The northern wall of Bard’s Gate looks out over a vast river valley
disappearing into purple hills in the hazy distance. The mighty gates
fi xed in that wall rarely open anymore. On the few occasions when
the north gates do open to allow entrance to the occasional merchant
caravan or especially daring traveler, they reveal a wide road, paved
with great stone fl ags forming a smooth and level traveling surface
striking due north for the hills. However, closer inspection reveals
the signs of a lack of maintenance, and after a few miles the road
deteriorates into little more than a wide dirt track, overgrown with
weeds and with only the occasional stone paver visible in the hard
soil. It obviously sees little travel and even less care.
Few stand atop Bard’s Gate’s north wall and gaze out upon that hazy
vista or care to think about what lies beyond those distant highlands.
Fewer still are brave or foolish enough to make the journey in that
direction. Bard’s Gate relies on its commerce from other roads in other
directions and pays no mind to the north, for to the north, beyond
the village of Taverlan and the distant purple hills and across many
leagues, lies the reminder of one of the most tragic moments in the history
of the civilized kingdoms. To those who even care to remember,
the north gate leads only to bad memories or mournful legend. To the
rest it leads to where only madmen would dare to go—the ruined city
of Tsar and the great Desolation that surrounds it.
Tsar, the great temple-city to the Demon Prince of the Undead,
stood for centuries as a bastion of evil and hate. Foul beings
of all kinds flocked to its mighty walls and found succor and
purpose within. At its heart stood the great Citadel of Orcus,
the black heart of Orcus worship on earth. Countless evils were
perpetuated in those corrupt precincts, and equally countless
wicked plots were hatched and carried out therein.
Finally the goodly kingdoms could stand the presence of this
festering boil in their midst no longer. The churches of Thyr
and Muir led a delegation of good and neutral faiths to Graeltor,
the last overking. Only with the backing of the nations’ secular
armies would the holy churches be able to erase such a blight. In
his last major pronouncement before the overthrow and fracturing
of the kingdoms into the independent nations they are today,
Overking Graeltor called for a mighty crusade to tear down the
walls of Tsar and forever end the presence of Orcus worship in
the world.
This crusader army, raised from all nations and almost every
non-evil faith, became known as the Army of Light and marched
for Tsar. In command of this army Graeltor placed his most
trusted advisor, the archmage Zelkor. Supported by innumerable
knight commanders, wizards, church patriarchs and scores of heroes
of renown, Zelkor quickly advanced his army from its staging
ground of Bard’s Gate, through Tsar’s outermost defensive
positions and into the great plain that surrounded the temple-city
itself. Flush with their many quick victories, the Army of Light
suddenly found arrayed against itself seemingly endless legions
of every sort of vile warrior-race and fell outsider imaginable
called up from all over the multiverse and lining the battlements
and fields before their redoubt—one of the greatest fortresses
and citadels ever erected in that time. The beginnings of doubt
seeped into the ranks of the Army of Light.
However, hope was not lost as the heavens opened up and
flight upon flight of angels and celestial beings descended from
on high to swell the ranks of the Army of Light. With grim determination
in both camps, battle was joined on the plain before
the gates of Tsar. The war raged for over a year, the Army of
Light advancing to the very foot of the walls and then being
pushed back by a new surge of demonic power. The disciples of
Orcus led by the Grand Cornu, Orcus’s single highest-ranking
priest on the mortal planes, threw every vile attack they could
at the Army of Light in defense of their city. Rains of horrific
fire and acid fell from the skies or belched from fissures in the
ground, great constructs crushed their foes before them, terrible
clouds of poisonous gas choked entire regiments, and heretofore
unknown plagues swept through the troops causing thousands
of horrible deaths among the Army of Light. Nevertheless the
forces of good persevered and fought on.
Finally, though the battle seemed no closer to victory, the fates
seemed to smile on the Army of Light. Unexpectedly the city
fell. In a single night the entire city virtually emptied of defenders
as they all were magically transported to a point several
miles outside the city’s walls, complete with baggage train and
mounts for many. The magical expenditure necessary to complete
this miraculous maneuver cost the Grand Cornu his very
life in sacrifice to Orcus, but the legions of the demon prince had
broken free from the Army of Light’s cordon. They immediately
took flight before the stunned Army of Light, heading south.
Zelkor and his fellow commanders were immediately suspicious
of this sudden retreat but could not afford to allow the
combined followers of Orcus concentrated in one place to escape
and spread their insidious evil again. A cursory sweep of
the city by scouts proved that the withdrawal was no ruse, so
Zelkor left one of his most powerful knights, the paladin Lord
Bishu, with a company of knights to secure the citadel and hold
it until the Army of Light could return and properly destroy it.
Then, still with a seed of doubt niggling in his mind, Zelkor ordered
the Army of Light in pursuit of the fleeing legions.
The tale of that long pursuit is an epic in and of itself. Finally
the Army of Light cornered the forces of darkness in a
forest near a rugged coastline. In anticipation of a great
victory, the forest was prematurely named the Forest of Hope.
The naming proved to be a cruel irony, for in the forest the followers
of Orcus had been preparing a great trap for years in case
just such an occasion ever arose. Both armies disappeared into
the forest. Neither ever emerged. The Army of Light was lost to
a man.
The shock of the loss of so many heroes, nobles, and leaders
of renown reverberated throughout the kingdoms. The overking
was overthrown in the unrest that followed. Minor wars erupted
as new factions took over old power bases bereft of their leadership.
When all was done and a semblance of peace returned,
the lands looked much more like they do today. Some said the
loss of so many was worth it for the eradication of the foul
cult of Orcus. Others said it had been a scheme concocted by the
demon prince all along to destroy his most powerful enemies
and sow hate and dissension throughout the civilized nations.
Years later when a terrible graveyard and thriving dungeon complex
devoted to Orcus was discovered in the Forest of Hope,
popular opinion agreed with the latter theory. It seemed Orcus
had not been eradicated after all, just relocated, and once again
his insidious evil began to spread throughout the lands.
For the past century some attention has been turned to delving
into the so-called Dungeon of Graves and rooting out the evil
now entrenched there. That complex is detailed in the Necromancer
Games adventure Rappan Athuk Reloaded. However,
what remained of the temple-city of Tsar was a vast, abandoned
ruin surrounded by miles and miles of poisoned and scarred
wasteland left behind by the battling armies. It was all but
forgotten as a bad memory of despair with no value save as an
eyesore and wilderness home for strange and fearsome beasts
that moved into the desolate area. The knights of Lord Bishu,
left behind at Tsar, were likewise forgotten as they, too, were
never heard from again. In the wake of the great tragedy at the
Forest of Hope, no one thought to check into the ruins themselves,
and all who knew about this relatively small group that
had been sent to the city had perished in Orcus’s trap. The people
of the civilized nations went on with their lives with, perhaps,
a little less hope and optimism than before. Tsar was forgotten,
and the land around it shunned and remembered only as the
Desolation.
While the rest of the world looked southwards for the future,
some few remembered the distant exotic markets of the far north.
Those brave or foolish enough to try reopened the trade road
that passed through the Desolation to once again reach those
far lands. Those that survived such treks and were able to trade
the rare items they brought back made fortunes, but most who
attempted the dangerous passage died—lost to the hazards of the
Desolation. Eventually a small settlement of cutthroats and the
worst kind of profiteering entrepreneurs sprang up on the southern
fringe of the Desolation. This hole-in-the-wall known simply
as the Camp serves as a staging ground for travelers to hire
mercenary guards or fast mounts for the perilous run through the
Desolation. Likewise it serves as a point of relative safety for
those few managing to make it through from the north with or
without goods in tow, often with denizens of the Desolation in
hot pursuit. There is little to this unruly, fringe settlement, and
many meet their fates on its dirty streets without ever making it
to the Desolation. Regardless, it manages to just barely eke out
an existence serving as a stopping point for those few travelers
who dare to make the run.
Now no one but these miscreants and fortune-seekers pay any
attention to the area and then only so they can pass through the
Desolation as quickly and safely as possible. The temple-city’s
ruins are universally avoided and little thought of. Why would
anyone wish to go to almost certain death? What could still exist
in the unknown holes and broken towers of Orcus’s greatest
earthly bastion? What could lie undisturbed, awaiting some
possibly preordained time to awake in the ruins of slumbering
Tsar?