Blood War

  

The Blood War: Origins and Forces

The Blood War is an eternal, cosmic conflict for control of the Lower Planes, primarily fought between the Lawful Evil baatezu (devils) of Baator and the Chaotic Evil tanar'ri (demons) of the Abyss. While the conflict is often viewed as a futile stalemate, it serves as a massive "distraction" for unaging fiends, preventing them from overwhelming the rest of the multiverse.

Origin Theories

Advanced players recognize that the War's true beginning is shrouded in mythic contradictions:

• The Asmodeus Shard: One prominent theory states that the angel Asmodeus plunged into the Abyss's heart, breaking off a shard of the "seed of evil" to forge his ruby rod. This act transformed him and his followers into devils, who were then banished to the Nine Hells, initiating the war to protect or reclaim that primal power.
• The Obyrith Legacy: Older legends suggest the obyriths, entities from a dying universe, created the Abyss by pushing a shard of utter evil into this reality. The subsequent corruption of primordials into demon lords (such as Orcus and Demogorgon) led to a multi-layered struggle for dominion that eventually drew in the forces of Law.
• The Yugoloth Catalyst: Some whispers in Sigil claim that the neutral evil yugoloths actually orchestrated the beginning of the war to ensure they could profit as permanent mercenaries for both sides.

Main Forces

• The Baatezu (Devils): Led by the Dark Eight and the Lords of the Nine, they favor rigid organization, tactical superiority, and infernal contracts.
• The Tanar'ri (Demons): An almost infinite horde driven by instinctual slaughter and the whispers of the Abyss. While they lack the order of the devils, their sheer numbers often force a stalemate.
• The Yugoloths (Mercenaries): As the "crosstraders" of the Lower Planes, they trade weapons and information to either side, ensuring no one side ever truly wins.

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The Outlands: Realms of Advanced Interest

For advanced players, the Outlands—a plane of "concordant opposition" and perfect neutrality—serves as the multiverse's mechanical and philosophical hub.

The Spire and the Silence

At the center of the Outlands is the Spire, an infinitely tall pillar of rock. The Spire radiates antimagic properties in nine rings; as one travels "spireward," magic fails, and even the power of gods is nulled, reducing deities to mortals.

• Dendradis: Carved directly into a mile-high fissure in the Spire, this vertical city is home to the rilmani, beings of absolute neutrality. Rilmani use the city to monitor the planes and maintain the Balance. Critically, the city's lattice-like structures hide a massive fossilized body entombed within the Spire, the identity of which remains one of the multiverse's greatest secrets.

The Divine Orchard and Gzemnid’s Realm

The Outlands wilderness functions as a "divine orchard" where potential gods and avatars are monitored by cosmic principles.

• Gzemnid's Realm: A deadly network of gas-filled tunnels ruled by the beholder god of deception. It is connected to the Caverns of Thought, the alien tunnels where the illithid god Ilsensine hides its long-term temporal manipulations from Mechanus using "non-Euclidean cognition".

The Gate-Town Circuit (FF Pressure Points)

Seven gate-towns serve as the primary "stress fractures" in the campaign's current multiversal audit:

• Automata (Mechanus): The origin of the Great Modron March.
• Glorium (Ysgard): A heroic fjord town containing a legend-shrouded root of Yggdrasil, the World Ash.
• Rigus (Acheron): A tiered military camp built atop the Lion’s Gate, a portal that alternates between three different cubes in Acheron.
• Torch (Gehenna): A den of thieves built on volcanic spires where the gate to Gehenna hovers out of reach.
• Fortitude, Faunel, and Sylvania: These towns represent the alignment shifts of Arcadia, the Beastlands, and Arborea, respectively.

Walking Castles

Advanced explorers often utilize mobile bastions like Iedcaru. These "walking castles" were originally created by the githzerai to study multiversal truths and witness "conclusions that never came". They move in response to proximity to conflict and disrupted cycles, making them ideal vehicles for those tracking "Statistical Impossibilities".

The Meta-Warning: Recalibration

As the phrase "The Endless War has ended" propagates through the recalibrated modron witness units, the structural logic of the Blood War faces a potential "shutdown order". If Mechanus verifies that a "self-consuming lawful conflict" can find resolution through choice, the entire Great Wheel may be forced into an emergency realignment. 

Or can you find an alternative ending to Shattered Compact's conflicts that honors the continuation of the Blood War? Why would you even want to?