The Sundered Lands

[Yeorl Oakenleaf]

To the north of the great Burenar desert and east of the Cirycyin tundra, lies a vast expanse of quiet and dead land. This area is known as the Nactor, or the Sundered Lands. While the land itself is dead, there dwell within it numerous species of beasts and all manner of elementals, the strangest thing about Nactor is that all magic fails within its boundaries. The wastes are completely uncivilized save for the spread out tribes of Drow and Flame Dwarves; two unique and mysterious people. The Drow dwell underneath the wastes in great cavern cities, living almost entirely off of Ranchid' meat and the many species of fungus that grow underground; while the Flame Dwarves toil on the surface in their buildings made of tar - it is said they consume for sustenance the flaming hearts of fire Atronachs. There is no real notable geography in the region, save a massive two mile by two mile crater in the centre - it is believed that this was ground zero of the ancient 'catacylsm' the event presumed to have created the Sundered lands.
The Cataclysm, if true - was an event that occurred on Darasum not long before Human kind was brought here. The Drow and Flame Dwarves both agree that their ancestors once had a powerful and magnificent shared kingdom in Nactor, with spiralling golden towers and magnificent pastures. This is where the story gets foggy, it is believed that the ancient Nactorian magisters were the greatest who ever lived and had knowledge of powerful and forgotten magics. They were constantly toying with the fabric of reality and the boundaries between life and death. The nature of the magic kept getting riskier and riskier but the Nactorian magisters were only concerned with experimenting more and more. One day a Nacotrian magister was said to have found secret knowledge that even the gods didn't have and he attempted to cast the spell. What happened was the Catacylsm, a wave of cleansing fire spread out from his tower and destroyed the entire country - a few survived, the Elves fled underground and the Dwarves were left on the surface; some surviving the inferno - most not.
The magister stood in awe as the once lush and beautiful land of Nactor faded and turned to dust, a wasteland of ash, all that remained of the once proud kingdom. No one knows what happened to him - or what his spell was supposed to achieve but the results were clear and the land was destroyed and the people with it.