Pazunia

Also known as **Pazunia**, the **Palace of 1,001 Closets**, the **Plain of a Thousand Portals**, and the **Plain of Yawning Pits**, Pazunia is a primordial plane found on the edge of the maelstrom adjacent to the Plane of Air and concurrent with the Abyss, of which it is often considered "the 1st level."

### Geography

Pazunia is a barren waste, wrecked by furious bursts of firey wind and chaos from the Maelstrom, which hangs in the sky like a massive sun, always overhead. The surface consists of extremely hard granite, scored by tornadoes and hurricanes, rising and falling in great mountain-like rocks, pocked with holes that drop down several hundred feet before ending in portals to other planes, but more than half of the portals lead to the Abyss, and more than half of those lead to "the second layer": The Drillers' Hives.

While the vast majority of Pazunia is a barren granite landscape pocked by pits and dotted with boulders up to 400 feet tall, there are a few areas with slightly different geographies. Pazunia has a few small deserts and lakes; depressions that are several kilometers in any direction which do not have a pit at the bottom. These bowls collect both sand and water over time, even if the sand and water are blown away by hurricane winds, they slowly resettle into the depressions. The constant scouring of the surface does not allow any flora to grow in the deserts, but the lakes--which are often toxic with heavy metals and salts--can support algae which supports a small swarm of giant horseflies. The lakes are also the grave sites of manes, and so are also polluted with extreme levels of bacteria.

List of Known Portals of Pazunia

Randomly Generating Terrain: Pazunia

#### Weather

It takes no special skill to navigate Pazunia spatially, however it is extremely dangerous to do so in part because of the weather. While the tempurature rests at 30 degrees Celsius most of the time, there is a good chance of encountering tornadoes, hurricanes, firestorms, chinook winds, Haboobs, and chaos storms. Chaos storms consist of a 4 hour period in which a random weather change takes place that need not have anything to do with the natural geography of the region. Tempurartures can drop to -60, sleet storms can erupt, ash can fall from the sky, the air can be deprived of oxygen, etc.
Randomly Generating Weather: Pazunia

#### Humanoid Geography

The only places protected from the elements and the roaming creatures of Pazunia are caves found in the sides of the pits, which are often used by travellers to hid in, and a very few of which contain sanctuaries built by besieged extra-planar beings. The rest of the humanoid geography of Pazunia consists of a number of "iron strongholds" (almost all actually constructed out of iron on the very tops of the boulder-mounts). In order to find safety when travelling astrally, the demon lords must hold themselves up in these strongholds so their bodies are not destroyed or transported elsewhere. Pazuzu, the Lord of Pazunia oversees the protection of the strongholds with his vast armies of avians, including winged devils, harpies, Urds, and even a few dragons. The forts also often hold contingents of their own.

Aside from the fort, there are a few clutches of harpies, as well as towns and cities populated mostly by Kenky and Aaracokra where teiflings make up an under-class.These cities have diverse government types, and exist in rings around portals, where the cities cling to the sides of the cliffs for protection, and often guard the portals, tolling those who would pass through them. All of the cities only worship Pazuzu and pledge complete allegiance to him, which is why Teiflings (and half-dragons) are treated with mistrust and disdain.

Dragons, whether or not they are loyal to Pazuzu, will often find a good place in Pazunia to set up their kobold-infested dens. Sometimes it is an old Iron Fortress that they have destroyed, or a cave near a portal that they can toll, or a cave in the open. They find these places to be safe deposits for their eggs and young for at least a few decades before some chaos storm or demon lord drives them out. Young and young adult dragons never stay in Pazunia to grow up, since it is too dangerous for them. Rocs and Aaracokra hunt them mercilessly if they do. Instead, their parents will usually take them to a more hospitable plane once they are out of the nest.

### Ecology

The base of the food chain in Pazunia is composed of those things that consume the rocks for sustainence, including lychens, mosses, Xorns and Umber Hulks, as well as those who are deposited on the plane from other planes, especially manes, which form the basis of the food chain of much of the Abyss. These creatures are eaten by the primary life forms on the plane: avians.

Random Encounters: Pazunia

### Flora

The flora of Pazunia consists overwhelmingly of lichens that feed on the hard granite that is all that is left of the surface. Because dust, sand, water and debris will inevitably fall into one of the portals of the plane, the surface never accumulates any sand or dirt. Some exceptionally deep cracks in the surface might accumulate enough sand to host creeping vines, succulents or cacti, but even the richest of these micro-forests is not enough to comprise of even a single poor meal for a starving adventurer. There is the exceptional dwarf rock pine that grows on the plane, not much more than a bonzai tree, clinging for life to some crack in a mountain or crater that has managed to accumulate a small sample of soil, and fed only by occasional bursts of sun or rain, but they are inevitably torn from their perch by a tornado at some point.

### Fauna

Demons are now naturalized on Pazunia, with Manes arriving with measured frequency. They are deposited individually, but when they meet there is a 50-50 chance they will try to kill eachother or decide to amble along the plane together, forming a horde. These hordes (3d6x10 individuals) roam the plane looking for food and conflict, but are vastly outperformed by their opponents. Giant vultures and eagles circle above, picking off stragglers, and demon armies arrive to quash the hordes before they get large enough to threaten the iron fortresses, killing almost all the manes, except a few who are ascended to higher forms to join the demonic hosts.

The dead bodies of Manes (and even the "living" ones) can play host to uncountable swarms of giant horse flies that redouble their numbers every few days. Once a battlefield is picked clean, these swarms (flying rot grubs) spill out into the world in an inky black cloud, desperate to find food and a place to lay their eggs. Similarly, swarms of locusts with ironlike mandibles that can scrape the lichens off the hard rock swarm about the plane. These locusts are not as interested in living flesh, but will rip mundane equipment to shreds, making short work of wood and leather, and even doing damage to stone and soft metals. These plagues are the children of Pazuzu, and take particular delight in overwhelming demonic hordes, while they leave other Pazuzu followers to last if at all possible.

Birds and bird-derived creatures make up the vast majority of animal life on Pazunia, from small hawks, vultures and crows, to massive rocs, and phoenixes. Unlike the Plane of Air, these birds are almost all carnivores, and extremely aggressive. Because of the lack of any sort of cover, the birds are quite capable of hunting and killing larger ground-dwellers by persistence hunting. They will dive down from flocks to slowly pick away at the Manes or wanderers that venture across the vast wastes. Otherwise, extremely resilient sparrows will herd swarms of insects, diving through the mass to grab a meal. All these smaller birds will fly away from any other creature that can fly. Very large prey, or large flying creatures, are handled by the rocs and phoenixes, of which there are many soaring through the sky extremely high-up, riding thermals and watching for a worthy meal. Unlike Rocs on other planes, Pazunian Rocs do not carry and drop their prey, but rather hunt like falcons: snatching their prey mid air and either kill it there, or drive it into the ground with their own mass. Birds of all species roost in the pits leading to the portals, protecting their eggs from the winds of Pazunia.

Aside from actual birds and bird relatives, there are also other flying creatures at home on the plane such as winged demons and dragons. All of the creatures that reproduce sexually have homes or rooks along the insides of the pits, since the surface is so thoroughly scoured by winds and chaos.

### Intelligent Life

Many Demon Lords make their way to Pazunia to construct Iron Fortresses from which they can project themselves and/or their armies astrally onto other planes while remaining physically safe. Despite Pazuzu's intent to keep the "wanderers" down by killing off anyone wandering the surface, the demon lords always fear that he will turn to their fortresses and crack them open, or another demon lord will wage war on them while they are astrally projected. Thus each fort in which a demon lord is active usually has a significant contingent of demons guarding it, who often stray from the fort for food or out of boredom.

Aside from the demonic inhabitants of the plane, there are also a select few intelligent avians, such as harpies, Kenku, teiflings, and Aaracokra, all of whom are native to the plane. Non-native draconids including Urds and Kobolds, their dragon masters, and a few half-dragons also find the plane relatively safe and easy to live on. Any creature born on the plane is corrupted by the nearby Abyss and is either Neutral, Chaotic-Evil, Neutral Evil or Chaotic Neutral. Furthermore, lawful or good visitors rarely last more than a few days before their sanity is tested by the realities of life on this plane and its ever-changing, vicious nature. Whenever they take a long rest on the plane, they must make a DC10 wisdom save or wake up either Chaotic or Evil aligned. The effect remains until they recieve Greater or Lesser Restoration, Remove Curse, visit a good or lawful plane, or rest for a few days on a neutral, elemental or material plane.