Hades (realm)
| Divine Realm | |
|---|---|
| Plane: | The Gray Waste |
| Layer: | Pluton |
| Powers: | Hades |
- Gloom, gloom, gloom. Striving is futile, because everything ends in despair. The price of hubris is punishment everlasting, but only those who dare challenge the gods need worry.
A joyless, lightless domain, the Underworld features a palace of gray marble surrounded by gray marble walls at a distance of a thousand leagues. The sky above arches a featureless gray, though once in a while a body could swear that he sees the roof of an incredibly large cavern.
Hades, Lord of the Dead, rules this realm of the same name. Most people just call it the Underworld and have done with it. He's the most powerful being in the Gray Waste, bar none, and though he's classified as an intermediate power, most folks in the know call him a greater god. As the eldest brother of the chief of his pantheon and the first son of Cronus, he's not exactly weak.
Neither is he what a body would call jovial. In fat, he's downright gloomy most of the time. But sometimes his eyes light fire, and he becomes animated, almost lively. Like Hel of Niflheim, he can be approached by mortals, though he prefers not to have his time wasted by silly requests for a loved one to be brought back to life. Indeed, if it weren't for his wife Persephone, he wouldn't hear mortals at all.
Only a single double gate pierces the marble walls of Hades' realm. Constructed of beaten bronze, the gates have been dented and scarred by living heroes doing their best to get beyond and speak to Hades. The power allows them to remain damaged because it discourages other folks: If the greatest mortal heroes couldn't pass, what dopes does an ordinary berk have of getting in?
Besides, just beyond the gate prowls the three-headed hound, Cerberus. Unless a body can charm his way past or beat the stuffing from the dog, he's not likely to get too much farther. If someone slays the dog, it's simply returned to life by the will of Hades.
Beyond the great hound lies the rest of the realm. It's a place of blackened, stunted trees and wasted ground. Groves of black willows flourish, and one such grove holds a single white laurel inside. It's said that this laurel allows a petitioner to see back to the living world, returning his memories as he looks upon his children and grandchildren and so on down the line. Some souls come back from the grove with greater hope for their lives and their line; others come back weeping even more fiercely than before.
The lifeless, gray, wraithlike petitioners move only at the will of Hades. In fact, the whole realm seems deserted to a mortal traveler; that's because Hades hides his petitioners from most cutters, only to spring the unfortunates out when the intruder least expects it.
The petitioners are despairing and crude; their only emotion is paralyzing grief. This dull afterlife allows them considerable time to reflect on what they could've been if thy'd only taken the chance to try something new in their lives. Of course, if they realized what too much daring cost some people, they'd be glad of this state of being. See, just a little ways off from the bulk of the petitioners are the sods assigned particularly nasty fates in the Underworld.
These berks dared to insult the very faces of the Olympian gods. Their names endure as the stuff of dire legends: Sisyphus, eternally struggling with his rock; the gaunt and emaciated Tantalus, with water and fruits just beyond his reach; Ixion, the would-be violator of Hera, spinning eternally in his wheel of flame; Peirithous, rooted on the chair of forgetfulness; and the Danaids, murderers of their husbands, forced to fill an endless and unfilling urn with water.
Site and Cities
There are no towns in Hades' realm, only the places of punishment and the great palace of Hades and Persephone. The palace isn't open for anyone to come and stay, though it's richly appointed and the vast halls echo with loneliness. It's the private residence of a power, built with love and desire for his young wife.
Still, a body can walk in the front doors and march straight ahead to the Twin Thrones that watch over the entire realm. Any derivation from this path is looked upon with extreme disfavor - anyone who'd dare the disfavor of a god of death is certainly worthy of the punishments meted out by said god.
Rivers run through the entire realm; it's said that the Styx itself has a place here, though no fee can convince a marraenoloth to pilot his skiff to the Underworld. It's well known that the River Lethe, the sweet waters of forgetfulness, flow through the Underworld. Though a petitioner forfeits any chance of returning to he world above when he drinks the waters, sometimes the temptation to forget his current miserable state is too much to resist.