Help me fluff the Iron Hell of Dis (moved from World Building forum)

[sabelo2000]

So I have decided that my players will soon have cause to adventure in Dis, and I'd like to really play up the fluff while they're there. I plan on portraying it as a sort of sinister cosmopolis; normal city-like things continue to happen, but in a gruesome danse-macabre sort of way. Atrocities are, of course, prevalent in Hell, but they're not inflicted as punishment so much as just accepted as a necessary part of doing business.

For instance, someone walking down the street might see a butcher hanging up joints of Long Pig while his assistant carves more in the back... and the carcass is still alive and screaming, of course.

Or:
Horseless carriages trundle up and down the streets, but they have a tendency to eat anything that strays from the pavements.

Unfortunately, that's all the specific tableus I've come up with. I'd like enough casual oddities that I can throw in some fluff at least between each encounter, for an arc that I expect will take 3-4 game sessions. Anybody have any twisted ideas? This is just for fun, go nuts!

[leegi0n]

So I have decided that my players will soon have cause to adventure in Dis, and I'd like to really play up the fluff while they're there. I plan on portraying it as a sort of sinister cosmopolis; normal city-like things continue to happen, but in a gruesome danse-macabre sort of way. Atrocities are, of course, prevalent in Hell, but they're not inflicted as punishment so much as just accepted as a necessary part of doing business.

For instance, someone walking down the street might see a butcher hanging up joints of Long Pig while his assistant carves more in the back... and the carcass is still alive and screaming, of course.

Or:
Horseless carriages trundle up and down the streets, but they have a tendency to eat anything that strays from the pavements.

Unfortunately, that's all the specific tableus I've come up with. I'd like enough casual oddities that I can throw in some fluff at least between each encounter, for an arc that I expect will take 3-4 game sessions. Anybody have any twisted ideas? This is just for fun, go nuts!

You could always have the random body falling from the sky and slapping into the pavement or through a building. Or classic plagues, like raining frogs, bugs, that sort of stuff.

[Socratov]

I have some fluff in my homebrew hell (it's in my signature) that might help. But Judging by your opening post you want more, basically you want to create an air of decadence, malevolence, nastyness, gore and filth. Piles of corpses with black markings on their skins (black death), streets sticky with not-quite-runny and not-quite-dried blood. the smell of iron and copper hangs in the air like a dense smog. but above all the wailing. In the whole city is no happiness found. every denizen is torutred or screaming ave for the demons who silently delight in their torture. At night the blood smell vanishes and a cool thick mist takes it's place. You hear sounds of murders. Screams of people getting stabbed in the back. A sense of uneasiness comes over you and you don't feel safe. it feels as if someone constantly breathes down your neck. In the corners of your eyes you see the glint of polished steel. Up on the roofs you hear the scuffles of feet. Around you the sound of wood protesting and sinew stretching alerts you to archers, nowhere to be seen. A snap of string and a loud gasp is all you hear. A sad bell tolls uptown. it keeps people awake and people scream their disgust. Around you the fog clings to you. it seeps into clothes and armor and apparently into your bones. then it becomes day again. The mist disperses. The streets run red once again. Demons, and denizens drag with corpses, cut them up and squish the organs and intestines. the filth slides through the street, run red, brown and balck with the internal fluids and flesh form corpses. Some of those corpses you recognize. You saw them yesterday in this ratmaze of a city. Apparently last night they were out and about. No more. until some of them start twitching... Could it be? yes, it stands up. generating flesh, mending bones. With a squishing and rasping sound the body takes shape againthe rasping turns into a scream. The agony boundless, the pain echoing through metal, marrow and bone. This is the city of Dis. Hell's very own metropolis where the dead never truly die. and the not living die every night. where the blood is thicker then the street and has turned into cobbles. where agony is the order of the day and filth and gore rule supreme. You get sich and puke your guts out. You want out. While you can.

sorry for the wall of text, but when I started writing I just kept on going. yeah it seems as I'm very much disturbed, but IRL I'm quite the nice guy (or so people say). :smallbiggrin:

Hope I've helped

[Venger]

remember from the FC2, that the city is always changing, so a map of any sort is useless unless it changes with the city. you can approach a destination for hours and never get any closer

[sabelo2000]

Thanks for the suggestions, I like the idea of all the riff-raff and chattel being "used up" every day, again and again, in perpetuity.

I'm looking more at making Dis less of a "hellish place that punishes you just for being there, and the screams of the damned echo through every street" but more of a "this is a mean place that will snag you up off the street for food, fuel, or currency if you don't watch your back. Nothing personal--you're just an easy target."

I think I'll have lots of skeletons walking around carrying out normal, everyday activities. I like the classical imagery of the danse macabre.

[nedz]

You should have some kind of underclass — who come out at night and live off cleaning up the streets. They should befriend the party perhaps — only to repulse them later, when the PCs find out how they make a living. I'm thinking something like Lovecraft's ghouls — only not actual ghouls obviously.

Also some machines — which move parts of the city around, or maybe just run Escher like elevators — large wheels, lubricated by gore, and powered by pain.

In the sky — amid the flying creatures, another underclass perhaps, great wheel like shapes wreathed in flame — burning wheels of fire.

During what passes for day: hordes of workers, whipped along, shuffle into giant office blocks — towering into the sky — where they run the infernal bureaucracies.

[Socratov]

Oh, and don't forget to mention the color grey and all it's variations (drudgery grey, Jennifer Grey, dead journalists grey, and so on). Hilarioulsy enough you can get quite creative with grey... :smallbiggrin:

[nedz]

Oh, and don't forget to mention the color grey and all it's variations (drudgery grey, Jennifer Grey, dead journalists grey, and so on). Hilarioulsy enough you can get quite creative with grey... :smallbiggrin:

Yes, there must be at least 50 shades :smallbiggrin:

[sabelo2000]

Boo, bad puns.

I love the Lovecraftian Ghouls! I think I'll use that. I like that they could be an ally-of-convenience for the PCs, since the Ghouls are probably preyed on by devils just as much as hapless mortals.

Likewise the masses of Bureaucracy Devils being whipped into office blocks. Maybe their cubicles are actually barred cages... Yes! Love that idea. Thank you!