Forgotten Hills

The Forgotten Hills are the steep and rugged southern foothills of the Mountains of Misery. They were the southern most part of the land of Arak. They appeared on the northern frontier of Barovia in 575 BC and were explored at that time by the outlander wizard Azalin. All life across the face of Arak was eradicated thirteen years later by a sandstorm of unprecedented ferocity that scoured the land clean in an event recorded as the Scourge of Arak. By 682 BC, if not earlier, contact with Barovia was lost, its northern frontier replaced by that of newly formed Nova Vaasa. In 683 BC, the Nightmare Lands replaced the Misty Border to the east. Whereupon Prince Ingemar Bolshnik offered the following admirably pithy description of Nova Vaasa's frontiers: “howling fear to the west, stone death to the north, shapeless nightmares to the east, and nothing but ominous swirling to the south”. It is clear that Prince Ingemar associated Arak with death. And although the heart of Arak, at the very least, remains to this day a blasted, rocky wasteland, he seems to be referring instead to Arak as being an active agent of death.

The Scourge of Arak a century before Prince Ingemar's words had not harmed life far beneath the surface of the land. Yet when the shadow fey emerged from their hidden kingdom of Niurin Scaa ("Shadow Nether") it was to survey their loss. The surface dwelling Arakians, who had been an excellent diversion from the ennui of eternity, were no more. Fortunately, others came to the land of the Arak. There were dwarves and gnomes seeking their lost kin. There were looters and treasure seekers too. Those who failed to quit the land before dark risked being carried off as play things of the Arak. As the flow of visitors to Arak shrank, a visitor's risk of being buried alive under miles of stone grew. Until it became accepted wisdom in Darkon, Nova Vaasa and Tepest that anyone who dared the hours of the night in their unwanted neighbour would end up entombed without a trace beneath its stone.

In 740 BC as part of the Great Upheaval, the Arak and Niurin Scaa were dragged to the southwest by Gwydion the Sorcerer-Fiend. The land of Arak ceased to be and the Land of the Mists tore open beyond Tepest. The Shadow Rift, sealed by roiling black mist, was the new land of the Arak. The old land of the Arak was annexed to Darkon, a fact of which perhaps only its Darklord, Azalin Rex, was immediately aware. The Forgotten Hills were themselves unaltered in their position and geology. But there were changes of consequence that would gradually become apparent. Desperate men discovered that to spend the night in the Forgotten Hills, or even the Mountains of Misery beyond them, was dangerous but no longer tantamount to suicide. Individuals who returned told tales of having been beset by things other than fey creatures. Shadow fey incursions into the countryside beyond the frontiers of their former home all but ceased. For example incursions by fey into Nova Vaasa were both greatly diminished and shifted west to the vicinity of the Tepestani border and the Shadow Rift itself. The reputation of the Forgotten Hills and of the Mountains of Misery for being haunted by the fey was gradually eclipsed by a reputation for being haunted by the dead. Darkon began work on the Strigos Road which will start just east of Tempe Falls, cut through the Mountains of Misery and the Forgotten Hills, and reach its end in Liara. And the Forgotten Hills themselves became a hideout for brigands, arguably making the northern frontier of Nova Vaasa a more dangerous place, especially along the East Timori Road and the Vaughn Dnar River from the Tepestani frontier to the Trished River and even beyond.

What is unclear is the degree to which the flora of the Forgotten hills has recovered from the Scourge of Arak. At the heart of the former land, not a single tree grows to this day. There are tenacious grasses, spike plants, and low shrubs, but little more. The Forgotten Hills enjoy the advantage of having abutted for nearly two centuries subsequent to the disaster living lands from which soil and seed will have been carried on the wind and from which grasses and trees will have made their slow but inevitable march. In that case, on their lower flanks bordering Falkovnia and bordering Tepest, the Forgotten hills would be unusually rocky, but far from barren, supporting grasses, shrubs, and stands of young trees, especially in gullies and along streams. But they will become ever more desolate as the Mountains of Misery proper are approached.