Pandemonium

Template:Greyhawk Plane The Windswept Depths of Pandemonium is the outer plane where Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral petitioners are sent after death. Pandemonium is a large, complex cavern that never ends. Compounding this problem are howling winds that drive most of its residents mad.

Pandemonium is one of a number of alignment-based outer planes that form part of the standard Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) cosmology, used in the Planescape, Greyhawk and some editions of the Forgotten Realms campaign settings.

Description

Pandemonium is the Howling Plane, the plane of madness, darkness, and deafening winds. It is where Chaos turns sick and damaged, becoming mentally ill, demented and deranged. It is a place of winding, mazelike tunnels with no rhyme or reason behind them.

The River Styx runs through Pandemonium in trickles and small streams, not yet joined into the great dark torrent that flows through the other Lower Planes. It also much less potent in Pandemonium than elsewhere.

Inhabitants

There are few creatures that are native to this plane; those individuals who do live there usually have no choice in the matter. People of all stripes are sometimes banished to Pandemonium, including demons fleeing the wrath of the Abyssal lords, slaadi grown too grim and terrible for Limbo, and mortals banished by evil spellcasters or their own psychoses.

There are a few native species, however, including the bestial howlers, the beetlelike murska, and the winged windblades created by Erythnul.

Pandemonium also houses the headquarters for the Bleak Cabal faction, described in detail in the Planescape setting.

Fauna

Fauna native to Pandemonium include the howling dragon.

Layers

Each of the four layers of Pandemonium is successively deeper within the caverns.

The gnoll deity Gorellik wanders throughout Pandemonium.

Pandesmos

Pandesmos (which borders the Outlands, the Astral Plane, Limbo, and the Abyss) is the largest and (relatively) most hospitable of Pandemonium's layers. The headwaters for the River Styx are found here.

Pandesmos is the location of a number of godly realms, including Loki and Auril's realm of Winter's Delight, Talos's realm of Towers of Ruin, and Ho Masubi's realm of Uchi-bi.

Cocytus

Cocytus is also known as the "layer of lamentation", for this is where the winds are the strongest. This layer was seemingly carved out by some ancient, maddened civilization.

Cocytus is the location of a number of godly realms, including the god Erythnul's realm, the Fields of Malice; the bugbear deity Hruggek's realm of Hruggekolohk; and Cyric's realm of the Shattered Castle.

Phlegethon

Phlegethon, darker and wetter than the other layers, is the location of a number of godly realms, including the Queen of Air and Darkness's realm, the Unseelie Court; Zeboim's realm, The Maelstrom; Erythnul's realm, the Citadel of Slaughter; and the derro deity Diirinka's realm, Hidden Betrayal. The City of Windglum can also be found here.

Agathion

Agathion is a place of caverns sealed in an infinity of rock with no tunnels to connect them. This layer is a prison for artifacts and beings too terrible even for the gods to bear. The Lady of Pain once used it to imprison her enemies before she learned the dark of creating ethereal mazes.

Miska the Wolf-Spider and the fallen god Desayeus are imprisoned on this layer, as was the Wand of Orcus for a time.

Creative origins

The name Pandemonium comes from Pandæmonium, the capital of Hell in John Milton's Paradise Lost. The name means "all-demons" in Greek.

Cocytus and Phlegethon are two of the rivers from Hades in Greek mythology, and Cocytus is also the name of the lowest level of Hell in Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy.

Bibliography

• Cook, Monte. Dead Gods. Renton, WA: TSR, 1997.

• Cordell, Bruce. Bastion of Broken Souls. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.

• Grubb, Jeff. Manual of the Planes. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1987.

• Grubb, Jeff, Bruce Cordell, and David Noonan. Manual of the Planes. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.

• Kestral, Gwendolyn. Monster Manual IV. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2007.

• Smith, Lester W., and Wolfgang Baur. Planes of Chaos. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1994.

• Williams, Skip. The Rod of Seven Parts. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1996.

External link

• Pandemonium at Wikipedia.