The Gray Waste
| Outer Plane | |
|---|---|
| Layers: | Oinos Niflheim Pluton |
| Primary Faction: | Bleak Cabal Dustmen |
| Sect: | None |
The Gray Waste lies at the nadir of the Lower Planes, where all the evil in the planes converges into one gigantic, colorless clash. It gives rise to the purest, most undiluted corruption of the multiverse, or so it's said. Its inhabitants practice evil for evil's sake, without any consideration of law or chaos that taint the rest of the cosmos.
So what is "pure" evil? Well, it ain't what a body might think. It's not the consuming rage of the Abyss, or the devious plotting of Baator. It's apathy, hopelessness, and despair. It causes the death of all a body's dreams and desires, leaving the withered husk of what used to be a fiery spirit. Under this influence, a berk gives up on things that used to matter, and gives in to total lack of feeling.
The Gray Waste encompasses three layers: Oinos, Niflheim, and Pluton. One might more properly refer to the layers as glooms, because, well, they're nothing if not gloomy. See, the Gray Waste is more than just a pretty name; it's a way of life, and the only description of the plane that completely defines it.
No sun, moon, or stars brighten the glooms. The sky stretches out in a featureless gray expanse, and it's mighty difficult to tell where the horizon ends and the sky begins. One's just a little darker than the other. The lack of sun means no day or night, only the never-ending cycle of slight brightening and slight darkening. The cycle has no apparent pattern: It can brighten for hours on end, or it might take a few minutes before the dark encroaches again. And it's not like a body would want to measure time anyway. The plane suffers in a state of eternal waiting, both past and future, with all the boredom an ennui that such a situation entails.
The gloom touches all - including the spirits of everyone who comes here. Everything's a shade of gray; ranging from charcoal to almost-white. It's been said that a body's possessions turn gray as soon as she sets foot in the Waste. That's nonsense. The bleaching takes about a week, through bright colors brought here begin to fade immediately. Once the week's up, though, even the most vibrant of colors is gone, leeched away by the wasting tan of the Gray Waste. Then even muted colors stand out, for as long as they last.
'Course, in a place where even dark black is an exception, somebody wearing colors is bound to give another berk a splitting headache. It's like looking into a bright sun for the locals, and if one thing rouses them from their stupor, it's the pain of colors. The newer residents, still capable of caring, converge on the offender and beat him senseless while they tear the colors from his body and bury 'em. They do their best not to make a body bleed; even the dull red (or green, or blue) of blood hurts their eyes, and they don't want that.
Fact is, the Gray Waste actually steals dreams and hopes from a cutter, draining him of all that he ever wished to be. Some say that the Waste converts the dreams into power for itself - who knows? For every week a body spends here, it becomes more and more difficult to hold onto his sense of self. This comes in the form of incredibly vivid dreams, so vivid that a body can smell and hear what's in 'em. These dreams dredge up a body's past, ransacking his memories and his desires, and spilling them onto the ground of the Gray Waste. The poor basher being drained finds the process enjoyable, at first, until the dreams die down in intensity. As they do, his imagination and willpower dissipate as well, and he finds himself wondering why he ever dreamed in the first place.
For some, the loss of hope and feeling is welcome solace. Most don't realize that only the better dreams slip away, the dreams that make life worth living.
And when a body's finally succumbed and lost his dreams completely, he no longer desires to leave the Wastes. Within a matter of months, he loses sight of his own identity and vanishes into the uncharted regions of the plane to shed his mortal guise. The last anyone sees of him is a body trundling off into the distance - though bashers tell tales of larvae with faces that seem strangely familiar.
Denizens of the Lower Planes seem to be immune to this draining. Either these creatures completely lack dreams and hopes, or they've got extraordinary mental fortitude. Whatever the case, a fiend has never been known to revert to larva status.
As mentioned before, a body can get in and out of the Gray Waste by plenty of roads. It's just a matter of mustering the will to do so. Most folks simply can't leave once they've been here too long.
Three of the Outer Planes' four Great Paths form and essential part of the landscape of the Gray Waste: Mount Olympus, the Styx and the World Ash all have pathways leading to and from the gloom. Only the River Oceanus doesn't lead here, and that's because its waters are too pure to be polluted by the evil of the wastes. Besides, one path already touches each layer. Another'd just confuse the issue.
Guards watch each of the major paths; the powers and the yugoloths overseeing the Blood War like to know who's coming in and going out. Only the yugoloths do anything to restrain a berk, since the guards really just don't care much.
Teleportation onto or around the Waste - whether by spell, natural ability, or magical item - is difficult, and it's impossible in Oinos. The other two layers pose about a 75% chance of failure, and that's enough to deter just about everyone but the barmiest tanar'ri.
Speculations about the cause of this limitation include the following chants: the very similar nature of different parts of the plane "confuses" the magic (it all looks alike, even to a spell); it's some condition imposed to limit the movement of fiendish troops to the main battlefields of the Blood War; or something on the plane itself dislikes such freedom of movement. After all, despair takes a bit of time to set in. If visitors can simply pop in and out, the Waste can't claim them among its victims.