The Abyss

The Abyss

Core nature. The Abyss is the howling heart of chaotic evil—a plane made of uncountable “layers” that each behave like their own deranged world. It is the cradle of demons (tanar’ri, obyriths, loumaras) and a cosmos-sized food chain: the strong cannibalize the weak, the weak plot overthrow, and alliances last only until the next betrayal. Even the terrain hates you—skies bleed ash, mountains vomit lava, oceans are blood, acid, oil, or worse. Travelers are battered not just by monsters, but by a plane whose landscape, gravity, and sanity shift from layer to layer.

Where it sits in the multiverse

  • Great Wheel era. The Abyss is an Outer Plane linked to the Astral Plane, Pandemonium, Carceri, and the Outlands. The infamous River Styx crosses its First Layer (Pazunia)—a dusty hellscape under a red sun, riddled with sinkholes that act as throats to deeper layers. Color pools from the Astral glow amethyst/dark purple; the classic “tuning fork” attunement is iron.

  • World Tree era. The Styx is retconned as the River of Blood, originating in the Abyss and running through fiendish planes (with the Blood Rift joining it to the Nine Hells), knitting the front lines of the Blood War. The Abyss gains plentiful doorways (stable and fickle) to adjacent evil realms and the Material via Astral waypoints.

  • World Axis / Elemental Chaos era. After the Spellplague, Asmodeus (empowered by devouring Azuth) hurls the Abyss to the farthest depths of the Elemental Chaos, “ending” the open Blood War. The ruined Abyss becomes a shifting patchwork of realms where demons fight forever over ashes and titles. The Styx now runs through both the Hells and Abyss, then spills its toxic memory-stained waters into the Astral Sea. Most reliable entries are via the Demonweb Pits, Dismal Caverns, Nishrek, or by braving the Chaos itself.

Takeaway: Cosmology names change, but the Abyss stays the Abyss—a metastasizing wound that births demons and eats worlds.

How the layers work

“Infinite” isn’t hyperbole, it’s policy. Sages have counted 666 or 679 named layers; the truer answer is “uncountable and unstable.” The Abyss constantly cleaves deeper into reality, spawning new layers from primordial rot. At the same time, layers starve, shrink, merge, or die if they lack “nourishment” (souls, slaughter, worship, fear). Cataclysmic wars can obliterate a layer outright; others are surgically removed—Lolth famously severed the Demonweb Pits from the Abyss to make it her own dominion.

Worlds can fall. Given time and infestation, a mortal world can be dragged into the Abyss, reborn as a fresh layer—its continents twisted into battlegrounds and charnel gulfs. Conversely, a destroyed layer might reincarnate elsewhere, but there are no guarantees.

Rulership shapes reality. Most layers are personal realms of demon lords; their conscious designs and subconscious hungers sculpt the weather, gravity, hazards, even the laws of magic. This makes cartography obsolete by the time ink dries.

Terrain archetypes. Expect any mix of:

  • Air-dominant voids; earth-dominant honeycombs; water-dominant abysses.

  • Fire/volcanic hellscapes; glaciers of black or orange ice; deserts of red, white, or salt; ash seas that scour flesh.

  • Swamps that digest trespassers; negative-dominant pockets that snuff life.

  • Cities—teeming warrens to palatial citadels—crammed with demons, slaves, and things that eat both.

  • Delusions that look pastoral until the flowers poison you and the trees hunt in packs.

The First Layer (Pazunia). A battlefield plain under a rust sun, pocked by skycistern sinkholes that sluice Styx-water to lower realms. Iron fortresses loom, garrisoned by hosts looking for an advantage (or something to torture).

Inhabitants & politics

  • Demons. The tanar’ri (the “modern” demon majority) rule the pecking order, but obyriths (eldritch pre-history terrors) and loumaras (dream-parasites) lurk and scheme. Specialized horrors—alkiliths, for example—literally rot reality’s fabric, widening weak spots between planes.

  • Not just demons. The Abyss hosts mortal captives and fools, planar mercenaries, petitioners (see Afterlife), and evil deities who relish the ambient cruelty. Free cities, slave marts, and temple-fortresses appear where lords tolerate them (or can milk them).

  • “Government.” None—only feudal warlordism scaled to cosmic size. Each demon lord’s realm is a sovereign nightmare; borders are written in ichor and rewritten at swordpoint. Diplomacy is transactional and always a trap.

Getting there

  • Access points. Astral color pools (purple); Styx/ River of Blood currents and cataracts; Blood Rift (Great Wheel/World Tree eras); Elemental Chaos routes; spider-ways through the Demonweb. Some lower layers have one-way throats or reverse waterfalls feeding the Styx.

  • Planar traits. Gravity, time, and magic are usually “normal”—until they aren’t. Traits vary by layer, often abruptly. Expect sudden reversals of gravity, memory-eating mists, spell backlash, or zones where only necromancy hums.

  • Field rules of thumb. Never drink the water; never trust the ground; never march without a tether line; never speak your true name; and never make a deal you can’t burn your way out of. If you see a safe haven, assume it’s bait.

The Abyss and the dead

Petitioners & manes. In some spheres, chaotic evil souls fall directly into the Abyss and become manes—mindless, fetid larvae that demon lords treat as fodder, slaves, and snacks. In the Forgotten Realms, souls normally pass first to the Fugue Plane (Kelemvor’s sorting hall). Yet greedy demon lords raid the Fugue or, later, waylay souls moving through the Shadowfell (formed after the Spellplague reshaped the Plane of Shadow), stealing them into the Abyss to swell manes-herds and feed their layers.

Why layers hunger. A layer’s continued existence depends on sustenance—the metaphysical returns from fear, worship, sacrifice, and slaughter. That’s why lords wage resource wars over rivers of souls, city-hives, and crossroads where Astral color pools drip like sap.