Tʜᴇ Fᴏʀɢᴏᴛᴛᴇɴ Rᴇᴀʟᴍs [Fᴀɴ Vᴇʀsɪᴏɴ]

Vhal’zhar’s Reproving Eye is a buried observatory-stronghold of the Red Wizards, hidden within the sun-blasted crater of a collapsed Netherese spire in southern Anauroch. It was founded by loyalists of Szass Tam as both an arcane surveillance site and a penal sanctum—where dissenting Thayans are “reconditioned” through soul-branding and illusion-stripping. The Eye’s primary function is magical reconnaissance: monitoring phaerimm activity, Shadovar movements, and Thayan Resurrection cells across the desert. Manned by necrodiviners and fleshcrafters, its seers tear secrets from the dunes using soul-mirrors and memory-haunted sand. The Eye is not merely a place of knowledge—it is also a warning. The Red Wizards believe that only absolute obedience ensures survival in the chaos of Anauroch. Any who dissent are “revised” in body and will, their minds flayed and rebuilt as willing tools of Szass Tam’s will.

To the untrained eye, the site appears as a wind-scoured depression ringed with shattered obelisks, each etched in ancient Netherese glyphs warped by centuries of magical ruin. However, beneath a silvery illusion that ripples like heat mirage lies a jagged, semi-submerged citadel of red-veined blackstone—part temple, part prison, part arcane lens. The upper dome of the Eye resembles a cracked pupil, its surface formed of overlapping soulglass panels that shimmer with captured memory-light. Within, the halls spiral downward like an inverted tower, their walls alive with shadowplay—projected thoughts and half-formed images flitting across blood-red stone. Chains of crystal and bone dangle from the ceilings, each linked to a prisoner-seer or failed apprentice suspended in stasis or writhing in sensory overload. Central to the complex is the Grand Oculus: a vast scrying chamber lined with reflective sand and obsidian mirrors, where the desert’s secrets are forced into view.