The Crumbling Citadel

The Doomguard maintain a stronghold in the quasiplanc of Ash, just as they do on all the negative quasiplanes. Why would anyone want to live near the Negative Energy Plane, a body might ask — and a good question it is, really. The Inner Planes, in general, aren't really all that pleasant to spend any time in, and these dark planes're probably among the worst of the lot. Well, if folks liked living only in the nice places, they'd all live in Elysium, right? Or some prime world in temperate lands with cool breezes in the summer and mild winters. But it don't work like that.    The Doomguard think that these planes — Ash, Dust, Salt, and Vacuum — represent what they base their whole belief system on, namely, decay and decomposition. If anyone ever wanted to prove that all things decay as a part of the natural order, they'd only need to visit these planes for proof. It's no wonder that so many of the bashers're willing to withstand the tribulations of these planes — each one, in its own way, shows the Sinkers that they're right.    Anyway, originally the Doomguard in Ash lived in Citadel Cavitius, but the arch-lich Vecna drove 'em out. As a body might imagine, this didn't make the Sinkers too happy. Nevertheless, what can a bunch of sods do against a power like Vecna? First, they just sulked; eventually, they built the Crumbling Citadel.    Now here's a piece of work. And I mean, constant work. The place's constantly breaking apart and falling down — a body'd think it was built in the plane of Dust. Nobody knows exactly why the place continually crumbles, unless of course the original architects and builders meant for it to be that way (which is a possibility). 'Course, while the Doomguard like things to fall apart, if they didn't do something about it they wouldn't have a place to call kip right quick. So, they constantly rebuild sections and fortify others. They actually seem to enjoy to it, really.    The Crumbling Citadel's a vast structure that holds about four hundred souls. The Doomguard maintain a fair relationship with the paraelementals and even the undead here, and a body'll find them along with the obvious Cager types who've come through a portal to join their faction brothers amid the crumbling ruins. Only the rasts and the ash xorn aren't welcome — they just don't mix well with others.    There's a small group of Doomguard based solely within the Crumbling Citadel called the Sifters. These bashers search tirelessly through the ash for tiny bits of useful or valuable materials. See, these bashers believe that the ash of the plane is what remains of things already destroyed by fire. They think that the plane of Fire is slowly burning away all of existence, consuming it as it does. The plane of Ash, then, is what's left over. The Sifters look for anything not entirely consumed and destroyed.    Surprisingly, the Sifters actually find things of value. Occasionally a bit of valuable metal or gemstone turns up among the ash. Furthermore, they've become adept at distinguishing the different sorts of ash and cinder formed by the burning of different materials. Not only is this useful for collecting the needed requirements for various spell keys, but it can be right handy for creating other things too — magical potions unlike any found anywhere else, for example. Chant has it that some of the more enthusiastic Sifters, when they find organic ash, have the creature resurrected so that they can see what it once was.