Ihiyo Depths

Geography

Ihiyo Depths is surrounded by a dense but thin strip of forest, teeming with poisonous and/or awakened flora. The site itself is an old and ruined - but well guarded and passably maintained - fortress of carved obsidian and stone with the kind of sharp, harsh architecture that a casual passerby would assume not be out of place in the Nine Hells.  

It is hexagonal, with reinforced gatehouse entrances in the three southern sides, and an open pit in the centre with the bottom of the spiral too far below to be visible. At the top of the pit sits a huge, ages-old oak tree with the figure of an elven woman seeming impressed into the trunk, arms uplifted with the outline of a staff raised. Offerings to the Faewarden are usually seen left in small clusters around the bared roots, which dig into the stone floor.
The main entrance to the spiral staircase that leads down into the tomb complex is usually sealed, but it is difficult to miss, due to the sheer volume and strength of protective runes around it, glowing from the door whether day or night. Once unsealed, the staircase leads anti-clockwise downward into a maze of tombs and traps, all shrouded an an almost unnatural darkness. It is rumoured that there are other hidden and possibly less well guarded or well sealed entrances, but these are presumably dangerous both to initially access and to use than the main staircase.

Localized Phenomena

Quite aside from the usual dangers of forested terrain, the area for several miles immediately around the entrance to Ihiyo Depths is frequently blanketed in persistent mists, sometimes downright illusory terrain, and the strongly rumoured possibility of rifts into the Feywild opening randomly and swallowing travellers who are rarely ever seen again.
Fey creatures hostile (or at best indifferent) to humanoid life are also populous all across the thin strip of land, and the druids who protect it are as likely to attack travellers in an attempt to scare them away from the Ihiyo Depths as they are to guide lost individuals back to civilisation, depending on their changing moods and level of bitterness towards the humans repeatedly starting to encroach into ‘their’ forest.
Periodically the site will suffer an attack from below - waves of demons, devils and/or aberrations have been known to bubble up at random from undiscovered side entrances and what is assumed to be unsealed portals buried within the still fully unexplored reaches of the Spiral, and are dutifully battled back by the Bridgewarden's folk.

History

Much like the Scarred Plains, the Ihiyo Depths is deeply associated with the War of Primordials - a conflict between the Archmother and her allies, and the four elemental titans being agitated by the chaotic and darker ‘Betrayer’ Gods.
At a certain point, as the tide was turned in the favour of the four Primordials, they sought to sack the city of Elderna, high up in the Asper Mountains and nominal home of the Archmother when she still walked among the original elves as a living goddess.
Rather than attempt to march an entire army across the desert and eventually mountainous terrain from their northern base in the Scarpeak Mountains, they established a foothold in the Obsidian Glade swamps and attempted to head north, seeking to capture and hold a new area in the south to invade the mountains in a pincer movement of two bases continuously pouring out fresh troops, new elementals and aberrations.
One of the Faewarden’s devoted Archdruids, a high elf who went on to give both her name - Ihiyo Sonarii - and the line of her descendants to the location forever afterwards, led a heroic assault to attempt to prevent the establishment of any footholds at the southern tip of the Asper Mountains, which ended in her sacrifice. Her death at the site created a magical but somewhat small, thin strip of forest steeped with the somewhat chaotic energies of the feywild (now known as the Ihiyo Tree Bridge, as it bridges the gap between the mountains and the coast, there) and successfully prevented her enemies from any long term gains. Unfortunately, however, the established fortress her enemies had created and warded could not be fully destroyed.
It became a prison, instead, various agents of evil either sealed inside, or else lost to the wandering fey beasts and the treacherous enchanted terrain of the forest that the blood sacrifice had created. Such an effective prison, in fact, that after the War of Primordials was over the elves spent what little time they had before the First Frost adding to the space, creating a vast, spiralling tomb complex that was then abandoned to the ice and snow as the Skytowers were raised and conditions on the surface of Asperyon became overwhelmingly hostile to life.
Surprisingly - or perhaps not so surprisingly, depending on how much is known about the Feywild - the Ihiyo Tree Bridge remained a pocket of wildlife untouched by the ice in the sparse spots where the connection to that other plane was strongest, and when the cold of the ice age receded and a normal climate returned, the forest resurged with almost unnatural speed back to it’s original boundaries.
Ihiyo’s returned descendents and those who share the goal of policing the location, both from misguided or ill-intentioned people getting in, and any threats - elemental, demonic or otherwise - getting out, have formed a small but dedicated sect of protectors around the site and persist there into modern times.

Tourism

The Depths (or the Traitor’s Spiral, depending on which faction the visitors throw their lot in with, as that is the Bravumian name for it) are officially sealed to the general public due to the many well documented dangers encountered there - both at the site itself and in the immediate vicinity of it.
That being considered, it is still a site of both academic and religious significance, much like the Scarred Plains much further to the north of the continent, and the cities of Elderna and Inverata in the nearby mountains and the jungle heartland of the Arbormir to the north east, respectively. As the reaches of territory claimed by the Bravumians spread, the Depths passed the boundary between elvish-controlled land and human, but due to the significance of the site the druids who live there (part of a religious sect dedicated to the Faewarden, the Keepers of the Golden Door) have refused to depart the site and insist - violently if necessary - that they remain to protect it regardless of who owns the deed to the land.

“We respect the will of the land, the seas and the sky. Persuade them with your papers instead of us, if you’re able. When the Faewarden orders us to abandon our post, then we will go, and not a moment before.” - Talyris the Bridgewarden

The allure of whatever powerful artefacts, historical records or other items of significance may be down within the spiral of tombs is strong for various Bravumian scholars, professional dungeoneers, and archaeologists, who pour scorn on the ‘ghost stories’ of the Betrayer God’s various sealed champions and any possibility of there being open portals to the Abyss or the Hells buried several stories deep below the surface. They are often brought to the site with a military detachment or group of sellswords for protection.
This sometimes leads to what those in nearby towns have taken to jokingly calling “Sonarian Stand Offs”, where the Druids refuse to allow a group of human visitors (who have usually snuck into the site while they were out patrolling the surrounding land) to leave with whatever they have brought up to the surface, should they have survived their adventure down into the Depths, and in return the humans call for military reinforcement to help facilitate their departure - either by strength of diplomacy, or the threat of force in overwhelming numbers.

Alternative Name(s)

Traitor's Spiral

Type

Sinkhole

Owning Organization

Keepers of the Golden Door

Contested By

• Crimson Order

Related Traditions

• Ruby Moon/Lucifena's Bane Festival