Weather of the Grand Abyss
You might think, in a place that’s just two endless walls of rock staring each other down across a yawning chasm, that weather wouldn’t be a concern. And you’d be wrong, berk! The Grand Abyss makes its own weather, none of it friendly. It’s ain’t clouds and drizzle you’ll be dealing with, but a whole host of Abyss-twisted phenomena that’ll have you begging for a nice thunderstorm back on the Prime. The chant is that much of this “weather” is less nature’s doing and more the side effects of the Abyssal mining, constant warfare, oh and the fact that this plane just hates you. Yes, you in particular.
The Red Mists
The Breath of the Blood Rift
In places the Grand Abyss is cloaked in a perpetual red haze rising from the Blood River far below. This mist clings to the walls, seeping into every crevice, and it’s a touch hallucinogenic. You breathe it in too long, and you start hearing voices muttering in between your breaths. Or perhaps it’s you muttering. In any case, what’s being said is always about you and is never flattering.
Worse still, the mist makes the cliffs slick. Climbing’s already something of a death wish, but now you’re grappling with blood-greased stone. I’ve seen poor sods clinging to ropes when the mist rolls in, only for their grip to slip as if they’d just been doused in oil. Off they went, tumbling end over end into the chasm below. Did they land? Did they fall forever? No one knows.
Shardfalls
Razor Rain
“Weather from above” takes on a whole new meaning here. Mining crews hammer away at the cliff faces with enchanted pickaxes, and of course the debris ends up showering downwards. Every so often, a particularly productive shift higher up on Precipit or Hag’s Rock dislodges an entire ledge of razor-sharp rock. The result? Shardfalls—cascades of spinning, shattered stone that scream down like a banshee choir.
These aren’t your garden-variety rocks neither. The debris here is sharp as a barber’s razor. Some say they’re coated with a toxin that seeps in from the Blood Rift mist — I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ve seen a shard take off a berk’s arm and leave the stump festering with an oozing black rot.
Here’s a tip, cutter: If you hear a distant roar, hug the wall or duck into the nearest crevice. If there ain’t one nearby, then lie flat and hope it’s just rubble. If it’s shardfall, you’ll know soon enough—you’ll feel the rush of wind first and then the stinging slice of sharps. Good luck—you’ll need it.
The Wailing Winds
The Dirge of the Abyss
The worst kind of wind in the Grand Abyss isn’t made of air. It’s screams. The Wailing Winds howl through cracks in the rock face, some natural, some carved by demons, and some—well, nobody’s sure who made those holes. The sound they make ranges from eerie whistling to full-on howling choruses that’ll even spook a tanar’ri..
Some of the screams belong to the petitioners chained into oubliettes along the walls (a cruel tanar’ri sport, that), but some voices come from further away. Sometimes you might even hear voices you recognise—old lovers, dead rivals, or even your own words shouting back at you from some impossible distance. Don’t answer back, berk. The Guvners say it’s just air pressure creating patterns. The Doomguard say it’s echoes of the Abyss’s birth-screams. Me? I think the Abyss is talking to you.
A further hazard is what the winds carry. The gusts dislodge swarms of vargouilles, stir up cockatrice nests, and even blow in spores from Blood Rift rot-fungi. If you see brown, thread-like spores dancing in the air, run. They burrow into skin, sprouting blood-stained lichen right from your flesh. I knew a barmy who called it “the itch that never ends.” He wasn’t wrong.
The Rain of Teeth
Yes, you read that right. Teeth. They fall from above, sometimes as a light patter, sometimes in a hailstorm. Best guess is that it’s fallout from the Blood War battles—crushed demons, chewed-up larvae, and other such refuse spat out by the endless war. Sometimes, though, the teeth are too big for that explanation. Some are as big as a balor’s bicep, and no one wants to think too long on where those are coming from.
These teeth ain’t always bone either. Some are black as obsidian, some are metal, and once I saw a tooth the size of a boulder embedded in a ledge, blocking the way. Nobody wanted to go near it, except a clueless priest who thought it was a “sign.” Poor sod got snatched up later that night by a maw big enough to swallow him whole. Lesson learned: I guess it was a sign.
Geysers of Screaming Slime
Don’t ever think you’re safe just because you’re not climbing. The cliff faces themselves have weak spots where pressurised muck builds up in cysts beneath the surface. Every so often, something bursts, spewing fountains of caustic green slime mixed with tanar’ri bile. Some say it’s runoff from the Abyss itself; others blame the mining crews. Doesn’t really matter though—just make sure you avoid it.
This slime burns like acid, but it’s worse than that. It’s alive, or at least aware enough to want to crawl under your skin. I saw a berk get sprayed once, and within moments he was shrieking that his fingers were growing eyes. We tried to wash it off, but the stuff just laughed at us. By the end, the berk was all eyes and no fingers.
Final Words of Caution
The Grand Abyss doesn’t just have weather—the whole plane’s a tempest of suffering, war, and raw entropy. Every rock of the chasm’s cliffs echoes with chaos, every scream is carried on the wind, and every drop of mist or slime is another chance to meet your end. This ain’t like other layers where you can build shelter and wait it out. There’s no shelter in the Grand Abyss. So here’s my advice, berk: Keep moving. Don’t stand still unless you’ve got a death wish. Watch the skies for shardfalls, the air for spores, the cliffs for slime-blooms, and your own mind for the creeping sound of your dead mother’s voice. If you see teeth falling from the sky, well… duck. Or better yet, find a gate and leave.
Source: Jon Winter-Holt
