Aeddom

## Overview

A hellish physical realm that has been connected to Aevonhold since before the dawn of recorded history. Many abominations are said to have been born from Aeddom, though the legitimacy of these claims could never truly be proven. The connection to Aevonhold from this realm is fairly stable as there have been many recorded ventures into the realm itself.

Uninhabitable conditions for life present in Aevonhold, Aeddom is a place that many would call terrifying. Ashen landscape dotted with pools of molten rock, Aeddom is extremely dangerous.

## Geography

Little is known about Aeddom to those who don't call the hellish realm home, and even those who've walked its fiery tracks dislike to speak of their time spent there. There's no known maps of the realm and its territories, though one can shape a rough idea based off of important landmarks and sites of immense devastation. A land rocked by constant catastrophe, volcanos jut out of the earth like broad teeth, and expansive tracts of ashen deserts expand for as far as the eye can see. Unfathomable cave systems formed of dormant magma tubes writhe and snake beneath the ground above, serving as the den of many nameless horrors which have yet to set foot in Aevonhold, and many pray never will.

The constant air of smog and wreathes of volcanic ash which settle in the air as a fine haze make navigation almost impossible most of the time. For nomadic creatures such as the Drimfaw, this is only accomplished via the special sensory capacity of their stubby noses, navigating the featureless mire of Aeddom with apparent ease.

Oceanic bodies of lava pulse with a wrong sense of life, as if the scathing pools are home to an alien ecosystem not meant to be seen by human eyes. The bodies of water, while very few, usually come from underground hot springs and geysers. The water from these sources will more often than not evaporate and mingle with the ashen skies, raining back down as a toxic sludge. Those few creatures which inhabit Aeddom and call it home often travel between these sites to store and capture water before it's wasted.

Due to the constantly shifting and brutal environs of Aeddom, permanent settlements are almost impossible to form, with many attempts left buried under mountains of ash and cooling magma.

## Important Locations

Landmarks and places only spoken of in story by Drimfaw travelers and those who've had the tale told by elders many generations passed. The accuracy of these accounts is always under scrutiny, and one can never be too sure of a Drimfaw elder who's been plied for his stories after too many goblets of wine.

### The Foundry

Known as a vast network of forges which exist somewhere in the heart of Aeddom. Vertically inclined, it's much deeper than it is wide, with a series of shafts, vents, and elevators from the core below up to the surface. It serves as a place of creation, churning out necessities and weapons of war for the many creatures who make camp nearby and make deals with its shadowy masters. Evil exchanges are made and vile contracts inked to ensure that the nomadic tribes have what they need to survive.

A pouch of teeth from a living being in exchange for pots and pans. A newborn Drimfaw to be traded for crates of archaic, sulfuric firearms. No one questions the awful demands made by the Foundry's shrouded merchants, for the need of these things is far too great.

A crucible for devils and fouler things still, only the desperate seek out its wares.

### High Yagallathrik

There are innumerable mountains, volcanos, and vast rocky mounds which stretch up into the hazy cloud layer above Aeddom. Yet few are so vast and mighty as the legendary Yagallathrik. A volcano so mighty and tall that those few who claim to have reached the top, say that they pierced through the sky itself and looked out on an ocean of grey from its peak. While these stories are usually regarded in dubious light, it's known to all who've even set foot near its base, that High Yagallathrik is the greatest of volcanic beings in all of Aeddom.

The largest of its peers pale in comparison, as each one is granted a name and a spirit of reverence. Believed to be the unruly fire spirits from deep below Aeddom which now erupt from the earth to express their discontent, volcanos serve an important part in Aeddom's bleak ecosystem. Entire clans of Blod'Juret are wiped from existence when their cavernous homes within long-dormant magma vents are filled with awful flame. Tribes of Drimfaw disappear beneath meters of ash during particularly dangerous eruptions.

To those who call Aeddom home, High Yagallathrik is the great equalizer, as its mere rumblings swallow friend and foe alike in its inhuman fury. Said to have slept for three thousand years, those wizened Drimfaw that spin half-drunk tales of the mighty Yagallathrik, believe it will end all life on Aeddom and return the realm to its fiery denizens beneath.

## The Nine Moons

The skies above Aeddom are steeped in a constant smog of volcanic ash, toxic clouds, and unceasing fumes which rise out of the molten core of the realm. One who's been there only a short time wouldn't be entirely out of place to presume that nothing lay beyond that ceiling of hideous haze. Yet... the skies of Aeddom are perhaps more alive than even Aevonhold, glittering with celestial bodies which look down almost pitifully on the scarred landscape below, wreathed in gloom and mire.

Most predominant of them all, and the most remarkable, are Aeddom's nine moons. A nonet of satellites which dazzle on high... tempting the groveling lifeforms which scrape out their meager livings beneath with lunar visages of brilliant colors. What exactly makes up each body is a mystery to all, as none of the species which dwell in Aeddom ever developed anything close to an ideal of 'science' or studies beyond how to best club one's rivals into the dirt.

Rarely do all nine moons shine in unison on the same night, but instead are blotted out, lending superstition and meaning to the different combinations of lunar sightings.

Among the most notable...

### Atta, the Father

The brightest above is the red globe of light called 'Atta' by the native tongue of those who reside in Aeddom. Its size and luminescence alone lend it an almost paternalistic shine which the society of Drimfaw respects, as one does an elder sat at their dinner table. It is a moon which all creatures under its light associate with fatherhood, and nights when it sits high above for the world beneath to see is a special evening of reverence for the elders in Drimfaw society. For the Blod'Juret alternatively, is called Knatta or 'The Blood Father', a sign of the feast and nights when packs of the monsters will descend upon the ashen plains en masse to feed.

### Anetmek, the Mother

In comparison to the blazing sun-like qualities of her starlit neighbor, Anetmek seems to hold an almost dullish purple hue when lofted in the skies over Aeddom. While not as noticeable, it offers a constant and unwavering spectacle of violet luminosity that acts as a guide to those lost in the dim of the smog below. Due to this almost mystical constancy, Anetmek is also the only moon which can be seen even on totally clouded nights. She is the mother, a sign of fertility and child-rearing, but also a show of reverence to the art of creation. Artisans and midwives take to this moon when it ascends in the sky, performing rites and crafting masterpieces under its blessed mauve glow.

### Ejder, the Drake

A glowering orange beacon that hangs low in the sky compared to its companions, Edjer or the Drake as it's known, is often lofted high when the Draco-Ghoros are on the move. Their trailing caravans span through the night dotted with blurred torch-light which mirrors their patron in the sky overhead. It's associated with fire, brimstone, cataclysm, and the environs which spew death across Aeddom. To this end the ascendancy of Ejder is often seen to coincide with immense cataclysmic disasters. It's alternatively referred to as 'Ejker' by the Drimfaw, meaning brother, a play on words of the more infamous naming and a subtle reference to its closeness with its brighter sibling, Atta.

### Sikir, the Magi

A gleaming monarch cast in a wash of greens and yellows and blues, the multi-colored marble which hangs overhead is called Sikir or 'the magi' by almost all who walk Aeddom's unforgiving plains. Sikir is as magnanimous as it is wise, as auspicious events are said to occur under its omnipotent trichromatic glow, the birth of heroes, arcane masters, and fortuitous occasions. When Sikir is in ascendance above Aeddom, even the slightest of changes in the weather or the shift in vast lava flows are marked and studied to ferret out its significance. Sikir is the superstition of the Drimfaw, the mysticism of the Blod'Juret, the elder wisdom of the Draco-Ghoros... no one being is immune to the awe-inspiring influence it possesses over the land.

## The Epochs of Aeddom

With a land as steeped in cataclysm and catastrophe as Aeddom is, rare has it been for established settlements to exist for long. Rarer still, for any sort of record on events passed to be kept. To that end, there exists no particular history or chronicle of Aeddom's past in any specific fashion. Yet on occasion, there are events so massive and often devastating, that they mark the land for years to come.. and issue forth a new 'epoch'.

In Aeddom the epoch is a loose form of measuring time, or specifically the benchmarks of time passed in the ageless realm of fire and brimstone. They are almost universally recognized by the myriad races which call Aeddom their home, yet some variations do exist.

### The First Epoch

No living being alive today could recall what ushered in the first Epoch, though in the myths and tales recounted by Drimfaw elders and Blod'Juret khans believe that all life on Aeddom was first allowed breath when the fire spirits were forced underground and became the thousands of volcanos which now dot the land. In this massive upheaval, the first races of Aeddom were culled from the ashen soil- the Drimfaw and Draco-Ghoros. Beyond that, no tales are told of this time nor are any other significant events remembered.

### The Second Epoch

Much of contemporary Drimfaw story-telling draws on the events of the second Epoch. Ushered in by the first eruption of High Yagallathrik, a fiery storm which engulfed the lands many hundreds of miles around in ashen apocalypse and a flow of lava which is said to have gone on for a hundred days in kind. Vast segments of the population died out in this period, and any scant settlements were drowned in many kilometers of cooling magma. What was left was a disparate population, as the Drimfaw tribes became nomadic, and the Draco-Ghoros retreated out into the ashen plains. Late into this Epoch, the Blod'Juret arrived as well, plaguing the people of Aeddom thereafter.

### The Third Epoch

The most recent of epochs, and perhaps the one surrounded with the most contention. For many in Aeddom, it's the disastrous Arcane Rift incident that ushered in the new age of Aeddom, with mass dislocation of the population and leaving much of Aeddom a barren waste devoid of life. Alternatively, it's recounted amongst the Blod'Juret clans that the Ten Day Rain's apocalyptic downpour was the true entry of the Third Epoch, an event which drowned the land in mire only decades before the Rift catastrophe. In the storied canon of Aeddom's loose history, both events qualify as documented events of realm shattering proportions which reshaped life as it's known to the hellfire plane. It's still debated amongst scholars to this day, and those who've since fled Aeddom to call Aevonhold their home.

## Creatures

While there are many creatures said to have been born exclusively from Aeddom, there are only a handful of these creatures proven to have come from the realm.

### Blod'Juret

Blod'juret are creatures birthed into the caverns of Aeddom. They are quick to enter Aevonhold, the place of their supposed creation.

### Drimfaw

Fast, nimble albeit simple creatures rarely seen by human eyes. Born within Aeddom, much of their population disappeared for a short time. It was seen that these creatures were whisked off to another realm and were enslaved by the native populace, the Yselnativa. Drimfaw have begun making more of an appearance within Aevonhold as the quick modernization stretches to all corners of the realm.

### Draco-Ghoros

Imposing creatures similar to modern Dragons, the Draco-Ghoros are rare and very powerful winged creatures born within Aeddom. Precursors to modern dragons, they share various characteristics such as an affinity for fire and warmth, large scaled bodies, leathery wings and sharp teeth and talons.

While some of these Draco-Ghoros have appeared within Aevonhold throughout history, only one has had any lasting historical importance. The Draco-Ghoros that was enslaved for a time by Rein'Unger, this Draco-Ghoros was killed in Volvar after an arduous battle in 3E 1160.