The Low Realms

The Low Realms are the lands given to demons and devils. By an ancient surrender pact with the World-Kings and the Dragons they are not allowed to influence the Middle Realms except through mortal agents. The demons began doing this through pacts with mortals, which gave the World-Kings and the Dragons leave to do so through their own priests and intermediaries.

The Darkest Road

The Darkest Road is a space within the Low Realms that runs through the Middle Realms. The Road is covered in life-draining ash, making it nearly impossible to walk for most mortals. A demon or powerful warlock, however, can walk (and guide others) from any place in the Middle Realms to another in a single day, provided that any travellers can survive a day walking in the hellish landscape. Many who try to walk the Darkest Road do not return. Some are broken by what they see there.

The Bloody Road

The Bloody Road is another space woven into the Middle Realms from the Low Realms, used by demonic messengers and summoned demons. The Bloody Road is, in fact, covered in blood and brimstone, with endless ruins to either side of the road. The Bloody Road is meant for swift travel, being the quickest way to go from one point to the next. Because of the nature of the Bloody Road, no one can remain on it for long, but travel along it is instantaneous. Those who are not prepared for the Bloody Road or those who walk it too frequently often return blood-mad, forever craving battle and death.

Demonology

The Low Realms containts many demons and devils. The New Coldain Enclave has documented the following denizens of the Low Realms.

The Unmaker

Instigator of the last conflict between the Low and High Realms, the Unmaker is a powerful demon lord, a hell-baron, with a vested interest in the destruction of the Middle Realms. Unlucky or unwary warlocks often make pacts with the Unmaker and his foul brood.

The Unmaker's Brood

Goblins

The goblins of the Unmaker's brood are vicious pests, standing at three and a half to four feet. Reeking of offal and long-standing garbage, they befoul any area they inhabit, consuming anything and anyone they can swarm. Among the Unmaker's legions, goblins alone can breed, and they do so quickly; goblin infestations can be dangerous to any settlement in the Middle Realms. Goblins are commonly summoned to the Middle Realms by warlocks and lesser demons, and so have had a chance to breed and go native. Goblins born in the Middle Realms, frighteningly, are natural warlocks themselves, often summoning their hellish kin.

Blood-ogres

Massive, crimson-skinned creatures reeking of blood and brimstone, blood-ogres form the backbone of the Unmaker's forces, made in the Unmaker's image to wreak havoc and destruction in any place they are summoned. They stand at eight to nine feet tall, with the general shape of oversized, bulky men with sharp claws and fangs from which blood drip eternally. They do not know fear, pain, or mercy, relentless in their destruction.

Soulfire Mephits

Tiny, winged creatures with long, barbed tails, wreathed in the pale green glow of soulfire, which burns brightly in the Unmaker's realm. Made from soulfire and malevolence, these smallest servants of the Unmaker serve most often as living, flying torches in the blasted landscape of the Unmaker's realm. They are commonly summoned by novice warlocks, to whom they teach the simplest forms of channeling soulfire - which seems to burn hotter on living creatures.

Castle-crusher

These massive demons, standing fifteen feet tall, on four scaled legs ending in long claws, with a great spiked tail, are the Unmaker's desire for destruction given shape. Fortunately for the Middle Realms, the power required to summon one of these to the Middle Realms is beyond what most warlocks are capable of. Only two have been seen outside of the Low Realms.

The Nightweaver

The Nightweaver, another powerful hell-baroness, opposes the Unmaker directly, choosing to advance her own agenda on the Middle Realms, seeking dominion instead of destruction. She and her brood, too, commonly make pacts with warlocks. Where the Unmaker thrives on fear, chaos, and destruction, the Nightweaver favors subtlety and misdirection.

The Nightweaver's Brood

Goblins

The Nightweaver stole the Unmaker's first clutch of goblins after they had successfully bred, making her own brood of black-skinned terrors who, like the Unmaker's goblins, taint and infest areas they occupy, though these goblins tend to be less overtly destructive, often hiding in unwatched spaces for years while enacting some grand design of the Nightweaver's or one of her warlocks.

Shades

The Nightweaver's shades are the silent, deadly claws of the Nightweaver. Shades are sent to silently eliminate targets, able to hide within and travel through shadows. It is rumored that sunlight is inimical to them; they only strike at night. As a result, it is the common practice of every noble in Eastern Keldun to have a guard standing in his shadow or watching nearby.

Walker in Darkness

These avatars of darkness, stealth, and shadow are said to dwell along the Darkest Road, using it to ferry desired passengers - or unwitting captives - to desired places within the Middle Realms. They are capable of bathing the world around them in darkness, in which only other demons can see.

The Bloody Fields

Not to be confused with the Bloody Road, the Bloody Fields are a land of endless conflict, where those damned by World-King Melavor fight in eternal torment, without rest or surcease. Some warlocks and necromancers summon spirits from this realm for nefarious purposes.