The Desolation

For two years, two massive armies waged a titanic struggle in and around the city of Tsar. Thousands of creatures — good and evil, mortal and extraplanar, abyssal and celestial — perished in this epic conflict. Carnage of this unspeakable magnitude leaves an indelible mark on the land. To inflict such mass casualties, both sides unleashed horrific new weapons against their foes. Potent spells, supernatural abilities, experimental technologies, and godlike powers sundered flesh, bone, stone, and earth, laying waste to everything within their reach. More than 300 years have passed since the Battle of Tsar, yet even time cannot heal these wounds. The Desolation remains true to its name to this very day. It is an ashen, gray wasteland still desperately trying to recover from the hell rained down upon it.
The Desolation is bone dry save for the rare torrential downpour in late autumn. The breezes routinely whipping across the sere earth lift up tiny particles of dust and sand, leaving a noticeable gray haze in the air. Water is scarce, and the terrain is predominately flat and fallow. Any hills or other elevations were likely blasted into oblivion during the great battle, though the Stoneheart Escarpment to the Desolation’s west remains intact.
Although the landscape seems monotonous, the handful of explorers who trekked across the Desolation divided it into four quadrants roughly corresponding to the east-west and north-South Roads bisecting it. The southeastern quadrant is the bleakest of the four. Ash covers every square inch of ground, and undead monstrosities left behind from the battle freely walk the earth. A vast canyon fills the northeastern quadrant. Numerous caves cut into the walls of this obviously unnatural gorge harbor strange creatures and frightening abominations presumably summoned from the depths of The Abyss. The northwestern quadrant features a pockmarked landscape that witnessed the fiercest fighting during the Battle of Tsar. Countless geysers, craters, pits, and boiling pools of mud and sulfur scar this portion of the Desolation. Although water is more plentiful than elsewhere in the Desolation, toxins contaminate the overwhelming majority of water sources. Bizarre creatures formed from desecrated earth haunt this steamy domain. War reduced the formerly fertile southwestern quadrant into a hardened crust of dry earth teeming with the bones of the dead. It is nearly impossible to walk across the solidified ground without stepping on decomposed or mummified remains. While many still lie underfoot, a significant portion of the departed still walk the earth as vengeful apparitions or shambling corpses.
The only humanoid settlement of note within the Desolation is The Camp, a wild, rowdy place on the road passing through the barren wasteland. Before Tsar’s fall, the vital trade route linked the isthmus with Foere. Indeed, the evil city reaped a tremendous windfall levying tariffs on goods and commodities passing through its territory. Once again, renewed interest in reopening this overland highway has rekindled interest in exploring the Desolation and clearing out any monstrous inhabitants who would threaten this endeavor.

Type

Wasteland