Infernal Battlefield of Acheron
The Infernal Battlefield of Acheron is a plane of conflict, armies, and open warfare. Its largest and most populated layer is filled with great metal cubes, some as large as continents, floating through a haze of gray smoke. They drift lazily, holding their own gravity but otherwise seeming to obey no known whim, colliding with one another on a regular basis.
The ringing of these collisions echoes throughout the layer, creating a siren call to arms for many of the military forces that occupy the cubes. Acheron is a realm of law and evil, but not the kind of evil perpetuated by the forces of the Abyss or the Nine Hells. Instead, this evil results from a total disregard for the consequences of actions. Suffering, pain, loss, and death are the result of constant warfare, and in Acheron, these values hold no weight.
Acheron draws military forces from across the multiverse, and many rogue armies and failed rebellions linger in physical or spirit form across the plane. The Infernal Battlefield shares a close philosophical border with Mechanus, the plane of ultimate law and precision, and some union between the two created a species of mechanical humanoids known as the warforged. Alternate theories point to the warforged as simple refugees from another realm, a Material Plane world, but if this is true they offer no evidence or memory to support it.
Rakshasas lurk in the cubes of Acheron, sometimes offering their services as generals to a rogue army and other times acting in the interests of their enigmatic Maharaja of Death. Duergar dwarves are also counted among the inhabitants of the plane, serving at the dour pleasure of Laduguer, their exiled god.
Everywhere in Acheron, the plane pushes and pulls against the concepts of peace and harmony. The lower layers hold dangers to the body and mind. The second layer is the massive floating junkyard of the multiverse, but it gradually turns everything to stone. The third layer's space is largely empty save for geometric cubes, and the fourth layer is filled with razorstorms that shred flesh from bone in moments.
Still, where there's conflict, there's opportunity for adventure. Characters can find service in the Nameless Legion, an infamous planar mercenary company that operates out of Acheron. The junkyards of Thuldanin hold shattered remnants of war machines from across the planes, some of which may still be usable. Who knows what other flotsam and jetsam of war has washed up in Acheron, waiting to be found!
Lay of the Land
Acheron is comprised of four layers – Avalas, Thuldanin, Tintibulus, and Ocanthus. The plane's nickname as the Infernal Battlefield holds true across all, though the nature of that battlefield changes dramatically from one to the next. No traveler or planar scholar would describe any of Acheron’s layers as pleasant, however.
While there is no up or down on Acheron, the layers of the plane are considered to descend down, from Avalas at the top to Ocanthus at the bottom.
Avalas
The most populated layer of Acheron is its first, Avalas. Giant metal cubes float lazily in the poorly lit smoke-filled air. All of them are pitted and scarred from the numerous collisions with other cubes. They are formed of iron, and planar scholars widely believe that they coalesce naturally from the ore of the multiverse.
Most cubes are hollow or riddled with tunnels, into which scurry the countless armies and military factions fighting their endless battles against one another. Each cube has its own gravity, pulling things to its center and allowing creatures to walk along all six external faces without impediment. A cube collides with another in the smoky air of Avalas on an irregular basis, but whenever it happens, the ringing can be heard across the layer.
The River Styx also winds its way through Avalas, a conduit to other locations across the lower planes. The river seems to obey no rational laws, however – on one cube, it may flow across a face in a deep channel, spilling over the side, only to disappear and reappear in another cube thousands of miles away. Sometimes, the river’s flow changes, there are some planar scholars who track the changes and believe it holds the key to unlocking a greater mystery within Acheron.
Thuldanin
Similar to Avalas, Acheron’s second layer is also filled with titanic metal cubes. On Thuldanin, however, these cubes are pitted, broken, and hollowed out. Each one contains scrap metal and stone from across the multiverse piled in great heaps with no apparent thought or design. Shattered ships, broken flying devices, siege machines, war chariots, and so much more lay hidden in the scrapyards of Thuldanin.
The amount of usable scrap draws the attention of many armies from Avalas and across the planes, but Thuldanin doesn’t just hold its metal fragments. Some natural property of the layer eventually turns all objects to stone, rendering their magic and pieces inert for all time. The process is slow, usually taking thirty days or more for inanimate objects, but living creatures that visit the layer can turn to stone in as little as half a day.
The only known native inhabitants of Thuldanin are the duergar dwarves of Hammergrim. There, the protections of their dark god keep the petrifying power of the layer at bay, and the duergar busy themselves with reconstructing the junk of the multiverse for their own purposes.
Tintibulus
Whereas Avalas and Thuldanin are filled with cubes of varying shapes, Tintibulus holds other geometric shapes – eight-sided, ten-sided, and twelve-sided objects are just as common there as the standard six-sided varieties. Its gray expanse is also much emptier than the above layers, making collisions between the iron shapes less frequent.
No native life is known to exist in Tintibulus. This is due to the strange magics of the layer. Some unknown force seeks to press any living creature into one of these multifaceted shapes. Powerful creatures can resist it for a time, but all succumb eventually, making a long-term stay on the layer impossible.
Ocanthus
The lowest layer of Acheron is the most openly hostile. Its gray sky is filled with shards of black razors, some large enough to walk on, most smaller than a humanoid hand. The razors are sharp, and if there were any cubes on Ocanthus like the other layers, it is likely they were destroyed long ago in one of the fierce razorstorms.
The strange thing about Ocanthus is that the shards are not iron or metal but instead black ice. It is rumored that the bottom of Ocanthus, and thus Acheron, is actually an immense sheet of ice, and this forms the source of the razor shards that fill the layer. Some planar scholars refer to this mysterious site as the Sea of Memories, believing it is either the source or destination for the River Styx and that every memory stolen by the river is kept frozen there. The theory has lured desperate travelers who have had their memories robbed by the River Styx to go in search of it, but to date, no one has found it.
Cycle of Time
Each of the layers of Acheron is lit by an unknown but always distant light that never wanes or waxes, so time is a difficult thing to measure. On Tintibulus, the perfect shapes of the cubes and their unusual but ordered patterns of movement actually give a measure of time the other layers lack; every 24 hours, two of the cubes connect, sending out a clear ringing.
Surviving
On Avalas, the only impediment to survival is the constant warfare that dominates the layer. Travelers die by blade, spear, or any other wielded weapon, and occasionally, the gravity of a cube can cause falling problems, but otherwise, the air and environment offer no lethal effect.
The same is not true for the lower layers. Thuldanin gradually turns everything in it to stone, though the process is lengthy. After spending a long rest in Thuldanin’s scrapyards, living creatures must check against the petrifying nature of the layer. Refer to the Thuldanin Petrification hazard for exact details.
Tintibulus actively pushes against elements that disrupt its perfect order, and all travelers and non-natives fall into this category. The layer becomes physically taxing for these intruders. The lowest layer, Ocanthus, is filled with razor shards of metal and ice. The razorstorms that spring up have the ability to sever heads and limbs with frightening frequency.
Getting There
Permanent portals and gates to Acheron are usually found underground, following veins of rich iron. The most common destination for these planar pathways is Avalas, but a portal to Thuldanin is not unheard of – after all, the junk and detritus of the planes has to get there somehow!
The River Styx winds its way strangely through the top layer of Acheron, making it an easily accessible route into the plane. By ancient decree, long-standing tradition, or some other powerful force, the merrenoloth fiends that pilot the Styxian ferries are neutral forces usually immune to the touch of war that inflicts the rest of the plane.
Traveling Around
Moving around on Acheron can be difficult without the aid of magic or the ability to fly. The cubes that float about the layers each hold their own gravity, pulling objects to their center, but this gravity only extends out about 300 feet from its surface. Creatures or objects that escape the gravity field are propelled through the smoky skies perpetually until they are caught by another cube’s gravity force.
Traveling from one cube to another is often achieved by the armies of Acheron when the cubes collide with one another. For about an hour, the gravities of the two cubes mix allowing creatures and objects to move quickly and easily between them without fear of falling damage.
In addition, something about the collision of cubes creates a permanent gate between them, though the exact location on each cube can be difficult to discern. Often times these gates appear as shimmering fields of liquid metal, but they can appear in the solid mass of a cube’s interior at times, making the connection worthless until discovered. These types of portals are known as tethered portals.
The other type is a free-floating portal, and it exists at a fixed point in the sky of Acheron. When a cube passes over it, the portal activates, and these portals can lead to other planes; Mechanus, the Nine Hells, Hades, and the Astral Plane are common planar connections.
Accessing the various layers of Acheron requires specific knowledge of the gate system, or magical flight to fly between them. Despite its infinite nature, the layers are accessible via physical travel. Regardless of their starting point, physically traveling between the layers requires a journey of 1d10 x 100 miles. The gates are much faster, but many of them are well-guarded from outside usage.
Powerful & Mighty
Military might is all-encompassing on Acheron. It is the only currency worth anything and the only aspect worthy of respect or command. Most of the plane's powerful and mighty forces are juggernauts of military prowess, waging endless war in a plane built for combat.
Followers of the Iron Voice
Something new has arisen in Acheron. In a plane of warring armies and leaderless rebellions, new players on the scene are usually nothing special. But recently, elite warriors and soldiers have been seen searching the iron cubes of Avalas for something. They are golems, made of metal and wood, but imbued with a sense of intelligence and purpose not found in other creations. They call themselves warforged, and they claim to be seeking the Iron Voice.
It is rumored there is a cube somewhere in Tintibulus that spawned the species of golem-like warforged, and if true, it would represent the only natural life to come out of that layer. Most warforged have no recollection of their birth, and they move from cube to cube on Avalas in a quest for the divine entity they call the Iron Voice. They hear its call, faintly at times, but always it leads them on.
What is the Iron Voice? Most warforged encountered, though clearly possessing intelligence and advanced strategies, refuse to speak and fight to the death when faced with opposition. The construct humanoids have been seen with a variety of unique configurations, and despite their nature, no two seem to be exactly the same. This individuality seems contradictory to their constructed nature.
Maharaja of Death
It is believed by some that Acheron is the true native home of the cunning rakshasas, though many claim the Nine Hells to be their true origin. Acheron still holds a large population of the fiends, though they keep themselves hidden and fight a war of shadows and intrigue against the other armies among the iron cubes. Rakshasas on Acheron organize themselves into small families, usually ruling behind the scenes of a more brutish force used as slaves, but all bow to the whims of their mysterious ruler, the Maharaja of Death.
One of the most powerful rakshasas in the multiverse, the Maharaja of Death is an accomplished spellcaster and a vindictive foe for anyone who crosses him. He rules from a supposedly invisible cube called the Palace of Naraka, which he controls, directing its movement in the gray skies of Avalas. Those who go before the Maharaja of Death never return, and the powerful rakshasa rarely leaves his cube.
He does, however, direct many of the families across Acheron in their schemes for power and control over the other species. They communicate through special crystal balls linked back to the Palace of Naraka, where the Maharaja of Death sends his messages and controls the great scheme remotely.
Nameless Legion
Countless military forces occupy Acheron, clashing and fighting one another in the constant din of cubes colliding, but a few manage to stand out. The Nameless Legion is one, known for its planar excursions across the multiverse and willingness to take on dangerous contracts. They are based in the Storm Halls, an iron cube that holds a series of constructed ziggurats in its depths. There, the leaders of the Nameless Legion, the Paymasters, work on contracts and seek additional recruits.
The Nameless Legion takes its name from a special process performed by the Paymasters that strips applicants of their memory. When assigned to a cadre, the soldiers are given new names, usually descriptive and crude, and the legion accepts all manner of monsters and other types in its ranks.
Though they are based on Acheron, the Nameless Legion takes only a few contracts from the various fighting forces on the plane. However, across the multiverse, the Nameless Legion has made a name for itself as a highly skilled and expensive military unit equipped and experienced enough to deal with larger than life threats.
Rogue Armies
On a plane where the only constant is war, it's inevitable that some military units break away from larger forces or leaderless regiments strike out on their own. Countless rogue armies wander the iron cubes of Avalas, marching towards their next battle. Some move with a more defined purpose, but most simply seek to satiate their endless bloodlust.
The most famous of these rogue armies is led by a mysterious and ancient lich known as the Necromancer King. His army of skeletons, zombies, and ghouls are tireless in the pursuit of their master's grim desires, but the lich is closed-lipped about it to outsiders. Do they seek to plunder a lost treasure? Does the Necromancer King search for an escape from Acheron? Or are the legends to be believed, and the lich seeks godhood on the back of a conquering host?
Almost any type of military force could be conceivably encountered in Acheron. Some seek redemption in battle, others search for lost treasures, while still others quest for a way out of the smoky air and clanging iron cubes.
Creatures & Denizens
The first layer of Acheron holds numerous soldiers and warriors from across the multiverse, but a number of dangerous native denizens wander the cubes as well. From the massive rust behemoths to the dangerous bone spears and the ghostly war wraiths, Acheron contains no shortage of monsters bent on conquering and destroying.
Constructs
No one really knows how the iron cubes and objects that float through Acheron are created. Many seem to heal themselves over time and yet they have a definite constructed quality to them. Along a similar vein, golems and constructs seem to spring organically from the plane as well, perhaps as living extensions of the cubes themselves. Iron golems are the most common, and unless acted upon by an outside force, these powerful constructs defend their cubes with their lives. They're alive in the same way other golems are alive, but their origin remains largely shrouded in mystery. Scrap golems can similarly spontaneously occur, especially in the junk-filled second layer of Thuldanin.
Cadaver collectors pick through the remnants of the constant battles that occur across Acheron, sweeping the dead and collecting the remnants in a grisly pile. Skilled necromancers and warlords on the plane learn to call cadaver collectors to bolster military forces with undead monsters, and the constructs are always willing to let loose their collections in hopes of gathering more from the piles of the dead. Steel predators are among the most feared hunters on Acheron, and they seem to enjoy chasing victims for nothing else but the sheer thrill of the hunt.
Fiends
As a plane of strife, fiends that relish combat and bloodshed are naturally drawn to Acheron. Battles in the never-ending Blood War are waged regularly across the iron cubes, often using mercenaries. Packs of hellhounds roam across the iron cubes and can be a real problem for any visitors. Bonespears are large, grasshopper-like fiends native to Acheron that wait in dark crevasses and cracks in the iron cubes to attack with their projectile horns, dragging away victims to be devoured in peace.
Humanoids
The humanoids that live on Acheron are born in a realm of constant conflict and raging battles, so they are often antagonistic and quick to draw blood against any foe. Mercenary companies are common, and many specialize in specific combat tactics, such as ranged engagement, defensive positions, or arcane assault.
Warforged
Warforged are living constructs that have only recently risen from the depths of Acheron’s iron cubes. They were first encountered by a mercenary company exploring an otherwise barren cube riddled with tunnels, and the army’s advances were rebuffed by a mysterious golem-like force striking from the darkness of the cube’s interiors. Since then, the warforged have spread out across the multiverse, many preoccupied with finding the source of their own existence.
Monstrosities
A number of native monstrosities prowl through the cubes of Acheron. The most commonly encountered are the rust monsters who devour the ferrous metal that makes up the cubes themselves, and a greater version known as the rust behemoth has an even more voracious appetite. Enormous titan vultures wing through the air and scavenge the countless battlefields for choice morsels. Steelfang worgs are fearsome predators trained by elite hobgoblin soldiers to create lightning-fast strike forces capable of wreaking havoc in an enemy’s line.
Hazards & Phenomena
Each layer of the Infernal Battlefield of Acheron holds dangers and threats for travelers, some more lethal than others.
Avalas Bloodlust
War and combat are constant states in Avalas. One strong reason for this is a natural bloodlust that fills creatures as they fight and defeat opponents. Planar scholars are torn as to whether this phenomena is caused by something in the hazy sky of the layer, an ambient power from the iron cubes themselves, or something else entirely.
Thuldanin Petrification
The junkyard-filled cubes of Thuldanin hide an insidious power that slowly transforms everything into stone. Unattended objects, including magical items, slowly turn to stone, losing all properties as they become inert rocks, their shape vaguely resembling their original form. Living creatures are more susceptible to this petrification.
Tintibulus Exhaustion
The unusual geometric shapes of Tintibulus are a result of the layer applying incredible logical force. The layer has no known native creatures, and it is widely believed that it is because this force pushing constantly against living things.
Ocanthus Razorstorm
Shards of razor-sharp black ice fill the air in Ocanthus, making travel difficult. Even worse, razorstorms can occur with sudden ferocity and little warning.
War Cloud
The gloomy, hazy skies of Acheron can sometimes manifest into tangible elements of the plane’s war riddled nature. Known as war clouds, when they appear, they envelop entire cubes, though they usually only occur on Avalas. The bloodlust of that layer is enhanced under the effects of a war cloud.
Sites & Treasures
While war is a constant factor among the cubes of Acheron, adventure, and treasure often hide just behind this bloody companion.
Broken Bonefield
The cubes that float through Acheron's smoky skies have a latent magical energy that keeps them afloat and, in some cases, regenerates their metal slowly over time. Many wizards and sorcerers have sought to tap into that energy for their own purposes, but one such attempt stands as a cautionary tale against meddling too much. A wizard of some power, whose identity changes with the teller, tried to extract the latent energy of an iron cube in a great ritual. The ritual went awry somehow, and all of the bones were pulled out of the wizard’s body along with everyone else who was on or in the cube at the time.
The bones floated through the air surrounding the cube, never touching the ground or straying too far from the iron surface. Over time, others came to investigate the strange site, and their bones, too, were pulled out, the wizard’s ritual magic still wreaking havoc invisibly in the cube’s gravitational reach. Over time, the magic weakened, and travelers reported arriving at the cube, now called the Broken Bonefield, to study its effects and plumb its depths.
The bones that float in the air around the Broken Bonefield obscure vision, but unless moved by some external force, they simply drift lazily without any purpose. Wizards occasionally seek out the cube, necromancers especially, searching for the reason behind the strange phenomena. Some say that the cube's interior hides a necromantic power that the original wizard tapped into unwittingly, and these stories have fueled the imagination of the Necromancer King, who has searched for the Broken Bonefield for many years unsuccessfully.
Coliseum of the Damned
On a plane dedicated to the grim tactics of war, it is of little wonder that respite and entertainment centers on this aspect as well. Removed from the rigorous stratagems of warfare are the blood sport arenas that spring up around the cubes of Avalas, usually run and operated by yugoloths looking to line their pockets with treasures won in the betting pools. The largest and most famous of these is the Coliseum of the Damned, an impressive arena carved directly into the side of a smaller iron cube forming a bowl looking out into Acheron's smoky skies.
The Coliseum is run by an aggressive ultraloth named Khammo al-Khnan who personally schedules each fantastically staged combat. The bouts usually involve small scale skirmishes of various forces, two at least and sometimes as many as six, on the grand arena’s floor. The environment can be shaped to al-Khnan’s whims, transforming into a flooded sea for naval battles, a baked desert, a lush forest, and nearly any other terrain. The spectators that pack the Coliseum’s seats watch with vision-magnifying glasses or gasp in astonishment over the massive illusory displays showing what’s happening in near real time.
The sides of the Coliseum’s cube are dedicated to training, resting, or betting on the elaborate combats. Khammo al-Khnan personally announces each fight before turning the play-by-play over to a team of slovenly yugoloth commentators, all of whom whoop and holler over the carnage. Combats in the Coliseum of the Damned occur about once per month, giving plenty of time for marketing and betting to occur, and it is widely known that most of the combats are rigged.
Hammergrim
The largest and most aggressive force on Thuldanin are the duergar dwarves of Hammergrim. Protected from the layer’s petrifying power by the grace of their brooding god Laduguer, the duergar toil endlessly and thanklessly in Hammergrim’s lightless depths. Like all of the cubes in Thuldanin, Hammergrim’s surface collects junk from across the multiverse, that the duergar move below ground for systematic categorization and eventual dismantling.
Hammergrim is filled with the noise of industry from its dark depths. The pounding of hammers, the striking of steel and iron, and the deep chanting of the dwarves echoes in rhythmic succession all around the cube. The duergar have a few settlements on the cube’s exterior, the largest of which is Deathknell. The city’s massive bells can be heard anywhere on Hammergrim’s surface and mark the passage of time for the dwarves.
Below ground, the dwarves are ruled by a curious force. Laduguer is said to dwell somewhere in Hammergrim, but the god is distant even to his own kind. Instead, the duergar are ruled by the Court of Memory. These are spirits of dead dwarves that have moved on to rule with the blessing of Laduguer, but they cannot take physical form. Instead, they take turns possessing the host of the ruler, who is known as the Idiot Thane. Under the possession of the Court of Memory, the Idiot Thane has full faculties though their personality can shift from day to day as different deceased spirits take over. When not possessed, the Idiot Thane is a drooling ragdoll that can perform no task alone.
Heart of the Iron Voice
Acheron has only a handful of native creatures, but the most recent addition to that short list are the mysterious warforged. Golem-like humanoids possessed of metal and wood, they are independent sentient creatures with ambitions, hopes, and dreams, though their numbers are not great. Many follow the words of a whisper only they can hear called the Iron Voice, moving them around Avalas on a pilgrimage towards some unknown fate.
What is the Iron Voice? Some warforged prophets claim to understand more of the words, and they say they are truly seeking the Heart of the Iron Voice, the fiery furnace that birthed the warforged. It is an idea that bears weight with many, as their collective memories hold gaps where their origin would be. Who created them? Why were they created?
The Heart of the Iron Voice claims at times to have answers, and many warforged believe their destiny lies with finding this truth. The word “maug” has been deciphered among the Iron Voice’s mutterings but none have been able to find out its meaning.
Palace of Naraka
Many do not believe the Palace of Naraka exists; instead, they choose to believe that the dark and beguiling home of the rakshasas is just a myth. But the truth is that the seat of the Maharaja of Death is very real, and it holds great power within Acheron, pulling the strings of destiny on a scale that would make many gods tremble.
Through the use of some ancient and powerful sorcery the Palace of Naraka is completely invisible. It obeys the whims of the Maharaja of Death, moving at his command, and the rakshasas say that the day Naraka collides with another cube is the day the multiverse splits and breaks at the seams. Under the cloak of invisibility, Naraka is a paradise of architectural wonders, beautiful gardens, and splendid pools, but it is all a lie. Everything in, on, around, and beneath the Palace of Naraka is a ruse meant to lure the unsuspecting into a false sense of security.
The Maharaja of Death rules from the House of the Tiger’s Shadow on the Throne of Resplendent Fury. He is attended by a number of Rakshasa advisors, each working in perfect synchronicity with their ruler to enact their dreams of conquest and blood across the multiverse. Reports from the Maharaja's spies placed in Nishrek, Clangor, Hammergrim, and other places come in via magical crystal balls, keeping the powerful rakshasa and his royal family appraised of his grand plans at all times. Ultimately, though, those grand plans have yet to be fully realized. The Maharaja of Death already commands great power and fabulous wealth – what else is there to obtain?
Spear Nest
Bonespears are large insects native to Acheron, though they can be found across the Lower Planes. When their biological clocks synchronize and mating time arrives, bone spears across the plane grow wings, gather food, and take it to the cube of Spear Nest. There, the monsters mate, hatch young, and then leave before their wings collapse, leaving countless larval bone spears to devour the food left for them.
A natural part of this cycle are contests between males and females fighting over the best mates. The result of the duel is always the death of the loser, and Spear Nest has become littered with the hollowed-out shells of dead bonespears from centuries of mating and killing. The larval young devour the food left by the adults, which is often the remains of creatures from across Acheron. Bonespear larva only eat the flesh, leaving any gear behind – some travelers who have been to Spear Nest and returned speak of great heaps of weapons and armor left behind from the feasting.
Rumors persist that the spirt of a great bonespear elder, intelligent and fearsome, guards Spear Nest from intruders that would plunder its treasures. Why does the spirit of a planar insect care about the leftovers from feasts long past? What other secrets are hidden in Spear Nest’s caves and tunnels?
Stone Gardens of Hippocryta
Thuldanin is the junk layer, where the titanic cubes are littered with refuse from across the multiverse. All of it eventually turns to stone, however, which makes most of it worthless. Unless you’re a medusa sculptor, that is. Hippocryta, a talented female medusa sorcerer, has developed an immunity to the layer’s petrification power and built herself a wonderfully curated garden of stone on one of the cubes of Thuldanin.
Hippocryta is an artist first and foremost, and she sculpts the various objects that come to her Stone Garden into works of beauty and horror. The Stone Garden is not huge, only about a mile on each side, but it gives the medusa space to create elaborate galleries on the surface dedicated to the emotional purity of existence. Fear, love, hate, joy, and sadness each have a side of the cube with sculptures capturing, in more or less detail, that particular aspect. The final side is Hippocryta’s personal garden where she keeps the choicest of works.
The medusa sculptor is uncaring for the plight of others, but she is always interested in adding new and interesting objects to her vast collection. She has been known to work with the duergar dwarves of Hammergrim to acquire a particular odd piece of stonework but Hippocryta holds a burning hatred for the Golem Master. The medusa views the sorceress as a pest, changing the wonderful natural stone of Thuldanin into walking abominable hunks.
Storm Halls
The Storm Halls is the cube of Avalas that houses the Nameless Legion, large mercenary outfit that takes up contracts all across the multiverse. They welcome all manner of creatures in their ranks, but all are made equal by the enigmatic Paymasters – legionnaires have their memories removed upon joining. Efreet, djinn, dwarves, elves, devils, demons, slaad, all and more have been members of the elite warrior unit.
The surface of the Storm Halls is uninhabited and scoured with howling winds and stinging debris, but below that lies the impressive ziggurats of the Paymasters. Much of the cube’s interior is hollow, creating an unusually large open space with another smaller cube serving as the center. It is upon this cube that the ziggurats are built, six of them, one for each Paymaster, and within each are housed the individual units that make up the Nameless Legion. There are no known entrances or exits to the interior of the Storm Halls from the exterior, but through powerful magic the Paymasters transport their troops wherever they need to be across the multiverse.
Tower of the Golem Master
Thuldanin is filled with junk from across the multiverse, which many try to claim and use as weapons in the ongoing wars on Avalas. Floating amongst the cubes of Thuldanin is a strange sight, a great iron tower attached to a stone disk nearly a mile across. This is the Tower of the Golem Master where a powerful enchanter has lived for centuries, focused on building and researching golems and other constructs.
Most think the Golem Master is one person, but the truth is that the mantle has passed from teacher to student many times. The current Golem Master is a cold, calculating human sorceress who takes comfort in her solitary existence surrounded by lifeless automatons. She has a knack for improving older designs, the blade golem being her best example, but unlike her predecessor she is loathe to sell them as simple tools of war. The Golem Master is building an army of golems in her tower and constantly sends out more to collect raw ingredients from Thuldanin.
What is her ultimate goal? The Golem Master rarely deals directly with anyone, preferring instead to speak through her creations (a skill she can do from nearly anywhere in the multiverse). She is cold, uncaring, but few who have dealt with her minions would categorize her as evil. But she certainly believes that flesh and blood are weaknesses and golems are the perfect host. How far is she willing to go to achieve her mysterious goals?
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