Naggaroth, the "Land of Chill," is the bleak and forbidding northern continent of the New World.[1a] It is the land of the Dark Elves,[3a] and as unforgiving as the people who have claimed it as their home.[1a] It is a land of rocky mountains, dark woods and fast-flowing, icy rivers amidst which the black towers of the Dark Elf city-states stand defiant.[3a]
Geography[]
Beyond the borders of the Dark Elf cities, the rest of the continent of Naggaroth is a wild and untamed place. It is filled with toothy monsters, tribes of Orcs, Goblins and Beastmen,[3a] and home to ancient trees that shoot poisoned barbs.[2a]
The Blackspine Mountains divide the centre of the continent.[3a] Many creatures inhabit them, from Harpies through to mighty Manticores and Chimeras. As well as these, a strange breed of scaled biped can sometimes be seen in the caves and crevasses. About the height of an Elf and covered head to foot in craggy scales, these creatures are primitive, and war amongst themselves with their stone axes and clubs. On occasion, when times are hard or when the call of Chaos from the north grows strong, they descend from the peaks to raid Dark Elf settlements and join with the forces of Chaos, and their numbers are such that it takes great military might to repel them.[4a]
It is said that high within the peaks the oldest and most powerful creatures of the mortal world still dwell, ancient Dragons that stalk the skies, and mighty Giants that rock the ground with their footsteps, each ruling over domains they have dominated since the dawn of time.[3a]
The northern plains of Naggaroth are barren and windswept expanses, broken only by jutting outcrops of rock and magic-stained rivers, their waters sluggish and black, crisscrossing the ice fields, carving elaborate canyons and deep ravines in the frozen ground. Further south, the thin soil is more fertile, allowing sparse pine forests to grow. Here, the Dark Elves maintain huge plantations to feed their cities worked by slaves of many different mortal races, who labour until they drop dead, their bodies left to nourish the barren soil.[1a]
Naggaroth is a cursed land affected by ancient magic. A presence of terrible power can hang on the air, casting a pall of fear across the land and sapping would-be-combatants of their will to fight. Even those normally unphased by fear are not immune to the terror that Naggaroth sometimes invokes.[2a]
Petrified Forest[]
Blighted beyond imagination, the Petrified Forest consists of endless tracts of dead, grey, ashen trees set in a desolate, ash-blown wilderness. No breeze stirs the air and nothing clean or pure will grow in this region of utter desolation. Trees of eternal stone and chasms of echoing emptiness fill this hateful place, and none who are unfortunate enough to bear witness to this evil place can ever forget it.[2a]
Just why the forest should exist in such a state is a mystery, though there are vague references within the archives of Hoeth to a battle between ancient powers, god-like in stature, at some time during the infancy of the Elven race.[2a]
Black Forests[]
The Black Forests situated in northern Naggaroth cover the landscape with dark, forbidding trees of ill-favoured aspect. These forests sprawl with a mixture of towering pines, black trees and a bleak desolation that sears the soul with its unending vistas of emptiness. The ground is cloaked in shadows as chained gangs of slaves from the principal dockyards of the Witch King Malekith fell the massive timbers -- dragging them back for dark uses in Clar Karond, the Tower of Doom. Strange monoliths and ancient ruins dot the few desolate clearings.[2a]
Weather[]
The lands of Naggaroth are sometimes blighted by blizzards and choking dust storms.[2a]
Major Cities[]
The Dark Elves live in six heavily fortified cities on Naggaroth, their innumerable towers built from black stone, rising like sinister pinnacles into the dark storm clouds which race across the land's skies. All of these cities are evil places, steeped in death and agony.[1a]
Their lightless dungeons are crammed with captives whose wailings fill the air and whose moans seep through the thick walls of the high towers, saturating the soul of any bystanders who are not Druchii with pain and misery. From the tips of the high towers, above the filth and smog of sacrificial fires, the sorceresses cast their malign Dark Magic over the mortal world.[1a]
- Naggarond - Naggarond, the Tower of Cold or the City of Cold, is the oldest and largest of the Dark Elves' cities, and quite likely the most malevolent place in the world. Its outer walls form an imposing circlet of black stone, in no place less than a hundred feet tall. About the ramparts are set a hundred towers, each rising as high above the battlements as the walls rise above the bare rock.
- Ghrond - Ghrond, the Tower of Prophecy, is the domain of Malekith's mother, the beautiful seeress Morathi. From Ghrond's pinnacle, Sorceresses of the Dark Convent can see through the snowstorms that whip about the ever-shifting Realm of Chaos. It is said that the patterns of change therein hold the secrets of fate and that all the mysteries of the world are laid bare to she who dares look.
- Karond Kar - Karond Kar, the Tower of Despair, also known as "Slaver's Gate," can be counted the bleakest of all refuges. The citadel stands sentinel on the edge of the Sea of Chill, perpetually battered by gale-force winds, icy rain and tidal waves the size of mountains.
- Har Ganeth - Har Ganeth, the City of Executioners or the City of Khaine, is a cursed place dedicated to the worship of Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God.
- Hag Graef - Hag Graef, the Black Crag, is a sinister and foreboding place, built at the bottom of a cold, dark canyon and completely surrounded by mountains of bare rock that stretch into the clouds. It is a city permanently in shadow, for no sunlight ever reaches its walls.
- Clar Karond - Clar Karond, the Tower of Doom, serves as the Witch King's chief shipyard, for it is here that the keels are laid for many thousands of raiding vessels. This is a more sprawling city than others in Naggaroth, stretching from the banks of the Redvenom River up into the trackless pine forests of the Duskridge.