Of Life, and Death, and Delight

Ancient tales spread again and again in Sigil about an eternal, absolute horror of the multiverse's prison: Carceri. It is a legend that was known before the first mortals ever came to the planes, and it is a legend that brings fear and despair to anyone who finds out this legend is - true.

In Minethys, third layer of Carceri, a dark castle hides among the sandstorms, banished here countless millennia ago. As the legend explains, the castle once was found on a long forgotten prime material world. Its inhabitants were psychopaths and witches, necromancers, assassins and insane alchemists. They all belonged to one family, and although their age-old traditions of psychopaths claimed countless victims, the members of that family felt a love for each other which was as deep as Baator's ninth layer.

It was this love which led to their doom. As the legend claims, one particularly powerful god of their world fell in love with Araia, the witch mistress. Araia, being married with Carlos, and loving him so deeply the god's greatest powers were not enough to twist her mind, refused the deity. And thus did the jealous god send the family, along with their whole castle, to Carceri, cursing the family to live there forevermore.

Araia and Carlos are long since dead. And yes, this tale is so ancient, even the jealous god himself has died and been forgotten by now. But the castle and the family are still imprisoned in Carceri.

A tragedy, most would claim; but then, those rippers and necromancers doomed themselves with their evil deeds, did they not? Oh, how wrong a judgement! Neither was it their evilness that led to their banishment, but their deep love; nor did they truly consider it a doom.

True, it took some time before they adapted to the horrible layer of Minethys. But remember wielders of magic were common in this family, and thus did they change their family's very nature. It needed a few generations, but finally these mortals could live in Minethys as a baatezu in Baator. And, most importantly, they still had themselves, and their love (and insanities).

And so it comes that to this day planewalkers in Minethys stumble upon a fearful castle in the midst of a sandstorm, and, seeking refuge, unknowingly embrace a fate far worse than death. That is, if they do not fit into this family themselves: After all, the family has survived many millennia, and they could not have done it without fresh blood from the outside (and understand that, in some cases, this was meant literally...)

Inspired by the Addams Family