Hades
Known as the Gray Wastes of Hades or simply as the Three Glooms, this plane is a dismal location in the Outer Planes and is a land of evil solely. Chaos and law are in equal balance through this dismal wasteland, just as all color between white and black is grayed out in a bleaching effect. Those who make this plane their home are either stuck here, as the plane caused them to be too apathetic to care to leave, are the yugoloths who were created here, or a petitioner whose soul had no other Outer Plane to reside in.
The gray wastes are made up of three layers, commonly called the Three Glooms. These dull gray lands feature gray earth, gray skies, and withering gray plants. Even the residents are gray as all color is dulled away within a matter of days. The only light is the gray light of this plane that reveals the varying gray shades of this plane. There’s a reason why most travelers don’t want to visit Hades, it doesn’t have much to offer.
Ecosystem
An Outsider’s Perspective
Uncaring. Dismal. Unappealing. Detached. All these words sum up the experience of outsiders to this plane, though none sum it up as simply as calling the plane gray. The people of this plane are dull and lifeless, long given up their emotions and hope of something in life. There is nothing beyond the gray pallor of this plane for it sucks all life from the landscape and a creature. It’s a draining experience, not only for your hope and emotions but for the very colors that might adorn your clothes.
There isn’t much reason to visit this plane and very little reason to stay, but for those who spend too long on this plane, they lose the will to ever leave. Many who journey to this plane use one of the numerous portals to get exactly where they need to go, and do their best to leave as soon as possible. This plane is where the vast majority of the battles of the Blood War take place, and thus the top layer is especially dangerous for demons and Devils alike care little about your wants and will draft you into their ranks, or simply kill you where you stand.
A Native’s Perspective
While most who journey to this plane are expecting obscene acts and depravity, knowing full well that this plane is the sole focus of evil, this plane is far more insidious than that. Its inhabitants have the first-hand experience at the evil that exists on this plane. The first layer, known as Oinos, is a gray battlefield with dark gray stains of blood that flow into the River Styx, further clouding those waters.
cause they are its petitioners are grayish larvae and spirits that have been drained of all emotion and personality. They seek out visitors like moths to bright light, hoping for a desperate chance at possessing the creature and experiencing something. Anything. Just wanting to crave any type of emotion or feeling. Outsiders who make it to this plane, and aren’t able to escape it before giving in to the dismal fate of despair, become non-responsive the longer they stay in the glooms. Rarely speaking, simply staring ahead and unable to focus on the world around them, if they can make it off of Hades, not through any ability of their own, they might eventually get a spark of life back in them, but it’s always faint and they are prone to apathy.
The rest of the creatures on this plane fair slightly better than mortal beings. The yugoloths are from this plane, though many have moved to Gehenna, probably because after untold millennia the dismal gray was starting to get to them. The other fiends, demons and Devils, are unaffected by the gray atmosphere. Their ties to chaos and law are so strong that they can simply walk through the creeping gray mists, walk across the gray landscape, and still feel the same hatred burning in them for their enemy that they always feel. Which is a good thing, for some, because the top layer is constantly ringing with the muted and dulled sounds of claws, flesh, and the hopeless cries of anguish whenever the two armies clash.
A few mortal creatures can overpower the dismal dread of gloom, somehow finding a way to beat the very nature of this plane. Those creatures are often the leaders of small villages and towns across the Three Glooms, though their reigns are typically short unless they find some way of keeping their hope or desire alive. Eventually, the plane will win out and even the most stubborn being, like the Gods themselves, will succumb to gloom.
Atmosphere
Gray. Gray skies. Gray land. Gray trees. Gray everything. Whatever color might arrive in this plane is quickly dulled and muted, with even the brightest fabrics losing their color within days and becoming a dull gray color. Like hope, color fades from this plane replaced with the ever-pressing doldrum of life bereft of emotion, life, or hope. The atmosphere of this plane is breathable, the ground can be walked upon, and the sky flew through but travelers eventually realize - What’s the point? This atmosphere sucks the emotions, the drive, and the desire out of all but the fiends who seem unperturbed by it all. Even the Gods can find this plane to be too devoid of anything to find much reason to stay, and so few Gods make their realm in this plane.
Localized Phenomena
Diseases of Oinos
The top layer is known to be a layer of disease and plague. The inhabitants of the bottom two layers of the plane, despite their apathy, work hard to ensure that the Oinos diseases don’t travel down to them. The diseases are created by the Oinoloth who sits upon its throne, Siege Malicious, in the Khin-Oin, the Wasting Tower. The diseases created by the yugoloths can sweep across the top layer at just a thought, it’s deadliness and symptoms are as varied as the imagination of whoever controls the throne of Siege Malicious and gives them perfect control over it. At the very least, the controller of the diseases can only control what is on the top layer, any attempt at sweeping the disease down to the lower layers with the throne fails. If they want the lower levels infected, they have to usher in plague-ridden petitioners and travelers to those layers, but the Gods who control those layers don’t take kindly to it.
Tourism
Travel to the Plane
Traveling to this plane is quite easy, though it is highly recommended that you don’t. Portals can be found in the Astral Plane, with it's color pools taking on the color of rust, in Sigil, the Outlands in the gate-town of Hopeless, and in the neighboring planes of Carceri and Gehenna. The portals on Hades appear as large spinning coins of different colors, each color signifying what plane it is linked to. Copper coins lead to Gehenna, Silver to the Outlands, Gold for Carceri, and the incredibly rare Platinum coins lead to the Astral Plane. Many denizens, specifically demons, Devils, and yugoloths, build gray fortresses over the known portals, guarding them jealously.
Luckily for travelers wishing to avoid using the portal system, to avoid getting drafted by the various fiends of this plane, there are a few other ways of arriving on the plane. Of the four major planar routes, three of them pass through the Gray Wastes, they are the River Styx, the bottom slopes of Mount Olympus, and the tree roots of the Yggdrasil Tree. The only major planar route to not flow through Hades is the River Oceanus which spans the good-aligned planes and its waters are much too pure for Hades.
The River Styx cuts across the top layer, Oinos, and is used heavily by ferrymen carrying large amounts of fiendish troops from The Abyss and the Nine Hells. The base of Mount Olympus bypasses the first layer and appears on the third layer, known as Pluton, and stretches just to the outside of the greek underworld ruled by Hades. Yggdrasil’s roots are on the second layer, known as Niflheim, where a great wingless dragon, Nidhogg, chews and gnaws at the roots. One day Nidhogg will chew through all of the roots of Yggdrasil, and destroy the tree.
Traversing the Plane
Traversing the plane is rather difficult for newcomers as they are often focused on going to a specific location and then leaving Hades as soon as possible. Unfortunately for them, Hades acts like the opposite of most other planes. For other planes, you simply must focus on your destination and begin walking and the distance between you and there seems to melt away and you arrive quite quickly, especially for being infinite sized planes. On Hades, if you have a destination in mind, the miles drag and progress is slowed. Only those who wander with no destination, no care of where they go, can make quick progress in arriving at a destination.
For outsiders, the last thing they want to do is give up the hope of arriving at their destination, but the sooner they surrender to the plane, the faster they arrive at their destination. This has the unfortunate consequence of when they do arrive there, they may not care anymore about their destination. They may not care about anything and simply just sit down in the dirt and just… despair.
Dotting the layer of Oinos are hundreds of roads, except they all just end after a mile or so. Whoever decided to try and connect the villages, cities, fortresses, and other locations in this plane just gave up. Travelers of this plane simply wander, some wonder the point in wandering, but still, they trudge on. It's even impossible to simply teleport around the plane unless one of the Gods here allows it to happen, the plane doesn’t want anyone getting by without first suffering from the gloom.
To reach the lower layers, or Glooms, of this plane, there are very specific locations where you can do so. Unfortunately, most of them are guarded by the gods who control those layers. The conduit from Oinos to Niflheim appears close enough to the feast halls for Hel, a Norse power over death, while between Niflheim and Pluton are the beaten brass gates to Hades’ domain with its guardian, a three-headed hound known as Cerberus, who attacks any who make it past the gates.
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