The Plane of Hate

Where the Teir’Dal began

Hate is where the dark elves were born. Innoruuk stole the high elf king and queen from Takish-Hiz, imprisoned them in his plane, tortured and broke them, and remade them to his own design. The first dark elves were then set in Nektulos Forest to spread hatred across Norrath. An early Verant story about Zatozia the Torturess tells it plainly.

A city with no open space

The plane itself is a dark, twisted city inside towering black walls. There is no open ground, only alleys and empty buildings, and no safe place for anyone, residents included. Spiral ramps climb toward a sealed citadel, and pillars of black wood and stone stab down from the ceiling into the ground. Its creatures often look like beings you know from Norrath, but their true forms are said to be beyond imagining.

Districts of Hate

It is one great city split into districts, and the leaders of each district of Lesser and Greater Hate answer for its support of Innoruuk’s will. The Slums of Spite hold hordes of lesser servants, to be thrown at any major invasion to buy time for the elite troops to counterattack. The District of Scorn is ruled by Overlord R’Gahbsa, unofficial head of the Indigo Brotherhood and nominal commander of every Teir’Dal force on Norrath and in Hate. In the District of the First, the Firstborn prepare dark elf strike teams for Norrath. And even blocks away, a haunting melody from the Cathedral of the Maestro pulls travellers toward it.

The palace and the decoy

That pull is a trick. The plane is built so that invaders believe the Cathedral and its Maestro are the real power, while the tunnel to Innoruuk’s palace is kept discreet. In the palace he receives sacrifices and supplicants, rewards or punishes his Teir’Dal heroes, and hands out missions to spread hate. He also throws lavish parties for district rulers who loathe one another, so he can bask in the hatred in the room.

His guard is drawn from the most famous dark elf heroes and villains of every age. In one black stone villa live three beautiful Teir’Dal women who were among the first of the Firstborn, the dark elves made directly from Tunare’s elves.

Hate opens

More than once the plane has broken into Norrath. Before Bloody Kithicor, a vast power tore open the barrier between the worlds and a miasma of evil poured out of Hate. In a later retelling, Lanys T’Vyl’s mentor Laarthik K’Shin used an artifact to open a portal to the Plane of Hate so that Innoruuk could rescue his defeated daughter.

The Book of Souls

Norrath’s adventurers went the other way. In Steamfont, Yendar Starpyre asked for the Book of Souls, a tome that “chronicles all the lives Innoruuk has tainted over the years,” kept by the Maestro of Rancor. The bards of Greater Faydark sent players there to study ghasts, scorn banshees and haunted chests.