Abyss

The Infinite Layers of the Abyss was the birth place of the demons, a chaotic evil universe unto itself with uncountable layers of infinite variety connected haphazardly. The Abyss's place in the cosmology of the Forgotten Realms shifted over time, but the nature of the plane remained fairly constant: a violent, malevolent place where the strong survived on the backs of the weak, the weak conspired to overthrow the strong, alliances only lasted while convenient, and the landscape itself tortured the mind and body of all who dared to pass.

"Ah, the infinite wonders of the Abyss. If there's anything you don't like, you'll find it here."

- A tanar'ri saying.

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&mdash;an unusual plane that connected the Abyss with the Nine Hells &mdash;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.

After the Spellplague, Asmodeus consumed the essence of the fallen Azuth and ended the Blood War by casting the Abyss to the furthest depths of the Elemental Chaos. The World Axis cosmology described the ruined Abyss as a domain with ever-changing features and realms, where the demons waged futile wars over meaningless empires. Once again the river Styx flowed through the Nine Hells and the Abyss, but then emptied its pollution into the Astral Sea. Other than the Styx or braving the Elemental Chaos, the only known passages to the Abyss were found in the Demonweb Pits, the Dismal Caverns, and Nishrek.

Layers


The number of layers in the Abyss was unknown and perhaps unknowable, with at least 679 having been catalogued 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&mdash;zero gravity, no matter except air
 * Ash&mdash;blowing dunes of ashes
 * Battleground&mdash;Blood War or other
 * City&mdash;warrens and slums to citadels and palaces, teeming with demons
 * Earth-dominant&mdash;solid rock tunneled by the inhabitants
 * Fire-dominant&mdash;everburning flames with salamanders, etc.
 * Delusion&mdash;appears to be Normal but the flowers are poisonous or the trees attack
 * Desert&mdash;endless tracts of black, white, or red sand with no water
 * Glacier&mdash;infinite black, white, or orange ice with few rocky peaks breaking the surface
 * Hellscape&mdash;a burning mix of magma, rock, and belching brimstone
 * Maelstrom&mdash;swirling, bubbling chaos like Limbo
 * Mountainous&mdash;rocky crags, precipitous cliffs, soaring peaks
 * Negative-dominant&mdash;major or minor
 * Normal&mdash;similar to a Prime plane with various flora and fauna
 * Ocean&mdash;a trackless ocean, with a surface
 * Salt&mdash;crystalline badlands or desert
 * Sea&mdash;of acid, blood, garbage, insects, oil, or worms, etc.
 * Swamp&mdash;noisome bog inhabited by predators
 * Undead&mdash;specters, spooks, and ghosts
 * Volcanic&mdash;lava flows, earthquakes, volcanoes, and smoke
 * Water-dominant&mdash;nightmarish creatures in the murk

Despite its name and notoriety for being never-ending, it was not known whether the layers of the Abyss were truly infinite in number. Part of the reason for this was that some places might have been so absolutely inhospitable that none, not mortal, nor god, nor demon lords themselves could survive (the deeper layers reportedly having been even worse in the past), and hence were not known about.

While the hundreds of layers of the Abyss might seem to utterly eclipse all other Outer planes put together, this figure was misleading. Besides the issue of uninhabitability, layers and divine realms, the personal territories of powers, were often one in the same in the Abyss, whereas other planes often had several realms on one layer. Exacerbating the problem, and another reason why the Abyssal layers could not be properly counted, was that the number was always in a state of flux. In the very depths of the Abyss, the heart of the plane was constantly cleaving through the primal foundations of the cosmos, as it had since before the dawn of mortals, spawning new layers. Arguably worse, if a demonic invasion was allowed to fester, entire worlds could fall into the Abyss, becoming the basis of new layers and realms. Conversely, the Abyss was also capable of losing layers. The individual layers of the Abyss had primal urges and a constant need for nourishment, shrinking and weakened until nothing was left if not fed. Alternatively, they might be absorbed by other layers, only able to escape this state by acquiring sufficient sustenance. Occassionally the battling of demons over control of a layer could become so cataclysmic that the entire realm was outright obliterated.

Layers could also be intentionally removed, such as when Lolth expended much of her divine energy seperating the Demonweb Pits, or when a pantheon of offended deities ripped out and condensed a demon lord's entire layer (with him still in it) and cast it into the Astral plane. Despite this ending in the Abyss, much like a hungry, rudely awakened beast, almost instantly striking down the entire pantheon in that case, the attack itself was successful, leaving nothing but a void and their own decomposing divine corpses.

It was also a possibility that destroyed layers were capable of being reborn elsewhere in the Abyss, although this was not a certainty. This was ignoring the fact that layers were shaped by the conscious manipulations and subconscious wills of its resident demon lord, and so even the nature of a single layer could become obsolete by the time such information was established.

Inhabitants
There were myriad types of demons, too numerous to catalog here, but including the tanar'ri, obyriths, and loumaras. Non-demonic life could be found in the Abyss as well, with both mortal explorers and captives and the petitioners brought there after death. Many wicked deities also based themselves here.

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. For mortals of Realmspace, however, all souls would first go to the Fugue Plane and await transport to their final resting place. Greedy demon lords would open a portal to the Fugue Plane and conduct raids to steal souls and bring them back to the Abyss to become manes. After the Spellplague, Shar reshaped the Plane of Shadow and folded in what death energy did not get absorbed into the Elemental Chaos and created the Shadowfell. After that, souls on their way to the afterlife started their journey in the Shadowfell and most made it to the Fugue Plane to await judgment, but a few remained behind or were lost.

Powers
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.
 * 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.
 * Beshaba, the Goddess of Mischief and Maid of Misfortune once made her home in the Abyss.
 * 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 586 layer.
 * Eltab lurked on this plane in the "Hidden Layer".
 * 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 6 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.
 * Kali, the feared Black Earth Mother of the Vedic pantheon, held sway over both the 500th layer, and the Caverns of the Skull, the 663rd layer.
 * 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 74 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 called Zionyn.
 * 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 and controlled her own layer called Androlynne.
 * 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.
 * Ramenos, the deity of the bullywugs, slumbered on the 74 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 74 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.
 * Umberlee, the Bitch Queen once hailed from the Abyss.
 * 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.