Kur

Kur

Location: Planes of Cordance / Nether

Shared realm of the Anunnaki

Beneath the surface of Nether lies Kur, a series of tunnels that descend seemingly forever. To enter Kur a blood must first go to Kutha the Temple City of Nergal—it has the safest passage to the underground layer. Once a blood has passed through the burg, they’ll have to go down a long set of stairs carved from the rock and decorated with the bones of humanoids. The journey down this staircase takes so long that resting stops can be found along the path. 

At the bottom of the staircase is the first of seven gates—each is defended by a powerful fiend. The gates cannot be forced open; only the guards can open them. They’ll do this if a cutter uses the correct spell, brings a suitable garnish, or defeats the gate’s guardian in hand-to-hand combat—if defeated, the guardians surrender and step aside, for one does not simply kill the guardians of the Underworld.

The chief of the gatekeepers is Neti, a terrifying creature with the head of a lion, the feet of a bird and the hands of a man. The twins Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea are also gate guardians, while several others are silent and their names unknown. All the harder to use magic against them, presumably. The best advice for planewalkers is to try and enter peacefully, though it does require a blood to give up something from their possession—it can be anything, a piece of hair, a piece of jink, any item of value to the cutter may be acceptable.

CHARACTER: So you’re in Kur? Oh bad luck, cutter, I’ve been to less depressing funerals. First question I suppose, is why you’re here. I mean. Did you die? In which case you have my condolences—and my commiserations, because it’s gonna be a bleak afterlife for you, berk. What’s that, you’re hungry? I’m afraid all we have here is dust. Thirsty? Yeah, still just dust. I really hope your relatives send something down for you, otherwise it’s gonna be a very long eternity.

But even if you’re not dead—or at least you aren’t yet—then you’d still get my commiserations, because you’ve found yourself in one of the less appealing spots in the Lower Planes. And you’d better believe that takes some competition!

Map of Kur

DESCRIPTION: Kur is a massive underworld cave system that spider-webs out deep beneath the swamps of Nether, in a pit at one of the roots of the World Tree. It’s a sprawling shared realm of the Anunnaki—the Powers of the Dead of the Mesopotamian Pantheons. Yes, all of them. The Babylonian Igigi, Sumerian Dingir and even the Anatolian One Thousand Gods all share the same underworld, and the place is rife with powers of death from all walks of life. If you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor.

Kur is the Land of No Return, a divine realm with neither glitter or glam, no majesty, and certainly no mercy. It’s a labyrinth of frigid caverns and tunnels, all bedrock and dry dust. There’re no seams of gold, no feasts, no precious gems, and not even a pretty phosphorescent mushroom to light your way. Just the mournful echoes of souls trapped in the eternal shade, living a dry, dusty parody of life. Here all distinctions between the status a cutter might’ve had as a living mortal blur. Instead, the quality of your afterlife depends on how well your corpse gets treated back up in the world above. If your surviving relatives give you a proper burial, this means a somewhat less bleak existence in Kur. If your descendents neglect your grave though, you’ll slowly transform into a hungry ghost with barely a scrap to gnaw on.

The only thing of value down here is the raw stone, the building blocks for cutters seeking to craft some kind of shelter in this dusty hellhole. And build they do; despite the dire conditions, the tenacious petitioners of Kur have somehow carved out a burg down here. The main settlement of note in the upper levels of Kur is a ramshackle burg called Irkalla, the City of Dead Gods. It’s the cultural capital of Kur; at least what passes for culture in a place inhabited by mournful spirits. Beneath Irkalla is a grand spiral staircase that leads down to Arali, the historical capital of Kur.

SPECIAL CONDITIONS: The entire realm is lightless. A creature with darkvision can see things half as far as they usually are able. A creature with magical darkvision is able to use it unhindered. Planewalkers will need to bring their own food and water, and be aware that magic to create either simply does not work here.

WHO RULES: Kur is a shared dominion, parceled between Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead, and Nergal, her (current) husband, and a war god with plenty of underworld turf of his own. They’ve divvied this enormous cavern between themselves, of course with the usual divine squabbles to which powers are prone. The other powers of the Anunnaki also make their kips in Kur, in far less impressive temples and palaces than the king and queen, of course. Together, the powers of Kur form a shadowy cabinet of Underworld spirits, less concerned with rewarding or punishing petitioners, and more with ensuring that only the petitioners who are properly remembered back on the Prime are afforded any kind of sustenance here. Quite why they do this isn’t clear, although some graybeards suggest that since nobody actively worships them, the Underworld powers cream off some of the power from the prayers that relatives offer to the deceased.

WHO REALLY RULES: Even though Ereshkigal and Nergal might only rarely show their faces, it’s pretty clear that it’s the Queen of the Dead pulling the strings. Oh sure, Nergal is a mighty and ancient power in his own right, but he kowtows to his wife when she demands it. The petitioners of the realm are too subdued and passive to require heavy-handed leaders ruling them.

MILITIA: The militia in Kur isn’t made up of soldiers or mercenaries, or even a city watch. No, Ereshkigal has delegated the task of keeping the petitioners in line to a pack of gallu fiends—a sinister kind of lilu who haunt the realms of Mesopotamian powers. These spectral enforcers lurk in the shadows between stalagmites, snatching any petitioner who tries to escape and either returning them to Kur, or consuming them. The gates leading out of the realm are bolted tight and patrolled ceaselessly. It seems Ereshkigal is more interested in stopping cutters leaving than in preventing berks arriving.

PHILOSOPHY: Kur is the embodiment of fatalism: Here there’s no virtue, no reward, no sin—just dust and the ghosts of former lives echoing deep below the bedrock. The only thing that counts down here is how well your name is remembered and how carefully your grave is tended. Kur teaches mortals that earthly power is fleeting and ultimately futile, for in death, everyone is equal in the end.

SERVICES: Hospitality in Kur is pretty limited, but it offers the curious or desperate certain services—spirit guides who will barter the secrets of the grave for something to drink, or share their cryptic necromantic knowledge. Some petitioners know the way to forbidden passages which lead even deeper into the realms below. There are tales that Kur is itself some kind of giant sleeping dragon, and the caverns are its insides. This is probably barmy talk, but the chant is persistent.

CURRENT CHANT: Whispers of divine bickering between Ereshkigal and Nergal bubble beneath the surface in Kur, fueling intrigue between gallu loyal to one or other power. The power-sharing arrangement between husband and wife is tense and riddled with schemes and old grudges.

Sources: SGreen and Jon Winter-Holt. Mythwatch: This location is homebrew. Kur is one of many names the Mesopotamians had for the Underworld.