The Plains of the Departed

"The Plains? Cursed ground, I say. People that go there don't come back. Maybe it's just the orcs, but 'twixt you'n me, I think the stories are true. I think the way those Eitrideans turned that place 'nto the hellblasted waste it is today really did anger the gods."
--Lars Vanderzaan, New Eitridean Guard stationed at Sazaan

Geography

The Plains of the Departed are a huge expanse of salt plains, along the eastern edge of the Northwing, just north of the Wulfspires.
The Plains of the Departed are the location of the first battle of the Ashen War. Tactically, the Plains are of little import, and only became the hotspot they did because of the unique circumstances of the beginning of the humans' conquest.

Wars of Fire

The Plains were not always the badlands they are today.
Once, they were a forest.
Known as the Cladwood, this forest was home to several large Wood elven settlements.
When the humans first began their inexorable conquest, they did not make it immediately obvious. A group of humans - a vast army, in fact, but not at first hostile - pushed north, out of the Crown, up the coast to the landing place of the first humans - the easterm edge of the Cladwood. There, they retrieved their longships.
Either from pure suspicion, through betrayal on the humans' side, or a simple declaration of war, the elves were the first to assault the coastal humans, thus triggering the Ashen War. The humans were quick to retaliate, completely abandoning their ships to drive the elves back into the forest. This unexpected move - not suited to the elves' raid-centric tactics - crippled the elves. Still, they were able to hold out in their forest for several days, until the humans did the unthinkable, if obvious.
Setting fire to the forest.
The flames lasted for 40 days, during which the elves fled to the northeast, over the Altar River, and what was once the Cladwood burned to the ground. The Humans emerged from the inferno on the southern edge of the wood, and pushed southward over the Wulfspires.

Cursed Ground

The fear and mysticism surrounding the Plains is not solely resulting from the bloodshed carried out there.
Legend says that when the wood elves were forced back over the Altar River, one splinter sect of elves refused to leave. They remained behind, hunting the humans in the burning wood. In the few days while they survived, they became known as the Ashghosts. Eventually, these rebels were hunted down, and burned with their wood, unable to escape.
Or so logic says.
It is said that one of the Ashghosts, their leader, was gifted in the art of necromancy. Some believe that as she lay, dying, she uttered a prayer of supplication to Kirth, to lay a curse on the charred forest - that all who would fall there, now and ever more, would one day rise again as undead.
No one knows if this story is true, or where the myth of undead curses and roaming corpses began. Orc legend tells of packs of restless dead, roaming the land with reckless abandon, destroying wantonly. The humans stationed to guard over the orcs say that the Ashghosts themselves still prowl the Plains, hunting any that move.
But they are just stories.

Exiled Inhabitants

The Plains of the Departed are home to the majority of the orc clans, who were exiled there after the Ashen War. While there were garrisons of Eitridean forces in the south of the Plains, the orcs were mostly left to themselves, forced to eke out a living from the unforgiving, salt-ridden soil.
Or at least, that was the Eitridean intent.
In reality, the Plains are known and valued hunting grounds for slavers. Orc slaves are generally stronger, more durable, with far more stamina that humans, though harder to break. While slavery was illegal at the height of Eitridea, and still technically is, since the empire's decay - and now its collapse - there is nothing to stop such activities. In fact, many higher ranking overseers of the garrisons on the southern edge of the Plains often take bribes from slavers, to turn a blind eye to the trade.
But now, Eitridea has fallen. It is only a matter of time until the orcs break free of their exile. Orcs are short-lived: it has been many generations since the Ashen War. But orcs nurse grudges like flame on a winter's night.
And what a grudge.
Forced to live from rock and scrub, scavenging whatever plant- and animal life they can from the salt-ridden ground. Lungs going hoarse from centuries-old ash, which has done nothing for the Plains' reclamation.

Type

Badlands