*INTERDICTED*
by Decree of the Fraternity of Order
Skindjur
Abyss — Layer the Eighth
Welcome, cutter, to Skindjur, the eighth layer of the Abyss, a plane that’s sharper than a razor and more uncaring than a Taker. Called the Skin-Shedder by planewalkers, this slice o’ the multiverse is no jaunt for the faint-hearted—or the soft-skinned.
The Nature of Evil: When you sense imperfection, cut it away and get on with your life. Do not dwell on sentiment; a slice and it’s gone, a chop and you’re free. If you can carve flesh faster than it can rot, you’ll beat it.
The Sights and Sounds: The landscape glitters with cruel beauty—shards of broken glass catch what little light pierces the iron skies, casting rainbows that flicker and die. A truly angry layer, Skin-Shedder is razor-sharp in all ways. Skindjur is a vast plain of broken glass and jagged crystal, glittering like a miser’s hoard under an iron-grey sky. Spines of twisted metal thrust upwards like the bones of some long-dead beast, their edges keen enough to split a hair. The ground beneath your boots crunches and cuts with every step, making short work of even tough shoes. You’ll want magical boots at the least, berk.
The air is alive with a cacophony of sharpness—the whistle of wind, the crackle-boom of lightning, and the distant groan of tortured metal shifting under unseen forces. Planequakes ripple through the land like a slaad’s belch, shattering crystal formations and sending shards flying. The weather only makes this worse: Stinging salty rains lash down in sheets, carried by howling winds that could moonlight as banshees. Lightning forks across the sky as endless storms roll across the plane, illuminating the desolation in stark flashes and filling the air with the pungent burnt scent of ozone whenever a bolt lands nearby. At least it masks the underlying scent of rust and blood, cutter. There’s no respite here—just sharpness and pain.
While the tanar’ri locals aren’t harmed by the terrible weather, the storms do rather mess up carefully coiffured scalps and the razor rain can shred delicate skin-gowns. Therefore much of the layer is riddled with underground tunnels and plazas which connect the Needle Towers across the landscape. It’s only the hoi polloi who have to trudge through the wild outdoors.
Safely cocooned in their underground lairs, the high-ups of the layer indulge in their grotesque passions—debauched parties, torture and surgery,
Surviving Skindjur
- Physical Hazards: Every inch of this plane is designed to slice you apart—whether it’s the razor-sharp terrain, the salt-laden storms that strip flesh from bone, or the surgery-obsessed denizens. Out in the wilds you’ll need to be constantly vigilant for limb-threatening crystal shards or vorpal hail.
- Mental Corruption: More insidious still, is that the layer works on a traveller’s mind as much as their body. Day by day, the evil of the plane unleashes a psychic barrage on a cutter’s mind, which erodes any vestiges of goodness or sentimentality within them, leaving only cold pragmatism—or amoral barminess. The Inquisitors of Interdiction have forbidden members of the Fraternity of Order from venturing here due to its corrupting influence. [In game terms, each full day spent on the plane requires a Paralysis/Wisdom/Will saving throw, where failure results in the victim’s alignment being shifted one stage closer to chaotic evil—or forcing a PC to change edicts and anathema to resemble the uncaring and perfectionist philosophy of the plane. This change is a curse that can potentially be reversed magically once off the plane… assuming the individual wants to do that…]
The Pursuit of Perfection—Through Flensing
The philosophy of Skindjur consists of a twisted trifecta: the pursuit of flawlessness, paired with ruthless pragmatism and a complete lack of compassion. This isn’t a place for sentiment or softness; it’s about carving away waste, fat and impurities to reveal something sharper, and altogether more aesthetic. Sure, decay and entropy is inevitable, but if you can cut it away fast enough, you can stay one step ahead.
Here, the evil of the Abyss takes on an air of grotesque refinement. The denizens of Skindjur—tanar’ri bone sculptors and flesh artisans—are perfectionists who tolerate no flaws. They’re surgeons first and fiends second, and flense themselves and others in pursuit of their twisted idea of perfection. Marilith with surgically altered cheekbones that could cut glass, incubus with body enhancements, or vrocks with feathers plucked and scarified tattoos all over their bodies—nothing is too extreme for Skindjurians. It’s not just physical modifications either, the high and mighty of the layer adorn themselves in garments made from flayed skin and jewellery crafted from bone and woven from sinew. Their art is an altogether macabre spectacle of beauty and agony.
The Lord of Skindjur
Volisupula, the Flensed Marquess (planar tanar’ri lord of ostentatious finery / CE) rules this jagged wasteland with a cruel elegance befitting his title. The tanar’ri lord dedicated to ostentatious ceremony and finery, he cuts a towering figure of angular limbs and perfectly sculpted muscles, all draped in elegant robes stitched from flayed skin. His flesh is a patchwork quilt of scars and exposed muscle—a twisted take on the saying that beauty lies beneath the skin.
Volisupula believes that sentiment is weakness and decay is inevitable—and true freedom lies in cutting it all away. To him, the body is a canvas which needs to be continually improved. His court is a grotesque parody of mortal nobility: courtiers flense themselves in elaborate rituals to prove their devotion to his ideals, each one trying to earn his favour by outdoing their rivals with more extreme surgeries. More on this cutter (pun intended) here.
A Final Warning: If you’re thinking about visiting Skindjur for its “natural beauty,” think twice unless you’ve got magical armour thicker than a pit fiend’s hide—and even then, watch your mind doesn’t get flensed along with your flesh. This ain’t no place for softies or sentimental sods; here, survival means cutting away what holds you back—literally.
So gird your loins (and maybe moisturise) before stepping into this razor-sharp plane. And remember: when decay sets in… chop it away!
Locations in Skindjur
(A work in progress…)
- Beauty is Not Skin Deep‡
- Cauterising Plain, the ‡
- Citadel Excorius‡ (palace of Volisupula)
- Decorticatopolis‡
- Flenching Forest‡ —[variant of “flense,” sometimes used metaphorically to describe emotional or psychological stripping away]
- Lacerate‡
- Needles, the‡
- Pare‡
- Razor’s Edge‡ — Burg with grotesque sculptures of flensed flesh and bone—monuments to Skindjur’s philosophy of cutting away weakness
- River of Tears, the‡
- Scalp‡
- Sharp Tongue‡ (site)
- Tannery, the‡
- Under the Knife‡
- Whetstone‡
Movers and Shakers
- Volisupula, the Flensed Marquess (planar tanar’ri lord of ostentatious finery / CE)
Bestiary of Skindjur
- Bebilith
- Fleshwarp [PF1]
- Gadraco [MM5]
- Hundun [PF1 Bestiary 5 p144]
- Nashrou [MM 4 p44]
- Tanar’ri, Babau [PSMC p95; [PF1] Bestiary 1 p57]
- Tanar’ri, Deathdrinker [MM4 p40]
- Tanar’ri, Kastighur [MM4 p42]
- Turagathshnee [Dragon Magazine]
Canonical References
- Fiendish Codex 1 [3e] p156; mention of Volisupula as ruler
- Planes of Chaos [2e] Chaos Adventures p6-7; a short adventure where the objective is to capture Volisupula’s stronghold—no significant details on its are given however
Source: Jon Winter-Holt. Only the vaguest of information is available in the canon—the interdicted nature of the layer, the corrupting effect and Volisupula being the leader—all the rest is speculation and homebrew…[‡] Gruesome factoid: Historically, “flensing” refers to the process of removing blubber or skin from whales, a critical step in whaling practices for extracting whale oil.