Abyss

The desolate landscape of the abyss

## Cosmology

In the Great Wheel cosmology model, the Abyss was an Outer plane on the Great Wheel connected to the Astral plane, Pandemonium, Carceri, and the Outlands. Some estimated that the Abyss had 666 layers, while the Fraternity of Order claimed to have catalogued 679 layers. It was possible that the number of layers was infinite, but no one could be certain. The first layer, named Pazunia after the demon lord Pazuzu, was described as a barren, dusty place baking under a red sun, broken only by great iron fortresses, huge holes in the ground, and the river Styx. Some branches of the Styx flowed down the holes (which were conduits to the various layers) and some of these holes supplied water to the Styx in reverse waterfalls.

When the Great Wheel model was replaced by the World Tree cosmology model, the river Styx was renamed the River of Blood and it flowed through all the fiendish planes (except for the Supreme Throne and the Demonweb Pits) originating in the Abyss, passing through the Blood Rift—an unusual plane that connected the Abyss with the Nine Hells—bringing the demons even closer to their arch-enemies the devils, resulting in the Blood War. Cosmologists found evidence of portals between the Abyss and the Barrens of Doom and Despair, Clangor, the Demonweb Pits, and Hammergrim, with intermittent portals to Deep Caverns and Fated Depths. The Astral plane connected all of the fiendish planes to the Prime Material Plane, but not directly to each other.

## Layers

 File:Abyss Map.jpg
Main article: Layers of the Abyss
The number of layers in the Abyss was unknown and perhaps unknowable, but this article attempts to list them regardless of which cosmology model was in favor at the time of discovery. Each layer had its own characteristics, which were as varied as the demons themselves. All types of terrain, atmosphere, weather, gravity, and material composition were represented in the myriad layers. Some examples were:

* Air-dominant—zero gravity, no matter except air
* Ash—blowing dunes of ashes
* Battleground—Blood War or other
* City—warrens and slums to citadels and palaces, teeming with demons
* Earth-dominant—solid rock tunneled by the inhabitants
* Fire-dominant—everburning flames with salamanders, *etc*.
* Delusion—appears to be Normal but the flowers are poisonous or the trees attack
* Desert—endless tracts of black, white, or red sand with no water
* Glacier—infinite black, white, or orange ice with few rocky peaks breaking the surface
* Hellscape—a burning mix of magma, rock, and belching brimstone
* Maelstrom—swirling, bubbling chaos like Limbo
* Mountainous—rocky crags, precipitous cliffs, soaring peaks
* Negative-dominant—major or minor
* Normal—similar to a Prime plane with various flora and fauna
* Ocean—a trackless ocean, with a surface
* Salt—crystalline badlands or desert
* Sea—of acid, blood, garbage, insects, oil, or worms, *etc*.
* Swamp—noisome bog inhabited by predators
* Undead—specters, spooks, and ghosts
* Volcanic—lava flows, earthquakes, volcanoes, and smoke
* Water-dominant—nightmarish creatures in the murk

## Inhabitants

Main article: Demon
There were myriad types of demons, too numerous to catalog here. Non-demonic life could be found in the Abyss but was most likely imported from other planes.[*citation needed*]

## Afterlife

Main article: Afterlife
Beliefs about the journey of souls to the afterlife changed with the shifting cosmologies and the crystal sphere in which one resided. In some worlds, chaotic evil souls would travel directly to the Abyss and become manes, the lowest form of sub-demon. Manes were treated as slaves, cannon fodder, and food by the demon lords. Mortals of some worlds, however had to await transport to their final resting place. Greedy demon lords would open a portal to the conduct raids to steal souls and bring them back to the Abyss to become manes.

## Realms

 File:Alkilith-5e.png
Relatively few greater powers carved out a realm in the Abyss because dealing with the ubiquitous hordes of demons and ambitious demon lords would require too much of their attention. Those deities for whom the chaotic evil nature of the Abyss was attractive at some point in time, along with the demon "royalty" whose names were not spoken openly in civil society, were:

* Ahazu the Seizer.[*citation needed*]
* Baphomet created an Endless Maze that changed form as it passed between layers. It was populated by a variety of minotaurs said to have breath weapons or magical abilities.
* Dagon controlled a watery layer filled with hezrou and aquatic dretch.
* Demogorgon controlled several layers, each filled with dinosaurs, wild apes, and flying monsters as well as the usual demonkind.
* Diinkarazan, crazed twin brother of derro deity Diirinka, was held by a curse in the Prison of the Mad God, the 586th layer.
* Eltab lurked on this plane in the "Hidden Layer".[*citation needed*]
* Fraz-Urb'luu had a realm that reportedly rivaled the beauty of the Twin Paradises or Arvandor but it was an illusion covering decay and rotting flesh.
* Garyx the All-Destroyer, dragon god of fire, made his lair somewhere in the Abyss.
* Gorellik, the abandoned god of the gnolls, spent much of his time wandering the Abyss.
* Grankhul, the hunter god of the bugbears, had the 241st layer, Palpitatia, as divine realm.
* Graz'zt had a great palace that covered an entire layer where he would marshal his armies to fight Orcus and Demogorgon.
* The Great Mother, tyrannical chief deity of the beholders, held her Realm of a Million Eyes on the 6th Layer.
* Grolantor, god of the hill giants, stayed in the Abyss when not in his realm in Tarterus.
* Juiblex lived in a layer full of fungus and rot, where slimes and molds fed off the decaying matter of the plane, and each other.
* Kostchtchie controlled only part of a layer, but his ice palace was filled with creatures of cold.
* Laogzed, god of troglodytes, had a realm called the Rotting Plain here.
* Lolth spun her webs on the 65th layer in the midst of a maelstrom that was the portal to her abode on the 66th layer before she became a greater god and removed her Demonweb Pits from the Abyss to join the fiendish planes. After the Spellplague her realm survived to float in the Astral Sea.
* Merrshaulk, the ancient yuan-ti deity, resided on the 74th layer called Smaragd.
* Moander, the Rotting God, had a realm called Offalmound on the 223rd layer, also known as Rarandreth, before his demise.
* Obox-ob once had a realm here.[*citation needed*]
* Orcus had an enormous palace made of bones, rising out of a field of bone dust. He employed many undead as his guards and servants.
* The Pack, a group of powerful entities worshiped by the leucrotta, roamed the Abyss in search of prey (usually tanar'ri).
* Pale Night, the Mother of Demons, lived in a bone castle in the maze of Baphomet[*citation needed*] and controlled her own layer called *Androlynne*.[*citation needed*]
* Pazuzu had no real home but controlled the skies above every layer of the Abyss. He, like Charon on the Styx, controlled a primary mode of travel in the Abyss and was respected if not feared.
* The Queen of Chaos ruled the fourteenth layer called the *Steaming Fen*.[*citation needed*]
* Rakdos the Showstopper ruled a lair of the abyss called the *Jester's Folly*.
* Ramenos, the deity of the bullywugs, slumbered on the 74th layer most of the time, sharing Merrshaulk's realm of Smaragd.
* Skiggaret, the bugbear god of fear, shared the realm of Palpitatia with his fellow power Grankhul.
* Sseth, the god of the yuan-ti, called his realm on the 74th layer the Viper Pit.
* Tharizdun, the god of destruction who created the Abyss, was imprisoned in a remote layer of the Abyss during the Dawn War.
* Urdlen, the evil gnome deity carved his realm out of a layer of solid rock, crisscrossing it with tunnels filled with hate for beautiful things.
* Vaprak, deity of trolls and father of ogres, had a realm here on a layer called *Shatterstone*.
* Yeenoghu had a mansion the size of a city that rolled across barren salt flats, pulled by slaves driven by gnolls.
* Zuggtmoy had several realms scattered throughout the layers, all echos of normal environments but bathed in a purplish light and being overtaken by fungus and fungoid creatures.

### Connections

Cosmologies of the Realms

The Great Wheel

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Prime Material plane • Feywild • Shadowfell • Fugue Plane
**Transitive Planes:** Astral Plane • Ethereal plane
**Inner Planes:** Elemental Plane of Air • Elemental Plane of Water • Elemental Plane of Earth • Elemental Plane of Fire • Elemental Chaos
**Para-Elemental Planes:** Frostfell • Swamp of Oblivion • Fountains of Creation • Great Conflagration
**Quasi-Elemental Planes:** Lightning • Radiance • Minerals • Steam • Vacuum • Ash • Dust • Salt
**Outlands:** Sigil
**Outer Planes:** Arcadia • Mount Celestia • Bytopia • Elysium • Beastlands • Arborea • Ysgard • Limbo •
Pandemonium • **Abyss** (Layers) • Carceri • Hades • Gehenna • Nine Hells • Acheron • Mechanus
**Energy planes:** Positive Energy plane • Negative Energy plane
**Planar Pathways:** Infinite Staircase • Oceanus • Mount Olympus • Styx • Yggdrasil
**Far Realm**

The World Tree
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Prime Material plane • Cynosure • Fugue Plane
**Transitive Planes:** Astral Plane • Ethereal plane • Plane of Shadow • Spirit World
**Celestial Outer Planes:** Arvandor • Brightwater • Dwarfhome • Dweomerheart • Gates of the Moon • Golden Hills • Green Fields • House of Knowledge • House of the Triad
**Fiendish Outer Planes:** **Abyss** (Layers) • Barrens of Doom and Despair • Blood Rift • Clangor • Deep Caverns • Demonweb Pits • Fated Depths • Fury's Heart • Hammergrim • Nine Hells • Nishrek • Supreme Throne
**Neutral Outer Planes:** Dragon Eyrie • Heliopolis • House of Nature • Jotunheim • Warrior's Rest
**Inner Planes:** Elemental Plane of Air • Elemental Plane of Earth • Elemental Plane of Fire • Elemental Plane of Water • Positive Energy plane • Negative Energy plane
**Planar Pathways:** Infinite Staircase • River of Blood • World Tree
**Far Realm**

The World Axis
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Prime Material plane
**Fundamental planes:** Astral Sea • Elemental Chaos
**Astral dominions:** Arvandor • Banehold • Celestia • Cynosure • Deep Wilds • Demonweb Pits • Dismal Caverns • Dwarfhome • Eternal Sun • Fugue Plane • Gates of the Moon • Green Fields • House of Knowledge • Nine Hells • Nishrek • Supreme Throne • Towers of Night • Tu'narath • Warrior's Rest
**Elemental realms:** **Abyss** (Layers) • City of Brass • Cresting Spires • Fimbulwinter • Hidden Realm • Muspelheim • Root Hold • Sky Home • Steading • Thraotor • Undying Pyre • Zerthadlun
**Parallel planes:** Feywild • Shadowfell
**Anomalous planes:** Far Realm

1. ↑ Jeff Grubb (July 1987). *Manual of the Planes 1st edition*. (TSR), p. 74. ISBN 0880383992.
2. ↑ Jeff Grubb, Bruce R. Cordell, David Noonan (September 2001). *Manual of the Planes 3rd edition*. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 99. ISBN 0-7869-1850-8.
3. ↑ Wolfgang Baur and Lester Smith (1994-07-01). “The Book of Chaos”. In Michele Carter ed. *Planes of Chaos* (TSR, Inc), p. 20. ISBN 1560768746.
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27. ↑ Eric L. Boyd (1998). *Demihuman Deities*. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 151. ISBN 0-7869-1239-1.
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36. ↑ Julia Martin, Eric L. Boyd (March 1996). *Faiths & Avatars*. (TSR, Inc), p. 119. ISBN 978-0786903849.
37. ↑ Colin McComb (1996). *On Hallowed Ground*. Edited by Ray Vallese. (TSR, Inc), p. 182. ISBN 0-7869-0430-5.
38. ↑ Template:Cite book/Elminster's Ecologies/The Great Gray Land of Thar
39. ↑ Carl Sargent (May 1992). *Monster Mythology*. (TSR, Inc), p. 78. ISBN 1-5607-6362-0.
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41. ↑ Mike Mearls, Brian R. James, Steve Townshend (July 2010). *Demonomicon*. Edited by Scott Fitzgerald Gray. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 8. ISBN 978-0786954926.
42. ↑ Gary Gygax (August, 1985). *Unearthed Arcana (1st edition)*. (TSR, Inc.), p. 117. ISBN 0880380845.
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44. ↑ Ray Winninger (September 1995). *Giantcraft*. Edited by Karen S. Boomgarden. (TSR, Inc.), p. 9. ISBN 0-7869-0163-2.

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