The Magic Wastes

Enter if you dare, but know you will never return the same.
— An elder from a village near the mountains

The Magic Wastes is an area of unbridled magic and mystique that renders all who gaze upon it awestruck. Simply being within the Magic Wastes has driven any magic-bearing person mad. That is, if it doesn't outright kill them first. The only ones said to be immune to the madness are those who have no magic at all. Such is the case with Alfweard Grunewald - the man who later became the first King of Lusatia.

Flora and Fauna

It is known that the beasts and plants of the Magic Wastes are beyond the comprehension of any average being in every nation of Ithan. From the immense, hulking beasts much like the Yakkaries of the northern countries to the minuscule horses to the walking trees, every living thing in the Magic Wastes is full of magic as untamed and wild as a tornado. True knowledge of what exactly resides within the Magic Wastes is rare, but the legends of what Alfweard saw remain.

Green Man by JetStar101 on Pixabay

Madness and Death

Tombstone Butterfly by HuskyHerz on Pixabay

The Magic Wastes is known to have devestating effects on magical beings not from the area. For every magical person who has gone there, only one-tenth of them have returned. That one-tenth had been driven insane by the effects of the Magic Waste, having returned muttering nonsense in an unrecognizable language and attacking all those who draw near. Only one Elven man - Alfweard Grunewald - has ever returned from the Magic Wastes with his wits still intact. Alfweard claimed that it was the magic in the people who had gone before him that had driven them insane. He also gave light to the missing. They had been killed when their magic went haywire. Alfweard claimed that a race of semi-sapient giant penguin - the Crowned Penguins - had buried the bodies and maintain a vast graveyard for them. He never renounced his claims of what happened in the Magic Wastes even on his deathbed, but many doubt them. He was the only one able to verify his own claims after all.