Pandemonium

Pandemonium, also known as the Windswept Depths of Pandemonium or the Howling Land, is a plane of chaos with just a tinge of evil. It is one of the Outer Planes and is between Limbo, a plane of pure chaos, and The Abyss, the home of demons. It is best known for its howling winds that can drive any mortal creature to insanity, it’s lack of any deities that watch over it and those who have been banished from everywhere else. The windswept tunnels are never-ending, the howling winds never ceasing, and is a largely barren plane; but despite all of its flaws, Pandemonium is home to hoards of treasure and powerful magical artifacts hidden throughout its domain.

Ecosystem

An Outsider’s Perspective First arriving on Pandemonium, and if you have no ability to see in the dark, you will only be greeted by the deafening howl of the wind. The wind instantly deafens you with no real permanent impact unless your ears stay unprotected to its fury from anywhere from an hour to a day. This wind rips away all sounds, pulling hard at your clothes and stripping you of any item not secured to your person. Staying in the wind for just a few hours is enough to make most people go insane, and as an outsider, everyone that lives here can easily be discerned as they have a variety of different madnesses to handle the howling wind.
Apart from the wind, the next issue facing visitors is the lack of light. Unlike most planes, Pandemonium has no natural light source, it is a plane in total darkness. Lighting torches, lanterns or fires is a huge problem as the wind immediately extinguishes them, forcing only the use of magical light through its thousands of miles of dark and twisting tunnels. The problem with having any type of light though is that the inhabitants of Pandemonium can easily spot you. With several tunnels being a few hundred miles wide, a single light source can draw a lot of attention.
The only reason why most adventurers travel to this desolate plane is that there are hoards of treasure hidden throughout its tunnels and guarded by ancients monsters. While most who travel here perish, enough leave these unending tunnels with powerful magic items and hoards of gold that many think the risk of madness and death is worth it. Hidden near the bottom of this plane are the lairs of monsters, dragons, demons and powerful undead who watch over their domains.
A Native’s Perspective Manual of the Planes, 1987 TSR Inc. Manual of the Planes, 1987 TSR Inc.
There are no true natives to this plane as all the inhabitants came after the plane was created, which no one is sure when that happened as even the creator of this plane is unknown. Those who live in Pandemonium often have little to no choice, either because they are in hiding from others or because they have been banished from their homes and everywhere else.
Life in the plane, depending on who you are, can be incredibly lonely. Those lost in the tunnels may never see another living being for as long as they live, the tunnels can be thousands of miles long and never bring a traveler close to any sort of civilization. Those lucky few who have stumbled upon civilizations or even other adventurers should always be on their guard, the winds of Pandemonium can make anyone become overcome with Wind Madness, a type of madness that never really leaves someone's mind even long after they leave Pandemonium.
The few cities that exist in Pandemonium are well fortified, though not well-defended. Each city has been forced to build large stone walls against the raiding parties of demons that come from The Abyss or the slaadi who journey from Limbo, though because Pandemonium is focused on chaos, there is rarely any real standing soldiers or guards to hold off such an invasion. Largely, citizens of these towns are forcibly constricted to fight off demon or slaadi assaults, though neither side in these struggles utilizes higher-minded strategies as that requires the ability to follow order and law.
Atmosphere The atmosphere of Pandemonium is very similar to that found on The Material Plane in that it is breathable and not dangerous to breathe in. On the other hand, it is incredibly dangerous to stay in the wind for any length of time as it can quickly make you permanently deaf and leave you with a lasting madness, that is unless it kills you first. The blaring tempest of wind comes and goes, though it is always there. Sometimes the wind picks up from a dead standstill to an intense galeforce wind that can pick up even massive creatures and slam them down a tunnel, pummeling their body into the stone walls until nothing remains of them except for dust.

Localized Phenomena

Chaos is a defining feature on Pandemonium, and its twisting tunnels do everything they can to leave travelers lost and confused. Because this plane is near The Abyss and the other evil planes of existence, there is a slight tinge of evil that permeates into the creatures that live here.
Spells Due to the intense wind, spells that require a target to hear you generally fail, like Power Word Kill. These spells must be screamed and even then unless the target is close enough, most editions agree at least 10 feet, the spell is wasted as the wind drowns out your voice. Another issue for many spellcasters is using material components, if you don’t have a strong enough grasp on your spell components, they can be ripped from your hands, wasting your spell before you can even cast it. Luckily, for some, wild magic is especially potent on this plane and wild magic users find this plane to empower them with energy and to increase the power of their spells.
Wind Madness
Wind Madness is the effect that Pandemonium has on every visitor to this plane, though some suffer from it more so than others. There are four stages to this madness: it starts with Frustration, then Despair, succumbing to Hysteria, and finally Resignation. When a creature first falls to the madness, they are Frustrated and become angry, snapping at their friends and allies. Next, they fall to Despair, realizing they’ll never leave the wind and Pandemonium and becoming lifeless. Once they are fully into Despair, something in them snaps and the Hysteria takes over. Hysteria causes travelers to hide from the wind, to rock back and forth in tears before finally arriving at Resignation. Resignation means that the traveler has accepted the wind and that something has changed forever in them, and with that comes a madness or a nervous tick that never leaves them. These nervous ticks may only appear while they are on Pandemonium, which means if you hire a guide in Sigil who appears to be perfectly normal, they may arrive in Pandemonium and immediately begin suffering from their madness. These madnesses help travelers cope with the winds, though it can be frightful for those who have never heard of it before.

Tourism

Travel to the Plane Traveling to the plane is as complicated as finding an appropriate portal, with The Abyss and Limbo featuring a number of portals to the windy tunnels of madness. Or, if someone has the ability to do so, they can use spells like Plane Shift or travel through the Astral Plane, looking for a magenta color pool to lead them to a random location inside of Pandemonium.
It is far harder to leave Pandemonium to arrive, and because this plane is focused on chaos, portals rarely stay for long. The winds are said to create and destroy the portals to this plane, and no one knows when they might blow through. One location in Pandemonium is said to take you anywhere in the planes, though you have to be able to scream louder than the howling winds and be able to scream where you wish to travel too. No one is sure if this is even possible as the cacophony of wind seems to grow louder and louder the more you scream to be heard.
Traversing the Plane
Journeying across the plane is fairly easy so long as you have some way to light your way or you have some sort of innate ability to see in the dark. The plane is highly restrictive and is made up of interconnected tunnels that allow you to journey from the top layer of the plane, Pandesmos, to the second-lowest layer, Phlegethon. These tunnels can range in size to something so small that a rat would have a hard time squeezing through to tunnels that are miles and miles wide, though most are typically twenty to thirty feet across.
Gravity is focused away from the center of the tunnel, this means that a traveler can walk along the walls, ceiling and floor with no difference, though the third layer of Pandemonium breaks this as Phlegethon has a set gravity and so is the only layer to feature stalagmites and stalagtites. One of the unique features for this type of gravity in Pandemonium is that most tunnels have rivers that can spiral all around the tunnel, going up the walls, on the ceiling and moving back to the floor. Occasionally, the river might break away from the floor and become perfectly suspended in the center of the tunnel, flowing down the center and hovering in space.
Rivers that flow in the center of the tunnel can be incredibly dangerous depending on which river you are following as the headwater for the River Styx begins from several rivers in these tunnels, and while the power of the River Styx is diluted in these small streams, drinking from these black, inky waters can still cause memory loss. Many travelers may not even realize that the river they are drinking from is causing their memory to be lost, as every time they drink from it they forget that they had drunk from the river. Over a long period, this can have the same effect as if they had fallen into the River Styx.

Type

Plane of Existence

Location under

Lower Planes