Overview
The Land of Darkness is a vast corrupted region along Xalmyrra's southern frontier. It presses against Dravemir, Velundra, Lythenmere Lake, and southern Teryndal. Council missions and border defenses focus on the darkness spreading from it. The region holds the route to the Temple of no Return, shelters darkness creatures, and receives criminals, exiles, explorers, and animals sent or lost within it.
The region becomes the destination of repeated Xalmyrran expeditions, from Eira's shard mission to Brynor's deeper survey. After the cataclysm, Aldar pushes the four Xalmyrran nations toward a formal alliance and a unified expedition into the region.
Geography
The Land of Darkness lies south of Dravemir and is visible from the city's walls as a black expanse on the horizon. Near Velundra, its dark wall and poisoned haze press close to southern Teryndal. After the darkness recedes, blackened ground and purple-gray haze still remain south of Velundra.
Its border is abrupt enough for travelers to recognize the wall or curtain of darkness ahead. Inside, fog blocks the sky, horizon, and landmarks. The route to the temple runs toward the mountains, where the ranges converge into a path toward the region's center.
The terrain is barren and corrupted, with barbed rocks, crumbling ground, scorched fields, warped half-green trees, brittle soil, purple-tinged pools, and dim glowing flora. The air tastes metallic and bitter, and it becomes hard to breathe without protection. Expeditions carry food, water, essence cores, route markers, and protective devices because the land offers no reliable supplies.
Hazards
The Land of Darkness is physically and mentally hostile. The darkness works on the mind, invades thoughts, drains endurance, and makes navigation unreliable. Travelers rely on divine shields, fire, lava, cosmic light, route markers, or the darkness repeller to move through it.
People and animals sent into the Land of Darkness can become darkness creatures. Kheran became a harbinger. The darkness takes the mind before the body. Umbral stalkers, harbingers, and ebon wraiths inhabit or emerge from the region.
Sites and Landmarks
- Temple of no Return, the hidden temple that holds the shard, straddles the void, and is the goal of Eira's mission.
- A massive half-circle gate near Dravemir.
- Atraxis Prime, whose ruins lie deep within the Land of Darkness.
- Old Durakarn, an ancient capital reached after Jorhan cleaves a road through the shadows.
- Dravemir, the strategic border city and common launch point for expeditions.
- Velundra, the southern Teryndal city threatened by the darkness and its remaining corruption.
History
The region is already named the Land of Darkness when Belanor travels through a hidden gate near Dravemir. For millennia, Jorhan uses the spiral shard to contain much of the darkness within Xalmyrra.
In Eira's early Xalmyrran mission, the Xalmyrran Council sends Eira, Kaelion, and Lirien into the Land of Darkness to retrieve the spiral shard from the Temple of no Return. Their route runs through Velundra and into the corrupted borderlands, where fog blocks landmarks, mountains guide the route, beasts threaten the travelers, and the temple pulls the mission toward the region's center.
The Land of Darkness also threatens Dravemir. Aurion defends the city against a massive swarm from the darkness, and Dravemir remains a Soltheris border-defense position and staging point. Aurion later tries to prove that Eira's power can turn the borderlands green again. Her power forces part of the Land of Darkness to withdraw. The darkness continues advancing from the south.
Brynor's later expedition enters from Dravemir with Mirael, Orin, Khoradyn, Kaelric, and Astheron. The group uses the darkness repeller, stone route markers, orreries, carried supplies, light, enchantments, and offensive magic to survive. They encounter a gate, reach the temple area, recover Lirien, and return after a missing two-week interval.
When Jorhan releases his hold on Xalmyrra, the Land of Darkness quakes and begins to recede. He uses the shard's remaining power to open a road through the darkness toward old Durakarn, intending to undo part of the damage he caused. Afterward, the region has pulled back; blackened ground and purple-gray haze still cling near Velundra and the southern lands.
Secrets and Mysteries
The temple within it opens into a void-like space where time loss and perception disturbances affect travelers.