The Grey Wastes

*"Only two things are certain in this world, death and the ability to defy it."* - Grand Vizier Serra

## Of the Grey Wastes

All over Paracelsus, it is only through the tenacity of life's essence that its inhabitants and all living things could resist the destruction that Fragmenterra brought. No morale was every truly squashed and no will ever fully broken. The desire for survival and the need to live brought all nations through the gauntlet that the world challenged the living with. Life always wins.

Except in The Grey Wastes.

Where Paracelsus has grown formidable warriors through tribulation, The Wastes would see them die. Where civilizations have clawed back from extinction on nothing but hunger for existence, the Grey Wastes would desire them wiped. Where love would give power to those needing change, The Grey Wastes would suck all emotion and watch hope die for sport.

## Culture and History

All that grows in this world does not do so with the nutrients needed for systems to reproduce alone. There is an energy and life essence in all things that comes from a source unknown. While this energy cannot be metered, many would call it a soul or feel that it is of divine, natural or spiritual origin. Whatever the case, this energy is slowed in this land. Practitioners of holy and natural magics rarely dwell in The Grey Wastes, finding their magic a strained breath of air compared to the usual typhoon they may invoke elsewhere.

This ever sapping land makes for a difficult environment to live in. Many find their existence dreary with a depression so heavy that getting themselves free of this place feels an insurmountable task. Those rare communities that do flourish in this land live by a code of extremes. Riding a crushing bleak wave, these souls attempt to stay the tide of depression through living a life with no holds barred. Grand excess and consumption leads these individuals to the intake of expensive foods, toxic substances, alcohol, rampant sexual exploits and adrenaline injecting feats. The Shadar-Kai race are thought to have pioneered this way of life even before Fragmenterra magnified the land's draining effects. Few living this way make it past the age of thirty.

The War of Fragmenterra took many more souls from this land than any other. The lack of healing magics in this land left the mortally wounded to depend on the best medicine that could be made with the small selection of herbs that grow here. The only other alternative being that of necromancy. As necromancy exists as a magic requiring a proximal source to maintain effect, a town with a wounded or dying population would need a necromancer with enough power and reach to sustain those under her aid. With many adept necromancers perishing in service to the Black Crown during the war, there are more towns than necromancy adepts with many settlements have become figuratively and literally ghost towns due to lack of accessible healthcare. The land alongside its inhabitants became more cold and pale than ever, bleeding out as the war progressed.

A few resourceful communities collaborated their efforts and in the last handful of years conceived a potion, brewed as a beer that prolongs the effects of necromancy by acting as an acceptable proximal source. Dead Man's Draught is a cheaply available alchemical brew consisting of secret ingredients shared only among a select chemist's guild for fear of the Black Crown monetizing it for their own gain.

Some areas of population found it within themselves mid-war to make their way to the nation's capitol Nachtruhe, a series of sleek pitch black obsidian spired castles that home the royal families and the surrounding city. Nestled as far away from the rest of of the land as possible, the Black Crown monarchy live on a separate island as if trying to distance itself from
the common folk and their problems. The ruling body of Nachtruhe kept locked gates while many diseased and dying waited outside the walls pleading for aid. Days into the call for the governing rule to help the land's denizens, the tall black gates creaked open where thousands had amassed.

These poor souls filtered into the large courtyard of the city square, coughing and nursing sores. Greeted by Grand Vizier Serra, kinomancer to the royals, the tall woman would have appeared as a dark godess to many of the commoners before her. Draped in near transparent crimson lace, her form made many forget their ails, her flesh in full erotic detail on grand display through the fabric. As a masterful mistress of kinomancy among other flesh crafting schools of magic, Serra was well attuned to every useful purpose for a mortal's body.

She made quick solution to the raff that crowded the city gates. Signed in blood, a contract was drawn up that held the signature of every man, woman and child before her. Each would receive the appropriate medical care needed and every person before her would live out their full lifespan. At the end of their life, they would be raised from rest in eternal servitude to the Black Crown. The people would be provided for and the royals would maintain their ability to stay the dark elemental attack as their populace fell.

## Geography

The Grey Wastes are filled with clammy swamps, empty echoing caverns and dead forests, all with diseased and perishing life forms if any. None are so empty as Dzud - Heart of Nothing. In the center of The Wastes, an expanse of swirling mist and fog that many believe drinks unquenchingly from all surrounding terrain.No happiness, growth, courage or life has ever passed into Dzud and escaped. While none know what is in the center, the perimeter is a grey chalky power that some collect for toxin experts to use in weakening poisons.

As the dense material swirls like a grey cyclone, squat to the ground, those that skirt its border have their ears assaulted by whipping winds that some travelers swear on the grave contains the screams of the deceased.