The Grand Nothing

What was left in the wake of the destruction of Old Zol, the lands that holds the secret of what once was. A seemingly infinite expanse that stretches as far as the eye can see. Located over 20 thousand feet below sea level, The Grand Nothing was thought to be a bottomless, cloud-filled void at the time of The Awakening. This emptiness was titled The Grand Nothing, a sort of misnomer as it only became widely known what laid below much later on.

The nature of what produced The Grand Nothing is not known, but it is widely accepted that it was created during The Undoing. Be it the will of gods, or an evil attack on Zol, the region exists in a sort of pseudo-destroyed state. There are many ways the ruin of the old world displays itself:

• The strangely low altitude of this region, and mostly flat topography makes it seem like an unimaginably large portion of land was moved, but its surface is not wholly flat. In fact it possesses some significantly wild topography in areas such as The Baradan Canyon. Scholars have not been able to divine a geological process that would have produced this since The Awakening. It is thought either some sort of magic created them or the destruction was not so simple.
• The border of The Grand Nothing is shaped like a parabolic arc, with its vertex located somewhere near Holocene within the Windswept Grove.
• Old structures in the region have been found containing valuable information about Old Zol. Time has seemingly done a number on these structure as they are very weathered, but they are also damaged in odd ways, possibly caused by the undoing. Some structures have evidence of burn marks made by both fire and acid, other structures are rotated oddly like the land they were set upon was warped somehow, and glass windows were shattered into tiny cubes.
• Any piece of text found within ruins is enciphered, and distorted. Each discovered morsel of writing is altered differently from its peers, making decryption very complicated and requires a technique called ‘Brute Divination’. This text is often referred to as Nullity Text.

Despite the desolation it once faced, The Grand Nothing is now a vibrant and wild place populated with odd beasts and monsters. Some creatures have adapted to live in the region, while others present are believed to predate The Awakening.

Explorers, nomads, and bandits have taken to the region in a similar manner to other wilds across The Three Corners. Originally only by way of Teleportation Circles were individuals able to travel to the region with any consistency. Even flying is too dangerous due to violent updrafts that blow up the sheer cliffs, caused by errant winds blown in from The Storm Horizon. However, Gilligan’s Lift, a wonder of engineering was constructed during the very late first age allowing for many to brave the expanse.

There are other rumored ways down:

• A set of narrow stairs supposedly carved into the cliff
• Cave systems that lead out into the region and back up to the surface
• Secret magical portals hidden within the campuses of the various academic institutions of The Three Corners. However their existence is probably just that, a rumor.

Those who do make it to the surface of The Grand Nothing usually travel around by way of Skimmers. A high speed vehicle with appearance similar to some Airships. Rather than massive ships that fly high in the sky, Skimmers hover only a few feet above the ground and travel at extremely high velocity.

The Grand Nothing is a vibrant land of battles between bandits who scorn society, fearsome nomads, powerful monsters, and explorers who seek the truth of The Undoing.

• Gilligan’s Lift - The link between society and The Grand Nothing. A massive lift the size of a building that carries people to and from the region.
• The Blowdown - A forest grown of plant and fungi that has blown down from the forests of The Free Cities of Alderun
  • Freshpool - lake of fresh water that collects in the center of the forest. One of the only bodies of water that does not fill from the seas above.
• The Evrodian Conflux - A wide conflux of rivers fed by The North Sea. Interspersed with jungle islands.
• The Baradan Canyon - A winding, complex desert canyon of deep red-orange stone patterned with vibrant blue strata.
  • Canyon Deep - A wide river of ocean run off that spans the southern mapped regions
    • The Cracks - A series of deep valleyed rivers that feed into Canyon Deep
• The Belowcean - A ginormous hole in the center of the mapped region that leads deep into The Underdark. If one were to follow the flow of water they would discover a massive underground ocean filled with strange fish and horrid monsters. Expeditions of this region have been very unsuccessful.
• Wiseman’s Fear - A region of volcanic activity supposedly cursed by the gods themselves.
• Oceanfalls - The many waterfalls at the seas’ edges that pour over into The Grand Nothing. It is a mystery as to how the draining of water into The Grand Nothing effects sea levels. Despite the massive volumes that pour over its edge, the seas never drain. Some believe it is because the ocean is infinite, others think it is the will of Ohlit.
  • Ze’mynan Falls
  • Wakefalls
  • Mistmaker Falls
  • Evrodian Falls
  • Narrow Falls
  • Widefalls There are many more of these falls all along the ever spanning cliffs. These are just the ones within the mapped region.
• Ruin Sites - Explorers, academics, and clergy have sought answers of the past all over Zol. Few sites have told us as much as the following:
  • Site Herran - A series of standing monuments. Discovered by a team of lead by Archeologist Emzarae Herran. These monuments, and the little text contained upon them gave most of the information of how ancient people viewed the Gods.
  • Site Litiom - The most notable site of the three. A massive buried tower that is though to be the home of a farmer who owned a small collection of books. Discovered by a team of lead by Archeologist Albun Litiom, this site contained many texts, and scrolls that have all been deciphered, and contain the majority of the information we know about the way of life in Old Zol.
  • Site Runemaker - An temple that is almost entirely destroyed. Discovered by hobbyist adventurer Yike Runemaker, this site contains many relief carvings depicting great cities, heroes, landscapes and wars. Due to its artistic nature scholars can only speculate their significance, but this site is where most of the myths and legends people tell of Old Zol come from. It is difficult for scholars to access during modern days because of its proximity to Camp Ikas. There are many more small ruin sites all over The Grand Nothing, but the majority have given little information about the past.
• Camp Ikas - A bandit camp headed by Damian Ikas. A once great hero of Zol, now turned tyrant against the kingdoms. The bandits here are known to reject society and are avoided at all costs.
• Camp Ger’zar - A remote camp of violent, and chaotic bandits. They pose a threat to explorers in the region as they are known for hunting in packs of Skimmers. However they are extremely unorganized and feral, so they do not posses the power to tear down the institutions of society.
• The Drifting Isles - A flock of magical floating islands that hover above The Grand Nothing. They suddenly drifted in one day during the early second age and have stayed ever since. They arrange themselves like a giant arrow with its point above the far eastern reaches of The Baradan Canyon. They float around, bump into each other, and rotate places. Some rare islands even have magically endless sources of water on them that baffle academics. The space covered by these islands widens out the further you get from the tip of the arrow, and reach all the way to the horizon. Explorers frequent these islands in search of treasures and secrets, but most of them are just small jungles populated by flying critters, and the occasional tribe of Kobolds that have moved in.
  • The Shaded Stretch
    • The area beneath The Drifting Isles. Notable only because the possible rock falls pose a danger.
• The Edgeless Deserts and The Shallow Seas - what lies beyond the mapped edges of The Grand Nothing. Most of the region that is accessible to Zol is only possible because of The Belowcean draining. Much of what is known to lie beyond is an ocean that is only a few dozen feet deep, interspersed with small desert islands.
  • The Shallow Coast
    • The closest edge of the Shallow Sea to main land Zol.
    • Explored by brave and strange sailors and pirates who seek what lies beyond the horizon

The region varies from temperate to dry desert. it is worth noting that days within much of The Grand Nothing are shorter because of the massive cliffs in the west that block out the sun. During the night, the region becomes very cold.

To ask the true history of The Grand Nothing is to ask the greatest mystery within The Three Corners of Civilization. What event evoked The Undoing? What was the world like before the destruction? Why does its desolation manifest in such a strange way?

The answers to the questions are still almost entirely a mystery, but there are a few known facts and a vast pile of speculation. The known facts about The Grand Nothing and Old Zol are:

• There used to be a once great society, with kingdoms, magic, and technology so grand they make modern day Zol seem almost primitive.
• The First Tongue was well known and understood. There were hundreds of Wordbearers in Old Zol. These individuals were considered to be the highest honor of heroes.
• Magic and science was masterfully understood to a degree far beyond what modern Zol possesses.
• There were large scale wars in the stories of the old world. It is not known if these were real or not, but they seemed to bear some great significance.

The most prominent speculations of The Grand Nothing and Old Zol are:

• There were only Humans, Elves, and Dwarves within the old world, and the newer races were a product of The Undoing. This is speculated because no evidence of other races has been found. It has stemmed problematic beliefs such as Great Magic, The Triumvirate, human sovereigntists and things of the like.
• It is thought that the area of The Grand Nothing closest to The Three Corners was a very rural or possibly even remote place relative to pre-undoing civilization. Anthropologists believe based on the nature of found ruins that there may be a great lost city somewhere out in the shallow seas, as the surviving locations would have likely required some form of nearby infrastructure to function long term. However this is largely speculation.
• Old society may have had a very close relationship with the Gods. The ways in which they are mentioned in deciphered texts make it seem like they walked amongst the people of the old world.

In modern day, the only people to exist within The Grand Nothing are those who ventured there. After The Undoing, there were no sapient beings within the region, at least near The Three Corners that are known of.

The region borders the cliffs of:

• The Free Cities of Alderun
• The North Sea
• The Archsea

• Magical Relics found within The Grand Nothing are known as Archaisms. They are all some product of Imbuement Perpetuum, and most posses very strange traits.
• The corrupted text found within The Grand Nothing is known as Nullity Text.