The Abyss

The Abyss – Current Events, 1496 DR

In 1496 DR, @The Abyss churns with a new obsession—Eidolon Marrow. Unlike the refined precision of Hell’s Acherblight, Eidolon Marrow is unshaped, untamed power: calcified fragments torn from the spines of devoured celestials. When ground into powder and consumed, it floods the mind with visions of possible futures, granting the user an instinctive ability to react to threats or opportunities as if they’d already lived them. The effect lasts only minutes, but in the hands of a demon lord—or a particularly ambitious mortal—it can turn the tide of a battle or the terms of a betrayal instantly.

The spread of Eidolon Marrow began in Thanatos, @Orcus's domain, when a horde of his marilith generals mutinied, taking with them several bone-vaults meant for his personal rituals. Instead of hoarding their prize, they sold it freely to rival lords, cults, and mortal summoners. Now the Marrow is spilling across @The Abyss in rivers of war, traded between balors like coin, fought over in sieges that last hours before the battlefield changes completely. @Orcus has sworn to reclaim every shard, but Graz’zt and Demogorgon have both seen the potential of the chaos—it weakens @Orcus while strengthening everyone else.

In The Guttering Wastes, a layer so unstable it rebuilds itself every dawn, cultists have begun summoning entire pockets of @The Abyss directly into Faerûn’s wild places. These “Shattergrounds” look like normal terrain at first but are littered with bone-flowers—pale blooms made from the teeth of the slain—which release a marrow dust that infects dreams. Merchants in @Baldur's Gate and Calimport now whisper of “dream auctions” where nobles wake with coin in their hands and no memory of what they sold.

But Eidolon Marrow is not without cost. Those who use it too often develop Abyss-Gaze—their pupils fracture into spinning rings, and their voices begin to echo with the screams of every battle they’ve foreseen. In extreme cases, they become “Marrow Wraiths,” living hosts to the fragment of the celestial they consumed, torn between self-annihilation and unending hunger. Demon lords find this hilarious.

Rumors are already crossing the planes that Acherblight and Eidolon Marrow in the same possession can create a moment of perfect, law-bound chaos—a paradox so potent it could rewrite the rules of an entire contract, prophecy, or planar boundary. Neither the archdevils nor the demon lords admit to pursuing this union, but the sudden spike in assassinations, sabotage, and whispered alliances suggests otherwise. The Lower Planes are sharpening their knives, and somewhere in the middle of it, Faerûn is about to bleed.