Edge of Sanity
Oh blimey cutter, the Edge of Sanity, now there’s a burg you won’t find in your typical travel brochure. Imagine a place where the twisted and the insane gather to witness the depths of human cruelty. Cross the Bleakers‘ Madhouse with a bare-knuckle fight club, and you’ll get the picture. It’s a real end of the line for the damned and depraved, you know?
At the helm of this calamity is the most barmy aasimar you ever did see, a basher who takes great delight in watchin’ folks brawl with their bare fists till they’re nothin’ but a bloody pulp. He calls himself Vendetto (planar aasimar / Doomguard [he/him] / CE) but I doubt that’s his original name. With each cycle, he mutates into somethin’ more grotesque, losin’ bits of his marbles along the way, diving deeper into the well of depravity, like a dandy from a posh Lady’s Ward family fallin’ in slow motion into the seedy underbelly of the Hive.
Now, as for the locals, they’re a sad lot, wayward petitioners led astray from the holy paths of Mount Celestia by them cunning tanar’ri, creatures with hearts blacker than coal. These poor sods were gathered by a cutter named From the Jaws of Victory (marilith tanar’ri [she/her] / CE), a being as wicked as they come, driven by a desire to showcase the weakness of good, the kind of individual who’d sell their own mother into slavery to make a point.
The burg itself is perched on the edge of a vast canyon, you know the sort that makes your head spin when you peer over the edge. There’s an eerie purple glow that barely illuminates the depths below. No one knows how deep it goes, it’s like lookin’ into the very maw of madness itself. Stare too long, and you’ll find yourself lost in a sea of insanity, one that drowns you with one form of madness after another, a never-ending cycle of torment that gnaws at your very soul.
And here’s the real kicker, mate. If you take the plunge, if you leap into that unknown abyss with reckless abandon, you ain’t meetin’ your maker, or taking a trip to another Abyssal layer. Oh no, it chucks you right back to the top, but with your noggin’ filled with so many forms of madness, it’s like a bad hangover after a night of heavy drinkin’, except a thousand times worse. You become a herald of chaos, a preacher of the great “truth” you’ve witnessed in the Edge, hell-bent on draggin’ others into the mire of madness with you.
“I have seen a great truth in the Edge of Sanity. I must show others too… by throwing them in”
— Crazed berk raving in the streets of the burg
It’s a grim place, where sanity is a rarity and madness reigns supreme. If you ever find yourself wanderin’ close to the Edge of Sanity, do yourself a favour and steer clear, unless you fancy losin’ your mind and gainin’ a new perspective on the darkest corners of the psyche. It’s a place for those with a penchant for the macabre and a desire to dance on the edge of the Abyss. Edge of Sanity ain’t no place for a right-minded cutter, no, it’s a hellish playground for the unhinged, a place where the curtain between reality and nightmare is as thin as a razor’s edge.
Source: Alex Roberts & Jon Winter-Holt
