Great Pine Barrens

The Great Pine Barrens are the largest wooded area in Terrenus and take up a large amount of the continent in general. Due in part to its size, and in part to the odd collection of people and energies inside of its tree covered paths, the Pine Barrens are home to a diverse selection of races. The animal life here is savage and exotic, some of them shockingly large and powerful while others nearly imperceptibly small yet equally as dangerous. It is a melting pot of creatures and creation alike and thanks either to natural adaptation or man-made intervention, the creatures of the Barrens are dangerous.

Though most of the Desecrator legions had been wiped out in the Crusades a little over twenty years ago, there are a few families that live on in the Barrens. Those who lack the talent or patience to blend in with the masses, or who do not favor gaining political sway, or who have not taken refuge among the criminals of Last Chance, choose to reside here.

There are rumors, scant and hard to find even when looking for them, that Zhengyi the witch-king has made his return and resides in the place he made his home six-hundred years ago: the witch's cave, near the southernmost leg of Timber Creek. In his day and age Zhengyi was a powerful and influential force of negative intent. He is blamed for the tidal wave that damaged Casper six hundred years ago, the sabotage of the Noble houses, the propagator of the invasion in the Hidden Valley, and recently undeniable evidence has surfaced that Zhengyi also brought into being the terrible plague that swept through the lands in that era. Given his necromantic proclivities it is feared that Zhengyi has only grown stronger after death.

Zhengyi isn't the only celebrity to call the Great Pines Barren a home. A thousand years ago Herbie was a simple potato farmer born and raised in Terrenus to simple parents who had a knack for magical systems and arcane typology. Before long other great minds gravitated towards his own and Herbie made friends with the revolutionary geniuses, the Scudders' brothers. Together they laid the groundwork for modern magical theory, invented the field of arcane telemetry (which is the basis for contemporary arcane cryptography), put magi-tek on its feet and contributed vastly to runic architecture. Less than a year after meeting the genius centaur twins Herbie abandoned the city life in his search for God-Truth and wound up in the Pine Barrens, where Herbie made a Bed for himself.

Herbie is lauded for such acts as helping to overthrow the tyrannical King Levas and toppling the monarchy, of convincing the King of Fairies not to 'cleanse' the human race off the face of the earth, who found the necropolis hidden in the Forbidding Hills, who fashioned the Terrenus' first Sanctuary spell based on the Peaceful Woods, and who some allege was directly responsible for Zhengyi's death.