The Lands of Ruination

It goes by many names: The Valley of the Forsaken, The Shadow Wastes, or simply The Darkness, but all who know of it agree one thing: this dark, forsaken valley should be avoided by those who value their sanity. A magical disaster 75 years ago left this land devoid of most life, and that which remained was tainted with traces of the unknown mystical force that has claimed this place. Now, once lush and vibrant forests are twisted and dead, bright and prosperous cities (such as Ancient Zerbath )are in states of decay, and tranquil lakes are now putrid marshes. However, the most evident sign of this disaster is the constant shadow that covers the place like a dense, coagulating fog, hiding the horrifying dangers that drift through the cursed valley.

History

Before the ruination, this valley was bursting with life. Dense forests thrived between rivers and rolling hills, but in the year 55 AR, a force swept the land, leaving all in it's wake devoid of all colour, most light, and anything recognisable as life. It began long ago, in Ancient Zerbath...

Background information

Before 0 AR, everyone knew legends of Sky Gnomes: Masters of magic and engineering, who flew in colourful sky cities of airships lashed togeter with the best rope ever made. These were a tireless people, working on blueprints and parchment scraps by the light of ingenious glowing orbs, in their airship cabins. By day, they were tinkers, building from brass and iron, as their vessels swept through hazy mountains of cloud, or cut through raging winds. Everybody knew of sky Gnomes, yet nobody saw them. You see, when the gnomes explored the ground, they found that the ground-dwelling creatures were, at worst, greedy and cruel, and what would help them more in their greed and cruelty, as magical contraptions with the power to destroy or create. So, the gnomes, being a peaceful people who wished to protect the world from such horrors, hid in the sky, using powerful invisibility to protect themselves. And rightly so. When news of the gnomes reached the ears of the human kings below, they dreamt in their dusty castles of how the machines could dominate their enemies, and bring wealth to their treasuries. But by the time their armies were marching, searching for the elusive gnomes, they were long gone.

So it continued for years: the kings would charge their greatest mages with dispelling illusions and their greatest soldiers to seek where the gnomes were last seen, always to no avail. The kings would then fly into great rages, tearing down frayed tapestries and stamping on cracked stonework, while the sky gnomes watched from carved airships, amused at the antics of creatures below like gods observing warfare. Despite this though, the humans had a key advantage: while they could survive a hundred failures, it would only take one to bring the gnomes crashing down. This is the story of that one failure, and the dire consequences that erupted from that one, significant mistake.

The Mistake

In the year 0 AR, the Wregim colony of gnomes was sailing the winds toward the sea. Their route took them over Ancient Zerbath and the The Blackwyrm Mountains towards the ocean, where they had planned to land on a secluded island, far from the prying eyes of humanity, to collect their precious materials. However, the gnomes' course for destruction was set long before they navigated these winds. Three months before, the same colony had landed on a similar island to what was their aim, in the cold, northern sea. A barren rock for most of the year, this jagged tor jutted out of the grasping water, strangely majestic behind it's misty vale like an ancient monolith fallen to ruin. There, behind the fog and under the granite sky, the gnomes toiled away, working on huge machines, incomprehensible to the ordinary mind, of brass gears, shifting the paths that tiny globes of magic would take through the machine. This device was an invisibility drive, the most complicated yet. Over the years, the humans and gnomes had been involved in a sort of arcane arms race, each party striving to create better and better invisibility and invisibility detectors, so this was an extension of that battle. Then came the mistake. With his head turned to rummage around in a box of tools, an engineer did not notice a tiny globe of crystal roll off of the cloth that it was resting, glinting like flame in the meek winter light, cracking as it ricocheted of the unmoving slate of the cliff, crushing delicate formations of lichen on the stone, before being concealed in the rocks below. There were ten similar crystals on the cloth, and the engineer did not notice the absence of his spare. The gnomes left the island none the wiser.

In other times of the year, the island was visited by a gang of archarian smugglers, for use as an out of the way refuge, of a place to hide their goods. Two months after the gnomes left, this particular band of smugglers came to the island one night to exchange a valuable shipment of silk with a customer. Their party set out from the ship carrying a heavy, iron-bound chest, the silent procession lit only by dim candles in smoky iron lanterns to shelter the light from the tearing wind, headed by a captain with an iron ring and a dark face that seemed to melt into the surrounding darkness. As they climbed the rough hewn steps to the rock's summit, the harsh wind was joined by a lashing of rain, the kind with tiny sharp drops that seem to get in everywhere, despite any attempt to shelter yourself. As the captain covered her iron ring, she noticed a glint in amongst the rocks, that seemed to be filled with malice. With a sharp action of the hand, her party stopped and she bent down to examine what she had discovered. A crystal globe, encrusted in a flaky covering of salt from the sea spray, which crumbles away with handling. She pocketed the trinket, and the party continued their progress. To be continued...

Geography

The Lands of Ruination are surrounded by The Blackwyrm Mountains on all sides, existing in the valley where the mountain range splits.

Fauna & Flora

The valley used to be home to hundreds of creatures that dwelt in the woodlands and lakes of the valley. More powerful creatures included Black dragons that dwelt in their namesake The Blackwyrm Mountains, as well as forest giants. Now, though, even the dragons of the valley have turned to shadow, and been twisted and warped beyond recognition.

Alternative Name(s)

The Valley of the Forsaken

Type

Valley

Included Locations

• Ancient Zerbath