Rating: [ 5 / 10.00 ]

Game Info

Title  Zahhak: Ashen Waste of the Abyss
Author  Alejandro Melchor
Book Type  Background: Setting
Rank: [ 1438 / 3183 ]
Genre  Fantasy
Setting  Outer Planes
Series 
Edition Info  Mongoose Publishing (2002)
Stock: 6002
ISBN:  1-903980-29-1
System  d20 3
Parent: [ Dungeons & Dragons ]

Game Summary

Second (and final) book in The Planes.

There is no torture worse than one people learn to live with and even embrace as part of life. From one of the Abyss' infinite layers, such a dark and terrible deity works his way into the hearts of mortals. There are no temples to his name, his priesthood is not prosecuted, and there have been no holy quests against his work. He is the ruler of Zahhak and is known to the rank and file of his cult only as Apathy.

The 28th layer of the Abyss stand forgotten among the greater and more active evils that make their name infamous across the Material Plane. Its ruler does not care for recognition as long as he collects his due: the dreams and hopes of everything that lives, crushed under his smothering grip. The bitter words of ex-lovers, the exhaustion that remains after anger has left, the boredom that stains the simplest joys, the disillusionment of goals unattained, and the inertia of life without direction are the evils that Apathy spreads and that coalesce in Zahhak, with its unending landscape of ashen dunes. Ash is all that is left behind after a fire has burned, as so does Zahhak remain where hope and faith die. The dark lord of the Ashen Waste is not a terrible deity that threatens the world with destruction nor plans campaigns of conquest spanning worlds. He is a thousand times more dangerous because he is allowed to exert his influence unpunished. He is content to let the soulwinds of his realm erode all that is good and pure.

Game Editions

Notes on This Edition
32 pages.

Game Editions

Edit Edition ]
# Title System Publisher Released Stock Status
1 Zahhak: Ashen Waste of the Abyssd20 3Mongoose Publishing 2002 6002 ---

Comments & Reviews

Selected User Comments

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Rating User Comments
5 / 10SleeperZahhak makes good use of the limited space (32 pages), with an overview of the plane as a whole and the features shared by each of the five realms, followed by a two-page spread on each of the five different "Pentads" (demonic rulers) and their domains, some notes on travel and movement, a small handful of plot seeds, 4 monsters, and a magical potion. Unlike the previous installment, this volume feels more focused and immediately useful to a DM.

The biggest problem is the nature of the plane itself — apathy is kind of boring, so the plane lacks that sense of lurid, captivating evil that characterizes much of the Abyss. The adventure hooks and monsters are fairly strong and help compensate for this, but it's still not a terribly compelling setting.

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