The Dead Lands

## Background

The Dead Lands are described as a plane engulfed in shadow, referred to by many as the realm of death. This plane is the divine domain of the Undying King, a realm governed by death and home to various types of undead. The most striking feature of the dead lands is the lack of colour and light. The only source of light comes from the black sun that lingers in the night sky, casting a faint amethyst glow on the land below.

In this plane a light source only illuminates half the distance it normally would but is visible from miles away. The realm of death is subject to relatively small but frequent earthquakes called necroquakes that are usually the result of a large influx of souls. These quakes leave behind massive fissures, from which oozes the essence of the plane, radiating negative energy that is lethal to any living creature. Those exposed to it begin to age rapidly, their skin withering and necrotizing before they eventually die and resurrect as an undead creature. The fissures also release powerful undead creatures that wander the realm of death, searching for any signs of life to snuff out.

Any living creatures that enter the dead lands instantly feel their life force slowly being siphoned away. Similarly, any clerics and warlocks who enter this plane without the undying king’s blessing soon begin the feel their connections to their deities or patrons gradually wither and fade into nothing.

The terrain in this plane varies from barren deserts made from ground amethyst and obsidian to massive mountains adorned with spires of basalt. Ruins dot the landscape, from ruined cities to abandoned villages, yet they are devoid of any living inhabitants, home instead to the slumbering dead that await their master’s call. The Dead Lands were once comprised solely of The Amethyst Boneyard, a relatively smaller plane that was under the rule of the Undying King. Following the Eternal Ritual and his failed invasion of Penastria, the great necromancer consigned himself to ruling the plane of shadow and worked to consolidate his power, adding smaller planes to his dominion, and thereby creating a bastion from which he may govern death.

He rules from the amethyst boneyard, a massive desert of ground amethyst and obsidian, filled with the skeletal remains of various creatures from throughout the planes. A cold wind blows throughout the desert, with many claiming to hear the whispers of the undying king within it. In the centre of the desert stands the great necromancer’s palace, a large domed building, made of smooth obsidian, massive spires jut out of its sides reaching out towards the sun like an outstretched hand. Whilst wandering the surface of the dead lands one can always see the palace, a beacon that beckons weary souls towards it.

The nexus of souls is the final destination of all those wayward souls that enter the dead lands, it is described as a massive monolith that bathes in the amethyst light of the black sun. It hovers precariously over a blackened pit in the centre of the Undying King’s throne room, held aloft by spectral chains, carried by the spirits of those wretches who dared to threaten Abel’s supremacy. Here these souls are stripped bare, appearing as greyish humanoid husks with no discernible, distinguishing features apart from a pale mask that shifts and changes to embody the afterlife that awaits them. Here the eternal legion stands beside their master, silently watching as the Undying King enacts judgement on all those that pass, damning their souls to an eternity in the hells, or an eternity beside their own gods.