Gray Waste of Hades

“Evil takes many shapes and forms on the grand stage of the multiverse, some more insidious than others. The Gray Waste of Hades holds what I believe to be the most perfect expression of evil, which is the theft of hope, the destruction of belief, and an apathy to life itself. The evil of Hades is not as flashy as the Abyss or as rigorous as Baator, but it creeps into the soul of those that visit, much like the graying that occurs to any color on the plane. It is understated and underestimated, though the fiends of the Blood War seem to recognize its importance. There are more battles between demons and devils on Hades than anywhere else in the multiverse, an interesting facet considering the inherent bleakness of the Gray Waste.”

Malakara the Warden

Between the raw destructive evil of the Abyss and the ordered precision evil of the Nine Hells sits a middle ground of apathy and despair. The singular expression of this insidious power is the Gray Waste of Hades, a plane that drains away joy, happiness, and contentment. A special property of the plane drains away color in the same fashion, leeching it away to leave a drab gray in its place.

In a relative comparison of evils, many planar scholars point to the apathy inherent in Hades as the worst to affect mortals. It creeps under the skin and seeps slowly into the soul, poisoning the heart and mind. It’s a quiet evil of complacency and despair that crushes hope, and wishes to see others fall down the same path. Hopelessness and apathy fill the air like a stink, and many that find themselves traversing Hades discover the gloom taking over their minds.

Gloom is a perfect word for Hades, which is why it’s also referred to as the Three Glooms in reference to the three layers. The first layer, Oinos, is the home of disease, and it also sees the most open conflict out of any Lower Plane. The Blood War, the eternal conflict between the demons of the Abyss and the devils of the Nine Hells, plays out in the gray landscape of Hades’ first layer. Fiends of all types on the plane get caught up in the bloody battles which can rage for days, darkening the already gloomy sky with smoke and the shadows of flying monsters.

What draws the forces of the Lower Planes to Oinos specifically? Some planar scholars theorize it’s just the polarizing nature of the multiverse to play out in the philosophical middle between the Abyss and Baator, but there seems to be more than just philosophy at work. None of the grunt soldiers on either side seem to know for sure, but whispered rumors in the command positions speak of a prophecy regarding possessing Hades and winning the Blood War.

Yugoloths are just as common on Hades as demons and devils, and most believe the race of mercenary fiends originated somewhere in the gloom. They’ve since emigated to neighboring Gehenna and have laid claim to that plane as their own, but a few bastions of their power remain on Hades. The most notable of these is Khin-Oin, also known as the Wasting Tower, a 20-mile high bone structure seemingly constructed from the spine of some enormous monster.

The creatures that live and hunt in the glooms of Hades are dangerous monsters. Night hags are common, ruling small fiefdoms, castles, and other territories across all three layers. They are frequent harvesters of larvae which crawl in the dusty dirt throughout Hades. These larvae are more than just regular worms, however – they are the souls of those lost to the graying despair of the plane. Each is large, averaging about three feet long, with segmented worm-like bodies capped with the same face they had in life. Most of their memories have been drained away just like color, and they form the basis for a dark trade that circulates throughout the Lower Planes. Fiends, undead, unscrupulous wizards and priests, and other darkly associated creatures use larvae as food, as the fulcrum of evil rituals, or in countless other nefarious ways.

Herds of nightmares gallop across the Gray Waste. Something in the insidious nature of the plane warps horses into these coal-black fiends of fire and death, though the strongest among them are the ones created through pegasus corruption. Several powerful specimens have risen up above the herd and have taken to forming plots and goals. Known as the Nightmare Princesses, they are vile and despicable creatures that sell their kind to the fiends in exchange for profit.

The most numerous of the creatures in Hades are the hordlings. These fiends come in many shapes and sizes and seek nothing more than evil for evil’s sake. They are untrustworthy and savage, making them poor troops for both demons and devils, but their sheer numbers make them a threat to almost any non-native. Even fiends tread carefully when dealing with them – their unpredictable abilities and self-serving nature make them dangerous.

There are many dangers inherent in Hades, and travelers need to be prepared to face them if they wish to survive a journey through the glooms. Powerful beings have made Hades their home, including many gods of death, and vile fiends lurk in the glooms ready to help push the despair of the plane even further. The depression that emanates from the Gray Waste is palpable and dangerous, and has a tendency to cling to visitors long after they’ve left.

Powerful & Mighty

Few things can live in the Gray Waste and not be corrupted and beat down by the unrelenting despair that fills the very air. Fiends of the Lower Planes seem immune to this, a virtue of their evil natures, and undead thrive in all the glooms of Hades. The gods that have chosen to live there (or the ones that have been banished there) all eventually succumb to the unrelenting pressure, giving in to their base instincts and reveling in the power that comes with evil for evil’s sake. Travelers should be warned to trust no one in Hades, though this point of advice applies in general to the entirety of the Lower Planes.

• Abbathor (dwarf)
• Arawn (Celtic)
• Cegilune (hag)
• Cyric (Toril)
• Furies (Greek)
• Hades (Greek)
• Hel (Norse)
• Kuraulyek (urd)
• Mask (Toril)
• Morgion (Krynn)
• Panzuriel (any sea creature)
• Ratri (Indian)
• Shar (Toril)
• Yurtrus (orc)

The Gray Waste is based on the underworld of Hades in Greek mythology.

Manual of the Planes 1

Hades, the plane of evil balanced between Law and Chaos, is one of the most accessible of the lower planes. Not only is it the midpoint of the Styx, which links the lower planes in a river of evil, but it is also the foundation of Mount Olympus, which reaches the Greek pantheon in Olympus, and the base of the Yggdrasil, the World Ash that reaches Gladsheim. Both Mount Olympus and the Yggdrasil reach lower layers of the plane. The terrain and inhabitants are equally dangerous on all three layers.

The layers of Hades are called the glooms of Hades. This is an adequate description of the nature of evil at its worst. These are realms without joy or emotion, without hope or peace, and with out good will or intentions. It is a grey land with a grey sky in all its layers. Any colors but muted blacks and whites stand out here. There is neither sun, moon, stars, nor passing of the seasons. It is merely a state of waiting, with no end to the waiting in sight. The evil of Hades is such that those who remain within its bounds for any length of time may experience the defeatism and sadness that infects the plane. Colors slowly fade as time passes, so that the most vibrant blues and reds are muted after a week and reduced to shades of grey by the end of two weeks. Travelers who remain longer than two weeks must roll successful saving throws vs. spell or be permanently trapped in Hades, their existence fading over the next month until they become larvae (they can be rescued by another traveler who pulls them out of Hades, or by a wish or related spell).

The three Glooms of Hades derive their names from their chief inhabitants: Oinos, Niflheim, and Pluton (also referred to as Hades).

Oinos is the layer that contains many of the daemons and oth er creatures of the middle lower planes, as well as many of the Powers. It takes its name from Anthraxus’s title as lord of the mid dle planes, the Oinodaemon. Oinos is a sickly land, what plants that do exist are stunted and withered. Both foliage and rocky ter rain are muted greys, stretching without relief to the horizon. Oinos is the land of disease. Those who walk on its surface, or sail along the Styx as it passes through this layer, have a 10% chance of contracting a major disease.

Niflheim isthe second layer of Hades, the layer reached by the Yggdrasil in its course from Gladsheim. The vegetation is richer and the land coolerthan Oinos, and it lacksthe touch of sickness in the air. While the terrain is rougher and cloaked with pines, the atmosphere is dreary and vision beyond 100 feet is blocked by the mists and fogs that swirl through the plane. Niflheim is the abode of many creatures and powers, but is known primarily for Hel ofthe Norse Powers, who is acknowledged as the ruler ofthe layer.

Pluton is also referred to as Hades, but is spoken of here by its Roman name to avoid confusion with the plane itself and the ruler of this layer, the Greek god of the underworld. The base of Olympus reaches Hades here in the grove of Persephone, at the gates of Hades’ domain. It has the oppressive grey nature of the plane as well, though its vegetation consists of black willows and dry, dying poplars.

In addition to the ingress provided by the Styx in the first layer, Yggdrasil in the second, and Mount Olympus in the third, the lay ers of the planes can be reached by the standard manner of por tals (to the top layer) and barriers (to the second and third layers). The portals of Hades appear as great spinning coins of copper (Gehenna), silver (Concordant Opposition), or gold (Tarterus). The color and brightness of these portals make them visible for miles. Often creatures such as arcanadaemons build their red iron fortresses around portals to control the traffic into and out of their domains.

The barriers between the layers are also tightly controlled. The main barrier between Oinos and Niflheim leadsto the roots ofthe Yggdrasil, in full view of Hel’s feast hall, and the major passable barrier between Niflheim and Pluton leads to the grove of Per sephone and the gates of Hades itself (with its guardian, Cerber us). Other barriers may existthat permit easy movement between the layers, but they have not been revealed. Both Hades and Hel seek to keep their infinite realms as quiet and controlled as possi ble.

The use of viewing pools from the Astral to spy upon the upper most layer and thereby step into the plane works normally (this may be the chief reason that Hades and Hel have located their realms on lower layers). The upper layer is left to a variety of Powers, one of which is the Oinodaemon.

The daemons, led by Anthraxus, rule Hades, at least in theory. Both the bird-like diakk and misshapen hordlings outnumber the daemons. In the deeper layers the Powers who rule those realms severely limit the actions of all these lesser creatures. The domains of the more powerful daemons often contain diakks and hordlings. An occasional demodand also hassuch servants. The demodands and daemons of Hades continually engage in a snip ing war ofsmall skirmishes and assassinations, usually avoiding the large-scale violence that might attract the attention of Greater Powers.

Anthraxus's realm in Hades is a mighty fortress (the Khin-Oin) of grey stone battlements, laced with crenellations and studded with towers and minor citadels. It towers 20 miles in height, and its dungeons burrow a similar distance below ground. The KhinOin, orWasting Tower, is continually wracked with internal power struggles from other diseased great daemons who seek to dis place or weaken Anthraxus. There are continual battles in the halls between the daemonic forces of one faction against another. Only the threat of an outside Power or invader is suffic ient to cause the daemon masters to unite into a restless com mon front. When they do, they are unbeatable, for no other group has ever stormed or besieged Khin-Oin successfully.

Also found on the layers of Hades are achaierai, nightmares, mephits, and night hags. The hags live reclusive lives and inter fere with the local political situation only when necessary. The night hags are chiefly interested in Hades' larvae, the human headed worm-spirits that are found throughout the layers. The larvae are a medium of exchange in the lower planes, and the night hags seek to gather as many of them as possible.

Many of the Powers of Hades were once beings of Law and jus tice who were assigned the task of guarding against the evil dead in the land of Hades. The millennial exposure to this plane has turned these Powers to the grey evil as well, so they are both jail ers and prisoners of Hades. Only those of greater godly status can wander the Astral or visit other planes.

Hades of the third layer, Pluton, is the most powerful of the Powers of this plane, yet even he has been affected by the grey sorrow of Hades. His realm has gates and great walls surround ing the grove of Persephone, where Mount Olympus has its base and passes into the Astral. The grove is filled with black willows and a single white laurel tree. The gates of Hades's realm are massive structures of beaten bronze, dented by those powerful heroes who over the ages have sought to assault the lord of the underworld’s fortress. At these gates is the kennel of the three-headed dog Cerberus, whose task is both to keep the unwanted out of Hades and to keep the inhabitants of Hades within. Cerber us may be slain, but he can be returned to life by the wish of Hades. Many evil Olympian beasts and creatures dwell in Hades’s domain. These have ability modifications similar to those of Olympian creatures.

Hel, ruler of Niflheim, was also assigned the task of guarding the dead, only to eventually fall to the same grey despair that overwhelms those in this realm. The Yggdrasil (and the main bar rier region from Oinos) decamps at the base of a low hill. At the base of the Yggdrasil is Nidhogg, a huge, very ancient red dragon with 10 points per hit die, and that dragon’s innumerable brood. Nidhogg’s task is to gnaw the roots of the World Ash and eventually cut the link from Niflheim to Asgard, but the ash sets down new roots even as Nidhogg consumes them. Nidhogg can be (and has been) slain, but within a year one of her brood grows to hersize and power, takesthe mantle of Nidhogg, and resumes the task.

Hel’s domain is similar to that of Valhalla in appearance, save for the omnipresent grey and the lack of valkyries. She is served in this dominion by her own einheriar, who are evil in nature and grey in both armor and complexion. Within the wild borders of Niflheim, all manner of fell creatures similar to those found in Gladsheim roam and prey on the unwary.

The Babylonian god Nergal is also a keeper of the dead for his pantheon. He makes his realm on the first layer, ruling a wide but finite swath of the layer from Nergaltos, his circular city of seven domes. His city is laid out in rings, with each ring having an arch ing dome enclosing the domed rings within it. Viewing portals cannot passthrough the gates of Nergaltos without Nergal’s per mission. Each dome is pierced by a single gate. At each gate the traveler must roll a successful saving throw vs. spell orsuffer the effects of being trapped in Hades (see page 105). Each dome applies a cumulative -2 penalty to the save, so that by the time that the seventh dome is reached, the penalty is —14, so potenl that Fowers such as Ishtar have been trapped in his domain. The city of Nergaltos is populated by soldiers similar to the warriors of Anu in description and powers, save that they are evil in nature. In the centermost of the domes within domes, Nergal keeps the forgotten Powers whom Marduk and others of his pantheon have defeated and brought to him.

Ratri, an Indian demi-goddess, has no permanent abode, but flits from layer to layer living off what she can steal from the Greater Powers. Hers is the province of night, thieves, and rob bers. She uses her abilities to remain as an unwelcome guest in the courts of Hades and Hel, and to dominate the daemons and demodands she encounters.

Abbathor lives makes his domain in a cavern complex deep within the first layer. It is said that at its deeper point it has a pla nar layer barrier leading into Niflheim. If this istrue, it is one more treasure that the god of evil and greedy dwarves keeps hidden from others. Abbathor’s realm is called the Glitterhell, for it is lined with gold thatsparkles even in the grey domains of Hades. It is that lust and greed that keeps Abbathor continually on the move and unaffected by the detrimental nature of the plane that overwhelms the other powers. The true location of the Glitterhell is unknown, and Abbathor maintainsseveral false locations of his realm to throw off the greedy men and dwarves who are always conspiring to steal his gold.

Silent Yurtrus ofthe ores isthe orcish god of death. Whether he was assigned the position like Nergal, Hades, or Hel, or took the mantle of death and disease on his own, is unknown, for the orc ish Power has no mouth and does not divulge his secrets. Yurtus’s realm on the layer of Oinos is dreary and depressing even by Hades’s standards. All plants die before reaching its borders. Only Yurtus and his equally silent ore spirits live within; even the daemons tread carefully through this terrain.

Manual of the Planes 2

It is where evil springs eternal.

It is a plane of endless apathy and despair.

It is the great battlefield of the Blood War.

Hades sits at the nadir of the lower planes, halfway between two races of fiends each bent on the other's annihilation. Thus, it often sees its gray plains darkened by vast armies of demons battling equally vast armies of devils who neither ask nor give quarter. If any plane defines the nature of true evil, it is the Gray Waste.

In the Gray Waste of Hades, pure undiluted evil acts as a powerful spiritual force that drags all creatures down. Here, even the consuming rage of the Abyss and the devious plotting of the Nine Hells are subjugated to hopelessness. Apathy and despair seep into everything at the pole of evil. Hades slowly kills a visitor's dreams and desires, leaving the withered husk of what used to be a fiery sprit. Spend enough time in Hades, and visitors give up on things that used to matter, eventually giving in to total apathy.

Hades has three layers called “glooms.” Uncaring malevolence that slowly crushes the spirit permeates each gloom.

Hades has the following traits.

Normal Gravity.

Normal Time.

Infinite Size: Hades may extend infinitely, but its realms are finitely bounded. Divinely Morphic: Entities of at least lesser deity status can alter Hades, though few deities deign to reign in Hades. The Gray Waste has the alterable morphic trait for less powerful creatures; Hades responds normally to spells and physical effort No Elemental or Energy Traits. Strongly Evil-Aligned: Nonevil characters in Hades suffer a —2 penalty on all Charisma-, Wisdom-, and Intelligence-based checks.

Entrapping: This is a special trait unique to Hades, although Elysium has a similar entrapping trait. A nonoutsider in Hades experiences increasing apathy and despair while there. Colors become grayer and less vivid, sounds duller, and even the demeanor of companions seems to be more hateful. At the conclusion of every week spent in Hades, any nonoutsider must make a Will saving throw (DC 10 + the number of consecutive weeks in Hades). Failure indicates that the individual has fallen entirely under the control of the plane, becoming a petitioner of Hades.

Travelers entrapped by the inherent evil of Hades cannot leave the plane of their own volition and have no desire to do so. Memories of any previous life fade into nothingness, and it takes a wish or miracle spell to return such characters to normal. * Normal Magic.

Ihe River Styx flows through the uppermost layer of. Hades, and a few of its small tributaries may lead deeper into the plane. As with everywhere else along the Styx, sinister ferrymen ply its length, granting passage to other planes.

Portals to other planes are fairly common, at least on the uppermost gloom, Oinos. Portals usually appear as great spinning coins of color. Golden coins lead to Carceri, silver ones lead to the Outlands, coppers go to Gehenna, and rare platinum ones connect to the Astral Plane. Because everything else in the Gray Waste is leached of color, the coin-portals glitter for miles.

Foul creatures of every sort can be found in the Gray Waste. Because this is the battleground of the lower planes, demons, devils, slaadi, formians, and even the occasional deva can be found here, spying for the war effort or deserting their unit. Of course, yugoloths also abound, despite the fact that most of the race has moved from this plane, their original home, to the neighboring plane of Gehenna.

Night hags are also thick in Hades. They constantly seek special petitioners called larvae, which they use asa special form of spiritual currency in their dark dealings with evil beings and deities.

Besides Blood War detritus, night hags, and petitioners, Hades hosts herds of fiery nightmares.

Petitioners in Hades are mostly grayish ghosts, spirits so depleted by the Waste that they lack solidity. They rarely speak, instead crowding around visitors like moths around a candle, seeking the warmth of emotion and hope that living beings possess.

Spirits of particularly selfish and malicious mortals that come to Hades become a special form of petitioner called a larva, Larvae appear as Medium-size worms with heads that resemble the heads on their mortal bodies, Larvae serve as the currency of the Lower Planes, especially among night hags, liches, demons, devils, and yugoloths. Most are as likely to be used as food as to power a spell. The rare “lucky” larva is sometimes promoted to a lower form of fiend.

Normal petitioners in Hades gain only one special petitioner quality: incorporeality.

But larvae have the following special petitioner qualities:

Additional Immunities: Cold, fire.

Resistances: Electricity 20, acid 20.

Other Special Qualities: Wounding, disease, no planar commitment.

Wounding (Ex): Every time a larva deals damage, the wound automatically bleeds for 1 additional point of damage every round until a Heal check (DC 15) is made or magical healing is applied.

Disease (Ex): Following a battle with larvae during which the larvae dealt any damage, wounded characters must make a Fortitude save (DC 17) or contract devil chills (see Disease in Chapter 3 of the DUNGEON MASTER'S Guide, for the effects of devil chills).

No Planar Commitment (Ex): Unlike most other petitioners, larvae can be removed from Hades. Often, they are taken elsewhere to serve as food, barter, and basic "soul-stuff" for fiendish projects, both demonic and devilish, that require such an esoteric component.

Movement and combat in Hades are much like movement on the Material Plane. The hateful nature of the plane makes combatants less likely to flee, even if gravely wounded. Most fights here are to the death.

The glooms of the Gray Waste are just that: dull gray lands. The earth is gray, the sky is gray, and the petitioners are gray. Color is foreign here, as if vision itself is subverted. When visitors step into the plane, everything goes from color to white, black, or gray. There is no sun, no moon, and no stars above— just a bleak gray radiance emanating from the sky.

This grayness affects more than vision; it is a spiri tual grayness. It reaches into the hearts of all who spend time in Hades. Those who spend more time here than they should, such as all the petitioners, are devoid of feeling, They don't laugh, dont cry, and just dont care. All they do is despair, their hope gone and never to return.

Both the entrapping trait of Hades and the spiritual sickness called "the grays" are manifestations of the grayness of Hades.

Oinos

The first gloom of Hades is a land of stunted trees, roving fiends, and virulent disease. But more than anything else, it is a plane ravaged by war. This is the central battlefield of the Blood War. Fiends, warrior-slaves, trained beasts, and hired mercenaries gather here to wage horrific battles on an epic scale. These battles despoil the already bleak terrain. The sounds of rending claws, clashing weapons, and screams echo across the entire layer.

Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower:

A twenty-mile-high tower, Khin-Oin looks like nothing so much as a freestanding spinal column. Some say that's exactly what it is: the backbone of a deity slain by yugoloths. Khin-Oin plunges as deep into Oinos's gray soil as it ascends into the air, so the tower's sublevels tunnel twenty miles deep.

The Wasting Tower is ruled by an ultraloth prince named Mydianchlarus. In fact, some stories hint that the entire yugoloth race was birthed here, arising in a pit at the absolute bottom of Khin-Oin. None but yugoloths have ever held the tower, despite the constant array of fiendish armies outside.

The rooms and the floors of the tower seem to have no end. Spawning vats, magical laboratories, and meditation chambers can be found here, as can orreries, suites of rooms for yugoloths, and floors that are themselves battlegrounds and drill fields. Mydianchlarus rules from the tower's zenith, and the token of his rulership is the Siege Malicious.

Whoever rules the Wasting Tower is often referred to as the oinoloth. Any creature that can successfully invade the Wasting Tower and make it to the top chamber has the opportunity to claim the title for himself. Claiming the title involves defeating the current ruler, then sitting on the Siege Malicious. The Siege Malicious is a throne of artifact-level power, and as such, it may grant powers over the layer of Oinos.

The Siege Malicious:

The Siege Malicious is a major artifact. It is a gargantuan, immovable throne carved from the stone of the Wasting Tower itself. The throne is inlaid with tarnished silver, base copper, and brass. A circular crown of rubies adorns the top of the high seat, which is just large enough to sit a Huge creature. (Many Medium-size creatures would look ridiculous sitting on the Siege Malicious with their legs dangling several feet off the floor.)

Powers of the Throne:

In order to operate the Siege Mali cious, a character sitting on the throne must have defeated the previous oinoloth. If the previous oinoloth yet lives, the sitter suffers 3d6«6 points of permanent Charisma drain, as a consequence of being infected with a particularly virulent strain of the disease called gray wasting. Characters immune to disease don't take damage, but the Siege Malicious seems powerless to them.

If the character sitting on the throne has defeated the previous oinoloth, then the powers of the siege malicious are his. But the throne forever changes those who sit on it. The Siege Malicious deals 1d4 points of permanent Charisma drain as part of the sitter's skin sloughs off in a rather grotesque manner. This disfigurement is the mark of the oinoloth and may not be magically healed without forsaking the title of oinoloth.

But with the disfigurement comes absolute control of disease on the layer of Oinos. The new oinoloth (whether yugoloth or not) commands the diseases of Oinos, creating, modifying, or nullifying diseases as he sees fit. New or modified diseases could potentially spread beyond the layer of Oinos, but the oinoloth only has this power while in Hades. The oinoloth has power over disease whether sitting in the Siege Malicious or not

Creating or Modifying a Disease: The oinoloth may conceive of or modify a disease at will as a free action (though coming up with just the right name is an exercise of intellect that could take longer). The important parameters for creating or modifying a disease are infection, DC, incubation, and damage; for more information, see Disease in Chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Generally, new or modified diseases must possess a standard infection type, have a DC no higher than 20, have an incubation time of no less than one day, and have damage not greater than 1d8 temporary points of any ability score damage except Constitution (1de if the disease deals permanent ability drain). Secondary visual effects of a new disease are up to the oinoloth Secondary effects can include deafness, blindness, muteness, and other sensory deprivations (one per disease), on a second failed saving throw against the initial disease DC.

Infecting: Once a disease is created or modified, the oinoloth can set it loose. The oinoloth can infect a living target within 300 feet as a standard action, and the target gets no saving throw to avoid infection.

THE GRAYS

A spiritual poison affects any creature (including outsiders) in Hades that does not possess spell resistance of 10 or more. Creatures without spell resistance 10 must make a Will save (DC 13) every twenty-four hours they spend in Hades. A failed save deals 1 point of temporary Wisdom damage to the victim. A victim can be drained to a minimum Wisdom of 1 in this fashion. Unlike most ability score damage, Wisdom damage dealt by “the grays” does not heal until the victim has left Hades behind. Each point of Wisdom damage dealt in this fashion represents growing apathy, hopelessness, and despair.

This effect is concurrent with the entrapping trait of Hades. Wisdom damage taken from the grays makes it harder to make the weekly saving throws to resist the loss of all hope that the entrapping trait represents. Wisdom damage dealt by “the grays” does not heal until the victim has left Hades behind. Each point of Wisdom damage dealt in this fashion represents growing apathy, hopelessness, and despair. This effect is concurrent with the entrapping trait of Hades. Wisdom damage taken from the grays makes it harder to make the weekly saving throws to resist the loss of all hope that the entrapping trait represents.

GRAY WASTING

Gray wasting, in its normal form, is quite dangerous and visually unappealing, as the victim's skin wastes away into so much mucus and rotting flesh. It has the following characteristics

Infection:I Contact.

Fortitude Save DC:I 20.

Incubation:I 1 day.

Damage:I 1d4 points of permanent Charisma drain.

Niflheim

The second gloom of Hades is a layer of gray mists that constantly twist and swirl among sickly trees and ominous bluffs. The thin fog limits vision to 100 feet at best, muffles sound, and eventually saturates everything with dampness. Niflheim is not as war-ravaged as Oinos, probably because the mist hinders combat. Many predators prowl the lands, hidden amid the mist, including fiendish dire wolves and trolls.

Vision (including darkvision) is limited to 100 feet in Niflheim, and Listen checks suffer a —4 circumstance penalty due to the muffling nature of the fog.

Death of Innocence:

A small town tucked away in the misty pines, Death of Innocence is constructed of hewn pine taken from the surrounding forest.

The town holds more than 5,000 mortals and (non-larva) petitioners, though they mostly remain inside their dwellings, giving the city a vacant feel. Strangely, those who live behind the protection of the town’s walls sometimes strive to improve their lot and break out of apathy.

Great wooden gates bar entry to Death of Innocence, and both the gates and the outer wall bristle with spikes. Inside, a broad avenue leads to the towns center, where a gray marble fountain stands. The wood of the buildings and gates oozes blood, as if sap, confirming the belief that petitioners are trapped within the wood. Neither the grays nor the entrapping trait of Hades can penetrate the walls of Death of Innocence.

Pluton

The third gloom of Hades is a layer of dying willows, shriveled olive trees, and night-black poplars. It is a realm where no one wants to be and no one can remember why they came. Of course, petitioners have no choice in the matter.

Usually, the Blood War does not reach this lowest gloom, though some raids have occurred when one side or the other wished to retrieve the spirit of a fallen mortal captain who possessed particularly sharp tactical skills.

Underworld:

The Underworld is contained within walls of gray marble that stretch for hundreds of miles and are visible for thousands of miles beyond that. A single double gate pierces the marble walls of the realm. Constructed of beaten bronze, the gates are dented and scarred by heroes intent on getting past. However, the gates are also guarded by a terrible fiendish beast, a Gargantuan three-headed hound made from the squirming, decaying bodies of hundreds of petitioners.

Beyond the gate, the inside of the realm appears much like the outside. Blackened trees, stunted bushes, and wasted ground dominate the landscape. Larvae are everywhere, writhing in the dust, as are gray, wraith-like petitioners who are on the verge of being sucked completely dry of all emotion by the spiritual decay of the plane. When they lose the last shred of emotion, their remaining essence becomes one with the gloom of Pluton.

Sometimes, great heroes or desperate lovers from the Material Plane travel to this layer via a tributary of the River Styx or portals hidden in great volcanic fissures, They come to the Underworld because they believe that they can find the spirit of a friend or loved one and extricate that spirit from a hopeless eternity. Besides larvae, faded petitioners, and the occasional foolish mortals, demons, yugoloths, and devils roam the land, looking for choice morsels.

Oinos

The top layer of Hades is a blasted gray wasteland, peppered with rough hills and rocky fields. The landscape has been shaped by the monumental conflicts of the Blood War that have ravaged the already bleak terrain. Craters, crevasses, and canyons pock the ground where violent eruptions have split the land from the absolute horrific power unleashed by demons, devils, and the mercenary forces that aid both sides. What few lakes exist on Oinos are usually the result of pooling blood spilled from a particularly savage battle.

The River Styx winds through Oinos, though its normally blood-red waters are muted by the plane’s graying effect. The river is an important strategic landmark that controls the easiest access to Hades, so it is hotly contended by demons and devils. Owing to their nature, the devils setup regular checkpoints to inspect travelers coming from the neighboring planes of Carceri and Gehenna. The demons do what they do best – throw hordes of monsters to overwhelm their foes and bring utter chaos to the situation.

No wind stirs the dust of Oinos and no sun hangs in the sky. The perpetual gloom and heavy anticipation of a coming disaster makes a thick combination in the air that can quickly overwhelm non-natives. Vision is limited because of the graying sameness of it all, obscuring details beyond 500 feet in any direction despite the lack of natural obstacles.

Niflheim

The second layer of Hades is a vast pine forest stretching into infinity filled with thick curling mists. The trees have an unhealthy look to them largely because of their dull gray barks and thin needles. A chillness hangs in the air, which combined with the mist creates a moist feeling everywhere. The ground rises and swells in low hills marked only occasionally by a lone mountain, though lakes of dingy gray water are frequent across Niflheim. The creatures that stalk through Niflheim are well-adapted to the mists, which otherwise obscure vision beyond more than 50 feet. Creatures that rely on sight are going to have a hard time in the forests so the native monsters use other senses to track down their prey. The fearsome garmr, wolves of the mist, are completely blind and hunt by scent alone – their fearsome howl can unnerve even the bravest of foes.

The ambient light of the gray sky overhead is the only illumination on Niflheim; the mists seem to actively attack and swallow other sources of light brought into the pine forest. This suits the residents just fine, chief among them the goddess Hel in the Isles of the Cursed, ten islands in the middle of a massive gray lake. Magical forces prohibit flying over the lake.

Pluton

The lowest layer of Hades is Pluton, a gloom of endless gray sand dunes, rocky outcroppings, and sparse fields of night-black poplar trees. Here the graying effect of the plane also leeches out memories, robbing visitors of their life experiences, and the landscape reflects this property. Everything looks the same and few landmarks stand out to help travelers navigate.

The Blood War rarely reaches to Pluton, and there are very few native creatures. The dangers of the gloom are enough to deter most from visiting willingly. Pluton’s primary feature is the Underworld which sits in massive caverns below the sand dunes. This is the realm of Hades, an ancient god of death who shares the name of the plane, and it is populated by the largest number of dead souls in the multiverse. Hades the god greedily pulls unclaimed souls into his Underworld and uses them as bargaining chips when dealing with other powers. He is the most powerful of the Triumvirate of the Grave, the trio of death gods that ostensibly rule over the plane..

The Powerful and Mighty

Few things can live in the Gray Waste and not be corrupted and beat down by the unrelenting despair that fills the very air. Fiends of the Lower Planes seem immune to this, a virtue of their evil natures, and undead thrive in all the glooms of Hades. The gods that have chosen to live there (or the ones that have been banished there) all eventually succumb to the unrelenting pressure, giving in to their base instincts and reveling in the power that comes with evil for evil’s sake. Travelers should be warned to trust no one in Hades, though this point of advice applies in general to the entirety of the Lower Planes.

Abbathor the Greedy

Gray is not just a color in Hades, it’s a way of life and a distinct power that creeps and crawls over everything. The ground, the trees, the rocks, the sky, all gray, all possessed of a subtle menace that threatens life and mind. There are a few places that buck this trend, however, and one of them is the realm of Abbathor the Greedy, the dwarven god of avarice and jealously. He dwells beneath a rocky stretch of Oinos in a realm called Glitterhell. In Glitterhell, gold shines in the walls, thick veins of the valuable ore running like veins.

Except none of it is real gold. It’s all false, placed their and cultivated by Abbathor to trick anyone who happens to get into Glitterhell. Abbathor’s greed breeds paranoia and he doesn’t trust anyone, including the blind duergar servants that live like savages in the tunnels. It is rumored the dwarven god keeps a secret forge in the bowels of Glitterhell, but his nature suggests this may be a ruse to lure in greedy thieves.

Abbathor keeps a divine eye on anything valuable that happens to drop into Hades. Gold and gems are a specialty but he lusts after magical trinkets of all kind. The machinations of the Triumvirate of the Grave, the death gods that hold the most power over the Gray Waste, do not concern Abbathor – he sees little value in the souls of the dead.

Blood War

Hades sees the most open conflicts in the ongoing Blood War between the chaotic demonic forces of the Abyss and the ordered devilish armies of the Nine Hells. Thousands upon thousands of battles have been fought throughout Hades, mainly focused on Oinos on regions surrounding the River Styx, but the foggy forests of Niflheim have seen fiendish troop movements as well. The gray sands and desolate oases of Pluton have seen very little action as part of the Blood War, perhaps owing to the great influence of Hades, god of death that rules over the Underworld.

Evidence of the Blood War is all over Oinos, ranging from pools of blood, bloated fiendish corpses crawling with monstrous scavengers, carrion birds fighting over scraps, along with lost or retreating forces of both sides scattered and separated from their main host. The Blood War Aftermath table under Hazards & Phenomena provides a list of random incidents that can be encountered by travelers throughout OInos.

Why has Hades seen the most open conflict in the Blood War? Philosophically, Hades stands at the midpoint between the Abyss and the Nine Hells so if one side wins control over the Gray Waste they gain greater control over territory in the Lower Planes. Some have theorized that there is something more to it than just claiming lands. Certainly the rank and file soldiers on each side don’t know why they fight on Hades, and even the generals seem only have the barest idea.

Demonic Hordes

Owing to their very nature, the demons from the Abyss send wave after wave of gibbering hordes into Hades. There is little to no coordination between the efforts as individual demon lords send their fiends out to simply overwhelm the devils and control Hades by virtue of being the last left alive. However, there are a few demon lords that seem particularly vested in the Blood War on the Gray Waste.

Eblis of the Unbending Knee is a powerful demon lord who controls a vast swath of Pazunia, the first layer of the Abyss. He is obsessed with warfare and has been known to travel via the River Styx into Hades personally to launch himself against the devilish forces on Oinos. Eblis is a brilliant if unorthodox tactician who knows how to use his demons to be the most effective; many of his battles are surprise attacks on infernal strongholds along the River Styx, vital strategic locations for both sides in controlling the flow of battle. He has sent numerous packs of demons into the glooms of the Gray Waste in search of the Obelisks of Ash, which he believes are key to controlling Hades. Eblis has a poor relationship with the Triumvirate of the Grave but he generally steers clear of their territories.

Barbu is another demon lord with a vested interest in the Blood War on Hades. She is much less concerned with the actual control of the Gray Waste than in fighting devils – she is a wild but fierce combatant with a reputation for ruining any peace accord or truce established. Barbu is known as the Unwelcome Guest by everyone, and her flying hordes of deranged vrocks strike fear in the minds of demon and devil alike when they darken the skies of Oinos.

Devilish Legions

The rigid march of devils from the Nine Hells of Baator shake the ground, but they know they lack the sheer numbers of their demonic foes. They close this gap with a greater reliance on tactics, a deeper understanding of war, and better trained and equipped soldiers. The devils use sound battle plans to trap and defeat their enemies on the fields of Oinos and beyond, though the wild unpredictability of the demons turns some of those plans upside down.

Zariel, Lord of the First, is the infernal archduchess charged with taking Hades in the name of Baator. As a fallen angel she fought countless battles on Oinos against fiendish forces, and her fall from grace gives her a unique perspective on strategies for claiming Hades. She rarely leaves Avernus and has little time to devote to actual war planning due to infernal politics, so she placed a competent underling in charge. Duke Jornakesh is one of the finest military minds in the Nine Hells. He knows the landscape of Oinos in intricate detail and has won more than battles than he has lost against a greater numbered foe.

Duke Jornakesh uses yugoloth mercenaries more than Zariel would prefer, and this reliance on outside forces may be his undoing. He tries to needlessly risk yugoloth lives in the Blood War and his brilliant strategies has won him many ultroloth allies who believe the devils are destined to win out over the demons. Nonetheless, some – including the powerful Lord of the Wasting Tower – are beginning to grow weary of Duke Jornakesh’s promises of victory. Yugoloth loyalty is bought with treasure and if the rumors are true regarding the powerful duke’s coffers being depleted by conflicts on other fronts, the yugoloths may renege on their existing contracts.

The Demented

It is widely believed that the yugoloths originated on Hades and then emigrated to Gehenna thereafter. The main evidence for this are the baernoloths, ancient and powerful yugoloths that have largely cut themselves off from fiendish politics to dwell in solitude across the glooms of the Gray Waste. They are believed to be immortal while living on Hades, further proof of their origin, but their self-imposed exile makes them difficult to find and deal with.

Except for a small group referred to in whispers as the Demented. This loosely organized group of baernoloths believe they can take an active hand in the destruction of the multiverse. The main tool for their machination is the Blood War, so the Demented offer their advice and guidance without charge to any demon or devil commander willing to listen. Their advice is sometimes sound and brilliant, and other times rubbish and dangerous, but their end goal seems to be pushing the boundaries of the conflict to the greater multiverse.

The savviest of fiendish commanders recognize the Demented as being possessed of a special form of madness, and there are students of the Blood War who discount their presence as nothing more than a fluke on a grander stage. But the creatures are old, as old as the yugoloth race, and their penchance for offering advice for free makes taking it tempting for any general or leader looking for an edge.

Oinoloth of the Wasting Tower

The most influential and individually powerful of all the yugoloths in the multiverse is the oinoloth, who sits at the top of Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower, a 20-mile high bone-like structure stretching up from a barren patch of the Gray Waste. In theory, the oinoloth rules over the yugoloths and directs their actions, working towards the betterment of their fiendish race against the other powers in the multiverse.

In theory, at least. Most don’t realize that the oinoloth is a title given to any being that reaches the top of the Wasting Tower and defeats the current oinoloth. Yugoloths are usually the only ones to care to even try, but some demons, devils, and even mortals have entered Khin-Oin with the intent of claiming the lofty title. With it comes a host of powers, including control over the Siege Malicious, a great throne with the power to create disease and spread them throughout Hades (and beyond, or so it is rumored).

The current oinoloth is Mydianchlarus, an incredibly paranoid ultroloth who defeated the previous oinoloth to claim Khin-Oin as its own. Mydianchlarus receives ambassadors from the Abyss, the Nine Hells, Carceri, and elsewhere in special chambers but he never greets them in person. Instead, he speaks through a special magical link with powerful zombies that see to the needs of the ambassadors. Very little is accomplished in these meetings as Mydianchlarus refuses to utilize the powers of the Siege Malicious on any scale helpful to either side in the Blood War, but the visitors and the oinoloth continue to put up a charade.

The previous oinoloth, Anthraxus, though he was defeated and deposed from Khin-Oin, managed to survive and now wanders the Gray Waste as a free agent. He is an experienced ultroloth with a wealth of knowledge and a knack for betrayal, a fact that has started to get around. Anthraxus’ work prospects of late have been few and far between.

Nightmare Princesses

Nightmares gallop across the barren stretches of the Gray Waste in great herds, their burning hooves scorching the ground and leaving a trail of black soot in their wake. The powerful beasts are coveted by wicked minded individuals across the multiverse as the mount of choice but taming them is a difficult and timely endeavor. Those that run free on Hades are prized above all others but they swear fealty to an enigmatic group of leaders known only as the nightmare princesses.

Three princesses are known to planar scholars, but it is widely believed there are more. They are each a powerful specimen capable of telepathic speech with mortal creatures, and each travel in a herd with hundreds of fellow nightmares. They are willful, proud, and stubborn, characteristics normally bludgeoned by the unrelenting gloom of Hades, but their nature keeps them strong and running free.

The nightmare princesses have witnessed much in the Gray Waste and they are an excellent source of information – if you have something they want to trade. They are not interested in mortal trinkets or golden treasures, but they’re always in the mood for larvae to devour or a celestial to crush beneath their hooves. The known three are Calaphone, Zadite, and Alyndia, and each frequents Oinos as their layer of choice.

The nightmare princesses meet irregularly at the Dreaming Bones, a great hill filled with nightmare skeletons on the gray sand dunes of Pluton. Nightmares regularly go to the site to die and be reborn again, but the nightmare princesses discuss other matters. Some say they meet to keep up the strength of the herd on Hades, while others say they come to receive the blessings of the Triumvirate of the Grave or some other power that presides over them.

Triumvirate of the Grave

Death is no release on Hades. Those unfortunate enough to die in the Gray Waste either return to the earth as larvae and quickly lose what memories they had, or they get snatched up by one of the prominent death gods of the plane, known collectively as the Triumvirate of the Grave. The three deities that make up the group are Arawn, Hel, and Hades, and each claims death as the major part of their divine portfolio.

However, rather than fight or quarrel amongst themselves, they united under a common purpose – to get as many souls into Hades as possible. Two of them keep to Niflheim – Arawn rules the Isles of the Cursed while the Halls of Hel belong to the goddess Hel. Hades, the most powerful and active of the Triumvirate, rules the Underworld on Pluton, a realm nearly as vast as the layer itself. The three meet regularly to discuss topics of mass death across the multiverse and to share plans on subverting souls from their destination across the planes and into their respective realms.

Each of the gods of death that make up the Triumvirate of the Grave are self-serving and greedy, but they have been known to treat with mortals that come to visit on specific purposes. Arawn claims a mortal as his wife who becomes his queen for 10 years before she passes, though rarely are the arrangements mutual – more than one mortal lover has come to the Isles of the Cursed to free their beloved from Arawn’s clutches. Hades rules a vast Underworld with thousands upon thousands of servants, but his eye gets caught by the image of a beautiful woman or man from time to time. Hel is impressed only by a warrior’s prowess and she works to claim the bravest and most competent souls for her fog-enshrouded realm.

Troll King of Finnvang Forest

The fog that chokes Niflheim is thick and gloomy, like everything in the Gray Waste, and it hides multiple secrets. One of those is Finnvang Forest, a stretch of pine woods where the trees are skeletal remnants of their former selves, reaching out with claw-like branches to grasp and scratch at the unwary. This realm is run by Zulkaz the Troll King, an immortal troll with an iron crown intrinsically tied to the forest. Zulkaz has legions of trolls of all types in Finnvang Forest that obey his every command, which is to dig through the dirt in search of his missing organs.

Though immortal, Zulkaz can still lose parts of his body, and a dire curse placed on him means his organs don’t regenerate like a normal troll. A hero once sought to free his love from the clutches of Arawn, god of death that rules the Isles of the Cursed, and the price the god put on such an endeavor was to lose the heart, eyes, liver, and other organs of the Troll King. The hero completed the trial and tossed the grisly trophies into the forest where Arawn’s magic made them disappear.

Weakened but still alive, Zulkaz has ordered his trolls to scour Finnvang and beyond in search of his missing parts. They have found one eyeball so far and his spleen, but the greatest missing piece is the Troll King’s heart. Once he claims all his missing parts, Zulkaz vows to send legions of trolls into the Isles of the Cursed to wreak terrible vengeance upon Arawn.

Creatures & Denizens

Dangerous monsters prowl the Gray Waste of Hades looking to take advantage of weakness, sickness, and despair. Demons, devils, and yugoloths can also be found in great numbers, especially on Oinos, so there’s another reason to be cautious if traveling to Hades for any reason.

Fiends

As depressing and gloomy as Hades is, it sees a large amount of traffic from fiends of all kinds due to its coveted position as the jewel of the Blood War. Demons and devils constantly clash against one another, and often run afoul of the native fiends as well. Night hags are common and believed to have originated on Hades, where they drive herds of writhing larvae to barter and trade with other infernal traders. Enormous herds of nightmares thunder across the blasted wasteland, kicking up gray dust to choke the skies.

Many creatures dine on the lesser fiends of Hades, such as the bleak rats, but these pests can prove troublesome for other creatures due to their life-sapping bites. Flocks of flightless diakk hop around the wastes as well and serve as fine dining in infernal feast halls across the Lower Planes. Niflheim’s foggy grayness hides dangerous wolf-like garmr that stalk visitors at the behest of Hel, one of the lords of death that rule over Hades. Larviathans churn through the wastes as well, spreading despair wherever they sense emotions, and are nearly unkillable on the plane. Enormous gray webs spun by rakkix are nearly invisible in the landscape but are capable of ensnaring any who fall into them, where they become food for the spider-like fiends.

Hordlings. The most numerous fiends on Hades are the vast teeming masses of hordlings. These misshapen monsters come in a staggering variety but all are dedicated to spreading pain and misery wherever they go. They are unreliable pawns and soldiers but still remain useful fodder for both devils and demons in the Blood War, but the loyalty of a hordling cannot be bought or coerced. They always eventually fall to their greedy self-serving nature of betrayal.

Yugoloths. According to most theories, Hades is the birthplace of the yugoloths. Most of them have moved operations to Gehenna, but a host of powerful representatives remain in the Gray Waste. The most powerful of all the yugoloths is the Oinoloth, a title bestowed upon the master of Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower on Oinos, though few brave the horrors of that tower to reach its owner and face the challenge. Baernoloths are the elder powers of the yugoloths that decided to remain on Hades when the rest of their race moved to Gehenna, and their enigmatic interest in the movement of beings across the Gray Waste make them allies and enemies of everyone.

Giants

The gray pine forests of Niflheim hide many dangerous monsters, but few are as bloodthirsty as the savage trolls. They wander the fog looking for fresh meat, and many serve the goddess Hel as enforcers and guardians in the wilderness. Finnvag Forest holds the largest population of trolls all serving Zulkaz the Troll King, who constantly searches for his missing body parts cut up by a hero long ago.

Frost giants and ogres serve Hel in her vast realm as well, where captured souls are tortured with sumptuous banquets that induce wracking pain. Hel often uses the giants and ogres to enforce her commands across Hades and beyond, sending them on missions to slaughter those that fail to honor her in certain Material Plane realms. These forces all have chalk-white skin and a deathly pallor that mark them as servants of Hel.

Undead

Undead horrors can be found on any of the glooms of Hades. They serve as the most numerous and potent servants of the Triumvirate of the Grave, the trio of death gods that rule much of the Gray Waste (Hel, Arawn, and Hades). Skeletons are the most commonly found monster, and many of these are animated by the natural gloom of Hades and serve as nothing more than natural extensions of the plane itself. Ghouls, shadows, and ghosts also haunt the regions, and in the remains of Blood War battles, some fallen fiends rise as grotesque nightmares to haunt the gray wilderness as foul horrors.

Hazards & Phenomena

The Gray Waste has an insidious way of getting under the skin of travelers and infecting them with an apathy towards life and existence in general. It’s a subtle evil, much less overt than the fire and brimstone found in the Abyss and the Nine Hells. Staying alive and sane in Hades is a challenge for the stoutest of minds and hearts.

The Graying

Hades isn’t known as the Gray Waste without good reason. On every layer in almost every realm, all colors have been leeched away, leaving only shades of gray over the entire landscape – the skies, the ground, the hills, everything. The River Styx’s normally blood-red color dulls to near black while it flows through Oinos.

Anything brought into Hades eventually discolors to a shade of gray, an effect known as the graying. Brighter and more vibrant colors can take a full week to lose their original shade while duller colors take less time. This effect is largely cosmetic, and there are wizards in planar trading cities that specialize in restoring lost color to things found or left on Hades too long.

Niflheim Clinging Mists

The gray pine forests of Niflheim are largely obscured by thick, grasping mists that envelop the entire layer. They curl around the trunks of the gray trees, between the tufts of gray pine needs clinging to the branches, and help hide the natural pits, lakes, and swamps that dot the layer. Anything more than 30 feet away is heavily obscured by the mists, and vision is completely blocked at a distance of 60 feet by the pine trees and mists.

The mists also resist attempts to disperse. A spell like gust of wind can swirl the mists for a short period of time, clearing an area, but as soon as the spell effect ends the fog rushes back in and reclaims what it lost. Some planar scholars claim an intelligence sits behind the mists – perhaps Arawn or Hel, or a combination of the two, but few give credence to these ideas. And the mists certainly don’t respond to anything that would suggest a sentience behind its thick, flowing movements.

Blood War Aftermath

Oinos sees the most activity in the long-standing Blood War between demons and devils for control over the Lower Planes, and the aftermath of those battles litters the first layer of Hades. Skirmishes and open battles are frequent and can certainly sweep up characters, but just as often a party traveling through Oinos only encounters the aftermath. The below table can be used to highlight the impact the Blood War has on Hades, and to create potential adventure seeds for future exploitation.

Oinos Wasting Sickness

Diseases are rampant on Oinos owing to the perfect combination of hundreds of thousands of combatants fighting an eternal war and soaking the ground with blood, sweat, and tears. However, there’s something more that Oinos has the many travelers don’t realize – Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower, bastion of the Oinoloth and greatest stronghold of the yugoloth in the multiverse. Khin-Oin’s worst kept secret is the Siege Malicious, a great throne that sits at the top where the Oinoloth rules. It’s not just ornamental, however. The Siege Malicious is a powerful disease machine that can infect the entire plane given the right circumstances – and beyond if the rumors are true.

The presence of the Siege Malicious combined with the unhealthy factors of the Blood War creates a wasting disease that can infect any creature that spends time in Oinos and interacts with the natural environment. This includes drinking or falling into water, getting dirt into fresh wounds, or traversing underground. Creatures in these circumstances must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or contract the wasting disease of Oinos. The wasting disease has four stages.

The first stage starts at infection, and the victim loses 1d6 points of Charisma. These lost ability score points only return when the disease is cured and the victim has spent a long rest outside of Hades. The wasting disease can only be paused while on Hades, but it can flare up easily, forcing the victim to make additional saving throws as if they were contracting the disease for the first time. In these circumstances, the disease skips previous stages and moves to the next.

For most victims, the second stage of the wasting disease occurs at the next long rest after the onset. The victim automatically loses 1d6 points of Dexterity and Strength (roll separately for each) as the disease quickly attacks the muscles. The third stage is far more insidious – it strikes 1d20 hours later as the victim’s skin becomes paper-like, gray, and flakes off in great chunks. The fourth and final stage occurs 1d6 hours after the third stage, and results in death.

The wasting disease is particularly nasty around Khin-Oin. Creatures unprotected from disease can contract the wasting disease by just being within 1 mile of the yugoloth tower, and the stages are more rapid (second stage occurs after the first short rest, third stage is 1d4 hours later, and fourth stage is 1d6 minutes.

Pluton Memory Leech

The gray sands of Pluton are vast, endless, and supremely boring. Every sand dune looks like the last sand dune, and the horizon blends nearly perfectly into the sky to create a featureless gray haze in all directions. The stunning dullness of Pluton on the surface hides the insidious power of the layer, which steals away memories from travelers. After every long rest on Pluton, creatures must succeed on a DC 15 Intelligence saving throw. On a failure, they lose memories dear to them – friends and family are forgotten, hometowns hold no special meaning, and even the reason for coming becomes vague and undefined.

After a creature has failed four of these saving throws they lose all memories and are drawn inexorably to the Gates of the Underworld where they are drawn without having any idea why. Hades, the god of death that rules the Underworld, welcomes these memory-less travelers as menial labor and puts them to work on projects around his realm. The memory leeching of Pluton does not occur in the Underworld.

It is possible to restore lost memories. They return on their own, slowly regenerating, over a period of time based on how many failures the victim accumulated. Memories lost over one failure come back after 1 day outside of Pluton, while two failures require 1 week and three failures require 1 month. If a creature that has failed four saving throws can somehow be directed outside of Pluton, they remain memoryless for 1 year. The death god Hades has an instinctual link to creatures restoring their memories and usually sends cults and servants to drag the victim back to Pluton to finish the leeching process.

Vile Transformation

Larvae are mortal souls that have been reborn as disgusting wriggling grubs in the soil of Hades. They serve as food and commodity for the residents of the Gray Waste; night hags are especially fond of rounding up larvae and selling them on black markets across the multiverse. Larvae are created in one of three ways – through horrendous magical transformation spells known only to the highest-ranking servants of the Triumvirate of the Grave; by the gods of death diverting unbound souls and releasing them into Hades; or by a vile transformation that affects mortal creatures on the plane.

The vile transformation is deceptively simple. Every long rest spent on the plane, mortal creatures (fiends, celestials, and elementals are immune) must succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, they gain a level of exhaustion. These levels of exhaustion cannot be removed while the victim remains on Hades. When a victim gains their sixth level of exhaustion through any effect while on Hades, the victim’s body dies and they are reborn immediately as a larvae. This process is irreversible, at least to common thinking, and transformed larvae quickly lose all memories of their previous lives.

Sites & Treasures

The Gray Waste hides multiple sites and relics of power, many of which are the direct result of the Blood War between the demons and devils of the Lower Planes. There must be some reason for adventurers to head into the dangerous and deadly realms of Hades!

Chasm of Plagues

Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower is a dominating sight on the otherwise featureless horizon of Oinos. It towers over the landscape, and considering the dangerous disease that radiates out from it, few go near it. But nearby, roughly ten miles from the tower itself, yawns the Chasm of Plagues, a darkness-filled gorge cut into the Gray Waste itself. It is patrolled by servants of the Oinoloth at all times, for within its depths is rumored to be the source of Khin-Oin’s disease-generating power.

The Chasm of Plagues is a jagged scar in the ground, roughly 500 feet across at its widest and almost a mile long. The sides are steep and cloaked in darkness and few know exactly how far down it goes – the shadows become a physical force, like liquid darkness, after descending a mile down. Strange gray moss and fungi cling to the rocky sides which are climbable by an experienced traveler, though the yugoloths and slasreths (monsters normally native only to Gehenna) patrol regularly and have orders to destroy any intruders.

The moss and fungi supposedly grant creatures resistance or immunity to Khin-Oin’s worst wasting disease, but there are rumors the Chasm of Plagues holds the source of power for the Siege Malicious itself in its depths. Few have even attempted the journey into the black chasm, and those that have and lived to tell the tale say there is a living disease of monstrous proportions that moves and flies in the shadows.

Death of Innocence

Squatting in the pine forest of Niflheim sits the isolated frontier town, Death of Innocence. The people that have drifted into its wooden-timbered buildings and muddy streets all share the viewpoint that death is the only release from suffering, but they are too selfish and too arrogant to die by their own hands. It is a grim town, with clawing mists as thick as anywhere on the layer hanging around it, but it does offer some respite for those lost to Niflheim’s heavy pine forests.

Death of Innocence is positioned relatively close to the Halls of Hel, and the goddess of death does not look kindly upon such a settlement so near her sacred borders. She has sent packs of garmr led by her most experienced hunters into the town to wipe them out, which happens frequently, but something in the site attracts more people and before long the buildings are back up and Death of Innocence stands again. It’s happened so many times the residents actually look forward to the razing.

What about the site attracts travelers and draws the ire of Hel? There have ben strange occurrences in Death of Innocence witnessed by travelers, including glowing lights, distant laughing voices, the tinkling of bells. Is there a gateway to the Plane of Faerie, the Feywild, hidden somewhere within, below, or even above Death of Innocence?

Dreaming Bones

Herds of nightmares thunder across the landscape of Hades. They are common on Oinos, rare on Niflheim, and almost never seen on Pluton. The only time an unaccompanied nightmare has been seen in the gray sands of Pluton it has been on a pilgrimage to the Dreaming Bones, a great mountain in a sandy valley completely comprised of bones – the bones of nightmares.

Nightmares come to the Dreaming Bones to end their physical form, but that is not death for them. They are reborn after giving themselves over to the grisly pile, re-emerging somewhere on Hades with new life and vigor. The Nightmare Princesses are the only ones that know the exact location of the Dreaming Bones so in order to die and be reborn, a nightmare must seek out one of these powerful but fickle individuals and request the location. Most of the time, the Nightmare Princesses oblige, and if the whim strikes they may send an honor guard on the trip – or accompany the nightmare themselves.

It is said that the Nightmare Princesses must rejuvenate their own bodies at the Dreaming Bones every so often, but their rebirth is different. They die as Nightmare Princesses but return as regular nightmares, and in the cosmic scales another nightmare on Hades is chosen to be elevated. Is this the work of Hades, the god of the Underworld? The god does seem to favor the nightmares more than the other two of the Triumvirate of the Grave, and it would not be out of the ordinary for the fickle Hades to distribute such power randomly.

Finnvang Forest

Finnvang Forest is a stretch of pine woods in Niflheim that seem to the untrained eye as any other patch of foggy wilderness on the layer. It is the realm of Zulkaz the Troll King, and the legions of immortal trolls and ogres that live in the forest scour the region without end looking for the missing organs of their liege. Zulkaz had his organs, including his eyes and heart, removed by a hero looking to free his love from the clutches of Arawn. The hero succeeded, but Zulkaz – being an immensely powerful and immortal being – did not die. Instead, the Troll King lives on in agony, and the search for his parts continues without end.

Zulkaz’s forces have orders to bring any trespasser into Finnvang Forest to the Troll King’s dreary gray stone castle. There, Zulkaz questions the prisoners without end, demanding to know where his eye, heart, and liver are located. Most planar scholars that study the history of Finnvang believe that the Troll King’s missing body parts are not actually on Niflheim at all, but Zulkaz refuses to believe this. The greedy self-absorbed Troll King jumps at any opportunity to get his body parts back, but he is quick to betray any alliance and break any agreement at the most opportune moment.

Fog Labyrinth of Cralfum

Not all of the fog in Hades is found in Niflheim. One particularly dangerous stretch of rocky terrain in Oinos descends into a shallow valley completely filled with thick, choking mists. Known as the Fog Labyrinth, it is the home to an insane lich named Cralfum who is attempting to unlock the borders between the layers of Hades. His ultimate goal isn’t exactly clear, though Cralfum believes the unwinding of the borders will result in him achieving great power and taking a seat on the Triumvirate of the Grave.

Cralfum may be insane, but his power and mastery over planar gates is well regarded across the multiverse. The Fog Labyrinth actually pulls in the mist from Niflheim, so the entire area has the same Clinging Mists feature as the second layer. The lich’s personal sanctum sits in the center of the Fog Labyrinth – a domed structure covered in arcane sigils. Inside, he tinkers with magic that sits at the crossroads of the multiverse. He has regular correspondences with other powerful spellcasters that share his interest in planar magic, and some of his spells have become known to planar scholars in distant realms.

Those seeking Cralfum had best be prepared, however. Some quirk of the magic that created the Fog Labyrinth actually creates near-solid walls that shift, dissipate, and reform at random. Cralfum found a tribe of minotaurs on another plane, killed them, and then animated their bones as powerful skeletons that retain some measure of their former intelligence. The skeletal minotaur guardians of the Fog Labyrinth are merciless and loyal only to the lich.

Glitterhell

Beneath the rocky Gray Waste of Oinos sits a vast complex of narrow tunnels and cramped passages known as Glitterhell. This is the realm of Abbathor, the dwarven god of greed, and he keeps vast amounts of wealth secreted away within his tunnels. He employs traps of all kind to keep thieves and robbers out, and he knows where every last copper coin sits in Glitterhell. A rampant paranoia fills Abbathor so he trusts nearly no one, but he does keep a small number of blind duergar miners and priests to help do the menial work in Glitterhell.

There are numerous openings on the surface of Oinos that supposedly lead into Glitterhell, but the vast majority of these traps of insidious design. Some dump the intruder into vats of gray acid, while others crush them beneath heavy blocks that shoot out from the walls, ceiling, and floor. The divine power of Abbathor keeps the graying that affects the rest of Hades at bay in regards to physical items, so gold, silver, and other metals keep their original luster within Glitterhell.

Abbathor is not without his foils, however. Pyrite sludges ooze through his traps and climb through his carefully prepared setups to devour the god’s precious hoarded metals. Are the pyrite sludges created as a natural thwart to Abbathor’s greed? Or were they introduced by some other engineering power to teach the greedy dwarf god a lesson? Abbathor’s mind reels with the possibilities and his rantings fill the halls as he hunts the dangerous pyrite sludges down with wooden hammers and spears.

Grimport

There are very few points of actual respite in all of Hades. This is especially true for Oinos, where the eternal Blood War flares up with blood results near constantly. The only stable point on the layer, perhaps even the entire plane, is a ramshackle port town on the River Styx known as Grimport. The ruler of Grimport is a spectral force in a tattered black cloak who speaks only in a harsh whisper; locals call it the Grim Specter but no one really knows its name, origin, or purpose beyond keeping Grimport neutral and safe from marauding demons and devils.

The Grim Specter uses fantastic powers to keep fiends and celestials civil in its bleak, crooked streets, and most don’t even try to raise problems anymore. The forces that invade Hades meet in Grimport to discuss plans, reconnoiter the landscape, and to hire mercenaries, as the yugoloths have taken up most of the running of the river port town. This seems to suit the Grim Specter just fine, and the yugoloths have a vested interest in keeping Grimport decidedly neutral in the Blood War. How else would they conduct their business of mercenary work for both sides?

Merrenoloths are especially common in Grimport, and there are few more stable locations on the River Styx in all the Lower Planes. A traveler seeking a ferryman for the dangerous river journey can usually find a merrenoloth or other captain willing to book passage – for the right fee. Sometimes, the cost is a soul coin or two per passenger, other times the merrenoloth wishes for some other trinket. What drives these mysterious fiends is beyond most.

The taverns around Grimport’s docks are the shabbiest, dingiest, dirtiest dives in all of Hades and they serve the most vile and despicable drinks imaginable, but they can also be a source of information. Travelers looking to learn about the latest movements in the Blood War, or upcoming skirmishes that might affect their travel plans, can do worse than asking around at Grimport’s dockside taverns. The Grim Specter usually only intervenes when large scale violence threatens Grimport itself, so visitors must still be careful to avoid asking the wrong questions and provoking the dangerous patrons into taking lethal actions.

Hall of Hel

Hel’s realm in Niflheim is noticeably colder than the rest of the fog-enshrouded pine forest, and she always keeps regular patrols of fiercely loyal frost giants on guard to ensure no one gets in or out without her express permission. The center of her realm is a massive timber building several miles long that serves as the Hall of Hel. The interior is dominated by an expansive banquet chamber, filled with dozens of long tables, but there is no merriment or festivities that occur here. Poisonous sap drips from the ceiling at irregular intervals and the chill of the outside is nothing compared to the icy frost of the inside.

The people that sit at the tables are the souls bound to Hel against their will. Sumptuous food is laid out at all times, served up by skeletal servants, but to eat any of it is to invite wracking convulsions and horrific pain. Hel herself sits at a throne that overlooks the banquet hall where she passes sentencing on those that have been doomed to her grim Niflheim realm. Sometimes, she pronounces judgement on those that were caught trying to infiltrate her realm as well, though just as often she leaves the grisly duty to her fierce packs of garmr and attendant keepers.

Behind Hel’s throne is her personal treasure chamber which is said to hold ancient relics from across the multiverse related to glorious death in combat. Hel herself is a coldly beautiful woman of giant-size with a morose, sullen look on her face. She seems to take no pleasure in her duties, though that does not mean she slacks at all in trying to ensnare souls for the good of Hades and her realm. Giants of all kind can be found in the Hall of Hel serving as guards to their mistress, but the chambers below the great hall are said to hold the souls of unworthy giants, chained forever and bound to cook and clean for the residents of the great hall.

Isles of the Cursed

There are countless lakes in Niflheim’s pine forests, but most are oily gray waters less than a mile in any direction. The largest lake on the layer is Annwn, and its fog-cloaked banks hold the secret realm of Arawn, one of the gods of death in the Triumvirate of the Grave. Arawn’s personal domain is a series of ten islands in the center of Annwn known as the Isles of the Cursed, and getting there is quite a challenge. Magical impediments and divine decrees prevent any creature from flying over the waters of Annwn – travel is only permissible by boat. Serpents of all kind lurk hungrily in the gray depths, and the choppy waters are difficult to navigate.

Travelers that make it to the center of Annwn are greeted first by a massive fortress made of countless bones, with a singularly huge skull sitting at the top, its eyes ablaze. This is the Fortress Annoeth and serves as the lighthouse for the Isles of the Cursed – seeing it, a traveler knows they have entered into Arawn’s Isles of the Cursed.

The ten islands are bleak places devoid of cheer or camaraderie, though they are populated by the depressed dead owned by Arawn. They toil in endless drudgery, working for the sake of work without producing anything of value or note, all for the enjoyment of the realm’s ruler. Arawn himself is far more animated with the other Triumvirate of the Grave members, and he has a fondness for all of those that have been doomed to live on his cursed islands. Historically, he has also been the most willing to work with mortals that make the journey across the water of Annwn to see him for whatever reason.

Arawn’s personal castle is the center of civility in an otherwise gray and dismal plane. The god forces courtly manners and etiquette by magical decree upon any who come to the castle seeking an audience with Arawn. Though everything retains a gray shabby color, the members of Arawn’s court are forced to act happy, though it is clear from their vacant eyes, hollow smiles, and taut skin that no one is truly enjoying themselves. Arawn doesn’t seem to care or mind.

Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower

It’s hard to miss Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower. It stands about twenty miles high, stretching high into the gray clouds over Oinos, and appears to be constructed entirely out of the spine from some enormous beast. This is the center of yugoloth power in Hades, and likely their birthplace as well, though most of the fiends have relocated to the volcanic slopes of Gehenna. Most yugoloths still recognize the individual power of Khin-Oin and its master, the Oinoloth, as a force to be respected and coveted.

Khin-Oin is known as the Wasting Tower because of the disease that ravages the body of unprotected travelers as they come closer to the tower’s base. The Oinoloth at the top of Khin-Oin sits on a massive throne called the Siege Malicious that actually creates and spreads the wasting disease, and under the right circumstances it is said that its myriad diseases can be spread across the multiverse. Few Oinoloths have even attempted this, preferring instead to consolidate their power, for by yugoloth law any creature of any kind can challenge the current Oinoloth for their position and title. They just need to pass through Khin-Oin’s lower floors and survive.

Khin-Oin is filled with traps, imprisoned fiends, and hazards accumulated from centuries of yugoloth paranoia. Each Oinoloth adds their own special flavor of horrible to the rooms that make up the tower. The Wasting Tower is roughly 250 feet in diameter, which tends to be much smaller than most people think, though its sheer size straight up is daunting enough.

It is also widely known that Khin-Oin descends an equal height into the ground of Oinos. What horrors lurk there few can guess – most that come into Khin-Oin seek the Siege Malicious and the Oinoloth and thus head up as soon as possible. Some say the dungeons below the Wasting Tower hold prisoners captured by the yugoloths across the multiverse, while others say they contain the warped early drafts of the fiends before the night hags that birthed them settled on a final design. Or all of these could be true, with nearly twenty miles of tower, the possibilities and dangers are nearly limitless.

Obelisks of Ash

Why is Hades the hotbed of the Blood War? What draws demons and devils, and the accompanying forces that both oppose and support them, to the Gray Waste to fight endlessly? One of the more popular theories points to the strange stone slabs found across the plane. They are referred to by many names among the fiends but most refer to them as the Obelisks of Ash, and at least one demon lord believes controlling these sites are the key to harnessing the latent power of Hades and winning the Blood War.

There have been six Obelisks of Ash seen, mostly on Oinos but a few on Niflheim and Pluton as well. They are each rectangular, 100 feet high and 25 feet thick, constructed of a solid piece of stone. The stone itself is gray and defies all attempts to categorize or identify – it is indestructible, impervious to elemental damage, and doesn’t chip or scrape. The surface is covered in intricate pictogram, though no single source has managed to capture all of the images on a single Obelisk of Ash. What has been seen by planar scholars suggest the obelisks are ancient as the pictograms depict Hades under completely different circumstances – as a lush, vibrant realm where sinister monsters lurk and stalk.

The Obelisks of Ash are especially tricky because they constantly change position, never remaining in a single location for more than a day or so. Diviners in the Lower Planes have tracked these movements, and the arcanaloths of the Tower Arcane on Gehenna possess the most complete records of the obelisks movement – but it doesn’t seem to help in identifying positively where they are going to show up. Eblis of the Unbending Knee, a chief demon lord waging battles in the Blood War, has dedicated his troops and resources to finding the obelisks and possessing them, but he has relied on unreliable intel and chaotic power, and hasn’t had much success.

Who built the Obelisks of Ash? What are their purpose? What does controlling one actually look like? These questions and more continue to baffle planar scholars.

Sea of Misery

The gray desolate fields of Oinos are rocky, with little natural vegetation struggling in the bleak landscape, and what little water exists can usually be traced to the River Styx. The largest such body of water is the Sea of Misery, connected to the River Styx by underground channels. This broad shallow sea is less than fifty feet deep at its maximum, but it spreads out over a hundred miles in diameter. Several rocky features jut out from its dismal gray waters, and the entire area has become a natural flashpoint for conflicts in the Blood War.

The demon lord Eblis of the Unbending Knee throws wave after wave of demonic forces at the Sea of Misery, as the great lake has seen numerous appearances from the Obelisks of Ash, while the devils see it as controlling a major resource in the otherwise unending grayness of Hades. Sea monsters of all kinds dwell in the shallow waters, feeding off of the fiends that fight overhead, and hydroloths are common sightings even outside of the Blood War.

For travelers, the Sea of Misery does not hold the same memory-draining power as the River Styx, but its waters still carry dangers. The wasting disease prominent in Oinos is rampant here, so anyone swimming or otherwise coming into contact with the Sea of Misery must check immediately for contracting it. The sheer number of battles fought overhead means there is quite a bit of detritus at the bottom of the lake, so scavengers of all kinds have been encountered in and around the waters, looking for the choicest bits of scraps.

Underworld

Pluton’s most powerful denizen, and perhaps the most powerful in all of Hades, is the god of death for whom the plane is named after. Hades is the strongest of the Triumvirate of the Grave and its undisputed leader, and on Pluton his realm of Underworld is the largest and most dominating force. It sits beneath the gray sands of the layer, accessible only via a massive gate guarded by a monstrous three-headed hound comprised of thousands of squirming living bodies.

Beyond the gate, a set of stairs descends into the cool ground until ending at a yawning opening leading to the vastness of the Underworld. This is not a cavernous underground realm, however. It is a land of night-black poplars, wilting olive trees, scrub grasses, and twilight skies. Larvae souls squirm and writhe before finally giving up the last vestiges of hope and succumbing to the gloom of the Underworld, transforming into a wispy shadow drawn towards the dominating feature of the landscape – the House of Hades.

Hades the god lives and rules from the House of Hades, a massive palatial fortress constructed of polished black marble. It is artfully decorated with exquisitely carved statues and iconography, and Hades considers himself to have the finest of tastes when it comes to art and sculpture. Honored guests from across the multiverse come and stay in the palace before meeting with the god, who is not altogether the cackling maniacal evil figure most believe him to be. Hades is calculating, cold, and distant, but with a pragmatism that puts the balance of existence over the needs of “good” and “evil.”

His skeleton priests that tend to the Underworld are less concerned with the balance, however, and they drive the larvae and imprisoned souls past the brink of desperation. Hades does not allow residents to leave, and his disappointed wrath can spread across the planes to enact vengeance upon those that do manage to escape.

CREATURES OF THE PLANE

These creatures are peculiar to this plane.

Bleak Rat

The despair that fills the air of Hades is more than just an emotional burden. Many of the monsters that live in the Gray Waste perpetuate the cycle of apathy, and few embody this concept more than the bleak rats. These savage rat-like fiends are 3 feet long with gnarled gray bodies completely devoid of hair. Their eyes are narrow slits of yellow intensity – smarter than most rats in the Material Plane, yet still very low on the food chain. Enormous incisors protrude from their distended mouths.

Food for Fiends. Bleak rats are the main source of food for hordlings, diakka, and rakkix that prowl the Gray Waste. They are cannibalistic by nature, devouring each other whenever other food sources become scarce, but they always seem to bounce back in population. They are considered mere vermin by most demons and devils, but most yugoloths enjoy the savory taste of roasted bleak rat. They say the flavor is reminiscent of the hopelessness that permeates Hades and should be enjoyed with a fine goblet of aged blood wine (made from only the fattiest of mortals).

Endless Warrens. Bleak rats are found in great numbers on Oinos and Niflheim, though they are almost non-existent in the gray sands of Pluton. They create narrow warrens beneath the surface, cramped and maze-like in their intricacy, through which they hunt and feed on lesser vermin. Bleak rats do not form familial bonds but do have strong combat instincts on taking down larger prey. When they manage to bring down a larger creature, bleak rats fight each other over the choicest bits of food before gnawing on the bones in their underground warrens for weeks.

Diakk

A diakk (plural: diakka) is a large, flightless bird-like fiend that lives exclusively in the Gray Waste. They have greasy gray feathers matted down to their jet-black skin by a natural oily secretion, and their beaks end in a long piercing bill capable of great damage against unarmored foes. Their long stork-like legs are thin but capable of moving them with rapid speed across the landscapes of Oinos, Niflheim, and Pluton. Diakka are not very intelligent and serve as a food source for many other creatures in Hades, but they have a number of magical defenses they can bring to bear against unprepared foes.

Flock of Diakka. Diakka gather together in flocks, as few as 4 or 5 but as many as a hundred, pecking away at the soil for insects, bits of forgotten flesh, bleak rats, and other sources of meat. The leader of a flock is the largest and strongest diakk, rarely the smartest, so the creatures tend to move in predictable ways. Some night hags have observed a diakk flock leader exhibit stronger magical power than its brethren, with particular danger around its psychic and enfeebling attacks on intruders. Whether these variants are naturally occurring or the result of some diakk “hive mind” isn’t known.

Fiendish Culinary Staple. Most fiends find the taste of a diakk to be pleasing, believing the creature’s low intelligence and muscular build provide a close comparison for mortals of the Material Plane (usually a preferred meal choice). Roasted diakk is a common dish in the Abyss and Nine Hells, where fiendish chefs prepare the birds with all manner of variants – stuffed diakk with a flesh-marmalade glaze, diakk breasts cooked in the rib cage of a human soaked in a plum wine reduction sauce, and diakk spit-roasted over a viper tree fire are all staples in the kitchens of demon lords and devil princes.

Garmr

The foggy pine forests of Niflheim are populated with dangerous beasts of all kinds, each uniquely adapted to their gloomy terrain. The mournful howl of the garmr, lost in the fog and coming from seemingly everywhere, sends a shiver down even a fiend’s spine. Garmr resemble wolves, larger and leaner with a more pronounced jaw, with ghost-gray fur covering their surprisingly lean frames. The eyes of a garmr glow a dull orange and are usually only visible in the Niflheim fog moments before the powerful predator leaps out to savagely attack a target it has marked as prey.

Hounds of the Gloom. Garmr are found exclusively in Niflheim, and are known as hounds of the gloom by the deathly members of the courts of Hel and Arawn. Their knack for moving swiftly and silently in the obscuring fog makes them difficult to track and most try to avoid the known garmr territories. Unfortunately, the boundaries of these territories are notoriously difficult to discover, and more than one visitor to the Halls of Hel or the Isles of the Cursed have fallen victim to a pack of garmr in the pine forest wilderness.

Hunting Pack of Hel. Hel, one of the goddesses of death that makes up the Triumvirate of the Grave, has keeps a kennel in her realm where savage garmr are raised and trained to hunt for their mistress. These beasts are unusually large and ferocious, and work together as a team to take down larger foes as chosen by Hel or one of her chosen hunters. The hunters that keep the garmr are undead barbarians just as savage as their beasts – no leashes or collars are used, and the hunters are just as likely to join in the savagery with bare hands when they fall upon prey in the Niflheim forests.

Hordling

Hordlings are the most numerous occupant of Hades and can be found on all three layers. They are misshapen, twisted fiends, no two exactly alike, with a hatred for life and a knack for terror. Hordlings come in all shapes and sizes – tall, thin, short, stocky, winged, snouted, and more. They hop, leap, climb, crawl, walk, or run on two or more legs, and some visitors have noted a hordling spontaneously change their appearance under unknown circumstances, sprouting wings or flippers in a monstrous shift. They travel in packs, falling upon creatures in a wave whenever they find them, using their numbers to overwhelm foes.

Reborn Fiends … Sort Of. It is widely believed that hordlings are the echo of fiends that have died on Hades. When a fiend dies in the Gray Waste, the gods of the Triumvirate of the Grave do not get to collect the fallen soul for the fiend has no soul in the traditional way. Instead, the fiend is usually reborn on their native plane, but Hades claims a portion of their power in the form of a new hordling. Because the Blood War has ravaged the plane for countless centuries, hordlings are near limitless.

Minions and Pawns. Hordlings are self-serving creatures that delight in nothing more than misery for its own sake, which makes them easily coerced minions for greater powers. Demons, devils, and yugoloths have all conscripted great numbers of hordlings in the past, though this is usually done out of desperation. Hordlings rarely follow any plan more complicated than “go eat that thing” and are liable to turncoat on their “masters” at the first self-serving opportunity. They care only for the spreading of suffering, but a clever general can twist this nature to their own purpose.

Larviathan

Enormous, mindless, and incredibly dangerous, the larviathan is a monstrous creature that burrows through the Gray Waste in a never-ending quest for food. It appears as a massive maggot, nearly twenty feet long, with a grayish-yellow pallor to its thick undulating hide. The larviathan’s bulk is moved by hundreds of appendages along its belly that each resemble small human arms. Its head tapers to a point with a mouth that drips lethal poison from rows of fangs. Its mouth is too small to swallow a creature whole but the larviathan is nothing if not patient – it can chew slowly on food for days, reducing it to a mushy gray paste, before finally devouring the resultant slurry.

Born of Mass Death. Larviathans are born when a great number of mortal creatures die at once in Hades. The souls normally spawn as larvae, but when so many happen at the same time – more than a hundred though the number isn’t exactly known – they congeal together and create a larviathan. Some night hags and liches have tried to force the birth of these monstrous creatures in order to capture and control it, but most of these experiments have resulted in abject failure. One particularly ambitious night hag succeeded beyond her wildest imaginings, and the resultant larviathan was so huge she was crushed beneath its bulk.

Seeking Food. Larviathans feed on living creatures with emotions. They typically ignore bleak rats and diakka that form the basis for the food chain on Hades in favor of demons, devils, and mortals, and though its most potent attacks are largely ineffective against fiends, the larviathan is nearly immortal while on Hades. More than one demon and devil force has been scattered by the sudden appearance of a hungry larviathan desperate for food and driven to the surface in search of sustenance.

Pyrite Sludge

The dwarven god Abbathor lives in a secretive underground realm below Oinos known as Glitterhell. It is a trap-filled maze with numerous false entrances, and Abbathor never invites creatures inside. However, that doesn’t mean that creatures don’t escape from time to time. Pyrite sludges are believed to have been a creation of the greedy dwarven god that got away from him, for they have been found all over Hades and neighboring planes as well. They appear as rich veins of golden ore when plastered against stone, but like their name suggests there is more than meets the eye.

Hungry for Metal. Pyrite sludges eat metal of all kinds and seek it out wherever possible. They quickly break down metal they come in contact with, leaving colorless flakes in their wake that drift about in the breeze. It isn’t uncommon for some woodland realms across the multiverse to use pyrite sludges as guards against unwanted intruders; the elves of Arvandor on Arborea are especially fond of protecting their most sacred sites with imprisoned pyrite sludges, kept starved for metal to keep them ferocious.

Pests of Glitterhell. Do pyrite sludges originate in the depths of Glitterhell, or are they simply drawn to it like the moth to a flame? The debate rages but regardless they are found throughout Abbathor’s realm. They slither through Glitterhell, devouring Abbathor’s precious veins of rich ore, sending the greedy dwarven god into an ever-deepening pit of madness. His fits of rage shake the foundations of Oinos, though few witness them because of the god’s relative isolation. Much of his time is spent hunting down pyrite sludges and stopping them using a combination of wooden weapons and his fists, and the insatiable oozes have become large enough problems to force Abbathor to seek outside help. Begrudgingly.

Rakkix

Rakkix are malevolent spiders creatures that spin nearly invisible webs across Oinos and Niflheim on Hades in order to snare the unwary, whether it be fiend, celestial, or mortal. They have large bloated bodies, completely gray like most things on Hades, with intricate patterns marked in black along their abdomens. They live in secluded nests, usually in narrow canyons on Oinos and high in thick pine trees on Niflheim, and while rakkix live with others of their kind they do not work together. Each rakkix is responsible for their own food, resulting in fierce competition over the things that get ensnared in their fire-proof webs.

Genderless Immortal Fiends. Rakkix have no gender. They are asexual fiends that reproduce by laying a clutch of eggs, but those eggs are fertilized from blood by specific types of creatures. Some rakkix eggs require demon blood, some devil blood, and some even the blood of celestials. With the Blood War constantly raging across Hades, there is no shortage of hosts, but the rakkix just need to set their webs up to capture the right victim. They also seem to be immortal – there are no reports of rakkix dying of old age, only rakkix getting bigger, more intelligent, and hungrier.

Fight for Dominance. A rakkix nest is a hotbed of simmering hatred as each fiend fights for dominance over the next meal. Some rakkix are looking for blood from a specific type of creature to fertilize an inert clutch of eggs, giving them an edge over their fellows, but all rakkix are hungry all the time. Creatures caught in rakkix webs and escaped have told tales of the spider fiends fighting one another before descending down to target their victim, giving the ensnared an opportunity to escape.

Yugoloth, Baernoloth

Baernoloths occupy a strange place in the yugoloth hierarchy. They are powerful fiends, intelligent and resourceful, but they remain outside the typical power structure of the yugoloths. Baernoloths are found almost exclusively in the Gray Waste of Hades, having never emigrate to Gehenna like the vast majority of other fiends, and they tend to be solitary loners, living off of suffering and fear that permeates the gray realm around them. Physically, their scrawny bodies and gangly limbs bely a supernatural strength, and their long faces carry distinct goat-like traits. They almost never carry weapons or wear gear, preferring the savage joy that comes from tearing into an opponent with their massive claws or sinking their teeth into their flesh.

Respected Elders. Baernoloths may be separate from most of yugoloth society, but they are still consulted from time to time by others, mainly ultroloths and arcanaloths. These fiendish fellows come to the baernoloth due to the creature’s immense age and experience – most believe baernoloths are immortal and trace their heritage back to the origin of the yugoloth race. Because of this, they have accumulated a wealth of knowledge, more practically applied then the scholarly knowledge of the arcanaloths, with an inherent wisdom tempered by experience. They have witnessed countless generations rise and fall on Hades and across the Lower Planes and have seen the Blood War unfold in real time around them.

Perpetrators of Suffering. To a baernoloth, suffering is the only purpose in the multiverse, and to inflict suffering on others is to fulfill their highest calling. They are master torturers, and in their twisted towers and cavernous lairs, baernoloths develop new methods of inflicting pain and anguish on imprisoned victims. Of course, they rely on the old standbys as well, including the use of magical and mechanical devices common across the multiverse. The here and now is usually all that concerns a baernoloth, and they rarely plan out their actions beyond the immediate infliction of pain to any around them. Screams and the cries of the anguished are music to their fiendish ears.