The Soap Works

Location:Baator, Maladomini

Character:The promise of pain to be followed only by dissolution. Evil triumphant and all-powerful. The horrors of technology visited upon the flesh.

Ruler:Guthaser (Pl/female cornugon (augmented mage abilities as well)/HD 10/LE) runs The Soap Works, keeping a close eye on the means of production and constantly tinkering with schedules and techniques to squeeze every bit of productivity out of the place. She sees what technology can do for the baatezu and hopes to impress her superiors with the power of technology and the quantity and quality of the product that the factory can produce. To date, she has certainly done this.

Behind the throne:Archduke Triel keeps a wary eye on the place, not entirely trusting anyone else's actions on his layer. It is his objections to having any pit fiends about that has resulted in Guthaser's appointment of manager of the Works, but all agree that she has done a wondrous job thus far. Triel would rather that the entire facility were on another layer, but he has been overruled by the lord of Nessus himself, who sees the present location as ideal. The Dark Lord's personal interest in the site has kept the archduke from trying to remove the Works in any concrete way.

Description:The Soap Works are built in the crumbling ruins of one of Maladomini's innumerable abandoned cities. From a distance, one can see great metalworks straining into the sky and clouds of steam and smoke rising from enormous chimneys. Upon further approaching the site, the stench of burned hair and flesh becomes apparent, and one can begin to make out the great clouds of flies that swarm about the place at all times.

The complex proper hasn't yet managed to fill the entire city, but additions are constantly being added. Inside its massive walls great pits bubble and seethe with organic fluids, and muffled screams can be heard underfoot. Thick clouds of steam and mist are everywhere, and the place is filled with a stifling heat. Lemures and kocrachon baatezu work the machinery; no petitioners are to be found.

Deep underneath the structure is where the production begins. Captured planeborne are weakened by magic and tortured by some of the most talented of the kocrachon until their spirits are broken. This may take centuries, but then the kocrachon have a appetite for lengthy sessions, and a saying has sprung up within their community here: "The longer they take to break, the better the soap they'll make!"

Now broken, the secrets of the planeborne are stripped from them, which gains the baatezu valuable chant. They are made to know what they have given the fiends, then turned over to additional kocrachon, the very best of their race, who work aboveground. At this point true suffering begins for the victims. Through their skill, magic, and the machinery available to them, the kocrachon pull the very soul of the fully aware victims from them., Once the poor sod is finally and irrevocably dead, the soul and parts of the body are transformed, along with various occult substances, through a process that involves yet more magic and technology into what the baatezu call soap of purity. This soap allows baatezu to detect, to all magic and psionic abilities, as being the planeborne race that was used in the soap's manufacture. The entire process is amazingly expensive in magic and resources, but the results are also immensely valuable. The Soap Works' location is kept a secret from other baatezu, for the usefulness of the product would be severely compromised if the secret became commonly known around the Great Ring. Only the most loyal of the fiends are given the soap, and then only on the most important missions. Thus far, it has proven to be one of the most important baatezu inventions ever.

Militia:Nine crack legions of barbazu and one of cornugons guard the ruined city and patrol the regions of the plane nearby, attacking and destroying and non-baatezu they come across. In addition, uncountable hordes of lemures roam about the area. Whether they are drawn here by the activities that go on or they are additional troops is impossible to determine. Leading these forces is the cornugon Souleater (Pl/male cornugon/HD 10/Mercykillers/LE), who delights in the pain that the celestials most certainly deserve for their actions. He would dearly love to take charge of the entire place and put it on a more military schedule, but cannot think of a way to remove or disgrace Guthaser. Stopping an invasion of the Works would be a possibility, but the place is too well hidden by magic and its remote location to make an assault likely.

Services:Production of Soap of Purity. Nothing else is made here, although what is left of the victims' bodies is often used by various baatezu for research on other planeborne races.

Current Chant:Triel has become more and more agitated upon seeing the celestials being brought to The Soap Works, possibly due to his past as one of them. No one thinks that he will openly oppose the Dark Lord of Nessus, but he may find a subtle way to oppose its operations.