Citadel Insectivoræ
Location: Abyss / Grand Abyss / Lower Vorago [Wandering]
Now, cutter, let me spin you the dark ‘bout Citadel Insectivoræ, surely one of the Doomguard’s barmiest creations in the Grand Abyss. Picture this: an undead crawling fortress made from the hollowed-out shell of a colossal abyssal beetle, its antennae twitching as it scuttles along the infinite cliffs. Yeah, you heard me right—this citadel ain’t perched or anchored; it moves, creeping like some cursed predator through the Vorago’s endless shadows.
The place reeks of entropy—literally. The shell’s surface is cracked and oozing with ichor, acidic Abyssal bile that drips into the chasm below. The Doomguard’ve rigged the beast with all manner of foul magicks and devices to keep it alive—or undead, more like. They’ve got a helm buried deep in its thorax, some kind of life-draining contraption powered by the screams of bound souls. It’s said a Doomlord named Krytharion the Husk (planar tiefling sorceror [he/him] / Doomguard / CE)—a half-barmy tiefling with a face like melted wax—sits at its core, steering the beast with a will as sharp as a chiv.
The Doomguard didn’t just slap this monstrosity together on a whim. Word is they’re on a dark ride, searching for something that’s fallen deep into the Grand Abyss. Some say they’re hunting an ancient obyrith relic, a shard of pure entropy left behind when Demogorgon and Obox-Ob tore open this cursed rift. Others reckon they’re mapping hidden gates to layers so vile even the tanar’ri don’t tread there. Whatever they’re after, it surely ain’t good news for the rest of the multiverse.
Now, the Citadel Insectivoræ doesn’t just crawl around aimlessly. It feeds. As they tend to do, the Sinkers’ve turned it into a unliving weapon, sending it to devour entire ledges where tanar’ri battalions have dug in fortifications. The beetle’s mandibles crunch through stone and flesh alike, leaving ruin in its wake. Makes you wonder if their real goal isn’t just to find something—but also to unmake everything else along the way?
I’m not too proud to say that the interior of Citadel Insectivoræ still gives me nightmares. The walls are chitinous and slick, pulsing as if the thing still remembers being alive. The air is thick with decay and buzzing with swarms of Abyssal insects that nest in its rotten crevices. The Doomguard’ve carved out chambers within the shell—war rooms, laboratories for entropic experiments, and cells for the prisoners they use as fuel for their twisted magicks.
The most unsettling part is the way the whole citadel flexes beneath your feet. You can feel it crawling along the cliffs, hear its claws against the rock with a that high pitched scrape that goes right through you. Every so often, the citadel shudders violently as if reacting to some unseen force—or feeding on something unfortunate enough to cross its path.
The key to controlling this monstrosity lies in that psionic helm I mentioned earlier. Krytharion sits at its heart like some insect puppeteer, his mind fused with the beetle’s remnants. But here’s the dark of it: controlling something so vast and chaotic takes more than just willpower—it takes sacrifice. The Doomguard feed souls into the helm to keep it running, their screams echoing through the citadel as they are unmade.
Despite this, I don’t think Krytharion’s got full control. Sometimes the beetle bucks, perhaps driven by whatever vestiges of instinct or rage still linger in its husk. When that happens, sections of the citadel collapse, spewing out swarms of ravenous insects that even the Doomguard can’t tame. For the Sinkers, it’s business as usual, the chaos is part of the charm, apparently.
So why did I risk getting scragged by the Sinkers in this crawling horror, and why am I telling you about it? Well cutter, I was trying to learn the dark of what they’re looking for. No, I’m not going to say who sent me. But you should be aware that if the Sinkers manage to get their paws on an obyrith shard then it’s bad news for all of us. In the meantime, I reckon they’ve catalogued nearly as many gates in the Lower Vorago as those other planewalking bloods, the Inquisition of Interdiction.
Now I also reckon that Krytharion himself is vulnerable—his mind has been stretched thin by his bond with the beetle. A clever cutter might try to wrest control of Citadel Insectivoræ for themselves… though what they’d do with it is another matter entirely. I know for a fact that the tanar’ri would promise to pay a saboteur of this mobile menace handsomely. Whether they would actually come up with the jink afterwards, well, that’s another story of course.
Sources: Jon Winter-Holt, Ripvanwormer