Bleak Eternity of Gehenna
“Greed and an insatiable lust for power dominates the minds of those that seek out Gehenna. The plane is referred to as the Bleak Eternity, though this description does not do it justice – four volcanoes of mind-boggling size dominate each of its layers, from the churning lava heart of Chamada to the icy silence of Krangath. The bleakness comes from the perspective Gehenna forces upon all who tread its mountains layers, that greed and the pursuit of power is the only real goal in the multiverse. Of course, it’s no surprise that the yugoloths who play at being mercenary in the Blood War that rages eternally would find Gehenna a fitting home.”
Malakara the Warden
It is said by the poetic among the multiverse that mercy goes to die on the volcanic slopes within the Bleak Eternity of Gehenna. Also known as the Fourfold Furnaces, Gehenna consists of four layers that are each the home to a volcano of staggering size. Most planar scholars believe Gehenna to be the smallest of the Outer Planes, though the lightless void through which the volcanoes drift endlessly is said to have no end, nor any substantial qualities.
Greed and suspicion walk together on Gehenna, and it has been theorized that the type of evil embodied in the Bleak Eternity is of a fouler and more sinister nature than the Abyss or the Nine Hells. The ideas of personal advancement and self-preservation are not just theoretical ideas here – they are enforced by the environment of Gehenna, which suppresses charity unlike anywhere else in the multiverse. Any helpful act must be inherently selfish in order to succeed in the Fourfold Furnaces, and these acts are viewed by some of the native celestials of the Upper Planes as the greatest evil.
Physically, Gehenna is a difficult realm that tests visitors and natives alike. The volcanic nature of each layer creates a plane where no flat surface exists naturally. Everything sits on the slope of the layer’s volcano, and the only flat platforms are created artificially by the residents of the plane. Falling is a real hazard, as are rockslides, earthquakes, and poisonous gases, along with volcanic eruptions from the more volatile layers.
To survive in the Fourfold Furnaces of Gehenna, a person must be willing to push themselves to meet and exceed regular challenges. On the surface, this can be an uplifting and empowering idea, but on Gehenna this concept is perverted with a palpable sense of evil emanating for each volcano’s heart. To exceed, Gehenna whispers, a person must be better than their fellows, and to show mercy is a weakness the plane does not abide.
Gehenna lacks the raw evil chaos of the Abyss or the militant ordered evil of Baator and relies more on the advancement of the self at the expense of other or lesser creatures. Fiends of all types can be found on the volcanic slopes but none more prevalent than the yugoloths.
Many planar scholars believe the yugoloths actually originate from the Gray Wastes of Hades and simply migrated to Gehenna in the distant past, but the origin is moot at this point. Yugoloths are the dominant masters of Gehenna, from the macabre horror of the Crawling City to the countless fortresses, towers, and fortifications built by the mercenary fiends to satiate their personal lust for power.
There’s an interesting distinction between Gehenna and Carceri as the two planes share miserable traits. Treachery, skullduggery, and backstabbing are common in both, but the difference is in the will of the inhabitants. In Carceri, creatures are trapped, but in Gehenna, they arrive willingly to pursue paths to power that actively forsake their fellows. Helping others out of charity is a high crime on Gehenna, but in an interesting twist the self-serving nature of the plane means that alliances are actually common. They simply don’t last long and nearly always end in treachery and bloodshed.
Thieves and assassins are common in Gehenna, and few are as notable as the famous Sung Chiang. Most believe Sung Chiang to be a god of cutthroats who built the Palace of Thieves on the slopes of Khalas from bits and baubles stolen from treasure chambers across the multiverse. The site caters to thieves of all kind, but the masters of Sung Chiang are cunning and can be found nearly anywhere.
A few other noteworthy creatures can be found on the slopes of Gehenna, including the immortal kobold Gaknulak the Trickster, the serpent-eyed hag diviner Laughing Jane, and the painwalkers, servants of Loviatar who rules from the Frigid Fortress on Mungoth, the third mount. Lost remnants of Blood War battles litter some regions, and everyone who has come to live on Gehenna learns to hide their most valuable possessions – which means there are a great number of lost vaults scattered about the volcanoes after their owners passed away.
Powerful & Mighty
As befitting a plane that attracts the greedy and personally motivated, Gehenna is filled with powerful creatures that have lived lifetimes oppressing, killing, and stealing from others to satisfy their own ambitions. Whether it’s the secretive organization of arcanaloths that maintain the records of yugoloth contracts, the orcish god of stealth and darkness, or one of the most powerful lich-lords in the multiverse, Gehenna has no shortage of dangerous masterminds pulling the strings on a planar scale.
- Gaknulak (kobold)
- Kanchelsis (vampire)
- Loviatar (Toril)
- Maanzacorian (illithid)
- Math Mathonwy (Celtic)
- Mellifleur (lich)
- Memnor (cloud giant)
- Sargonnas (Krynn)
- Shargaas (orc)
- Squerrik (ratman)
- Sung Chiang (Chinese)
Arcanoloth Conspiracy
Built on a magical foundation on the fiery slope of Chamada stands an iron tower decorated with blades and spikes. It’s an imposing and formidable structure, but there are other strongholds of grander or more sinister design across Gehenna. Looks can be deceiving, and this one holds a dangerous secret – it is the Tower Arcane, the source of all yugoloth contracts, and it contains a vast library that holds the history of the yugoloth race. It is maintained by a secretive cabal known only in hushed whispers as the Arcanaloth Conspiracy.
The Arcanaloth Conspiracy is comprised solely of powerful arcanaloths that have mastered arcane knowledge above and beyond their fellows. They are each secretive, conniving, and deceitful, but faithful in their duties to the preservation of the Tower Arcane and the vast stores of history and knowledge contained within. The tower is much larger on the inside than outward appearances would suggest, and few outside the conspiracy have ever been beyond the entrance chamber to explore its vast tome-laden halls.
The Arcanaloth Conspiracy works largely to maintain the records within the Tower Arcane and to progress their own magical prowess. Each member has a dedicated level of the tower where they work, study, and experiment, attended by hosts of blind zombie slaves to perform the menial work. The conspiracy was formed secretly by the arcanaloths shortly after they were formed aeons ago with one purpose – to find and maintain the Books of Keeping that hold every true name of every yugoloth in existence (plus some devil princes and demon lords). Unfortunately, the four known copies of the Books of Keeping were lost and now show up across the multiverse, but when they hear about the Arcanaloth Conspiracy moves quickly to obtain a copy at all costs.
Gaknulak the Trickster
Kobolds are a cowardly race, but their cowardice breeds ingenuity, cunning, and a natural aptitude for traps and tricks. Gaknulak was a kobold from the Material Plane long ago who excelled at building insidious traps in his home warrens. The traps were so cunning that his own tribe fell victim to them, leaving Gaknulak alone – just how the kobold wanted things. He wandered the Material Plane for a period of time, moving from warren to warren and teaching his skills to other kobolds, until he eventually caught the eye of Kurtulmak, the kobold god.
Kurtulmak was impressed with Gaknulak’s ingenuity and challenged the brilliant trapsmith to a contest. A series of caverns were chosen in the slopes of Khalas, hidden away from prying eyes, and within the two formidable kobold engineers built a complex network of truly ingenious traps. The winner was the one to trap the most travelers. Gaknulak worked tirelessly, but in the end he was tricked by Kurtulmak, who built nothing and instead imprisoned Gaknulak in the tunnels. But the clever kobold beat his own traps and escaped, and in doing so further impressed Kurtulmak. It is said that Gaknulak was made immortal by the kobold god, while others say he achieved a lesser godhood status.
Regardless, Gaknulak the Trickster still wanders the slopes of Khalas, alone and seemingly without a care, creating elaborate tricks and traps to hamper, injure, or just plain annoy travelers of all kinds. Yugoloths hate him, the painstalkers of Loviatar have orders to attack him on sight, and the thieves of Sung Chiang constantly seek to recruit him into their order. No one has managed to bring Gaknulak down to date and he seems perfectly happy with a life of wandering Gehenna, making life just a little bit more annoying for everyone around him.
General of Gehenna
All yugoloth true names are recorded in the mythical Books of Keeping, from the lowliest mezzoloth to the greatest ultroloth and baernoloth. All, except one at least. He is an immensely powerful ultroloth known only as the General of Gehenna. He wanders the volcanic mountains, and many lesser ultroloths have sought out the general’s wisdom. Those that succeed in finding the legendary warrior leave with a greater sense of the multiverse’s truths and a memory gap that can never be filled regarding their time spent in the general’s presence.
The General of Gehenna often stops by the Crawling City, and his appearance there is always a cause for frenzied agitation and excitement. His mere presence elevates lesser yugoloths to greater heights of personal glory, and legends about his prowess grow year over year. Whether it’s wrestling a band of solars barehanded, snapping the neck of an upstart demon lord, outwitting Dispater in a contest of contracts, or drinking fully from the River Styx, stories about the General of Gehenna are wild and varied.
What truth is there to the general’s immense library of tall tales? The Arcanaloth Conspiracy in the Tower Arcane are said to hold volumes of lore surrounding the General of Gehenna’s exploits but even they record little but hearsay and conjecture. Ultroloths have spent their entire life tracking down the General of Gehenna and have failed to do so, while nycaloths have stumbled into him in bars within the Crawling City. He can impart knowledge of the past and future, battle wisdom earned through countless campaigns, or greater truths about the nature of existence itself – if only the General of Gehenna could be found.
Laughing Jane
The yugoloths were said to have been created by a sisterhood of night hags in Hades centuries and centuries ago. Whether it was at the behest of Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine and ruler of Baator, or simply a desire for their own fighting force, it isn’t known. Shortly after the Books of Keeping were created, the night hag sisters that created them fell to petty squabbling and each copy of the Books of Keeping were lost. Only one of the night hag sisters traveled to Gehenna with the rest of the yugoloths, and now she is a mad prophet known only as Laughing Jane.
Laughing Jane lives in the Hut of Eyes on the slopes of Mungoth, surrounded at all times by thick acidic snow. Black fire dances in her small hut’s hearth but Laughing Jane is bothered not by the cold or acid of Mungoth’s environment. She possesses divination magic unlike any of her kind, but that power came with a price – her eyes have been replaced with long black serpents. When she speaks, she speaks through all three mouths at the same time, an eerie and disquieting sound.
Those that seek out the Hut of Eyes usually do so to glean some information about the history of the planes. Laughing Jane, as one of the sisters that created the yugoloths, has seen much and with her serpent eyes can pierce the veil of time to gaze into the past. Her words are not given for free, however, and her prices are as steep as they are gruesome and tend to focus on hard-to-find body components. She may require the tongue of a lying celestial, the feathered wings of a couatl matriarch, the pincers of an honest glabrezu, or any other item in exchange for a glimpse into the past. By all accounts, Laughing Jane’s visions are true but most are not able to deliver payment to the cackling hag in the Hut of Eyes.
Mellifleur the Lich-Lord
Most planar scholars agree that negative energy is the source of undead, or at least the primary source (some sages disagree as to the extent but it is widely accepted that a link to the Negative Energy Plane exists for the strongest undead). Long ago, Mellifleur was a handsome, respected archmage in the Material Plane, a wizard of phenomenal skill and arrogance who sought to bend the powers of the Negative and Positive Energy Planes to his will. As death approached, Mellifleur worked diligently to harness his knowledge and attain the status of lich.
He did so, but at the moment of transformation Mellifleur stumbled upon something divine. The exact details are not known but most believe that Mellifleur accidentally caught a divine spark meant for someone else. Regardless, he became a lich and so much more, and divine power coursed through his form as he became Mellifleur the Lich-Lord. He worked on the Material Plane for a while but found his experiments needed a more appropriate platform, so he scoured the multiverse and settled on Gehenna’s Dead Furnace, Krangath, which seemed to possess an incredibly strong connection to the Negative Energy Plane.
Mellifleur built through arcane and divine might an obsidian tower on Krangath’s void-filled slope and called it Hopelorn. He attracted wizards who sought to work beyond the limits of mere necromancy and tap into a greater divine power to augment their spells and ability, and the School of Hopelorn was born to service these apprentices. Deep within the obsidian tower’s cavernous depths, Mellifleur works still to blur the line between arcane and divine magic through the Negative Energy Plane. He remains an arrogant, self-obsessed force, and his schemes have drawn attention from fiends and celestials alike.
Painstalkers of Loviatar
Loviatar is a goddess of pain who rules a broad swath of Mungoth’s frozen slope. Those cursed to live within her realm are tortured constantly, and the goddess’ most dedicated administrators are a band of sadists and masochists known as the Painstalkers of Loviatar. Dressed in black leather, their bodies drained of all blood, these dangerous killers are the flayed hands and eyes of Loviatar. They patrol her realm, but also range far and wide across Gehenna and the multiverse on their goddess’ wishes.
A painstalker patrol usually consists of seven members and at least two painstalker panthers (specially bred monstrous cats that burn with psychic blue fire). They carry whips and chains and are armed with spells and abilities designed to inflict pain on their victims in horrible and debilitating ways. Each patrol is led by a favored painstalker who reports directly to Loviatar via divine telepathy in her Frigid Fortress, lending each patrol a weight of true divine justice in their mission.
The painstalkers themselves are believed to be vampires with specific traits linking them to Loviatar’s power. This includes use of pain-inducing magic and special weapons designed to incapacitate victims in writhing fits of electric shock. They are cruel, merciless, and utterly devoted to their goddess’ mission – to bring pain and misery to every corner of the multiverse.
Shargaas the Night Lord
The Dead Furnace of Krangath holds little on its surface, but its tunnels are an intricate maze of hollow lava tubes and inky darkness. The largest realm below Krangath’s surface is appropriately known as the Night Below, and its darkness is pure and tinged with terror. It is the home of Shargaas the Night Lord, an orc god of treachery, thieves, and death, and the creatures that move in this primal region are utterly devoted to Shargaas’ will.
Shargaas himself usually wanders the tunnels as a lone albino orc hunter. His eyes are milky white but he senses everywhere the darkness touches, so no one is hidden from him in the Night Below and all are potential victims. He is considered a lesser power by most standards but there are no priests dedicated to his worship in Krangath. The Night Below is reserved for those that honor the Night Lord through their actions, and thus teams of orc and half-orc assassins train relentlessly to prove their worth to Shargaas.
For his part, Shargaas doesn’t care. He lives for the thrill of the hunt, and to that end he created a race of monstrous creatures known as the sethalbidad (“albino stalker” in the Orc language). These great insectoid monsters are utterly silent and invisible except when they want to, and Shargaas created them to challenge his own skills in the Night Below. Some of these dangerous monsters have escaped from the tunnels and now wander Kragath’s slopes, making it even more perilous for unwary travelers to wander the Dead Furnace for any reason.
Thieves’ Guild of Sung Chiang
No one really knows who runs the infamous Palace of Thieves, tucked away in a canyon on a rocky slope of Khalas. Its outer walls are designed in a teardrop pattern to deflect boulders and other rubble that runs down the slope, while within is a paradise of skullduggery, profiteering, and thieving. Rogues and cutthroats from across the multiverse come to the Palace of Thieves to buy, sell, and trade information. A select few who prove themselves a cut above their fellows receive mysterious invitations to join a clandestine organization that calls itself the Thieves’ Guild of Sung Chiang.
No one really knows who Sung Chiang is. Most assume he is a god of thieves that runs the palace from the shadows, and it’s possible he (or she) operates in plain sight using magical and mundane disguises to walk openly. Those that join the Thieves’ Guild of Sung Chiang find themselves receiving strange missions within the palace that hint at greater treasures hidden within lost and secret vaults, and occasionally they are also sent on assassination or burgle missions across the multiverse.
Who is Sung Chiang? If anyone in the thieves’ guild that bears its name knows they don’t talk about it, though whether it’s through fear, intimidation, magical compulsion, or a lack of knowledge isn’t known. Sung Chiang’s agents have struck high profile targets and sites across the known planes, from a djinni citadel to a guardinal lord archive to a devil prince’s pleasure palace and more. They are known by their simplistic symbol – the image of an eight-fingered hand in black ink.
Creatures & Denizens
Gehenna is a dangerous plane filled with natural hazards that burn, crush, freeze, and drown. The creatures that prowl the volcanic slopes are just as dangerous, from the scurrying bleak rats all the way to the scheming yugoloths in their strongholds and fortresses. Travelers should be well-prepared to face any monsters in combat – Gehenna is no place for the weak.
Fiends
Cruelty, malice, and selfish self-interest are the key words that govern life on Gehenna, and many fiends that dwell on the volcanic slopes embody all three despicable traits. One of the most commonly encountered creatures are the avari, who many planar sages see as the original rulers of Gehenna. Their feuds with the invading yugoloths have reduced their numbers to pale shadows of their former strength, but these bat-winged fiends still control much of the underground reaches of the plane.
Hell hounds prowl the slopes, but a special breed of fiendish predator is bred in the bowels of the Frigid Fortress of Loviatar. Known as painstalker panthers, these powerful hunters have keenly developed senses of detection and often accompany painstalker packs into the greater multiverse searching for heretics of Loviatar to punish. Slasreths are winged monsters that look like worms with ray-like wings that often serve as mounts for flying yugoloth units, while the vaporous horrors are dangerous fiends feared even by the yugoloths for their life draining powers and toxic auras.
Yugoloths. It is widely believed the fiendish race of yugoloths were created originally in the gloom of Hades by a coven of supremely powerful hags, and there is ample evidence to support this theory. Over time, however, the scheming opportunistic yugoloths moved all of their major operations to Gehenna and are now the dominant force on the volcanic layers. They have greed and self-preservation coded into their very blood so their presence on Gehenna is not surprising. Their greatest fortress is the Crawling City, a moving metropolis that walks on titanic legs across the mountainous regions, while the arcanaloths that administer yugoloth contracts keep their most important documents and tomes in the Tower Arcane. In these places, the might of the yugoloths is nearly unassailable, though infighting and betrayal still run through their ranks like a bad odor.
Humanoids
Few humanoids live on Gehenna by choice. The nature of the plane doesn’t lend itself towards the kind of cooperation that builds cities or towns, so the humanoids that do dwell on the layers often keep to small bands and huddle in the caves away from the sulfurous stench above ground. The avari are noted slavers and still maintain large colonies beneath the ground, so it’s not uncommon for a humanoid of nearly any type to be found in their warrens.
Kobolds. Kobolds are considered pests by the yugoloths but they’ve managed to eke out an existence on the slopes of Khalas. They form nomadic tribes darting from cave to cave, fighting other creatures for meat and creating makeshift traps and hazards to protect their temporary warrens. Many kobolds come eagerly to Gehenna to follow in the footsteps of Gaknulak, a famous kobold trapsmith who supposedly won a wager against the kobold god Kurtulmak by building an insidious warren filled with devious and potent traps somewhere below Khalas’ slopes.
Minotaurs. The minotaurs of Gehenna are not the noble warriors found elsewhere. They are mostly bloodthirsty barbarians living in brutal tribes, fighting anyone and everything for dominance over their territory. They have a strong reputation for being reckless raging fighters willing to forego their own survival for the sake of the combat, seeking only to destroy their enemy in as brutal a fashion as possible. Gehenna’s slopes hold several sprawling mazes below the ground that house minotaur tribes, though few are as brutal or legendary as the Blood Maze. There, a degenerate tribe of savage minotaurs called the Blood Horns hunt and kill for sport.
Orcs. Shargaas the Night Lord, the orc god of hunting and stealth, rules over a region of Krangath known as the Night Below. There, in the inky void darkness of the deep tunnels, orc rangers and priests honor Shargaas by honing their hunting skills in preparation for heading out into the multiverse on missions of assassination and ruthless savagery. The orcs that live and die in the darkness of the Night Below usually take the tribe name Nightdeath to honor their patron.
Monstrosities
Gehenna’s dangerous terrain holds a number of unique monsters that defy easy categorization. Inferno worms, formidable relatives of purple worms, dig through the rocky slopes and follow the flow of hidden lava channels before bursting out to devour unsuspecting prey, which includes yugoloths and any other living creature it can find. The darkness-filled layer of Krangath hides a number of nasty surprises in its twisting underground labyrinth, and few are as dangerous as the sethalbidad – invisible hunters used by orcs as supreme hunting beasts.
Hazards & Phenomena
There is a latent treachery inherent in the Bleak Eternity of Gehenna that eats away positive qualities like hope, compassion, and kindness. Combine that with the natural hazards of four layers each comprised of a single massive super volcano and the result is a dangerous, life-threatening plane where might makes right and the best way to survive may be just to push your ally over a cliff.
Climbing and Falling
Very little ground movement on the surface of Gehenna is done without climbing, and much of the outside is considered difficult terrain due to the sloping angle and piles of rocks and boulders. Every 4 hours of travel requires a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check; creatures with a climb or fly speed automatically succeed. On a failure, the normal distance covered is halved. If the check is failed by 5 or more, the creatures takes a tumble during the trip and falls. On Mungoth, the Strength (Athletics) check DC is 20 due to the ice coating the slopes.
Creatures that fall on Gehenna tumble down the slope for 1d10 x 10 feet, suffering 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 20 feet. Experienced mountain climbers know to use a rope, but on Khalas and Chamada, the heat from the layer’s active volcano weakens non-magical rope so that it snaps immediately under pressure.
Cruel Hindrance
The latent cruelty of Gehenna affects good deeds on an intrinsic level. Whenever a creature casts a spell with a beneficial effect, including a spell that restores hit points or removes a condition, the caster must first make a DC 10 Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, the spell fails, the spell slot is expended, and the action is wasted. In addition, anyone attempting to take the Help action must succeed on a DC 10 Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, the intended target of the Help action receives disadvantage on their action instead of advantage.
Furnace Vent
The churning activity below the surface of Gehenna’s layers creates noxious gases dangerous to travelers. These gases occasionally burst forth in violent furnace vents, spewing toxic gas in a wide area. Creatures within 50 feet of a furnace vent must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, suffering 21 (6d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. A furnace vent lasts for 1d10 hours before finally exhausting and dying out. Furnace vents are common occurrences on Khalas, Chamada, and Mungoth, and while rare on Krangath pockets of gas beneath the surface of the Dead Furnace have still been known to explode out with poisonous fury.
Krangath Icy Void
The Dead Furnace of Krangath is an icy wasteland devoid of most life and movement. Creatures that travel its slope must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw every hour or gain a level of exhaustion from the cold and void-filled terrain. Underground, a creature must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw after a long rest or gain a level of exhaustion as the creeping icy void seeps into the very rocks as well.
Lava Geyser
The active volcanoes of Khalas and Chamada can flare to life with sudden ferocity, erupting in a geyser of lava without a moment’s notice. A lava geyser effects an area in a 20-foot diameter circle, shooting searing hot magma into the air about 100 feet. Those caught in the blast must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, suffering 70 (20d6) fire damage on failed save, or half as much on a success. Regardless of the saving throw result creatures are hurled away 1d6 x 10 feet from the blast. A lava geyser can last up to an hour before finally settling down.
Mungoth Acidic Snow
Mungoth may not be as powerfully active as the first two layers, but it is just as lethal. The volcano spews ash constantly in the air, and some unknown effect of the air mingles with the ash to create acidic snow. Acidic snow falls constantly on Mungoth’s slopes, inflicting 5 (1d10) acid damage every minute. Caves and artificial structures allow shelter from the constant and dangerous presence of the acidic snow.
Rockslide
All of Gehenna’s volcanic layers are peppered by floating earthmotes that collide into the slopes with tremendous speed and power. When this happens a rockslide follows immediately after, sending waves of rocks and debris tumbling down in a great torrent of destruction. A rockslide encompasses an area 1d10 x 100 feet across. Creatures on the ground in the event of a rockslide must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, suffering 35 (10d6) bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. In addition, those that fail are buried beneath rubble 1d10 x 5 feet deep and begin suffocating.
Creatures flying in the air must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, suffering 21 (6d6) bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success.
Sites & Treasures
The greedy and treacherous are drawn to the Bleak Eternity of Gehenna like flies to honey, and the self-serving yugoloths have made the volcanic slopes their home for centuries. One thing all of these disparate creatures have in common are secrets, which makes the layers of Gehenna filled with all manner of hidden caches and lairs. Despite its small size, the Fourfold Furnaces holds more than its share of interesting sites for adventurers to uncover.
Blood Maze of the Charred Horn
The deep ravines and steep cliffs of Khalas hide multiple secret places from prying eyes. One of these is the entrance to a twisting series of caves known as the Blood Maze, wherein dwell the Charred Horn tribe of degenerate minotaurs. Mutated and disfigured over generations of inbreeding, Charred Horn minotaurs are savage creatures of bestial ferocity that hunt and kill whatever happens to stumble into their befuddling lair.
The Blood Maze itself is a wonder of minotaur engineering, or at least it was at one point. It was built by the patriarch of the Charred Horn tribe, Garrakar, when he relocated his kin to Gehenna in an effort to establish a beachhead in the name of Baphomet, the demon lord of beasts. Garrakar was a brilliant strategist and an accomplished wielder of arcane magic, a surprising fact for one with the prowess of a great warrior, and he used his skills to carve out the Blood Maze and enchant it. His direct descendants still lead the Charred Horn tribe but the arcane legacy of their legendary patriarch has been considerably thinned.
Yugoloths from the Crawling City occasionally conscript Charred Horn minotaurs for particular savage or brutal missions. The minotaurs require payment in living sacrifices to populate their Blood Maze, a charge the fiends are happy to provide, and rumors persist that the twisting caves actually feed upon trespassers. Garrakar’s tomb is supposed to lie in the heart of the Blood Maze as well, guarded by ancient magic, but there are efforts within the Charred Horn tribe to reclaim the glory of their great ancestor.
Books of Keeping
The origin of the yugoloths can be traced back to a sisterhood of night hags in the distant past, who used mighty magic and divine power to form a race of fiends that were not as chaotic as the demons or as lawful as the devils. Debates rage about the guiding hand behind this creation – some planar scholars say it was Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine Hells, that directed the night hags, while others say it was some other power. Regardless, the sisterhood bound each of these newly formed fiends to a series of tomes known as the Books of Keeping, which recorded the true names for every yugoloth.
True names are a powerful binding force in the multiverse, and knowing the true name of a fiend or celestial brings great leverage over their actions. This makes having books filled with the true names of every yugoloth a valuable commodity as it allows near complete control over an entire race of powerful outer planar denizens. There are five Books of Keeping known to exist, though each contains the same raw information containing yugoloth true names and each are magically updated with the birth and creation of new yugoloths. However, over the centuries, each copy has passed between multiple owners, and many of them transcribe new true names into them belonging to demon lords, devil princes, archangels, and other powerful denizens of the multiverse.
The arcanaloths of the Tower Arcane have a special division devoted to tracking down and reclaiming the Books of Keeping. It is widely believed they have at least two copies hidden and preserved in the Tower Arcane, though the secretive arcanaloths don’t speak of it outside their library fortress. Beyond just a recording of true names, a Book of Keeping is also said to possess the ability to uncover falsehood on an almost divine level and control creatures completely for a short period of time. They are each potent artifacts that wreak havoc on any plane they turn up on.
Each of the Books of Keeping share a similar look. They are large tomes, roughly 2 feet wide and 4 feet tall, with an infinite number of pages inside. The outer binding is black leather said to be formed from the skin of demons and devils, and the red ink used inside is distilled from the blood of angels from Mount Celestia. No writing or marking exists on the exterior but the books radiate powerful enchantment magic.
Crawling City
The Crawling City is the greatest bastion of yugoloth power on Gehenna or any other plane and many view it as a symbol of their place in the wider multiverse. It is a massive metropolis of obsidian and ash built on an enormous disk, below which sprout hundreds of giant fireproof clawed legs. These legs move the entire city across the layers of Gehenna, clinging to slopes and providing a stabilizing force on the cliffs of the dangerous volcanoes. It usually moves slowly and the legs are able to transport the Crawling City over gorges and across rivers of lava.
The city itself is filled with narrow streets and towering buildings housing thousands of legions of yugoloth mercenaries. Lower districts hold devil and demon forces as well, and despite the treacherous nature of all resident fiends there exists an understood truce within the Crawling City that keeps open violence to a minimum. The Crawling City is commanded currently by a cunning ultroloth strategist known only as the Harbinger King, and it is by his whim the city moves across Gehenna’s dangerous slopes.
There are multiple factories in the city that produce fine weapons and armor for use in the eternal Blood War, but the pride of the Crawling City is the Academy of Eternal War. Yugoloth warriors and fiendish generals teach eager students tactics around the theme of war. Battlefield usage, historic conflicts, command training, discipline, and more are all taught at the Academy of Eternal War. Rarely are non-fiends allowed into the program, but an occasional mortal warlord has proven themselves to the influential academy chancellor to allow admission. Few survive the rigorous classes and hands-on training.
Cyst of Secrets
Several divine powers dwell in Gehenna. One of the most mysterious was Maanzecorian, the illithid god of secrets, who supposedly lived in a massive lava chamber below the surface of Chamada. Its presence was rumored but rarely found, as befitting Maanzecorian’s divine portfolio, but recent events have changed the site completely. A great divine upheaval within the last century has upturned the illithid god completely, exposing its realm to the greater Chamada landscape, though Maanzecorian itself seems to have disappeared.
Rumors say that the demon lord Orcus was the one responsible for laying low the illithid god in a bid to reclaim his throne on the Abyss. Few know for sure, but a great chasm now exists on Chamada that leads to the remnants of Maanzecorian’s realm. It is now known as the Cyst of Secrets, where strange and monstrous things appear and disappear without warning. Some vestige of Maanzecorian’s divine power still presides over the region, and those that have gone in search of the illithid god’s power report dark things writhing in the magma caves.
Is Maanzecorian truly dead? Is there something in the Cyst of Secrets that keeps a spark of the god alive? Illithids don’t seem to care as none have been seen coming or going from the Chamada site, but the lost home of a god of secrets is bound to contain some prizes worth claiming.
Engine of Wrath
To support their efforts in the Blood War, the yugoloths require weapons and armor on a grand scale. To this end, the latent power within Chamada, the most active of Gehenna’s layers, was harnessed by engineering yugoloths to create a mighty factory. Referred to now as the Engine of Wrath, it is an imposing iron fortress built over the confluence of three lava rivers flowing like waterfalls from further up the mountainside. The incoming lava is channeled into titanic forges and worked by slaves of the yugoloths to produce tons and tons of weapons and armor.
Control over the Engine of Wrath has been a rotating position since its creation. Currently, a bloated lazy ultroloth named Maggart Shade oversees the production lines, but he is interested only in lining his own pocket with favors. He walks a fine line between keeping the yugoloth generals well-equipped and selling fiend-forged equipment to demons, devils, and even mortal warlords. This kind of double-dealing is common in yugoloth society but Maggart Shade must still be careful – if he becomes too brazen in his working with all sides he could be usurped and replaced by another. It has happened hundreds of times before and it’s how he achieved his position.
Under Maggart Shade’s predecessor, a special smelting process was introduced in a special section of the Engine of Wrath devoted to imbuing items with magic. Initial results have been uneven but the forge masters have worked in secret to refine the process while keeping their powerful products out of Maggart Shade’s hands. Some yugoloth legions have recently been outfitted with weapon and armor imbued with magic that produces a blood rage in the owner. Rumors pointing to the Engine of Wrath as the source for these items are vehemently denied by Maggart Shade.
Frigid Fortress of Loviatar
Pain and suffering rule over the realm of Loviatar on the icy slope of Mungoth, a fitting fact considering her portfolio is pain and suffering. The petitioners that reside in the realm huddle together in small huts, constantly cold and miserable, and always in fear of sudden reprisal or attention from the foreboding castle at the heart of the region. This is the Frigid Fortress where Loviatar and her most loyal servants dwell, kept safe by black ice walls. Everything within the terrifying place is devoted to the art of torture, pain, and suffering, and screams constantly echo from the numerous towers stretching up into the bleak black sky.
The most well-known extension of Loviatar’s will are the Painstalkers. These small bands of sadists and torturers enforce the will of their goddess across her realm and throughout the rest of the multiverse as well. Their leather garb is distinct, and they are accompanied by painstalker panthers that allow them to hunt targets chosen by their superiors. Caves below the Frigid Fortress hold pens devoted to twisting mortal creatures into these powerful hunting monsters. Above them stand multiple towers where the Painstalkers themselves dwell, though they are often out on assignment.
Loviatar’s throne room sits in a massive central complex referred to as the Palace of Pain. Here she hears the pleadings of subjects begging for release, but she never grants these desires. Instead she and her depraved court relish in the wailing and begging before ultimately sending petitioners down to the lower halls of the Frigid Fortress for more torture before eventual release. It’s a cycle without end that brings Loviatar great pleasure.
Hopelorn
Krangath is known as the Dead Furnace for a good reason. The volcanic heart of the layer died out centuries ago, and there seems to be some link between Krangath and the Negative Energy Plane that exasperates the icy void. Almost nothing disturbs the exterior slopes beneath the blackened canopy of eternal night. Krangath is inhospitable to life – a fact that caught the attention of Mellifleur the Lich-Lord. Mellifleur’s checkered history placed him as a lich with the power of a god by accident, and he wandered the multiverse for a period of time looking for something.
He found it on Krangath, a perfect confluence of planar power and expanding negative energy that he could exert his divine prowess . He established a tower to study the energy of the Dead Furnace in the hopes of harnessing it for his own personal use and learning more about the intersection between divine and arcane magic. Soon, his divine status attracted a small following, and so Mellifleur the Lich-Lord worked with the eager necromancers and death priests to establish Hopelorn.
The tower of Mellifleur is now surrounded by smaller buildings that house students and priests that wish to learn more about the necromantic power inherent in divine and arcane magic. The Lich-Lord rarely makes his presence known outside of his personal chambers and the leaders of Hopelorn do not rely on their aloof demigod to provide guidance. The research and work being done on the slopes of Krangath appeal to a great number of aspiring necromancers, some even devoted to using their power to better understand life and help others, though most are conniving masters of deception looking to increase their power by taking advantage of Mellifleur’s extensive resources.
Hut of Eyes
Prophecy and secrets are the currency in the home of Laughing Jane, a reclusive and ancient night hag who lives in a secluded valley on the icy slopes of Mungoth. The valley is filled with black rock formations that resemble twisted trees, all covered in heavy layers of acidic snow, and in the center sits the simple and unassuming home of Laughing Jane, the Hut of Eyes. The night hag’s eyes have been replaced by serpents, and when she speaks she does so using all three mouths in an unnerving fashion.
Laughing Jane is one of the oldest night hags in the multiverse. It is rumored she was part of the sisterhood that created the yugoloths and the Books of Keeping, and if true she has witnessed much of the formation of the planes. She is truly insane however – whatever power Laughing Jane traded for her eyes infected her mind as well. Now, she huddles in the Hut of Eyes alone, laughing maniacally to herself in the light of a blackfire hearth as acidic snow falls forever in the valley.
Enough stories have been shared regarding Laughing Jane’s prophetic visions and incredible lifespan to bring travelers from across the planes seeking out her abode. She cackles and chuckles constantly, but between her ramblings she requests payment in exchange for the divination knowledge she holds. The payment is usually in the form of a body part from some hard to find source – the fingernail of a demon lord, a lock of hair from an archangel, the eye of a sightless froghemoth, that kind of thing. Those that return with the requisite payment earn a glimpse into the past, present, or future that few can rival.
Lost Warrens of Gaknulak
There are few more revered figures in kobold history than mischievous Gaknulak. He was a kobold from the Material Plane who built ingenious traps from the whimsical to the downright lethal, and he won the attention of Kurtulmak, the god of kobolds, with his brilliant trapsmithing skills. Kurtulmak challenged Gaknulak to a contest to see who could build the ultimate trap-filled warren. A series of caves on Khalas, the first volcanic mount of Gehenna, was chosen, and Gaknulak immediately set to devising traps that outdid anything he had crafted previously.
Ultimately, though, Kurtulmak tricked Gaknulak and planned on imprisoning the arrogant mortal kobold in the trap-filled warren. But Gaknulak was able to defeat his own creations, and in honor of the great feat Kurtulmak granted the kobold trapsmith immortal status. The caves filled with Gaknulak’s insidious, dangerous, and sometimes wacky traps still lay on Khalas, now known as the Lost Warrens. Gaknulak still drops off treasures within the recesses of the Lost Warrens, and it is said Kurtulmak even hides a few precious items within the tunnels.
Night Below
The Dead Furnace of Krangath may be quiet and nearly undisturbed on the surface, but below the cold stones sprawls a labyrinth of darkness-filled tunnels. The most expansive collection of these are known as the Night Below and they form the realm of Shargaas the Night Lord, orc god of stealth and shadows. Special properties embedded within the stones of the Night Below inhibits light of all kinds, dimming it to be nearly worthless – and for those foolish enough to need light, a swift death awaits from the orc hunters and other monsters that patrol the tunnels.
Shargaas keeps a personal sanctuary in the heart of the Night Below. It is surrounded by life-draining patches of pure negative energy that move like wraiths, but beyond sits the treasure trove of a greedy orc god known for stealing what he wants whenever he wants it. Blind albino orc assassins blessed by the Night Lord protect their great god’s treasure chamber but are forbidden from touching any of it.
The most insidious monster to stalk the Night Below are the sethalbidad. These insectoid monsters blend into patches of darkness with ease and stalk silently anyone who dares to intrude upon Shargaas’ night-filled realm. It is said that the Night Below contains pools of pure distilled darkness that can be captured in liquid form by the brave or foolish. This concentrated darkness can be utilized as an enhanced component for spells such as darkness to create powerful effects. Retrieving such liquid darkness requires facing the minions of Shargaas, and perhaps the Night Lord himself, who is rumored to be able to see out of these pools of darkness.
Nimicri
In a remote section of Chamada, floating above the volcanic surface hangs a strange sight. It appears to be a fog-enshrouded town on an earthmote that never touches the ground, hanging about 50 feet in the air. Its streets are eerily quiet and the buildings seem deserted, but anyone who travels there meet strange people that welcome travelers with open hospitality. Few escape with their lives after walking the streets of Nimicri, as nothing is at is seems.
For starters, Nimicri is not a town. It’s an enormous living mimic that has chosen the form of a town to lure in victims to devour. Any person met in the streets or buildings of Nimicri is likely an extension of the powerful mimic, creating people out of its own mass to lure victims into a false sense of security. Sharp-eyed visitors may notice that these “people” never lose at least some connection to the ground
Nimicri has devoured enough people that it has accumulated a fair bit of treasure. It’s intelligent enough to use the shiny coins, gems, and magical items as a further lure, as its getting harder and harder to fool creatures into stepping onto its streets willingly. For those that do fall for the trap, a messy fate awaits.
Palace of Thieves
Thieves are a natural fit for Gehenna’s self-serving and treacherous nature. Nowhere is this better exemplified than the fabulous Palace of Thieves, a grand complex built on a permanently stable slab on Khalas’ steep slope. The teardrop shape of the surrounding high walls allows for rockslides from further up break apart without tearing into the main buildings, though many suspect magic plays a hand at keeping the Palace of Thieves safe and secure as well.
Inside is one of the greatest gathering of thieves, cutthroats, knaves, and ne’er-do-wells in all of Gehenna. Rogues from across the multiverse come to the Palace of Thieves to prove themselves to their fellows, to find jobs, to swap stories, and to fence stolen goods. A few shady merchants have setup permanent shops within the palace grounds, catering their services to the surrounding clientele. Those with scruples are ferreted out immediately.
Over it all watches the mysterious Thieves’ Guild of Sung Chiang. Though no one official runs the Palace of Thieves, this one band maintains the peace and keeps the palace from collapsing in on itself in a treacherous tumble of deceit and murder. Some have claimed to have seen the perpetually absent Sung Chiang and claim he is a monkey-fiend with eight arms, but many more believe him to be merely a myth, a name passed down to keep the mystique of the Palace of Thieves alive.
Perhaps Sung Chiang is real, and perhaps not. But what is very real are the hundreds of hidden treasure caches scattered about the palace. By ancient decree the cutthroats that came to the Palace of Thieves are forbidden from seeking out others’ treasure, a decree enforced by dangerous members of the Thieves’ Guild of Sung Chiang. There are loopholes to this decree, however, and many rogues have tried to bring in outsiders as hired muscle to dig up treasure outside the rule of Sung Chiang’s forces.
Tower Arcane
The Crawling City may be the greatest stronghold of yugoloth construction, but the Tower Arcane holds its most potent secrets and stands as the center of their magical might. Located on the volcanic slope of Chamada in the midst of a raging lake of lava, the Tower Arcane is run by the Arcanaloth Conspiracy. These fiends are obsessed with obtaining knowledge of all kind and secreting it away in the tower’s many library halls.
The Tower Arcane is a squat tower made of obsidian that stands barely 100 feet tall. It has no windows and only a single door, with a crumbling stone staircase leading to the great ruby doors. Inside, however, is an expanding space not unlike a bag of holding. Great halls filled with books devoted to all manner of subjects lay locked away within the Tower Arcane, kept and guarded by the arcanaloths. Any yugoloth can request information from the Tower Arcane but bribery is required, and the arcanaloths who run it seek only magical treasures as payment.
Beyond the recorded history of the yugoloths, the Tower Arcane is said to hold a copy of every arcane spell in the multiverse. New spells are added to the expansive catalogue on a regular basis, and the arcanaloths are more willing to work with outsiders to achieve their goals than other fiends. Only the foolish enter into such arrangements without precautions however – the treacherous arcanaloths are just as self-serving as their more common brethren.
Vast swaths of the Tower Arcane are devoted to contracts as well. A copy of every contract a yugoloth makes is magically created within the record halls of the Tower Arcane. The record-keeping of the arcanaloths in the Tower Arcane is legendary, and they’ve been called upon by the Lex of Arcadia as witnesses and evidence providers on numerous occasions. An uneasy alliance exists between the courts of Lex and the arcanaloths of the Tower Arcane, though both recognize the value of the other in a broader sense.
Valley of the Outcast
There are few sanctuaries in the acid-snow filled slopes of Mungoth. Even escaping into the tunnels is a dangerous proposition filled with peril. One of the few respites available to lost travelers is the Valley of the Outcast, magically protected from the acid snow by arcane might, though the hosts of the enormous castle in the center of the valley are not the friendliest. The fire giants of the Scorchscar family, led by their matriarch Tastuo, were exiled from the Plane of Fire long ago and have managed to make a life for themselves on Mungoth.
Tastuo and her sisters are all accomplished wizards who were forced out of the court of Surtur, god of fire giants, for some slight long ago. By divine ordnance they couldn’t rest in any place that was not cold, so they found the frozen landscape of Mungoth and decided to make the best of it. They hunt wild beasts in their valley brought in via magic not native to Gehenna, but their magic prevents the acid snow from harming them or their home. Tastuo has several contracts with yugoloths to act as an intermediary as well, so she in on relatively good terms with the local fiends.
Highlights & Impressions
The below listings include notes on highlighting the nature of Gehenna as characters explore and travel through it. These are suggestions of elements that can be used in descriptions of the landscape and denizens with the goal of actualizing the “outside” nature of the multiverse beyond the Material Plane. Use them to incorporate into encounters and adventures on Gehenna.
Thin Vile Air. The first thing travelers notice upon arriving in Gehenna is the air. It is noticeably thinner than most planes, and creatures find themselves gasping for breath after even short amounts of exertion, and to make it worse the thin air has a vile, acrid taste to it. The foul smell of lingering brimstone hangs everywhere and eventually gets into food and water. The most foul odors rise up from the many black pits that dot the slopes, with some leading to the other layers and others leading to a yawning pit of death.
Rocky Danger. The slopes of Gehenna have a well-earned reputation for being incredibly dangerous. There’s no natural flat elevation anywhere on any of the layers, everything is at an angle, and the void between the volcanic slopes is filled with floating rocky debris that crashes into the mountainside at irregular intervals. The result are rockslides that can bury and pulverize creatures in an instant.
Self-Preservation Instincts. Gehenna is a plane that demands survival first and foremost, and a powerful sense of self-preservation settles into travelers that visit any of the volcanic slopes. It’s a subtle and insidious effect that puts the survival of the individual over the survival of the group, and the nature of Gehenna actively discourages helping others. An imperceptible voice constantly whispers into the unconsciousness, “how does this help me?” whenever a creature feels an urge to lend a helping hand or share resources with others.
Lay of the Land
The layers of Gehenna float in a limitless void of unending blackness, with each layer consisting of a single enormous volcano seemingly without base or top. They are each hundreds of thousands of miles across but they are not infinite in width – a traveler, immortal or simply possessed of great speed, could move around a volcanic layer to circle back to their starting point. Yugoloths and other Gehenna inhabitants view this endeavor as a pointless waste of time.
Khalas
A savage rugged beauty holds over Khalas, the first of Gehenna’s volcanic mountain layers. A crimson glow suffuses the rock, evidence of the magma flowing beneath the surface, but the eruptions of lava and steam are less frequent here than on the more active layer, Chamada. Unfortunately, it is also the layer with the most frequent strikes from floating earthmotes drifting out of the void to crash into the side of the volcanic slopes, sending rockslides and earthquakes rumbling in great regions.
Numerous rivers rush down the sides of Khalas, swiftly crashing through gorges and canyons. The largest of these channels are created by the River Styx which careens down numerous waterfalls before passing into the neighboring layers of the Outer Planes. The non-Styxian rivers originate from further up the slopes of Khalas in naturally occurring vortexes from the Plane of Water, and they snake down the layer before evaporating from the heat. Like the other layers, there is no known bottom to Khalas.
Khalas sees numerous incursions from demons and devils, but yugoloths are the dominant force across the volcano. Skirmishes in the Blood War are not uncommon, especially since the devilish legions have always strived to establish a beachhead on Khalas to move the prime fighting away from Baator. These efforts are not without cost, both in terms of fiendish lives and the numerous contracts that have been made with the yugoloths to claim part of their land.
Chamada
The most active of Gehenna’s volcanic layers is Chamada. Rivers and geysers of lava are common occurrences and the glow from the constant heat bathes the mountainside in a deep crimson radiance. Many areas are as hot as the Plane of Fire, so any traveler or resident of Chamada must be protected from the fiery furnace burning beneath the rocky surface. Soft gray ash fills the air, obscuring vision beyond more than a dozen feet or so, and everywhere lava flows can be found running in ever-changing channels.
It’s difficult to believe but the Arcanaloth Conspiracy that keeps yugoloth contracts is based here in the fire-shielded Tower Arcane. In addition, Chamada’s intense heat is the only source powerful enough to keep the Engine of Wrath working – an enormous forge site run by yugoloth slaves, continually pumping out weapons and armor for fiends across the multiverse.
Beneath Chamada’s surface, the lava tubes are populated with magma elementals, lava sharks, magma oozes, magmin, lava children, and other creatures that flourish in such inhospitable conditions. Inferno wurms are known to burst out of the tunnels to snatch up prey on the surface at any moment, though rumors persist of an ultroloth who has tamed the fearsome creatures and uses them as an elite battle force.
Mungoth
The volcanic heat at the heart of Mungoth went cold long ago, and now a deep chill settles over the rugged mountainous terrain. Acidic snow falls regularly on the slopes of Mungoth, and the only light on the layer comes from vents of sluggish ice-cold blue lava. This natural hazard is as cold as regular lava is hot through some unknown powerful process churning slowly in the dying volcano’s heart.
Few creatures live on Mungoth. Loviatar, a goddess of pain and suffering, holds court in her sprawling Frigid Fortress, and her minions – the painstalkers – are sent out on regular missions across Gehenna and the multiverse to serve their dark goddess’ twisted desires. The painstalkers breed powerful hunting panthers in slopes above the Frigid Fortress, dangerous creatures that radiate pure pain from their blue-fire ensconced bodies.
Krangath
A deathly silence hangs over Krangath. This volcanic mountain is dead, its fire having gone out in the far distant past, and now no wind or natural sound disturbs the unearthly quiet that clings to the slopes like a drowning victim. A dull violet radiance emanates from Krangath’s core though it provides little illumination and no comfort for travelers unlucky enough to have found themselves traversing the Dead Furnace.
The only activity on Krangath is found beneath the surface. Shargaas the Night Lord is an orc god of stealth and darkness that lives within a vast network of caves known as the Night Below. The servants of Shargaas include legions of orc assassins along with unnatural creatures that lurk in the shadows. Exploring the Night Below is a harrowing exercise in frustration, paranoia, and the crushing weight of ice-cold nihilism.
Cycle of Time
There is no cycle of day and night on any of the mounts of Gehenna. Each volcanic layer radiates its own light source as well - crimson for Khalas and Chamada, icy blue for Mungoth, and a deep indigo for Krangath. No moon or sun hangs in the perpetual void hanging over each of the layers.
Surviving
Each of the four mounts of Gehenna offer dangers that travelers and natives must contend with, which is on top of the very real threat of falling down a volcanic slope at any time. The details of these problems are covered under Hazards and Phenomena.
Getting There
There are many portals that lead directly to the Bleak Eternity of Gehenna from all over the multiverse. These portals usually take the form of pits or black yawning chasms, and rarely do they require a key. Something about the nature of Gehenna makes access into it easy, a fact debated among planar scholars as a devious aspect of the plane’s selfish nature.
Portals leading out of Gehenna exist only in seemingly bottomless pits placed seemingly at random on the rocky slopes of all four volcanic layers. The yugoloths mark these pits with their known destination in a hidden fiendish script on nearby stones, but there are numerous pits that are marked but are in reality simply incredibly deep holes. Yugoloths find setting these traps to be an amusing past time.
The easiest way to access Gehenna is through the River Styx that winds through all of the Lower Planes. The wine-red river is the largest flowing river on Khalas with numerous tributaries branching off from the main swift-moving current. Many of these branches lead to other locations in the Lower Planes but it takes a skilled sailor to navigate the treacherous rapids and canyons that the River Styx slams through at breakneck speed.
Chamada contains numerous direct links to the Plane of Magma in the Inner Planes in its fiery veins beneath the volcanic surface, and it is widely believed the Dead Furnace of Krangath possesses some intrinsic link to the Negative Energy Plane. This would explain the presence of Mellifleur the Lich-Lord’s realm of Hopelorn, where arcane studies are performed at the intersection of arcane necromancy and divine negative energy.
Traveling Around
Each of the four volcanoes of Gehenna are difficult to traverse. They are rocky, steep, and dangerous to walk along, and any manufactured road quickly falls into ruin from the numerous rock slides and earthmotes that collide into the side. Numerous caves and tunnels honeycomb each of the layers, though Chamada’s are often filled with swift-flowing magma.
Traversing between each layer of Gehenna is just like finding a portal out of the plane – find a bottomless pit and hope that the yugoloth marks nearby tell the truth as to its ultimate destination. Most native inhabitants quickly learn which pits lead to other layers and other planes and which ones spell doom for the unwary, but travelers should take precautions when jumping into one of these seemingly bottomless holes.
The four volcanoes of Gehenna float in a never-ending void of blackness that consumes light and warmth at a height of about 50 feet across all layers. Beyond this height creatures must possess a strong resistance to cold damage but to date nothing has ever been found in the darkness, though the numerous earthmotes that smash into the slopes of the volcanoes must originate from somewhere. It is widely believed some natural vortex to the Plane of Earth exists that spits out of the earthmotes but no one has found it to date.
Creatures by Plane of Existence
The multiverse is a wondrous, strange place populated by all manner of creatures both fair and foul. Each plane of existence hosts its own unique creatures of some variety along with the more mundane types of monsters found in the Material Plane.
The below tables offer details of the unique creatures found in each plane, but it should be noted that most planes feature biomes common to the Material Plane, many with exaggerated or unique features. Consider looking to the encounter tables for each biome as well as the below tables for populating the planes with creatures to both threaten and aid characters during their extraplanar journeys.
The creatures listed pull from the following sources: Monster Manual, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, and Monsters of the Infinite Planes.
| Bleak Eternity of Gehenna | |
|---|---|
| Monsters | Challenge (XP) |
| Death dog, vargouille | 1 (200 XP) |
| Nothic, peryton | 2 (450 XP) |
| Avari, hell hound, merrenoloth, minotaur, nightmare | 3 (700 XP) |
| Barghest, painstalker panther, succubus/incubus | 4 (1,100 XP) |
| Cambion, mezzoloth, slasrath, wraith | 5 (1,800 XP) |
| Gacholoth | 6 (2,300 XP) |
| Dhergoloth | 7 (2,900 XP) |
| Canoloth, piscoloth, sethalbidad, wrack shambler | 8 (3,900 XP) |
| Hydroloth, nycaoloth | 9 (5,000 XP) |
| Vaporous horror | 10 (5,900 XP) |
| Yagnoloth | 11 (7,200 XP) |
| Arcanoloth, oinoloth | 12 (8,400 XP) |
| Inferno worm, ultraloth | 13 (10,000 XP) |
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