A cold crown of stone where wind cuts like wire. Dwarven lantern-lines glow at impossible heights, marking paths only dwarves can walk without dying.
Known features
Khazad-Dum (see separate page): the greatest hall-city, still alive with hammers and song.
Lost dragon lairs: caves that smell of old lightning, heat, and metal; some are empty, some are merely quiet.
Echo-falls: places where shouted words return changed, as if translated by something listening.
Hidden truth
A sealed chamber high above the snowline holds a “sleeping” furnace-heart—dragonfire contained in rune-work. It has begun to pulse again.
A mountain made into a home. Its roads are carved ramps and stairways wide as streets. The air tastes of coal, stone dust, and hot metal. Runes glow not for beauty but for function—lighting, ventilation, warding, and memory.
Culture
Craft is sacred. A poorly-made tool is an insult to the mountain.
Hospitality is strict: guests are protected, but guests must not wander.
Oaths are currency. Breaking one can exile a clan for generations.
Tensions
Some dwarves want deeper delves (seeking mythic ore).
Others fear what the lower tunnels remember: old war-magic, sealed things, and draconic remnants.
Hidden truth
A minor clan has begun forging sun-metal—a bright alloy that should not exist underground. The recipe came from a desert relic, and it carries a faint, hungry radiance.
Ancient trees with roots like knotted stories. Moss that shimmers faintly in moonlight. Paths that shift when you look away.
What travelers report
Laughing in the fog.
Deer with too-wise eyes.
A “green door” between two trees that is not always there.
Rules the locals follow
Never accept food from a stranger in the deep woods.
Never follow your own footprints if they appear ahead of you.
If you hear your name, answer with silence.
Hidden truth
The Elderwood hosts a polite, ancient fey court that does not rule—it arbitrates. It remembers treaties from the forgotten wars and treats mortals like late arrivals to an ongoing negotiation.
Rolling grasslands dotted with lone trees and standing stones. When the wind is right, the plains carry voices like distant choir notes—never close enough to understand, always close enough to unsettle.
Standing Stone Circles
Some are broken. Some are newly repaired with fresh stone that doesn’t match. At dusk, shadows between stones can look like doorways.
Hidden truth
The stones are anchors. When one is toppled, something unmoored drifts closer—spirits, memories, or worse.
Eastern hills and rising forests where growth is aggressive—vines reclaim walls in days, saplings split old stone overnight.
Sacred Groves
Marked by naturally-formed arches, pools that never stagnate, and birds that do not fear people.
Hidden truth
A buried root-network beneath the Rise behaves like a single organism. It is not merely “nature.” It is something that learned to imitate nature.
A southern harshness: dunes, black glass fields, old lava flows, and volcanic ridges sleeping under sand.
Nomad life
Tribes navigate by star-lore, wind-signs, and “sand-maps” drawn in ash. They trade water, salt, and stories—because all three keep you alive.
Hidden truth
The desert is swallowing ruins on purpose. Something beneath prefers the world forget certain names.
Once a grand sun-temple, now half-buried in Dead’s Sands. Broken pillars jut from dunes like ribs. Faded murals show processions beneath a radiant disk—faces scraped away, as if someone tried to erase worshippers but not the god.
What remains
Sun-wells: dry basins that sometimes fill with warm light instead of water.
A collapsed sanctum whose stairs descend into cold air.
Sand-polished reliefs depicting a “Second Sunrise” that never came.
Hidden truth
The temple did not fall to time alone. It was unmade in a ritual meant to hide a doorway. The doorway is still there—only the “key” changes each season.
Northeast ridges under perpetual twilight. The silence there is heavy, like wet cloth. Travelers see movement between rocks—bone-white lines that vanish when watched directly.
What people say
An undead army waits.
Old commanders still remember orders.
The mountains “count” footsteps.
Hidden truth
The army is not mindless. It is disciplined, patient, and bound by a wartime oath that never received release. Something—someone—still holds the authority to give the next command.
Fog that clings to your teeth. Black water. Trees twisted like arthritic fingers. Lights drift across the surface—sometimes harmless, sometimes hungry.
The Witch Rumor
Everyone has a different story: a healer betrayed, a fey bride abandoned, a war-sorceress fleeing justice. All agree the Marshlands corrupt what enters too deep.
Hidden truth
The witch is real, and her “corruption” is not random: it is selective improvement. She remakes creatures into forms better suited for her purposes, like a gardener pruning a nightmare.
Not as infamous as the Creepy Marshlands—yet older in a quiet, patient way. The swamp takes shoes, carts, and pride.
Hidden truth
There are drowned stone steps under the water that do not belong to any known ruin. They lead to an air-pocket chamber where something is still burning without flame.
Mist-laced woods threaded with webs so fine they vanish until they catch moonlight. Birds avoid the canopy. Even insects seem cautious.
Giantspider Gartaa
A colossal arachnid whose web-network spans branches like a second sky. Travelers describe the feeling of being “judged” before they ever see anything.
Hidden truth
Gartaa is not merely a beast. It is a collector. It keeps trophies, secrets, and living captives—preserved not for food, but for information.
A bright scatter of colorful houses, fish markets, and salt-stiff nets. The sea is generous and moody; storms arrive like arguments.
Local character
Practical, superstitious, and proud of their boats.
They fear “gray-tide nights,” when the shoreline fog reflects no lantern-light.
Hidden truth
A wreck offshore is visible only at dawn for a few minutes. Each time it appears, it looks newer.
A farming and fishing town by Heaven-Lake, with a lively market and a habit of sharing stories like bread.
Hidden truth
The lake has a deep spot where sound dies. Fishermen sometimes pull up hooks with hair tangled around them—never animal hair, never human hair… something in-between.
A modest settlement at the forest edge—tavern, smith, market, gardens. The village survives by respecting the treeline like a sleeping bear.
Hidden truth
One field near the forest grows crops too well. People avoid asking why. The soil is dark as if mixed with ash.
Timber-framed buildings, cobblestone streets, oak-beam pride. A trade-post for farmers, woodsmen, and travelers.
Hidden truth
An old oak in the center of town has a hollow that echoes with distant music at midnight. The mayor has nailed it shut three times. The nails keep disappearing.
A busy city of forges, taverns, and shops—an anvil-heart of trade. Smoke rises constantly; the city smells like bread, sweat, and steel.
Hidden truth
A blacksmith guild quietly buys anything made of sun-metal and locks it away. They do not explain. They simply pay.
A valley settlement of rustic wood homes and natural caves. Trolls here live in practical harmony with the land, using caves for shelter and storage.
Hidden truth
The caves extend farther than anyone admits. Something deep below “answers” in knocks when the trolls sing certain old working-chants.