Valley of the Fallen

"You shall truly know death when you breathe the cold winds of the passage tombs of the Valley of the Fallen." - From the Legend of Dunlaig

  The Valley of the Fallen, or Ferr Na'daig in the tongue of the Ren Berig, was a mystical subregion of the western reaches of the Western Commons. The area was the home of the passage tombs of the chieftains of the first Ren Berig peoples to come to Beurum. Though once an important gathering place for the various tribes that lived nearby, overtime the valley became overgrown and its monuments fell into ruin.

---

The origin of the Valley was heavily shrouded in Ren Berig mythology, which contained several conflicting narratives concerning the area.   Among those that believed the stories of the Bann Ader, the valley already existed when the Ren Berig arrived at Beurum. Unlike the deep forests that surrounded it, the valley was mysteriously clear, covered only with long, thing, lush grasses. The Ren Berig settled around this valley, considering it to be a segment of the Tuatha Dal Gaes, (the Kingdom of Creation), where all of their gods were said to live in eternal paradise. The first Ren Berig leaders were entombed here because it would be easier for the most distinguished among them to enter the domain of the gods among death. This was the most widely believed story among the Ren Berig.   Another major tribe, the Gerendars, held that the Valley was covered with thick forests like the rest of the area. The first druids of the Ren Berig, at the time, were having difficulties finding any trees that were willing to sacrifice themselves for the permanent settlement of such a new people. Only the trees of the Valley obliged, and the peoples' leaders were thus buried there in honor of the fallen forests.   The least common story concerning the Valley was that perpetuated by the Femeria. They believed that the Ren Berig, upon arriving at the Valley, saw that it was the site of a sizable Firbolg settlement. The Ren Berig waged war upon the Firbolgs, all but destroying them completely. They then constructed monuments commemorating the glorious battles that took place, and buried their leaders nearby.   Whatever was true or not, what was known for certain about the area was that, starting in the First Era, the Valley was the site of several burials of important chieftains, and, much more rarely, druids. As time went on, burials in the crowded Valley became more and more exclusive, as the Bann Ader, which traditionally controlled the area, had to expend warriors on guarding the passage tombs against thieves. Eventually, a period of instability and decline among the Bann Ader in the Second Era led to the virtual abandonment of the Valley, which had not seen a new burial in two hundred years.   Some blamed the abandonment of the Valley not on the poor circumstances of the Bann Ader, but on the ghost of a druidess named Mirden Mac Cais (Miren of the Red Eagle). Mirden the Damned, as she was later sometimes called, was killed in a raid on her tribe, which was heavily controversial. Traditionally, when warfare among the Ren Berig resulted in the death of a druid, bad fortune was brought upon the family of the murderer for three generations through the combined forces of several gods. However, the individual who had killed Mirden was killed later in the same battle, and, unsually, he had no offspring and hardly any closely related family. Furious at the lack of justice, Mirden's spirit was unable to return to the Evertree. Instead, she haunted the Valley of the Fallen, often taking the form of several predatory beasts that were much larger than normal.   Whether Mirden's ghost was involved in the abandonment of the Valley or not, the area was completely overgrown by the Third Era. Nearly all of the Ren Berig believed that every passage tomb had been robbed, but a large amount of individual burials and a lack of organized records that documented the burials made it impossible to truly check. The area passed through several tribes that often made plans to restore the area, but none of these plans ever came to fruition.   During the final years of the The Twenty-Year War, the Valley was the site of a battle between remnants of the fractured Makovai army and the forces of the Trebai Ascendancy. The battle was a massacre. Ascendancy forces were able to encircle the Makovai and cut them off from their supply lines, but fighting stretched on for days in the labyrinthine Valley ruins. Though the battle was technically a Makovai defeat, both sides suffered massive casualities. Some survivors claimed that these casualties were the work of the ghost of Mirden the Damned, who was furious that the battle was desecrating a sacred Ren Berig area. However, most believed that the casualty numbers were the result of a drawn-out and poorly planned battle.   After the war, a number of smaller Ren Berig tribes agreed to try and clean up the mess of the battle, and in turn restore some of the tombs. Though this project reached some initial goals, inter-tribal warfare forced the effort to a standstill.