Region: The Ghost Grove:

Dunklestadt is the farthest east city in Tesaria, home to many an outcast individual and lineage.  While it does welcome respectful visitors with open arms, it has its defenses for those who seek to do it harm.  Not the least of which, are the dangers one must face before even setting foot in its borders.  The Ghost Grove is a swampland, filled with the decaying bodies and specters of those who succumbed to its terrors and natural hazards.  Its shorelines have few spots safe to make landing save Dunklestadt's heavily guarded ports in the Hage neighborhood, and the landing on its north end in the area between it and The Twilight Woods.  There at the north westerern landing, The Shade Road twists and turns through the swamp down to Dunklestadt, its path covered in lichen and weeds during the day, but every night for the peak three hours of moonlight it gives a faint glow which burns off plant, lichen, algae and fungal matter at a rate of 1 damage per fifteen minutes.  This typically is enough to clear most of the path, but every week a rider still much run its length to clear more persistent growth away so as to keep the trade and tourist route open.

North of The Shade Road's highest point, The Labyrinth of Doors awaits those who would risk its passages.  None truly knows how long the stone structure has lain there, but though it looks to be a mere hundred meters by hundred meters by two hundred meters tower from the outside, the few who have survived entering it swear that it is much larger on the inside.  There sigils are on every stone on the dust-covered floor, some broken, but most intact.  Doors line the sides of every passage with runes and glyphs depicting what may possibly lie on the other side of the door, though survivors swear that even those who translate the riddles some glyphs ask are caught unaware by what ancient alternate answers exist, as well as the fact that sometimes what lies on the other side of the door opens it from the other side...  However, on rare occasion, powerful artifacts, ancient lost treasure and mysterious routes to far off lands or other realms may be found which could potentially make the danger worth the effort.

The Creep Cavern is south of the northwestern landing, home to some of the most powerful protection spells Dunklestadt has created, specifically needful as it serves as prison to those deemed too dangerous to themselves or others for more conventional prisons.  Dunklestadt and the Tesarian government created it specifically so those interred could be questioned to save the lives of others, and hopefully rehabilitated for those who did not willingly choose the danger that surrounds their being.  Accursed wretches will sometimes make pilgrimage to it in order to seek restitution or a cure to their afflictions, and many have been released back into the world after serving either their sentence or penance and being freed from their curse or condition.  Though Kestrel Alras and her friends originally found the cavern being used for less noble purposes, few doubt the honor of their choice to work with the Dunklestadt government to find a better use for it.  Since that day, only two individuals have been known to have escaped from it while serving their sentence there, though official records have been vague as to who it was and how it happened, though assurances have been made that the security hole has been rectified...

The Glade of Secrets is hidden north of The Boar's Bay neighborhood of Dunklestadt, utilized in several rituals and rites of passage by Dunklestadt residents as the dead and living creatures there co-exist in a fashion most eerie, feeding off of the moonlight, swampwater and fears and rage of those who visit it, spinning illusions of their past traumas in order to stir up their emotions.  Though visiting it may be a traumatic experience in and of itself, The Glade of Secrets allows those who enter to leave freely or to be dragged back out, and it has served to aid in refining the character of many individuals who have gone on to do great things for Dunklestadt, Tesaria, Lenida and even all the realms.  Its continued existence has also driven some to madness, but those who enter do so willingly, and the people of Dunklestadt have nursed any who have succumbed as best as they can, most recovering in a few days or months, though some have taken years or never recovered...