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Overview:
Along the western edge of the Road North lies the Bleeding Verge—a fractured and forsaken borderland where civilization thins and the wilderness reclaims its hold. This harsh region marks the eastern fringe of the Shattered Kingdoms, yet even the hardened people of Avatolika have never truly settled it, choosing instead the more fertile borders of Lake Serenith. In the Bleeding Verge, survival is tenuous, and community a luxury. The land is dotted with ramshackle camps, forgotten ruins, and secret enclaves where the outcast, the hunted, and the desperate dwell. Whether fleeing justice, war, or something darker, all who find themselves here share one thing: no where else to go.
Description:
The Bleeding Verge is a land of broken ground and bitter winds. Rain is scarce, and what little vegetation survives is dry, brittle, and barely nourishing. The terrain is uneven—scarred by past conflict, tainted by lingering demonic presence, and dotted with gullies, crevices, and jagged cliffs. Dust storms are common, and at night, the horizon in the East glows faintly with unnatural colors—a remnant of the rift-borne energies still saturating the region.
Despite its dangers, the Verge offers cover and obscurity, making it a haven for outlaws, rogue mages, disbanded soldiers, and those fleeing persecution or judgment. It’s a patchwork of half-buried strongholds, tent cities, and nomadic bands, all bound by fragile truces and the unspoken understanding that trust is a currency best spent cautiously.
To add onto it’s inhospitably demonic presence in the Bleeding Verge remains disturbingly strong for two key reasons. First, the region is considered too barren to justify a full cleansing—unlike other tainted lands, it was never thoroughly purged, only monitored to ensure they do not spread. Second, the Verge shares its northern boundary with the chasm, which while not the source of the Rift itself is believed to harbor many horrors left behind from the Age of Darkness (AoD). On rare occasions, these beings crawl out from its depths, launching brutal and unexpected raids into the Verge or toward vulnerable lands beyond.
History:
The Bleeding Verge is a forgotten land in the annals of Staterum’s history—mentioned rarely, remembered vaguely. In ages past, before the Age of Darkness, it was a marginal but survivable territory, traversed by nomadic tribes, wandering mystics, and proud centaur clans who followed ancient migration routes across its sparse grasslands and weathered hills. Though never prosperous, it held cultural significance for those who called it home, serving as a place of passage, ritual, and reflection.
However, the Age of Darkness brought ruin that the land never recovered from. Demonic corruption seeped into the Verge’s already fragile ecosystem, warping the soil and spoiling what little vitality remained. The centaur herds retreated to Hybla Gratis, and the nomadic peoples either fled, perished, or were twisted by the horrors left behind. Since then, the region has existed in shadow—unclaimed, ungoverned, and largely unspoken of. In the centuries that followed, the Bleeding Verge became a place of exile, refuge, or punishment for the unwanted: a borderland too costly to reclaim, but too dangerous to ignore.
Significance:
The Bleeding Verge holds little strategic or economic value—its primary significance lies in what it harbors and what it threatens. It serves as a haven for the exiled, the forsaken, and the criminal. To the West, Avatolika bears the brunt of the region’s presence, struggling to contain frequent raids and incursions from the lawless dwellers of the Verge, even as it remains embroiled in its own tensions with the Kingdom of Vasae. The Verge is not a place to conquer, but a wound to be monitored—a festering frontier between civilization and chaos.
Notable Features:
- The Chasm’s Tendrils: Branching off from the great Chasm to the north, these splintering rifts claw deep into the Bleeding Verge. Each tendril varies in depth and breadth, but all teem with strange whispers and the occasional emergence of unspeakable horrors. Even among the Verge’s hardened denizens, these places are feared and strictly avoided.
- Pitt City: A chaotic sprawl of scrap metal, canvas tents, and half-collapsed structures nestled within the jagged basin of an ancient impact crater. Pitt City is the closest thing to a capital in the Verge—though calling it a city is generous. Lawless and brutal, it serves as a trading post, black market, and sanctuary for raiders, scavengers, and other exiles.
- The Hollow Steps: A winding natural rock formation rising abruptly from the Verge’s plains—almost like a tiered, broken stairwell. At its summit lies a small, ruined temple or observatory of unknown origin.
Local Legends or Stories:
Among both outsiders and those hardened souls within the Verge, there is a pervasive belief that prolonged exposure to the land’s corruption does more than rot the mind—it twists the flesh. Whispers tell of raiders who have grown horns, sprouted barbed tails, or developed jagged claws after years of living within these cursed lands. Some claim it is the price of survival in a place so steeped in darkness, while others believe it is the land itself twisting them for some darker unknown purpose.
An unsettling rumor among scholars and Rift Watchers alike warns that the Chasm’s Tendrils may not be static. New fissures have allegedly begun to appear—thin, silent cracks creeping further into the Bleeding Verge, Some fear this is not the land settling, but the Chasm expanding, a slow outward breath from whatever dark force still stirs deep beneath the world’s skin.
Current Status:
Having a bad time.