Verdith'anath

Verdith'anath, also known as the Bridge of Death, was the Jaghut vision of the underworld. Predating the Holds, it was a "primal place", a "realm half-born, dead in still-birth". According to the Jaghut sorceress, Ganath, it was "a conceit to believe that death has but a single manifestation. As with all things, layer settles upon layer, and in time the deepest, darkest ones become forgotten – yet they have shaped all that lies above." Although the place lay beneath the feet of Hood, the God of Death, Ganath thought he might not presume to lay claim to it or its inhabitants.The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US HC p.351
The realm appeared as a bridge made of roughly carved, perfectly fitted black stone wide enough to accommodate two wagons side by side. No guard rails protected the bridge's sides, which were alarmingly worn and deteriorated. Below the bridge and twenty paces in any direction could only be seen grey mists. Objects falling from the bridge disappeared without a sound to indicate they ever reached a bottom.The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.434 The air was cold and clammy, and smelled of tidal pools.The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.434 The bridge had a subtle arch, perceptibly rising or falling depending on which direction you travelled.The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.444/448
Verdith'anath was home to numerous entities, long forgotten and buried in antiquity. 
==In The Bonehunters==
As part of the war between the gods, Ganoes Paran sought to free the Deragoth so they would hunt and kill the T'rolbarahl, Dejim Nebrahl. Paran saw Verdith'anath in visions that showed him how to reach the Deragoth's prison in the Nascent. He hired Karpolan Demesand and the Trygalle Trade Guild to accompany himself, the ghost Hedge, and Ganath across the bridge.The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.434-437
Soon after their arrival they were attacked by more than fifty ochre-skinned beast-men, which had seemingly hidden by clinging underneath the bridge.Paran did not think them natives.The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.442-444 Escaping the creatures, they travelled another third of a league before discovering an overturned, scarred, and gouged Guild carriage. Karpolan identified it as belonging to Darpareth Vayd, who had been missing for two years. She had brought Guild client Sedara Orr to Verdith'anath to assay the many forgotten creatures found there. Paran determined that the carriage had been attacked and destroyed by Doan and Ganrod, after he had freed the two Hounds of Shadow from Dragnipur. The group pushed the destroyed carriage over the side of the bridge to clear the way, but no sound was heard to mark its fall.The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.444-447 While traveling the bridge, Paran concluded that the realm had no ruler or master.The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.446
After traveling about a league, they reached a vast, stone gateway covered in moss. Passing through brought them to the Nascent.The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.448
==In Reaper's Gale==
As they walked through Omtose Phellack, the The Unbound T'lan Imass, Emroth, talked of the Jaghut afterlife with Hedge's ghost. Verdith'anath was empty because the Jaghut did not believe in souls, resulting in the annihilation of their spirits upon death. when Hedge asked why an underworld existed for a race that did not believe in it, she called it an ancient creation. Then she theorised that the earliest Jaghut to arrive there did not find it to their liking and so no more came. Instead, like many realms, it was rife with bridges, gates, and portals that drew in other creatures who did appreciate it--including the spirits of T'lan Imass.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 17, US HC p.506
==Notes and references==
Category:Locations