Fourth Splinter: Shedaklah

The cradle of disease, Shedaklah is a stinking, verminous swamp. Even the most hale of travelers may leave feeling feeble and ill.

Visual Interest Board

         

Properties & Geographical Features

Shedaklah is a humid sprawl of swamps and bogs, with regions of low hills and foggy moors. Pollution, deception, and degeneracy plague every aspect of the environment. Ruins and reconstruction exist in an endless cycle in the few places where civilization has a toehold. In the skies above, clouds painted in all the colors of a bruise constantly occlude light from a green sun. The sickly green light fading from the sky signals the night, the day signaled by its return. Frequent rain causes high humidity, making the hot air feel so thick that breathing is difficult. A layer of moisture seems to cover all things. The conditions in this splinter favor the animals (such as rodents, flies, stirges, and ticks) that support the reproduction and spread of pathogens. Fungi and disease grow unchecked in the morass.

The hot, wet conditions do not stop the Devilkin residing on this plane from meticulously maintaining the documents in their charge. Every year, they build more fortresses, which invariably sink into the quagmire. Edicts, policies, treatises, codices, legal codes, and other documents are filed in cities of sunken buildings and tenuous tunnels. Traps, devils, elaborate water mitigation measures, and confounding classification systems protect copies of the Devils’ entire bureaucracy.

   

Notable Inhabitants

Zuggtmoy

Epithets

Demon Queen of Fungi, Lady of Rot and Decay, The Pestilent Princess

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As Zuggtmoy (MPMM p. 281)
with the following change:  

Zuggtmoy’s most common physical form is a skeletally-thin humanoid draped and veiled in mycelium and lichen. She is not truly the mass of fungal growths that comprise her body, but the demonic spirit that binds them together. Like her brood, flesh is the cradle of the Demon Queen of Fungi. Her mycelia spread in darkness, birthing life from rot. Every bloated carcass is an altar in her name, all decay a herald of her glory. Those in her thrall embrace their mortality. As vessels and embodiments of decay, mortals are effectively living fuel, powering the Great Cycle through their actions. Indeed, death is the blessing that causes the Great Cycle of noxious, ascendant fecundity.

From her toxic palace, Zuggtmoy seeks to unify the many, to create a harmonious world where all are connected and commanded by her will. It is said that she does not fear defeat, because all things that die become hosts for her and her spores.

 

Baalzebul

Epithets

Lord of the Flies, The Unquiet Hive, The Recordkeeper, The Honeyed Tongue, Disease Equalizes Lesser and Greater Men

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Baalzebul, The Unquiet Hive  

The Lord of the Flies was once a lieutenant to Asmodeus and a paragon of beauty. He was obsessed with perfection and order. This changed when he made a foolhardy demand of his King. Baalzebul insisted that he should rule millions. Asmodeus granted the lieutenant’s wish: Baalzebul’s body exploded into swarms of insects, so that he might rule over their millions.

In subsequent millennia, Baalzebul’s desire for vengeance and perfection drove him to accomplish awesome feats. He collapsed an entire splinter of the Dark Dimension on a quest to mine the perfect materials for his keep. He unleashed new plagues on mortals to foment desperation. He collected 999 souls in a single year, using them in a ritual that he hoped would reverse the insectile transmutation on his body. He rose to the rank of Archdevil. It is even said that he, as the Recordkeeper, has recorded the true names of his enemies. None of it has been enough to undo his King’s twisted gift. Now, his most common appearance resembles that of an angel composed entirely of flies.

 

Yibyiru

Epithets

Handmaid of Bitter Bile, The Rancid Lady

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Yibyiru, the Rancid Lady  

A simpering, poisoned-skinned abomination of whose origins are known only to the Queen of Fungi. Texts disagree as to whether Yibyiru is Zuggtmoy's senile mother, idiot daughter, servile lover, or something else entirely. Regardless of the true nature of their relationship, the slovenly, spattering creature called Yibyiru serves as the castellan for the Queen of Fungi. Her potent natural toxins are said to be strong enough to effect even those usually immune to poisons. During her tenure, the Rancid Lady has thwarted devilish plots and survived changes of power in Zuggtmoy's circle, leading some to believe she is much more intelligent than she appears (or she is uncommonly lucky).

   

Places of Interest

The Forest of Poisoned Dreams (Neutral Territory)

Home to many of the layer's demonic inhabitants, tree-sized mushrooms and building-shaped fungal growths populate the “forest”. Enterprising extraplanar explorers hunt for the forest’s unique and potent psychotropic fungi, and they are often hunted by the forest’s denizens in return.

Maladomini, the City of Diplomacy (Devil Territory)

A domed city where Baalzebul holds court and where weapons and aggression are forbidden. This festering, ill-repaired city contains Callidomini, a training institution known to Devilkin throughout the Dark Dimension. It offers courses on contracts, deceit, and treachery to enterprising devils who can pay the price of attendance. The devils’ portal to Narakkas lies just outside Maladomni’s walls, where the laws prohibiting weapons and violence do not apply.

 

Offalion, the proving ground (Devil Territory)

Devils constantly retool this pile of rubble into facsimiles of other places for elaborate training exercises. Each simulation has its specific rules and conditions. Mortals might even be included to give advice, add authenticity, or even disrupt the training scenarios as wild cards. Winners are sent to their target places to put their education into practice while losers are held back, punished, or demoted. Time loops may cause the same drills to be repeated forever for punishment or reinforcement.

Psilocybin Citadel (Demon Territory)

Zuggtmoy’s palace is constructed from two dozen titanic pale yellow and rancid brown mushrooms that rise nearly four miles into the air from a bog at the geographic center of her domain Shedaklah. Bridges of shelf fungi connect the cancerous growths, which hold numerous horrific chambers hollowed out from their stalks and caps. The swampy land surrounding the palace is choked with acid puffballs and poison vapors.

Xhubhullosk (Demon Territory)

Parasitized myconids loyal to the Demon Queen shelter stranded mortals in this rotting shanty town. The myconids minister to the humanoid inhabitants, tempting them to welcome the Demon Queen of Fungi into their bodies and minds. Accept, and they would be infected with her spores and escorted home. Resist, and they would continue receiving her care, but they would not be safe from devils seeking to use them in Offalion’s Exercises, from devils looking to bargain, or from simple, uncaring disease.