Nether

[ Nether ] [ The Perishing | Locations | Powers | Bestiary ]

Nether

The Inevitable End, Demise, the Plane of Coming Death. A planelette of the Splinterlands, lying ethically between the Outlands and the Gray Waste

Theme: Ruin, Abandonment, Sadness, Decay, Anxiety

Sample Portal Keys: A mud cake; bone dust; a forgotten power’s holy symbol

In the Great Wheel cosmology, Nether is located in a hidden-away area between the sixteen Outer Planes of the Great Ring proper and the Outlands. Nether itself is said to be located between the Gray Waste and the Outlands, in a region some planewalkers call the Splinterlands. The neutrality of the Outlands influences everything here, meaning that unless provoked the powers and even the local fiends tend not to be too aggressive.

The frightening plane of Nether is a depressing place for sure. This is a plane which embodies death—it’s not always evil, but it’s definitely not good. Nether represents the end that all things will inevitably meet, and when in Nether, all beings—whether they are powers or mortals—are painfully aware of their eventual deaths. Few powers have set up kip in Nether, perhaps because of a feature of the plane called the Perishing.

What might be surprising is that Nether does have a sun, but it just never gets high enough in the sky to warm the plane, and it’s too low to provide much light. The sun rotates around the plane clockwise and makes a full cycle every 30 hours. The hours of daylight are short, and the even peak of the day is called Twilight. At night there’s no light at all as the febrile sun dips below the horizon. The sky here is perpetually filled with gray clouds during the day, and the rain is frequent. Planewalkers should not that this water is not drinkable without magical purification. The clouds emanate from the Land of Eternal Rain, the home of Tlālōc. The further a cutter travels away from this realm, the drier the plane becomes. While this means less mud to worry about, unfortunately it is replaced instead with patches of cloying quicksand, which can drag a cutter down to their doom with frightening speed.

At night, the clouds all clear away, revealing—absolutely nothing. There are no stars, just an endless empty void of night. It’s a chilling sight. The extreme darkness also makes travel at night far more hazardous. Planewalkers are advised to find the nearest patch of dry ground and set up camp before the darkness descends. And to try their best to ignore the unexplained sounds they might hear coming from the darkness…

The Flora: Nether itself is an endless plain of mud, in all directions as far as a berk can see. There are hillocks of dead grass, which often sink under the mire when a berk puts their weight on them. There are mangrove trees sticking out of the swamp, but they’re mostly all dead too. There are some stunted trees and bushes on slightly higher ground, but they are made from shadows rather than plants, almost like they are more the memory of trees than anything actually alive. It’s impossible to keep anything clean here, the mud splatters and cakes everything. The place is also bitterly cold. On the plus side, that means you can usually walk over the mud, since it’s often half-frozen.

The Fauna: There are few creatures who tolerate the miserable mire of Nether. Of the few native creatures that can be found here, the phoo are birds that fill a niche similar to vultures, picking clean any carcass they can find. The don-don are creatures that look like rhinoceros the size of large dogs. While some enterprising cutters have tried, taming a don-don has so far proved impossible since they are easily scared. There’s a reason a group of them is called a stampede. Finally, the zolten, is a long red eel-like fish that’s said to be good for the stomach; one of the few edible things you’ll be able to find in this miserable place.

Getting There

It’s not easy to find Nether, and it’s also not easy to see why anyone would want to. With the best-known route—and that’s not saying much—a cutter must first brave travel through Semuanya’s Bog, then find the right pool of quicksand, and then be brave enough to throw themselves into it. Assuming they picked the correct mudpit, and actually survived, they’ll find themselves in a depressing little burg called Last Chance, significantly muddier than before and with sand in all the wrong places. Last Chance is so-named to warn cutters of the dangers the plane beyond the burg’s crumbling walls.

The Gods’ Graveyard

The most infamous site on the plane, the Gods’ Graveyard is simultaneously the most dangerous part of Nether, and also the most visited. Planewalkers, eh? It even has its own nascent sect, called the Umbral Gardners.

Environmental Effects

Fears, Enhanced. There’s something about being constantly reminded that you’re going to die one day that unnerves a blood, you know? Planewalkers who spend time in Nether tend to become edgy and anxious, jumping at shadows and spooking easily.

AD&D 2e Rules

Each day a planewalker spends here they must make a save versus paralysation suffer a -1 penalty to all attack rolls and saving throws because of uncanny fear created by the plane, for the rest of the day. A creature that is immune to fear is immune to the effect as well. A creature that spends at least 10 days without pause in Nether becomes paranoid, typically losing trust in their allies. To cure paranoia is the same as curing despair from the Gray Wastes.

D&D 5e Rules

Each day a planewalker spends here they must succeed on a DC 11 Wisdom saving throw or suffer a +1 penalty to saving throws against the Frightened condition. A creature that is immune to the Frightened condition is immune to the effect as well. A creature that spends at least 10 days without pause in Nether becomes paranoid, typically losing trust in their allies. To cure paranoia is the same as curing despair from the Gray Wastes.

PF2e Rules

Each day a planewalker spends here they must make a DC 15 Will saving throw.

Critical Success: Reduce Frightened condition by 1
Success: No effect
Failure: Increase Frightened condition by 1
Critical Failure: Increase Frightened condition by 2

The Perishing. A creature that tries to fight against the ruinous nature of Nether is in danger of the Perishing. Each time a creature goes against the nature of the plane—such as keeping restoring a comrade to life, attempting to remove fear, mending a broken item—they risk falling foul of this effect. The personality of a cutter whose soul has succumbed to the Perishing is utterly bleak, has no desire to take any action, and cares not for any ally or enemy it may encounter. Even petitioners lose interest in their patron powers. Chant goes that even powers are not immune to the effect of the Perishing either.

AD&D 2e Rules

The character much succeed on a saving throw versus death magic, and if they fail, they move one step closer to Perishing. Each time they go against the nature of the plane, they receive a cumulative -1 penalty to the saving throw. If the result of their roll is ever 0 or lower then the character immediately Perishes, dropping dead in the process. A creature that Perishes cannot be brought back to life as the exhaustion has seeped into their soul. To successfully bring back a creature requires the soul to be found, the casting of the restoration spell, and only then can the body be raised or resurrected.

D&D 5e Rules

The character much succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or they move one step closer to Perishing. Each time they go against the nature of the plane, increase the resulting saving throw DC by 1. If the DC ever reaches 20 then the creature Perishes, dropping dead in the process. A creature that Perishes cannot be resurrected as the exhaustion has seeped into their soul. To successfully resurrect a creature requires to find the soul and cast Greater Restoration as if to remove 6 levels of exhaustion, and only then can the body be resurrected.

PF2e Rules

The character must make a DC 15 Will saving throw. While characters remain on Nether, the Doomed condition does not decrease from resting.

Critical Success: Reduce the character’s Doomed condition by 1
Success: No effect
Failure: Increase Doomed condition by 1
Critical Failure: Increase Doomed condition by 2

Magical Conditions

As usual, a wise spellslinger will learn the ways that magic is changed on a new plane. Nether has a number of detrimental effects on magic, making things more dangerous. The first thing to note is that a spellslinger can’t make their allies exempt from the damage of an area effect spells using special abilities or metamagic—on Nether, everyone that is within reach of an area effect spell is at risk of taking damage from it.

Magic details

Conjuration. Conjured creatures have difficulty in reaching Nether. A spellslinger needs to pass a concentration check in order to successfully summon the creature they intended to call. If they fail this check, then a sahkil of an equivalent power level to the intended target answers the summons instead.

Divination. While divination cantrips function normally, any spell using a spell slot tends to have a additional unwanted effect. The spells function mostly as normal, until the spell has ended. At this point, the caster receives a powerful vision of their own death. It’s said that once a cutter has seen their inevitable end, it has been written into fate and is virtually impossible to change. To alter this future, the caster needs to learn all the circumstances of their own future demise: the location, the killer, the time, and the motivation for the kill. If the truth of all of these factors are learned before they can come to pass, the chant goes that this fate can be averted. However the next time the spellslinger uses a divination spell, a new vision of their own death is seen instead.

Enchantment. Spells that cure fright or instill courage do not function here. In Nether, fears must be faced, and bravery cannot be cheated.

Illusion. These spells always project the caster’s own greatest fear—and therefore illusion spells tend not to be used by a caster more than once.

Necromancy. A cutter might expect necromantic spells to bere strengthened in Nether, but the opposite is true. The plane seems to believe that once a berk has been put in the dead-book they should stay there. Healing spells only heal half as much damage as you might expect. But the most dangerous change is to spells like raise dead. If this sort of magic is used on Nether, the caster should be very careful. Unless the poor sod who was raised succeeds on a saving throw (Will/Wisdom save at the caster’s DC) then they are also hit by a geas spell which commands them to slay their would-be saviour.

Locations in Nether

• Gods’ Graveyard, the (site) ‡
  • Apotropaic Garden (site)
  • Baigu Cave (realm of Ma Yuan; deserted)
  • Godsmaw (site)
• Kur (shared realm of the Anunnaki) ‡
  • Arali (capital of Kur) ‡
    • Hanging Carriage (access to the Stalactite Palace)
    • Kur-Banûtu (gaol of the Underworld)
    • Stalactite Palace (ziggurat of Nergal)
  • Gates of the Dead (entrance to Kur) ‡
  • Irkalla (the City of Dead Gods) ‡
    • Ganzir (palace of Ereshkigal)
    • Grand Staircase (leading down to Arali)
  • Kutha (gate town to the Gray Waste) ‡
    • Crystalline Palace (house of Mammitum)
    • Palace of Reeds (house of Ningikuga)
    • Staircase to Kur (site)
  • Timri Eže (palace of Allatu) ‡
• Land of Eternal Rain (realm of Tlālōc) ‡
  • Grave of the Third Sun (site)
  • Huaxen, the Perishing City (realm town)
  • Tlālōcatepetl (site)
• Last Chance (gate town to the Outlands) ‡
• Tsardom of Silver (realm of Marena) ‡
  • The Palace of Silver Ice (site)
  • Novslav (realm town)
  • Starygorod (realm town)

Powers of Nether

• Anunnaki (the Underworld of the Mespotamian Pantheons) ‡
  • Allatu (power of destiny) ‡
  • Dumuzid (power of shepherds and agriculture)
  • Erra (power of drought, mayhem, pestilence and confusion) ‡
  • Ereshkigal (power of the dead, justicem the afterlife, eternity)
  • Geštinanna (power of prophetic dreams and language) ‡
  • Išḫara (power of oaths, love, water, and many things) ‡
  • Lugal-irra (guardian of the gates) ‡
  • Mammitum (power of ice, judging the dead) ‡
  • Meslamt-ea (guardian of the gates) ‡
  • Namtar (power of doom, disease)
  • Nergal (power of war, death, disease)
  • Neti (guardian of the gates) ‡
  • Ninazu (power of snakes, snake bites) ‡
  • Ningikuga (power of ireeds, medicine, care for petitioners) ‡
  • Nungal (power of prisons, underworld) ‡
  • Tadmuštum (proxy of Nergal) ‡
• Marena (Slavic power of beauty, death and winter) ‡
• Tlālōc (Aztec power of rain) ‡

Philosophies

• Umbral Gardners (sect of druids of the Circle of Shadow) ‡

Movers and Shakers

• Addan (planar half-elf fighter-cleric of Nergal [he/him] / N) — leader of Kutha
• Belet-Seri (planar yamaraj psychopomp [she/her] / N) —judge of ther Netherworld ‡
• Birtum (planar vincuvicar velstrac [he/him] / LE) — torturer of Kur ‡
• Cuotl the Herald (lizardfolk druid proxy of Tlālōc [he/him] / LE)
• Devthil Shadebringer (planar hobgoblin druid of the Circle of Shadow [he/him] / Umbral Gardners / NE)
• General Pholtik (planar tiefling champion of Nergal [he/him] / NE) — leader of Kutha’s Order of Demise
• Katurix (planar half-fey-human ranger [he/him] / Umbral Gardners / CE, formerly CN)
• Naram-Sin (human petitioner / Believers of the Source / NE) ‡
• Zeth (prime human wizard and former cleric of Arazni [she/her] / Bleak Cabal / CG)

The Deities of Demise

The few powers who’ve established realms on Nether have a theme in common—irrelevance. They’re all old powers with a following that has slowly dwindled, along with their influence. Once these cutters were feared, but now, they’re largely forgotten.

Marena, the power of beauty, death, and winter has a beautiful—if chilly—realm here called the Tsardom of Silver. Chant goes that she’s the reason why the plane of Nether is half-frozen. She was a victim of the Athar’s campaign to undermine the Slavic powers. The project turned out to be a surprisingly successful one, resulting in the mythology of powers like Marena becoming so confused and contradictory that she was almost erased from the cosmos entirely. Marena is currently trying to find new prime worlds, pantheons, and groups to enter in the hopes of making herself relevant again, but it’s apparently proving difficult. Her strange portfolio, and her frosty demeanour have made it hard for her to attract new worshippers.

Tlālōc has been luckier. He is the Aztec power of rain and moisture, as he has another realm on Ossa called Tlālōcan—where fellow water-power Chalchihuitlicue also resides. In Nether he resides in the Land of Eternal Rain, one of the few places in the plane that has edible vegetation.

According to the chant, the sun is never visible in the Land of Eternal Rain, because Tlālōc had to stop being the sun on his original prime. After his lover disappeared, he gave up being the in order sun to look for her, and because of this the world was almost destroyed. However, that wasn’t the reason he came to Nether; that came later. Invaders came to the land of his worshippers and tried to forcibly convert them. This resulted in a weakening of many of the powers of the Aztec pantheon, and the relocation Tlālōc to Nether.

Finally, the expansive real of Kur exists on the surface of the the marsh, as well as deep below the ground. It’s home to the Anunnaki, the Underworld Pantheon that is linked to all of the Mesopotamian Pantheons. Down here there are a dozen gods of death and demise, jealously guarding their petitioners. As the ancient pantheons continue to dwindle, however, the flow of souls has been slowing. If Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead, is concerned, she doesn’t show it.

The Petitioners

The poor sods who end up here as petitioners are mere ghostly reflections of whatever life they once had. Whatever they were buried or died with comes along with them to Nether in a spectral form. The fear from the plane has made countless petitioners paranoid, afraid of the Perishing, the lurking sahkil, and the fear of their power finally shuffling off into dead-book. They’ve spent both their beforelives and afterlives in worship of their deity—and not knowing what would happen if they disappear must be terrifying for them.

Because they’re such anxious sods, a petitioner from Nether is never surprised—they are conditioned to expect danger can come from anywhere, anyone, at any time. These poor berks have a hard time trusting anyone. They also have resistance to any damaging effects from the weather of the plane, and full immunity to acid and poison.

See also: A Day in the Death of an Anunnaki Petitioner

Bestiary of Nether

Coming soon…

Source: SGreen, Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: † from the Pathfinder setting; ‡ Homebrew. All of the Planes of Cordance and the concept of the Splinterlands are homebrew and non-canonical. Expanded from Greg Jensen’s original conception, more information on his Planes of Cordance can be found here.