North of the Wall is the massive forest of Infernum. It is a wilderness, a forest untouched for many centuries. It is huge, covering near a thousand miles east to west and three hundred miles north to south at its widest point. A vast barrier of wood, the Infernum is dark and brooding – the very fabric of ancient tales from which nightmares are woven. Some trees here are so big that light is blotted out entirely – other areas are so overgrown that it is difficult to pass through.
One might wonder why it is that a forest can be left so untouched – why has it not been cut down for the wood? Why has no one built villages in the Infernum? People are not sure why but it seem something that is simply not done – one just doesn’t go into the Infernum. Truth be told, however, there are indeed villages hidden amongst the shadows of the Infernum – there are tribes of Humans, left undiscovered for years. There are Hob Dwells, hidden away amongst the rocks, mud and trees, protected by strangely painted and carved standing stones or strangely sculpted twists of metal. There are also odd structures hidden away in the Infernum – towers of crumbling stone and sculpted metals that glow faintly or discharge Fae bolts. It is sometimes, hidden amongst such structures that lost Sithi families may be found – cut off from the rest of the kindred that tuck themselves safely away from the world in their tent-like villages high in the mountains, hidden in low valleys and sequestered in the forests eaves across the known world. By and large, the Infernum is a dangerous place, grown wild and out of all forms of control – liable to ensnare and consume the unwary. Humans tend to avoid it for the Dwarrow, Hob, Sithi and Trolls that live within are seemingly without the niceties of a warning. Those of the First Men and the rest of the North are forced out by the skilled hands of the Zha’Miru, the Aesir rangers.
Once upon a time, many Dacians lived by the Laws of the Sands. These guiding rules were held as absolutes - there was no arguing with the Laws. The Laws themselves were not for questioning, and all tribes tried to uphold them as they could. One might expect the Laws to be quite civilised - but this is not so. The Laws were based on the idea that the desert rules all - that the need for life was greater than the need for any single life. A Dacian was required to give their life for a tribe if they could. It governed rights of territory - such as a tribe not being able to hold any oasis for more than 14 moons. If a tribe could not collect enough from an oasis that was their due - they must move to find another or fight off a rival tribe.
It is not just those of the Light that use the Infernum, however. A great battle has secretly been fought for the past thousands of years – for the Disiri have made their nests in the forest. There are some paths in the Infernum now, wholly subverted by the Ni’Han, and the other races fight subtly against them in a delicate dance of predator and prey. Indeed, there are whole Human villages lost in the Infernum that are not much more than cave-men – easily dominated by the skills of the Disir.
The Infernum has a rich abundance of growth – but it is the seasons and the power that resides within the twisting trunks of the forest that make it most interesting. For the Infernum produces plant-life for herbal treatments that are no found anywhere else in the world. It has a number of rich veins of the indigo clay that goes into making Dragonglass – the rest of the continent has veins of the indigo clay, but nowhere near as deep and as wide as the valleys of the Infernum. This is all probably due to the vast unstable Fae flows of the area, eddies of which can throw off castings with ease were one to stay too long in the wrong places. For the Infernum forest is a doomed, desolate part of the world – where the seasons and even the days and nights do not match those on the other side of the Wall. Many that have crossed the Wall have said that it is the strangest feeling of all – moving from midday to midnight, like stepping into another world. From the Wall, Infernum appears as daytime, but once on the other side... Other times, however, people do not notice the difference – perhaps the difference at that point for them is mere minutes. What is constant, however, is the inconsistency between north and south – something that disturbs the Black Brothers greatly.
It is partly because of the Wall and the Infernum that, to Humans – and many of the races that live south of the Wall or in Maesia – that any race that exists further north of the forest in the Wastes is seen as a myth, or a fairytale. Races south of the Infernum haven’t seen the north in thousands of years, just as those north haven’t been able to cross the Wall. For more than 2,000 years, neither side of the Wall has seen each other. Those south have been convinced by their governments that things like Goblins, Norn and Ogres are mere myths – vast swathes of fairytales, legends and poems and songs have been written about the terrors of the north, the better to keep children from misbehaving. To the north a bitter memory of the south remains in a similar way – tales are told by the Ogres of men with the skin of metal; songs are sung by the Goblins of the pale-skins and their nasty machinery.
However, despite the name that the Infernum has for itself, 60 years ago Humans did what was been forbidden by sacred laws for more than 3,000 years – they went north of the Wall. For thousands of years, the Black Brothers have protected the Wall – both from the north and by stopping those of the south from crossing into danger. But what danger is there? That question was put to the Brotherhood and the Church of Six all those years ago, and thus an agreement was reached. Traders from the south journeyed north, and met with a group from Maesia. They were questioned by a delegation of the Inquisition, over-seen by the Church of Six and House of Law. The agreement was for a trial – the delegation could go north of the Wall, and settle into their own villages. In return, the Black Brothers would require a small percentage of the first few years’ takings and those traders would not live by the laws south – they would have to find their own law. In the first few decades, life was good for these villagers, for they found many things north that can’t be obtained south. They became very rich indeed... until the forest of Infernum began to take them. Slowly, over the next thirty years, a new breed for Human was created – the Infernia, the twisted Humans that worship the dark, fearing the forest itself as some evil, unspeakable beast.
