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Like a geode, the planet Embroi shimmers violet in the void,
a place of quiet complexity and efficiency. Six continents
divide the planet’s amethyst seas, which are the domains
of countless species of massive, regal mollusks. Girded by
archipelagos, these landmasses are called Antikawara, the Baskar
Expanse, Chapru Von, Demagallo, Irralo Kellad, and Kanfrei. The
Baskar Expanse is the largest but least populated, a land of ruins,
ash storms, and plague—all remnants of the barely remembered
but much-maligned Baskar States. Most of the world’s population
dwells on either Demagallo, the capital-continent, or Irralo Kellad,
a land of iron mountains and factory-wrought boreholes.
The mask-faced Embri are the dominant race, cleaving to
their places in society and daily regimens with near religious
fervor. Individual desires are disruptions that, over
centuries of cultural repression and societal scripting,
have been quashed. There are few freethinking
Embri on the planet and no rebellion or even
quiet resistance. Each Embri has a role, and it
either performs it well or is replaced. They do as
they are instructed and are rewarded with paltry
comforts and hollow promises, making Embroi a
particularly valuable slave world in Hell’s Material
Plane empire.
Few residents, and even fewer visitors from the
Pact Worlds, realize that Embroi is a fiefdom of Hell.
The diabolical population exists only in the planet’s
shadows, and overt infernal influences remain
minimal. Knowledge of the world’s vast network
of underground thoroughfares has been erased
from Embroi’s histories. This nether realm is now
the domain of quiet levaloch
armies; burning portals to
Malebolge, the sixth layer
of Hell; and scab-encrusted
sacrifice machines. Over it
all watches the victorious
malebranche Occhiorasoi,
who conquered Embroi
before the onset of the
Gap. Now she waits,
as she has for eons,
ever prepared for her
world to contribute to
Asmodeus’s unknown
immortal designs.