Tragak
2014-03-01, 01:12 PM
A world specifically described as a vast and dreary emptiness, DMs and players commonly ridicule the Grey Waste as being too "pointless." This should not be a source of ridicule, as the whole point of the Grey Waste is exactly that the Grey Waste is fundamentally pointless. While there is a reason - however sickening - to be Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil, this realm’s purity of Neutral Evil is ultimately about not having a reason.
The primary Lawful sin of Baator, Acheron, and Gehenna is that of Pride in one's allies, loyalty and position, and a Lawful Evil adds to himself if his cruelties against others bring him greater station. The Chaotic sin of the Abyss, Carceri, and Pandemonium is the Lust for new pleasures, experiences, and challenges, and a Chaotic Evil adds to himself if his cruelties against others bring him greater excitement. In contrast, the primary sin of this Neutral Evil plane is Envy: the willingness to take a loss just to make somebody else take an even bigger loss. In a world of billions and billions of those people tearing each other down for billions and billions of years, there's not going to be anything left for anybody.
And there is an entire Plane constructed by this self-destructiveness. Welcome to
The Grey Waste Of Hades
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster."
This is a world where the only thing that people care about is hurting each other. If it would cost them any noticeable effort to serve a potential master, then they will not do so. If it would cost them any noticeable effort to betray a current master, then they will not do so. If they gain safety from hurting somebody who would’ve otherwise hurt them, then that is a happy bonus, but not one that they truly care about. If they gain some pleasure from hurting others in exciting ways, then that is a happy bonus, but not one that they truly care about.
Pure Evil without true profit or pleasure is ultimately pointless, and every single atom of Earth and Air and Fire and Water in the entire infinity of the Grey Waste is molded from this fundamental pointlessness.
Neutral: ambivalent towards the strong
Evil: completely antagonistic towards the weak
Evil characters gain a +2 bonus to INT/WIS/CHA-based checks, Good characters take a -2 penalty
Evil characters cast spells at +1 caster level, Good characters cast spells at -1 caster level
Evil spells are cast at +1 caster level, Good spells are cast at -1 caster level
The Outsiders that would be right at home here would be the Yugoloths (NE).
Devils (LE) would be uncomfortable in a world where even the most clearly established chain of command can be disrupted at a moment’s notice.
Any that come to Hades – more likely Oinos or Niflheim than Pluton – will generally be:
*Battling the forces of Chaos
*Trying to convert the “ingrates” to a life of “service.”
*Settling a personal matter that could just as easily have happened somewhere else
*…
Demons (CE) would be uncomfortable in a world where people put so little effort into making life and death more exciting.
Any that come to Hades – more likely Oinos or Pluton than Niflheim – will generally be:
*Battling the forces of Law
*Trying to convert the "party poopers" to a life of "action"
*Settling a personal matter that could just as easily have happened somewhere else
*…
Entrapment: anybody who stays in the Grey Waste for too long, and who is not immune to the enchantment, will be drained of all hope, joy, and empathy. She will eventually be reduced to a miserable, evil shell that doesn’t want to leave, either because she doesn’t believe that the rest of the world is any different or that she wouldn’t be able to escape even if she tried. Visitors resist Entrapment by making a Will save (DC = 10 + the number of days that they have spent unprotected in Hades). If one is not entrapped, then she and her allies can protect her with
*Remove Curse: removes 1 day from the time that counts against her
*Atonement: removes 1d4 days from the time that counts against her
*Wish/Miracle: removes 3d6 days from the time that counts against her
*Consecrate: a full day on Consecrated ground a) does not require a Will save and b) does not count against her when she leaves
*Hallow: a full day on Hallowed ground a) does not require a Will save, b) does not count against her when she leaves, and c) every full 8-hour length spent on Hallowed ground removes 1 day from the time that does count against her
However, once somebody has been entrapped, then her former allies would need to use a Wish or a Miracle to restore her. The number of days that she spent Entrapped would still count against her as much as do the days before her Entrapment do, and further Wishes/Miracles would be next to worthless is she has been in Hades for years, let alone if she is an Outsider who has lasted for centuries or millennia.
This is the reason that the Celestial Realms try not to get directly involved in the Blood War. If you get it into your head that killing Evil is more important than building Good, and if you devote yourself to finding things to kill while neglecting anything to build, then eventually the only thing you see in the world is how much of it needs to be destroyed. If you forget that there are innocent people in the world that you need to protect, then you won’t see any reason not to hurt them if it would help you kill those that you have deemed your enemies.
And this abandonment of hope can happen anywhere. How much more powerful would it be in a world where the very air you breathe is infused with a pure Evil that doesn’t care how or why? Personal willpower will not protect you for very long: eventually, any non-evil visitors to the Grey Waste will be dependent on mystical protection to ward off the corruption.
Oinos: the surface of Hades is world of war and sickness for those who corrupted innocents into hurting each other for some benefit. They would not merely hide their cruelty for fear of discovery, rather they would actively look for people who could be persuaded to not only commit the same cruelties, but to go out themselves and look for even more targets for the same corruption.
Potential NPCs:
*Pallideq: a lich raising an army of undead, he seeks out recent battlefields and animates any corpses that are still intact enough for him to do so. What groups of travellers might he hire the PCs to “turn into useable materials,” and what might he use to hire them?
Potential conflicts:
*The Blood War, full stop. Demons and Devils primarily wage their battles in Hades (a Devil regiment would not last a second in the Abyss, nor would a Demon mob in Baator, and neither Carceri nor Gehenna has enough open space for massive battles), and they tend to stay on the surface rather than going underground to Niflheim or Pluton. Will the PCs avoid the battles, take a side, or reap the benefits of dealing with both on the sidelines?
Niflheim: just below the surface of Hades lies a world of blinding fog, congested overgrowth, and relentless predators. Those who committed cruelties against the innocent, saw the righteous fighting to protect the innocent, and then corrupted the innocent by portraying their own cruelty as “necessary self-defense” against the “unreasonable stick-in-the-muds,” will find this world to be no different from what they had pretended the rest of the world to be.
This is marginally the more Lawful of the sub-planes (although nowhere as Lawful as Gehenna), with somewhat more Devils than Demons.
Where the corrupters of Oinos focus on the carrot (“If you help me hurt people, then you will get X for your efforts.”), those of Niflheim focus on the stick (“The powers-that-be are not fighting me to stop me from hurting people, they simply feel like fighting me. They will attack you too, whether you hurt anybody or not, so you gain nothing by refusing my offer to trade service for protection.”)
Potential NPCs:
*Latrodectus: a succubus who saw the network of gangs dominating the sub-plane, decided that the present “Cold Blood War” was too “boring,” and starting playing them against each other to stir up a more “entertaining” series of conflicts. What gangs are involved, and which might she hire the PCs to attack first?
Potential conflicts:
*A Baatorian general has stationed his Army in the safety of the fog to regroup after a “strategic retreat” from Oinos, and the local gangs want to force him out before the Demon hordes catch up. Can the PCs negotiate a truce, will they simply walk away, or will they have to take a side?
Pluton: the deepest bowels of Hades are a world of emptiness and death left behind by robber barons that destroyed everybody else’s necessities in the name of their own luxuries.
Every forest has been burned for the minerals beneath, leaving very little air; every river and farmland has been saturated with industrial waste, leaving very little food or water; and every single person here has tried to kill everybody else at some point or another, leaving very few survivors.
Even the self-destructive charlatans of Niflheim and Oinos gave at least nominal regard to their own survival, but this realm has eaten itself alive, and the rest of the Grey Waste is next in line.
This is marginally the more Chaotic of the sub-planes (although nowhere near as Chaotic as Carceri), with somewhat more Demons than Devils.
Potential NPCs:
*Phyrgia: a Medusa sorceress/cleric theurge who petrifies her victims, uses Stone Shape and/or similar Transmutations to sculpt “unappealing” statues into more appealing poses, and transforms the statues into gold by soaking them in water lifted telekinetically from a cursed spring. Since she is capable of praying for her own food and water, she will similarly try to “improve” any food and/or vegetation that she finds naturally. What could the PCs bribe her with in order to form a truce?
Potential conflicts:
*A cabal of Celestial clerics has established an outpost in this least inhabited of the sub-planes, hoping to “infect” the plane with righteousness for as long as possible without Yugoloth interference. They have been discovered, and an army is being raised to exterminate them. Will the PCs walk away, or will they be forced to take a side?
**
New Feats:
Disillusionment: You have seen so much deception and cruelty in the world that you cannot imagine anything else. If you are being gamed by somebody who has a secret, vicious angle for what he's doing, then you are very good at determining what that angle is, but you have no idea what to make of people who genuinely do not have angles for everything and everybody.
Prerequisites:
Knowledge (Planes) 5 ranks, Sense Motive 5 ranks, Bluff 5 ranks
Affinity for either Baator, Gehenna, Hades, Carceri, and/or The Abyss (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=17048470#post17048470)
When making a Bluff or Sense Motive check against a target of Evil alignment, you roll twice and take the higher result. When making a Bluff or Sense Motive check against a target of Good alignment, you roll twice and take the lower result.
Wasting Away: the plagues and enchantments of the Grey Waste have been worming their way into your heart, your mind, your body, your soul; instead of fighting them, you have learned to feed them. You have learned to surrender your own life force to the Waste inside you, and can channel the corruption into a vicious bolt of pure Evil to destroy your enemies.
Prerequisites:
INT 18, WIS 18 or CHA 18
Knowledge (Planes) 5 ranks
Affinity for Hades (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=17048470#post17048470)
As a move action, you may choose to inflict any number of hit points as damage to yourself. In exchange, you select one target within a range of 5ft x either your INT, WIS, or CHA modifier (whichever is highest). Inflict hit point damage to that target equal to the number of hit points that you sacrificed, plus a bonus equal to the modifier used for calculating range.
**
Does anybody else have ideas to add? NPCs, locations, conflicts, mechanics? Feedback on what I've already come up with?
The primary Lawful sin of Baator, Acheron, and Gehenna is that of Pride in one's allies, loyalty and position, and a Lawful Evil adds to himself if his cruelties against others bring him greater station. The Chaotic sin of the Abyss, Carceri, and Pandemonium is the Lust for new pleasures, experiences, and challenges, and a Chaotic Evil adds to himself if his cruelties against others bring him greater excitement. In contrast, the primary sin of this Neutral Evil plane is Envy: the willingness to take a loss just to make somebody else take an even bigger loss. In a world of billions and billions of those people tearing each other down for billions and billions of years, there's not going to be anything left for anybody.
And there is an entire Plane constructed by this self-destructiveness. Welcome to
The Grey Waste Of Hades
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster."
This is a world where the only thing that people care about is hurting each other. If it would cost them any noticeable effort to serve a potential master, then they will not do so. If it would cost them any noticeable effort to betray a current master, then they will not do so. If they gain safety from hurting somebody who would’ve otherwise hurt them, then that is a happy bonus, but not one that they truly care about. If they gain some pleasure from hurting others in exciting ways, then that is a happy bonus, but not one that they truly care about.
Pure Evil without true profit or pleasure is ultimately pointless, and every single atom of Earth and Air and Fire and Water in the entire infinity of the Grey Waste is molded from this fundamental pointlessness.
Neutral: ambivalent towards the strong
Evil: completely antagonistic towards the weak
Evil characters gain a +2 bonus to INT/WIS/CHA-based checks, Good characters take a -2 penalty
Evil characters cast spells at +1 caster level, Good characters cast spells at -1 caster level
Evil spells are cast at +1 caster level, Good spells are cast at -1 caster level
The Outsiders that would be right at home here would be the Yugoloths (NE).
Devils (LE) would be uncomfortable in a world where even the most clearly established chain of command can be disrupted at a moment’s notice.
Any that come to Hades – more likely Oinos or Niflheim than Pluton – will generally be:
*Battling the forces of Chaos
*Trying to convert the “ingrates” to a life of “service.”
*Settling a personal matter that could just as easily have happened somewhere else
*…
Demons (CE) would be uncomfortable in a world where people put so little effort into making life and death more exciting.
Any that come to Hades – more likely Oinos or Pluton than Niflheim – will generally be:
*Battling the forces of Law
*Trying to convert the "party poopers" to a life of "action"
*Settling a personal matter that could just as easily have happened somewhere else
*…
Entrapment: anybody who stays in the Grey Waste for too long, and who is not immune to the enchantment, will be drained of all hope, joy, and empathy. She will eventually be reduced to a miserable, evil shell that doesn’t want to leave, either because she doesn’t believe that the rest of the world is any different or that she wouldn’t be able to escape even if she tried. Visitors resist Entrapment by making a Will save (DC = 10 + the number of days that they have spent unprotected in Hades). If one is not entrapped, then she and her allies can protect her with
*Remove Curse: removes 1 day from the time that counts against her
*Atonement: removes 1d4 days from the time that counts against her
*Wish/Miracle: removes 3d6 days from the time that counts against her
*Consecrate: a full day on Consecrated ground a) does not require a Will save and b) does not count against her when she leaves
*Hallow: a full day on Hallowed ground a) does not require a Will save, b) does not count against her when she leaves, and c) every full 8-hour length spent on Hallowed ground removes 1 day from the time that does count against her
However, once somebody has been entrapped, then her former allies would need to use a Wish or a Miracle to restore her. The number of days that she spent Entrapped would still count against her as much as do the days before her Entrapment do, and further Wishes/Miracles would be next to worthless is she has been in Hades for years, let alone if she is an Outsider who has lasted for centuries or millennia.
This is the reason that the Celestial Realms try not to get directly involved in the Blood War. If you get it into your head that killing Evil is more important than building Good, and if you devote yourself to finding things to kill while neglecting anything to build, then eventually the only thing you see in the world is how much of it needs to be destroyed. If you forget that there are innocent people in the world that you need to protect, then you won’t see any reason not to hurt them if it would help you kill those that you have deemed your enemies.
And this abandonment of hope can happen anywhere. How much more powerful would it be in a world where the very air you breathe is infused with a pure Evil that doesn’t care how or why? Personal willpower will not protect you for very long: eventually, any non-evil visitors to the Grey Waste will be dependent on mystical protection to ward off the corruption.
Oinos: the surface of Hades is world of war and sickness for those who corrupted innocents into hurting each other for some benefit. They would not merely hide their cruelty for fear of discovery, rather they would actively look for people who could be persuaded to not only commit the same cruelties, but to go out themselves and look for even more targets for the same corruption.
Potential NPCs:
*Pallideq: a lich raising an army of undead, he seeks out recent battlefields and animates any corpses that are still intact enough for him to do so. What groups of travellers might he hire the PCs to “turn into useable materials,” and what might he use to hire them?
Potential conflicts:
*The Blood War, full stop. Demons and Devils primarily wage their battles in Hades (a Devil regiment would not last a second in the Abyss, nor would a Demon mob in Baator, and neither Carceri nor Gehenna has enough open space for massive battles), and they tend to stay on the surface rather than going underground to Niflheim or Pluton. Will the PCs avoid the battles, take a side, or reap the benefits of dealing with both on the sidelines?
Niflheim: just below the surface of Hades lies a world of blinding fog, congested overgrowth, and relentless predators. Those who committed cruelties against the innocent, saw the righteous fighting to protect the innocent, and then corrupted the innocent by portraying their own cruelty as “necessary self-defense” against the “unreasonable stick-in-the-muds,” will find this world to be no different from what they had pretended the rest of the world to be.
This is marginally the more Lawful of the sub-planes (although nowhere as Lawful as Gehenna), with somewhat more Devils than Demons.
Where the corrupters of Oinos focus on the carrot (“If you help me hurt people, then you will get X for your efforts.”), those of Niflheim focus on the stick (“The powers-that-be are not fighting me to stop me from hurting people, they simply feel like fighting me. They will attack you too, whether you hurt anybody or not, so you gain nothing by refusing my offer to trade service for protection.”)
Potential NPCs:
*Latrodectus: a succubus who saw the network of gangs dominating the sub-plane, decided that the present “Cold Blood War” was too “boring,” and starting playing them against each other to stir up a more “entertaining” series of conflicts. What gangs are involved, and which might she hire the PCs to attack first?
Potential conflicts:
*A Baatorian general has stationed his Army in the safety of the fog to regroup after a “strategic retreat” from Oinos, and the local gangs want to force him out before the Demon hordes catch up. Can the PCs negotiate a truce, will they simply walk away, or will they have to take a side?
Pluton: the deepest bowels of Hades are a world of emptiness and death left behind by robber barons that destroyed everybody else’s necessities in the name of their own luxuries.
Every forest has been burned for the minerals beneath, leaving very little air; every river and farmland has been saturated with industrial waste, leaving very little food or water; and every single person here has tried to kill everybody else at some point or another, leaving very few survivors.
Even the self-destructive charlatans of Niflheim and Oinos gave at least nominal regard to their own survival, but this realm has eaten itself alive, and the rest of the Grey Waste is next in line.
This is marginally the more Chaotic of the sub-planes (although nowhere near as Chaotic as Carceri), with somewhat more Demons than Devils.
Potential NPCs:
*Phyrgia: a Medusa sorceress/cleric theurge who petrifies her victims, uses Stone Shape and/or similar Transmutations to sculpt “unappealing” statues into more appealing poses, and transforms the statues into gold by soaking them in water lifted telekinetically from a cursed spring. Since she is capable of praying for her own food and water, she will similarly try to “improve” any food and/or vegetation that she finds naturally. What could the PCs bribe her with in order to form a truce?
Potential conflicts:
*A cabal of Celestial clerics has established an outpost in this least inhabited of the sub-planes, hoping to “infect” the plane with righteousness for as long as possible without Yugoloth interference. They have been discovered, and an army is being raised to exterminate them. Will the PCs walk away, or will they be forced to take a side?
**
New Feats:
Disillusionment: You have seen so much deception and cruelty in the world that you cannot imagine anything else. If you are being gamed by somebody who has a secret, vicious angle for what he's doing, then you are very good at determining what that angle is, but you have no idea what to make of people who genuinely do not have angles for everything and everybody.
Prerequisites:
Knowledge (Planes) 5 ranks, Sense Motive 5 ranks, Bluff 5 ranks
Affinity for either Baator, Gehenna, Hades, Carceri, and/or The Abyss (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=17048470#post17048470)
When making a Bluff or Sense Motive check against a target of Evil alignment, you roll twice and take the higher result. When making a Bluff or Sense Motive check against a target of Good alignment, you roll twice and take the lower result.
Wasting Away: the plagues and enchantments of the Grey Waste have been worming their way into your heart, your mind, your body, your soul; instead of fighting them, you have learned to feed them. You have learned to surrender your own life force to the Waste inside you, and can channel the corruption into a vicious bolt of pure Evil to destroy your enemies.
Prerequisites:
INT 18, WIS 18 or CHA 18
Knowledge (Planes) 5 ranks
Affinity for Hades (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=17048470#post17048470)
As a move action, you may choose to inflict any number of hit points as damage to yourself. In exchange, you select one target within a range of 5ft x either your INT, WIS, or CHA modifier (whichever is highest). Inflict hit point damage to that target equal to the number of hit points that you sacrificed, plus a bonus equal to the modifier used for calculating range.
**
Does anybody else have ideas to add? NPCs, locations, conflicts, mechanics? Feedback on what I've already come up with?