Charnog

Charnog. The Forbidden Land. None now journey to its forgotten shores for fear of what lies there. Once a brilliant civilization. Now cursed and ruined. It is a place of fear, of fire, and of ash, the air so thick with poison that breathing there is nigh impossible. The sun never shines through here, the smoke billowing from the mountains block it out entirely. This place is a self-contained plane of torture, a warning to those who think themselves above the gods. The ash, smoke and poisonous gases cannot leave this island, and so, each day they thicken, becoming more and more toxic to the few inhabitants that remain. Do not call them people, for they have forgotten all that makes a person who they are. They have no compassion, no love, no honor. They feel only pain and terror, a punishment for their dark deeds.

They were the greatest source of light in this world once. Beings whose very steps brought life and joy to their land. It was a place of perpetual peace, the beauteous high mountains surrounding a forested lake in the middle of their island. These were the First Born, and they are the reason this world has hope and love and joy. Why humanity is capable of song and dance. The reason the sun shone down bright and cheery upon the world. But it could not last. In their breast lay the seed of corruption, a parting gift from the world's first and truest malevolence. It grew within them, from generation to generation, festering until it burst out of them. They dared to question their gods, source of their life and their light,and finally, worst of all, they defied them. They broke the source of their light, and so it was taken from them. They became twisted, shriveled versions of themselves. To have felt what they had, and to have it taken away was the highest form of death. But they were not permitted to die. In their anger, the gods had taken everything that made them special, and when they begged for death... the gods refused. They had turned what had once been an isle of tranquility into a cesspool, causing the mountains to erupted, the trees to die, the lake to dry up. The land was cursed by their actions, and so the gods decreed that they would be forced to suffer so long as the land did. They had made a choice, and only by choosing to fix what they had done could they regain their light. But in their arrogance, they refused. Finally, they forgot who they were, and what the land had once been, giving into the Darkness until it consumed them. They Hate the later creations, and are driven on by a lust to break them as they once broke themselves, until the land rang with the screams of their captures. In desperation, the leaders of the lands, who had sent the exploratory parties, decreed that no one was permitted to travel there, under pain of excruciating death. As time went on, history became legend, and the land and its inhabitants were forgotten, save for one warning: "Tortuous death comes from Charnog's rocky shores."