Odunos

The Returned of Odunos despise the living, feeling sparks of pleasure when they destroy whatever the living value, be it property or people. Within their city, armed Returned gangs roam the streets, quarreling for no apparent reason. Beyond the city’s walls, undead raiders strike out, menacing the lands of Akros, Meletis, and Phoberos. These raids are led by the city’s de facto ruler, Tymaret the Murder King, a servant of Erebos tasked with returning Phenax to the Underworld. Knowing that Phenax could disguise himself as anyone, Tymaret slaughters all living souls, just to be thorough.

Those who would strike back against Odunos’s raiders must venture through mires corrupted by sucking bogs and necromatic horrors. Those who survive to reach the city find it heavily guarded, its towers bristling with sleepless guards and abominations of unliving flesh.

The Bothros

A bottomless chasm yawns at the north edge of Odunos. Nothing that has fallen into its depths has ever been recovered. After a successful raid, warriors from Odunos usually dispose of their spoils in the Bothros—caring nothing for their pillage. Occasionally this includes captives, forced into the pit during wordless executions.

Crypts of the Lost

Beyond Odunos rises a cluster of tors honeycombed by countless tombs. Few know who were originally buried in this morbid labyrinth, but the Returned care nothing for the corpses and dust. Occasionally, Returned who’ve grown tired of their half-lives congregate here, waiting for a final death to claim them. Some tales claim that treasures lie amid the crypts, but others say that Phenax first emerged from the Underworld here, and his path could be retraced back into Erebos’s domain.

Myth of Tymaret the Murder King

When Phenax made his escape from the Underworld, there was one witness to his escape, an unremarkable soul called Tymaret. Sharing what he’d seen with the god of the dead, Tymaret received a cursed blessing from Erebos: he would be restored to the mortal world, but as a Returned, and with the task of slaying Phenax. Tymaret took up the quest, but as Phenax was masked, he proved difficult to locate. So Tymaret began slaughtering every mortal he encountered, confident that one of these victims would be Phenax. Yet, when Phenax became a god, he evaded his pursuer, leaving Tymaret and his legions of Returned to eternally, fruitlessly kill in Erebos’s name.