Dmccoy1693/UnderWorld

The Underworld

The Underworld is a land of death, analgus to our own world of life. In game, my players have entered a long term campaign in the underworld so I am looking for a way to quickly give them a mental image of what the place looks like while still doing it justice. So here goes:

It is nearing dawn and you stand on the edge of a shadowland, Scribe of the Book of Sins (an Abyssal npc) instructs you to take one step forward and one step back. As your foot moved forward that one step, you feel like you are moving a seemingly great distance while moving very little. Like your foot is elsewhere while still being right there. You complete the step and you are sicked by what is around you. You first feel cold, very cold, as the wind blows againt your side chilling you to the bone. No clothing seems to be working to protect you from this cold harsh wind. Besides the cold, you also feel the chill of death. The sense that death is near you is great. Like walking in a place where tens of thousands were brutally and mercilessly slaughtered, only tens of thousands of times greater then that.

You complete your movement into the underworld by taking a step back. As you take a look around you see a baron wasteland, like the ground dried up and everything living in it has died. The sporadic, leafless trees offer no help in slowing down the wind, neither does the cluster of broken down and rotting homes not to far away that must pass for a village here. Pushing past you is a man (more or less) that does not look right. The look in his eye is not one of sanity. He appears hunched over and his hair is going long on the one side and not at all on the other. You're not sure but you swear that it is blood around the man's mouth. Almost as if he has been feeding on an animal without killing it (or a person, his eyes looked crazy enough to do that).

A dog that looks very confused is running around as fast as its legs can take it. It's not running anywhere in particular, merely looking for a way out. The sound of its bark seems muted, like sound in this world does not travel like it does in Creation. But it is loud enough to disturb something in a distant tree. 20 or 30 black shadowy looking things about the size of a raven lift off from the tree and squack an eerie squack of beasts looking for lunch. They swoop down as the dog seems them attacking him and tries to run away. The poor canine is unsuccessful in getting away. The birds strike the dog in an attack formation and knock it over. The dog gets up and tries to get away while bleeding from the stomache but much slower this time because of his wound. The birds strike again; this time they latch themselves to the open wound and begin to suck the very life out of it and drink its blood. The dog bites some, but it cannot stop the onsloot. It falls over and collapses, and all the birds squack joyously as they feast on their prey. The birds fly away a minute or two later now that there is nothing left but empty skin and bones.

Now more then ever, you question the wisdom of agreeing to go along on this trip.