Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This time we head across to the lower end of the planes.
Welcome… If that is the right term, to the city of the derriere, the bottom part of the multiverse. The city of Ass.
City of Ass
Located in an undisclosed demi-plane somewhere in the far (and smelly) corners of the lower planes. No one is quite sure where it is, and frankly, no one is interested in finding out either. The only way most people really end up here is through simple spelling mistakes and typos when trying to get to the City of Brass.
The city was originally created by a dyslexic wizard who, despite his inability to spell, was incredibly powerful. One day, instead of transporting himself to the City of Brass as had been his intention, he instead managed to create his own pocket dimension. The place is known today as the City of Ass. And since then, the City has only grown.
The inhabitants are well aware that they are the butt of jokes all across the multiverse, but in spite of this, they have managed to claw out an existence where others might well have given up. In fact, while their home smells like an open sewer, they’ve become a central location for energy and soul-conversion of the lower planes, an act that transforms a mortal soul into abyssal larvae or another form of magical energy. It is used extensively by fiends everywhere, both as currency and as a means of transferring magical power from one entity to another or to store it for later.
In this way, this cesspit has become rich beyond belief and decided to poke fun at the pomposity of planar denizens everywhere.
Lay of the Land
The City of Ass is home to nearly 100,000 individuals from across the planes, ranging from mortal humans to pit fiends, from scheming dark elven wizards to angels desperate to get away before their very purity is perverted by prolonged exposure.
The city itself is built from white stone, marble being the stone of choice, though poorer house-owners might use painted stone of different kinds, and topped with copper or bronze domes, shaped to resemble buttocks pointing towards the sky – in a manner of speaking, mooning the very heavens that seem to have rejected the city.
The city is divided into two districts: The working district and the pleasure district. The working district is exactly what it sounds like: No one lives here, though souls are gathered here like cattle at a market, before being thrown into the soul furnaces one by one, and transformed into abyssal larvae, soul gems, or whatever else the customer desires. All of the inhabitants of the City are well aware that one day they too might go to the soul furnaces when they die (in fact, considering their behavior, it is extremely likely), and they are trying to get the most out of life before this happens.
That is why they spend all their non-working hours in the pleasure district. They have living quarters here, but most of the district is filled with feasthalls, gambling halls, taverns, and “palaces of pleasure” where it’s possible to indulge every vice in the multiverse, with the establishments often owned by various fiends. In fact, most of the inhabitants of the City spend nearly 75% of their life here. And no one ever establishes a family here, though some do form family units (but whether by choice or something inherently stopping them in the demi-plane – none of these unions ever produce children).
Dangers
The City of Ass is filled with fiends coming to and from the soul-furnaces, but the biggest threat comes from the mortal inhabitants. Many are desperately trying to avoid the soul-furnaces themselves and spend time gathering soul-gems and abyssal larvae so that when they die, they can expend the energy to transform into fiends or angels. They therefore often kidnap visitors and newcomers and throw them into the soul furnaces, even if they are not dead and transformed into souls. Little do they realize that they’ll forget all about their previous lives when they die and become souls themselves, rendering the hoarding pointless, as they will have forgotten where it is and what to do with it. As a result, there are always stories floating around the city telling of some lucky sod who found one of these hoards, and who is now spending the rest of their time in the pleasure district, instead of having to work.
Hopefully, the smell doesn’t linger and we will see you again next week.
Kim Frandsen
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