Shoglomph Curatoch

When the demons under Athroond invaded Bal-Kriav, they came through a rift beneath the future site of this city. This rift, the Arioch Cloud, is an inter-system bridge between two worlds, one overrun with demons, the other a world that in a few hundred years would be classed as part of the Mortal Systems.

Called Curatoch in the Demon Spawn War, it was built to fortify the area around the rift. This was more to contain the demons coming through the rift, than ward against Covenant attack. Containing and controlling the demons was a major problem for all Abyss's upstart demon lords; for if given the chance, lesser demons escaped into the wild. Covenant commanders didn't press the invasion rift. After they learned they were fighting mostly water-borne demons, their tactics in Ufthag turned to a defensive one, controlling the tunnels next to the Green Nebulous and its feeder rivers.

Curatoch had problems with flooding from the outset. This came from rift's opening on the Abyssal side. It was near a swamp that snaked its way across the entire world. Water from this eerie swamp bled across the rift. Fortunately for Athroond, most of the demons under him were amphibian-like, fast in the water, but rather slow on the surface. His aboleth laborers built most of the city, with demons building the areas above water. It served as the base of operations for demons invading the world Bal-Kriav from the Abyssal world Arioch.

In the Lith-Crillion Era, kuo-toans came upriver from Cthorgo's Toadoolp Twist. They built over the half-submerged ruin, renaming it Shoglomph. They pumped out a lot of the water flooding the lower levels. By trade and war, Shoglomph became an Underdark metropolis unrivaled for hundreds of miles. Following the architecture beneath it, it became a place of grandeur, otherworldly architecture, and dichotomy. It has a mix of chaos and law in its design; both attributed to the emanations rising up from the Arioch Cloud.

In 1445, the kuo-toan ruler Lagdú Gúrkúlub hired a band of adventurers. They were tasked with finding out why negative entropy and entropic energies were swelling up from below the city. These energies had long played on the minds of the population, having complete reversals in how the population was governed. Rulers had periods of stern order, then spells of lawlessness which they seemed to encourage. After exploring an area 500' beneath the city, they returned with their findings. The Marching Twenty hypothesized that an angel had nobly sacrificed himself to close the Arioch Cloud. They said the long periods of law and then equally long periods of chaos are the emotions of the trapped angel and those of an entire world of demons frozen in time. By world, they were referring to Arioch which even today is still frozen in time.

Shoglomph has a large slave population. Slaves comprise 60% of the city, with a mix of Drarthiel races and some surface races like wood elves out of Gwaeldior and Nermaneans taken from Bathor. Powerful forces of law and chaos are trapped in the city's deepest labyrinths. The city's slave revolts and riots are worse when the Arioch Cloud's emanations shift to chaos.

The only group on friendly terms with Shoglomph is Yastorogg. By treaty, the two limit their raids on each other. Shoglomph's depredations are usually focused on those using and bordering the Green Nebulous. Anyone within twenty miles of the eerie waters of this Underdark sea risks attack and possible enslavement by the kuo-toans.

The kuo-toan use the emanations of the Arioch Cloud to make items with chaos or lawful qualities. Currently the city is going through a period of strong law and order, so the Arioch Forge can only produce items requiring negative entropy.