Chiryn’s Keep
Chiryn’s Keep, what a place that is! It’s grand dominion that’s stood the test of time, moulded over a millennium by the succubus Chiryn herself. Quite the green thumb, that one, turning the desolate lands into her own peculiar garden of grotesque delights, starkly contrasting the red cracked lands of the Abyss with a surrounding sprawl of rolling hills painted in hues of scarlet sands.
Now, I ain’t talkin’ about a Prime garden with roses and sunflowers, oh no. This place’s got a real Abyssal twist to it. We’re speakin’ of dead prime trees, entwined with viper trees and a smatterin’ of plants that are nothin’ short of nightmares come alive – Vampire Roses and Violets of Pain that could tell tales of torment for days. All amidst poisonous lakes, one spewing acid and the other pure mercury, this realm is both a danger and a delight, the latter for those with particular tastes, mind.
It’s surrounded by craters that hide not just noxious pools but gateways to other layers and realms, places a savvy planewalker might find useful or terrifying, dependin’ on their mood. And the creatures, berk, are right out of a twisted tale – eyewings fluttering about and serpents that call the hostile lakes their home.
But it’s the portals that really bring in the visitors. Chiryn’s Keep is like an Abyssal crossroads, surrounded by three main portals serving as the anchor points. The newest one, a real masterpiece of diplomacy brokered with the movers and shakers in Sigil, leads straight to a tavern in the City of Doors. Just find yourself a dead eyewing and you’re in the keg room of the Tenth Pit in no time. Handy, ain’t it?
Then there’s the busy portal, a pathway to Plague-Mort, wide enough to fit a small platoon of tanar’ri or a couple of merchant wagons, with liquid mercury as the key – a detail that surely gives the place its own charm, if you’re into that sort of thing.
But let’s not forget the least used one, a flaming loop of lava that’s a gateway to Baator’s first layer. That one came about through a bit of a fiery accident a hundred years back, and it’s kept under lock and key, mostly. Even Chiryn herself doesn’t bother much with it, handin’ control to someone she calls “lord”. No one’s figured out the key to that one yet, a mystery that keeps the place tinglin’ with potential.
Now, what most don’t know is that there’s a web of secret portals peppered about, a network known only to the select few in the Original Sins Cartel. Nine are tucked away near the acid lake, and the last one, well, that’s Chiryn’s little secret, hidden somewhere in her towering abode.
Sources: Well of Worlds [2e] p41 (adventure), Ken Lipka, Jon Winter-Holt, mimir.net
