The chain-bound steeples of Gallowspire—the stake in the heart of Ustalav—looms over an accursed wasteland of shattered mountains and dark magic, a monument to an age of genocide and blasphemy. Spreading around it, tainted by proximity to the Whispering Tyrant’s throne, sprawl the scars of the arch-lich’s maniacal vision, a realm of ruin wracked by uncontrolled spell-storms and prowled by the abandoned miscarriages of unholy experiments. For the inheritors of this scarred age, Virlych bears more than just the wounds of history, for within its crumbling womb sleeps the architect of that dread epic, a deathless obscenity whose dreams still seep forth to poison the world.
In the age before Ustalav became the killing ground of the living dead, the counties of Grodlych and Virholt stretched over the western arm of the Hungry Mountains and controlled many of the lands south of the Path River. Where Grodlych reached from the southern mountains to the coasts surrounding modern Vellumis, comprising much of the land now known as Lastwall, the smaller, rockier lands of Virholt spread southwest, continuing the border now guarded by Canterwall, halting at the shadow of the Fangwood. While Grodlych fell just as its sister counties to the east—and was ultimately ceded to the country’s liberators after the Tyrant’s defeat—histories hold that Virholt’s ruin was deserved, a price paid for betraying not just the nation, but the living. Although few texts recount the specifics, the count of Virholt bargained with the resurrected lich, selling his land and his people into slavery in return for his own salvation. What fate the traitor met remains mysterious, but many accounts indulge in baseless conjecture on fates just as torturous as that suffered by his realm. Much of the rest of Virlych’s history is actually the chronicle of Lastwall’s formation, with the Tyrant’s defeat by the Shining Crusade and the swearing of the protector nation’s oath to guard his grave-lands. Since then, the people of Ustalav have shunned the wreckage of their westernmost realm, the trauma of centuries past still all too real in the arcane storms, wandering ghosts, unholy ruins, and accursed creatures that brood and work the lich’s immortal will in those deadly lands.
Little lives in Virlych, though the realm is hardly uninhabited. While the eastern Hungry Mountains are known for driving rain and violent lightning storms, these take on a terrible aspect to the west, where twisted magical aethers imbue the harsh weather with seemingly malicious intent. Tales of living dust storms and lightning phantoms pass among those forced to travel near these lands, such apparitions sometimes being visible from miles away. Natural creatures do exist in Virlych, though the sparse vegetation and incessant storms make even the meanest beasts rangy and fierce. Small packs of mangy wolves, spiny beetles, feral rodents, and all manner of carrion birds scour the land’s corpse in search of its sparse vegetation and trespassers slain by things with no need for food.
Noteworthy Locations
While few dare make their home in and around Virlych, the corpse of this blasted realm refuses to rest quietly.
Adorak: Before Gallowspire, there was the city of Adorak. The county seat of Virholt, the city relied on its mines of iron and nickel for wealth, and some of the finest weapons in Ustalav came from Adorak’s grimly artistic smiths. Due to its proximity to the border with Belkzen, Adorak had served as a sanctuary and breakwater against orc raiders for centuries, but had never been tested by true war. The first attack by the Whispering Tyrant’s legions proved the horde more than a brief union of orc tribes—this time they were a true invasion force, and as the savage warriors fell, their corpses rose with new, unholy life. Less than 3 days after the first howling orc appeared on the ridge overlooking Adorak, the slaves of the Tyrant began raising a frame of iron, bone, and dark stone at the fallen city’s heart, and the tower of Gallowspire began its ascent, tainting the sky and blaspheming the world. Today, the ruins of Adorak still surround the Whispering Tyrant’s prison, its skull-cobbled avenues, impaling gardens, poison-leaking mines, and fortresses of deathless nobles mostly—but not all—reduced to rubble by invading crusaders. Yet not all the magic of the arch-lich’s rule has passed, and among the crumbling blocks and war-shattered walls still sleep masterless guardians, deathless necromantic reserves left undeployed, and unholy servants of the Tyrant whose service know neither death nor age.
Ruwido: Only the most shunned outcasts would risk the horrors of Virlych in search of peace—and so they do. The crippled, the crazed, the monstrously deformed, half-breeds, the inbred, and those that shouldn’t be—in Ruwido, the sons and daughters of a thousand accidents and tragedies find respite, acceptance, and a normalcy no other home could provide. Although shunned as monsters and avoided by riders from both Lastwall and Amaans, the sometimes unsettling inhabitants of Ruwido know to be suspicious of strangers and defend themselves when they must. While many of the village’s residents—out of either naiveté or a humanity greater than f lesh—prove stalwart friends to those who win their trust, others sulk amid the hovel-town’s shadows, indulging dreams of ruin and revenge.
Virlych Haunts: More unquiet ruins and sites of tragedy congregate in Virlych than in even Ustalav’s bleakest other counties. Details on the land’s most infamous haunts and unholy places, such as the fallen magic academy of Casnoriva, the petrified oasis known as the Garden of Lead, the seat of the Whispering Way’s blasphemies at Renchurch, the Whispering Tyrant’s prison-palace of Gallowspire, and more can be found elsewhere.
The Whispering Tyrant
Locked away within the ruined city of Adorak, beneath the towering black pinnacle of Gallowspire, the Whispering Tyrant lurks in undying meditation. With the remnants of his centuries-long rule and his cult of death-obsessed fanatics, the Whispering Way, afoot in the land, the shadow of the imprisoned arch-lich comes closest to being Virlych’s ruler. Except through the visions of madmen and subtle manipulations of the necromantic energies that rage around his prison, the Whispering Tyrant possesses no power to directly inf luence the world outside his cell. Yet regardless of whether the infamous archmage truly does commune with his adherents or not, maniacs, morbid visionaries, and undead masterminds work to free the lich lord and herald the coming of a new age of doom.
Notable Personages
Although primarily inhabited by the twisted and insane, Virlych holds several individuals with significant inf luence over the land’s strange populace.
Azra: A mute wandering priestess of Desna, Azra travels much of western Ustalav, from Canterwall to Caliphas, aiding travelers and working her goddess’s will. Her time among Pharasma-worshiping people has led her to learn much of the goddess of fate, and supplement her faith with knowledge of Pharasma’s ways. In her travels, she purposefully passes through Virlych, where she’s befriended the misunderstood people of Ruwido. Having spent considerable time in that accursed land, Azra knows many of its secrets, as well as who might know even more than she. Although she refuses to serve as tour guide, should the need prove dire, she’ll escort those with good souls through the deadly region.
Captain Menas Neverion: Senior officer of the Lastwall forces patrolling Virlych, Neverion is one of the few who realize the war against the Whispering Tyrant never ended. Refusing to coordinate troops from some command post near Vigil, the aged captain regularly rides into the haunted mountains alongside his patrols. No coward, but also no hero, Neverion orders his outriders to keep a wide distance from sites of particular danger and undead activity. Although cursed, Virlych is also quiet, and the captain works to assure that no crazed cultist or foolhardy adventurer changes that.
Luxia Mirsaad: Born a Sczarni, Luxia was the only one of her clan to survive an ambush by orcs. Cultists of the Whispering Way found the young girl near the border of Virlych and brought her to Renchurch, where she found herself tied and gagged upon a ghastly altar. Yet when the sacrificial dagger fell, Luxia made no sound and did not die. Taking this as a sign of the Whispering Tyrant’s protection, the cult bound the girl’s wounds and raised her as a daughter of the dead. Today, Luxia’s broken mind hides behind a sadistic zeal, a morbid sense of humor, and a darkly beautiful body. A skilled necromancer, Luxia finds herself an object of obsession for several of the Whispering Way’s most powerful members, and skillfully manipulates her paramours. Despite her fell seductiveness, Luxia devotedly serves the Whispering Way and refuses to be made some fanatic’s pet, as evidenced by the animate skulls of three former lovers that hover at her side.
Talvien Graymard: The undead corpse of an elven ranger, Talvein endlessly seeks justice against Gildais, Tar-Baphon’s seneschal, for murdering his family. Before the crusading corpse could reach Gallowspire, however, the tower was sealed and its armies scattered. Despite being more cunning than most revenants, Talvein still wanders Virlych, convinced Gildais is locked away within one of the remaining bastions haunted by the Tyrant’s minions. While the mostly skeletal corpse slakes his rage upon lesser undead or Whispering Way cultists, he occasionally hides his rotted features to enlist other wanderers in his undying quest.