Of Lavastorm, the Burning Subcontinent

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There are places in the Shattered Lands where the world itself seems to war against the living, where the earth heaves and splits and bleeds fire into the sky without pause or mercy. Of all such places, none is more fearsome, more hostile to mortal life, or more steeped in ancient and terrible power than the subcontinent known as Lavastorm.

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Once, in the age before the Rending, Lavastorm occupied the far northeastern reaches of the great continent of Antonica. When the Shattering came and the land fragmented, that region was torn away and isolated, left to burn on its own in the surrounding waters known as the Cauldron. In the ages since, cut off from the stabilizing presence of the greater landmass, its volcanic fury has only grown. Smaller volcanoes belch ash and rivers of molten stone in a ceaseless torment, rising in great steppes toward the center of the land like a terrible staircase built by some mad god, each step higher and more wrathful than the last. At the summit of that staircase stands the crown of the whole terrible domain: Mount Solusek, the greatest volcano upon all of Norrath, named for the god of fire himself. The ash carried on the prevailing winds from Lavastorm's constant eruptions falls like grey snow upon the Nektulos Forest to the south, which is for this reason called by many the Ashlands.

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No ordinary mortal may walk in Lavastorm without magical protection. The heat alone is sufficient to kill, and the landscape offers nothing of comfort or sustenance. No natural plant takes root there. The creatures that call it home are among the hardiest and most dangerous in all the Shattered Lands: efreeti, fire elementals, fire goblins, and great arachnids whose hides have grown thick and resilient through long generations of exposure to the killing heat. Most dreadful among its inhabitants are the Burning Dead, a host of animated skeletal mages, the undead remnants of an ancient cult said to have been cursed long ago by Solusek Ro himself. These creatures retain the intelligence they possessed in life, but the unending agony of their burning state has driven them thoroughly and irrevocably mad.

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Within the interior of Mount Solusek lies a vast lake of bubbling lava known simply as the Lake of Fire, deep enough to swallow even the tallest of giants whole. Cooler toward its center, the magma has there solidified into a craggy island of black rock, upon which stands a titanic statue beside the ancient skeleton of an enormous red dragon. Scholars who have studied the matter from a safe distance speculate that the statue was a construct built to battle the great wyrm, and that it succeeded. What fewer scholars will admit openly is the rumor that the statue still lives, still walks the caldera's edge, and still breathes fire upon those who venture too close. No expedition that descended into the caldera to confirm or deny this tale has returned.

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At the southern coast stands the Magma Grotto, a broad lava tube that leads into the interior of the land. The only ones known to make regular use of it are the spellcasters of the Order of Flame, devoted worshippers of Solusek Ro who dwell in a great and virtually indestructible tower called the Pillar Inferno, situated just off the coast. They travel the Grotto by means of a barge fashioned from ronium, a magical substance capable of withstanding the river of magma upon which they sail, protected from the killing heat by their own considerable arts. Even so, such journeys must be brief. Even the most devoted servant of the Lord of Fire cannot long endure what Lavastorm asks of those who enter it.

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Elsewhere within the land stands the Temple of Solusek Ro, largely abandoned now, its entrance concealed within a lava-filled caldera, its furnishings and fittings forged entirely of metal, for nothing else could survive the temperature within its walls. A strange creature is said to dwell there still, one who may hold the secret of why the Order of Solusek Ro vanished from those halls entirely. None have returned to confirm it.

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And then there is the matter of Najena.

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Long before the Rending, a powerful dark elf sorceress of that name dwelt in Lavastorm, delving into the elemental secrets that the region's power made accessible to those with the will to seek them. When an army of fire giants under the command of the dragon Lord Nagafen attempted to seize the region, it was Najena who turned them back, fashioning a golem of such terrible power that the invasion was broken entirely. During the Rending, the entrance to her underground realm collapsed, and her fate since that day remains unknown. What stands at the site today is a set of massive double doors, blasted outward as if from within, and an ancient plaque that reads: Here rests the great Najena, entombed in eternal research. Do not seek her, or she will seek you. Beware.

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No serious scholar has yet taken that warning lightly enough to proceed past it.

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Lavastorm is not merely a dangerous land. It is a land that remembers, that holds its dead, and that keeps its secrets behind walls of fire and molten stone. Those who venture there do so knowing full well that the mountain does not distinguish between the worthy and the foolish. It burns them all the same.

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The Lavastorm Timeline

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Seek. Discover. Endure.

The Unseen Hand, Guild Master, Norrath Secret Society

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