Latest revision as of 06:24, 15 July 2013

Outer Plane
Layers:	Oinos Niflheim Pluton
Primary Faction:	Bleak Cabal Dustmen
Sect:	None

It is where evil springs eternal.
It is a plane of endless apathy and despair.
It is the great battlefield of the Blood War.

Hades sits at the nadir of the lower planes, halfway between two races of fiends each bent on the other's annihilation. Thus, it often sees its gray plains darkened by vast armies of demons battling equally vast armies of devils who neither ask nor give quarter. If any plane defines the nature of true evil, it is the Gray Waste. In the Gray Waste of Hades, pure undiluted evil acts as a powerful spiritual force that drags all creatures down. Here, even the consuming rage of the Abyss and the devious plotting of the Nine Hells are subjugated to hopelessness. Apathy and despair seep into everything at the pole of evil. Hades slowly kills a visitor's dreams and desires, leaving the withered husk of what used to be a fiery sprit. Spend enough time in Hades, and visitors give up on things that used to matter, eventually giving in to total apathy. Hades has three layers called “glooms.” Uncaring malevolence that slowly crushes the spirit permeates each gloom.

Traits

Normal Gravity.
Normal Time.
Infinite Size: Hades may extend infinitely, but its realms are finitely bounded.
Divinely Morphic: Entities of at least lesser deity status can alter Hades, though few deities deign to reign in Hades. The Gray Waste has the alterable morphic trait for less powerful creatures; Hades responds normally to spells and physical effort.
No Elemental or Energy Traits.
Strongly Evil-Aligned: Nonevil characters in Hades suffer a –2 penalty on all Charisma-, Wisdom-, and Intelligence-based checks.
Entrapping: This is a special trait unique to Hades, although Elysium has a similar entrapping trait. A nonoutsider in Hades experiences increasing apathy and despair while there. Colors become grayer and less vivid, sounds duller, and even the demeanor of companions seems to be more hateful. At the conclusion of every week spent in Hades, any nonoutsider must make a will saving throw (DC 10 + the number of consecutive weeks in Hades). Failure indicates that the individual has fallen entirely under the control of the plane, becoming a petitioner of Hades. Travelers entrapped by the inherent evil of Hades cannot leave the plane of their own volition and have no desire to do so. Memories of any previous life fade into nothingness, and it takes a wish or miracle spell to return such characters to normal.
Normal Magic.

Connections

The River Styx flows through the uppermost layer of Hades, and a few of its small tributaries may lead deeper into the plane. As with everywhere else along the Styx, sinister ferrymen ply its length, granting passage to other planes. Portals to other planes are fairly common, at least on the uppermost gloom, Oinos. Portals usually appear as great spinning coins of color. Golden coins lead to Carceri, silver ones lead to the Outlands, coppers go to Gehenna, and rare platinum ones connect to the Astral Plane. Because everything else in the Gray Waste is leached of color, the coin-portals glitter for miles.

Inhabitants

Foul creatures of every sort can be found in the Gray Waste. Because this is the battleground of the lower planes, demons, devils, slaadi, formians, and even the occasional deva can be found here, spying for the war effort or deserting their unit. Of course, yugoloths also abound, despite the fact that most of the race has moved from this plane, their original home, to the neighboring plane of Gehenna. Night hags are also thick in Hades. They constantly seek special petitioners called larvae, which they use as a special form of spiritual currency in their dark dealings with evil beings and deities. Besides Blood War detritus, night hags, and petitioners, Hades hosts herds of fiery nightmares.

Petitioners

Petitioners in Hades are mostly grayish ghosts, spirits so depleted by the Waste that they lack solidity. They rarely speak, instead crowding around visitors like moths around a candle, seeking the warmth of emotion and hope that living beings possess. Spirits of particularly selfish and malicious mortals that come to Hades become a special form of petitioner called a larva. Larvae appear as Medium-size worms with heads that resemble the heads on their mortal bodies. Larvae serve as the currency of the Lower Planes, especially among night hags, liches, demons, devils, and yugoloths. Most are as likely to be used as food as to power a spell. The rare “lucky” larva is sometimes promoted to a lower form of fiend. Normal petitioners in Hades gain only one special petitioner quality: incorporeality. But larvae have the following special petitioner qualities:

Additional Immunities: Cold, fire. Resistances:
Electricity 20, acid 20.
Other Special Qualities: Wounding, disease, no planar commitment.
Wounding (Ex): Every time a larva deals damage, the wound automatically bleeds for 1 additional point of damage every round until a Heal check (DC 15) is made or magical healing is applied.
Disease (Ex): Following a battle with larvae during which the larvae dealt any damage, wounded characters must make a Fortitude save (DC 17) or contract devil chills (see Disease in Chapter 3 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide, for the effects of devil chills).
No Planar Commitment (Ex): Unlike most other petitioners, larvae can be removed from Hades. Often, they are taken elsewhere to serve as food, barter, and basic “soulstuff” for fiendish projects, both demonic and devilish, that require such an esoteric component.

Movement and Combat

Movement and combat in Hades are much like movement on the Material Plane. The hateful nature of the plane makes combatants less likely to flee, even if gravely wounded. Most fights here are to the death.

Features

The glooms of the Gray Waste are just that: dull gray lands. The earth is gray, the sky is gray, and the petitioners are gray. Color is foreign here, as if vision itself is subverted. When visitors step into the plane, everything goes from color to white, black, or gray. There is no sun, no moon, and no stars above—just a bleak gray radiance emanating from the sky. This grayness affects more than vision; it is a spiritual grayness. It reaches into the hearts of all who spend time in Hades. Those who spend more time here than they should, such as all the petitioners, are devoid of feeling. They don't laugh, don't cry, and just don't care. All they do is despair, their hope gone and never to return. Both the entrapping trait of Hades and the spiritual sickness called “the grays” are manifestations of the grayness of Hades.

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 ! colspan=2 style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;"| Outer Plane
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+[[File:gray_waste.jpg|right|caption]]
+*It is where evil springs eternal.
+*It is a plane of endless apathy and despair.
+*It is the great battlefield of the Blood War.
-[[File:gray_waste.jpg|right|caption]]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.
+Hades sits at the nadir of the lower planes, halfway between two races of fiends each bent on the other's annihilation. Thus, it often sees its gray plains darkened by vast armies of demons battling equally vast armies of devils who neither ask nor give quarter. If any plane defines the nature of true evil, it is the Gray Waste. In the Gray Waste of Hades, pure undiluted evil acts as a powerful spiritual force that drags all creatures down. Here, even the consuming rage of the Abyss and the devious plotting of the Nine Hells are subjugated to hopelessness. Apathy and despair seep into everything at the pole of evil. Hades slowly kills a visitor's dreams and desires, leaving the withered husk of what used to be a fiery sprit. Spend enough time in Hades, and visitors give up on things that used to matter, eventually giving in to total apathy. Hades has three layers called “glooms.” Uncaring malevolence that slowly crushes the spirit permeates each gloom.
-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.
+=Traits=
+*Normal Gravity.
+*Normal Time.
+*Infinite Size: Hades may extend infinitely, but its realms are finitely bounded.
+*Divinely Morphic: Entities of at least lesser deity status can alter Hades, though few deities deign to reign in Hades. The Gray Waste has the alterable morphic trait for less powerful creatures; Hades responds normally to spells and physical effort.
+*No Elemental or Energy Traits.
+*Strongly Evil-Aligned: Nonevil characters in Hades suffer a –2 penalty on all Charisma-, Wisdom-, and Intelligence-based checks.
+*Entrapping: This is a special trait unique to Hades, although Elysium has a similar entrapping trait. A nonoutsider in Hades experiences increasing apathy and despair while there. Colors become grayer and less vivid, sounds duller, and even the demeanor of companions seems to be more hateful. At the conclusion of every week spent in Hades, any nonoutsider must make a will saving throw (DC 10 + the number of consecutive weeks in Hades). Failure indicates that the individual has fallen entirely under the control of the plane, becoming a petitioner of Hades. Travelers entrapped by the inherent evil of Hades cannot leave the plane of their own volition and have no desire to do so. Memories of any previous life fade into nothingness, and it takes a wish or miracle spell to return such characters to normal.
+*Normal Magic.
+=Connections=
+The River Styx flows through the uppermost layer of Hades, and a few of its small tributaries may lead deeper into the plane. As with everywhere else along the Styx, sinister ferrymen ply its length, granting passage to other planes. Portals to other planes are fairly common, at least on the uppermost gloom, Oinos. Portals usually appear as great spinning coins of color. Golden coins lead to Carceri, silver ones lead to the Outlands, coppers go to Gehenna, and rare platinum ones connect to the Astral Plane. Because everything else in the Gray Waste is leached of color, the coin-portals glitter for miles.
-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.
+=Inhabitants=
+Foul creatures of every sort can be found in the Gray Waste. Because this is the battleground of the lower planes, demons, devils, slaadi, formians, and even the occasional deva can be found here, spying for the war effort or deserting their unit. Of course, yugoloths also abound, despite the fact that most of the race has moved from this plane, their original home, to the neighboring plane of Gehenna. Night hags are also thick in Hades. They constantly seek special petitioners called larvae, which they use as a special form of spiritual currency in their dark dealings with evil beings and deities. Besides Blood War detritus, night hags, and petitioners, Hades hosts herds of fiery nightmares.
+=Petitioners=
+Petitioners in Hades are mostly grayish ghosts, spirits so depleted by the Waste that they lack solidity. They rarely speak, instead crowding around visitors like moths around a candle, seeking the warmth of emotion and hope that living beings possess. Spirits of particularly selfish and malicious mortals that come to Hades become a special form of petitioner called a larva. Larvae appear as Medium-size worms with heads that resemble the heads on their mortal bodies. Larvae serve as the currency of the Lower Planes, especially among night hags, liches, demons, devils, and yugoloths. Most are as likely to be used as food as to power a spell. The rare “lucky” larva is sometimes promoted to a lower form of fiend.
+Normal petitioners in Hades gain only one special petitioner quality: incorporeality.
+But larvae have the following special petitioner qualities:
+*Additional Immunities: Cold, fire. Resistances:
+*Electricity 20, acid 20.
+*Other Special Qualities: Wounding, disease, no planar commitment.
+*Wounding (Ex): Every time a larva deals damage, the wound automatically bleeds for 1 additional point of damage every round until a Heal check (DC 15) is made or magical healing is applied.
+*Disease (Ex): Following a battle with larvae during which the larvae dealt any damage, wounded characters must make a Fortitude save (DC 17) or contract devil chills (see Disease in Chapter 3 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide, for the effects of devil chills).
+*No Planar Commitment (Ex): Unlike most other petitioners, larvae can be removed from Hades. Often, they are taken elsewhere to serve as food, barter, and basic “soulstuff” for fiendish projects, both demonic and devilish, that require such an esoteric component.
-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.
+=Movement and Combat=
+Movement and combat in Hades are much like movement on the Material Plane. The hateful nature of the plane makes combatants less likely to flee, even if gravely wounded. Most fights here are to the death.
+=Features=
-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.
+The glooms of the Gray Waste are just that: dull gray lands. The earth is gray, the sky is gray, and the petitioners are gray. Color is foreign here, as if vision itself is subverted. When visitors step into the plane, everything goes from color to white, black, or gray. There is no sun, no moon, and no stars above—just a bleak gray radiance emanating from the sky. This grayness affects more than vision; it is a spiritual grayness. It reaches into the hearts of all who spend time in Hades. Those who spend more time here than they should, such as all the petitioners, are devoid of feeling. They don't laugh, don't cry, and just don't care. All they do is despair, their hope gone and never to return. Both the entrapping trait of Hades and the spiritual sickness called “the grays” are manifestations of the grayness of Hades.
-'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 [[River Styx|Styx]] and the [[Yggdrasil|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.

The Gray Waste: Difference between revisions