Legends tell that the Tu’va Wastes were once a beautiful land, a gift from Cosantoir the Protector. It was home to a plethora of ancient and emerging city states, banded together as the Taluras-Valduran Entente, working in cooperation and friendship towards mutual prosperity. It was even home to the first mortal to achieve immortality. Truly, it shone as a beacon of opulence and knowledge.
That all changed nearly a millennia ago when the Dark Calamity occurred. The number of theories surrounding the origin of the Dark Calamity grow by the day but what is known is this; the once fruitful lands across the northern landscape began to rapidly deteriorate. Fertile soil, old-growth forest, and the diverse wildlife showed signs of severe illness, mutation, often with fatal results.
Most scholarly hypotheses believe that whatever this plague is, it began somewhere west of the great metropolis of Valduran, which quickly became ruined. A dark, green-black matter, this blight can be described as veins of rot and corruption, and it spread consistently across the northern lands.
As this darkness spread, the corruption seeped itself into the vast supply of food and resources. The stability in each individual city state began to waver as their governments began to close outside trade and hoard resources. Many first hand accounts from those days tell of some cities expelling entire neighborhoods, usually the downtrodden, in a feeble attempt at having fewer mouths to feed, hoping they could outlast the darkness that crawled across.
In the end, nothing could stop the incoming doom. The land, now poisoned, the wildlife, now corrupted, there was to be no coming back. As the early years of what was now being called the Dark Calamity passed, prosperity disappeared and the cities, new and old, began to fall. Some were simply abandoned, others imploded in from inner strife. Many were overrun by new plague beasts that arose from the darkness- or from wars between once allies fighting to acquire the remaining resources. The Golden Age of the Entente had ended in chaos as many of its most prominent cities were left behind.
As the centuries wore on and cities continued to be ravaged by the blight, survivors fled east, but not without new problems arising. Exiles and refugees, having learned to survive in the harshness of the wastes, rose up in hordes, attacking and sacking what they could. In addition, seeing an opportunity in the weakness of man, the duergar came forth from deep within the Blythemack Heights and wreaked havoc on civilizations that were already hanging by a thread, pillaging weakened villages and taking many of their citizens for slaves.
Now colloquially just shortened to Tu’va, the area that was once the Taluras-Valduran Entente is a blighted wasteland. Along the eastern edges of the continent, only two of the major civilizations from the Entente remain. Pahlthyrus, led by the God King Deimos, a testament to adaption and prosperity, and Horeaus Morne, hanging on to its existence by the thread of their fishing lines. The spread of the blight seems to have slowed but only time will tell if what stands can remain.
The primary language of the Wastes now is Common, with other major languages being Dwarvish, Elvish, Draconic, and Orcish.
Pahlthyrus (One of the last city-states remaining)
Blythemack Heights (Mountains from which the Duergar raids were launched)