Minauros

Baatorian Layer
Order:	Third
Realms:	Aeaea Jangling Hiter Minauros

Minauros is best described as a stinking bog. The polluted rain washes down from a leaden sky like the burning tears of a lesser power. The rain is usually followed by sleet, which strikes travellers crossing the layer and sticks to them. The icy coating slowly melts to leave behind an oily residue that can't be removed while in the layer. After the sleet comes the hail, jagged and razor sharp, flaying skin from the bones of those unfortunate enough to be trapped outside. There're only two options for shelter in this layer: behind the nomadic ridges of volcanic glass and rock, slithering eternally through the mire (which is to say, no shelter), or within the mighty fortress of Minauros.

Here's the dark of Baator's third layer. First, think of how vast a desert can be. Then think of it encompassing an entire country, an entire continent, and an entire world. Picture it as spreading past the stars, blanketing the view for as far as a berk could conceivably ever see. Turn that desert into a fetid mire of muck and misery; dim the sky to an eternally overcast grey; slap a city the size of a world in the middle of it; and call the whole thing Minauros. That's the picture someone coming here ought to get of this layer.

Now, there's other places in Minauros, the Third layer of the Nine, than just Minauros the Sinking City. It's simply that the city, covered in vines and muck, occupies so much of the layer. Of course, there's ruins underneath the city - remnants of the old on which the new is built. Still, outside the walls exist other features of note, especially Jangling Liter (the City of Chains) and Aeaea, Hecate's realm. There's also cities of petitioners, escaped berks who've banded together to fight off any fiends that come to take them back to the mines. Then there are the underwater realms where giant shadow creatures roam. Finally, there's also rumours of a city (or perhaps "hive" would be a better term) of mosquitolike insects, but no one who's gone to see it has ever returned.

Baatorian Layers

Avernus . Dis . Minauros . Phlegethos . Stygia . Malbolge . Maladomini . Cania . Nessus