to an unknown layer is a quick way to wind up in the dead-book.

So the Abyss is a nightmare where everything rots, and nothing pure can survive. Most cutters suspect as much. Here's the chant on how to come here and live to brag about it, according to Rule-of-Three. There's ways to do business with the tanar'ri - guess how many. If a blood's good enough, he can deal from strength. If he ain't that strong, and not many are, he's got to either play the tanar'ri off against each other or pay outrageous bribes that might not hold firm. The third, truest, and most costly way for a basher to survive a trip to the Abyss is to make himself usefull to one of the bloods here, a true tanar'ri with a stronghold and the power to enforce a pass of safe-conduct.

Rule-of-Three says there's also three (naturally) quick ways for a cutter to give the tanar'ri the laugh. They've worked many a time to give a basher a second chance.

1. Tanar'ri are always suspicious of each another. When a fiend asks awkward questions, start talking about his enemies and watch him twitch. In the Abyss, everyone's looking over their shoulders.
2. Never underestimate the value of a little garnish. While a guardian of Baator takes his responsibilities seriously, a tanar'ri does his duty only if he might be caught. So long as the bribe isn't insulting, he'll pocket it. Whether he stays bribed is another question.
3. Though the tanar'ri all fear the lords, they ain't loyal. Remember that, and turn it against them. Offer a tanar'ri power or revenge, and he may turn stag.

A word of advice to mages: The Abyss corrupts both spells and mages. Furthermore, because some wizards enslave fiends, the tanar'ri take their revenge by hunting down spellcasters like dogs. What's more, any magic draws attention in the Abyss, and that's something a·basher don't want here - especially since magic can easily backlash on its caster.

Knowing that magic brings attention is all very grand - but the real question is, how much can a basher get away with? Mostly, riling the tanar'ri is what rings down trouble. On the open layers without a single ruling lord. (like the Plain of Infinite Portals), anything goes. Spells go off more or less the way they're supposed to. 'Course, even if a spell goes off, it ain't always helpful; the Abyss corrupts everything, even magic. Summonings, divinations, and Transmutations are risky, and necromancy works almost too well. A mage shouldn't use it unless her back's really to the wall.

Like evil itself, the forms of Abyssal life are infinite: towering beasts of sheer power, tiny scavengers like gremlins and vargouilles, and servants like the spying eyewings and the quasits. The masters of the Abyss are the tanar'ri, who rule absolutely and without pity. Mortals that dwell in the Abyss are a foul lot of killers, thugs, and traitors: Those that rub shoulders with the tanar'ri and survive to tell about it are tough as coffin nails.

No faction rules from the Abyss, for the Abyssal lords won't tolerate threats to their power.

The real allegiance of most creatures of the Abyss is to raw, naked power.

The Plain of Infinite Portals

The Plain is the gateway to the infinite layers of the Abyss, but it's a miserable place, its rocky ground crate red with gaping holes and dotted with iron fortresses under a glaring red sun. The craters are portals to every other layer of the Abyss, the entrance to the depths. A berk can't get anywhere without passing through the Plain first. More important, it's the best way to get out of the Abyss. with portals to Pandemonium, Sigil, and the Astral. Sure, bashers can make quick escapes from the Abyss by sailing down the Styx, but that leads deeper into the other Lower Planes, and sailing down the Styx often makes a bad journey worse.

The Infinite Plain being what it is, a wise cutter don't plan on a long stay: He plans quick raids into the depths or alliances with the local lords. Sure, the tanar'ri have hot tempers and long knives, but they'll keep their word as long as a basher is useful, or until they're bored with him, whichever comes first. A berk can't fight his way through every enemy in the Abyss, so a sharp cutter chooses allies that he can deal with when they turn on him.

The best way to travel the Plain and learn the chant of the Abyss is by staying at the fortress of Broken Reach. A succubus named Red Shroud built it on top of the Plague-Mort portal in the Outlands over two hundred years ago. Like a stinging beetle's nest, the Broken Reach is defended fiercely (but haphazardly), so a quiet basher can slip past the defenders at the gate. If a cutter don't make a fuss going in, no one blocks the way when he comes back out.

From the outside, the Broken Reach is a set of crumbling towers, surrounded by outworks of trenches, walls, and spiky barricades. The important sectors of the Broken Reach are underground; the portal to Plague-Mort itself is beneath the main hall, and is sealed off with a 20-ton slab of basalt when danger threatens.

The Abyss sees few willing visitors, but a berk can hear the accents of Sigil, the gibbering of Pandemonium, and the stutters of the githzerai among the hubbub. There's enough traffic that the Reach keeps small but lavish guest chambers directly off the main hall. Don't be fooled by its seeming civility: The Broken Reach don't give anyone second chances, and a basher who isn't prepared won't last through the first night. The Reach takes the measure of anyone, and it devours the weak. For the strong, the Reach is a gathering point, a rallying point for followers, a place for fiery speeches against the baatezu; it focuses power and attention. Combat is more or less forbidden within the Reach, but death-matches happen every hour just outside the walls.

Red Shroud, a flame-haired taskmistress, enforces the rules with an iron will. She made her reputation as a poisoner and a font of dependable information. Under her guidance, its thick walls have protected it against five determined assaults, including attacks by tanar'ri mobs, githzerai, and even a minor Abyssal lord.

Red's authority covers everything within the walls, and she doesn't let vendettas threaten her guests. Likewise, Red encourages the molydei to search for conscripts elsewhere. But Red does demand obedience from all her guests, and she expects them to help en force her fragile peace whenever anyone breaks the truce. Sometimes she orders the death of someone who simply enrages her, perhaps by wearing turquoise (an oracle told her the stone is unlucky), or by snoring, or by ordering cheap drinks. Sometimes she does it just because she can.

Rumors say that Red 's consort can influence her, but she draws and quarters anyone who suggests it within her walls. Red's fourth (and current) consort is a nalfeshnee named Ygrax the Skullbiter. He's been a bit dim ever since he was wounded in the Blood War, and he seems content with a life of doglike panting whenever his mistress approaches, and is an obedient slave to her every whim. It's too convincing to be an act.

The Reach keeps good supplies of food and drink on hand, and its armory can outfit a small company of mercenaries in time of need - but Red likes to turn a hefty profit, and so all costs for goods are trip led. The bill of fare in the Reach usually reads something like this: fried lemure, fish soup, stewed fireweed, tamor tubers, roast ratatosk, poached varrangoin eggs, and grilled abyssal bat. The cellars are decently stocked with spirits, including Trav's larval beer (1 cp), Redcastle ale (3 cp), viperwine (venomous to everyone but tanar'ri, 4 gp), Stygian mineral waters (4 sp), fermented boar's blood (5 gp, said to increase a basher's strength), and, most prized of all, curdled aasimon blood (200 gp+).

A Bleaker dwarf with a withered arm has come from Sigil and has spent hours negotiating with Red. No one's sure why. Some say it's because a raid's supposed to go off soon against Mithrengo, the nearest fortress on the Plain. Others say Red's expanding her little empire, or she's eliminating a rival - still others say she's capturing a new consort. No one seems to consider that she might not be behind the raid at all. That's how powerful the fear of her is among the tanar'ri. Take it to heart, berk.

The Plain of Infinite Portals, the first (and possibly the most survivable) level of the Abyss. The Tanar'ri fortressess that dot the layer are the homes to petty lords and upstart tanar'ri - and their rulers(and rules) are as changeable as the Abyss itsellf. On the horizon to the far right lies the fortress of Broken Reach. The spire on the edge of the gorge serves as a lookout for the Broken Reach, mainly to watch the fortress of Mithrengo (close left). The crevasses along the gorge lead to different layers of the Abyss; the four here are well known and lead to the layers of Thanatos, Durao, Azzagrat, and The Grand Abyss.

Zrintor, the Viper Forest

Viper trees are common throughout Azzagrat, a set of three Abyssal layers ruled by a single lord named Graz'zt. Entire groves stand around many of the realm's palaces and towns. Rumor has it that at least one of Graz'zt's layers was once part of the Gray Waste, since shifted into his realm, and that this accounts for the large numbers of viper trees in the woodlands called Zrintor, the Viper Forest.

The forest stands on the first layer of the Triple Realm (the 45th layer of the Abyss), a doused, muted, and subdued layer. The screams and torments of the lesser and least tanar'ri and unfortunate planars fade into the background, nothing stands out, nothing's very noticeable, everything seems equally gray. This general fading makes stealth easier, but it also makes the first layer of Azzagrat difficult to keep in mind. Travelers can't remember details of the forest or towns they saw here, though they remember the creatures and goods. In fact, all of Azzagrat is confusing because the three layers arc constantly overlapping and moving through each other, fiery gates opening between them at random.

Some cutters, exhausted and staggering after fighting and bribing their way past layers and armies of tanar'ri, enter the three layers of Azzagrat and let down their guard. After all, the three layers look like a safer place than most in the Abyss; there's no hordes of clawed, drooling fiends, there's no fiery skies, no poison geysers, and no ranks of least and lesser tanar'ri on every side. The wide rolling forest of Zrintor provides cover, food, and protection against tana r'ri. The fact that the trees' branches are serpents is a minor problem.

Don't be a fool! Azzagrat's dangers are worse than most in the Abyss, because a cutter can't see 'em coming. The Viper Forest isn't a safehouse; it's a whispering wood of thinking, striking trees - creatures that allow some visitors to pass through unharmed and attack others mercilessly. Some bubbers even say that the trees can tear off their own branches, that they become writhing serpents that follow and poison a body.

There's a secret to getting through the Viper Forest, and most cutters don't tell it for nothing. It's like this: Berks who stroll into the woods by day usually don't live long. Those who go at night survive, because they carry torches, lanterns, or other sources of fire. Light alone, even magical light, ain't enough. The serpent trees fear flames more than anything, so don't ever let a campfire go out in the Viper Forest. 'Course, just avoiding death don't mean a berk's out or the woods.

Forest fires are a danger throughout Zrintor; when they rage, nothing but the will of Graz'zt can quench the fires, and Graz'zt enjoys the screaming of the trees as the flames render them into ashes. The fires often catch unwary creatures as well, leaping from one volatile treetop to the next in moderate winds, spreading faster than a cantering warhorse. The fires are as powerful as a dragon's breath, and much less susceptible to flattery and bribery. Also, the forest recovers quickly from fires. New growth begins within hours, so burning a path out is likely to roast a cutter instead.

According to Rule-of-Three, there's three ways out of Zrintor. One of the common threads between the layers of Azzagrat is the River of Salt, a sparkling crystalline mass of moving minerals that are somehow liquid and so lid simultaneously. Floating a magical ship or raft down the river usually leads quickly to the forest's edge. A berk's got to be careful, though: Creatures unfortunate enough to fall into the river are ground under by the rasping masses of sharp salt crystals. Anything that isn't choked by the salty dusts is usually reduced to a reddish paste within a few minutes.

That's the hardest way. It's sometimes easier just to look for the ovens. From place to place, gates open between the three layers, gates that burn like ovens of green fire. Walking into one of them leads from one layer's "oven" to another's; tanar' ri are unaffected by fire, but sods who aren't ready are in for a hot time. Naturally some of the ovens ain't gates at all - that's the tanar'ri idea of a joke.

The last way takes the most courage, but it always works. The Abyssal lord Graz'zt rules his realm from the shadows in the realm's largest city, a place called Zelatar - a city of alu-fiends, cambions, nabassu, shadow fiends, slow shadows, succubi, and tieflings. Graz'zt himself rules from the Argent Palace, a place of ivory towers and cold, mirrored halls. The palace is a frighteningly clean, echoing place where visitors often lose their guides to the ravenous, mad bodaks that guard it. The Palace is said to contain a direct, mature conduit to the Plain of Infinite Portals and other layers of the Abyss, as well as conduits to Pandemonium and Gehenna. The city of Zelatar also connects to the other two layers of the triple realm, where Zrintor don't exist. Go to the city, find one of the other layers, and walk out where the forest ain't.

The trouble with this method is that Graz'zt and his councilors hunt petitioners and planars in the Viper Forest, and the closer a basher gets to Zelatar, the greater the chance he'll become their prey. Graz'zt is a sporting lord, though: Those who survive for a day and a night are allowed to go free. Tanar'ri that survive his hunt are transformed into more powerful forms.

Naratyr

Bashers who've been to Naratyr shudder at the memory, but any fool set on plunging into the Abyss needs to know about the Lower Reaches. Called the City of the Dead, Naratyr is the capital city of Kiaransalee, the drow goddess of vengeance and the undead, and the entire layer is her realm. Like the rest of the Abyss, it ain't for the weak or the cowardly. Naratyr is a town built on icy river bluffs, with its lower reaches right along the waterline and its heights in the airless ice of Thanatos, the 113th layer of the Abyss. Don't sound safe, does it?

The city is the only habitable, civilized part of Thanatos, the Belly of Death, a cold layer of ice, thin air, and a black, moonlit sky, a place that belongs to the undead more than to the tanar'ri. Nothing truly lives here: no fields or forests, not even twisted groves of hardy viper trees. Quick as thought, any poor berk that dies in Thanatos becomes one of the power's servants, undead mostly but sometimes manes, dretch, or rutterkin. The transformation takes an hour or so, and, for the plane's petitioners, it's permanent. No one knows how planars change back, but sometimes they do - if they're lucky enough, and have powerful enough friends.

Built near the waters of the River Styx, Naratyr is a curiously silent and cold city, its streets often empty for hours at a time. Peaceful, really.

The Lower Reaches

The Lower Reaches are important to a planewalker because they're safe. There ain't many bolt holes available in the Abyss, so listen close. The undead won't enter the Lower Reaches because it's only for the unthinking undead. Lesser tanar'ri won't go because they're terrified. The greater tanar'ri think they'll be transformed into undead, though no one's ever seen it done (except maybe in the Winter Palace itself). Even the Abyssal lords won't follow a basher into the Lower Reaches; the chant is that Kiaransalee sucked the life force out of the last lord to rule Thanatos, and the Lower Reaches are her feeding grounds.

The truth is, the Lower Reaches are a chilled, ignored sanctuary of the Abyss, a place that the drow and the undead simply don't give a damn for. If the living wander among the trash, well, they'll just be undead that much sooner. Zombies, skeletons, and a few Dustmen wander the Lower Reaches, picking through the refuse that the intelligent undead above throw to the scavengers below. Granted, it's like living in a rubbish heap, but it's much safer than the Upper Reaches with their vampires, banshees, and constant ghast patrols; the Lower Reaches' worst threats are mindless puddings, cranium rats, and other scavengers. There's even the Scavenger's Luck, a tavern with the finest rot-gut and the foulest rations on the layer.

The Upper Reaches

Upper, airless Naratyr is home to warring bands of vampires, banshees, and spectres, all striving to outdo each other in fawning service to their mistress. They are constantly searching for living flesh to convert into new undead slaves to please their harsh goddess. The militia is called the Ivory Mace, a rag-tag gang of ghouls led by ghasts or wraiths. The captains of the Ivory Mace are babau; beware their deadly song.

Though Kiaransalee issues decrees from her nightmare throne of zombies and skeletons, the city's day-to-day ruler is Rauva Cormrael, a powerful priestess from the Prime. Her grip tightens when Kiaransalee withdraws to the Forbidden Citadel, a fortress many leagues away over the frozen wastes. Rauva's manor's high up in the Upper Reaches, guarded by scarab beetles the size of horses.

Ain't many services in Upper Naratyr, except for the tanar'ri and some undead. Upper Naratyr has but a single tavern for the warm folk, and few shops: The dead need no food or goods. Food, drink, and a warm bed are available at the Bottomless Well, an inn run by Crimson Mol, a constantly muttering basher who cleans his mugs obsessively with a bloody rag. The customers may still Live, but their shuffling gait and numb speech are signs of their deep weariness and helplessness. Most of them are members of the Dustmen. The Dead are the most powerful faction on the layer; they're good guides for visitors, and they know where to find the best air, food, and water. Most undead ignore travelers accompanied by a Dustman. The Dead know they've got a lock on the living, and charge accordingly.

Undead slaves and servants are available for any berk who can stand the stench, and the costs are right enough, not more than a copper a day. Tanar'ri keep huge entourages of useless servants just to impress the Clueless. Most other goods ain't available; food costs triple the usual prices, since so few need it.

On the heights above even the thin air of the Upper Reaches lies the Winter Palace of Kiaransalee. Its carpets are woven from the hair of its former occupants, and the interior walls are made of flesh. In summer a regent called Rotting Jack rules the city in Kiaransalee's place, ignoring Rauva's commands. In winter, Kiaransalee herself rules from Naratyr.