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View Full Version : Abandoning Hope - Re-imagining Hades



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?

Vedhin
2014-04-08, 05:33 PM
"Well, seems I've been asked to talk about the Gray Wastes, so might as well get started."


"First, a brief overview of the layers."


"Oinos, the Battle Plain, is the top layer of Hades, and the Blood War's main battleground. The demons and devils slaughtering each other here endlessly are an immediate danger. Also, hold off summoning fiends here-- there's a big chance (75%) you'll get one from a nearby battle, and they tend to seek revenge after the summoning is over. In addition to the death from the Blood War, there's also rampant disease on the layer. The Oinoloth, a yugoloth who has claimed the Siege Malicious from the tower of Khin-Oin is in control of the layer's diseases, so you can be sure they'll be nasty."


"Nifleheim, Northman's Despair, gets its name from housing the underworlds of the Norse and Celtic pantheons. It's misty and dreary. It also has trees. That's pretty much it."


"Pluton, Olympian's Gloom, has the underworld of the Greek pantheon. It has less mist and more heat than Nifleheim. The layers of Hades are boring."


"Next, ways to dodge the apathy and keep your spirits high!"


"One of the least known, yet most effective, methods is charm spells. You see, charm magic makes the target feel friendly towards the caster. This little bit of caring about something lets the subject snap out of the apathy for as long as the spell lasts. After two weeks of giving into apathy, this stops working though."


"Abbathor, a dwarven power of greed, makes his home in the Glitterhall on Oinos. It's one of the few places in the Gray Wastes that has color, and that can rouse someone from their despair here. Abbathor also keeps the fiends and diseases out of his realm. You'll pay a high price-- Abbathor isn't about to let anyone leave while they still have any precious metals on them. He'd also be mighty glad to rob you of anything else you have."


"Arawn, a power of the Celts, rules Annwn on Niflheim. The realm offers some protection, which gets stronger the farther in you go. The edges and center of the realm also can makes changes in those who go there, making them more or less civilized (After 2 days in Annwn, make a DC 15 Will save. On a failure, you gain a +1 bonus to Stergth and Constitution, but take a -1 penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom {if nearer the edge}, or you gain a +1 bonus to Charisma but take a -1 penalty to Strength {if nearer the center}. This lasts for as long as you stay in Annwn, and persists after you leave for as long as you spent in Annwn). Arawn also has a giant magical cauldron, capable of reviving the dead-- though as a power of the dead, he's unlikely to do so. There are a few people to note: every tenth year Arawn swaps thrones for a year with a Prime king named Pwyll. Pwyll is more personable the Arawn, but won't let his god down. Hafgan is a powerful warrior, and the mortal enemy of Arawn; but Arawn is incapable of taking action against him. Getting rid of him would be a great way to get on Arawn's good side, but you'd have to be tough to beat Hafgan. Arawn is also the resting place of the Wild Hunt (or Wyld Hunt), but if you find them you'd best head for the hills."


"Death of Innocence is a town in Niflheim, ruled by a woman named Viliki Cainor. She never quite manages to give up all hope, and her modicum of optimism somehow spreads to the rest of the town. The town gets its supplies from one Kherion Mallibrun, a member of the Revolutionary League. He feels a bit guilty about supporting Viliki's regime, but likes to tell himself he's fighting the rule of the plane."


"Kherion isn't the only one who thinks Death of Innocence is full of rebels against the natural order. Hel herself agrees with him. She lives in the divine realm of Niflheim, on the layer of Niflheim. That place WON'T help fight the ennui, instead this is a warning to avoid the place completely."


"There's the town of Corpus on Pluton, which is made of people-- willing people, but all the structures are made of living sentient beings. It may help with the apathy, but it's likely to be discomfiting to most."


"Then there's the Town at the Center at the center of the three layers. See, the layers of the Gray Wastes aren't neatly 'stacked'-- there's a place where all three meet, and there stands the Town at the Center. There're some here who have given into the despair, but the place seems to have some protection from it. The town is divided into three sections, one for each layer-- and you'll know if you cross into a different section. Each section has but a single gate into the layer proper, which is typically available for travel. The Oinos section is walled off, and you have to spend a day in quarantine to enter the rest of the town. The center of the Town at the Center is occupied by a palace, claimed by one Dandy Will, the tiefling who rules this place. The place also has a market with a wide variety of merchandise. It offers quick transit between the layers, but there are a couple things to be aware of: first, what Dandy Will says goes, though you're likely to be ignored by him. Second, the militia, which acts as the town guard, has the authority to kill anyone who disobeys them. They're a mix of mortals, devils, daemons, and demons (Blood War deserters who're laying low here), but they tend not to be too abusive of their station.'


"Well, that's all I've got to say for now. Come back later, and you might hear some more about Hades."

XionUnborn01
2014-04-10, 12:48 AM
I don't really have any constructive criticism to give out but I can say one thing: You've managed to create a horrific place out of the former ludicrous Hades.

As I read your descriptions, I couldn't help but feel haunted by the thought of every fiber or matter being infused by evil that slowly consumes you. This being the battleground for the Blood War is brilliant and I love the imagery of fog slowly rolling through a vast open plain where you can hear a battle waging and every break in the fog reveals another group of soldiers fighting to the death, the echoes coming from all sides giving only a hint of the magnitude of the fight.

I really applaud your work, it's certainly a vast improvement.

Eldan
2014-04-10, 03:01 AM
I'll read and critique it in more detail later, but first I just wanted to ask: have you looked at Planewalker? Their forums had a pretty good Hades project for a while, especially some material that I found quite interesting on the Hordelings and the Night Hags.

Okay, back. You've written some interesting stuff there, certainly, but I don't feel there's much new there, yet. I think the next question to ask would be how we can build on what Planescape introduced (the gloom, the despair, the uncaring evil).

One thing that I always felt was important about Hades is that it is, in a way, impersonal evil.

The Abyss is evil for the sake of the self, primarily. A demon will push you down to push himself up. It's an infinitely tall pile where everyone is trying to climb to the top by stabbing everyone between him and the top. A demon is only ever nonhostile to you if you can benefit it directly, and not even then. Promise it a reward and it may let you live. Or he may kill you to just take it. Or it may kill you because its secretly afraid you may betray it later, or just become stronger than it is.

The Hells are primarily evil for the sake of the organisation. For a cause. Hell will crush and grind individuality of everyone in it for the sake of a war that must be won. There is no time for freedom, the safety of the multiverse is at stake. You will bow down or be destroyed, because it must be done for maximum efficiency. Nothing personal, you were just in the way.

In the wastes, evil just happens and no one cares anymore. Ever read a story about someone being beaten to death by a gang while a crowd of commuters pretended not to see it? That's the glooms. Ever heard of a victim bleeding out in an alley ten steps away from a busy bus stop? Welcome to Hades.
The world sucks. I can't do anything against it, so why should I try? Trying to improve it is a pointless effort. No one else will change, so I won't either.

Vedhin
2014-04-10, 11:27 AM
One thing that I always felt was important about Hades is that it is, in a way, impersonal evil.

In the wastes, evil just happens and no one cares anymore. Ever read a story about someone being beaten to death by a gang while a crowd of commuters pretended not to see it? That's the glooms. Ever heard of a victim bleeding out in an alley ten steps away from a busy bus stop? Welcome to Hades.
The world sucks. I can't do anything against it, so why should I try? Trying to improve it is a pointless effort. No one else will change, so I won't either.

Indeed.

Pandemonium is somewhat similar, in that it's evil is just there. Acheron is in much the same boat.

But Hades is more inactively impersonal, if that makes sense. Pandemnioum has the howling wind and lightless mazes that contribute to its malice, and Acheron has the ringing of the cubes and endless battles.
Hades is just endless bland grayness, filled with apathetic petitioners. It doesn't have to do anything to create a feeling of hopelessness. That's simply in its nature.


You can sort of notice that in my descriptions of the layers-- Nifleheim and Pluton are practically devoid of distinguishing features, and Oinos's distinguishing features, the diseases and the Blood War, come from the Yugoloths and off-plane fiends, respectively. If the various fiends weren't involved, all three layers would be nigh identical expanses of nothing worth noting. Hades simply has nothing to hope for.


The petitioners also factor into that. Even in the Hells or the Abyss, you might aspire to become a minor devil or demon, and work your way up the pecking order. In Gehenna or Carceri, you still might be able to climb higher up the heap. In Hades, you're stuck as a larvae.

Eldan
2014-04-10, 11:36 AM
Are Hordelings petitioners? It's been a while. If they are, that's a fantastic prospect too. You get twisted into a terrible, but ultimately weak form and instantly get your mind overridden by a group mind that is in a constant state of both rage and fear.

Vedhin
2014-04-10, 12:05 PM
Are Hordelings petitioners? It's been a while. If they are, that's a fantastic prospect too. You get twisted into a terrible, but ultimately weak form and instantly get your mind overridden by a group mind that is in a constant state of both rage and fear.

Nope, you're stuck as a larvae. Even Hordelings are a step up from larvae.