Social encounters in Pandemonium?

[MrFahrenheit]

Hi guys,

So by session after next, or even potentially next session, my party will be sent to Pandemonium to acquire a MacGuffin from an ancient BBEG. While I have the combat/puzzle encounters plotted out (my favorite is a bunch of flaming skulls flanking the party on either side as they cross a five-foot wide damaged rope bridge a mile above the surface that's missing one of its hand rails), I'd also like to create a social encounter in a town/city on that plane. My players enjoy city social encounters the most, and I want to provide them with one.

Dredging up old 3e era maps online, I see there's an area of Pandemonium called Madhouse that looks to be a city. Problem is, I can't really find any more info on it, and I long since gave away my 3e MotP (I thought I was done DMing 8 years ago, but this hobby is like Hotel California...though in a good way).

Anyhow, I'm looking for:
1) any official info on Madhouse. Any edition will do, since I'm just asking for fluff.
2) general ideas for what a settlement on Pandemonium may look like. I have a barebones idea in mind: earth and air elementals living in conflict with each other and demons, but am hitting a creative wall after that.

Thanks!

[MrStabby]

Do you need a strength check to see if you can shout loud enough to be heard over the wind?

[MrFahrenheit]

Only if you're more than ten feet away from whoever you're screaming at.

[Segev]

The ever-present howling winds whistling and shrieking through the caverns of Pandemonium should be part of nearly every description. Claustrophobic alleyways are emphasized by a rise in the pitch. Cavernous spaces echo and boom.

Illusory relief is obtained by being indoors, in private dwellings and businessplaces. The wind's noise is cut considerably, muffled and more distant. But the description should still include it, still have rattling windows and whistling, rumbling pressure. Describe the pressure shifting every time a door opens or closes. Maybe, if you can manage it without being too overt, set up something to make white noise in your gaming area. Set it to a low level, just enough to be...mildly irritating.

The impact this has on your conflict-ridden city should show in little and big ways. Private conversations are easiest to have out-doors, where the howling gale forces you to shout to be heard even 2 feet away; eavesdropping is much more likely in shelters. But lip-reading is still a hazard in public.

The wind noise can often sound like foot-steps, breathing, or whispers of conversations on the other side of interior walls.

The conflict you have in mind should be one of sabotage, espionage, backbiting and social shaming; violence should be real, but inexplicably taboo to be done in any sort of public fashion.

Ramp up the paranoia. The sense that everyone's out to get you. Your allies are critical; did you choose the right side? But are they really your allies, or just using you? The factions that one person believes are there may be different than the ones another believes in, with only their personal enmity or alliance agreeing on the factions responsible for that. Perhaps both are even right, and all those factions are present. Or perhaps one or both are insane. ...well, they probably ARE both insane, but perhaps one or both are delusional wrt their factions.

Nothing should feel SAFE. Relief should be a respite that allows tension to drop, but only so that it can be piled back on all the harder shortly thereafter. Danger should be around the corner...but almost always around the NEXT corner, not right here.

Do everything you can to ramp up paranoia and distrust. Both of other people, as well as of one's own senses. The winds blow smells away, or distort and scatter them, so scent-based creatures are blind or misled. They deafen and create phantom noises. Sight is unaffected...but limited in the dark of the caverns. And who knows what TRUE presences are hidden by the perpetual sensory noise?

[Falcon X]

TSR2603 Planes of Chaos is the book you are looking for. It has a two page writeup of Madhouse, and a bunch of other things on Pandemonium. I'll try to post some quotes when I get it up. That, or PM me your email and I'll send you snapshots of the pages.

Some highlights of the Madhouse:
- It is a town run by the Bleak Cabal (planescape faction) made as a waystation for foreigners.
- Started out as just an inn, but slowly grew into a citadel so big that people got lost in it.
- It was named by some traveller who got lost in it and called it a "madhouse"
- The former owner wandered off several years back. Matron Warrow travelled there shortly after, liked, it, and decided to claim ownership. Nobody really feels like contesting her claim.
- Security is about a dozen bouncers. No more is needed because it's small enough for the matron to keep track of, she doesn't give many orders, and none of the locals are very interested in challenging her.
- there is a constant market with ever-changing wares. Ownership of the individual inns changes enough that someone might show up and find it has become a warehouse, or vice versa.

[MrFahrenheit]

TSR2603 Planes of Chaos is the book you are looking for. It has a two page writeup of Madhouse, and a bunch of other things on Pandemonium. I'll try to post some quotes when I get it up. That, or PM me your email and I'll send you snapshots of the pages.

Some highlights of the Madhouse:
- It is a town run by the Bleak Cabal (planescape faction) made as a waystation for foreigners.
- Started out as just an inn, but slowly grew into a citadel so big that people got lost in it.

Way cool! Wish I'd known about this book earlier - totally would've bought it off Amazon. Heck, I may still do so for my next campaign.

[Falcon X]

Year, any of the old Planescape books are great. My favorites were the Planes of Law, Planes of Chaos, and On Hallowed Ground.

I've summarized, but between this post and the last, you should have all the info you need to go off of.

The layer of Pandesmos (where the Mad House is):
- The first layer of Pandemonium, and thus the most traveled, populated, least inhospitable (Calmest winds - slightly less than a gale), and where the gods hang out.
- Most of it is a howling wasteland, but there are scattered spots of habitation (Mad Max anyone?). These range in size from the snow covered wastes of Loki's realm to a hermit's shack. Occasional towns and citadels are somewhere in between in size.

Description of the Mad House:
- Started out as a single inn with a walled courtyard, in a tunnel roughly half a mile in diameter. The fence was made of stone, more to keep out Pandemonium's noise than for protection. The yard was for general storage, not livestock. Attracted lots of travelers, but soon petitioners with ore and gems to trade to travelers.
- Innumerable wings were added over years until even the servants could get lost in them. Soon other buildings came into the area with no other reason than to be in proximity to the inn and cater to it's needs. The inn itself became a sort of city hall.
- As it became a target of raids, the locals chipped in to build a larger wall around the complex, berthing the first citadel with the inn as the site for it's government.
- Even more building clustered outside the wall, so yet another wall was built around that one.
- Eventually, the city stretched the entire circumference of the tunnel and met itself on the other side (planescape physics, yo). It is impossible to walk the length of the tunnel without entering the city.
- There are a good many homeless who are also quite mad.

Adventure ideas (based on town rumors):
- Someone's recently come into town from Cocytus with an artifact that supposedly can summon back that layer's lost gods. Nobody would normally be concerned because it's really farfetched and "life is change", but there have been a lot of lawful types hanging around recently worried about the reprecussions on the rest of the universe, and it's getting people uneasy. Likely as not, those lawful people will get run out of town on a rail soon enough.

[XmonkTad]

I've always thought of pandemonium as having icy winds that carry strange things in them. Most of the time I imagine it as snow, but sometimes I'm sure it's larger, more terrible things. Lots of descriptions such as "the wind snatches at your clothing and threatens to rip your possessions from you." Sort of thing.

Who knows what the winds of pandemonium really are. The madmen have numerous ones I'm sure. You could flavor up the town by having random NPCs each advancing their opinion on the cause. Everything from "white dragon chorus practice" to "gnomes".

[MrFahrenheit]

I've always thought of pandemonium as having icy winds that carry strange things in them. Most of the time I imagine it as snow, but sometimes I'm sure it's larger, more terrible things. Lots of descriptions such as "the wind snatches at your clothing and threatens to rip your possessions from you." Sort of thing.

Who knows what the winds of pandemonium really are. The madmen have numerous ones I'm sure. You could flavor up the town by having random NPCs each advancing their opinion on the cause. Everything from "white dragon chorus practice" to "gnomes".

Ooh I like this idea. I may have the party get marked for a con..."the dragons start howling when they sense new comers from the prime material for them to eat, but you're in luck; for a price, I'll pull some strings and they'll stay away." Of course, the dragons simply don't exist.

Did I mention the ancient BBEG the party is going to confront is a major contributor to the howling winds? *evil DM grin*

[Falcon X]

Overview and interesting things I'm reading about Pandemonium from Planes of Chaos:
The thing that surprised me the most is that it is all underground, like the underdark only with maddening winds.

Magical Nature
- Transfiguration spells are twisted a bit by the evil making them look, feel, or smell slightly foul or sinister.
- Find familiar, wish, and limited wish do not work in Pandemonium.
- Divination spells have a higher percentage chance of giving misleading information.
- Necromancy is stronger while life magic is weaker.
- Sonic based spells might be negated, because their noise is just a drop in the bucket.
- Elementals summoned all have a tinge of madness and evil. Your commands need to be worded VERY carefully. Fire is nonexistent on this realm as an element. Fire elementals cannot be summoned.

Physical Nature:
- It is a plane of solid rock, honeycombed with all sorts of tunnels and caverns. People call it the opposite of Ysgard. Ysgard has rivers of earth arching through the air, while Pandemonion has tunnels of air arching through solid rock.
- It's hard to cast spells in the dark with the wind tearing things out of your hands and howling so loud that you can't hear yourself speak. Dex check to cast spells with material components to not have it ripped out of your hands.
- The level of noise in most of Pandemonium is enough to cause "deafness" as per the spell. In some places, like the Shout spell.

Inhabitants:
- No native races, but the Bleak Cabal are the closest thing.
- People who are banished or need a place to hide.
- Traffic from other planes such as Tanar'ri raiders, slaad and githzerai from Limbo, or adventurers from anywhere.
- Powers: All gods are hard to find, but Loki, Gorrelik of the gnolls, Hruggek of the bugbears, Diirinka of the derro, Ho Masubi of Japan, the Queen of Air and Darkness, Auril the Frostmaiden, and Talos the Destroyer from Forgotten Realms.
- Petitioners: All Petitioners, despite form and deity, have some shared characteristics. All show signs of madness from the plane's howling. However, the madness is usually not extreme enough to prevent them from doing business with travelers. All petitioners do not give off body heat, so are also invisible to infravision. All petitioners can somehow see in perfect darkness using their normal eyes. All petitioners are immune to madness inducing spells. Lastly, they are all adapted to the wind by being so thin and bony that the wind glides right over them, having large and clawed feet, and having large and clawed hands to grip things.

Places:
- The River Styx
- Winter's Hall - Loki's realm. "Eternal Winter is coming". Constant blizzard, packs of wolves, and lycanthropes. Winter's hall is the refuge of this realm. Don't come unless you have a grievance against the Norse or you'll be branded a spy. They play deadly games with spies...
- Cocytus: The second layer of Pandemonium: Called the "Layer of Lamentation" because the winds sounds like the wailing at a funeral. The whole place looks hand-chiseled. So few people come here because it's just too depressing.
- Howler's Crag
- The Unseelie Court
- Hruggekolohk - Bugbear god realm.
- Windglum- town
- Agathion - Deadliest layer of Pandemonium. Rather than tunnels and caverns, it has immense holes inside endless rock. Where barriers open into one of these bubbles, the wind is strong enough to carry away a quarter-ton creature. Bubbles without a barrier to another layer are utterly still and thus are places where gods hide treasure and evil creatures sleep.

[MrFahrenheit]

Awesome stuff. PMed you btw.

[Goober4473]

TSR2603 Planes of Chaos is the book you are looking for. It has a two page writeup of Madhouse, and a bunch of other things on Pandemonium. I'll try to post some quotes when I get it up. That, or PM me your email and I'll send you snapshots of the pages.

I've got a PDF of this book, but I can't find any reference to the Madhouse except in one of the adventures. Where am I missing this?