The Empty Citadel (needs a better name, please help).
The layer is a city under a constant twilight sky, a winding labyrinth of a metropolis with buildings squeezed close together, only seperated by narrow alleys. It stretches on and on, but there are no apparent residents. The buildings are in good condition, though, as if everyone packed up and left shortly after two yesterday afternoon. Where ever the party goes, though, they feel as if they are being watched. Every time they walk in a straight line without looking back, they feel an increasing sense of forboding growing as if something is going to attack them at any minute. When they turn to look, though, nothing is there. This will keep going on constantly. Any time that there is some area that is not being watched, a gather sense of dread will start to emanate from that direction. It is impossible to sleep in this layer without at least two people back-to-back on watch constantly; those who fall asleep without anyone watching wake screaming in short order.
The dark of the matter is that the layer is inhabitted by invisible beings that don't realize they can't be seen (they can see invisible). They are individually weak, which makes them cowardly; they will only attack from the rear and only if 5 or more are present. When someone turns to look at them, they scatter very quickly. The creepy feeling that intruders feel is actually a side affect of the inhabitants; the gaze of these creatures produces a weak fear affect. Those who ignore it (or are immune to it) are eventually attacked by at least 5 of the creatures if medium or small (double that number for each size above medium, half for each size below small).
Fighting the creatures is very difficult, as they will attack only one creature at a time (whoever is in the rear of the party), and will flee if anyone comes to his or her aid.
So everyone post up your thoughts on this layer, and put up your own Abyssal layer ideas, too.
And now the promised insight into my scattered mind. The inspirations were "There's a shadow just behind me, shrouding every step I take" (Tool lyrics), Boo Buddy (Mario 3), and the Hairy Prarie Hide-Behind (from childhood memory).
Cool idea
(And cool band)I would like to provide some constructive critisism: Your write-up is centered around what happens when the party shows up. A great way to add more depth is to create an ecosystem, and then introduce the PC's.
For example, who are the inhabitants? Demons? Mortals?
humans? This has an impact on the architecture of the city.
Is there a reason they're invisible? (this is the abyss, stuff can happen for no reason at all)
maybe there should be bodies laying around of victims of these creatures. Or not. Maybe they hide thier victims. And perhaps the PC's could stumble uppon the hiding place.
as for a name: how about the cursed metropolis. Or maybe just the name of the city.
One particular name that comes to mind is Kitezh It's from a rusian opera. On the brink of being sacked by tratans, the entire city becomes invisible. It is only visible in the reflection of the lake.
http://www.metopera.org/season/kirov/synopses/kitezh.html
You raise some very good questions about the ecology. I don't know what these creatures do when they are only among themselves. They are definitely CE with a strong sense of paranoia. Their intelligence is limited, and they cannot even conceive of non-CE ways of thought. They are aware of their relative weakness (and even over-estimate it) and assume that everyone who enters their city is there to enslave/conquer/exterminate them. I think that this might produce a "pack" mentality, though they would have a definite pecking order within the group.
Hmm...maybe that can be one of their defining ecological things. Each one has a special hiding place somewhere in the city, and they collect the hands/fingers of those they've slain. The one who makes the kill gets the palms and the fingers are divided among those who aided in the assault. The collection of these things drives the pecking order of the city. Theft can get thrown in, too, and this helps bring back the fact that they are Chaotic Evil creatures. They will work in a group, but it's really only to help themselves. Maybe a lingering decree from the Abyssal Lord that they revere as a god is the only thing that keeps them from killing each other except to defend their stash.
I think that there needs to be some means that they use to destroy the rest of the bodies quickly, too. I want the horror of the level to come from tension rather than shock value.
I espescially like Escher. I think you where thinking ofsomething like this, or maybe this . Very confusing, and lots of flavor. M.C. Escher was a mathematician at heart, though. Organized and rational. No matter, there must be a few workarounds. Allow me to ramble:
Maybe the layer was originally part of some other (lawfull) plane. Perhaps even a borough of Dis, or some other lawfull city. It's transition to the abyss warped it. Turned the streets into a multi-dimensional maze.
The inhabitants where allways isolationists. Fearing and hating everything not part of their community, they turned inward. All outsiders where eventually driven out or killed. Their bones used to erect a giant wall around their burough. When the final wall hole in the wall was filled with the bones of the final outsider, and the inhabitants had no-one to turn on but eachother, the city shifted. Became part of the abyss.
The urge to be unnoticed, unseen, and the chaos of the abyss ultimately turned everyone in the city invisible.
Maybe one of the reasons there aren't too many bodies lying around is that it only shifted recently. The city is largely undiscovered. All the bodies slain previously where made part of the outer wall.
The inhabitants might not even know they are now in the abyss. Still fearing the wrath of Dispater.
The city itself functions in the standard dimensions, with one exception. It stretches to the horizon, but the horizon never comes, the ground just stretches up. The city itself is built inside a massive sphere (stolen from Carceri perhaps?). The city is lit by a perpetual twilight that seems to come from all around. The sphere is massive, almost 20 miles in diameter, and floating at the center of it all is a smaller object. This is the abode of the Creator (CE/baatezu!/?). The Creator was once a powerful pitfiend, but his desire for advancement led him to go blatantly outside of law and order. He began to become more brazen in his attempts to assassinate his competition, eventually creating a race of spawn to make an army of what he intended to use as a terrorist guerilla force (hence the invisibility and fear gaze).
As several other Devil rulers began to mobilize against him to wipe his taint from their race, he retreated with his creations to a sphere on Carceri. There he continued his drive for domination, this time against the inhabitants of that sphere. This was enough for him to complete his fall into chaos, and he dragged the rest of the sphere with him into the abyss. The uncontrolled energies of the abyss have taken their toll on him, and he is now unrecognizable as a pit fiend, having become something truely unique.
After his creations take the hands of their victims, they perform a ritual of unholy sacrifice that transforms the rest of the corpse into its constituant energies and nourishes The Creator, who now resides in his multidimensional castle that continuously bobs near the center of gravity in this layer.
Originally posted by Sildatorak
I had an add-on thought...the critters (whatever they are) also are surrounded by silence in a 5' radius. That would help increase the paranoia aspect (Sil, if we were being followed we would at least hear footsteps; don't be a fool!), and also makes it possible for them to jump the character at the back without drawing in the rest of the party. I figure the buggers probably use a type of sign language to communicate if this is the case.
alternatively, you could make them able to communicate Psionically; a Psionicist might hear the buzz, but it also gives you the ability for them to make noises (break a pot by dropping it accidentally, etc) instead of everything being *too* quiet. such as when they attack (the pc's would obviously notice when they are yelling/casting and it doesn't work..).
either way works, just throwing possibilities into the mix..
eudas
You have ready made maps and lore done for you.