Difference between revisions of "Acheron"

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Contrary to most of the realms of Hell, Acheron remains largely untamed by demons. The inhabited portion of the realm where stand the capital Semdion forms only a tiny region, circled on all sides by an extremely hostile icy wasteland, battered by relentless chilly winds. Fire magic is very weak and muted in Acheron and any heat seem to be instantly sucked away by the frosty air of the realm. Only creatures with natural resistance to extreme cold can hope to survive outside of Semdion. As a grim reminder, countless Frozen statues and frozen body part fragments can be seen littering the merciless ice desert.

The wasteland is largely unknown and unexplored, a seemingly endless desert of ice populated by titanic and formidable creatures that could easily attack, and devour, even an arch devil lord. It is said that Acheron borders another dimension leading out of Hell to legendary realms, far beyond that ice desert. Eons ago, a powerful demon king, his lieutenants and his entire army once attempted to cross the wastelands to reach and conquer the other side. They were never heard of ever again.

Sea of Crezal (name pending)

It's, of course, difficult to make sense of such a perilous plane as Acheron but careful observations concluded that the realm is made of what appear to be a large and thick sheet of ice on top of an immense sea of Crezal. That material, found only in a few spiritual worlds, possesses many strange properties. First it's almost impossibly cold in its liquid form and for most creatures, any contact with it is likely to be lethal. Crezal is liquid when the environment is cold enough. However the warmer it gets, the more solid Crezal gets as well. Because Acheron's atmosphere is much warmer than its depths, Whenever Crezal emerge above the surface, in most cases it almost instantly solidify, not unlike frozen water would but for opposite reasons.

When temperatures fall in some regions of Acheron and it gets colder than usual, solidified Crezal start to revert to liquid, fissures and weaknesses in the ice appear, exposing briefly the sea to the atmosphere, and creating multiple dangerous phenomenons. For instance the relentless and violent winds battering the frozen desert most likely originate from liquid Crezal meeting the -comparably- warmer air of the surface. Sometimes geysers of sort will shoot out streams of liquid Crezal into the air of Acheron, turning it into a solid form a few seconds later -usually when still airborne unless the weather is really very cold- creating a deadly hail of sharp, solidified crezal fragments falling to the ground. The colder it gets in Acheron, the more dangerous the realm becomes. Those phenomenons represent only a small part of the danger though; The real peril come from a particular life form that sometimes get expelled along liquid Crezal into the surface.

Crezalyds infestation ( name pending )

The Crezal sea house many strange and bizarre life-forms that sometimes get expelled through geysers onto the surface of Acheron. One of them is the Crezalyd. The creature has the appearance of a thin-legged crystalline spider. they are frail and fragile creatures, very vulnerable when they're scuttling about on land. They are very dangerous parasites however, entering and burrowing into the body of some of the behemoths prowling the ice wastes. They infest their host in order to devour them slowly from the inside and slowly crystallizing their organism. The Crezalyd eventually takes entire control of its host using it both as a protection and sustenance. infested creatures display a very erratic, agressive and violent behavior, with physical limitations seemingly removed. infested creatures are prone to blind rage and a propension to harm themselves, turning already massive, formidable monsters into forces of pure destruction and chaos.

At the terminal stage of infestation, crystals start to emerge from the body of the host, piercing its skin, replacing its bones and invading its organs. At this point, death is but inevitable and only a matter of time.. When the Crezalyd has finally killed its host it will leave a mostly empty, crystallized husk behind and a host of larvas, ready to find new hosts to infest.

The threat crezalyds represent is immense but thankfully tempered by the fact a crezalyd without host will often try to come back to the Crezal sea when it can. They become frenzied on the surface due to the uncomfortably warm atmosphere for them but once they come back to the crezal they revert to much less agressive creatures. When gathered in large numbers in the same area it seems they are capable of a very primitive form of intelligence.

Semdion

The capital Semdion is situated in what is believed to be the warmer region of Acheron. The ice layer is very thick in this area and the Crezal sea remain far underneath. most of Semdion inhabitants never saw liquid crezal in their entire life and many never will. The farther you get from Semdion, the colder it progressively gets.

Semdion is a large and elegant city with large avenues, adorned by strange, majestic ice sculptures. The streets are bustling with activity and the air is markedly less cold and almost bearable for normal creatures. The city has been designed both for smaller races and the giant frost Succubi inhabiting it, although some size-altering areas exist, where succubi can walk at the same size than everyone else. In the center of Semdion stands the gigantic palace of the Succubus Queen Arsinoë, the powerful ruler of Acheron. Frost succubi see themselves as progressive, refined and civilized, and thus, contact with them is generally considered safer than with the rest of their kind. They are still dangerous however, and a lot of caution is needed when you deal with them. They adore formalities, complex protocols, and contracts full of subtle traps and tricky clauses written in small characters. Those who fall victim to their complex legal games either end up as a snack, or in the underground part of the city, where cruel and merciless punishment are inflicted on poor gullible fools. And maybe those ice sculptures are not made of ice only...

and the rest is an extremely hostile icy wasteland, circling the habitable zone from all sides.The frozen wastes are far from being an empty desert though, and are full of legendary, titanic monsters, filling the heart of demons with fear.

The realm of Acheron is little more than a hostile frozen desert, battered by relentless slashing winds. The plane is peculiar in that it borders on another dimension, a largely unknown and unexplored cold wasteland that leads out of Hell, although no one has ever figured where it goes to. It is said to be full of incredibly dangerous creatures that could easily attack, and devour, even an arch devil lord. Several demon kings have lost their entire army to this desert. Demons and other inhabitants prefer to stay in the several large cities of the plane.