Vallorn

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The vallorn is a hostile ecosystem. It has elements of both a malignant plant similar to a cross between kuzdu and athlete's foot and a magical energy field that encourages rampant growth and mutation in living things. Left to its own devices, it spreads quickly and covers everything in its path. It is an alien horror, but one rooted in comprehensible biology - at the end of the day it is a living, magical threat.

The vallorn's creation destroyed the Navarr civilisation, eating their cities. It caused great forests to erupt around the cities themselves, and spawned hordes of giant insects that attacked and ate everyone in their path. The air itself is different in the area of a vallorn, weakening humans who enter as if they were breathing mild poison. There are also monstrous plants inside the area, but they are mostly sessile and threaten only the people who come near them.

The vallorn is less like a creature, more like a backdrop, obstacle or complication for the actions of other creatures.

The vallorn appears in more than one place - around each of the Navarr cities - and in some ways each centre of vallorn activity is connected to every other.

There is no sentience behind the vallorn - it is not aware, and there is no guiding intelligence behind it. At the end of the day it is dangerous in the way that a great white shark threatening the beaches of a seaside town is dangerous. If you stay out of its way, it can't hurt you directly. What complicates the matter is that the vallorn also produces monstrous, eerie insect horrors that can leave the area it controls and cause a problem for people living nearby.

The vallorn doesn't seem to spread - but that's not to say that it couldn't if conditions were right. It also regenerates so fast that it's unfeasible to destroy it with axes or fire. Attempts to do so in the past have been doomed to failure.

The Navarr have a magical method of weakning the vallorn, of turning its own limitless living energies back against it. This is the purpose of their migrations and their trods - they slowly drain and repurpose the energy of the vallorn. Once they have drained it enough, they assault an area of vallorn-controlled forest, drive out the insects and destroy the plants, and reclaim that area. It is a slow process because it relies on the Navarr being able to make widespread journeys around the Vallon. As the empire shrinks, and the ability to travel to far off locations is curtailed, the speed at which the Vallon can be weakened slows. As the empier grows in size and makes new territories safe for travel, the process of drawing off Vallorn energy increases.

To date, the Navarrr have succeeded in recovering one entire area, and made serious inroads into two of the other vallorn areas. At least two remain that are mostly in the "hands" of the Vallorn.

The Vallorn in Play

The Vallorn is a threat not disimilar to an "internal barbarian." It isn't a constant world-threatening horror, and it certainly isn't an issue only for the Navarr. The Vallorn are spread around the empire and the likelihood is that when one enters a more active phase it will threaten not only the Navarr but any nearby territories as well.

The insects that dwell in it might serve as enemies for skirmishes, quests might venture inside the Vallorn area to recover key items or explore key locations. For the most part, the Vallorn is a passive and reactive force rather than a constant threat. It's a narrative enemy, that may remain quiescent for several events, then spend several events being active with skirmishes, quests and perhaps even battles, then return to slumber.

Our hope is that eventually during the campaign the Navarr will be able to get enough support and power to try and reclaim another of their cities from the Vallorn, but it is unlikely to be a constant theme in the early years. Or something.

Old Data

The Navarr are commited to the containment of a threat that lies at the heart of their territories, and is occasionally encountered elsewhere. Areas of malevolent growth called Vallorn occupy the ancient Navarri cities, teeming with hungry life and hordes of monstrous insect creatures. When the unwary stray into a vallorn’s realm of influence they court a horrible death and - potentially - risk rousing it and the creatures that inhabit it.

Part of the duty of the Navarri who dwell in a steading is to see that the vallorn are not disturbed, so they keep a careful watch to ensure that no-one stumbles into such areas, not even barbarian invaders. Several steadings are built in and around the ruins of Teruni'el, whether that is an old garrison, the remains of a town, or a still-flourishing sacred shrine, preserved library or reclaimed mine. The population of a steading supports itself by hunting, and with whatever limited agriculture they can arrange in the forests.

Outside these lands, there is a single Vallorn in Varushka and another in Highguard although both these forests are part of larger Imperial territories controlled by those nations. The Varushkan Vallorn is quiescent but is noted for being home to a number of monstrous creatures of Winter, that have somehow found a way to survive the touch of the Vallorn.