The Steep Ascent
Clarion the Guardian reports on a long and mountainous climb from the Hells to the Heavens
A new planar pathway has come to my attention. Known as the Rugged Path, or the Steep Ascent, it links a group of planes together whose organisation fits a certain mindset possessed by bloods such as the Archonites. The Rugged Path always appears as a rocky and winding path leading both up and down. Depending on where you find the path, special keys (real keys, made of certain metals) may be needed to proceed one way or the other. Don’t ask how the barriers vanish when you’re travelling the other way, because I don’t know.
The Steep Ascent may be found in Baator, where the way up, out of the plane, is barred by iron gates requiring green steel keys. It touches every layer except for Stygia and Cania, although it is seldom seen in Nessus. It touches all layers of Gehenna, and here there are no gates, but the path is frequently crossed by acidic streams and lava flows. On the Cordant Plane of Purgatory (if certain explorers are to be believed) the ways up are barred, but the keys are readily available to anyone who shows himself honest and law-abiding. The gates here are wood and the keys cast iron. On Mount Celestia, the Path enters the plane by a causeway submerged some three feet beneath the Silver Sea, to a distance of a mile out. The gates here lead down, and are barred with silver gates requiring gold keys. The Path only extends to the fourth layer of Mount Celestia, and the petitioners gain nothing from using it. Nevertheless, the archons love their section of the Path and it is mentioned in many Archonite and Planes-Militant hymns.
The four planes touching the Pathway can all be reached from the nominal centre of the path, the Concordant Crossroads, which appears to be in the Outlands, although the rest of the Land cannot be accessed from the Crossroads.
Source: Alex Roberts
