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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 8551237" data-attributes="member: 92511">Well, the Abyss being the Abyss, and the home and, literal, manifestations of embodiments of Evil Chaos...the stage is rather wide open.You can literally get away with any genre you like...or find evocative of the themes you want to portray.If it's the classical kind of "punishment/violence/the strong lord over the weak with cruelty and unspoken (inhuman) horrors, you can do that for a layer or 500.Anything from Dark/Gothic to Gruesome (blood and gore) Horror genre.You can do the Apocalyptic, utterly desolate wasteland route and have whatever "Apocalyptic/Mad Max/sci-fi-esque" route.A layer could be the endless sea of a Waterworld, simultaneously freezing and boiling, filled with all manner of aquatic-demonic-horrors...most of which will inflict great pain and misery...but not kill you...not right away. Imagine drowning...endlessly...and not dying. Just the burning, wracking, unable to breathe...taking damage every round, ignoring when you get below zero. Your'e still alive. And still drowning. And still taking damage (just continue to subtract into negatives until you get out of this layer). Every round (beyond the characters normal capacity to hold their breath).A layer of "dark" where there is just no light. Light magic/effects will light up to a max of 5' bright/5' dim light for a single round and then is snuffed out by the pure darkness that is the...everything: matter, energy, air; of this plane. You can not see anything, anywhere. Just a universal black. No sound. No anything, but black. Nothing exists here. Nothing will attack you. Of course, the players and charcters have no way of knowing that...and may strike out at some perceived sound...which is either a figment of their mind or made by one of their own because they are all that is here. You have no way of knowing any direction in which to move. Passage of time. Nothing...just darkness. How long before your minds start coming up with sounds or "visions" that are not real? Delusional paranoia seems likely, or eventually inevitable. A layer that finds you in a "prison" of some kind having to fight other inmates and guards for your life, searching for the exit...of which there is none. The entire plane is this demonic prison. You can survive, maybe. But you'll never escape (unless you find or have means to move from one Abyssal layer to another)Remember that part of "chaos" and "evil" feeling isn't just splattering blood n' guts. There is hardship. There is starvation...dying of thirst (of being held on the cusp of such for what seems a minor eternity). Lonliness? Personal (to the characters, of course, no psych-warfare against known issues of the players!) Inadequacies? Belittling/mocking/bullying. There are all of the mental/emotional/psychological "mind---flocks" and abuse that can be inflicted on those traveling there..."You fly through the portal, barely escaping the demon horde fast on your heels. The swirling flash of magical light fills your eyes and mind and you feel an abrupt "landing" on your tush. When you open your eyes and senses clear, the party finds itself in a car (possibly squeezed in, depending on number of party members). Stopped dead in endless lanes of traffic as far as the eye can see in all directions. You are not moving. The air is thick with the unpleasant scent of exhaust and smog forms a low-hanging gruesome gaseous "ceiling" only about ten feet above the vehicles. The doors are locked and can not be opened. Not that you could get them open anyway as the vehicles to either side are so close as to prohibit their opening more than crack. You are not moving. It's sweltering hot. The windows don't open. The air conditioner doesn't work. Periodically there are the peelings of a loud obnoxious horn. Sometimes very faint and far off. Sometimes closer. Sometimes immediately next to you and blaringly loud and sudden. You are not moving. Just acres and acres of vehicles, random momentary lighting up of brake lights, but no movement. Other drivers stare blankly forward and don't acknowledge any attempts to engage them...You are not moving. " ...That's it. That's the entire plane. An infinite traffic jam. How about a frickin' breathtakingly beautiful fairytale land. The forests and rolling flower-filled hills. The pristine shining castle with pendants of white and gold. The kindest, most beautiful and helpful people. You can rest as long as you like. The water is clean and refreshing. The feasts-worth of food, that appear whenever you are slightly hungry, sublime...and each night, a marvelous gala with flowing wine and elegant dress...At the stroke of "midnight" the perfect, huge, silvery moon that floods the evening and night with nearly as much light as the day, turns a deep crimson. The hosts/residents suddenly have no eyes. Their mouths fill with shark-like rows of razor-sharp teeth. Everyone begins attacks, kills, and tears apart everyone else in the bloodiest goriest gruesome horror the PCs have ever seen... including coming after the PCs, of course. Fight you way through the night. When the sun rises, it's a pristine fairyland again. Everyone is alive. Everyone is as they appeared the day before, whole, alive, with eyes. No idea what the characters are talking about or find it all a very humorous tale...and then the silver moon rises...the gala is glorious, the music, the feast, the libations...and the moon goes red at midnight... That is the entirety of the layer. The seasons do not advance. Time, really, does not pass. Just perfect idyllic setting, day, night, massacre, and all's well and fine the morning after. It's the frickin' Abyss. There are (depending on your preferred cosmology) 666 up to infinitiy layers to create and choose from. You can have any genre you want.</blockquote>

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