Pandemonium
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.
In the Planescape setting, Pandemonium houses the headquarters for the Bleak Cabal faction.
Fauna
- 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 of the Fields of Malice, the bugbear deity Hruggek's realm of Hruggekolohk, and Cyric's realm of the Shattered Castle.
Phlegethon
Phelgethon is the location of a number of godly realms, including the Queen of Air and Darkness's realm of the Unseelie Court, Zeboim's realm of The Maelstrom, and the derro deity Diirinka's realm of Hidden Betrayal.
Agathion
Agathion mainly contains holes, which double as portals to other planes. This layer is a prison for artifacts and beings too terrible even for the gods to bear.
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
- Grubb, Jeff, David Noonan, and Bruce Cordell. Manual of the Planes. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.