Following on from our earlier post in October, we now present the second installment of our ongoing series, ‘The Most Dangerous Ruins of Terra Supra’. This week we’re taking a look at three more of Xeryn’s most feared and dreaded ruins, several of which once stood as proud loci of a formerly glorious civilization, before the Calamity’s fallout wrought unforeseen destruction and corruption upon the Riven Realms. Without further ado, let’s delve right in!

Vaelenesthil

Vaelenesthil is a great Elven ruin in the region of hills on the southern edge of the Bronze Desert. Before the Calamity, the place was a city-state of Elves that was loosely associated with the elder race’s realm of Dor Anthelas. Its inhabitants were famous for creating a magnificent garden in the otherwise arid regions of the northwest, although these Eldin (or ‘Green Elves’) were disinclined to contact and educate humans – though they were not hostile either. They traded with the Imperials and the Bandul locals but remained diplomatically detached from them.

The Calamity devastated the tranquil hills and great forests south of the city, turning them into cragged, arid rock desert and into the Dead Forest, respectively. Vaelenesthil's Elves did not survive the magical cataclysm and no account of their fate exists. Today, the city's ruins are half-buried under rocks and sand at the center of maze-like ravines and valleys that make them very difficult to approach. The few travelers who dare enter speak of cracked marble towers and domes, heralds of a faded beauty, but not much else. No gardens or riches remain, except perhaps deep below the ruins, though none have lived to tell the tale after delving below. There is talk of strange noises, voices, eerie lights – even odd scents during nights that make people avoid Vaelenesthil altogether. However, in truth, most ruins on the continent have such phenomena attributed to them.

Some whisper of the great ruins being haunted, fearing in equal measure the terrifying, azure apparitions that lurk in the night and at its tenebrous crannies and nooks. Such accounts are few and far between in the Fourth Age of Xeryn, though one such story does exist – a story we wrote of a comitatus that dared venture forth into its depths, facing down Yrg and the even more horrifying denizens that reside there.

If you fancy a read, you can find that story here. Sadly, as of yet the story remains unfinished, but we don’t want to give everything away now, do we?

Carravon, the Howling City

Carravhon, called the Howling City, is one of the most prominent ruins of the middle regions of Xeryn. It is of Elven origin, and it is said that the ancient magic of those fey people made the winds around its silver towers go mad. For that reason, no living soul has been able to enter Carravhon since its fall during the Calamity.

Carravhon was an independent Elven city-state on the edge of the Empire’s arboreal middle provinces. It seceded from Dor Anthelas - the Elven kingdom of the continent - many thousands of years ago when the Elven Queen Orowen aen Muír Dramwúa took her people over the continent and settled at the foot of the Sepis Mountains. There the Elves built a city of wonderful white marble and clear silver, and were foremost among those that taught the humans, thus aiding in their rise to dominance. Cultured and learned, Carravhon’s Elves were the masters of music. Orowen’s singing voice was said to be able to make people weep in joy, and her magic worked wonders through that voice. When the Calamity burned and destroyed everything, Carravhon was not spared either: the magnificent city shook and collapsed, its residents and music falling silent forever. Now situated at the far end of the Singing Winds, Carravhon is a haunted place.

The ruins look pristine from afar. The city was built of white marble with Elven decorations of silver and gold running in floral patterns along its slender towers and clean walls. Golden domes were rising above gardens and parks. Now only desiccated trees remain but the shining metal decoration and white marble can be seen even from afar, drawing many treasure hunters close who then fail to return. People speak in hushed tones of the voice of Queen Orowen being carried on the melodious winds of the desert but anyone going close to the ruins themselves tell tales of a horrid, deafening cacophony coming from there on the brutal gales and tornadoes.

Quite recently, the city has seen a lot of activity. A series of earthquakes and terrible, screaming winds burst out of the ruins northward, opening up the earth in giant, snake-like chasms. Ever since, the wind does not relent, burning the mind of anyone who ventures too close.

The Dread City of Agathon

Once a marvel of culture, creativity, art, tradition, and learning, Agathon stood as a symbol of prosperity long before the Calamity struck. Nestled in the ancestral lands of ancient Daromar southeast of the River Lethe, the great city fell into ruin in the wake of the Calamity’s decimation, and it is said that it has now been entirely consumed by a fleshy, membranous mass of interwoven organic matter, infused with an entropy that corrupts everything it touches. The dreadful corruption is said to have originated from the nearby source of River Lethe to the northwest, from whence it spread, enveloping and consuming everything in its path.

During the Restoration Period in the Fourth Age, legionnaires and settlers attempted to retake the city, only to perish against the tide of otherworldly corruption that the strange organic growth brought with it – a growth, which, according to some accounts, ails its victims with a sickness not dissimilar from the Taint or as is sometimes the case in the area, through Change Storms. For these reasons, the Imperials soon learned that survival in or near the confines of the Dread City was an impossibility, though their losses were already manifold. They named the accursed region the Plains of Agony and forsook their attempts for good. To this day, the reasons for the city’s surrounding corruption and deadly effects remain an enigma, for few dare to approach its dreadful, looming presence, and even fewer have returned to tell the tale in the thousand years that have passed since its thaumaturgical downfall.

That’s it for installment number two. We do so truly hope that you never have the displeasure of visiting one of these foreboding and forbidden ruins; there’s nothing quite so debilitating as loading your old save where you didn’t elect to venture into something so terrible as the once magnificent Elven city-state of Carravhon, not when your fate is likely to be death before you even get close, anyway.

On that rather morbid note, stay safe, stay sane and conquer the wasteland!

The Lost Pilgrims Team

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