The Howling Abyss

The Inferno

Of the three large domains of fiends in the Howling Abyss, the Inferno is by far the largest, most populous, and the oldest. It is a land of hellfire and brimstone. Armies of fiends tread on the broken ground to wage war upon one another or stage assaults on worlds of the Maelstrom. Even the rare cities offer no refuge, for fiends and their allies take a dim view on uninvited guests.

History: In a time long past and forgotten ancient empires ruled the Maelstrom. The heart of the greatest of these empires was the twin worlds of Lautitia and Reg’la. Majestic cities raised by saurian hands dotted the landscape. Their culture peaked and slowly slid into decadence. Depraved sorcerers explored other planes in their search for greater authority. They listened most to honeyed whisperings of the spirits from the Howling Abyss. Blindly the insane sorcerers pushed forward with their plans for petty power, not realizing they were mere pawns to the spirits they thought servants.

The plans of the spirits came to fruition after centuries of manipulations. In an instant the twin worlds were drawn into the Howling Abyss. All life was extinguished. The death cry of the saurians empowered Nemesis, the Faceless Foe. By his hand the twin worlds became one. Fire erupted from their hot cores, fueled by souls of all those he had slain. Saurians sorcerers and cultists rose again as fiendish servants of Nemesis.

Since that age, other worlds have been drawn into the Howling Abyss by Nemesis or his servants. None have been as large or as populous as either Lautitia or Reg’la. These worlds are the moons of the Inferno. The most loyal and powerful servants of Nemesis are given these moons as estates. The moons are marshalling grounds from which the fiends can attack the Deeps or the Gray Glacier, or even worlds of the Maelstrom itself. The last such attack came during the Nemesis Wars a millennium ago. The war ended when the Forces of Light assaulted the Citadel of Burning Bronze. Nemesis himself took the field only to be defeated by the Champions of Light. The Citadel was extinguished and crumbled to dust.

Landscape: The Inferno is a broken world of wasteland and oceans of boiling fire. The air tastes of brimstone and ash. Jets of flame cast their hellish light over the land. Stark, barren mountains touch a sky of crushing emptiness. Water is scarce and often poisonous or fouled. Lakes of acid tempt travelers, only to devour such foolish travelers with choking fumes or burning waters. The rare forests offer no oasis in the wastelands of the Inferno, as the trees themselves are murderous and wicked. The land is haunted by deadly predators that hunt anything that dares to enter their domain.

The land is riddled with caves and passages that reach deep under the surface. Scorching winds rip through the narrow passages past rivers of boiling magma. Rare side passages offer sanctuary from the brutal winds, but are often claimed by powerful predators. The passages are the refuge of fiends that have gone mad or servants that have escaped vengeful masters.

The bleakest wastelands are the domain of terrifying citadels of iron and bone. Powerful fiendish nobles rule over wasteland kingdoms from these citadels. Through their agents and retainers, endless parades of stolen souls march into the fiendish citadels to face horrible fates. The weakest souls are burned in great furnaces while strongest souls are added to the ranks of fiendish armies.

Inhabitants: Only the heartiest of creatures can survive in the fires of the Inferno. They share many common features. All are highly resistant to fire, heat, toxic fumes, and magic. Bat-like wings, scales, and sharp teeth and claws are common with most creatures that call the Inferno home. Despite these similarities, the fiendish population varies wildly in appearance. Many powerful demon lords make use of servants that retain a common form and abilities. Some have developed into races in their own right. The most common ‘race’ is the Hordlings, creatures of utter chaos. It is from these base creatures that other creatures native to the Inferno are created.

Imps are common minions for fiends of all ranks. Small and devious, imps are sent to the Maelstrom to tempt mortals with offers of great power in exchange for service. Many imps remain as familiars for evil wizards and priests. Imps are found everywhere, serving as messengers, spies, and thieves for countless masters. Imps that prove their worth are rewarded with new, more powerful forms.

The reptile-like abashi are another common creature of the Inferno, typically used as guards and men-at-arms. All abashi nominally serve Tiamat, but she has created so many over the ages that thousands have drifted away from her domain to serve other lords. Small armies of outcast abashi wander the wastelands as bandits in search of lone fiends or mortals to waylay.

Another common foot-soldier in the Inferno armies is the stony gargoyle. Many minor lords create gargoyles as guards and men-at-arms. Slightly less intelligent than the abashi but more common, gargoyles often find themselves out of work if their master perishes. More than any other fiendish race, gargoyles get stranded in the Maelstrom, such that many worlds of the Maelstrom have thriving gargoyle populations.

Fiendish lords have long ago learned that mortals are susceptible to their passions. The succumbi were born from these mortal passions. Almost all fiendish lords keep a large stable of succumbi that serve to tempt mortals as well as to satisfy their lord’s own passions. The chief duty of succumbi is to tempt mortals into selling their souls to their fiendish masters, thus enhancing their own power.

Succubi, as part of their duties, mate with mortals as frequently as possible. Direct legacies of this are the alu-fiends, half-breeds with the strength of a fiend and the soul of a mortal. Alu-fiends are always female and quite pleasing to look upon. Most alu-fiends are outcasts in fiendish society, chafing under the dominating rule of fiendish lords. The lucky ones that make it to the Maelstrom can lead fulfilling lives as mortals.

The role of lesser nobility in the Inferno is fulfilled by the malebranche. These vicious creatures appear as gothic gargoyles, though many could pass as human if well disguised. Many are minor lords in their own right, with fortresses and retainers to call their own. Most serve more powerful fiendish lords. Demon armies are usually commanded by malebranche officers. Only the largest armies have a more powerful general than a strong malebranche.

At the very pinnacle of fiendish hierarchy are the demonic lords. There are hundreds of these creatures, each unique in appearance, personality, and power. Some appear as savage creatures of flame and shadow, others appear as humans with small red horn, and some that appear as satyrs or other creatures of legend. The lords have their own pecking order, though that pecking order changes constantly as lords bicker and feud. Each lord rules from a heavily fortified citadel manned by a horde of demonic warriors. They keep a Court of Fiends that they send into the Maelstrom to steal mortal souls to fuel their machines of war.

Major Landmarks: There are countless cities, castles, strongholds, dungeons, and fiendish lairs throughout the Inferno. It is impossible to describe even a tiny fraction of these horrific places. Below are the places most commonly known to mortals.

City of Vice: A large city set on a long island in a river of lava, the City of Vice is a popular watering hole for off duty soldiers and fiends without masters. Inside the walls of the city, the lesser fiends can partake in such pleasures as alcohol, narcotics, feasting, torture, pit fighting, brawling, and whatever else their twisted minds can imagine. Mortals are welcomed, as the fiends find it amusing to tempt and play with mortal passions for wealth or power. Some are powerful warlocks or warlords that have come to the city to find favor with the fiends. Many others are slaves, carried off by fiends in raids on the Maelstrom or former agents that have failed them. An unspoken code of conduct keeps the city from falling into utter chaos. Even so, rule is by the strongest and one must be very strong to keep what he owns. Abashi, succumbi, imps, and other lesser fiends are very common in the streets. Fiendish nobility grudgingly leave the city alone as a place where their troops can ‘blow off steam’ from time to time.

Fortress City of Lair: This large city is the seat of power of Tiamat, Queen of Dragons. It is built at the summit of an extinct volcano, with fortresses ringing the rim of the five mile-wide crater. Abashi dwell here in the tens of thousands as do several powerful dragons. Tiamat rules the city from a palace of black basalt in the center of the city. Her five consorts are in charge of running the city, which they have divided into five wards. The ward reflects the dragon that runs it, so the Red Ward is a chaotic realm of sword-wielding maniacs while the Blue Ward is an armed camp of a regimented army. Other dragons, lesser servants of Tiamat or her consorts, have their own lairs scattered throughout the city. The city is nearly impossible to reach by foot as the mountain trails are extremely treacherous. Lair has never been successfully attacked both due to a defensive location and the strength of arms of the citizens.

Iron City of Dis: The largest city on the Inferno is Dis, the Iron City. Black iron buildings rise into the sky up to 13 stories high. The Inferno heats the city such that any contact by mortal hands can cause minor burns. Dis is a war zone between rival lords that seek to seize the city for themselves. The city has proven too vast to be effectively ruled by any one lord, but that fact does not deter fiendish nobles from trying. A thriving black market means that almost anything can be found in the streets of Dis, for the right price. Visitors rarely stay long, least they are captured by press gangs and forced to join one faction or another.

Palace of Abandoned Hope: This once spectacular palace has been shattered and blackened. It was the seat of power for Nemesis, the Faceless Foe. A thousand years ago, it was besieged and destroyed. Nemesis himself went missing when the war seemed lost and has not been seen since. Recently, strange fires glow within the deepest reaches of the palace, and many lords have made secret pilgrimages to it. Rumors abound that Nemesis has returned, and is rekindling his power. Many lords, especially those that betrayed Nemesis during that war a thousand years ago, dismiss the rumors, stating simply that Nemesis is dead. Woe if they are wrong, for nothing will save those lords from the executioner’s axe and the Maelstrom will once again be rocked by the drums of war.

The Deeps

Second largest of the three major domains of the Howling Abyss, the Deeps is a realm of water. Deep oceans of brine cut through continents of flooded swamps. Rare islands rise from the endless ocean. This is the realm of Demogorgon and his Empire Beneath the Waves.

History: During the declining years of the saurian empires in the Maelstrom, the corruption that destroyed them was soon to spread to other worlds and communities. Nowhere else was the fiendish corruption more complete than the world of Sacront. The people of the world were tall, handsome, and proud. They were the favored people of the gods, given a world of plenty. The fiends found the people weak-willed and easy to manipulate. The people turned from their gods, and began to worship idols. In their supreme arrogance, the people believed themselves gods. They sought to chain the elements to their will, but proved unable to retain control over the chaotic forces. The gates they built to draw power from the Elemental Planes and beyond became their doom, drawing their world into the Howling Abyss. Their corruption of mind and body was complete, for they were no long tall and handsome but deformed and terrifying. Their prosperous land was flooded and ruined. Lowlands became briny seas while slimy swamps consumed the highlands.

The corruption of the Deeps has spread to other worlds as well. Many touched by the Deeps have found themselves forever twisted and deformed, first spawning the kuo-toa and yuan-ti, and then the ixitxachitl and the sahuagin.

Landscape: The Deeps is dominated by oceans of sickly brine. The oceans are quite deep, far deeper than mortals are normally capable of reaching. At the bottom of these seas is a bleak, featureless plain. The flat plain is broken only by shipwrecks, ruined cities, and the bones of the dead.

The Deeps does sport a handful of islands, some large enough to be considered continents. These islands are covered by murderous jungles and swamps where the vegetation is the deadliest of predators. There are a few jungle-covered mountains, most haunted by vicious monsters. Worse still are the diseases carried by the endless insects native to the Deeps that can kill a man in an hour.

Inhabitants: Creatures of the Deeps are horrifying to behold. Few even remotely resemble humans. Those few creatures with human-like features are horribly twisted and corrupted, having more in common with snakes or fish than humans or elves. The beasts are always ravenous and do not hesitate to slay and devour trespassers.

At the base of semi-intelligent creatures are the lemurs. These creatures appear as vaguely humanoid piles of slime with two arms and something that resembles a face. These wretched beings are the souls stolen from the Maelstrom. They gather together for safety from the more dangerous predators that hunt them. Those that survive long either degrade into monstrous jellies, oozes, & slimes. Rarely, a soul will emerge from the teeming lemur horde that develops into a more powerful form.

The seas are home to a host of various fiends referred to as ‘Deep Devils’. These monsters appear as vaguely humanoid fish with vicious spines and sharp claws and teeth. The Deep Devils rarely leave the water, but are summoned on occasion by sea-dwelling creatures of the Maelstrom, such as the aboleth, sahuagin, ixitxachitl, or kuo-toa. The Deep Devils are blamed for the creation of said races, for sages believe they resulted from ancient humans breeding with the sea-dwelling fiends. Devil Lords gather huge armies of Deep Devils to wage war upon one another in their underwater kingdoms.

The strongest Devil Lords breed sea monsters to swell their armies. Many have ambitions in the Maelstrom that involves direct, brutal conquest. As such, countless aboleth, ixitxachitl, kuo-toa, and sahuagin haunt the shallower waters of the Deeps. They only wait for the proper moment, when the stars are aligned, when they can boil out onto the worlds of the Maelstrom to fulfill their masters’ dreams of conquest. However, constant infighting more often than not leave their ranks decimated and demoralized. Such infighting has cost the Devil Lords many opportunities to launch their invasions, forever forestalling their plans.

Land is the domain of the frog-like slaads. These anarchic creatures enjoy travelling to the Maelstrom to spread chaos and destruction. They bow to no master and as such are hated by the Devil Lords. Even so, they serve convenient watchdogs for the Lords by making the islands and swamps dangerous places for invaders to occupy. The slaads care only for the hunt, for the kill.

Ruling over the Deeps are the Devil Lords. Each is a cold-blooded creature of war and hate. The weakest and most numerous of the Lords are the Kraken. The Kraken are squid-like monsters with deadly cunning. They are generals for the armies of the Deeps. Many Kraken are sent to the Maelstrom to orchestrate grand schemes of invasion and corruption.

The most powerful Devil Lords are the most human-appearing creatures of the Deeps. Indeed, a Devil Lord may be pleasing in appearance and quite charming in personality. They wear such guises to lure mortals to them, to make their corruption more horrific and terrible. They enjoy nothing more than to spread cults of worshippers and watch their own cultists degrade into abominations over the span of a few generations.

Major Landmarks: As a realm of murky swamps and foreboding seas, there are few permanent landmarks. Many ancient cities lay buried under thick jungle growth or at the bottom of deep seas, inaccessible to all but the most powerful spell-casters. The few sites listed below are at least known to sages of the Maelstrom.

Spawning Fen: This wide plain of blood-red peat grass and sticky tar is the mating grounds for the slaads. Every decade the slaads gather upon this field to mate. They bring with them thousands of captives to infect with their eggs. After several days of ritual combat, the strongest slaads are allowed to implant their eggs. The captives are turned loose to wander the plain for about a week before the young slaad bursts forth and in the process kills the host. Young slaads stay on the Fen for about a year, battling each other for food scraps. After a month, they have grown strong enough to depart the Fen and survive on their own.

The Bone Peaks: Reputedly the skeleton of a now forgotten god, the Bone Peaks is a chain of mountains stretching for hundreds of miles. They end in a massive, skull-shaped mountain almost five miles high. The Peaks are haunted by monstrous slimes and oozes. Portals to the Maelstrom appear randomly, sending these creatures into dungeons and caverns of worlds in the Maelstrom. Illithids from Banesun have established outposts in the brain cavity of the skull to study both the Deeps and the Howling Abyss. Their studies are constantly interrupted by attacks from the slimes and oozes.

The Black Pool: This body of water is an enormous sea of inky water and mysterious depths. Aboleth lair along its shore with their slave armies of kuo-toa and ixitxachitl. All bow down to the Blood Beast, a creature that is said to lair at the heart of the Black Pool. If aboleth legends are to be believed, the Blood Beast is a behemoth creature with a temple city upon its back. It is depicted as vaguely squid-like, with hundreds of tentacles and a pair of bloody red eyes. The city is inhabited by its chosen creatures that serve and please it.

The City of Drowned Souls: This ruin at the edge of an abyssal trench was once a thriving metropolis and temple city to the Gods of Light. It now lies almost completely underwater and in ruins, overrun by the creatures of the Deeps. The city is a realm of nightmares where one is confronted by the torments of an entire city of long-dead souls. At the edge of the abyssal trench is a twisted palace, the home of Demogorgon, the Master of the Deeps. Demogorgon sits brooding on his throne, his two heads at war with each other. His servants steal the souls of the drowned to swell the slave pool.

The Gray Glacier

Smallest and youngest of the realms of the Howling Abyss, the Gray Glacier is a frozen wasteland of glaciers and deserts. It is a bleak and barren realm of few inhabitants and much sorrow. Mortals seeking loved ones to rescue from the hands of the dead sometimes visit it. The land has an emptiness that can steal the soul from a mortal just as surely as the kiss of a succubus.

The Gray Glacier is poor in resources. It has become a haven for powerful undead, especially wraiths and liches who wish to be left to their own misery. Fiends are much fewer on the Gray Glacier but are just as apt at stealing the souls of mortals from the Maelstrom. Many that dwell in the Glacier fought in terrible wars in the Maelstrom, and bare grudges against many in that plane. They seek nothing less than to plunge the whole Maelstrom into chaos and war to breed the sense of loss and despair they thrive upon.

History: The masters of the Howling Abyss, having drawn in the worlds of Lautita, Reg’la, and Sacront, were not yet satisfied. They lusted to steal more worlds to dominate and rule. Their eyes turned towards the warm lands of Jotiem. Mighty kingdoms of the fair firbolg lay spread across the land. In a race ruled by strength and nobility, the fiends found few allies. The firbolg remembered well the fate of the ancient saurians, and saw through the fiends’ lies and honeyed words. The firbolg were beyond the fiends’ corrupting touch.

Frustrated at their failure to steal Jotiem through deceit, the fiends resorted to brute strength. They assembled a vast host of fiendish warriors and wizards for their invasion. These fiends were smaller and frailer than the mighty firbolg, so powerful enchantments were used to give them unnatural strength. They were armed with enchanted weapons, clad in mystic dragonhide armor, and given potent spells to hurl. The hosts of the Daks’d were ready.

The invasion of Jotiem was long and brutal. The firbolg fought for every inch of their homeworld, but steadily they were driven back. Heroically they held out to the last, but in the end they were defeated and broken. The land grew cold and barren, the winters longer. The stars grew distant, while the sun became pale and weak. Finally, on the night the last firbolg was slain, the sun set on Jotien for the last time. The world, now covered by glaciers and deserts, was hurled into the Howling Abyss. The Daks’d had delivered their prize, the world of Jotiem, to their fiendish masters.

The fiends did not long celebrate their victory, for the Daks’d were greatly weakened by the war. Those that remained in the Maelstrom were in turn overthrown by the slave hordes they had created. They suffered further setbacks when their attempts to corrupt their former slaves failed, their followers defeated. The fiends of the Gray Glacier came to favor necromancy and powers over the dead. The armies of the Gray Glacier are few and scattered, unable to mount another invasion. Yet they grow more powerful, for the power of necromancy flows through the Glacier, empowering undead hosts in the Maelstrom.

Landscape: The Gray Glacier has a barren and featureless landscape. The land changes between thick, foreboding glaciers of gray ice and empty deserts of black ash. No life can survive in the Gray Glacier for long. The air is cold and hard for mortals to breathe. The ash of the deserts is easily disturbed, creating choking clouds with each step. The glaciers offer different perils with mile-deep fissures and treacherous footing.

There is no food or water to be found anywhere in the Gray Glacier. All water is trapped as ice in the mammoth ice sheets. There is no plant life, and the creatures that are found here are inedible by mortals. Provisions can be found in the cities, though purchase of such goods will immediately draw the attention of numerous quast spies.

The sky above is completely empty and black. The horizon is impossible to find, as the black deserts seem to join with the black sky seamlessly. Darkness closes around any light source, almost as if reaching for it to snuff it out. The land permeates a sense of hopelessness and loss.

Inhabitants: The Gray Glacier is a bitterly cold realm thinly inhabited by demons, devils, and other fiends. All are immune to the icy conditions through their unnatural physiques. Mastery over magic brings power in the Gray Glacier, so most have potent magical abilities. Trickery and guile is preferred over brute force, so armies are small. Instead, the lords of the realm make use of endless spies and assassins to wage their wars from the shadows.

The most common, pitiful creature of the Gray Glacier is the larva. Larva are the souls of sentient beings stolen from the Maelstrom and cast upon the harsh sands to suffer. The brutal conditions are a crucible to weed out the weakest souls who perish from the stronger souls that master a stronger form. All larva have a worm-like appearance, with the faces of humanoids.

The quasts, distant relatives of imps, are commonly employed as spies by most of the more powerful creatures. All nobles have a large stable of quasts at their service. Quasts are so common that even foot soldiers have one or two for servants. Quast spy networks are quite extensive, stretching across the entire Howling Abyss, to the Maelstrom, and beyond.

Cannibalistic ghouls haunt the deserts in their eternal search for carcasses to devour. Ghouls appear as gaunt, vaguely humanoid creatures with decaying flesh and sharp teeth. Their limbs are too long to be human, and they sport bestial snouts to better tear flesh from bone. Barely intelligent, the nobility uses ghouls as hunting dogs and rarely as battle fodder. Ghouls often are banished to the Maelstrom because many nobles hate the mere presence of the creatures.

Far more intelligent than the ghouls are wraiths, which often fill the armies of the nobles. Wraiths are ghostly humans, elves, or other humanoids, with no solid form. The weakest are foot soldiers, commanded by wraith knights. The knights bow to the wraith lords, who are minor nobles in their own right. A circle of wraith necromancers that have mastered the arts of death magic serves each lord. There is said to be a wraith king, though few speak of such a creature, for he is said to be a god, if he exists at all. Such a creature is too terrible to behold and survive.

To beguile the hearts of men and lure them to their doom, the nobles created the banshee. The wretched creatures are made from the souls of particularly evil witches and women and have powerful abilities. Their most powerful ability is that of their voice, which they can use to seduce mortals and lure them to their doom. Banshee are masters of whispering into the ears of their lovers to achieve the results they desire. All banshee are comely women that are naturally ethereal but can wear the flesh of mortals as well. Banshee that mate with mortals produce many daughters, such as harpies, sirens, and like creatures.

In ages past, great armies of the elf-like daks’d marched across the Gray Glacier to invade the Maelstrom. Those armies are long dead leaving them a mere shadow of their former glory. The few remaining daks’d are bodyguards, assassins, and enforcers for the nobility. Daks’d are tall, handsome elves with pale white skin with raven black hair. They have no pupils; instead, their eyes are so black that staring into them is like staring into an abyss. All have powerful magical abilities at their command.

The icy glaciers are home to the Hoar giants, a twisted creation of the nobles from firbolg they captured in their genocidal war long ago. Hoar giants stand 20’ to 25’ tall, have a blue-black skin, and can be quite horrid in appearance. The creatures are a mockery of their former greatness, used by natives of the Gray Glacier as hired thugs.

Like fiendish nobility elsewhere, the nobles of the Gray Glacier are quite varied in appearance. They favor the appearance of fair giants, usually about 10’ to 12’ tall, as a further mocking of their defeated firbolg foes. They prey on mortal feelings of inadequacy and loss, creating cults of lost souls searching for a place where they belong. Vampires, witches, and necromancer priests often serve them.

Major Landmarks: The Gray Glacier is a remarkably barren realm. Cities are rare, as are the gothic castles of the fiendish nobility. Vast wastelands confront travelers, where no food or water can be found. Some of the more famous locations are listed below.

Castle Nineshade: This enormous, floating castle was constructed to serve a conclave of witches and necromancers. The conclave grew quite powerful in the Maelstrom, but was eventually driven from that plane through the combined efforts of several deities and their followers. The castle remains the base of operations of the conclave, though now most of its members are undead. The lich masters of Nineshade are rebuilding their power in the Maelstrom through a new generation of young and impressionable men and women that are taught the secrets of witchcraft.

The Writhing City: This large city is found in the center of a vast desert. It was built here to take advantage of several portals to the Maelstrom. Many mortals arrive on the Gray Glacier through these portals. The city gets its name from the walled compound of the city’s ruler, Sevth. The wall and buildings of the compound are made from larva cemented together into thick walls. Everything is for sale in the city, for the right price. The citizens have grown quite accustomed to dealing with mortals.

The Ruins of Hoarfell: Long ago, this was a proud firbolg city. It was cast into ruins ages ago and buried under a glacier of gray ice. The hoar giants have cleared out some passages to use as lairs. Hoar giants are attracted to the area, perhaps some memory of their former greatness. Powerful artifacts of good are rumored to remain somewhere in the city, buried under endless ice.

The Castle of Perfect Silence: More a myth than an actual place, the Castle of Perfect Silence is the reputed home of the Wraith King, if such a creature truly exists. The Wraith King rules over a court of lords and knights that enforce its will throughout the Gray Glacier. Any sound, even a mortal’s heartbeat, made in the citadel is echoed throughout the halls, alerting the inhabitants to the intrusion. The exact location of the Castle is unknown and varies from at the heart of the bleakest desert to the bottom of the deepest glacial crevasse.