April A to Z: The Nether Regions

Exploring the World of Nood

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The Nether Regions
South of the Unpassable Peaks lies the barren land of ruin and chaos known as the Nether Regions. Once the center of a sprawling kingdom known as Vanderdoom it fell under the thrall of the demon lord Yob Slobbersloth and became a realm of decadence, depravity and wanton sin. Everyone had a good time for a number of years until a small band of Heroes knows as the Wolf’s Army snuck into the Dreaming Palace and was able to perform the Begonning Ritual while plunging the Sword of Dragons into the Eye of the Golden Guardian, while destroying the Ring of Yob Slothersloth with the Hammer of Might. However, betrayed by one of their own, the Wolf’s Army failed to play the correct tune on the Canastas of Truth and the Ritual of Begonning was incomplete, resulting in the explosive destruction of Yob Slobbersloth’s corporeal form on Nood, (and a fair amount of rotting meat raining down up landscape) and a blast of absurdritch energy that levelled much of the kingdom in the ridiculous firestorm.

For years the region was engulf in a maelstrom of swirling, inane energies that rendered the land uninhabitable for close to a century. Once the storm began to pass, explorers began to inch their way into a landscape now so twisted it refused to play attention to any geographic, or temporal law. Monsters both fearsome and silly were born from the pieces of Yob Slobbersloth and even today, the land remains a bizarre and dangerous place. The Crawling Tower can been seen stalking across the landscape, The Endless Pit draws the unwary, The Shrinking Mountains are not a place to loose one’s perspective and the Orchard of Nigh are tended by the High Shepards. And at the northern edge lies the Burning Cliffs of Phlog, where Castle Sulk is said to watch all that transpires in the land below.

There are some signs of normality in the region; the town of Saferock has grown up at the mouth of the Knotted River and almost no-one turns into a goat there anymore. The town serves as a port of call for treasure seekers moving inland and as a point of trade for some of the bizarre inhabitants who call the Nether Regions home. The region is also infamous for the abundance of Goblins found here having, for strange purposes of their own, turned the ruins of Vanderdoom into the spinning fortress known as the Clockwork Castle.