THE LEGEND OF THE BITTERING:
Courtesy CD Mjollnir

What an appropriate name for this desolate area on the border of Lirynn and Mirg. Truly, none know the sadness that permeates this area, that is said to have become manifest in a strange creature that now haunts the swamps that were once its home.

Should you ever have occasion to visit the Bittering, you'll find it is a swamp...but not a natural swamp. It is dark, forboding; creatures that should not exist infest its dank waters and hatred infuses its inhabitants. It was not always thus.

Even the most ancient elves are not old enough to know this story; perhaps there is a dwarf who is old enough, but I do not know. I found this inscribed in elven runes on a piece of writing-bark, an ancient form of record-keeping of my people. I have no reason to doubt its veracity; indeed, I have visited the edges of this place and discovered its truth for myself.

It is not a visit I care to repeat.

Once, it is said, the elves and the goblins were united in their uses and their love of the forest. Even now, it can be seen that there is much in common between them in this regard, though members of either race would as soon slit your throat as admit this. A third race which I know only a little of served them both in this place that was once a beautiful city; it was a time of peace and of growth for all peoples.

But all was not well. There was a religious sect among the elves which exists today that firmly believed elves must remain pure and whole. They have believed this since the Race Wars and have carried the hatred of that time through the ages. Few agreed with them, but they were sly, and wormed their way through the hearts of others like the Dark One himself.

It came to pass that a goblin fell in love with an elven maiden. It is well known that crossbreed marriages have no hope of providing offspring, but this couple had heard of a solution...they had heard of a rite that would enable the goblin to become an elf--fully, in body and soul. They searched the city for the means to enact this ritual, and a member of that zealous religion came forward.

The directions he gave were not for the rite the couple sought, however. They blithely gathered the materials he required and innocently bound themselves to each other so that the rite might be performed. On a night with the Shadoweye and the Wandering Moon both full, the couple consummated their marriage...and then knew naught but pain.

For the rite the zealot had them enact was a rite for the destruction of the fair city in which they lived; it would drive the goblins and the elves against each other and their servants into the unknown; the city would sink into the earth, and--so the zealot thought--the Elves would forever more remain pure.

The rite bound the souls of the couple together and forged them into a might weapon of the Dark; a massive serpent, with powers unknown, was born into the night and bellowed out its birthing cries with jets of purest darkness. Those who could fled; those who could not perished. Each side thought the other had summoned the beast and blamed them for the destruction of the city, for these were the whisperings the zealot and his brethren had spread before the disaster.

Bound within its dual nature and its love forged into purest hatred, the serpent devoured all it could, its unreasoning mind unknowingly seeking he who had forged it and caused it this pain. Its thrashings destroyed the tall spires; they broke the foundations of the very earth itself and the entire city sunk so deeply into the resulting swamp that only the remains of the tallest buildings were ever to be seen again.

The purposes of the zealot accomplished, the serpent had no means to sustain itself; but it could not die. It is said its flesh withered away and became dust on the wind, but that its spirit lives on in agony, seeking both to destroy what caused it to be, and to end its own miserable existence. It is said also that the Wizard Council once forged a device for this very purpose, but none know why it was not used if this is true.

To this day, the Bittering remains dire and dark; yet melancholy also permeats the thick mud and hanging vines. It is a testament to the workings of the Dark; and because of it, the elves and the goblins have since fought tooth and nail, until even the reason that they fought sunk into the depths of antiquity.

May the time come when such fighting is forgotten.