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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 8232213" data-attributes="member: 20323">My players will be venturing through a desert soon-ish (early this summer) which is plagued by Abyssal breaches.What would an abyssal breach look like? And how would you model it in the game?[HR][/HR]AFAIK, there is no "correct and official" answer here, so my question is coming from a spirit of creativity, and I'm wondering how you would imagine it. My rough draft take is a blend of borrowing Dragon Age: Inquisition's fade rifts (where once you start the closing process, it takes a minute and/or killing waves of demons) & a custom write up like the supernatural regions in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. But I'm excited to break outside the usual tropes my mind gravitates toward.[HR][/HR]Surveying the Books: The 5e Monster Manual makes brief mention of a phenomenon called "abyssal breaches", but AFAICT there are no other mentions of such a thing in D&D 5e. The idea seems to be more than just demons controlling existing portals. It's evocative of a planar bleeding effect where one plane bleeds into another, like what the 3e Manual of the Planes describes as planar anomalies such as outpocketing, nested pockets, and minor/major planar bleed.Relevant excerpts:[EXCERPT]Abyssal Invasions. Wherever they wander across the Abyss, demons search for portals to the other planes. They crave the chance to slip free of their native realm and spread their dark influence across the multiverse, undoing the works of the gods, tearing down civilizations, and reducing the cosmos to despair and ruin. Some of the darkest legends of the mortal realm are built around the destruction wrought by demons set loose in the world. As such, even nations embroiled in bitter conflict will set their differences aside to help contain an outbreak of demons, or to seal off abyssal breaches before these fiends can break free.[/EXCERPT][EXCERPT]Signs of Corruption. Demons carry the stain of abyssal corruption with them, and their mere presence changes the world for the worse. Plants wither and die in areas where abyssal breaches and demons appear. Animals shun the sites where a demon has made a kill. The site of a demonic infestation might be fouled by a stench that never abates, by areas of bitter cold or burning heat, or by permanent shadows that mark the places where these fiends lingered.[/EXCERPT][HR][/HR]Campaign Context: The campaign is set in Fantasy Ancient Egypt, with the world under threat of being dragged into the 48th layer of the Abyss (alternately described as a hellish desert known as the Nerebdian Vast and as Skeliac the Ocean of Tears) by Graz'zt, Demon Lord of Indulgence. However, in the background of this growing chaos, other demon lords have a less significant presence including Baphomet, Yeenoghu, and Pazuzu.The Abyssal breaches may be tied to specific quests or they may be encountered as a random encounter. The intent is that they can be sealed, albeit it won't be easy to do so, and otherwise interacted with. Demons can crawl through, but the breach probably cannot be used as a portal for those on the Material Plane side - they're more of a one-way deal at best.</blockquote>

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