Sonu Aar’ri
So with Sonu-Aar’ri, you’re talking about one of the more complex and dangerous burgs in the multiverse, cutter. Picture a burg where the air itself is thick with plots and counterplots, where a body can barely walk a street without crossing the path of some scheming cutter or conniving seneschal of a tanar’ri lord. Yet, amidst all the chaos and treachery, the burg stands as a pivotal point of diplomacy, of sorts, in the Abyss. You could call it the capital of Pazunia if you like, cutter — inasmuch as a place of roiling chaos like Pazunia could have a capital. It’s not the biggest, or the richest, or the best defended burg on the layer, but the concentration of high-ups here says it must be doing something right.
Despite the swirling intrigue, it’s a gloomy burg, with towers of black iron scrapin’ the sky which is always on the brink of a storm that never quite breaks. The streets are as twisted as the politics, leading one through narrow, confusing paths laden with whispering shadows that could be an assassin or just your imagination playing tricks on you, y’know?
The centrepiece, though, is that monstrous palace of spiked iron, the Council of Despair. And a proper fortress it is, lookin’ like a crown of thorns in architectural form, containing those deadly council rooms where the corridors are most smoke-filled and the intrigue is high-stakes indeed. Inside, the rooms themselves are oddities, where a cutter could find himself in a chamber with a ceiling that looks like an open maw ready to swallow any berk who utters falsehoods, or floors that pulse like a living heart, a constant reminder of the abyssal heart that beats in the depths below.
Then there’s Axian, a creature of grand delusions and aspirations. A molydeus with dreams too big even for his double heads, tryin’ to unify what can’t be unified, blind to the inherent chaos of his surroundings. He’s got the ambition of a king and the naiveté of a child, a dangerous combo in the Abyss, that. You might say he’s dancin’ on a razor’s edge, with a fall that could mean the end of everything he’s built.
With every high-up and their mother frequenting the place, you can bet there’s all sorts of dodgy deals being struck behind closed doors. Sonu-Aar’ri is a place of constant scheming, where alliances are as fragile as glass and treachery is the order of the day. It’s a rough place for anyone, even seasoned planewalkers, with all the backstabbin’ and double-dealin’. But, cutter, it’s also a place of opportunity, if you’ve got the stones for it, y’know?
Everywhere you look, there are individuals lookin’ for that one chance, that one meeting that could elevate them to heights unimaginable. From slayer genies with cold, calculatin’ eyes to sacroloths lurkin’ in corners, it’s a burg alive with potential and danger in equal measure.
Source: Martin Bourassa and Jon Winter-Holt
