Naratyr, City of Endless Torment

Landmarks of Naratyr, the City of Endless Torment

The Palace of Orcus is a chaotic dark wonderland, but Naratyr itself is a gloomier, heavier place—a proper city of suffering and eternal undeath. The mummy lords and vampires who make up most of the non-demonic population of the city surrounding Orcus' palace don’t rule—demons hold the true power—but they have their own domains, shaping the city in ways that reflect their twisted philosophies.

Naratyr at a Glance

Eternal twilight, a reddish-black sky where light doesn’t exist—only the ashen glow of cursed fire. The streets are packed with the damned in various lowly forms, either zombies fully aware of their own decay or wailing, starving, horrified larva, lemures and rutterkins trapped in an endless cycle of abuse and terror.

The vampires and mummies are like ancient nobility, living in their own delusions of grandeur, but in truth are still just another form of torment for those beneath them, promising a route to advancement that in fact only exists in the caprices of the even more ancient Councilors of Orcus, a non-functioning group of undead hangers-on that spends nearly all of its time engaged in battles between the members. Zathelon the Hollow, minister of souls, is the one most directly responsible for the beings existing in the city and the intake of new souls and other citizens, but he has shirked his duty for months, centuries or millenia; time has no real meaning in a place where nothing truly lives and everything is already either immortal or undead.

The Crimson Boulevard (Vampire Territory)

A grand avenue lined with decayed mansions, eternally hosting extravagant parties. Once an opulent promenade, now a charnel house of denial and decadence. The vampires dress in fine clothing, putting on mock operas, poetry readings, and salon discussions—but everything is a sick joke.

The art is made of suffering—sculptures of weeping souls, paintings drawn in blood. Larva farms sit neglected in the backstreets—where the vampires harvest and breed their Abyssal "cattle." The damned are used as performance props—one is being forced to act out a romantic tragedy, over and over again, another simply weeps eternally during a very sad scene.

Notable Figures:

• Count Vorstenhal—A vampire lord who paints using his own blood and the tears of souls.
• Lady Severa—She has not spoken in centuries, communicating only through writing on sheets of flayed skin.
• The Red Choir—A group of damned who sing for eternity, screaming whenever they falter.

The Mausoleum of Stillness (Mummy Lord Territory)

A frozen, sand-covered necropolis where silence reigns and even time hesitates. It is always cold here—the perfect, absolute silence of death. No one speaks. The mummies, the souls, even demons whisper. The air is still, and the damned souls trapped here can do nothing but stand, kneel, and wait. Stone monoliths record names of the forgotten, carved over and over again until the original meaning is lost. Hieroglyphic priests perform eternal funerary rites—preparing the dead, over and over, for a peace that will never come.

Notable Figures:

• Akhansure, the Grand Sepulchral Lord—Wants only silence. Will not allow anything else.
• The Weeping Procession—A parade of mummified nobles, who repeat the same funeral every night.
• The Living Obelisks—These tall, rune-covered stones are former heretics turned into immobile monuments.

The Naratyr Coldmarket

A constantly shifting bazaar where demons trade things no mortal should ever see. The streets rearrange every hour, making navigation impossible. Stalls sell whispers, nightmares, eyes that see only death, and souls of forgotten gods. The shopkeepers are all demons, but they do not lie here—the market is bound by a cursed truth. Many of the items for sale are people. A section of the market sells "immortality", but it always comes at a price no one is willing to pay. Very rare and even legendary items are here to be bought and sold, while common and uncommon items are harder to find. Prices are negotiable, but gold and precious metals are worthless here.

Notable Figures:

• Lemnin the Collector—A glabrezu merchant who trades in lost memories.
• The Chainbound Ones—Former angels, now leashed to market stalls, serving as living registers for the contracts signed here.
• The Three-Faced Statue—An animated alabaster figure who sees past, present, and future, but only speaks in bargains.
• Kelthak the Blood Scribe - A horned devil who makes a great living as one of the few reliable contract-keepers in the chaos of the abyss.

The Eternal Scaffold

A gallows where the damned are hanged, dismembered, and torn apart—forever. No one ever dies here; the victims are either undead or lost souls already. The executions never stop. The scaffolds stretch for miles, each one holding hundreds of souls. The executioners are different every day—sometimes mummies, sometimes vampires, sometimes other damned souls who were promoted for a day. The scaffold collapses into the void every few years, but always rebuilds itself.

Notable Figures:

• Worvask, the Adjudicator—A Harmonium magistrate from Sigil, one of very few truly living things in Thanatos. Believes that justice exists in the Abyss. He is wrong.
• The Headless Jury—A group of undead who whisper their sentences in languages no one remembers or understands.
• The Man Who Has Been Hanged 1000 Times—A damned soul who has begun to remember his past lives.

The Cathedral of No Gods

A massive, abandoned cathedral dedicated to no deities, where the lost gather and a very brave cadre of Dusters try fruitlessly to minister to the undead of the city. They are tolerated by the Mummy Lords, but openly ridiculed and tormented by the Vampires, who are not above feeding on one should he or she get caught alone on the streets at night.

One wall of the Cathedral simultaneously exists in the City of Sigil, maintained by the Society of Dust; which wall it corresponds to in the Cathedral changes from time to time, and the sounds of that city occasionally do leak through the stone from the other side. Spotting the growth of a little razorvine in the corners is the surest way to tell which wall it is, and thus which door to slip out of in a pinch. It's said that many a basher has been in and out of the place without realizing they ever left Sigil at all.

The architecture is gothic and grand, but tilted sharply on rotten foundations. it worships nothing now, with only a smashed portion of a round icon in the center of the Apse showing that there was at some point an actual idol in the sanctuary, but nothing remains of it and theories make up much of the conversation and entertainment across Naratyr; in Sigil they all assume it is exactly what the name says, as that realm belongs solely to the Lady and she'll Maze you for even suggesting she might be a god herself. No prayers are answered here. The walls echo the voices of the forgotten, whispering secrets that no one remembers. Phantom clergy still go through their rituals, but no god listens. The vampires use it as a stage, the mummies for funerals, the demons for deals.

Notable Figures:

• High Archivist Remora—A mummy lord on staff with Pivlith, Orcus' Historian; she is obsessed with archiving prayers.
• Father Cernaval—A flamboyant, bespectacled vampire priest who delivers blasphemous sermons to the dead.
• The Weeping Ghost—A soul that sits in the last pew, crying, but never moving.

PUTTING IT INTO PLAY

• Find unexpected allies or enemies in the vampires or mummies.
• Get lost in the shifting market, or bargain for something they should never own.
• Try to navigate the bureaucracy of the Execution Scaffold to learn a secret.
• Encounter demons who don’t care about undeath—because to them, this is just another Abyssal playground.

Naratyr circa 12085

Included Locations

• The Naratyr Coldmarket

Naratyr tourist brochure image, "Yule Love it in Naratyr this Year!" Circa 12085