Athad

The dark land of Athad.
  The land of the dead.
  The expanse into which none of sane mind and even strong body dare venture. The country into which none are said to venture without risking losing everything of themselves for what has been deemed a lost cause. This land is wrapped in legend and has been ever since it was founded and set apart from the other countries in the continent of Rethium, and for the safety of all who live there, trade, commerce, life and every other aspect have been effectively banned from this ancient and dark territory.
  And yet there are known races who call this land their home. 
  The country of Athad is bordered by two vast ranges of mountains, one on either side and both giving an imposing air of sickly depravity and the lack of any welcome at all. The first of these mountain ranges is known as The Black Wall, and borders the country of Stale to the east which itself is protected by the mountain range called The Black Mountains. These two ranges cannot be confused with one another by name or appearance as The Black Mountains are much more adapted to hosting vegetation and other forms of life on their surface, while the Black Wall and it's companion range the Grey Wall do not, in part from the strange chemical makeup that helped form the earth of which the country is made up. The Grey Wall borders the western side of the country of Athad, directly to the east of The White Mountains, which wall off the northern section of the country of Aswary from it's dark and unpleasant neighbor territory. The two ranges that hide Athad from the rest of the continent are two of the shortest ranges on the continent as well as some of the shortest, but that does not diminish the fierce glare that they give to the world that waits outside of them, watching them constantly for any changes in their behavior. But it is not the mountains that cause worry.
  The territories that lie within the country are more unpleasant.
  The first of these expansive landscapes is called the Plains Of Ngathu, and is the largest open landscape in the country. The resources needed for proper life in this country are slim, and although the weather systems of the continent do supply rain every once in a good while, it is not enough to provide a welcoming appearance to the landscape. The grasslands that lie between the inner mountains of the country are dry and decaying from lack of proper nutrients, and it is easily noticeable that to the touch, the soil is not only dry and devoid of trapped water, but it is also warm to the touch and very thick, meaning that roots cannot penetrate far into the soil to try and gather water to feed themselves.
  The Plains of Ngathu were named, it is believed, after an Orc explorer had first set eyes upon this landscape when he had been leading his tribes into the country to begin their habitation of the country to cement their race somewhere safe and welcoming. This old and aged grassland is sharing the landscape with hills and valleys that are seemingly uncomfortably intermixed with one another and make for extreme and treacherous terrain to be crossed should one have a reason to reach the countries' coast from it's inner border. The Plains of Ngathu are also home to a very uncomfortable air, smelling of strange gases that can prove deadly if exposure has been allowed for too long a period of time, which further cements the stay-away orders from the rest of the country. There is an area of land to the west of the Plains however that is known to give off a much more uncomfortable air, and there are known to be hundreds of bodies within, not just of species who have wandered through and succumbed to the chemicals, but members of the races that call the country home.
  This dangerous landscape is called The Black Bog, and it is one of the most disgusting, unnavigable and generally unpleasant landscapes in the country.
  The chemicals that mix underneath the ground from the hidden processes of mixing magma, rock and other materials deep beneath the surface find their way to the surface through hidden channels in the ground and eventually bubble into large exposed pools and pockets of noxious fumes and other chemicals not usually meant for inhalation by mortal races unless they prove themselves to have a death wish to some degree or another. The Black Bog is also so-named for the color of the soil in the area from the chemicals and the liquid pools which typically range in color from a dirt-infested grey to even a putrid and decaying black or semitransparency, none of which are pleasant to the eyes or the other senses. The Black Bog is also commonly called The Field Of Tears due to the bodily response to the stinging sensations brought on by the foreign chemicals, which commonly results in those exposed to it crying profusely and in the attempt to keep the foreign chemicals from entering their bodies by all means necessary. 
  The Firebrand Mountains are the only thing protecting the Plains and the Bog from the Fields Of Gaiorish which borders against the coast of the country and it's respective ocean and the currents that reside within that sea. The Firebrand Mountains were formerly a severely active volcanic zone in the continent before they went dormant millions of years ago, and their name rings true to their appearance. They are composed of loose volcanic rock, gravel and sediments, and they give off a perpetual smoke from their surface, due to the reactions and compounds still trapped within their crust. It is unknown if any of the craters that make up the Firebrand Mountains are awaiting another eventual eruption, but what is known is that many prefer the wall of smoke over being able to see what lies beyond it, as nothing there could be any better than what they had already been exposed to in order to reach the mountain range.
  The Firebrand Mountains extend almost completely across the country from one side to the other, and are the only thing that is keeping the rest of the country safe from a great terror that has become trapped and dormant underneath the crust of this particular area of the world. The Maw of Gal'garoth is a place of truth and legend, speaking that a great dragon-like beast or worse lives forever underneath the surface, requiring constant sustenance to remain quiet and at peace with his eternal torment of being chained in the fiery depths below the world's surface. It is commonly concluded that either Pitos or Odis ordered this unknown beast to be held in this great pit so as to keep it growing until the day comes that the world will end, at which time the beast will be set free to destroy the known reaches of the world at the wishes and behest of the gods of death and hatred. None who have been thrown into this fiery hole have ever come back out alive, and if they were offered the chance to do so, it is thought that they would decline because of the possibility of either living a tormented life or dying a swift yet painful death at the power of whatever thing lives in the depths. Another such exposure in the landscape is a place simply called The Fall. 
  Surrounded on almost all sides by the Firebrand Mountains, The Fall is seen as a massive and ragged chasm that extends downwards for hundreds of meters, if not thousands or more. Some believe that this location is the physical manifestation of the Gates Of Hell on Earth, and many who live in Athad in service of the Lords of Death and Hatred refuse to travel there for fear they will fall in and be confined to Hell forever. In truth, this chasm is the exposed heart chamber of a once-active and extremely tall volcano that had dominated the landscape millions of years in the past, but had destroyed itself in a massive explosion that had clouded the continent for several years after it's own destruction. The origin of the smoke and flames that spew from this chasm is a pool of magma that is cooling and folding in on itself and throwing the smoke and flames into the air, having been burning for hundreds of years ever since the eruption. Many see the explosion as a sign of things even worse to come and have prophesied that when the chasm next erupts, it will be the end of an age for the world as it's inhabitants had known for thousands of years if not many more.
  Due to the chasm being over three miles in diameter and over a half-mile deep or more, the volcano that once stood in it's place is believed to have been over five to ten times the size of the chamber that held the heart of the volcano's explosive complexities and capabilities, not to mention the power to have killed off millions of whatever had been exposed at the time of the eruption and the dark years that had followed. If some claims made by scientists are correct, then the eruption of this massive volcano was one of several extinction events that had wiped out an age of evolved dinosaurs and even dragons that had once lived across the world at the time, and that this event was one of the last nails in the coffin for the extinction of many of these species, although the dragons proved much more capable and have been known to have survived even into the modern age of the world, to the point where some species of dragon have been adapted and tamed as home pets and companions for those seeking the familiarity of a creature other than a feline or a canine, all of which are very common across the world as pets and as lesser evolutions of their respective races that have evolved to a near-humanoid state which is only prevented because of their various genetic and physical differences from the pure human race that has occupied the world alongside many others over thousands of years of history. 
  But even these terrors of nature do not hold a candle to what stands tall at the center of the country.
  There lies, within a large and decrepit basin between a curving wall of mountains, a great tower who's construction in ancient times had been believed to have been impossible or simply a myth of outstanding proportions. This tower is known as The Eye, and is recorded as the tallest structure in the world by every category. It stands at a measured height of two-thousand-five-hundred feet tall, but appears more like a supermassive exposed stalagmite than a fully constructed tower that was conceivably built by hands and tools. The only human-influenced object at the site of this tower is the large gate that stands in front of it keeping watch over the landscape beyond, as well as the intricate and massive prongs made of black stone that support a great piece of crystal at the very peak of this amazing construct.
  Translated to miles, The Eye stands at almost five miles tall, and it's shadow can even be seen from the plains of Uthesh or the cities of Aswary and Stale depending on where the viewer stands and in which direction they are standing. It is the very thing that symbolizes darkness, destruction and the sense of unstoppable doom that will indeed one day plague the world. It is known from records made within the country that a great complex was constructed inside this massive natural stone pylon, to the degree of being the world's largest and most complex subterranean complex. It also consists of living quarters, vaults, dungeons, a maze of labyrinthine tunnels and passageways and other constructs meant for the storage of goods, persons and other objects. The upper reaches of this place house the personal quarters of a being who was believed to have been long-since dead and gone from the world but whom the inhabitants of the country and the lower tower claim to live and prosper in this secluded and unreachable apartment, which some consider to be more akin to a massive palace fit only for one being and his personal servant, neither of whom have been seen for millennia since the tower's initial construction phases, which took place only a year after Rethium was founded and inhabited by the first known races of that part of the world.
  The coastline of the country is known as The Corroded Coastline, and also houses a section of several miles in length that is referred to as Shipwreck Miles, which is the location where several dozens of ships have been crashed, beached or sunken by the dangerous rocks and dangerous landscape hidden underneath the waves on that region of the coast. Only the most experienced of captains and skippers know to keep their distance from this coastline by several miles to avoid the dangerous territory along the coast, leaving the others to their fate should they disregard the warnings by other captains about the regions of the coast on this side of the country. 
  The races of Orcs are the primary residents of the country of Athad and make up at least sixty-seven percent of the population of the country. The race of Dwarves thirteen percent, The race of Psedi makes up roughly twelve percent, the race of Humans make up four percent and others such as Kitsune make up the final percentage of the population. All of them have adapted to living underground in less-than-desirable conditions of life, living off of scraps of food given as rations for their daily intake to at the very least keep them alive enough to work another day in the quarries and mines of the country. They serve no purpose other than to continue working without end, with no known goal in mind but simply to keep on working without stopping and without asking questions. The Eye tower has of course been long-since finished in the early centuries of time, meaning that no more work is necessary on the structure. There are also no aboveground settlements in the country, resulting in the fact that all places considered towns and villages have been constructed underground, either that or the population lives and works in endless mines and tunnels and have no personal life of their own to speak of. 
  Despite the status of Athad as a country, it gives out no known exports to the other countries outside of it save for the view of the massive tower reaching upwards into the heavens. It has no capital city save for the citadel housing The Eye, and it has no official government body of any known kind save for the being who is rumored to live at the top of the tower with only a servant to keep him company. 
  Of each race residing in the country around the tower, only one member of each is allowed access to the inner sanctums of the massive construct. The Kitsune elected Maechiho Unai to be their representative to the being who lives in the tower as well as his council and the live-in servant. The Dwarves elected Graortot Regalthane. Of the Humans, they chose Trinala Probri, and of the Psedi, they elected Siallo Enchiq to represent them. Each of these individuals was given a small dwelling of appropriate size for their race to live in, as well as the appropriate furnishings and other accommodations according to their needs, but they quickly discovered this was only to keep them in line rather than to treat them as higher than their slaving brethren, otherwise, they were told, they would be thrown back to their mines and tunnels and would have to work to keep their place of importance within the ranks of the hierarchy that by almost all means barely existed at all anyway. It seems though that of the dwellings given out to the highest members of each race that Siallo's dwelling quickly became the most despised by those sent to fetch her. She had quickly begun to fill her home with webbing and thread to make the place more comfortable and homey, to the distain of those who would step inside and quickly become tangled in masses of sticky, thick walls of web and fiber. Siallo was able to find great humor in this, and by the events that took place from her dwelling, she was quickly able to gather the spirits of the others to give them at least one small thing to smile and talk about every once in a good while or so.
  The country of Athad has only been invaded once in it's known history by an outside party member for some reason or another. During the early years of the Second Age, a Kitsune named Fox had been plagued with visions and nightmares he assumed to originate from the depths of The Fall or The Maw, and he set out to find the source and to destroy it once and for all to cure his endless torment. Of course this attempt naturally failed due to the intervention of his close friends Alistair the Half-Elf wizard and Echo, a Water Faerie who was Fox's lover from a young age. Convincing him that the trial wasn't worth it, the group managed to return home to Opron together, after which Fox spent a long period in self-isolation and meditation in the hopes of curing himself of the unknown plague that had so badly infested his mind. It is thought that the tower in Athad around this period was nearing the halfway point of completion, but since records from that specific time period are scarce, the timeline of events is not very well known.