Morglon-Daar
Location: Abyss / Layer 4—Grand Abyss / Upper Vorago
The burg of Morglon-Daar, perched precariously on the sheer cliffs of the Grand Abyss, is a sprawling, anarchic yugoloth hub of commerce, intrigue, and vice. Known as the “Bleeding Bastion” by planewalkers, the city clings to the walls of the chasm like a parasite. In the richer districts, structures are carved into the rock. In the slums, they’re thrown together from salvaged materials and even corpses. The entire burg is suffused with an oppressive atmosphere of decay and malevolence, its skyline dominated by jagged towers and twisted spires that seem ready to collapse at any moment.
Morglon-Daar is one of the few permanent settlements in the Abyss that welcomes outsiders—although they’re still recommended to keep a sharp eye out and an even sharper blade. While the city is dominated by yugoloth, tanar’ri are welcome here, provided they keep their rampaging in check. Its location twenty miles down into the Grand Abyss from the Plain of a Thousand Portals makes it a critical waypoint for planar travellers and merchants seeking access to deeper Abyssal layers.
What sets Morglon-Daar apart is its unique role as a centre of trade in an otherwise chaotic layer. Travel through Morglon-Daar is the only known way for cutters in the Grand Abyss to climb out into Pazunia again—and this makes it the busiest part of the layer. The city thrives on its position as a frontier boomtown, where anything imaginable—goods, slaves, secrets, or souls—can be bought or sold. Despite its lawless nature, Morglon-Daar offers relative safety within its walls as, no doubt due to the influence of the yugoloths, commerce takes precedence over carnage. This uneasy order is maintained by the Blightlords, a cadre of five powerful ‘loth magistrates who govern the city’s wards with cunning and brutality. However, their authority is tenuous at best, as chant goes they only serve at the pleasure of the enigmatic Priory of Rot, a shadowy council of elder demons spawned by Tharizdun. The Priory’s influence looms large over every transaction and power play in the city.
The Five Districts
Morglon-Daar is divided into five districts, each reflecting a different facet of its chaotic existence:
The Spray: The bustling transport hub where planar vessels dock in the churning waters of the Styx’s estuary. This district is alive with activity, from hydroloth and hezrou patrolling the harbour to merchants unloading exotic goods. The Spray also houses massive engineering works powered by waterwheels that harness the river’s energy. The harbour of Morglon-Daar is the last navigable part of the Styx in the Grand Abyss and the marraenoloth do a brisk trade in transport out of the Grand Abyss—otherwise it’s all straight down from the sheer waterfalls at the edge of the burg.
Riftwatch: The wealthiest and most opulent district of Morglon-Daar, Riftwatch offers breathtaking views of the Grand Abyss below. Palatial villas carved into the cliffs house powerful arcanoloth, nycaloth, marilith, balor, and other influential fiends. This district is a haven for intrigue and excess, where deals are struck in shadowy alcoves and decadent feasts mask deadly power struggles. Riftwatch is also home to Lady Akaama, the longest-reigning Blightlord, whose seductive manipulations have ensured her dominance over this ward for nearly a decade.
Beggar’s Fall: The city’s poorest district, where ramshackle dwellings cling precariously to the inner walls of the chasm. Endless staircases, rickety catwalks, and fraying rope bridges connect these hovels, creating a labyrinthine vertical slum. The district is home to Morglon-Daar’s sprawling underclass, primarily malgodemons and other desperate beings who eke out a miserable existence while dodging falling debris and predatory enforcers. Life here is cheap, and survival depends on cunning or alliances with more powerful patrons.
Melakovian Hive: This Hive is a sprawling warren of tunnels and caverns carved into the bedrock beyond the rift face. The district is a chaotic maze where outsiders quickly lose their way without a guide. It houses many of the city’s mezzoloth and dergholoth, who jealously guard its secrets. Its also a hub for illicit activities such as smuggling, assassination contracts, and necromantic experiments. The origins of the Hive are shrouded in mystery, with some claiming it predates even the burg of Morglon-Daar itself.
The Anvil: A sprawling industrial zone dedicated to mining and smithing rare Abyssal metals. The Anvil’s forges produce weapons and armour imbued with an eerie auburn glow, which is prized by fiends and mercenaries across the planes. Hulking yagnoloth oversee the labor here, commanding their canoloth thralls and humanoid slaves to extract resources from the surrounding tunnels. The Blightlord Faman-dûr rules this district with an iron fist—literally—his massive adamantine replacement arm a symbol of his unyielding authority.
Philosophy of the Burg
Morglon-Daar’s philosophy is rooted in pragmatism, ambition, and survival amid chaos. While most Abyssal settlements thrive on unrestrained violence, Morglon-Daar tempers its savagery with a focus on commerce and mutual exploitation. The city’s motto might as well be “Profit above all else,” as even its most depraved inhabitants understand that unchecked destruction would undermine their wealth and power. This uneasy balance creates an environment where deals are struck with smiles hiding daggers, where alliances shift like quicksand, and where every interaction carries an undercurrent of danger.
Despite its veneer of order, Morglon-Daar remains steeped in Abyssal cruelty. Slavery is rampant, with fleshmarkets like Bonespike Court serving as centers for buying and selling captives from across the planes. Fleshmasons craft grotesque edifices from preserved corpses in the elite districts, while the poor starve in Beggar’s Fall just beneath their shadow. Justice is nonexistent here; disputes are settled through violence or bribery, and betrayal is an accepted part of daily life. The yugoloth Blightlords are careful to allow just enough chaos to flourish in the burg to keep it anchored in the Grand Abyss.
Services Offered
Morglon-Daar offers a wide array of services catering to corrupt planar travellers and cross-trading merchants alike:
Trade Halls: Exotic goods from across the multiverse can be found here, including rare magical items, cursed relics, forbidden tomes, and living—or undead—slaves.
Fleshmasons: These vile artisans specialise in crafting buildings or constructs from living or dead flesh—perfect for those seeking grotesque monuments or unique servants.
Mercenary Guilds: Demonic armies, assassins and fiendish warriors can be hired for campaigns across the Abyss—or beyond.
Spellwrights: Powerful spellcasters offer their services for summoning rituals, planar travel arrangements, or magical espionage. Necromantic and true name magics are a speciality here.
Black Markets: Nearly anything illegal or taboo can be acquired here—for a price, of course.
Movers and Shakers
Several key individuals shape Morglon-Daar’s ever-shifting power dynamics:
Satugla, Blightlord of The Spray (planar arcanaloth yugoloth [he/him] / Fated / NE)—a fox-headed arcanoloth (also known as a raavasta) who thrives on intrigue as an information broker for those willing to pay his exorbitant fees.
Lady Akaama, Blightlord of Riftwatch (planar piscoloth yugoloth [she/her] / Society of Sensation / NE): A piscoloth who uses her shapeshifting abilities to manipulate rivals through seduction or deception.
Dogobaz, Blightlord of Melakovian Hive (planar dergholoth yugoloth [he/him] / Mercykillers / NE): A hulking dergholoth who secured his title through brute force and public executions of his rivals.
Faman-dûr, Blightlord of The Anvil (planar yagnoloth yugoloth [he/him] / Doomguard / NE): A yagnoloth artificer whose mastery over Abyssal metallurgy makes him indispensable to the city’s economy.
Vaugormoor, Blightlord of Beggar’s Fall (planar mezzoloth yugoloth [he/him] / Fated / NE): A sadistic mezzoloth who wields the Scepter of Athava-Ingo to maintain control over his impoverished domain.
Packaos the Immortal (prime halfling [he/him] / Incantifiers / CE): A mysterious halfling merchant who defies death itself; his mercantile empire spans the Grand Abyss.
Bavamach, Archgeneral of Morglon-Daar (planar yagnoloth yugoloth [she/her] / NE): A fearsome yagnoloth who commands the city’s demon legions from Citadel Faurozoun.
Morglon-Daar is a paradoxical place—a cesspool of depravity that nonetheless offers sanctuary (of sorts) to those bold enough to navigate its treacherous streets. Its precarious position on the cliffs of the Grand Abyss mirrors its unstable political landscape, where power shifts as quickly as alliances are forged—and broken again. For planewalkers seeking profit, forbidden knowledge, or forbidden equipment, Morglon-Daar represents opportunity and peril in equal measures—it’s a burg where fortunes are made and lost at dagger-point and a body’s survival depends on their silver tongue just as much as their strength.
Canonical Source: Demonomicon [4e] p52-57 (a large amount of detail on the burg. NB: The layer of Grand Abyss is called the ‘Blood Rift’ in 4e lore, and they got rid of yugoloths. The yugoloths clearly had other ideas and got rid of 4e…)