Gazetteer of the Grey: Glebe Pathosis

What are these? So wither’d and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth, And yet are on it?

Even pain and horror can be a boon in the grey dust and leeching shadows of the Waste. Near the great Yugoloth tower of Khin-Oin, the rampant diseases have created such agony, such suffering, that the inhabitants have escaped the passion-draining gloom of the Plane… although only by the most painful means imaginable. Shambling through the pestilent desert, inflicted with Powers-know-what hideous malady, victims staggered alone or in their twos and threes into a dusty former gatetown. They called kip among the crumbling ruins, sharing stories of suffering and degradation. In time others joined them. Eventually something approaching a community grew up; a town based on mutual suffering, bitterness, and a stubborn refusal to die.

CHARACTER: Suffering and despair are forever palpable in Glebe Pathosis, battling for the souls of its populace. The agony of diseased bodies burns away any hope of recovery or normality, but it also stirs its victims from the deadly apathy of the Fade. Yet as they lie in pain day after day, despair provides the only balm for their suffering, the only numbness to be reached in their tortured existence. Glebe Pathosis hangs in a delicate balance between all-consuming apathy and all-consuming pain.

RULER: Petitioners, hordlings, and unlucky planar travellers all lay their head - or what is left of it - in the town of Glebe Pathosis, but the city has only the thinnest veneer of civilisation. There’s little for rulers to rule over, but some berks insist on climbing to the top of any social heap, no matter how small and rotten. Their names change often but the brutality, petty scheming, and gangs do not. The town has little resembling a true hierarchy, but is divided into crude power blocs based upon the most prevalent diseases. Those suffering from the same strain cluster together for mutual protection and better care of their particular needs. No gang leader has significantly more power than any other, so they come together in a loose council to determine where their meagre resources should be distributed, and to organise raids into more habitable territory. Treasure and coin is almost worthless to them; the distempered beggars instead prize bandages, ointments, and food.

BEHIND THE THRONE: Vying with the gangs for control of the city are two groups of outsiders: the Church of Loviatar, which provides ‘spiritual succour’ to the locals, and an alliance of factioneers treating more secular needs. The Church of Loviatar sees to the needs of the populace, in their cruel fashion. They themselves are diseased exiles, cast out of their goddess’ realm in Gehenna and finding respite only here. Although vicious, her priesthood are no longer entirely heartless to the suffering however, being members of the afflicted themselves. Isolated in Glebe Pathosis, their doctrine has become one of strength through enduring pain and suffering – closer to the teachings of Loviatar’s rival Ilmater than one might suspect, and certainly more than their Goddess would tolerate anywhere else.

More mundane needs are treated by a number of non-magical healers and chirurgeons, an alliance of sages from several factions. They are mainly Bleakers dealing with the pain, madness, and despair of Glebe Pathosis and Dustmen who are trying to teach the inhabitants to rise beyond their tormented ‘afterlife’. They’re a sad and sorry bunch, swiftly succumbing to the local plagues but dedicated nonetheless. Recently they were joined by a band of skilled Athar physicians; but almost immediately the newcomers began stirring things up against the local clerics. Loviatar’s faithful aren’t likely to let them get away with this for much longer, and both the Bleakers and Dustmen worry that they’ll be caught in the crossfire.

DESCRIPTION: Glebe Pathosis is a rubble-strewn and ruinous burg that was once far grander. Then it was called Woebegone, gate town to the Grey Waste long ago. Woebegone was renowned as ‘the burg of unfinished business’ where a body could go to see their life brought to a conclusion. Here final vengeance could be gained, unrequited love could be expunged, and the Hall of Suicides was always waiting for poor berks who just couldn’t cope anymore. Both the Bleakers and the Dustmen had a strong presence in Woebegone, and their businesses were blamed for the town’s eventual slide.

Sliding into the Glooms, Woebegone found an army of hags awaiting it. Petitioner inhabitants were transformed into larvae and their living neighbours were enslaved. After the hags came the thieves and the bloodcrows, swiping everything that wasn’t nailed down. Then the fiends arrived, looking for a new Blood War base: They occupied, fortified, and in time were destroyed by yet more invaders. In its slow slide along the waste this city has been flooded by the Styx, invaded by the field of nettles, seared by battlefield fire, and finally ravaged by plagues so virulent, they infected even the stones. The mark of vicious centuries is carved into these ruins like scars on the back of a recalcitrant slave.

The majority of Glebe Pathosis is now little more than broken hunks of stone and piles of debris, broken by the occasional intact wall or teetering tower. Packs of diseased hordlings prowl the outskirts, but thankfully seem quieter than most of their kind; they prowl the ruins restlessly, as if searching for something but can’t quite remember what. Towards the centre of the former city buildings are more complete - blackened skeletal husks rather than mere piles of rubble. The central area is the city’s most habitable zone and mostly clear of razorvine, nettles, and fiendish death traps - at least as much as the residents want it to be; lacking serviceable walls, Glebe Pathosis uses these growths and remnants as best in can for defence. What passes for streets have been overgrown, broken and twisted, their layout changed by the fall of buildings and the rough constructions of previous residents.

A handful of repaired buildings dominate the centre of town, but there’s no longer a rhyme or reason to their placement. The people make use of what exists as best they can: The old Hall of Suicides now serves as Adumtinge the Shadow Fiend’s tainted arms factory, the Dustmen and Bleakers use a complex made of mortared-together sarcophagi and headstones as their headquarters, and the old Ever Welcoming Gate (which once lead to the Waste) is now merely two tower stumps with an improvised rope-bridge between. Brave traders use these jagged summits as refuge from the town’s desperate and violent thieves. Any payment is drawn up in buckets of acid in the hope of killing any infection.

MILITIA: Glebe Pathosis has no permanent militia, but a number of its residents enjoy hurting people and are strong and whole enough to still be good at it. Each gang has a number of such warriors at its disposal, who guard their gang’s resources as best they can. There is no organised militia or patrols, only limping thugs looking to make themselves feel a little better by carving someone up. Most of these killers also take part in the city’s raids, so the number of warriors available varies considerably. Disease claims them all in time and they know it, so most warriors throw themselves into battle with utter disregard for their lives - disorganised but effective.

SERVICES: Because of the rampant disease, looming tower of Khin Oin, and the desperate poverty of the town’s inhabitants, Glebe Pathosis sees few traders. Night Hags are the rare exception. A grey sister or two visits the burg quite regularly, bringing food and medicines and supposed cures that are as often as not pure quackery. As well as exchanging the goods for plundered treasures, they haggle for fever dreams and nightmares drawn from sickly brows. There’s quite a market, the hags explain, for dreams like that.

Glebe Pathosis also does a small but steady trade in the diseases that ravage it. Here a careful buyer can purchase boils and pustules, vials of puss, and other means to infect their enemies. Officially the Yugoloths of the Tower are the only sanctioned vendors, but a black market exists supplying other races. An obese night hag called Granny Vials is the most prominent trader in ailments; dealing (she claims) in everything from a touch of something to buy you the day off work to plagues that can decimate entire kingdoms. Granny is a permanent resident of Glebe Pathosis, tolerated only because she has not escaped the poxes herself: her hair, fangs, and iron claws have all fallen out, and her bruise-coloured flesh has swollen and bloated.

Both Tanar’ri and Baatezu quartermasters come to the city to buy disease-impregnated weapons for use in the Blood War. A small factory in the centre of the city produces venoms, toxic artillery canisters, and other pestilential weapons made by workers enslaved under a Shadow Fiend called Adumtinge. Canny cutters could buy or filch powerful items here, for the infliction of ghastly maladies upon their enemies.

SERVICES: With the recent arrival of no less than three factions, word of Glebe Pathosis has reached the planes at large. Diseased monstrosities both literal and figurative have begun to actively seek out the place, in the hope of finding a cure or at least company for their misery amidst the ruins. The influx is small but noticeable, and local gangs have so far absorbed the newcomers with little trouble.

Of course the ‘Loths already know all about this anthill and allow Glebe Pathosis to exist. They occasionally condemn a prisoner or three to join the inhabitants – usually foolish thieves or contenders for the Oinaloth’s throne. The reason for this generosity is simple: The constant cross-infection of ailments sometimes produces mutant strains far more virulent than either parent woe, which the Yugoloth then harvest from the locals. The local daemons are hardly fond of the burg however, and current chant is that the Oinoloth’s minions are unhappy that the town is beginning to grow and potentially might even prosper. Glebe Pathosis is doing a little too well for its own good, and trouble is sure to come of it.