The Green Waste
"It's not safe," came the gruff voice of Evan, the most seinor member of their band, "the wastes are full of demons." a tindertwig flared to life and a pipe was lit. Soon the acrid smell was replaced by Khemiri tobacco.
"What are we to do?" Pyotr asked gruffly. "Tovol let their wizard get that sending off, they know our faces."
"Even still..." Evan replied lazily taking a draw on the pipe. "even still..."
In the darkness something moved, watched the two men standing guard through bifricated goat-like pupils, and waited. It hadn't had a good meal in almost a month, and it was hungry... the ten men of the raiding band would make a good meal, but it would have to be careful, pick them off one by one as they wandered from camp... but It was patient as all truly hungry things are.
Located on the extreme eastern edge of Erryt lies The Green Waste, a continent sized expanse of chaos and fire that is all that remains of one of the great empires of the second world. Filled with horrors too strange and unnatural for the rest of Erryt, it is a place of myth and monsters. From it's edges come the green races, the Orcs and Goblinoids as well as several of the abominations that leak into The Path Mountains and The Glowing Sea. On it's border marches are the great Orc hordes that are the farthest from civilized and even the great dragons fear going too far past it's mystical barrioer.
Geography
The wastes are mostly made up of radiation scorched badlands, large steppes and craggy mountains. The further into the wastes you go the more sparse and wild it becomes but in a large band before that are the remains of the second world. Huge cities and factories now warped and twisted by magic and time into eldrich ruins dot this band and among them live the most cruel and hard of the Green races.
Ecosystem
The entire wasteland is a scorched out lanscape full of pools and clouds of acid, strange abominations, and gysers of green fire that can melt a person from the inside out. It is inhospitible on the best of days and immediately deadly on the worst.
The Flora and Fauna of the wastes have evolved to match, with strange resistances, abilities, appetites and manners that are all but alien to the common denizens of Erryt.
The Flora and Fauna of the wastes have evolved to match, with strange resistances, abilities, appetites and manners that are all but alien to the common denizens of Erryt.
Localized Phenomena
The most important and deadly local phenomena are the clouds of radiation that still sweep over the wastes. Huge glowing storms of acid and fire that rend the very essence of the beings that they come into contact with. Even the undead find trouble existing long in these vile entropy storms.
History
In the second world the Wastes were one of the great empires. A powerful bastion of civilization that found itself going the way of all empires, falling into decadence and disarray at the end of it's existence. It's believed that the calamity was started here and that the glowing sea used to be the heart of that empire. Now all that is left are twisted ruins and radioactive hell, but that is enough to keep those countries on the borders aware of the Wastes and the horrors therein.
The Horrors of The Last world.
The themes and stories of the green waste are not going to be used lightly. They will represent some of the darkest parts of The Whispered Promise. The wastes are a place that is separate from the cycle of paragons and the great scales. Instead the world there is always decaying, always dying and always chaos. On the edges, where the rest of Erryt's magic bleeds though things are relatively stable but the further in you go ther further things corrode until they become almost unrecognizable. Here eldrich abominations hide in radioactive playgrounds of their own design, and the horiffic remnants of the second world still hide in the shadows.
Alternative Name(s)
The Green Hell, The Burning Lands
Type
Wasteland
Inhabiting Species
The Green Gene
the most common denizens of the Green wastes seen in Erryt are the Orcs, Goblins, and Hobgoblins. Usually confined to the bordermarches of The Path Mountains and The Glowing Sea these twisted and harsh species come from the effects of the wastes on the various creatures of Erryt. This so called "green gene" is a misnomer of course, as many of the species warped by it come in various other colors. Still those touched by the curse of the wastes tend to be hardier, stronger, and more suited to survival in their specific envirnments. However all Orcs, Half orcs, Goblins, and Hobgoblins can trace their bloodlines back to the wastes in some way.Baba Yaga
The cruel witch Baba Yaga, a creature of myth even in the second world, is very much real and alive in the green wastes she is one of the many horrors that make the place her home and along the marches one can occasionally find a witch that reveres the old woman of the waste.For the purposes of the campaign Baba Yaga is not a suitable Patron for witch PCs and will only be used for NPCs.
Comments
Author's Notes
Russia In The Third World
Of course above the screen we know we're talking about the remnants of Russia, and several of the countries that bordered it. While I am purposefully leaving the exact details of the calamity vague as they matter very little compared to the story we're now telling, it's important to remember that the things that are there were once human, and they were for all intents and purposes (like all things in the third world) rooted in reality in some way.
The themes of radioactive decay, horrible abominations and the terrors of Russian folklore all come into play here and I wanted to use it as the exotic "other". In many fantasy stories that otherness comes from Africa or Asia or even Indigenous American iconography, and instead I wanted to turn that focus to one of the Imperial powers of the modern age.