PAIN

CharacterYou can't avoid pain and death. Be aware of that. But also know that you can run away from them, for some time, you may escape the howling horrors for a few moments now and then. Unfortunately, the only way to achieve it is bringing pain and death to others. The wind always forces a sacrifice. You can only choose if you make it yourself, or make someone else make it.

DescriptionThis place can barely be considered a town; it's a few dozen huts nearly lost in the great cavern in which it's placed. The inhabitants, humans without exception, struggle hard to keep their huts intact at all, as the strong wind always seems to fight to break them down again. It doesn't really matter, though; the huts aren't enough to keep the howling wind out, anyway. The cutters here have all been living here for many years bound by the magic of Graffoon, the town's ruler. This ancient arch-mage honestly tells anyone interested that he stays alive by feeding off the life energy of the locals. Whenever his body gets beyond eighty years of age, he casts a spell on someone to steal a few years from him. Seems he's convinced his "death age" is exactly ninety, and he wants to stay away from it. Considering his true age, that must be somewhere beyond five hundred years.

Graffoon (Pl/male human/M27/CE(N)) looks as tattered as the huts in PAIN, and his eyes are as frightening as insanity incarnate. Although the cutters here are bad indeed, he's the worst of them all; he's got not one, but several Pandemonium insanities, and they're all at the most extreme (from Planes of Chaos, he's got the following insanities: Delusion, Foreign Accent, Nerves). While most people here scream the town's name (it's got a reason it's written in capitals), Graffoon howls it, astonishingly fitting the wind's howling at any given moment. While he doesn't really care about anyone, he randomly casts a powerful spell on visitors (5% chance for every day and person) that binds them to the place, so that they can never go farther than one mile away from town.

People here have found a weird way of getting release from their howling madness. As soon as they make someone else suffer AND be struck with horror, they're free from their madness, and their victim takes it. Too bad the berks here still can't leave, and will sooner or later suffer some new form of madness.

Behind the ThroneWhile Graffoon is the most powerful denizen of PAIN, he's far too uncaring to rule the town. This is done by Jarararaan (Pl/female human/Bard (Blade) 17/Fated/CN; madness: Laughs too much, Xenophobia), a thirty-year old woman that one probably wouldn't even notice when meeting her in the streets of Sigil. Jarararaan solves any disputes in town (not necessarily in a fair way), and organizes people for defense whenever someone or something threatens PAIN. As they've learned to respect her, people here usually follow her commands, and the impression that PAIN is owned by this woman isn't far from the truth (though Graffoon wouldn't agree).

Special ConditionsMany people here suffer from more than one madness, as they fell victim to the madness-infecting that's possible in town. For every NPC, throw with 1d4 for any given madness. Whenever such madness-infecting is done, the typical effects for Pandemonium madness apply, though no matter how mad the berk from PAIN was, the new victim always starts at the first level of severity. If he has already got the particular madness, though, it instantly gets one level worse - and if it already was at its worst, it becomes permanent, even if the cutter somehow manages to get away from PAIN.

A madman can't get rid of more than one madness at once, though - if he's been freed of one, he has to wait one month before he can use PAIN's particular power again.

MilitiaAbout two hundred utterly mad, desperate bashers, all hoping to drive you mad as well, and about twenty percent of them being spell-slingers of some sort (seems Graffoon likes them most).

ServicesIf you can convince one of the barmies that you've found a way to kill Graffoon and/or free him from town, he'll probably do much for it. About none of them would do it before you've succeeded, though - and with Graffoons unusual arsenal of powerful spells, such a task will be truly hard to succeed in.

Local NewsJarararaan got inspired by the most recent visitors, a couple of dwarfs from a Prime World. Jara (for short, but don't call her this when she can hear) believes that if she manages to inflict suffering and horror on that whole world - that is, if she manages to bring an apocalypse to that world -, the whole town will be freed from pain and madness, permanently.

She's already killed the last visitor in town, a planewalking incubus, to get his crystal ball, with which she's able to spy on that world and even telepathically contact sods she sees in the ball. Seems she's seeking some madmen to work out her plans for her, posing as a goddess of madness...

Graffoon himself is another thing entirely he seems to have become happy with his situation, more or less. At least, he doesn't even try to do anything against it. Instead, he's trying to gather treasures, for example, by slaying weak but rich visitors, or (rarely) by letting one of the sods in town get out for some time for a headhunting job. Of course, he makes sure the sod comes back with his new-found treasures, using his mighty magic for it.