Nerull’s Cauldron
Few places in eastern Warlderia inspire as much fear as Nerull's Cauldron, a remote canyon where thick white mists have concealed its depths for longer than any living race can remember. Whether the perpetual fog is a natural phenomenon or the result of ancient magic has been debated by scholars for centuries. The canyon forms a vast natural bowl surrounded by steep cliffs, where hot springs rise from deep beneath the earth before plunging over a series of waterfalls into a broad lake fed by icy mountain streams. The meeting of boiling water and snowmelt creates an almost impenetrable blanket of mist that rarely lifts, even during the hottest days of summer. It is this permanent shroud, together with the unnatural silence that hangs over the canyon, that gave rise to its sinister name. Few believe that Nerull, the Reaper, truly dwells there, yet the place has long been associated with death, disappearance and ill fortune. Worshippers of the dark god neither confirm nor deny any connection, and their silence has done little to discourage the many stories that surround the canyon.
For generations the Cauldron has attracted those with reasons to avoid curious eyes. Murderers have carried bodies into the mist, conspirators have held secret meetings upon its hidden paths, and necromancers are rumoured to have performed forbidden rituals somewhere within its depths. More than one local ruler has quietly sent trusted agents there to dispose of evidence that could never be allowed to surface again. Whatever enters the mist has a habit of never being seen again. The outer reaches of the canyon can be explored with care, provided travellers remain in large groups and mark their route with ropes, stakes or painted stones. Even then, experienced guides refuse to venture far from the entrance, claiming that the mist has an unsettling habit of shifting without warning, swallowing familiar landmarks and separating companions who may be only a few yards apart. Strange sounds often drift through the fog—footsteps where no one walks, distant voices calling familiar names, or the splash of something immense moving unseen across the hidden waters.
Few explorers have reached the lake at the heart of the canyon and lived to describe it. Those who have returned speak of a vast black lake lying beneath the ever-present mist, its waters unnaturally still despite the waterfalls that feed it. Upon its northern shore stands an immense building of unknown origin, fashioned from pale stone and fronted by towering doors of burnished gold. No two descriptions of the structure are entirely alike, yet all agree upon one detail. From within the silent halls come cries unlike any made by living creatures—long, mournful screams said to echo across the lake like the lamentations of damned souls. What lies beyond those golden doors remains one of the great mysteries of Warlderia. Some believe the building to be an abandoned temple dedicated to Nerull before the Higher Wars. Others insist it is far older, perhaps raised by a forgotten civilisation long before the arrival of the Higher Races. A few scholars even suggest that the cries are not those of prisoners at all, but echoes of ancient enchantments still bound within the stones themselves.
The mists are also said to conceal darker inhabitants. Tales speak of Mist Hags who lure travellers from the safety of the marked paths, twisted creatures that stalk the shoreline unseen, and nameless horrors that rise from the depths of the lake whenever the fog grows thickest. Whether these stories are true is impossible to say, for those who stray too deeply into Nerull's Cauldron seldom return.
There is an old warning repeated by the mountain folk who live nearest the canyon: "The mist does not hide the Cauldron from the world. It hides the world from the Cauldron."
Few who have entered its depths have ever disputed those words.