Damned Marines

Damned Marines

These units are long-dead marines of many nationalities - Ivory Asylum, Paradomea, Council of Bile, and any other who happens to fall victim to death ships of the Armada of the Damned. There have even been times that Grimsuvelth Trawlers sailed with the fleet, crewed by skeleton, zombie, and wight hill giants.

The undead marines of the Armada are just like their living counterparts as far as acting like marines - they are boarders of enemy vessels or used in amphibious assaults on coastal dwellings. There can be as many as 50 of them on one death ship if it is a warship or none if the ship was once a merchant or fishing ship. Across all 31 ships of the Armada of the Damned there could be as many as 400 under normal conditions. In times of great wars among naval powers, like in the Black Tide War, there have been as many 800 dead marines. This usually comes about from the ships being added to the Armada being warships won in battle with weaker non-combatants often falling first in battle.


One of the most harrowing sights of these marines is seeing them use their innate power to walk on water. They run across the waves as if it were land, storming a town and running off with future shipmates, all before the hapless settlement can muster a defense. Fortunately for the coastal holds of the Pearl Sea and the Sea of Mourning these raids are extremely rare with the Armada of the Damned resting in the deeps.

- Phoslomor, cartographer of the Third Epoch, excerpt from the book "Phoslomor's Survey of Midrêth, Ch. 4-1"

Otriring

Otriring ruin

Otriring is a vast cavern network near the center of Huzar-Arân. In the God Era, Set created the Khazarkar race and sequestered them in this area. He used life energy and powerful magic to bring the Underdark area to life as if it were a surface area basking in the rays of Merioss and Juniger and experiencing weather and the changing of the seasons. This artificial environment along with efreeti educators allowed the Khazarkar civilization to rapidly advance and catch up with the other advanced races of Bal-Kriav. In 255 LC, Set's use of Moradin's Surveyor to create life was found out. Moradin, a true God of Creation, went to the Quara'tun Council of Gods and had Set charged with theft and the illegal use of the powers of creation to create a race that would help him gain Divine Power. Set was ordered to give up the artifact Moradin's Surveyor and have his people abandon Otriring.


They are to go elsewhere and eke out a living without divine help, like all the other mortal races.

- Io, to Set, reading out the courts decision - "Direct Assistance to Mortals is Forbidden"

So that Otriring would not be re-inhabited by others seeking to benefit from its artificial environment, the life energy in the area was accelerated so that things here grow extremely fast resulting in accelerated aging such that one would age a life time in a matter of days. This results in anything living in Otriring to grow and age faster, reaching adult hood in two or three days, yet dying a few days later. This area is so dangerous that anything can succumb to its super-charged life energy - including the Higher Powers. Undead that enter the region find themselves withered away in a matter of hours or seconds for the weaker ones, and constructs which are themselves touched with a bit of life energy, break down after a few weeks. After death it does not end for the living, for they are reborn in hours and continue the cycle. This endless cycle of rebirth led to some calling the area Phoenix Gut.

The Khazarkar civilization thrived in this area for three centuries. There ancient ruins are scattered all over the area.