Shadowfell
Geography
Auburn Desolation, The – As much Earthly Deshur is a
sick copy of the Shadowfell, its counterpart takes on a sinister aspect. The
weak horizontal sun barely stifles the unbearable heat, and the sands seem
almost malicious in their treachery. Rocky outcroppings are exposed and buried
by burning wings except during the greater freezing nights. The land is
infested with snakes, and it seems even the Iteru River flows backwards, but it
is clean. Terminating in a cliff face with a ruined temple-city and mausoleum
of dreaded Ssra-Tauroch, the first mummy. His undead Yuan-ti continuing in a
nightly parody of life.[i]
Domain of Dread – When a being has crossed some
unknown line and revealed their most wretched heart, the Shadowfell will claim
them and their community. Surrounding all in mists and transporting them to
that Plane. Most villains will not suffer this, and it is not just to
bystanders. It remains a mystery. Some realms have adapted and become
sprawling, if closed regions. Some seem trapped in stasis, as if the event were
mere years of months before. Temporarily or not, defeating the darklord will
lift the mists. Permanently ending their reign sends all those of evil hearts
to another domain.[ii]
Gloomwrought – The city of midnight. The Shadowfell
companion to Punjar, this desolate port is the largest entrepot on the Plane.
The city is surrounded by the Skins, a vast swamp, and is otherwise a gloomy
and colourless place of morose natives, Shada-kai and Dark Ones, True or
otherwise. Notably the city is mutable, changing by the whims of the keepers,
much like too oft-mentioned Sigil. Otherwise, an apparent immortal rules, and
bends the districts to his changes. Crime and corruption is rampant and the city
suffers riots and literal collapse even more than it’s Earthly counterpart.[iii]
Golden Architect, Citadel of the – High above the
Plain of Sighing Stones float the folly of a gold Dragon. Golgorax was driven
to seek oblivion by the endless losses against Tiamat’s draconic forces. Yet
weakened, he was caught by the death Giants and offered oaths to build them a
magnificent floating city. Using Dark One slaves, the city was built, with him
a prisoner, but it rotted in a generation due to the giant’s soul-devouring
evil. Now the few giants who remain serve him, scouring the desert for the few
who can be fed to Golgorax, and the giants their souls.[iv]
Kas, Kingdom of – The ancient and terrible vampire
lord Kas, once one of Vecna’s Servants, rules an entire kingdom where vampires
openly rule over the mortal population. Taking their cruel taxes in blood. Such
a realm avoids destruction at the hands of the Raven Queen’s sworn warriors by his
ongoing deceit. He provides information on Orcus and Vecna to the queen of the
dead. Allowing him time to take subjects to his domain in the Astral Sea for
feeding on, in that realm of lava and polished obsidian.[v]
Letherna –
The first and last place in the Shadowfell any righteous souls should see as
they descend like falling stars. The newly dead are called across the planes to
this mountaintop fortress of black ice and new snow, to meet the Goddess in
person and receive their final fate. Here the Raven Queen administer judgement
and she can not move beyond for she has staked her domain here and in doing so
given up her former master’s realm in the Astral Sea. It is the headquarters
for her many Forces and ringed by many fortress-towers and the trial temple
Zvomarana.[vi]
Moil
– The City that Waits. Whether this place was of the Earth or the Shadowfell is
immaterial. The Molians desired power and wealth, so they dabbled in
demonology. Eventually a cult of Orcus ruled, purchasing his favour through
sacrifice and hideous ceremonies. In time they could not stomach it and turned
to Pelor to purify themselves. Yet Orcus is near a God and the pacts are not
easily undone. He seized and flung it into the lightless regions of the shadowfell,
a black pool of necromantic energy. The citizens embraced nihilistic oblivion
and undead now prowl. Even drawing dread Acererak.[vii]
Monadhan – Once in Arodia, now a Domain of Dread. During the end of
Antiquity, as Bael Turath and Arkhoisa battled for world dominance, some
unknown damnation created a valley-stranded shantytown and fort, surrounded by a
hostile jungle. Those guilty of the basest betrayals find themselves drawn here
in life or after death. All manner of scum from across disparate times and
places dwell here in a lawless mass of paranoia. Kas the vampire is frequently
drawn here but has discovered how to escape. Periodically, a dracolich wreaks
havoc.[viii]
Plain of Sighing Stones – No Narrow Passage stands to sever the greatest
desert the Planes has ever seen. The desolation possesses little water and
fierce dust storms to make up for the weakened sun. The death Giants extracted
the pitiful resources, and Dark Ones slaved to build their Citadel of the
Golden Architect which hangs above, like a storm cloud. Shifting dunes and
rocks distort the wind into moans. Dry oases and sentient mirages cannot equal
the nomadic Zamar-Sha. Vicious shadowborn Humans as likely to torment and kill
as ignore. They ingest and wield poisons, curses like weapons and paint
themselves white with chalk.[ix]
Prison of Trebarra Kan – Before the Age of Chaos, the empire of Nerath
linked the Known World. From such cosmopolitan beginning, Trebarra Kan became
ordained by the temples of Vecna and Zahir. When revealed, his fame grew, and lightless
pacts were forged. His cult became powerful and discordant, forcing him forge a
dark mirror to drive foes mad and bend others to his will. A magical fortress
in the Shadowfell to hold them insubstantial. Open infighting disrupted his
task, and he was the only victim. His spirit now haunts the fortress, leaving
only to possess those who deal with the mirror of secrets.[x]
Uncrafted
Ruins – The Shadowfell is full of mourning. Yet no being mourns here, and no
being touched them. As an echo of Earth, the Plane manifest locations akin to
its twins, but always morbid. A village is a graveyard, a castle is a ruin and
a city is massive pyramid palaces, surrounded by overflowing charnel pits
instead of neighborhoods. The natural animated undead or lost souls find
themselves among these places as they emerge, haunting the dark reflections of
their lives. It must be an earthly place already so miserable and gloomy to be
reflected as a living city.[xi]
Anthropology
Dark Ones, True – The Goblinoids of Imaria have
adopted their ways, but the original Dark Ones are first-born Human children of
the Shadowfell. First worshipping then fleeing the death Giants, they embraced
the subterranean darkness. With little affection for outsiders, they remember
their once soul-devouring overlords and stay loyal to themselves alone.
Integrating into cultures and beliefs, they reside in most settlements of the
living and the dead. Often as covers to let comrades in, to resupply, but other
times they set aside their grudges. The Shadar-kai have the most success at a
rapport, with many fervently loyal to the Raven Queen.[xii]
Forces of the Raven Queen – Besides the religious
orders and slayers of the Earth. The Raven Queen can marshal the forces of some
Dark Ones, the majority of the Shadar-kai, being capable of free-will yet
having dedicated their culture to her. Chief among her enforcers is the Raven
Knights. Terrible and hideous spirits of death called sorrowsworn who hunt
those who cheat dead and put the undead to rest. These command the
fortress-towers of Letherna and in turn command mortal companies. They are
perhaps the only way for a shadar-kai to obtain desired immortality without
violating their Goddess’s commands.[xiii]
Shadar-kai – During the Dawn Age, a tribe of Humans,
rumored to be part Elven, was perturbed by deathly fate. Nerull could not
answer where the soul went, he was more interested in acquiring for power or
torture. Their old devils were selfish and cruel. With the coming of the Raven
Queen, they turned to her service amid the Shadowfell. They purged the last of
Nerull’s cult and established what would become Gloomwrought. To stave off their
Plane’s ennui, even as they need to return to it. They undertake extremes of
emotion, experience, boasting and modification. None live their four centuries.[xiv]
Undead and the Raven Queen – The undead fear she who
rules over the dead for she bide them to pass on and abandon their half-forms.
Yet the Shadowfell is a place of naturally-occurring undead and her servants
must contend with them. Wariness and guarded mistrust mark the trades between
the Shadar-Kai and intelligent undead. Though some believe the Raven Queen can
return them a Soul, their own or others to quench the gnawing hunger. Those
cluster around her temples and her fortress Letherna in hopes of catching her
attention and favor. Though the God is silent, her priesthood eradicates them
if they grow too numerous.[xv]
Vistani – Wanders with no permanent home and travel
the Planes in insular caravans. Perpetual outsiders mean others are not their
kin. Their colours make them so associated with crossing the Shadowfell.
Vistani divination magic follows bloodlines of glossy black eyes. Claimed to be
divinely granted and akin to the moon. Though any race may join bloodlines with
cultural scarification called the Blooding or by bringing in new blood while on
their coming-of-age exile called the Jaunt. Indeed, Vistani and her original
kin may have been Halflings aggrieved at their abandonment. Another is they
were enemies of Mira and were pushed out.[xvi]
Underdark
Geography
Bolmarzh, Mines of – Within the shallows of the
Underdark, there lies a deep chasm that stretches down to where the Duergar
dwell. For decades they carved and mined in their ‘Secret Treasure’, hidden
beneath the foothills of the Dawnforge Mountains. Until, according to those who
tell traveler tales in the Vault of the Drow, they were driven off by
grimlocks. Grimlocks are a threwd-less race, so some day a more powerful
creature is sure to seize control and the surface ventilation tunnels.[xvii]
Heart of Darkness – Thought to lie beneath the Forest
Wall, this twisted knot has caused much misery to Dwarves and other deep
dwellers. The oldest sages of the Empires of Deep Darkness say it was carved by
beholders. But for centuries it has been the lair of the Orukurtz, a purple
Dragon. Such a wyrm has never troubled the surface, yet he hunts in an
ever-expanding territory. His lair contours around itself and branches, making
him impossible to catch and easy to be ambushed.[xviii]
King’s Highway – When Torog did battle against the
Primordials in the Dawn War, he went into the Underdark to confront its maker, Gargash.
Who had learned to confine not just create. Victorious yet broken, Torog had
smashed through the barriers of the Planes and rock and continues to dig to
this day. Leaving a broad path some fifty to two hundred feet wide and
spattered with his undying blood. He carved it through other paths and through
every cavern or maze of note, even into the Shadowfell and Feywilds. All manner
of creature uses this road and makes it lucrative and dangerous.[xix]
Lost Dawn, Pockets of – In the bleakest days of the
Dawn War, the Earth was churned, scarred and scorched by powers alien to it.
The Gods and Primordial waged bitter war and great holes opened in the earth’s
wounded form. Whole mountains and forests were swallowed below. That realm’s
alien nature swiftly digests such sites. But still there remain strange former
mountain peaks and forests of crystals, growing around a Primal site. These
bubbles of earth and hidden springs are sought by heroes and half-remembering
spirits. To nurture and preserve them as the underdark erodes the surrounding
rock.[xx]
Mutuz-Vot – In some caverns the darkness is so utter
that it drips from the ceiling in black-stained water, poisoning and body and
the mind. The Mul was forged in that sickening blackness, where the cruelties
of the Drow were tested. For deep beneath Ajayib, the drow and Duergar still fight
bitterly from the sea caves to the central cavern of Mutuz-Vot. Within this war
germinated an idea, a hybrid of immense vigor and fairer temperament. So were
the Dwarves of the Range of Marching Camels and the Human proto-Zakharans fused.[xxi]
Phaervorul
– Deep beneath the Nentir Vale is said to be an outpost of the loathsome Drow.
A centre for trade and religious observation at one end of an enormous spider
web of tunnels that lead east to the Vault of the Drow. Here the drow tolerate
trades provided they do not interfere with their customs. This place is
rumoured to connect to shafts in the Dawnforge Mountains and beneath
Thunderspire Labryinth.[xxii]
Underwilds – The frequently traveled corridors of the
Underdark crawl with horrors. But far from the King’s Highway, there are eddies
of Primal power. Whether these be spirits of the dark or Lost Pockets of the
Dawn, life flourishes. Fungal forests, slime pools and sweeps of phosphorescent
mold. These oases have abundant food and water in the otherwise desolate
depths. For those Drow which could not fully escape in body or mind to become
Renegades, this is the perfect home to reform as free tribes of graceful
barbarianism.[xxiii]
Vault of the Drow – Only those without morals tread
the Kings Highway and the secret roads of the Drow to their fell capital. Erelhei-Cinlu
dominates a cave six miles long and nearly as wide. Ruled by eight drow houses,
led by matriarchs who maintain estates beyond the walls, with their slave
fields and garrisons. The dark gem itself is a riot of debauchery and torture,
its eight ghettos, inhabited by pleasure-seekers and sufferers. Along with what
theocratic governance the Fane of Lolth holds. Yet it is far more tolerant of
outsiders, so long as they keep their heads down among the mercurial
residences.[xxiv]
Anthropolgy
Elf, Drow – Of the three races devoted to the
Seldarine, none are as mysterious and feared as Lolth’s. In the Dawn Age they
revolted alongside their goddess and their failure sent them beyond the
Feywild. Into the lightless depth of the Underdark, where the magic preserves
them better than the Elves. Playthings of a goddess corrupted by demons, then
bereft of her domain of fate by the Raven Queen. Bound in a cult of her image
of matriarchs and half-spiders. Few become Renegades. Closer to Eldrain in
looks, but elf height. The midnight skin, white hair and blue-red eyes are no
curse.[xxv]
Elf, Renegade Drow – Some Drow are born different,
others experience a flash of life without constant paranoia and treachery at
the whims of a corrupted Goddess. They seek the sun. Most perish as sacrifices,
as weak links or to dangers on their climb. For those strong, cunning and
decisive, even ironically ruthless, freedom awaits. Renegades blend in in the
blinding hinterlands and entrepôts, aided by most surface-dweller’s
unfamiliarity and assumptions they are some extreme form of Desert Elf. But the
greatest cities and wildest places house surface Elves and their corresponding
wild hatreds.[xxvi]
[i] See Open
Graves pp.88-95
[ii] See textbox
in The Shadowfell – Gloomwrought and Beyond p.6
[iii] See The
Shadowfell – Gloomwrought and Beyond pp.12-65
[iv] See
Draconomicon: Metallic pp.138-144
[v] See Open
Grave p.205
[vi] See Open Grave pp.22-23, Manual of
the Planes p.60
[vii] Manual of the Planes pp.60-61
[viii] See Dragon
Magazine #378 pp.12-24, Dungeon Magazine #170 pp.4-57
[ix] See Draconomicon: Metallic
p.138, Manual of the Planes p.61
[x] See Open Grave pp.39-40
[xi] Inspired by text in Draconomicon:
Chromatic Dragons p.118
[xii] See Manual
of the Planes p.56
[xiii] See Open
Grave p.23
[xiv] See Dragon
Magazine #372 p.5
[xv] See Open
Grave p.22, 4E Monster Manual p.243
[xvi] Dragon Magazine #380 pp.75-91
[xvii] See
Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons pp.108-117
[xviii] See
Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons pp.126-133
[xix] See Underdark p.12, pp.14-15
[xx] See Textbox
in Primal power p.47
[xxi] Inspired by
spell Dark Rain of Mutuz-Vot, Arcane Power p.81
[xxii] See P2 – Demon Queen’s Enclave
p.6, pp.8-9
[xxiii] See Primal
Power p.132
[xxiv] See
Underdark pp.66-73
[xxv] See Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms
p.246 4E Monster Manual pp.94
[xxvi] See Dragon
Magazine #390 p.42
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