The Never ending Party
(Site)
written by Emlyn Shannon
Hearsay: This party started many centuries ago, and several successive generations of berks have spent
their entire lives just partying. The Society of Sensation officially deplores this practice - unofficially, nearly all Sensates search for The Party.
Description: Buried deep beneath the mountains of the Outlands, near Sylvania, is an immense cavern.
Inside, a group of paranoid Pandemonium barmies calling themselves "Metal Bolts Two
Hand Spans Long" plays terribly discordant "music", while the seven to eight hundred partiers of all races have a wild time. It was started
four hundred years ago when a party in Sylvania stumbled on a shifting portal to the huge cavern, where the
light
was reflected in strange ways by the crystals on the roof. Almost the whole
of the party was moved into the cavern - and then the Portal shifted. Every day, the Portal shifts to somewhere entirely different, but always
on the Outlands and always at a location which can sustain a party. Each day, drunken revelers plunge through
the portal, steal all the wine, onion dip and cheese crackers they need before plunging back through the Portal.
Since the bouncers are magically controlled Beholders, no-one dares follow the partiers back through the
Portal, and the raiding parties seldom fail in their supply-gathering operation, because some of the partiers are
Tanar'ri, Slaadi and Eldarins.
Magical Conditions: It is strange that the party should have an effect on magic different to that of
the rest of the Outlands, but somehow, it does.
First and foremost, no magical means will ever be able to silence "Metal
Bolts Two Hand Spans Long". Exactly why this should be is not known, but some believe the barmies, their instruments or their song to be the power that keeps the party running. Some even suggest that the song itself has a kind of intelligence, but this is clearly screed.
Any attempts to create noise (e.g. – create audible glamour etc) within the cavern go well unless trying to create a sweet, concordant or harmonious sound – these sounds come out as discords hard to tell from the regular "music".
Any offensive spells create pretty effects, but never kill more than one person. There is no retribution from the "dancers" for such an act, because
they probably don’t notice. Exactly whom a particular spell kills is invariably not the person the caster was
aiming for. The Party is generally in the second ring, so first-level spells don’t work to well. Apart from that, magic will
work as normal, but mages will find themselves constantly pushed into making big fireworks and other such colourful effects.
Services: No-one is allowed into The Party without bearing a gift of something wholly new and different
that none of the partiers have ever tried before (best bet is to get a delicacy from the Prime Material Plane,
because the Party has tried basically everything on the Outer Planes). Once inside, there's a never ending
supply of food and wine, and terrible, discordant sounds. Because the partiers have been everywhere, it might
seem that they have information to share - but more likely than not, they can't remember most of the places
they've been and aren't inclined to talk about it in any case. Another thing the Party offers freely is madness.
Anyone inside the Cavern must make saving throws to stave off wind madness, similar to the way people are
driven insane in Pandemonium. However, instead of wanting the screeching music to stop, the barmies become
more and more enamoured of the noise the further into madness they slide.