Desolation of Melchis

A roughly triangular swathe of land, the Desolation of Melchis is bounded on its southern edge by the jagged slopes of the Snake Tooth Mountains, to its west by the Weeping River, to its east by the River Arcas, and to its north by the Dragons' Tears Mountains.   Before the events of 107DW and the duel between Melchis and Astartes when the desolation was created, the region was known as Mostriana and was a pastoral land of gently rolling hills and woodlands, interspersed with villages surrounded by large tracts of fertile agricultural land. Mostriana’s position between the two rivers, with the volcanic peaks of the Snake Tooth Mountains to the south made the region an incredibly rich area for the growing of crops and fodder for animals.   Since the desolation of the region, the area is mostly a barren wasteland, its idyllic past now little more than a distant memory.

As the sheer density of magic that was unleashed has made the barriers between Kelbonnar’s Planes of Existence incredibly thin, almost non-existent in places, the Desolation of Melchis is an incredibly easy place for denizens of other Planes to pass through into the Material Plane. Many of these entities come from the Lower Planes of the Hells or the Abyss, but occasionally creatures from the Fae and Elemental Planes appear in this region as well.   As these creatures have no physical tie to the Material Plane, many are pulled back to their Planes of origin when they stray too close to the borders of the Desolation of Melchis. However, particularly powerful, or knowledgeable entities are able to enter the Material Plane in the desolation, either in such a way as to avoid this, or with such fierce determination and strength of will that they can go wherever they please on the Material Plane, once they have crossed the barrier.   Additionally, this nature of the Desolation of Melchis also works the opposite way, making it an incredibly easy place for those from the Material Plane wishing to visit other Planes to make the crossing. Indeed, in some places the ebbs and flows of arcane energy means that unwary travellers can be forcibly transported to other Planes of Existence.   Finally, the sheer amount of potential magical energy in the atmosphere of the region means that any spell cast within the Desolation of Melchis is automatically more powerful, often more powerful that the caster would normally be able to wield such arcane power in the first place, and also much more liable to go wrong. A common cautionary piece of advice given to any members of the Imperial College of Arcanists who wish to travel to the region is to pack a flint and steel, as many mages have fallen victim to a simple fire-starting spell, used to light a campfire, manifesting as a raging inferno, immolating anything in the vicinity.

Few of the plants and animals that were once native to Mostriana continue to survive in the Desolation of Melchis, and those that do have been so twisted through generations of corruption, that they would be barely recognisable from the genetic ancestors they are descended from. Most of the creatures and plants that one encounters in the Desolation of Melchis actually originate from other planes of existence, see below.

Everything that was once viewed as being valuable in what is now the Desolation of Melchis – the ores underground, the plants and trees that somehow cling to a precarious existence and the animals and creatures that have been warped and twisted beyond any semblance of what they once were – is corrupted by the magic that has been allowed to flow indiscriminately in the region following Melchis’ death. Much of the areas natural resources are simply no longer usable. For example, iron extracted from the ground there is so brittle and prone to corrosion that it is useless now in metal work and actively degrades metals from other regions it is mixed with, whilst wood harvested from trees in the desolation often simply falls apart once cut.   It is this extraordinary flow of magic, however, that attracts people to the Desolation. As the glut of magical energy makes the barriers between the planes of existence thinner, those interested in summoning or conversing with entities beyond Kelbonnar’s Material Plane frequently travel to the region, hoping to access more power than their talents would otherwise enable them to access elsewhere. However, this is a very dangerous practice, and many wizards, sorcerers and mages have been torn asunder, either by the sheer amount of power that suddenly courses through them when they cast spells, or by malign entities, far more powerful than the wards of their spells were designed to contain, whom they summon.