Places
The Maw
The Maw is the name given to the tunnel system that runs beneath The Far Country. It consists of passages, shafts, and irregular hollows, with recorded openings, called gapes, across the world.
Description
The system covers distances that should not be possible. It begins at and spreads outward across The Far Country, surfacing in many gapes. It has no fixed layout. Groups who enter together give conflicting accounts of what they passed, and the walls are reported to shift. The tunnels do not appear to be excavated. They run more like veins, or a hollow root system. The air carries a smell of burnt loam, and travellers who go deep describe a presence.
Effects
An emanation from the rock, sometimes called the breath of the Maw, affects anyone inside the system. The sense of time and place fails first. Visions and whispers follow, urging the traveller deeper. Without preparation, prolonged exposure erodes the mind.
Traversal
Only the of know how to traverse the Maw safely. Over generations they found that the seeds of the flower , called pearls, produce a hallucinatory state when treated and ingested correctly. Careful dosing, paired with specific rituals and incantations, counteracts the effects of the tunnels. The process is volatile and dangerous.
My skull, wroth and numb from the flower. Another draught.
Gartua
In places the Maw opens into Gartua, a domain the consider perilous and poorly understood. Against its presence they wear the Hawthorn Wreath.
Gartua, with its worm's tongue, finally whispered my name. Through the hollow earth, and down Heather's Crown. The reek of its breath, burnt loam.
The account above places a descent at Heather's Crown, though no gape is recorded there in any public account.
Extent
The full extent of the Maw is not known. The continue to walk and record it. Beneath its irregularities the system keeps a hidden order, and that order has yielded safe routes across The Far Country.