Developing Acheron

Some ideas after some brainstorming to develop Acheron ^^ ( I'll post some for Kelerm next ). it's still pretty sketchy but here goes :

Contrary to most of the realms of Hell, Acheron remains largely untamed by demons. The inhabited portion of it is actually tiny and the rest is an extremely hostile icy wasteland, circling the habitable zone from all sides.The frozen wastes are far from being an empty desert though, and are full of legendary, titanic monsters, filling the heart of demons with fear.

-Blizzard barrier: The inhabited part of Acheron could be circled by a large zone battered by very strong blizzards. It is caused by fissures and cracks in the icy ground, letting an extremely cold liquid found under the ice meeting the -comparably- warmer air of the surface, creating a perpetual ring of very strong winds. That ring of blizzards would make both getting in and out of the inhabitable zone very difficult.

-Crystalline "vegetation":  The icy wastes are home to a sort of living crystal that grow constantly at a speed visible to the eyes if you were to look closely enough. It's grazed upon by all sort of animals making the bottom of the food chain of the area. In some places of that icy desert where the density of "crystalovore" creatures are lower, that crystal has been known to grow to gigantic proportions. These formations can be seen on the horizon from a very long distance if the weather is clear of any of the titanic blizzards that often sweep the land.

-The "spitter" ( name tbd ):
xxx are large worms burrowing into the permafrost of the ice wastes. The bottom of their body is able to produce a very intense heat that allows them to melt ice and turn it to water in order for the worm to absorb it and store it in their body. Over the course of days, the water is progressively turned into a liquid with unique properties, able to be controlled by the xxx to a certain extent.

When it's time to feed, the worm will emerge to the surface, and spit this unique liquid at a target  It will then control its flow for a few seconds, creating a very chaotic stream projection, able to change direction in the middle of its course in an unpredictable way before it reverts back to ice, with the prey encased inside or impaired. The xxx then proceed to engulf the grotesque ice sculpture along with its trapped victims and swallowing its prey down. The ice melts and is recycled for futur uses.

There could be a smaller, domesticated version of this creature, tamed by the frost succubi in Semdion in order to build ice structures

-Blizzard monster ( name tbd ):
That creature resembles an immense, frosty angler fish lying in wait in the blizzard. With its excellent capacity to detect vibrations in the ground, it can sense prey for very far away. The creature will then start to create walls of ice to guide the prey toward  it. Once the prey is close enough, they are inhaled by the irresistible suction of the monster and devoured.

-Crystalline infestation  ( name tbd )

xxxx are creatures looking a crystalline spider. they are frail and fragile creatures, very vulnerable when they're scuttling about on land.

They are deadly parasites though, entering and burrowing into the body of some of the behemoths prowling the ice wastes.They infest their host in order to devour them slowly from the inside and slowly crystallizing their organism. The xxx eventually takes entire control of its host using it both as a protection and sustenance. infested creatures display a very erratic, agressive and violent behavior, with physical limitations seemingly removed. infested creatures are prone to blind rage and a propension to harm themselves, turning already massive, formidable monsters forces of pure destruction and chaos.

At a terminal stage of infestation, crystals start to emerge from the body of the host, piercing its skin, replacing its bones and invading its organs. At this point, death is but inevitable and a matter of time.. When the xxx has finally killed its host it will leave a mostly empty, crystallized husk behind and a host of larvas, ready to find a new host to infest.

That's the ideas for now ^^  The Frozen desert is supposed to be a zone of immense perils, avoided by even the most powerful demons, so it's an occasion to come up with some OP creatures if you feel like it

Not sure if you were looking for feedback on this, but here goes.

The creatures and conditions described certainly are intense, but don't seem to be a fundamental shift from other realms of hell. If you really want to make demons and succubi wary going there, maybe think of it as another dimension/sub-dimension with some kind of deleterious effects on demons, or a fundamental shift in the laws of nature/physics. If you think about hell being another dimension with different laws of physics and nature compared to the mortal plane, this makes it a very scary place for mortals. Not just a situation of "oh, its a bigger monster, let me get out my really BIG gun," but possibly a situation where the whole concept of a gun, regardless of how big or powerful might be totally useless.

So getting back to beings of hell/plane of reality; (assuming a non-magic world of course), the ability of a demon/succubus to jump into the mortal plane of existence and/or jump to another place is such a fundamental shift for a being used to thinking in terms of things like:

• I'll set up a nice defensive wall around my castle/city. (The entire concept rendered useless)
  
• I can move at X speed. This is faster than Y speed that my enemy will move at.  (The entire concept again rendered useless)
  
• If I die in combat, my soul will live on. (Unless a succubus gets a hold of it)
  

Anyway the point being that creatures from this other plan are so scary, not because they are bigger or stronger or faster, but because they require you to rethink the entire validity of these sorts of comparisons.

So how would you make things this level of scary for a succubus or demon?

What sorts of things/abilities do they take for granted? Take them away from them. Maybe succubi
have their wings rendered useless, or their powers of corruption work in reverse. Or they take continuous damage from even being in that environment.

Anyway, maybe I've triggered a few new ideas. If you haven't read it, you might want to take a look at a book called Sphereland by Dionys Burger, which has lots of interesting thought experiments on how foreign certain concepts would be from the perspective of a person living in a different dimension.

Is this for an upcoming manga? Story?

[EDIT] One of the old versions of Diablo had a succubus curse that could be cast on the player which caused any spells the player cast to drain their life instead of their mana. In the context of the game, it wasn't that big of deal, since you carried stacks of healing potions. But put that in another context (no healing available, and a creature that depends on magic ability to survive) and it could be a scary effect. Again the point is that it's not "more" (I faced a little monster before, and it shot little fireballs at me, now I face a bigger monster, who shoots bigger fireballs), but rather different, and requires a different way of thinking to get around.

I'd thought about this a bit earlier, when you mentioned you wanted something to add in Acheron. How about you draw from the legendary Ginnungagap, the primordial ice field of Nordic mythos?

I had thought of an icy landscape, dotted by ever-growing monolithic pillars made of rocksalt, each surrounded by a saltwater moat. Breaking the salt pillars (whether by force or by melting) releases new and exciting creatures, some of them big enough to eat an archfiend's army whole, but in spite of their power rarely capable of subsisting for long if their salt prisons are shattered. We could have it so that all kinds of demons were once trapped in the salt, then got released, and succubi, which form the backbone of demonic presence in the Hellverse are just the latest and most successful (also, capable of reproducing at all, which is not a given either).

I'll get back to this later.

Stabs wrote:

I'd thought about this a bit earlier, when you mentioned you wanted something to add in Acheron. How about you draw from the legendary Ginnungagap, the primordial ice field of Nordic mythos?

I had thought of an icy landscape, dotted by ever-growing monolithic pillars made of rocksalt, each surrounded by a saltwater moat. Breaking the salt pillars (whether by force or by melting) releases new and exciting creatures, some of them big enough to eat an archfiend's army whole, but in spite of their power rarely capable of subsisting for long if their salt prisons are shattered. We could have it so that all kinds of demons were once trapped in the salt, then got released, and succubi, which form the backbone of demonic presence in the Hellverse are just the latest and most successful (also, capable of reproducing at all, which is not a given either).

I'll get back to this later.

Actually, Ginnungagap is the primordial void that existed before the creation of the universe in Norse mythology. The ice field you're thinking of is Niflheim, the realm of primordial ice and cold.

Thanks for the remarks ^^

Indeed it makes sense that this zone, being dangerous to the extreme could have some different "rules" going on ,making it even more unpredictable. Maybe some strange climatic phenomenons ,or something to do with the very cold liquid underneath ?

I admit I never heard about Ginnungagap before.  the "Yawning Void" mhh. hehe interesting.

And yes I remember about this curse ! I was an avid Diablo 2 player back in the day XD Alone that curse wasn't that dangerous ( mostly because the succubi themselves were pretty weak ennemies ) but in combination with damaging auras in hell difficulty this could create some pretty nasty combos ^^

Norse mythology is one of my favorite myths, thanks in no small part to the recent God of War game, which goes into surprising depth about it. In fact, I learned about Ginnungagap and the Norse creation myth from that game, among other things. If you're interested about learning some things about Norse mythology, I recommend playing God of War. Just be aware that some artistic license was taken here and there for the sake of the narrative. I recommend you also do your own research on the characters and other elements that show up in the game. I'm even considering adding some allusions to Norse myths in my own stories, once I feel like working on them again.

Continuing on the Ginnungagap theme, from what I've read, it had rivers of venom flowing through it. Élivágar, according to wiki, were rivers dripping with venom, from which Ymir was begat. So we could make the ice venomous, which would help make it a bit weirder.

I thought a bit more of Acheron

So we have a essentially a large sheet of ice on top of an extremely cold liquid. I have a couple of possible names for it but let's call it "ECL" for now. That liquid, found in a few spiritual worlds only, possesses many strange properties. It acts contrary to water regarding temperature. When its environment is cold, it's found in liquid form. However the warmer it gets, the more solid it gets as well. As a general rule, if ECL get in contact with the Acheron atmosphere, it will quickly "freeze" and solidify ( but not because it's too cold, because it's too warm ! )
Some interaction can be witnessed with the ECL whenever the weather gets colder. And geysers of sort will sometimes shoot out streams of ECL into the air of Acheron, turning it into a solid form a few seconds later- usually when still airborne unless the weather is really very cold - creating a hail of sharp solidified ECL. needless to say those can be absolutely deadly and devastating if you're unprotected.

On top of that, organisms living in the ECL underground sea can get expelled along with the ECL. The parasitic life form mentioned actually come from there.
In short : when it gets colder in the Acheron wasteland, things get even more dangerous than what they already are, which is saying something !
Those parasites will try to regain the ECL if they can though. They become frenzied when on the surface due to the uncomfortably warm atmosphere for them but once they come back to the ECL they revert to less agressive creatures.  When gathered in large numbers in the same area it seems they are capable of a very primitive form of intelligence. It's especially true in some areas very deep in the wasteland where it gets extremely cold all the time and those ECL geysers are a common occurrence, and you can even find some ECL holes in the ice where the liquid simply don't freeze.

As a general rule, Semdion and others cities of Acheron are situated where the layer of ice is the thickest and where it's warmer as well. Here the ECL stay deep underneath the ice and, thankfully, never meet the air. The farther you get from Semdion, the colder it progressively gets.

What do you think of that basis ?

If you look at it that way, there ought to be a reason why Acheron's got those hot solid boils. Maybe the spots with the most portals make for the warmest bits?

But if so, one asks what about the rest of the plane. There ought to be someone living there, this is Heck we're talking about. If all of Acheron is liquid save for the islands, focusing the article on the islands themselves would be bizarre. One should emphasize Mare Frigus a little more if it's the entire plane, or explain why it's not focused on. Maybe Mare Frigus is completely taken over by wild demons and the infernal hierarchy doesn't reach there? That's the impression I get at least.

I'll be blunt: I don't see how this Extremely Cold Liquid adds anything of substance to the realm.  All I see is just an inversion of ice melting when it's hot and water freezing when it's cold, and all it's really saying is that Acheron is just an island.  It also doesn't feel very Hellish.  Maybe it's just my bias that Hell should be the absolute worst place you could ever get yourself in, but how is that stuff supposed to help punish the damned souls that were sent there?  Not only that, but isn't Antarioch, the fire realm, already a set of islands drifting on a sea of lava?  When you think about it, it's the exact same idea, only with glaciers on top of really, really cold water.  If you ask me, I think people are going to notice that you're just recycling concepts like that, and I don't think it really makes a difference if Acheron is a bleak frozen wasteland battered by neverending blizzards or an island on a sea of liquid nitrogen.

Oh, this is just me, but I think to really hammer in how cold Acheron is being the ice realm and all, one quirk of the realm should be that you can't light a fire by any means, whether it's by magic or not. Furthermore, no natural source of heat exist in the realm at all, not even a sun. You either resists the cold naturally or you die, and you can find frozen corpses littering the place as far as the eye can see.

Ok I admit the comparison with Antarioch comes as a surprise. In my mind the two are very different and I didn't base those ideas for Acheron at all on Antarioch. No attempt at "recycling" from my part whatsoever here.

The liquid sea is mostly something entirely covered by that layer of ice which is not drifting on it. Contrary to Antarioch, that underground sea is something remaining mostly unseen for most of creatures on Acheron. It's just there but most inhabitants of Semdion will never ever see it. As for the property of the liquid i was trying to come up with something novel as Kululu17 pointed rather than just a frozen and super cold wasteland.

The fact heat sources are extremely rare is something that was implied as well in my mind although the idea of no fire being able to be lit at all is interesting and that vision of frozen statues as far as the eyes can see is striking, ghastly and make a lot of sense here.

I have an idea regarding the Extremely Cold Liquid.  How about we combine it with the crystalline vegetation and monsters, and have them be a byproduct of the ECL?  Basically, when there's an ECL eruption, it means that a new crystal forest might be created somewhere.  This causes Acheron's landscape to be ever-changing and nigh-impossible to chart since one forest might be gone somewhere, and another that didn't used to be someplace else is now suddenly there.  However, crystalline monsters, like the parasitoid crystal spiders (yes, they are parasitoids since they kill the host outright), are also born out of the stuff.  So though an ECL forest might be a breathtaking sight to behold, much like Felarya in general, anything remotely dazzling means bad things are about to happen.

Oh, speaking of those parasitoids crystals, have you heard of cordyceps, Karbo?  They remind me of them given how they alter and even take control of the host the same way cordyceps take control of ants and force them to find a high vantage point above their nest so its spores can spread farther and infect more ants.