Barrow Downs

The Barrow downs is a region littered with graves, mass burial sites and abandoned battlefields filled with the remnants of the dead - a literal breeding ground for corpse-eaters and necromancers, the region has become dangerous for all living travelers. Every ghost town is now a haven for hostile spirits, cults, undead, and defiling monstrosities.  Travel here is ill-advised, but that doesn't deter some from traveling to the defiled city, Nerhorros, rumored to be filled with undead, and if they return, they are raving mad or mute about what they've seen.

The region is lifeless, but some signs of life can often be seen in the form of a gnarled old tree, or thorny bushes and black vines that grow along the ground and ruined walls. There are few wild animals, but the ones that you may come across are mostly rats, scavenger birds, wild dogs, and swarms of carrion.

## History

On the eastern portion of Terragard, where the barrow downs now remain, there have been many kingdoms in the past - and many conflicts. Due to the surplus of precious metal and gem mines, many kingdoms warred to lay claim to each others resources. After every age, a new kingdom would slaughter its way across the land, and the next age they would be slaughtered by another.

After the first few ages, you could scarcely walk across a field without tripping over ancient armors and piles of bones. A few ages more and the plants had all died off, the earth had been poisoned by blood and by the conquerors salting teh fields to prevent the land from being used by their enemies. Hundreds of years later, it now lays as a wasteland of ash and gray dirt, shriveled trees and long-abandoned piles of rubble marking long-rotted homes and siege weapons.

Crumbling walls and forts litter the landscape, haunted by spirits of the dead as they wander the battlefields and ruins they once served in, waiting for another chance to prove their mettle in their unending war.

## Necromancy

The barrow downs in a haven for necromancers, if one can raise enough servants and fortify them to fight, they can easily traverse the region with their new bodyguards as protectors against the threats that linger. So often this has been done that there is fierce competition among them as they attempt to find lairs and ruins to occupy so as to study their dark arts undisturbed.

Some ruins house witch covens, necromantic cults, and cabals of dark magics unknown to most traditional mages, all seeking solitude with their fellow practitioners to study their arts and unlock the ancient secrets to stronger armies of undead and immortality. These are the exception rather than the rule, as most witches and necromancers travel to Nerhorros, the city of the dead, to join a cabal there and gain access to some of the largest magical libraries on the mortal plane, invaluable to the research they perform in their pursuit of more power. The horrors reported from survivors of this place are beyond belief.

## Towns

Nerhorros, on the upper peninsula of the region, jutting northward towards the skylands.

Blackport, a shady human settlement, laying off the coast of a river and a lake not far from the bay to the north.