Citadel Maw
Location: Abyss / Layer 4—Grand Abyss / Hag’s Rock, Lower Vorago
The Citadel Maw is a grotesque structure that overlooks the Abyssl gate to the layer of Twelvetrees. This fortress has been constructed from sorcery-shaped demonic flesh, by Doomguard necromancer-architects, showing off their characteristic fascination with entropy and decay.
The Citadel Maw is a dark fortress built inside a massive, pulsating orifice in the cliff face of the Grand Abyss. Its walls writhe and undulate, giving the unsettling impression that the fortress about to be swallowed. Chant goes the Doomguard are able to close the mouth if they come under attack, shielding and hiding the fortress completely. The Sinkers use Citadel Maw as a strategic outpost to monitor and control access to the Agonising Doorway, the nearby gate to Twelvetrees. The faction has philosophical and strategic interests in this Abyssal layer—its links to the Blood War, the Chaos Shipyards and exploiting the necromantic energies that concentrate there. The fortress also serves as a base for Doomguard sages who study ways to accelerate the processes of decay and entropy in the Abyss.
Visitors aren’t particularly common—or indeed welcome—here but Citadel Maw is the last stop before Twelvetrees and if you can impress, or infiltrate, the Sinkers here then you might be able to learn some darks about their necromancy research, or make use of the Agonising Doorway to get into Twelvetrees without being spotted by spies on Pazunia.
At the back of the maw there is an organic passage; a digestive tube, if you like. The mucus-covered walls make the downward-sloping tunnel slippery and corrosive. Sinkers use the tunnel for waste disposal, and the chant goes that nobody is really sure where it leads… Perhaps to some kind of digestive chamber of the layer itself, or perhaps there’s a gate down there to one of the more unspeakable layers of the Abyss like the Midden of Degrazazt (layer 120) or the Offalmound of Moander (layer 223). Bon voyage to anyone with a strong enough stomach—and acid resistance—to investigate!
Tips for Planewalkers: Watch out for the waves of pain and suffering that radiate from the Agonising Doorway—on a bad day they can reach as far as Citadel Maw and prove problematic for cutters of a good persuasion. It can also be risky to wander the corridors of the citadel on those days especially as the hungry fortress has a habit of consuming the occasional berk.
Source: Jon Winter-Holt and Layers of the Abyss — material adapted from the excellent netbook authored by Eli Atkinson, Will Church, Serge W. Desir Jr., Marley Sage Gable, John Harris, Sam Peer, Adam Silva-Miramon, Sean Surface
