The wide Plains of Ru, and the dread realm that extends even farther, mark the easternmost reaches of Terrinoth. To the uninitiated, they seem little more than a wasteland, the point where the outer reaches of the civilized world crumble away into nothing. And yet, the howling plains and dustcloaked badlands hide secrets as ancient as Terrinoth itself, some buried beneath the surface waiting to be uncovered, like the bones of Llovar’s lost kingdom, others lurking in the shadows waiting to strike, like the teeming tribes of the Uthuk. Some say the next great darkness to engulf the world is even now brewing out among this forsaken expanse, and each day the Ru’s skies grow blacker with the coming storm.
Of all the wilds of Terrinoth, few are as forbidding or as deadly as the Darklands, yet there are still many reasons why bold-hearted heroes might journey into them. Those in search of plunder and the wealth of ages lost might seek out the ruins of Cradle Fort, Lamenter's Rest, or the Hollow Kingdom, places that tried to plant the root of law upon this land and failed. The need to defend Terrinoth’s borders also draws the virtuous and brave to the Darklands; adventurers may find themselves throwing in with Daqan patrols, hunting Uthuk raiders deep into their own territories, or even seeking out the source of the ever-spreading Tangle. For the greatest of heroes, the Ru Darklands offer a chance to uncover and perhaps even stem the coming darkness by taking the fight to the gathering Uthuk tribes, seeking out the Black Citadel and Llovar’s lost power, or facing the Ynfernael Lords themselves and trying to close the gateways they use to cross the veil.
The Borderlands
Bounded by the Daqan Baronies, the Aymhelin—the Latari Elves’ sacred forest—and the Orc tribes of the Broken Plains, the Borderlands mark the edge of civilized Terrinoth. Here, lush farmland, thick forests, and green hills give way to seemingly endless grasslands that stretch to the dark horizon in all directions. Those settlements stubborn enough to survive here are pale reflections of the towns and bulwarks to the west, and the people who inhabit them spend their days forever fearful of what might march forth from the eastern expanses. Ancient watch forts still stand sentinel along the edge of the Borderlands, their true purpose all but forgotten.
Halfland Keep, the largest of Daqan’s border keeps, stands at the crossroads between west and east, and it is here where many heroes gain their first taste of what the Ru has to offer. It is a thriving fortress, and villages cluster close to its walls for protection despite the keep’s dark reputation. A posting here is a common punishment among the armies of Daqan, and lords who wish to rid themselves of troublesome adventurers or rivals might write them a letter of introduction to the keep’s commander, Edlund, or grant them a commission to become defenders of the eastern realm. Edlund, known by his soldiers as “the Mad General,” is a symptom of the faded strength so apparent in the eastern defense of Daqan. Years ago, after gaining glory in wars against the southern Orc clans, Edlund was posted to the Halfland, sure he alone could tame the Borderlands. However, during one of his first battles, a poisoned Uthuk blade pierced his side, and its Ynfernael venom caused him to become delusional. Now, he is obsessed with finding the fabled Uthuk City of Blood, its existence having been revealed to him in fever dreams, and he routinely sends soldiers into the wastes, guided by his most recent vision.
The Borderlands is also a center for bounty hunters. Despite the presence of the watch forts, monsters stalk out of the wilds to invade the west; towns and lords are always offering up coin for their extermination. Adventurers who accept such an offer might hunt down packs of ravenous flesh rippers, diminutive but savage night carrion, or hulking ynferoc wyrmkin, often following the trail of slaughter such things leave in their wake. Some more enterprising individuals pay for capture rather than destruction; Calivar’s Traveling Carnival of Horrors has made good business trading in the exotic creatures of the wastes.
Some dangers are not so easily defined or dealt with, like the blight known only as the Tangle. A living thorn wood, the Tangle spreads out from the ruins of Athealwel, a forsaken Elven fortress deep in the steppe and rumored lair of an Elven Ynfernael cult. It has extended its briars for leagues to engulf surrounding settlements and camps like a malevolent creature, and the thickets on its fringe encroach into the Aymhelin and Kell’s eastern shires. When the moon is dark, the Tangle grows fastest; in such times, defending a town from its tendrils, and from the shadow beasts that lurk within its briars, can make for a long and bloody night of battle. Edlund, among other lords, is continually on the lookout for those brave enough to venture deep into the Ru to Athealwel itself to locate and destroy the source of the Tangle—possibly a demonic tree god, if whispered tales are to be believed. So far, none have returned from such quests, and each year, the Tangle pushes its thorns farther west.
Last Haven
The Borderlands have always been a refuge for those who have been cast out by their own peoples. Criminals escaping the justice of the Citadel, disgraced knights, wizards seeking to conduct their experiments far from prying eyes, and countless other miscreants hole up in this dangerous land. Many end up in Last Haven, a bandit city built upon the ancient foundations of a Dwarven mining fortress. No records of why the fortress was abandoned exist, but huge claw marks and deep gouges in the thick rock of the lower levels lead many to believe that the miners woke something terrible in the depths: something ancient and hungry.
Now a mire of crude stone buildings and twisting streets, Last Haven has become a retreat for the disenfranchised and the despised. Travelers seeking to push deeper into the Ru often pass through Last Haven to stock up on supplies and information, although wise travelers keep one hand on their purse and the other on the hilt of their weapon as they do so. There is no law in Last Haven, and each city block or large building is almost a realm unto itself. In the heart of the city, a former guild upright named Diggor maintains the pretense of legitimate commerce, buying and selling what plundered wealth the Borderlands have to offer, while the Orc Xor’s fighting pits offer a chance to win or lose coin, as well as perhaps some teeth.
Possibly the most interesting part of Last Haven, however, is the Silent Chantry. Here, the Silent Ones, an order of exiled sorcerers, gather lost and forbidden knowledge and pay well for artifacts both ancient and deadly. Rumors persist that the Silent Ones serve an Ynfernael master, and that with the artifacts they acquire, they intend to open a tear in the veil beneath the city and coax their dark lord forth into the world.
The Ru And The Darkness
Beyond the reach of the watch forts, where the steppes become broken and scoured by constant winds, the true Ru begins. Here, jagged ridges and gullies, desert plateaus, and dry lake beds bake under a blood-red sky. These are the hunting grounds of the Uthuk, where their tribes come to shed blood and await a great leader to unite them for their long-awaited revenge. Though the savage Uthuk raiders and their merciless witches and warlocks are a constant peril, the Ru has seen wars and death more than most lands, and many secrets hide beneath its soil.
Long before the rise of the Locust Horde, a tribe of Dwarves built an empire in the Ru. The remains of their realm, which preceded the First Darkness, are known only as the Hollow Kingdom; the empire’s true name is lost to history. Here and there, way markers bearing angular Dwarven runes point the way to cities that no longer exist, bridges spanning empty rivers, or forests of pillars that once supported mighty temples. Merchants and scholars pay well for artifacts from the Hollow Kingdom, for they are often wondrous in their design. The true wealth of the lost empire remains hidden, however, waiting for those who can solve the riddle of its ruins and find the Hollow Kingdom’s clockwork capital, rumored to have burrowed into the earth in the last days of the Dwarves’ empire.
The Dwarves are not the only ones to have left their mark upon the Ru. It has been the refuge of cabals of sorcerers and dens of criminals. The Haunters’ Wood, a petrified forest cloaked in eternal shadow, marks the resting place of the Seven Sinners, wizards of singular and cruel power driven from Daqan by righteous citizens. Slain by their servants and buried in shallow graves, the wizards defied death, rising up as great and evil oaks. These sentient trees exude darkness, making the wood an ideal hunting ground for the Ru’s predators. Illusions of safe haven conjured by the Seven lure prey, including travelers, into the wood, where their spilled blood can feed the trees. The wealth of the Seven remains, too, tangled about their roots—just waiting for those skilled enough to traverse the midnight forest and battle its many monsters, and then the trees themselves.
Forests are not the only places where one may find evil lairs in the Ru. Countless caves and warrens hold beasts and horrors that have been driven out of other lands. The Caves of Shiverfang, perhaps the most well-known of these caverns, have a fell reputation that even the Uthuk have learned to respect. They are the abode of a mutilated dragon left behind during the Third Darkness. The dragon lost its wings and now crawls amid the gloom of its vast lair, bursting forth from the ground to feast on prey or drag it back into its den for later. Countless treasures are scattered about the dragon’s corpse-filled caves, mired among the remains of great heroes and strewn atop the moldering bodies of blood witches and Ynfernael creatures.
The Black Citadel
During the First Darkness, the Black Citadel watched over the Darklands like a towering shadow. Its high, black basalt walls were covered in glowing Ynfernael script that constantly writhed and shifted before the eyes, while its towers burned with demon fires that could be seen for leagues around. This was the fortress of Llovar, an unassailable keep that held his plunder from the west as well as the more prominent prisoners he captured. It was also rumored to hold the secret of his demonic pacts—vaults filled with the scrawled names of hundreds of Ynfernael creatures, along with artifacts of power brought over from that other realm.
When Llovar was slain, his lieutenants slaughtered every last Uthuk who knew of the citadel’s location, before sacrificing themselves in one last act of loyalty to their master. So it was that the Black Citadel disappeared from history, its wealth and secrets hidden by sorcery somewhere deep in the Darklands. Only a handful of bloodsisters and nightseers claim to know of its location. Yet, whether these witches have found the citadel in the mortal realm—or whether it has since been devoured by some hidden enclave of darkness in the Aenlong—is a mystery.
What may lie within the Black Citadel is a topic of many conflicting tales, including talk of dungeon levels filled with roving mechanical traps, undead nightmares captured and infused with Ynfernael energies, and mazes so aberrant in their profane architecture that to even walk their halls is to invite unceasing nightmares. Of the treasures left behind, these same yarns paint a picture of Llovar’s spoils of war stolen from Daqan: rooms heaped with ancient artifacts thought long lost to history and perhaps even cells, magically sealed and holding prisoners forever crying for release.
The Charg'r Wastes
North of Ru, the steppe gives way to stony ground, shale dunes, and saw-toothed hills. Storms constantly tear at the earth, and lightning rips open the sky as the mournful keening of the wind rends the air. The Borderlands are a verdant land of plenty compared to this desolate desert of stone and storm. Known to the people of Terrinoth as the Charg’r Wastes, it is a region where few settlements have ever taken root. On the edges of the wastes, foundry cities of the Dunwarr Dwarves gnaw away at deposits of lightning quartz, the charged stone useful for weapons and tools alike, common only in the storm-lashed Charg’r. Beyond these few sparks of civilization, only the hardiest monsters and most eccentric hermits make their home, sheltering underground to protect themselves from the endless bitter weather.
One of the few features to endure among the desolation is the winding trail known as the Road of Skulls. Waiqar’s lost legion walked this path during its ill-fated incursion into the Ru Darklands. For every pace marched, Waiqar left a soldier’s grave in his wake. Those damned souls are said to remain here still, their grinning skulls and bleached bones marking the way to the Black Citadel—the lost stronghold of Llovar and his Ynfernael hosts. The trail hides treasures, too. Following the whispers of the dead warriors can bring an adventurer to ancient artifacts from Al-Kalim and other far-off lands or, if a spirit is spiteful, to the jaws of hungry beasts.
Tribes of the Uthuk Y'llan
To traverse the Darklands is to enter the world of the Uthuk Y’llan and their Ynfernael allies. Here, the tribes rule the cursed earth beneath the baleful light cast from The Spire of Ruin—the midnight heart of the Darklands themselves. There are many Uthuk tribes, each grown from splinters of Llovar’s host, yet a few stand above the rest in their size and ferocity.
The Gore Claws are the largest and most aggressive of the Uthuk, their filed nails and crimson-stained hands marking them out among their kin. Descendants of the prophet Golreth, they keep the legends of Llovar and the Ynfernael masters alive. Centuries of secrets have been recorded by Gore Claw witches on piles of flayed skin. As the self-proclaimed inheritors of the Locust Swarm, the Gore Claw witches and warlocks strive to unite the tribes and use their mastery of demon magic to build armies, forge alliances, and further the revenge of their people.
The Flayed Kindred do not covet rulership of the Ru like the Gore Claws. Instead, they seek only to make themselves closer to the power of the Ynfernael realm. Their warriors purposely maim themselves, pouring demon blood into the wounds, so that they might be remade as more than mortal. Descended from Llovar’s inner circle, the witches and warlocks of the Flayed Kindred hold many of the keys left in the wake of their master’s demise, including those believed to open the gates to the Black Citadel. The quest for the Black Citadel remains a constant among the tribe; many of its witches and warlocks believe that if it can be found, Llovar himself might be returned to the world.
The Night Howlers hold territories close to the borderlands and are among the Uthuk’s most skilled raiders. From the depths of Nyak Sutchra’aa, the Chasm of Eternal Night, they have perfected the art of night fighting—waging war in complete darkness—their skin and weapons coated with stygian dust. The Night Howlers attack with a chorus of war cries, and for their foes, it is as though the night itself has come alive to attack them. Prisoners taken back to the Chasm of Eternal Night can look forward to taking part in the tribe’s “training”: let loose in lightless dungeons, they must attempt to escape while the Uthuk hunt them down.
Beyond these three largest tribes, scores of others roam the Ru Darklands. Blighted caves with walls scrawled in twisting script, crumbling temples made from the bones of countless blood sacrifices, and profane ruins marking places of massacre are all home to the Uthuk. The Tower of Hands, the Ynargal Cathedral, and the Spinespirit Caves are among the fell places whispered of in the drinking halls of Halfland Keep and Last Haven. Without exception, these are baleful places where the air hangs heavy with the scent of blood and corruption seems to spill from the very earth. Only the barest information on the major Uthuk settlements exists, for few outsiders ever see them and live. Captives taken to the Breeding Pits of Yyrg are hurled into bone cages to be possessed by Ynfernael spirits and transformed into beasts of war. That the process is painful and messy can be attested to by the mounds of rotting corpses that ring the pits—each one ripped apart from the inside.
Only slightly less harrowing than the pits is the Well of Sins, a tangle of fallen bridges deep within the Gyrar Abyss. Here, in a great crack in the Darklands, hidden in the cool shadows of their chasm cities, the Uthuk come to trade slaves and souls. The greatest Uthuk settlement is the circle of war camps around the Kaylor Morbis. Here, long ago at the lake’s edge, the plains elders met to settle their disputes and trade both goods and promises. Now, it is the bloodsisters who hold court, settling disputes via ritual combat, gathering their forces, and planning invasions of other lands.
A Tear in the Veil
Near the place where Llovar began his fateful journey into the T’mara T’rusheen, early Uthuk Y’llan warlocks raised The Spire of Ruin to commemorate the birth of Uthuk demonic powers. The Spire was said to bless visions of greatness upon those who flayed themselves with its sharp stones. It was never found or destroyed during the scourging of the wastes, and its location is now a mystery. As the Uthuk reclaim their home, they search for the Spire, for the Sisters of Q’aro Fenn have pronounced its rediscovery a portent of their hoped-for revenge. Also seeking this gateway between worlds are powerful groups and individuals including warlock covens from the shadows of Daqan, necromancers searching for the secrets of true undeath, and even Djinni and dragons who see it as a way to restore their kind to glory.
Though many covet the power that this rift offers, reaching the Spire is an almost impossible task. Even the Uthuk tread with care, relying on the guidance of their strongest witches and warlocks when they travel in search of the cursed place. Demon winds bellow forth from the hole in reality, gusting out across the Darklands, and as travelers get closer, the land itself becomes tormented and twisted by its power. Valleys with teeth that tear at the earth, clouds that scream their hatred at the ground, and rivers that swerve from their beds to drown those on their banks are all possible. Monsters this close to the Spire are almost always possessed by demons, their bestial minds overwhelmed and consumed, leaving only the drive to hunt and kill. Creatures natural and unnatural mewl out their hunger as they rip themselves apart or tear at each other in an endless cycle of predatory violence.
The Spire of Ruin rises up from the ground like a spear thrust into the sky. At its tip, the rift into the T’mara T’rusheen—the spirit realm and the Ynfernael beyond—glimmers like a red star, hungrily sucking the surrounding air and the earth below into its gaping maw. From the gateway, it might be possible to travel between worlds—if one can fight one’s way past the hundreds of foes and horrors that nest in the Spire’s warren of tunnels and then climb to the great altar just beneath the rent. Legend has it that if one can cross the threshold and find an Ynfernael Lord, one can either offer it one’s oath, or kill it and gain power unimagined in return. Of course, these same legends warn that the rift is not just a door, but the first step on a path that can lead to any number of places, whether the twisting mirror worlds of the Ynfernael Lords and their burning keeps, the umbral depths where secrets forgotten by the living come to hide, or the sorcerous planes from which all magic springs and reality can be shaped with but a word.
References
- Realms of Terrinoth