Nerull's Bane

The Flan peoples of the northern lands never advanced much in the way of civilization. This once-proud city was the creation of a much older race than the Flannae, an unknown people who vanished long before the bronzed ancestors of the Rovers fearfully approached this place. Finding that evil could not enter this place seemingly, the Flan were also too superstitious to loot the great treasures of the marbled and colonnaded halls, and finding no sign of the original occupants, they turned the place into a burial site for their chieftains, priests, and mighty warriors. Over the centuries, perhaps some 20,000 bodies were interred here in great stone sarcophagi and endless halls. The bodies never decayed or putrefied; they simply shriveled and became mummy-like. It seemed as if the place defied the reach of the Reaper, with bodies retaining their integrity and dignity in death, so the Flan called the place Nerull's Bane.

Over the last few centuries or so, Nerull's Bane visited less often by the Rovers and the Fellreev grew around it. The forest was especially dense here, so gradually the Rovers came to abandon the place altogether and their burial rites changed. Great warriors and others were burned, to send their souls to the Outer Planes more swiftly, or so the Flan came to believe. Slowly, Nerull's Bane became only a memory and shamans began to tell tales of a marbled city which itself existed on another plane where the bodies of the dead would rest forever, with the souls of the dead coming to occupy new, perfect forms instead. Nerull's Bane was forgotten.

As it became neglected, Nerull's Bane began to sink into the ground itself. Today, perhaps only the uppermost ten feet or so of the very tallest buildings are still above ground level. Far below, however, most of the huge buildings are still intact, filled with bodies, treasures, and much magic. Which Powers, if any, watch over the place are unknown. Their reaction to those entering is likewise uncertain. Iuz does not know of the existence of this place and indeed very few sages even suspect its existence, since no written records of it exist.