City on the edge of torment, on the gates of hell, on the shores of metaphor
(town)

Character. Tongues of Yugoloth, roosts of crow. You are halfway to hell, halfway to torment, halfway into deep metaphor, walking precariously on the edge of reality.
Rulers. The mayor of the Edge is Ttaw, a wereraven (Pl/Male Wereraven/Th8/NE). When not in wereraven form, Ttaw is a tiefling with yugoloth and baatezu blood. He is the voice of the city in matters of both internal and external diplomacy, ably dealing with the city's guilds and factions and with the governors of cities abroad. It is a narrow line that Ttaw walks, but he walks it well.
Behind the Throne. Ttaw enjoys the support of the garrisons of yugoloths and baatezu who are stationed in the city, but his real power comes from a cabal of ancient vaporighu who founded the city in times forgotten. They dwell in a secret underground chamber and send instructions to their minions in the land above.
Description. The city squats at the precipice between the bulk of Khalas and the void beyond. Row after row of ancient tenements make up the majority of the town. In the center of the city is an island covered with tall, elderly mansions, connected to the rest of the city by a bridge made with the living , flapping bodies of gargoyles. The cold river Styx underneath washes waves of hate against the dikes and shore that disperse amongst the populace like petulant mist before flowing into Baator. A small channel flows uncertainly into a city on the Prime. Limited commerce takes place with the material world, mostly pets and small children. Gates also lead to Sigil, and just upstream on the Styx are the cities of Glass and Vine and Saurum in the Waste. In the sky is the blood-red orb that serves as the portal to Curst in the Outlands. The populace is mainly human (decendents of lost children from the Prime), but includes tieflings, baatezu, barghests, kytons, mephits, yugoloths, tanar'ri, phiul, diakka, night hags, planar spiders, shadow fiends, formians, modrons, hordlings, vaporighu, and creatures from all over the planes of evil and cordance. Wild animals include some of the unpleasant small things that are found in most of Gehenna's cities, but also cats, dogs, rats, spiders, flies, bats, opossums, racoons, crows, jays, squirrels, and pigeons.
Enzog's Decoy Shoppe. Enzog is an expatriate from the City of Witches in the Gray Waste; he crafts living automata, realistic creatures that can be used as vehicles.
The Fire Quarter is where the plane's lava is channeled into the manufacturing district. The air here is, if anything, worse than in Sigil.
A fantastic zoo consists of cobbled paths among small adamantium cages containing baku, slasrath, horses, alligators, bar-lgura, thunderbeasts, quasits, abrian, darklore, a troll, a Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen, bugbears, hollyphants, humans, bonespears, terlens, fhorges, and even a small white dragon. The beasts are fed by mephits.
At the DM's option,a train station exists in this city, with a plane-traveling locomotive whose tracks guide it to planes unknown.
Militia The Edge has a regular police force organized into patrolmen, sergeants, and captains. They are all fighters, mainly of low level, though a few are barbazu. Their uniform is gray and covered with many straps for holding clubs, knives, and mancatchers; their badge is the city's coat of arms: a crow flying through a gate. Most of the citizentry regard them with ambivalence at best.
Childcatchers are often a common sight, herding loose children into stern, poorly funded orphanages where they are sometimes adopted by one of the businesses in need of cheap labor.
Services. Weapons and other iron products, cheap labor, human prey, access to several large and easy gates for a relatively small toll (2 sp), Enzog's Decoys, rare animals, Styx water, and mercenaries. The channel of the Styx that flows into the prime is unstable and difficult to find, disappearing into the sewers or rocks outside the city and moving from place to place.
Current chant. Laraby is a guvner mage doing research on the society of Baator. From his apartment in the Edge's internal island, he has been studiously writing. He would appreciate it if someone could find him a rare book called the Lay of Hell; he has quite a substantial grant from his faction. Also, a beholder mage has been making trouble for a certain powerful tanar'ri, learning his truename and escaping to the Edge. Both the tanar'ri and his enemies would be very glad if the beholder could be found.
Once a (prime) year the tides of night swell into the city from the void beyond the layer. On that day, all of the lights in the city are snuffed and all manner of debaucheries take place. Tourists from Sigil are especially common during this Day of Nighttides.

The Island of the Black Grail
(Site)

Hearsay. Today, Ynlur placed Bottle of Black Sorcery among the stars. Explore it .It is well guarded. Whatever you find is yours.
Description. Deep in the black void beyond the mountains lies a lone artificial island, made of adamantite and laced with runes.
Special features. The Black Grail is a place of wonders and horrors. As the legendary Holy Grail is the font of life and well-being, the Black Grail is the bottomless well of destruction and sickness. The Black Grail can only be seen by those with extremely tainted hearts, and then only after a long Grail Quest, and then only in a vision.


The sea of drowned Mothers
(realm)

Character. Beginnings are weakness. Only be destroying your origins can you be free to live your life the way you desire. To orphan yourself is the way to power.

Power. Many deities and near-deities have visited the Sea and allowed it to do its work, empowering the realm with the results of their deeds and sacrifices. Some are rumored to be imprisoned below, victims of their own desire for relief from guilt and fear.

Description. The Sea's silent waves lap in Mungoth, Gehenna's third furnace. Beneath Gehenna's eternal night it glows the blue of a cloudless sky. The shoreline rocks take semi-humanoid forms, lying twisted and prone halfway in the water. Volcanos boil on the bottom, a few of which are rumored to be gates. Weird civilizations on the sea's rocky shore turn the power beneath the waters into magic for themselves: the orcs, goblins, baatezu and yugoloths are all of unusual size and strength, all sorcerers with control over water and flame, but racial abilities, loyalties, and knowledge are lost to them.

Principal Towns. Elan, a baatezu town dominated by a large acropolis built on a very humanoid hill, with an inordinate amount of nupperibos . Pungeance, which is mainly yugoloth but with some resident phiuls, is controlled by an apolcalyptic cult of fume-sucking mystics who predict the imminent death of the General of Gehenna. Canis, filled with goblins who were formally slaves of the barghests, is perhaps the most powerful of the towns around the Sea because of the advanced academy of magic the goblins have managed to create from stolen spells. Takhold, home of orcs, is built entirely within carved ebon domes shielded from Gehenna's fiery light, since the population is built by immigrants from the realm of the night god Shargas. Of course, there are many lesser towns populated by the above races and barghests, linqua, and baku.

Special Conditions. The sea represents cruel ascension at the cost of beginnings. A baernaloth lies chained at the bottom, unable to do more than burble the lies of another world. A tribe of orcs warm themselves, using the sea to shield themselves from the wrath of the powers they deserted. The sea actually works that way for anyone: anyone able to inhale the winds of noxious gas from the sea's heart is protected from the pursuit of their former patrons, but they lose all skills and memories from their former existence. It's as if they were born from the sea itself, and in a way they were. Visitors will find they have lost their traditional hatreds, replacing them with a complex web of newer and stronger ones.

Principal Nonplayer Characters. Wu (Pl/neuter baatezu (Gelugon)/W11/LE) is the duly elected warlord of Elan. Elan's society has broken down into a number of competing assassin's guilds, with each guild rotating their designated leaders. Elan's major innovation, however, is giving nupperibos the same rights as lemures. If the nupperibos evolve, this may be the first society where baatezu and elder Baatorians live in relative piece. Pochalaq (Pl/ female yugoloth (yagnoloth) /W 10/LE) is the ruler of Pungeance. Pochalaq, though a hermaphrodite like every yugoloth, has declared herself High Priestess of the Revelation. She and her followers (including some greater yugoloths) firmly believe that the General of Gehenna will shortly be slain by a god of incarnate evil and madness, leaving only the faithful alive. Snee (Pr/male goblin/W22/LE) is the chief of Canis' Council of Magi. He is well on his way to becoming the only known goblin lich, and thus day-to-day affairs of Canis are operated by his peers in the council and his apprentice, Zirak (Pr/male goblin/W16/LE). Zirath is naturally a bit irresponsible, tending to give up potential gains for the city if offered valuable new magicks. Taeunis (Pl/male orc/F12/W 8/NE) is the warlord of Takhold. He rules his people through blood and fear, though they don't fear him nearly as much as they fear the wrath of their former god.

Services. The natural laws of the realm are a valuable service themselves, but the various cities are able to supply magical services unavailable elsewhere. The water of the lake, bottled, stays potent for several weeks. Takhold has a brewery that makes the best beer in Mungoth; it's said that it includes the essence of night. Gigantic worms are the most common beasts of burden. They are available both for sale and for rent, but are of no special quality.

Bellgrim
(Town)

Character. Be ready, be ready, be ready, be ready.
Ruler. Bellgrim is ruled by a monastic colony of barghest mystics. They have ruled for some time, and have forced the other barghests of the city to subscribe to their philosophy: that the barghest race is destined to become the new incarnations of law and evil, replacing the baatezu as they replaced their own predecessors. They have determined that the Transcendent Order has the best means to do this, and all belong to that faction.
Behind the throne. Meander (Pl/yugoloth nycoloth)/Transcendent Order/NE) is a nycoloth spy, posing as a member of the mystics. He rarely speaks except to agree with their present course of action. Occasionally, he goes on "pilgramages" to report what he has learned to the local ultraloth consul.
Description. Bellgrim is a city of barghests, named for its ubiquitous bells that toll regularly, urging the barghests to work or prayer. Major buildings include the hospital, the "House of Strategy," the gymnasium, the red light district, and the rows of houses, which include both bare barracks-style buildings and ornate mansions. The city is surrounded by high stone walls framed with stout square fortresses (with bell towers).
Militia. Bellgrim is ably defended by adult barghests. They operate in close platoons and are capable of quick and decisive action. They are often accompanied by yeth and hell hounds, and by goblin slave troops.
Services. Bellgrim produces little of use for the outside world, though it does make an effort to bring tourists into its entertainment district. Their primary export is their philosophy, though they are happy to import it as well in the form of visiting Ciphers of any race (except baatezu).
Current Chant. A goblin named Hezzik from the Slope of Flayed Children is trying to recruit help in liberating the barghests of that realm. The citizens of Bellgrim are simpathetic, but unwilling to go after so powerful a baatezu lord unless they can be assured of allies from other cities.

Sea of glass
(site)

Heresay. Somewhere in gehenna a sea of pure glass extends (downhill, of course) for hundreds of leagues, navigated by pirates with diamond-tipped blades.
Description. A dead volcano in Krangath has become a sea of clear volcanic glass, a slippery expanse of lubricated hate. Nomadic barghests and mephits travel its surface in sleighs driven by specialized glassworms.
Special hazards. It's very easy to slip here, and cracking the glass releases some of the dormant hatedominationsufferingabusegreed, afflicting the character with a -1 to their constitution for a few hours.
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Shaka Zulu


An Adaptor experiments on brains of various species, interviewing and csapturuing them. Attempting to, by understanding the brain, change the metaprogram of reality.
Reality! There's a pattern -- if I can only hack it. The multiverse, or all the important parts, work along the same structure as the mortal brain As above, so below. I can HACK THE program!vlad tepes


tests -- snakes and ladders. (gate of serpents to graywaste, Jacob's Ladder to Elysium)
Purple Crayon (gehenna)
Barghest childcatcher.
The cold war/war of words rules of war sabatage.
Minions of night.

Anti-Dothion Distopia
barghest casino and pubs
legion of hope