It is where ignorant armies clash by night.
It is the refuse-plane of a million failed rebellions.
It is a plane of enforced order, where conformity is more important than good.
The hue and cry of battle is the first sound a soldier hears when arriving on Acheron, and the last sound a refugee hears when leaving. That's all there is to Acheron: conflict, war, strife, and struggle. Many armies populate Acheron, but leaders are scarce. Truly, rebels without a cause are common on Acheron, whether they're petitioners, mortals fiends, or celestials.
- Manual of the Planes
Gatecrasher's Guide[]
Here's the safest place for a cutter to go if he really wants to deal with the fiends of the Lower Planes — the iron-shod Acheron. It's a plane of enforced order, where conformity is more important than good. The Mercykillers will tell a berk that the fiends of Acheron aren't that evil — it's only their rigorous adherence to order that upsets those who lack such discipline. Other folks tell of the random cruelty that blind conformity brings — the crushed spirits, the broken hopes. This is the true face of Acheron.
The plane of Acheron is made of immense blocks, black and smooth, whose surfaces ring metallic underfoot. They drift endlessly through space, these cubes the size of cities and kingdoms. Sometimes they meet with a fearsome clang that crushes all between them and sends shudders through the plane.
The petitioners of Acheron, warriors lost to the joy of battle and saviors who forgot their cause, are consumed by the need for conformity. They cannot conceive of anyone refusing to obey the will of the group, as determined by their commanders. They are dedicated soldiers, forever lacking a cause.
- Guide to the Planes
Traits[]
- Objectional Directional Gravity - The strength of gravity is the same as on the Material Plane, but which way is down depends on which face of the cube you're on. Walking across edges can be dizzying for the inexperienced.
- Normal Time
- Infinite Size
- Divinely Morphic
- No Elemental or Energy Traits
- Mildly Law-Aligned
- Normal Magic
Features[]
Acheron is made up of four layers, each containing an infinite number of iron cubes. These cubes are pitted and scarred with cracks and dents from their many collisions and craters from their many battles. On the orderly plane of Acheron, the cubes always rust or fracture along straight lines and at right angles. Some of the rubes are only a few hundred feet on a side, but others are big enough for whole cities and kingdoms. Geometric shapes other than cubes exist, though they are rare.
Avalas[]
The first layer of Acheron is also called the Battleplains, for it contains the most cubes - and enough armies and fortresses to populate them. The clash of distant cubes is indistinguishable from the closer clash of nearby battlefields. The cubes which are home to Clangor (home of the goblins), Nishrek (kingdom of Grummsh), and Scourgehold (Hextor's realm) are all in Avalas.
Thuldanin[]
The second layer of Acheron appears much like the first, but its population is significantly smaller. The cubes of this layer are riddled with pockets and hollows. Surface pits lead down into labyrinthine spaces cluttered with the refuse of every war that was ever fought. Most of the refuse is inoperative, petrified to stonelike immobility by the "preservative" quality of the layer. Nevertheless, teams of scavengers frequent the area, in search of powerful weapons.
Tintibulus[]
Unlike the other layers of Acheron, foursided, five-sided, eight-sided, and other odd-sided solids outnumber six-sided cubes on Tintibulus. These islands are made of gray volcanic stone, each covered with a layer of ashen dust to a depth of several inches. The cubes are constantly colliding, and splitting into smaller pieces, creating a constant ringing bell-like roar throughout the layer at all times.
Ocanthus[]
The fourth layer of Acheron is lightless but filled with fast-flying, razor-thin shards. Some shards are little more than needles, while others are miles wide. The largest shards have their own objective gravity, like the cubes of the upper layers.
The shards are black ice, frozen into thin layers. Their collisions break them into progressively smaller shards, and eventually into needles, then then dust. The shards all originate from a single source: the night-black boundary of Ocanthus, a sheet of infinite magically charged black ice . This ice is rumored to be either the source or destination of the River Styx, and that every memory stolen by the river still exists, frozen into the black ice. This layer is home to the Cabal Macabre - realm of Wee Jas.
On the Server[]
Portals exist to the layer of Avalas, emerging in a Clangor garrison. (Nishrek is no longer an area in-game.)