Dommark

The Dommark (Plain of Judgement) is a parched, pocked, blasted, forsaken plain in central-eastern Nova Vaasa. A cartographer would describe its width, from the cliffs overlooking the Nocturnal Sea in the East to the Prince’s Road in the West, and its length, from the Ivlis River in the South to the Sydligdnar ("South Dnar River") and the Briarweed Forest in the North, as a little less than 30 by 20 miles. Given its broken terrain, those who have braved the place and lived to tell the tale, usually deem it to be vaster, well beyond a day’s ride in either direction.

The Dommark begins in earnest within a 1/2 mile or so of the rivers and of the Prince’s Road. The short golden and purple-flowered vingraes of the Kesjermark (King’s Plain) to the West withers and is replaced by patches of razor-sharp and inedible knivgraes, naked dirt, and barren stone. There are shrubs but as often as not they are lifeless husks. Patches of cacti are not uncommon and consist often of the catspaw which has spines coated in a non-lethal paralytic poison. The complete absence of vegetation in many places has, ironically, exposed the plain to the ravages of water. Areas where the plain has degenerated into badlands become common as one moves from west to east. A blazing sun in a cloudless sky is the norm. Day time temperatures during the long summer soar dangerously high, making water and shade the difference between life and death. The prevailing winds from the West never bear rain. But several storms sweep in each year from the Nocturnal Sea and spawn flash floods. Boulders, sometimes as tall as a man, are not uncommon and afford cover from sight but little from the elements.

Common animals include vermin, rodents, raptors, vultures, snakes, the bluffsnake, the diamondback, the kingsnake, the goldenhood, the ironwhip, the sidewinder and the whipsnake, and horses, the vaamgaaer (heat-walker) which is prized as a tireless animal, resistant to high tempatures, and capable of travelling long distances with little or no water. Plains cats stalk the periphery of the Dommark, but are not keen to follow vaamgaaers far into its arid depths. Any patch of catspaw, however, is quite possibly haunted by a wily member of the species, taking advantage of its immunity to the paralytic poison.

Less common but more dangerous are aberrent things such as broken ones, the backwards men and the head hunters, lycanthropes such as the werejackals, and both the corporeal and incorporeal undead. Among the undead, the doedridere is the least dangerous, as it simply seeks company and can be humoured.

Politically, the Dommark falls largely within the Heartland Duchy of the Bolshnik family. And most Nova Vaasans consider them to be perfectly welcome to it.

SPECULATION

To the extent, however, that the Dommark belongs to anybody, it is the property of the Church of the Lawgiver if not the Lawgiver himself.

The iron clergy describes the Dommark as the Jernfurge (Iron Forge). Every Vassan child knows that the Jernfurge is forever replenished by the souls of the iniquitous. The plain is a place of judgement and its essence is caught in the ancient words of a forgotten Himmelsk Naeve: “All may enter, but few may leave.”

In a mundane sense, this is simple fact. Nothing, save good sense, stops one from walking into the Dommark. But the ability needed to make one’s way back out is uncommon. The truth of the matter, however, lies at a deeper level.

The words of the former head of the Iron Faith impress upon the Vaasan nation that religious reckoning awaits them in the Dommark. To die on the Plain of Judgement, it is held, is to be condemned for all eternity to the Hell of Slaves. Whereas to return alive, of sound mind and of sound body, is to prove the worth of oneself and one’s life, at least up to that point. Unsurprisingly, rare is the individual who is in any hurry to receive the judgement of the Lawgiver and thus the Plain of Judgement is shunned. A fugitive reaching the Dommark with the Bolshnik militia at his heels has an excellent chance of escaping the judgement of man only to be condemned by the judgement of God.

Data not yet in the Ravenloft Catalogue

		Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume V Quoth the Raven Issue 13: When Nightmares Wake
		Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume V - p11,17-19 Quoth the Raven Issue 13: When Nightmares Wake - p7-8
		Dommark The Dommark Plain of Judgement The Plain of Judgement