The Tree of Suffering

Location: Baator (Avernus)

Description:The Tree is a giant, pitch black, gnarled and knotted tree without any leaves. From a distance, it just looks like a strange dead tree, not really unfitting to the wasteland of Avernus. But as one comes nearer to the tree, the bodies of hanged people can be seen - on each and every branch there's a dangling corpse, rotting in the heat of the plane.

Stinking and loathsome, the tree and its' corpses don't even attract flies; but the real horror only becomes clear as one comes even closer: All of those rotting, foul bodies still struggle for air as the ancient, nearly breaking ropes tie up their necks. Their legs twitch and wince, their eyes (if they're not yet rotten) roll in anguish and despair, but their breath isn't even sufficient for a pitiful moaning. Of course, all of those poor souls are petitioners of Baator.

If someone tries to "rescue" one of them, he'll find out the ropes are impossible to cut through, and the attempt of putting the ropes from the branches only results in the character trying this getting some scratches from the sparse sharp thorns on the tree. There is a 20% chance such a scratch also infuses an infernal poison into the character's veins, against which only a saving throw vs. poison with a -6 penalty or a remove poison spell help. If the poison takes effect after 1d2 rounds, the character rots and withers in just another 2d4 rounds, until he looks as the petitioners on the tree. He's inability to make any action, though he still lives. Only the most powerful magic can restore him to his previous form again.

Note that, although it is not possible to help the petitioners, one CAN torture them (even more that is). Indeed, baatezu occasionally come here and tear the poor souls apart, just to watch the small pieces slowly move back to their place. Or they may behead the petitioners, watching foul blood and other horrible liquids spill out of both head and body, while the tormented petitioners show even more suffering, both at the head and the body (which obviously keep on living as if they did not need each other).

The Dark:Once in a millenium, the Tree of Eternal Suffering produces a fruit - one pitch-black peach, seemingly as rotten and foul as the corpses on the tree's branches. Its' fluids can be used to make three doses of a deadly poison (every dose can kill any mortal without a saving throw, no matter if he's protected by magic or something else, and even paramortals immune to poison die if they fail a saving throw vs. poison).

The peach itself, if eaten, corrupts the soul of any mortal (who then becomes as Lawful Evil as a baatezu of "Lesser" level), while paramortals can resist its' power only if they finish a quest of greatest good within one month. Everyone corrupted by the fruit not only develops a soul of most vile darkness, but also becomes pitch black physically. His skin, his eyes and hair, even his internal organs and his blood turn ebon within seconds.