Book 6

Virlych
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.