A note on the Below:
The below document essentially tries to tie in some of the Magical Locations of DMG II into the Therafim setting. The Black Sands are a supernatural hazard from the Sandstorm WoTC supplement.
Also, though not actually featured as drawn art in the document, being a scroll of plain text -I've had this picture for some time now and I thought of it while reading the page for the Thostean Cradle and The Ribs of Therafim, albeit The Garden isnt actually smack dab next to the Ribs, I think that should this go up as another Lore Page there should be a pic of it in there, as well as on the Matrakal page. Ideally, should this go up, I'll find pictures for everything (other than the few in the book). And technically since The Frenzy Heart is an immobile thing, it COULD count as a Magical Location, and Could be added to this article if I knew more about it.
Ribs of Therafim/Frenzy Heart
http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/9710/ribsoftherafim.jpg
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/2049/ribsoftherafim2.jpg
For the Necropolis of Dread I mentioned Mummies and Undead dragons, right? TNK's a Sea guy, but he's somehow gotten command over mummies in the dryest most non Sea place on earth (going into the forbidden lore/tomb theme). Soooo, what does he do? }:-)
Well I was just looking at Sandstorm and guess what I found?
"Crawling Apocalypse"
What's that?
Krakken + Mummyrot/Despair + Sand Swimming =LAND KRAKKEN. Biches.
What? You thought it was safe on the land? Go back in the water.
I'm sorry, but thats the coolest shit ever. Even a bit cooler than the Sand/Ash worms, Dune Winder, and Anhydrut scorpion tank construct in that book possibly.
LAAAAND KRAKKEN. Thats more fun than Craaaab Peeeople.
The Hidden Powers of Therafim
composed by Hazzard Ausif The Tainted Scholar
Table of contents
The Black Sands
The Garden of Nature's Rage
The Elemental Hearts
The Terrible Cyst
The Altar of Dreams
The Necropolis of Dread
The Pool of Frozen Souls & The Everflame
The Dragonheart Tomb
Power. Power is everywhere, it is all around us and in every living thing. All creatures are fit to wield power, and all may increase their might. Power comes in many forms, and there are many ways to achive it. However, one needn't train or for decades to achieve it-fortune is not the same for all, and it is possible to gain great power very swiftly if one knows where to look. All over the world are ancient sources of power, places infused with truly vast sources of unlimited magic that might confer their power on untold numbers. However these places are the most closely guarded treasures in all the world and many are lost or forgotten. The greatest powers are also the shortest lived, and all powers that these place might grant are temporary, and with few exceptions may be recieved only once . However, the benefits recieved might be used as stepping stones to greater, more permanent seats of power. Power is a tool, and any power should be used to acquire more power, for if it is not then it is wasted utterly. I have spent a lifetime seeking these places and found none, but rumor and lore provides many clues and as many ancient riddles as to where they might be. Here I recount these places, though it is certain there are more -not just more places of power, but perhaps more than one of each. Indeed, it is possible that these places might have formed more than once under extraordinary circumstances, and indeed while the same specific location can only be used once, that does not exclude one from what few places exhibiting the same phenomena might exist.
The Black Sands
The Black Desert of The Abyss, The Iron Shavings of The City of Dis, The Shadow Sands, The Iron Sands. Also known simply as The Black Sands or The Sands -there exists a truly vile, self propogating evil that if intentionally put to the purpose, could destroy the world. Dark cultes want to build sacrificial pits filled with The Sands into which they might cast their victims, Dry Liches desire to study its mysteries and Dead Kings to upsurp the living by it, and Dragons crave to fill their lairs with it, and Elder Evils wish to set it on the wind and let the whole world slowly decay and fade to extinction. To the eye the sands appear as iron filings or perhaps black volcanic ash, but touching it subjects one to the ravages of negative energy. Thankfully upon death a creature does not become a wight, but rather its body disintegrates become Black Sand itself. However, this means that while it would take truly immense evil to create, anyone could create more as hardly a pinch is needed to kill an insect. The Sands radiate an aura that swallows up light so greedily, it is held that even a daylight spell can light a space where it exists for barely an hour.
Some say that a great quantity of it was created in ages past, but ancient wizard-kings buried it below the deserts of Crescent so it might never be used again. Other accounts say that a Black Desert was drained away through a portal to rid the world of it, but that a single sample remains in an hour-glass hidden in the lost tomb of a Dry Lich. A few hold that a dragon, a high priest of The Night Dragon, became undead and then created it to fill his lair before sealing himself in forever. And still more say that The Sands lie not in any earthly desert, but on the sandy bottom of the Panoceana at the most crushing depths, the realm of Dagon and The Father Styx -a nightmare waiting to loosed on all the world at the appointed time.
The Garden of Nature's Rage
Rage. I have found studies of the dark arts and black philosophies that there is no greater than rage focused by will. Nothing has more fury than Mother Nature, and none embody this virtue more than Frenzy-the very darkest and most savage part of Matra. Learned men are no stranger to The Heart of Frenzy, but have retained sanity to tell of what secrets she whispers. It is held that somewhere, possibly in deep in The Thostean Cradle, or perhaps on that Isle of The Mighty, or maybe in The Raging Jungles of Heaven's Tear or in The Jungle of Hydra is a garden that is a wellspring for the raw, unknowable power of nature. It is the naked face of agression, the raw unyielding demand that is life. The land is an magically unmappable wilderness populated by savage species, the majority of which are dire animals-though many are true behemoths, beasts bloated to Brobdingnagian proportians. A druid, and only a druid who makes a pilgrimage to this place and survives for seven days and seven nights without harming a single creature shall be granted the might of Nature's Rage for a year's time. In animal or elemental form they will appear distinctly feral and twisted, and in human shape their eyes will light with visible power that strikes men with primal fear. This power is utterly savage without honor or compassion, but it is not truly evil. However as well know, in sapient beings, anger leads to hatred.
The Elemental Hearts
The Four Hearts of Tharizdun, The Four Hearts of Therafim, The Heart of Ice, The Heart of Flame, The Heart of Stone, The Heart of Wind. Also known simply as The Four Hearts, or The Hearts, it is greatly debated whether the Hearts are free or won. The optimistic or the faithful believe that The Hearts are by free by the will of the gods never to be claimed by anyone, whereas others like I believe that The Hearts are claimed by that master of elements, Tharizdun -each one with a Temple of Elemental Evil built around it to keep their powers for His most high priests. However, there are some that say some Hearts are free and some are not, and that Tharizdun still seeks to control them all.
Vast concentrations of elemental magic have imbued four distinct locations with incredible power. The Hearts of Ice and Flame are abnormally cold or heated wherever they are, and the prescense of pure elemental energy is constant. It is believed that these two respectably, are the hottest and coldest places in all the world. The Heart of Stone is a cavern undoubtably in the Underdark I would say -though a few hold that it exists in The Abssal Labyrinth, under Panoceana. Lore says one will know it by the fact that abjuration magic is greatly augmented and that the entire area consists of only one kind of rock or earthen material of extraordinary purity, perhaps diamond. The Heart of Air may be an open space at the highest point in existance, on some mountain, in the open sky, or even far beyond in the void between Therafim and her moons. The powers each of them convey are varied- the ability to enhance cold or fire magic, the ability to convert any spell into an adamantine abjuration and,the ability to use any spell limited to touch at great distance. All of these powers may be granted for one year's time with the exception of The Heart of Air, whose power like the wind is fleeting and will last only for one moon.
The Terrible Cyst
The Abyssal Cyst, Matra's Wound, The Black Boil, The Infection, The Dark One's Rot, 'TheTerrible Cyst, or simply The Cyst. The land around it is said to be utterly corrupted, stone crumbles, metal rusts, and plants are become cancerous and warped, and water befouled. It is unknown exactly when or where it was first formed, but it is certain that is was created by the prescence of powerful demon perhaps even a demon prince or dark god, or the fall of a great being that was once of true virtue and light. It is a physical scar, a lesion on the land itself that bleeds nauseating power. Only an evil creature may claim this power, and it is said that The Cyst itself may even possess some inteligence, although it is unable to act on its own. This is believed to be the reason why it will accept only an evil creature. Whereas other places grant power to any number with a period in between each offering The Cyst is different. There can only be one. By force of will one draws The Cyst into ones own body where it fuses with the body and'' soul leaving no trace of its prescence on the land nor on the chosen. Using this power the chosen may smite the virtuous, or should one perish-give a pyrrhic victory to ones enemies. Should the chosen die The Cyst will instantly reform at the site of their death, indestructable, uncleansable, un-uprootable evil like no other. One would be a fool to slay a foe that was chosen of The Cyst, a carrier of that evil, in ones homeland. Albeit, just how far reaching the corruption of The Cyst is, is unknown -it may depend on its source origin.
Among its many names it is sometimes known as The Dark One's Rot, because it is believed that he may have created the first. It is unknown how many exist in our world, or the outer planes. There is legend of a great demon sent by The Dark One into our world in a long forgotten bid for power in the ancient past. When this demon was slain The Cyst was left behind, a curse on a land forgotten. A holy warrior sought to remove the taint, and when he learned that it could only be uprooted by one who was evil, sacrificed himself, giving his heart to darkness to become a suitable vessel for this power. Absorbing it into his body, The Fallen journeyed far leaving his loved ones and his people behind, seeking to die outside this world. It is said he became addicted to its power but recognized this before it was too late. Before he could be twisted fully into to a champion of ruin he commited suicide. He could not make the journey offworld- and so rather than die in The Abyss or some demiplane, he died on Therafim depositing The Cyst again. It is unkown where his grave is, but it is believed to be somewhere in the blasted wastes of The Godscar, The Abyssal Labyrith under Panoceana, or somewhere in the Underdark.
The Altar of Dreams
The Pool of Dreams, The Well of Dreaming Dark, The Nocnitsa's Glade, The Bog of Bad Dreams, or simply The Altar of Dreams. It is said that some pools might become infused with the pure essence of dreams. How is a mystery, it could be through great arcane magic, the power of the fey, or by spontaneous rends in the boundaries of mind and space.
All plants in the area are surrounded by mist, and there is a certain freshness felt by all. Those that sleep in its prescence are granted the ability to enter the dreams of others for one night, and may regain this power by doing so again. However-should one leave the site, one may never gain the power from that pool again. It is said that in hidden places, secret orders of mystics gather around such pools to study for decades or even a lifetime unwilling to leave. It is held also that somewhere in The Grim Marshes of The Shatterlands that such a pool might exist-formed from the magic pollution and alchemical refuse of the land. However, this pool in particular is also said to have become fouled by the very substances that formed it or the lingering emotional imprint of the lost cities said to have been devoured by the swamps. It is also said that another tained pool might exist in The Sorrowmarsh. Both are believed to be in the hands of dark fey or a mighty covey of Hags, or perhaps even guarded by a cult of The Father Styx. It is rumored they drown sacrificial victims in the mystical waters filling them to brim with fright. Their corruption is said to have turned them into something terrible, but that they are not beyond purification if the locations can be liberated.
The Necropolis of Dread
Many know of The Necropolis in The Sea of Dust, and the Undead Council that rules it. The chief gods there are The Night Dragon respected by all, and The Father Styx whose will is exacted by the Mummy Lords. However, there may be another Necropolis, or else a secret hidden within the city of the unliving. Through great slaughter, the will of truly potent undead, or perhaps a dark deity there came to be a black obelisk of great necromantic power. A great Necropolis was built around this obelisk. Any creature that approaches the obelisk is run through with icy spears of fear, and only one who can withstand this may approach close enough to taste its power. On those who worthy, for one year the spells they cast, spell like powers, and supernatural abilities are inhanced. Those who are not of the undead and still susceptible to fear gain a resilllience to it. The exact location of The Necropolis of Dread is unknown, were it The Necropolis itself it would be a hard secret to hide, but it is certain to be in the land of Crescent. It is believed to be in the hands of the cult of The Night Dragon or else The Father Styx, guarded by dracoliches or mummy lords -or seeing as the latter is willing to ally with many, it might be controlled jointly and protected by both. However, there are those that maintain that no one knows the location, and that it is still sought.
The Pool of Frozen Souls & The Everflame
Anywhere gates to the elemental plane of water have long remained open long enough,usually centuries a Pool of Frozen Souls might form. These pools always form within or near a large body of water, and while their waters are not magical, draining them will destroy them-making it one of the more easily destroyed places of power. The tempture in and around it is shockingly cold, and yet the waters never freeze. An ordinary man would surely die were he to enter the pool, but one of sufficient hardiness that can prove themselves by withstanding its abyssal chill without magical means will gain an innate resistance to cold of all kinds. It is believed that some of these gates exist on islands in Panoceana or in underwater caverns or grottoes that had undersea gates nearby.
An Everflame is a similar anomaly that might occur where there have been long standing gates to the elemental plane of fire, and might be used in a similar way, granting power to those who can brave the pain of the searing flames without magical protection. Both grant their powers to up to five individuals a year, lasting a year for each. Big Smoke Island in the lands of Hydra is known to have several planar breakthroughs, and so an Everflame might exist there.
The Dragonheart Tomb
Dragons are not immortal. Each dragon must die, or else seek undeath. When a truly powerful and ancient dragon dies, the cavern in which its bones have come to rest might be imbued with the power of its death. The air becomes chill and clammy, all vegetation withers away, and the darkness within threatens to swallow the light. Two individuals a year, simultaneously or seperately may absorb some of the areas potent necromantic power enhancing all spells within the school of Necromancy. These places are highly sought by Necromancers, and the cultists of The Night Dragon. It is said there is no Dragonheart Tomb on Therafim that is not guarded -but not always by those that seek to keep its power within an order. There are those that will fight with their lives to ensure that no one obtains its power, and that it never falls into the hands of those who would want to use it. It is unknown how many Dragonheart Tombs there are, or just where they are-but as this world was made by and for the dragons, and that this world has seen the pass of several ages, it is sure there are more than one might believe.