Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week we once again head to the destroyed lands, with the Blighted Gorge.
Blighted Gorge
The blighted gorge was created in the same distasted that created both the blighted cataract and the blighted fen, but where the fen was created due to the run-off from that disaster, the gorge itself was impacted much more directly. The land here was torn asunder, literally cleft in twain, by the explosion and convulsion that hit the land after the supposed awakening of the duergar deity. Now it is as lifeless and deadly as its cousin, though here, the effects take a somewhat different turn and where the fen is a destroyer of life, the gorge both consumes and creates it.
Lay of the Land
The gorge itself is mountainous terrain, red rocks that were previously made of granite, but the magical radiation of the disaster warped the very stone into something new and unknown, a red type of stone now called gorgestone. It’s a lot more brittle than granite (hardness 2, 16 hp), but seems to have some life-extending qualities to it, that alchemists are only now beginning to realize. With great reward comes great risk though, and the area is infested with gigantic vermin of all kinds – gigantic centipedes infest the ground, climbing all over the place, and serving as food for many of the other creatures that live here. Gigantic creatures of all kinds seem to thrive here, though actual giants are rare. Instead, it is normal and magical creatures grown to a huge state instead. Normal produce, such as wheat, fruit, and vegetables do NOT grow well here, however, and there are no plant animals located here either, as they (in the case of the few intelligent ones, they say that they simply do not feel “right” being there, as if the very earth is hostile to them).
Dangers
Gigantic creatures are the main threat of the blighted gorge, but the top spot goes to a different type of creature, as the immortal ichor of the blighted cataract has somehow attracted a number of cultists, that worship it. In return, it has somehow turned them into creatures known as the worms that walk. These creatures are incredibly powerful, as they can almost all cast a number of spells, and they’re physically tough on top and able to recover fairly easily from most kinds of damage. They travel the countryside, doing the inscrutable work of the immortal ichor itself, all while tending to their own goals.
Anyone using gorgestone as part of the ingredient to create healing potions finds that the potions heal 2 hit points more per dice that they heal, but anyone using it takes 1d4 Wisdom damage.
Kim Frandsen
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