Varnhold’s Deep

"The world’s last scholars built their tombs as libraries.”

Beneath the ashen crust of the world lies Varnhold’s Deep — a labyrinthine necropolis of marble, iron, and bone. Once a sanctuary for the Watchers Beneath, it now serves as their sepulcher, their study, and their penance. The Deep began as an observatory to chart the Withering Cycle — the endless rise and collapse of civilizations beneath divine rot — but over centuries it grew downward instead of upward.

Each hall is lined with scripture carved into stone, each corridor echoes with the murmurs of dying scholars transcribing their final observations. The Watchers believe that understanding decay is the only way to halt it; they dissect saints and catalog the plague’s dreams. Lanterns of bottled sunlight flicker weakly in the airless dark, and the hum of the Bleeding Lens — a vast crystal eye that gazes into the crimson light beneath the world — fills every breath.

The Deep is not lifeless. Its archives shift, its records whisper, and its dead continue their research long after the flesh fails. The Watchers know the truth of their own extinction — but still, they write.

Tone: oppressive, scholarly despair; revelation through self-destruction.
Common Races: Hollowkin, Ashborn, Bloodwrought.