Those who dare travel beyond Greyhaven find themselves in a shrouded, ever-shifting landscape where warming light seldom reaches the ground. Bounded by fetid marshes on the west and the Dunwarr Mountains to the north, these are the cursed lands of the thirteenth baron of Terrinoth, he whose seat at Archaut has remained empty for hundreds of generations. This region is filled with volcanic crags and sprawling marshlands that bubble and boil, expelling murderous gases and trapping foolish adventurers in their black muck for eternity. This is the Mistlands, the domain of Waiqar the Undying, nearly impassable since his betrayal so many hundreds of years ago. From the Mistlands, he launches his dark campaigns to raze Terrinoth and gain control over the most powerful runebound shards. As his power has grown over the centuries, the Mistlands has spread beyond the original bounds of the Thirteenth Barony. Inexorably, it continues to extend ever farther into the lands of the living.
Zorgas
Legend has it that Waiqar’s grand holdfast was built in the image of Llovar’s Black Citadel, but there are few who dare speak of it, for most know that the Undying One’s deadly gaze reaches deep into Terrinoth. Zorgas lies at the center of a nigh impassable bog with constantly shifting terrain that only clears a path when Waiqar wishes to ride out with his host. It is here where the most terrible of Waiqar’s forces are said to ready themselves for conquest.
Tales whisper of armies of Reanimates whose soldiers crew the parapets without rest while the most favored of Waiqar’s Deathborn sit at his Black Table, a grim mockery of the Council of Barons in Archaut. Warrens bored into the cliffsides around the black fortress house barrow wyrms, while the fortress’s expansive dungeons hold wraiths, banshees, and frenzied bone constructs too destructive to be allowed loose except when the utter annihilation of entire battlefields is desired.
Such tales also tell of the treasures that can be found here: magical items and weapons of rarity and power that date from the First Darkness. Many of Greyhaven’s scholars suspect untold numbers of runebound shards are locked away here as well, in partial fulfillment of Waiqar’s vow to claim them all for himself. Some venture here for other reasons, though, such as to scout out the forces of undeath for worried Daqan Lords. That almost none return has only increased their concern.
The Everliving Engine
Waiqar’s most heinous vehicle of destruction, the Everliving Engine, is a machine most foul. Deep below the volcanic caves under the ruins of Kelipa, its bone gears grind endlessly with a sound that reverberates across the Mistlands. So great is its mechanical noise that, on still nights, the sound can be heard dozens of leagues away, as far as the border of the Barony of Carthridge. Its true purpose is known only to Waiqar and the archlich Revik, who oversees its operation, but with every tick, the barrier between the world of the living and the dead weakens. The undead everywhere feel themselves empowered, if only by the faintest margin, and new, unimagined horrors manifest to plague the world of the living.
Those who displease Waiqar are fed to this terrible machine, and their screams mingle with each tick until they are subsumed entirely. No mortal can say exactly what it means to be consumed by the Everliving Engine, but it is a fate dire enough to strike fear into the hearts of those who serve the Undying One.
Bilehall
Not all of Waiqar’s conquests have been by force; many beings have willingly sworn fealty over the years for wealth and power, no matter the cost to their souls. One of the most infamous was Naythen Torvic of Bilehall, who betrayed his fellow lords one terrible night. Torvic and his lesser nobles became something horrid as the mists claimed their lands: vampiric creatures as undying as their new master.
Perhaps, as they did in life, the undead of Bilehall still scheme and maneuver for greater favor and power, engaging in plots that draw in the living as pawns. Most vie to grow their armies to prepare for the coming wars against the other baronies, or strive to gain mastery of the arcane items buried deep within the many castles and keeps that litter Bilehall. Many cling to echoes of noble and knightly behavior, berating poor manners as they strangle the life from their foes. Some survivors of encounters with Bilehall royalty even claim that a few seek to escape their unending existence and turn to adventurers to break their curses and gain eternal rest. These accounts may be lures to ensnare the foolish, but tales from local villagers (and gold coins bearing images of what appear to be Penacor Kings) lend them credence.
The mists of Bilehall also shroud other beings, who have their own agendas. One such is Zarihell, an ancient Elf who was released, either mistakenly or unknowingly, when Timmorran rescued Waiqar from his imprisonment at Llovar’s Black Citadel at the end of the First Darkness. She roams the Mistlands at will and seems able to command the spirits of the living and dead alike with such power that she appears more bemused with Waiqar’s efforts than fearful of them. Another is a cloaked figure, furtive and of unknown heritage, who endlessly explores the depths of collapsed fortresses along the mountains of the north in search of an unnamed item. Whether the item is for Waiqar’s use or his destruction is unknown, but the figure speaks with an accent not heard since the Dragon Wars.
Castle Dalibor
Despite the fear and awe that any tyrant inspires, there always seems to be one general, one advisor, to whom the offer of power means nothing. They serve not because they wish to, but because they have been forced to. Kyndrithul is one such figure, a powerful vampire and current leader of House Dalibor. Though Castle Dalibor is somewhat less powerful than Bilehall, the apparent subservience it displays belies its strength. Kyndrithul is at heart an experimenter, a genius who has spent centuries mastering the various magical disciplines needed to create the perfect Reanimated servant.
As such, his estate is filled with all manner of unnatural creatures. The forests around Castle Dalibor are choked with roving packs of barghests, while bone horrors and flesh constructs shamble aimlessly in search of prey. The favorite saying of Kyndrithul, ever the pragmatist, is that all things have their use. Any heroes unfortunate enough to be taken prisoner in Castle Dalibor soon find themselves in Kyndrithul’s laboratory, and the vampire exults in figuring out new ways to mold living flesh with necromancy. His most recent experiments might be his boldest yet, infusing living flesh with the dust of Waiqar’s own Deathborn Legion. Such a crime is punishable with a fate beyond death, something terrible enough to make even Kyndrithul tremble at the thought of discovery.
Despite the immense risk associated with these experiments, he nonetheless offers Waiqar aided passage through his lands and space to establish staging points for raids into Terrinoth. While Waiqar’s Deathborn generals look upon the vampire with disgust and suspicion, Kyndrithul knows that as long as he plays the part of a humble servant, he may yet reap the rewards of his secret work.
The Misty Hills
The Misty Hills have been steeped in evil since the time a sadistic Penacor Prince and his followers were executed for unspeakable crimes. Death was not the end of them, for the dark oaths they had sworn the night before their hangings allowed them to rise again.
Taking the name Farrenghast, the prince moved to a towering, abandoned keep in the Misty Hills with his fellow revenants. While Mennara always had undead spirits, this was perhaps the first time such fell creatures had banded together in a mass of evil. Over time, their foul essence seeped into the earth itself, and made it as vile as they. It was perhaps this darkness that called to the Mistlands, which absorbed the region into itself.
Despite the horrific nature of the Misty Hills, some still travel here in search of ancient relics and older knowledge. Like their undead inhabitants, the Misty Hills have changed little since the time Farrenghast took the keep and the surrounding lands for his own. The opportunities there are many for the brave and clever.
Within the keep, necromantic tomes of tremendous power rest on shelves of decaying wood, their leather bindings and blood-marked pages still fresh despite the centuries. Weapon stores from Farrenghast’s many campaigns are said to lie inside the lesser fastnesses within the Hills. These include items from across Mennara—for his foes have come from far and wide to thwart him, and after failing left their possessions along with their corpses. Rumors have spread that unbound Stars of Timmorran seeded away within unmarked chests, drawing the attention of those mages hungry for power or eager to study such priceless rarities.
Roth's Vale
Having no true borders itself, Roth’s Vale is the nebulous border territory between the rest of the baronies and the Mistlands. Though it is in many ways a cursed land, it was not always so. Before Waiqar’s betrayal, Roth’s Vale was a flourishing territory, protected by great magics and glorious treasures from the golden age of the Elder Kings. When the last baron of Roth’s Vale died without an heir, it became a no-man’s land, and the debate over who shall become its warden has only intensified in recent years.
Young Gaspard Bay, a rising hero ennobled for his efforts fighting with the eastern Hernfar garrison, desperately wishes to be given lordship over this territory, not just for himself, but to fulfill a promise made to his ancestors. Baron Zachareth of Carthridge—a capable and intense lord who, it is whispered, has fallen to the lure of sorcerous power—covets the hundreds of artifacts lost in the land’s abandoned temples and castles. Such items could be used to defeat the undead—or to raise and command them.
Many more structures are in ruins, some of which date from the defeat of Waiqar in the Second Darkness. The histories of most are lost to time. The collapsed Halls of Phetra lie in the south, and were once a temple to a god. No beings now living remember which one, but the Halls of Phetra are still filled with a light that can banish fell shadows. One nameless citadel to the west is said to hold purifying flames deep within its mountain location, enough to painfully remove even the greatest darkness from a soul. Though the undead hungrily thrive along the vale’s outskirts and in its graveyards, many beings still travel here in search of deserted keeps with forgotten vaults and underground lairs with bejeweled crypts.
Rothfield
Rothfeld, the largest village within Roth’s Vale, is the area most frequently plagued by the incursions of Waiqar’s warbands. Years of desolation and the slow encroachment of the mists have led to a drained, depleted land, its state of being reflected in the poor souls who live here. Having abandoned hope of divine aid, the inhabitants have allowed their homes, fields, and temples to fall into disrepair, their will to fight utterly drained. Slowly becoming brutish and destructive, Rothfelders seek succor and protection from anyone who might promise salvation from the undead threat.
Some of the Daqan Lords believe that Rothfeld is where Waiqar’s forces are likely to first attack in numbers. Defending this village and restoring hope to its inhabitants may mean slowing the legions of the undead long enough to rally other forces from the south to prevent the dead from overrunning this area and pouring into Terrinoth. As the village has many old temples nearby, a number of which contain the holy relics of saints or were built on sites of powerful magics, some also view Rothfeld as a natural bulwark against the undead that is better fortified than forgotten and abandoned.
References
- Realms of Terrinoth