The Flesh-Roil Geographic Location in Frontier Unwound | World Anvil

The Flesh-Roil

The Black Wind of Death, Nightgale, is almost universally hated from the green fields of France to the Realm of Shangri-La. The damage it does to us, as living beings, both our bodies and our souls, has earned that revulsion. If anyone has done anything worth praise with the wind, other than striking down a death sentenced criminal by happenstance, it remains unrecorded. I'm far more inclined to believe that the account simply doesn't exist.
  Part of the Black Wind's insidious nature is it's... insistence. It wants to be used by someone, anyone, and will actively entice anyone with a penchant for magic when it can, instead of the courtship that one must participate in with almost all other winds of magic.
  And what happens when you find a whole Realm that simply emits such a Wind?
  When a Realmportal opens, it is not a strange phenomenon for winds of magic unheard of to flow through alongside whatever creatures or people that might wander out in curiosity. Imparting all sorts of strange, wondrous, and admittedly sometimes dangerous effects on the surrounding. Living storms, or antigravity. Magic plants sprouting from barren soil.
  Even if those plants snap and bite, or are poisonous and inedible, they are not inherently harmful all the time. Nearby residents may learn the facets of living near such phenomena, knowing the ins and outs of traversing the patches of hostile plants or maybe even knowing some technique to turn the plants into a positive as a defense or as a food source.
  When the Flesh-Roil opens, and it opens more often than any other Realm we know of like a rat eating it's way into a house whenever given the opportunity and carrying ticks with it, there is no change of perspective that can turn it to a positive. No technique that can make it into a tool that humanity can make use of.
  Those that have seen the Flesh-Roil open above them, they instantly know that something is wrong. The feeling of Nightgale flowing into our world has been described like all of your being, from skin to bones, itching unceasingly with an intensity that can drive those exposed to tear at their own flesh. As exposure goes on long enough, the body will start to break down, itching or no. By the end of exposure, the living are practically indistinguishable from the dead before they join them as well. All rotting flesh and splintering bone. 
  Even if roaming necromantic energies are something that can be dealt with, bringing back anything that dies in it's area of influence, the Realmportals to the Flesh-Roil aren't done. Before anyone even suffers the Nightgales degrading effects, creatures will be vomited forth that have already suffered the Nightgale's effects to their inevitable conclusion. Some humanoid, some certainly not. Some are just mounds of writhing flesh seeking to absorb other living matter at any cost. All are undead. 
  What force is twisting these creatures into the forms that we see is unknown. Nor does any legitimate research venture really search for it. Perhaps it is simply the will of the Nightgale when it's at the height of it's power and near it source.
  Some things are better left unknown, and this one shall remain unknown for a long time if we're lucky. Whatever lies beyond the threshold of the Realmportal to the Flesh-Roil, no one has returned from it. We can only assume that the humanoid zombies that fall and shamble out are those hapless adventurers.
Type
Dimensional plane


Cover image: by Simon Goinard

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