Third Splinter: Pandemonium

Pandemonium is a realm of chaotic weather. Apart from the wind which is both common and predictable, extreme weather is inevitable and completely unpredictable.

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Properties & Geographical Features

The realm of Pandemonium is shaped like a toroid. Its unusual shape causes extreme weather and unusual patterns of gravity. Day and night pass quickly, lasting a mere 4 hours each (4 days Pandemonium equal to 1 day on Evara). The Toroid rotates around a blue star named Phlegethos with a shifting, patterned surface resembling a stained glass ornament. Phlegethos bathes the splinter in scorching, phantasmagoric light. Phlegethos’s unearthly light does not reach Pandemonium’s innermost ring. It is a place of perpetual cold and night. These wastes are known as Stygia. Fraught with violent winter storms, land and water are both frozen under sheets of ice. It is said that there is no colder place in the Omniverse.

Apart from the wind which is both common and predictable, extreme weather is certain and completely unpredictable. The dreadful storms tear down civilizations, wash denizens out to sea, and crush them beneath shifting earth. Often striking without regard for geography or logic, the weakest weather events start at a tropical cyclone, category 1 tornado, magnitude 2.5 earthquake, and similar severities. Arcane weather also periodically rages across the splinter. Apart from the devastating weather, lush, fast-growing temperate plains and forests grow throughout.

Taming the chaos of Pandemonium is of great interest to Asmodeus. He has declared that he will raise whosoever stills its ceaseless wind to Archdevil. Three exceptionally powerful devils reside in the splinter, but they have neither satisfied the Unbound King’s requirements nor do they have enough control over Pandemonium to bend it to their wills. It is only a matter of time until one - or more - succeed.

Environment concept by Matei Horodetskyi

Notable Inhabitants

Kostchtchie

Epithets

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They say that the demon Kostchtchie was once a hateful and hideous goliath who, in a state of berserk rage, pursued a powerful demon into Pandemonium to kill it. Kostchtchie cracked open its ribcage and ate its still-pulsing heart. The ichor transformed him into a demon. The Deathless Frost appears as a 30 ft tall frost giant with grotesquely corded, bulging muscles. Kostchtchie is never seen without his prodigiously massive adamantine maul. Dozens of skulls are woven into his thick, matted hair. Legends say that the spirits of their previous owners haunt the skulls.

Like the biting cold and tumultuous avalanche, Kostchtchie is a brutal killer. The Dark Dimension warped his mind and body, but one fragment of his former personality remains: his unbridled hatred of demons. His greatest desires are to destroy all demonkind and pave the way for giantkin to have dominion over all creation.

One recent event in particular has driven Kostchtchie’s rage against other demons to new heights. Disguised as the Malcanthet, a powerful and influential succubus, Graz’zt managed to seduce Kostchtchie over the course of hundreds of clandestine meetings. As Malcanthet, Graz’zt convinced Kostchtchie that he wanted to be the giant’s bride and wanted to consolidate their resources so they could destroy several other demon lords together. Malcanthet’s spies in Graz’zt court discovered the deception before the plan could come to fruition, but the damage to Malcanthet’s reputation and Kostchtchie’s pride was already done. The realization that he had been manipulated by a woman (even if that woman was actually Graz’zt in disguise) fueled a deep misogyny, and the fact that the other lords of the Dark Dimension (Graz’zt in particular) now viewed Kostchtchie as a besotted fool triggered one of his greatest rages ever.

Kostchtchie’s elemental fury vastly outstrips his intelligence. As a demon bent on the slaughter of other demons, the archdevil-hopefuls occupying Pandemonium are each trying to manipulate him into massacring in a manner advantageous to their own goals.

Fierna

Epithets

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Intelligent, confident, and socially lethal, Fierna is an emotional force of nature capable of igniting ecstasy, devotion, or despair in those who encounter her. Like the violent weather of her realm, the extreme feelings she elicits from others can be devastating. Unlike creatures such as Dispater and Moloch who rule through intimidation, Fierna cultivates willing submission through charisma, emotional manipulation, and psychological control. In the maze of her court, a smile can kill, and affection is a currency more valuable than soul coins. Prolonged exposure to her presence has addictive properties.

Fierna appears as a strikingly beautiful devil with hair of fire, ember-glowing eyes, and skin like polished bronze. Heat ripples around her like a mirage, and her very presence exudes warmth that borders on pain. Her garb is a mix of regal and provocative, tailored to distract and unsettle.

When negotiating with mortals, she is often willing to accept contracts for servitude rather than souls. This is because she believes a petitioner will voluntarily surrender their soul to her after enough time in her service. When dealing with her rivals, she plays their emotions against one another, sparks violent conflict (which she remains aloof from), and mops up the remnants. This method is how she will turn Kostchtchie to her goals without him even being aware. Of the three devils competing to conquer Pandemonium, she has the most territory by virtue of residing uncontested on the sun.

Geryon

Epithets

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Geryon is one of the devils locked in the struggle for control of Pandemonium. Currently, Geryon occupies an odd position in the infernal hierarchy: their crusade to tame the splinter in Asmodeus’s name lacks Asmodeus’s backing. For their part, Geryon marshals their followers and seeks to discover the means to kill Kostschtchie, tame the wind, and usurp power from Levistus - their main rival.

Among devilkin, Geryon is known for their prowess as a ferocious hunter and relentless tracker. Other devils command legions and bid their followers to battle their enemies. Geryon loves the feeling of flesh and steel being sundered beneath their claws, the taste of their foes’ blood. Their ferocity is a great strength: it has won them a fief of Sytgia, wrestled from Kostchtchie’s control. Their ferocity is also a liability, as it limits their ability to collect souls and to forge an effective hierarchy.

Geryon appears as a knot of three 20-foot-long, scorpion-tailed nagas. Their scales glitter maroon and obsidian and their eyes glow with the red of purest hellfire. Horns and spikes grow in distinctive patterns on each of its bodies. From their maws, they can regurgitate the voices of any being they have ever devoured.

Levistus

Epithets

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Over the course of their long existence, Levistus’s stock with Asmodeus and the ruling archdevils has repeatedly risen and fallen like the waves of a tsunami. They are infamously treacherous and rebellious, hardly able to restrain themselv when given the chance to double-cross someone, even to their own detriment.

Levistus was the first to answer Asmodeus’s call to tame Pandemonium and leash its demon lord, Kostschtchie - the latest attempt in a long line of attempts at seizing power. The Cold Tyrant became trapped in an iceberg drifting within the Stygian sea early in the campaign. Levistus’s glacier floats through this frozen wasteland like a cursed relic, unreachable and unbreachable by conventional means. They have devoted considerable effort to escaping, but all their attempts thus far have been unsuccessful. Levistus offers escape and safety to desperate petitioners, especially those who fear for their lives. For example, a mother watching the flood slowly drown everything and everyone she has ever loved might entreat Levistus for the means to escape with her children in exchange for her soul.

Though frozen in their tomb, their mind remains active, and their wits, razor sharp. They command legions of ice devils, amnizus, and other renegade devils who prioritize rebellion and escape. Geryon was their longtime general, but after one too many betrayals by Levistus, the Trifold Beast took a different path. Levistus takes great pleasure in foiling Geryon’s plans, even when their own against Kostschschie go awry.

Places of Interest

Blood Dunes (Neutral Territory)

A simmering, rimward desert of sticky, blood-red sand. The Blood Dunes’ temperature fluctuates between severe and extreme heat. Ruins covered in the red sand lay deep within its expanse. Close inspection reveals that the "sand" is actually scabs and clotted, dried blood. Many of the plane's yugoloths and demodands dwell in this desert and are the victim of sickening sandstorms.

God’s Thumb (Demon Territory)

Pandemonium’s rotation and stronger gravity toward the splinter’s hub form a series of impossibly tall mountain ranges along the inner ring. God’s Thumb is the tallest of these mountains, and it is in a perpetual cycle of growth and collapse: avalanches disrupt its surface and earthquakes shake its depths. It is rumored that this mountain is the base of one connected to the Divine Dimension, potentially providing a direct conduit through the Astral Plane to the domain of the Gods.

Phlegethos (Devil Territory)

Pandemonium’s sun is the demesne of Fierna. She likes it hot. 45000˚F (25000˚C) levels of hot. She is far from the direct action on Pandemonium’s surface, but her position is secure: any creatures without immunity to or magical protection against fire in Phlegethos quickly immolate.

by Thomas Du Crest

The flame and radiance in and immediately around Starhall do not harm Fierna’s welcome guests. Although few attempt to visit the literal sun, those who do are often seeking access to Fierna’s forges. Dispater’s warmachine churns out weapons of stunning quality, but those forged in Phlegethos’s naturally occurring, arcane forges are intensely magical. Legends say Fierna’s soldiers are armed with the best flame tongues and helms of brilliance in the Dark Dimension.

“The Carnalval” surrounds Fierna’s palace. The apt portmanteau describes a shanty town of alehalls, theaters, casinos, and other delights in the shadow of Fierna’s domain. The devils have portals leading to The Pentagon in Aethodia and to Maladomini in Shedaklah and hidden within the dark debauchery of the Carnalval.

Stygia/Agathys (Demon-Controlled but Contested Territory)

A region of razor-edged ice mountains and grinding glaciers that drift through a cold, shifting sea under Kostchtchie’s influence. The sea itself groans with sunken structures and imprisoned souls. The Glacier Citadel is Kostchtchie’s base of power, a fortress carved into an immense glacier that shifts between two great peaks. The Winter Warlords architects - skilled giants all - must constantly rebuild sections of this fortress as portions of it crumble away.

A network of vast roads cut into the mountains ease the transport of Kostchtchie’s armies and provide creatures without flight a fairly easy method of travel. His faithful patrol the roads, killing or enslaving non-giants. It’s not uncommon to encounter small groups of fiends travelling in the wilds, but for the most part such bands are lost or hiding from even more perilous situations. Levistus and Geryon have carved out small sections of Stygia to call their own. Levistus has gone one step further and calls Stygia “Agathys” - a show of his arrogance and his conviction that his domination of Pandemonium is inevitable. Each of these archdevil-hopefuls has a portal linking to Aethodia and to Shedaklah

Veshvoriak’s Rift (Demon Territory)

This immense rift in the side of a mountain of black ice lies hundreds of miles from Kostchtchie’s base of power, deep in the Stygian Wastes. What Kostchtchie found in the depths of the rift was an immense body, nearly six-hundred feet long, of a dead, frozen creature. Despite being dead, its mind still echoes with primal memories and violence. Kostchtchie lacks the intellectual curiosity to pursue this discovery further.