Demon Wastes

Along the northwestern-most portion of the continent, rivers of lava cut across plains of black sand and volcanic glass. The only vegetation consists of blood-red moss and a thick layer of shimmering slime. Pools of mysterious viscous liquid dot the landscape. A jagged rock formation might be a piece of an ancient wall, if you stretch your imagination.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, fiends ruled Khorvaire. The Demon Wastes held the seat of power for some of the mightiest archfiends, home to cities of rakshasas and demons. Most of these foul entities perished or fled long ago, but a few still linger in this place even as new ones crawl up from the depths of Khyber. A handful of primordial ruins sustained by dark magic dot the bleak landscape-ruins that may still be home to fiends and their treasures.
The Stone Cage, Shadowcrags, and Icehorn Mountains separate the Demon Wastes from the Eldeen Reaches. A series of canyons known as the Labyrinth further separate the Demon Wastes from the rest of Khorvaire. Due to ancient warding magic, any creature that wishes to leave must do so through the Labyrinth. These passes are guarded by the Ghaash'kala, tribes of orcs sworn to contain the evils of the Wastes. Anything that gets past the Ghaash'kala are turned to ash by the Ashbound. Beyond the Labyrinth, the mortal inhabitants of the Demon Wastes include a brutal people known as the Carrion Tribes. Each tribe is devoted to an archfiend, and they engage in endless battles against the Ghaash'kala and the other Carrion Tribes.
The coastline is extremely hostile, with a combination of foul weather, unnatural sealife, and a maze of demonglass spires that can tear a ship apart. It's certainly possible to reach the Demon Wastes by sea, but most of the time, those who try will end up shipwrecked, which is in fact what happened to the ancestors of the Carrion Tribes. It is one of the biggest barriers to House Tharashk establishing their base in Blood Crescent.

Important Sites

The Demon Wastes are sparse and barren. Fire pits and active volcanoes fill the air with smoke and ash, while cauldrons of boiling mud give off a sulfurous stench. The ruins of ancient fiend cities litter the plains, appearing as oddly shaped piles of stones worn down by time or half-buried under layers of lava. Occasionally a structure survives the eons intact—strange, alien architecture formed from metal fused with volcanic glass. Fiends and barbarians have looted most of the ruins over the last hundred millennia; only those guarded by powerful spirits still hold ancient treasures.
The Labyrinth: A massive scar mars the otherwise flat plains that stretch beyond the Shadowcrags. Like wounds gouged out of the earth by fierce talons of gigantic size, the twists and turns of the canyons and depressions form a barrier separating the Shadowcrags from the western plains. This is the Labyrinth, where the Dragon Below meets the Dragon Between in a land of ruin and desolation.
This vast network of canyons and mesas forms a natural maze of stone. The wind in the canyons sounds like the keening of hundreds of ancient banshees, and sometimes the air inexplicably fills with the smell of fresh blood or the bitter tang of sulfur. Rockfalls and flash floods can make short work of unwary travelers, and it is all too easy to get lost in the twisting channels of these badlands. In addition, cracks and crevices sometimes open that drop into the very heart of Khyber itself, and fiery rivers of molten lava flow haphazardly within the winding depressions. Fiends and other foul creatures wander the canyons, engaged in activities that most sane minds would rather not examine too closely.
The canyons are also home to the dedicated members of the Ghaash'kala clans (see below). These orcs, humans, and half-orcs patrol the Labyrinth and fight to the death to keep anyone from entering or exiting the Wastes. They maintain a number of small settlements that resemble fortresses built into and around secure caves in the canyon walls. The largest, most permanent of these are Ghaash Dar in the northern canyons and Maruk Dar in the south.
As the roc flies, the Labyrinth is approximately two hundred fifty miles wide and over seven hundred miles long. On foot, a typical journey covers roughly twice that distance (assuming the travelers avoid getting lost). A few more direct routes are known to the Ghaash’kala, but they usually can’t be persuaded to share such information.
The Lair of the Keeper: At the northern edge of the Demon Wastes, a vast chasm in the earth leads down into the depths of Khyber. Legends describe many perils that lie beneath—the River of Blood and Bone, the Chamber of Secret Thoughts, the Legion of the Forgotten Dead—but most deadly of all is said to be the Lair of the Keeper. This place, hallowed to one of the Dark Six, contains many trapped souls held by the Khyber dragonshards that grow from the walls and floor. Legends say that those who venture here to rescue others often become trapped in turn.
Both the Lair of the Keeper and the chasm leading to it are powerful manifest zones linked to Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead. All spells are impeded here. Those who enter the chasm are subject to the normal entrapping effect of the plane of Dolurrh, except that those who fall prey to the effect are absorbed by and imprisoned within the dark dragonshards rather than becoming shades. They retain their memories but are unable to free themselves.
Those who follow the teachings of the Dark Six believe that the Keeper himself operates within this foul place. Whether the soul-trapping properties of the Lair of the Keeper have anything to do with gods or just occur due to the interaction of naturally binding Khyber shards and the manifest zone is a debate for scholars and theologians to engage in—and many do, at great length.
Lake of Fire: Volcanoes and fire pits fill the Demon Wastes. At night, the clouds of ash and smoke glow with the reflected light of lava and flame. Stories say that each volcano marks the prison of one of the mighty fiends trapped below the earth at the end of the Age of Demons. The most impressive of these is the Lake of Fire—a vast volcano with a crater almost a mile across. There are a host of legends about the Lake of Fire: stories of fiendish monsters that have emerged from the lake, of powerful artifacts thrown into the lava now waiting to be recovered, and of the mighty fiend bound below that waits to be unleashed. Some say that sorcerers and wizards who travel to the lake can draw on its power to perform astonishing feats of evocation. True or not, the Lake of Fire is an impressive landmark that seems to act as a beacon for the fiendish creatures of the region, making it a dangerous place for mortal travelers to visit.
Desolate: Originally named Greenholt, then Newholt, and finally Kymar's Folly, this remote outpost has at various times been a House Lyrandar trading post, a Thrane hermitage, and the center of a small Aundairian colony. Now universally known by its nickname Desolate, the place has been thrice settled and thrice abandoned. Each time its inhabitants have all disappeared in a single night, their fate unknown, leaving all their worldly goods behind. The last occurrence was early in the reign of King Jarot (862 YK the outpost has lain deserted ever since, the nearest inhabitants being the lighthouse keepers on Starkcrag Rock. Even though abandoned for more than a century, the city is remarkably intact. Trees are few on this low-lying point, set off from the rest of the Wastes by sheer, unclimbable cliffs that tower above the city. Most structures in the city are made of native stone, as is the city wall. Only now, with the Last War finally over, are plans for Desolate’s resettlement underway.

Life and Society

Two distinct barbarian groups occupy the Demon Wastes. The Ghaash'kala clans inhabit the Labyrinth, while the Carrion Tribes wander the plains that lie to the west of the canyons.
The members of the Carrion Tribes are the more numerous of the barbarian hordes. The Carrion Tribes consist of vicious human savages who worship the malevolent spirits that haunt the Wastes. Over the centuries a handful of different tribes have emerged. No matter which demon they pledge allegiance to, the Carrions are bloodthirsty nomads known to slaughter any strangers they come across—including members of other Carrion Tribes. While they worship the ancient fiends, the Carrion Tribes also fear the demonic ruins and so avoid such locations. Occasionally a tribe attempts to break through to the Eldeen Reaches, which results in a brutal conflict with the Ghaash'kala clans. The Carrion Tribes are extremely primitive and generally use hide armor and wooden or stone weapons, though a few may possess superior equipment scavenged from their victims. The Carrions practice ritual scarring and mutilation; each tribe uses distinctive techniques designed to give its warriors the features of fiends.
Ghaash'kala roughly translates as "ghost guardians" in the Orc tongue. The Ghaash’kala barbarians believe they have a sacred duty to prevent evil from leaving the Demon Wastes. Primarily orcs mingled with a handful of humans and half-orcs, the Ghaash’kala clan members are fierce but not bloodthirsty by nature. They act to keep travelers from entering the Wastes, preferring to convince with words before drawing weapons. On the other hand, they consider anything that emerges from the Wastes—whether wild beasts, barbarians, or travelers returning from an expedition—to be hopelessly tainted, and they strike against such creatures without warning or mercy.
The Ghaash’kala clan members are more sophisticated than their counterparts in the Carrion Tribes; they do not possess metal armor or masterwork gear, but they use studded leather, metal swords, and bows. Clan warriors carry the brand of the binding flame; they believe that these brands help to protect them from demonic possession. Four Ghaash’kala clans are spread throughout the Labyrinth, where they share a common priesthood and have strong diplomatic ties to help them carry out their sacred mission.

Power Groups

Few established power groups operate in this desolate land. The only humanoids found in the Demon Wastes belong to the barbarian tribes (though House Tharashk is seeking a way to exploit the region"s mineral resources). The barbarian tribes and the fiendish factions operating in the land are described below.
The Maruk Ghaash'kala: The Labyrinth is a convoluted series of canyons and depressions carved into the flat highland plain as though by gargantuan claws. No part of Khyber, the Dragon Below, rests so close to the surface of Eberron as in the Labyrinth. In ages past, the orcs that eventually became the Ghaash’kala entered the Labyrinth for the express purpose of keeping the horrors of the Wastes trapped and cut off from the rest of the world. One of the oldest of these clans, the Maruk, has a long and bloody history of fulfilling this mission.
The Maruk clan guards the central passages through the Labyrinth. The sly and clever fiends often manage to slip past the vigilant eyes of the Maruk guards, but the sacred warriors of the binding flame are not without their resources. They can see through disguises used by the fiends, and when a fiend’s disguise is seen through, deadly battles can erupt in the depths of the canyons. The Maruk clan suffers terrible casualties as a result of these constant battles; the only reason the clan has survived to the present day is because of the steady infusion of new blood. Orc barbarians from the Shadow Marches, human scouts from the Eldeen Reaches, and even youths from the Carrion Tribes often hear the call of Kalok Shash, a divine beacon that draws them to the Maruk Ghaash"kala. As a result, the Maruk clan counts more humans and half-orcs among its members than any other Ghaash’kala clan and possesses slightly better equipment. The Maruk clan also has a higher percentage of paladins than the other three clans.
Members of the Maruk Ghaash’kala are somber and serious, prepared to die at any time in battle with the fiends of the Demon Wastes and other horrors spit up from the depths of Khyber. Torgaan Shashaarat leads the clan, while the elderly priest Lharc Suusha guides it.
The Moon Reavers: While most of the Carrion Tribes worship the greater fiends and their servants, the Moon Reavers revere the night hags—fiends who spread fear by the dark of the moon. This clan is made up mostly of barbarians, but because it specializes in terror tactics and guerrilla warfare, a number of rogues are also among the membership. Whenever possible, the Reavers prefer to stalk isolated prey using methods designed to frighten them prior to making a kill. They draw this fear out for as long as possible, reveling in the terror of their victims. Clan members make masks and other decorations using the bones and skin of their victims. They file their teeth and let their nails grow long in emulation of the fiends they admire.
Karka Darkbane leads the Moon Reavers. She is a cruel woman twisted in mind and body by a night hag while she was still within her mother"s womb. In battle, Karka wields a mace of terror, a gift from her sinister patron, the night hag who marked her as its own before she came into the world.
Night Hags: The fiends share the Demon Wastes with the night hags. Much fewer in number than the fiends, a mere nine night hags live in the Wastes. The hags spend most of their time engaged in mystical studies beyond the realm of mortal ken (and mercifully so), exploring the ancient ruins for arcane tomes from the Age of Demons. Most of the night hags react with hostility when approached by strangers, but a few can be dealt with—provided the visitor has something to offer and minds her manners. The widely respected hag Kyrale serves as an ambassador and mediator among the fiendish powers active in the Wastes, and mortals wishing to negotiate with other fiends often seek her out to act as an intermediary.
The Plaguebearers: This Carrion Tribe reveres an imprisoned force of filth and pestilence. Its members seek to turn the power of their lord against their enemies. Plaguebearers smear their weapons with dung; a victim struck with a coated weapon risks falling victim to filth fever. Plaguebearers are typically covered with weeping open sores and angry welts from various infections, but they are remarkably resistant to the effects of diseases and poisons.
In battle, the Plaguebearers become wild berserkers; they close ranks as quickly as possible and fight to the death, praying that infection will claim the lives of any enemies who survive the battle. Fulgrun Bloodboil, a hideous individual surrounded by a horrible stench of pus and rot, leads the clan.

Major Cities

There are no significant humanoid cities in the Demon Wastes. The nomadic Carrion Tribes constantly move across the desolate plains as they hunt prey, avoid enemies, and search for sustenance in the bleak land. The Ghaash'kala clans maintain a number of small towns and villages, generally established within natural caves or in well-concealed cliff dwellings high above the flash flood line in the gorges of the Labyrinth.
Festering Holt: This "city" is a charnel pit of ramshackle structures and ill will. How this hamlet came into existence and why the fiends allow it to remain is one of the many mysteries of the Wastes. What is known is that Festering Holt serves as a way station of sorts in the middle of nowhere. It sits in the western shadows of the Icehorn Mountains, not far from the northern twists of the Labyrinth. While the Holt doesn't have many comforts to speak of, it can look like paradise to a traveler coming across it in the midst of the Wastes. A visitor to the Holt must be as strong and capable as possible, however, for the inhabitants of the hamlet make a tradition of taking advantage of the weak and the unprepared.
The Holt has a livery of sorts, though the last time it actually housed mounts not even its proprietor can say. The general store, tavern, and inn can be found under the same roof, in the largest structure in the Holt—Dead Before Morning. The innkeep, Karbal, opens the doors every evening and starts the festivities with the same toast: "Drink well, lads, because it’s a sure bet we’ll all be dead before morning!" The name stuck.
Orcs, a few humans, a handful of the other common races, and even a few monsters have found their way to the Holt. Though the place has an air of despair, it is really one of the few beacons of light in this desolate land. However, travelers should be aware that there’s another saying in the Holt—“What the Wastes don’t kill, the Holt eats.”
Rotting Blade: This settlement, hidden between the Shadowcrags and the Lake of Fire, houses a small community of kobolds, humans, and orcs pulled from the Eldeen Reaches and the Shadow Marches. The community has one purpose—to serve the will of the night hag Vraria. The night hag has set herself up as queen of Rotting Blade, using her powers and the abilities of the lesser fiends who serve her to keep the population docile and in line. When her temper or appetites get the better of her and one or more of her subjects is used up, the night hag or her fiendish servants go in search of new blood to add to the population. Tales told in the western regions about Vraria coming in the night to take bad little boys and girls are not far from the truth. Visitors to Rotting Blade see only a small, poor thorp on the surface, for the night hag remains hidden and her subjects are forbidden to talk about her when "guests" come to call. Once Vraria gets a sense of the capabilities of a visitor, she plans an appropriate greeting. If travelers appear to be too powerful (and a few adventuring parties have passed this way over the years), Vraria stays hidden and orders her subjects to send them on their way at the earliest opportunity.
Blood Crescent: House Tharashk established this outpost shortly before the end of the Last War. Built on the shores of Crescent Bay and regularly supplied by ships from Yrlag, a large town across the bay in the Shadow Marches, Blood Crescent serves as House Tharashk"s long dreamed-of foothold in the Demon Wastes. From this outpost, the house sends parties to scout for resources such as deposits of narstone and open pits of Khyber dragonshards. Finding the resources isn’t difficult; surviving the dangers of the Wastes is. That’s why the outpost commander often employs adventurers to either serve as guards for his scouting teams or even as scouts themselves when he seeks to enter a particularly treacherous stretch of the Wastes. The ruthless, no-nonsense Baruk commands the outpost, which maintains a company of elite house guards in addition to the scouts and laborers necessary for finding and transporting exploitable resources from the Wastes. The outpost has survived three lost expeditions, seven assaults by the Carrion Tribes, and four attacks by random fiends and monsters. This history has given the place a very military outlook; many of the longtime residents of Blood Crescent feel as though they have been under near-constant siege.

Population
Unknown
Capital
None
Demonym
Probably a cultist