Map of the Dark Lands, with Zorn Uzkul to the north.
Zorn Uzkul, or the "Great Skull Land" as it is known in the Dwarf tongue of Khazalid, is the northernmost region of the Dark Lands in the western region of the Far East.
History[]
Zorn Uzkul is a vast and inhospitable plateau in the northern Dark Lands where the air is frigid and thin, and the dusty ground is littered with the wind-scoured bones of the ancient dead. The mineral wealth is rich here, but the earth and stone to some seem tainted and unclean.[2a]
In the Age of the Ancestors, when the Dwarfs first colonised the Worlds Edge Mountains, many of them called the place accursed and turned aside from it, either retreating to the most established Dwarf Holds in the south or, if of more adventurous character, choosing to strike out into far Norsca or undertake the journey first east and then south to the rich lodes later discovered in the Mountains of Mourn. Some however, refusing to be baulked, chose to remain in the Great Skull Land come what may, and founded Uzkulak. There the Eastern Dwarfs turned into the Chaos Dwarfs during the Great Catastrophe when they chose to serve Hashut, the minor Chaos God of fire, greed and tyranny so that they might gain the knowledge needed to survive the trials and tribulations of the coming of Chaos into the mortal world.[2a]
The Road of Skulls is a dangerous route that crosses this land, starting from Kislev and passing through the High Pass into Zorn Uzkul, and then south of Uzkulak into a ravine that winds through the northernmost Mountains of Mourn into the northern Chaos Wastes.[1a]
There are a couple of unnamed lakes to the south, and the River Ruin is born to the southeast. When it reaches the cliff that separates the Great Skull Land from the Plain of Zharrduk, it forms the so-called "Falls of Doom," at whose feet the Chaos Dwarfs excavated centuries ago a long, navigable tunnel that reaches the Sea of Chaos through Uzkulak, which today hosts a major slave-port for the Chaos Dwarf empire.[1a][1b][2a]