Dommark

		Ravenloft Third Edition
		Gazetteer V - pp11,17-19
		The Plain of Judgement

The Dommark is a parched, pocked, blasted, forsaken plain in central-eastern Nova Vaasa. Cartographers describe its width, from the cliffs overlooking the Nocturnal Sea in the East to the Prince’s Road in the West, and its length, from the Ivlis River in the South to the South Darn River and the Briarweed Forest in the North, as a little less than 30 by 20 miles. Those who have braved the place and lived to tell the tale insist that it is vaster, well beyond a day’s ride in either direction.

The Dommark begins in earnest within a mile or two of the rivers and of the Prince’s Road. The short golden and purple-flowered vingraes of the Kesjermark (King’s Plain) to the West withers and is replaced by patches of razor-sharp and inedible knivgraes, naked dirt, and barren stone. There are shrubs but as often as not they are lifeless husks. Patches of cacti are not uncommon and consist largely of the catspaw which has spines coated in a non-lethal paralytic poison. [Fearweed] often grows amidst it. The complete absence of vegetation in many places has, ironically, exposed the plain to the ravages of water. Areas where the plain has degenerated into badlands become common as one moves from west to east. A blazing sun in a cloudless sky is the norm. Day time temperatures during the long summer often climb above 90 degrees making water and shade the difference between life and death. The prevailing winds from the West never bear rain. But several storms sweep in each year from the Nocturnal Sea and invariably spawn flash floods. Boulders, sometimes as tall as a man, are not uncommon and afford cover from sight but little from the elements.

Common animals included vermin, bats, insects, lizards and spiders, rodents, principally rabbits, raptors, principally vultures, snakes, bluff snakes, diamondbacks, goldenhoods, ironwhips, sidewinders and whipsnakes, and horses, (Vaamgaaer (heat-walkers) which are prized as tireless animal, resistant to heat, and capable of spanning long distances with little or no water). Plains cats stalk the periphery of the Dommark but few follow the Vaamgaaer far into the depths. Any patch of catspaw, however, is quite possibly haunted by a wily member of the species, taking full advantage of its racial immunity to the paralytic poison.

Less common but more dangerous are backwards men, headhunters, werejackels, and both corporeal and incorporeal undead.

Politically, the Dommark falls within the Heartland Duchy of the Bolshnik family. And most Nova Vaasans consider them to be very welcome to it. But to the extent that the Plain of Judgement belongs to anybody, it is the property of the Church of the Lawgiver if not the Lawgiver himself.

The iron clergy describes the Dommark as the Jernfurge (Iron Forge). Every Vassan child knows that the Jernfurge is forever replenished by the souls of the iniquitous. The plain is a place of judgement and its essence is caught in the immortal words of the former head of the iron faith Mikaa Vatsisk: “All may enter, but few may leave.”

In a mundane sense there is manifest truth in this. Nothing, save good sense, stops one from walking into the Dommark. But the competence needed to make one’s way back out is uncommon. The truth of the matter, however, runs deeper.

The words of the former Himmelsk Naeve (Divine Fist) impress upon the Vaasan nation that religious reckoning awaits them in the Dommark. To die on the Plains of Judgement is to be condemned for all eternity to the Hell of Slaves. Whereas to return alive is to prove the worth of oneself and one’s life, at least up to that point. Unsurprisingly, rare is the individual who is in any hurry to receive the judgement of the Lawgiver and thus the Plain of Judgement is shunned. A fugitive reaching the Dommark with the Bolshnik militia at his heels has an excellent chance of escaping the judgement of man only to be condemned by the judgement of God.