Sharp Tongue
Location: Abyss / Layer 8—Skindjur
A fortress of jagged obsidian and twisted iron, Sharp Tongue juts out from the crystalline plains of Skindjur like a cauterised bone piercing a broken arm. Its walls shimmer with a slick, blood-like sheen, as if its perpetually weeping for the atrocities committed within. Wicked lightning dances across the spires, illuminating the grotesque gargoyles that have been carved to resemble flayed faces, their mouths agape with screams. The air reeks of scorched flesh and metallic tang, mingling with the acrid bite of salt that is whipped up by the howling winds. Within this grim edifice, tanar’ri come to undergo surgeries that redefine pain and language itself—a ritualistic pursuit of perfection through mutilation that Skindjur is known for across the Lower Planes.
The surgeries performed in Sharp Tongue are more than acts of physical alteration—they are grotesque ceremonies of linguistic rebirth. The mouths of the tanar’ri are flensed with surgical precision—tongues split into fractal patterns, teeth replaced with resonating glass shards, and vocal cords stretched taut like harp strings. These modifications allow their speech to transcend mortal comprehension, and allow the fiends to producing sounds that cut through the air like razorblades. Words spoken by these altered beings can cause sonic damage, flay flesh, shatter minds, or even cut through reality itself. Their newfound voices come at a terrible cost however: Each utterance causes then searing pain, as if their own souls are being torn apart with each syllable.
The cost of such procedures is steep, and not measured in coin or barter. Those who seek the services of the chiurgeons of Sharp Tongue must offer fragments of their essence—memories, emotions, or even slivers of their immortal being. The fortress is ruled by Surgeon-Exarch Klyssith (planar tanar’ri chiurgeon [she/her] / CE), a towering marilith whose six arms wield scalpels forged from shards of rare elemental metals. Klyssith views language as a weapon and an art form; to her, words are the ultimate expression of power and beauty when honed to their sharpest edge. Her philosophy is simple: “A sharp enough tongue can cut someone’s throat.”
Within Sharp Tongue’s shadowed halls, whispers echo—fragments of alien languages that will gnaw away your mind if you’re not strong enough to fight them. The fortress is a place of creation and destruction, where tanar’ri sacrifice their flesh and sanity in pursuit of linguistic supremacy. Those who emerge from its depths are forever changed: their voices carry the weight of unspeakable horrors and surreal beauty, capable of wielding great power with the right phrase.
Source: Jon Winter-Holt