The Valley of Ashes

Mysterious, perilous, and foreboding, a charred, smoky and dark scar in the land, the Valley of Ashes inspires countless tales of death and horror all across Gilden. "The Valley of Ashes is cursed. It's crawling with undead monstrosities," people say, "ghouls and prowling corpses and abominations." "The sun doesn't reach there," claim others, "poisonous fog drifts through the trees, and spawns of malice stalk the underbrush." "It's full of wicked witches and warlocks," some say, "they build their evil lairs there and gather in droves under the Black Moon to perform their dark rites and blood sacrifices." "It's where devils and sinister spirits cross over from their world into ours," say others, "that's why the air smells stiflingly of brimstone, and so many horrible creatures emerge from there." The stories are endless-- some are rooted in truth, and some are purely speculative.

Few people ever attempt to enter the Valley of Ashes, and of those few, fewer still ever return. It is true that the Valley of Ashes is an extremely dangerous place, hardly forgiving of any kind of life. What does survive there, let alone thrives there, must withstand a very harsh environment. There is very little sunlight, not much vegetation that isn't either poisonous or aggressive, and not much fresh water-- few clean rivers or streams and many treacherous bogs and mires, several of which produce toxic gasses. Indeed, the flora and fauna there is unlike the natural life of the rest of the land; attuned to darkness, aggressive, and monstrous.

Not everything, or everyone, that resides in the Valley of Ashes is actually evil, for the record, even horrific creatures such as these are largely still simply just wild animals, albeit particularly nightmare-inducing ones, and act on instincts and survival, not morals. To be fair, there is an above average population density of malicious entities within the valley compared to the rest of Gilden, but there isn't really more evil there than anywhere else-- it's just amplified by the unwelcoming environment.