This page is about the demiplane, for the campaign named after the Demiplane, see The BackHalls (Campaign)
The BackHalls (Real name unknown) were a mysterious and seemingly unending labyrinth of hallways and office spaces, where the only companions you'll find are the comfort of the damp carpet under your feet, and the buzz of the florescent lights above. Creatures from all manner of time and space found themselves in the BackHalls fighting for survival.
History
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It was rumored that the BackHalls were created in prehistoric times by a legendary warden known as Ymbtry (the same warden which the town Ymbtrymman is named for), who had created the demiplane as part of a lost magical ritual which he called "The Blackened Hallmark".
After its creation, very few, if any, creatures ever escaped back to Quelmar from the BackHalls. As a result, its long history is compressed into a compressed time in which it seems everything is happening everywhere at once.
It was confirmed that the BackHalls (much like other planar links) were destroyed as part of the Fracturing of the Weave, and the contents of the halls at that time were dumped out across Quelmar, including whatever power was left of its Vestiges, who added to the apocalyptic vibes of the fracture.
About
Creatures (or objects, magic, plants, really anything that can be targeted by a spell) enter the BackHalls when they are subjected to imprisonment magic, but the spell was not done in the correct way -- either on purpose or due to a lack of skill. As a result, the target of the spell is teleported and imprisoned not in a typical imprisonment bubble, but to this nullified demiplane that exists tangential to reality. Since it was inescapable, it would later become a secret among mages to cast Imprisonment incorrectly if you REALLY needed to get rid of something for good, such as a piece of blackmail, or a curse, or something else that threatens the realm.
Spawning
The BackHalls has specific rooms that are "spawn rooms" where creatures will appear to be summoned out of nowhere. Typically once a spawn room has summoned a party of creatures, it will have a cooldown period before it summons more creatures. Every time a creature spawns, they will be carrying whatever they had on their person when they were originally subjected to the imprisonment, including their clothes, weapons, and any satchels/inventory they had on their person.
When someone is killed in the BackHalls, they do not die, but rather respawn in the halls in a new spawn room. However, they will not retain any memories, items, or powers from their prior life cycle. As a result, every time someone spawns into the BackHalls, they will feel like it is the first time they've ever spawned in the BackHalls.
Life in the Halls
The souls banished to the BackHalls never needed to eat, sleep, or drink. They don't get physically sleepy, but may find themselves wearing thin on abilities and power (such as magic) as they exhaust their power, requiring them to still rest for a time to regain natural strength.
Architecture
The walls of the BackHalls were said to be covered in an offensive wallpaper of beige and yellow colors, featuring vertical columns of repeating fleur-de-lis. There were no doors in the hallways, only open passages, though whether or not there were historically any doors is an open question, considering that wooden debris could be found in various places.
Shops
Every 42nd Room in the BackHalls was home to a strange shop. Shops came in all shapes, sizes, forms, and sold any number of weird things.
The economy in the BackHalls was based off of Trinkets and not money. Trinkets took the form of literally anything small and deemed valuable to someone in the halls. That could include true valuables like jewelry, as well as lesser valuables like portraits, books, weapons, parchment, hair, and all manner of strange left-behinds.
Quirks & Tidbits
Many groups preferred to travel in groups of 10, called Contuberniums, due to it giving that group a sort of invincibility or invulnerability from The Allip.
Doors
There was almost nothing as valuable as a free-standing Door in the BackHalls. Having a large door on wheels (a specialty of the Dwarven guild that lived in the halls) would allow groups to travel and close off passages behind them, or find a safe dead-end somewhere where they could close off the only passage in, providing a 100% guaranteed sanctuary.
Soundtracks
The BackHalls was full of an eerie buzz and a haunting silence, which was sometimes broken by distance screams, crunches, or other ghastly sounds of people dying. However, to remedy this, a number of shops in the BackHalls sold "Soundtracks", which could be purchased and activated to relieve the haunting silence, filling the air with all manner of music and noise. It was almost necessarily for long-time survival, as the haunting silence and constant reminders of death tended to drive others to insanity.
Some known soundtracks include:
Poetry
It was common for lost souls to eventually scribble out poems and thoughts onto the walls using whatever material they had on them, sometimes including their own blood. A sample of poems scrapped from the Backhall walls include:
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Encounters
This is an incomplete list of things encountered in The Backhalls (so far).
- SWAT Marines
- Dire Wolves
- A Blind balhannoth
- Recent writing on the walls says in wet ink: "3...2...1"
- A tree grows out of the wall, merging with the wallpaer, the tree becomes more impossible to touch the closer you get to it.
- A run down Intervention Buster with a dead skeleton inside. Particularly crafty or modern victims could maybe recover explosives from it.
- A room with a shadow demon.
- A swarm of 2d4 goblins.
- A reeking puddle of ooze
- A small circle of stones, a labcoat sits on one of the rocks.
- Untouched office with furniture from a schoolhouse
- A wall mounted font which liquified (soupified?) anything placed into it.
- An altar, written in gnomish: "The Altar of the GlassBreakers"
- Trapped chambers which shut and fill with sand if triggered.
- Goblins
- Oil Barrels filled with assorted items.
- Blackouts
- Wall mounted Conversational Security Cameras with mic and speaker.
- The Kreaker
- Portals that let you enter the walls.
- Death Dogs
- Half Giants
- Hill Giants
- Locked Chests of Good Loot
- Spells that appear out of nowhere
- Puzzles written into the floor
- A Stuckey's
- This specific shop was run by a recneck attendant named Zeke. He gave out temporary tattoos which granted powers such as Spell Slots, Action Surges, etc.
- The Stuckey's had mounted mirrors in the corners of the room like a gas station, but unlike normal mirrors, these also seemed to show spooky demons lurking around the room
- Random bursts of fire
- Trapped chambers which lock you in.
- Chambers that make you lose all you senses.
- Teleporting bugs
- A sleepy Yagnoloth
- Vampires and vampire kobolds
- Sundry demons
- Various altars
- Secret doors
- Portals to other parts of the halls
The Vestiges
Sometimes called the Bosses or the Masters, there were a set of 10 vestiges (and one god) who were trapped in the halls. Some say that the halls were originally created to trap these unstoppable forces in the first place.
- The Allip
- The Eviscerator
- The Ogre Warlord
- The Dire Troll
- The Crab
- The Wyvern
- The Frog
- The Minotaur
- The Dragon
- The Goristro
- Ipos
Factions
- GlassBreakers
- Cursed invidividuals (primarily gnomes, but also many others)
- Asmodeus Reject's
- Devils who had been cursed to the halls, who were disappointed to find out that killing themselves did NOT send them back to hell.
- MapGabbers
- A poetic group of bards writing songs to help them memorize all the rooms and encounters they've had
- The Bank, also known as The Mint and The Vault
- The Dwarven guild, who have locked off several highly secure rooms and started operations to attempt to mine/hoard infinite gold off of the infinitely respawning creatures.
- Glumpfens
- Desperate little goblinses who want nothing but to find purpose in life by serving the needs of anyone they find. They live off of praise and head pats.
- Camera Barbarians / Polaroid Ragers
- A group of half giants who managed to get ahold of a Polaroid Camera, which they would utilize as a flashbomb, blinding anyone they came across and granting them the opportunity to pummel them.
- The Royal Court / The Kingdom
- Said to have once run the entire BackHalls, seemingly managed to "escape" the halls by breaking out of the outermost walls and building an independent kingdom at a spatial distance from the rooms of the labyrinth.
- Sisters of the Mystic Eye
- A small clan of druids that populated the halls.
- Pelorians
- The City (including the Pistol Arrows)
- The Watchers
- Circus of the Lost
Maps
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Map taken from the MapGabbers
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Snippet of Room intel taken from a Short Film
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A map of the halls taken from the headquarters of the GlassBreakers
