In a far distant land of Old World science and primitive cultures, the most amazing thing I discovered was my own truth. —Bek Ohmsford
ar to the west of the Four Lands, over the expanse of the Blue Divide, lies a mostly unexplored land of ancient ruins, shape-shifters, and primitive hunter-gatherers. What little we know of this land came from Walker Boh’s expedition across the Blue Divide aboard the airship Jerle Shannara. The Druid led a group of Men, Elves, a Dwarf, and a shape-shifter in search of a treasure of unimaginable value—a treasure of ancient magic. The survivors returned, after enduring great loss and hardship, with a different treasure: the discovery of a new land and new people. They called the land Parkasia, the name the natives had given it.
Walker’s company was not the first to attempt the crossing. Thirty years before the Jerle Shannara sailed, Prince Kael Elessedil, heir to the Elven throne, had convinced his mother, Queen Aine, to allow him to lead an Elven expedition of three ships along the same course. None of those ships ever returned.
Thirty years later, Kael Elessedil was discovered adrift in the Blue Divide. Barely alive, he had been blinded and his tongue cut out. Only a bracelet bearing the Elessedil crest—the spreading boughs of the sacred Ellcrys surrounded by a ring of Bloodfire—gave any clue to his identity. His single other possession was a map, written in his own hand in an indecipherable language. The last of his doomed expedition, Kael did not survive long enough to return to Arborlon.
The Great Rover captain Redden Alt Mer, known as Big Red.
Kael’s map spurred a renewed interest in the mysterious land across the ocean. Kael’s brother Allardon was determined to discover the truth about the fate of his sibling’s expedition as well as the treasure he had set out to find. King Allardon was forced to turn for answers to the Druid named Walker Boh, the only one who could decipher the ancient language of the map. That map became the guide for Walker Boh’s expedition. Authorized by King Allardon just before he died and reluctantly supported by his son, Kylen, the second expedition’s official charge was to search for the remains of the first while attempting to find the treasure described on Kael’s map.
Kylen sent his younger brother Ahren along, as well as Ard Patrinell, the captain of the guard who had failed to save his father. It was well known that Kylen had no faith in the success of the expedition, and that he supported it only because he had no choice but to honor his father’s agreement. Many believed he was deliberately sending Ard Patrinell and Ahren to their deaths.
After months of difficult travel and narrow escapes from the islands of Flay Creech, Shatterstone, Shrike, and Mephitic, the Jerle Shannara reached Ice Henge on the southern tip of Parkasia. Three of the islands held keys described in the map as being essential to the quest. On each of those islands, only the Druid’s magic allowed the company to collect the necessary keys and escape. They also discovered they were not alone. The Ilse Witch hounded them in a ship called Black Moclips with a crew of mercenary Rovers and Mwellrets. Unknown to both, her mentor the Morgawr followed close behind with an entire fleet of ships crewed by Mwellrets and dead men. The Ilse Witch and the Morgawr each intended to have the treasure for themselves.
Upon reaching the mainland, Walker’s expedition discovered a land warded by miles of impenetrable cliffs of ice-covered rock. This was Ice Henge. Shrikes roosted in caverns and on ledges along the cliffs watching for prey, while the unpredictable winds and icy mists made flight over the tops impossible. The cliffs formed a frozen barrier around the entire southern tip of the peninsula. After several more days of sailing, the voyagers followed the map, finally discovering a break in the wall on the northeastern edge of the peninsula.
There, the cliffs receded, opening into a large protected bay backed by a towering range of snowcapped peaks. Glaciers ran through the mountains down into the water. Small mountains of ice that had broken off the glaciers floated in the bay like huge islands. Within the protection of the bay, the winds stilled. The first bay led to a channel through the mountains, a second bay, and a narrower channel. Spurred by a mass of warm moist air from the peninsula’s interior, the mists grew heavier as the expedition sailed upriver, reducing visibility to dangerously low levels.
The Crew of the Jerle Shannara
The first expedition to Parkasia sailed with three ships. The second, under the Druid Walker Boh, had only one: the Jerle Shannara, with thirty-five men and women aboard her. But while the first, failed expedition had been completely manned by Elves, the Druid’s company was extremely diverse. He chose Rovers to crew and handle the ship. The great Rover captain Redden Alt Mer, known as Big Red, was put in command of the ship. His sister, Rue Meridian or Little Red, served as navigator. The shipwright Spanner Frew, who had overseen the design and building of the Jerle Shannara, was charged with handling repairs along the way. Furl Hawken and ten other Rovers filled out the crew.
The Elven King sent his younger brother Ahren Elessedil as the representative of the Elven crown; the former Captain of the Home Guard, Ard Patrinell; the Healer Joad Rish; the Tracker Tamis; and a company of Elven Hunters.
But the Druid wanted more than strong arms and willing fighters. He needed magic that could back up his own. He selected young Bek Ohmsford, heir to the Ohmsford magic and the magic of the Sword of Shannara; Quentin Leah, holder of the famed Sword of Leah; the seer Ryer Ord Star; and the halfling shape-shifter Truls Rohk.
To aid with hunting and reconnaissance, Walker enlisted the aid of Hunter Predd and two other Wing Riders. He also recruited the Dwarf Panax, a skilled warrior.
Of this number, only a few returned. Included among the survivors were Bek Ohmsford, Quentin Leah, Ahren Elessedil, the Rovers Redden Alt Mer, Rue Meridian, and Spanner Frew, and the Wing Riders Hunter Predd and Po Kelles. But added to their number was their former enemy Grianne Ohmsford, Bek’s sister and the woman who would one day rebuild the Druid order.
Bek Ohmsford and Rue Meridian married shortly after their return, giving birth to a son, Penderrin Ohmsford. Quentin Leah became a respected leader in Leah, but he never fully recovered from injuries sustained during the voyage, and eventually died from their complications.
But the channel was blocked. Huge pillars of ice stood side by side like floating sentries guarding the interior. At first the pillars floated calmly, seeming much the same as the glacier ice in the bay. There was enough room between them to allow a ship tight passage. But then they suddenly came to life, crashing against each other as if they were caught up in some furious quest to destroy each other. Any hapless sailors foolish enough to attempt passage during the deceptive calm would be crushed by these pillars. Called the Squirm, they warded the single sure way into the interior. Only magic could guarantee safe passage. Kael had used the Elfstones to secure passage for the first expedition; Bek Ohmsford used the magic of the Sword of Shannara to secure safety for the second.
Bek Ohmsford wields the Sword of Shannara at the Squirm.
Beyond the Squirm, the land changed. Ice and bitter winds gave way to temperate breezes and calm waters. Greenery and forests replaced the barren rocks of Ice Henge. The voyagers marveled at the sudden change. They did not realize the temperate weather was caused by the machine-mind Antrax, hidden deep within the bowels of the earth.
After anchoring in a large bay, Walker led all but the Rovers inland seeking the place called Castledown and the safehold it protected. Several miles inland, Walker’s party discovered the ruins of a city built during the time of the Old World. Made entirely of metal, the city covered the whole valley floor, ten miles wide and five long. The buildings were low and flat. Some appeared to be large raised platforms rather than buildings, and none looked as if it had ever been a dwelling, at least not for humans. Even some of the streets were made of metal. Machinery with cables and dials filled many of the structures. It was a city of warehouses and factories. A city that had once been made for machines.
The whole city bore the scars of an ancient conflict. Much of the metal was twisted and burned out. Many of the structures had gaping holes in their thick metal walls, and debris littered the streets. The ruins of Castledown were a mute memorial to the ferocity of the Great Wars and the technology that had spawned them.
Deep inside the city, the expedition discovered a broad metal-carpeted clearing, surprisingly free of any debris or scarring. The area was roughly square in shape, studded here and there with oddly shaped walls and partitions of various heights. In the center, an obelisk more than a hundred feet tall towered over the square, with a single door recessed into its front panel. Depressions set into the door’s surface matched the keys taken from the islands. A red light blinked steadily above a single door in the obelisk, the only sign of life in ruins that appeared otherwise dead and deserted.
Realizing that the obelisk marked the entrance to Castledown, Walker attempted to reach the door, triggering a defense grid that reacted instantly to his intrusion. Laser ports set into the walls and partitions throughout the square released beams of fire that raked the trespassers. Creepers appeared from unseen hatches and rushed to attack the company. Partitions rose and fell to create traps for those caught out on the square. The people who had created Castledown were long dead, but the machine they’d built to ward it, the thing called Antrax, was still functional—and very deadly.
Most scholars believe that the machine-mind, Antrax, was not intended to be harmful. Built during the decade before the Great Wars broke out, Antrax was originally designed as a receptacle to protect human knowledge. Its creators wanted to be certain that the knowledge built up over the ages could be preserved, even if humans themselves could not.
The city may once have been an industrial complex. Those who built the machine-mind used the complex both as a place to work and as a decoy to pull unwanted attention away from the true nature of their project. They appeared to be designing machinery—possibly for military use—while they were actually constructing the underground storage complex.
It took many years, and many lives, to complete the project. The complex, once finished, extended a mile beneath the surface and more than five miles in every direction. All the corridors contained surveillance eyes and sensors to ensure complete security. The machine-mind itself was formed of many separate components linked together over the vast site. The information was stored as recorded energy, possibly within crystals, and was cycled constantly.
When the builders’ worst fears were realized and the Great Wars ravaged the world, the machine-mind remained safe, unaware in its subterranean domain, keeping its treasure in trust for those who would one day come to claim it. At this time, it knew nothing of the weapons that had been secretly installed in the complex. It did not yet have control over them or any reason to use such things.
There are indications that, shortly after the Great Wars ended, one of the creators, a lone survivor, returned to the complex. He had the codes and used them to change the directives governing the machine-mind. He told it of the war and of the end of the world. Then he told it of the weapons and directed it to use any means necessary to survive and protect the data within its banks—to kill anyone or anything that trespassed without the proper codes. The machine was directed to expand and develop in whatever way was needed to guarantee the safety of itself and its data. It is probable that any previous instructions for the method and time of releasing the data to the heirs of humanity were lost when the new directives were installed. So far as the machine-mind knew, no one could be allowed access to the protected knowledge. Ever.
While the machine-mind was created by Men, it used technology we no longer understand. It could think and plan. It learned how to fight and how to grow, expanding itself into new areas and building new weapons to fulfill its directive. It had access to all the knowledge Men had amassed, and could use that knowledge to build whatever it needed. When creatures and humans appeared again and started exploring the ruins, it first fought them with the weapons it had been given, then used its store of knowledge to create better weapons.
The people continued to come, sometimes even finding ways underground. So it continued to kill. The people, a primitive tribe that called themselves the Rindge, named it Antrax or, in their language, Demon Machine. It adopted the name, never knowing the meaning. Despite the defenses, the Rindge continued to explore the city, learning to avoid the defenses. Antrax searched for a new weapon that would stop the trespassers. It discovered possibilities from among the legends stored within its banks of knowledge and combined them with technology to create weapons that worked against the intruders.
They called the weapons Wronks. The Wronks drove the intruders away, and they stayed away. But Antrax discovered that Wronks were valuable tools—more versatile than any made out of machinery alone. It wanted more. It began to hunt the people to make more Wronks.
Wronks
A grisly combination of living flesh and machinery, Wronks were created by the machine-mind Antrax to defend its domain from human intruders. Antrax made Wronks by capturing living humans and grafting their heads and some of their living tissue onto mechanical components. Many of those captured and made into Wronks were still alive and conscious after the process, trapped within the machinery and under Antrax’s complete control. This allowed Wronks to utilize the physical and mental skills of their unwilling living components while enhancing those skills with the durability and strength of hardened steel alloys and built-in weapons.
Wronks were extremely difficult to kill. Those with living heads were protected by an impenetrable transparent shield. Sensor devices and built-in weapons systems made them more than a match for more primitive weapons. Since they were almost impossible to kill in a direct confrontation, the Rindge developed a system of pitfalls in which they trapped and either buried or dismantled the Wronks. Once buried deep enough, the machinery often lost contact with Antrax and ceased to function. Without support from the machinery, the human components eventually died.
The most terrible of these Wronks was also the last. Built from Ard Patrinell, former Captain of the Home Guard, the Wronk had all the Elf’s battle skill and tactical knowledge. He destroyed an entire Rindge village before he was finally brought to bay and killed. It took the combined skills of Quentin Leah and the Elven Tracker Tamis to finally bring him down. Tamis, once Ard Patrinell’s love, sacrificed her life to end his threat—and his torment.
Over the centuries, Antrax’s solar power cells started to fail. To fulfill its directive, then, it had to find a new source of power. It created probes and sent them out into the vastness of the world. Through the messages relayed back from these probes, Antrax discovered a faraway source of energy: magic, and the people who wielded it as if it was a part of them.
Antrax had become far more than a mere machine. Probes and sensors extended its domain by feeding back data from anywhere in the world. It could even send out energy that was interpreted as a seer’s dream to lure the magic users to its lair.
To ensure that only those it needed would find it, the machine-mind used its probes to set up a testing ground on the islands between itself and its prey, making use of the natural dangers that inhabited the islands. Any who had the use of the new power could pass the tests.
Kael Elessedil used the Elfstones to prevail over the dangers and horrors of the islands on his voyage to Parkasia, only to see his men killed and himself captured upon arrival at Castledown. Antrax found a way to use its living captive and his stones as a power source. For thirty years the Elven Prince lived a nightmare as his mind was manipulated and his body drained. For thirty years Antrax grew larger and stronger on the magic of the Elfstones.
But such hard use took a heavy toll. Kael began to fail. To survive, Antrax had to find someone else to release the magic. It sent the broken Elf back home—with a map as bait to snare another who could wield the stones.
The Phoenix Stone
Gifted to Bek Ohmsford by the King of the Silver River, the Phoenix Stone contained Faerie magic that could be used but once. In the hands of the King of the Silver River, the Phoenix Stone appeared as a strange silver-colored stone on a chain. It had a translucent surface that revealed a swirling liquid center. Once Bek touched the stone, the movement stopped and the surface became opaque. The only indication that the stone was other than ordinary was the slight warmth it radiated.
The King of the Silver River told Bek, “When you are most lost, it will help you find your way. Not just from what you cannot see with your eyes, but from what you cannot find with your heart as well. It will show you the way back from dark places into which you have strayed and the way forward through dark places into which you must go. In your body, heart, and mind—all will be revealed with this.”
But Bek gifted the stone to Ahren Elessedil, who took his words to heart. In a time of great need, the Elven Prince cast the stone on the ground and shattered it. He discovered that the stone not only guided its holders where they needed to go, but also provided a magic fog that hid them from their pursuers.
The stone, dead after one use, was named for its ability to help users find what they needed to become whole or “reborn.”
When Walker’s expedition arrived, it contained much more potential than the machine expected. Not only did Walker bring with him one who could wield the stones—Ahren Elessedil—but he brought his own Druid magic as well as that of others: Quentin Leah and the Sword of Leah, and Bek Ohmsford and the wishsong.
Antrax captured the Druid, invading his mind and siphoning the magic from him much as it had from the Elven Prince. But the machine-mind sensed additional magic: enough to fuel itself for hundreds of years.
Yet the courage and strength of the party thwarted the machine. They joined with the indigenous people to fight its Wronks and creepers. Two of them, the Elven Prince Ahren Elessedil and the seer Ryer Ord Star, even found a way to invade Antrax’s inner complexes undetected, by using the Phoenix Stone to guide them and mask their passage.
Ahren and Ryer found Walker and helped him get free of the machine. Ahren managed to use the failing remnants of the Phoenix Stone to help him find and retrieve the Elfstones, barely avoiding being trapped as Kael had been years before. Ahren and Walker used their magic to wreak havoc on the heart of the machine, engaging in a pitched battle with the creepers and fire lances that protected Antrax, but the defenses of the ancient machine were too strong. Walker was forced to use his magic to overload its interior power intake, frying the machine-mind and all access to the knowledge it protected. The backlash from that attack fatally wounded Walker. The dying Druid was found by his friends Bek and Truls Rohk, who carried him to a special lake, hidden in an ancient cavern far underground. There he was embraced by the shade of Allanon and carried into the lake to the afterlife. Walker’s shade has since appeared many times at the Hadeshorn.
Doors to the Netherworld
Walker Boh died in the land of Parkasia from wounds sustained battling the machine-mind called Antrax. Traditionally, when Druids die or lie near death, they are taken to the Hadeshorn so that they may be carried into the netherworld. But such portals are not limited to the waters of the Hadeshorn. Many Druids believe that most of the waters of the world form a channeling medium to the netherworld. Still lakes and hidden waters are the most powerful channels, with the magical water of the Hadeshorn strongest of all, but all water will channel to a certain degree. Any quiet lake or still pond can serve as a conduit between the living and the dead.
When their time is near, Druids can feel a connection to the nearest portal to the afterlife. They are drawn to the water, where they will be greeted by the Druids who have gone before them. Once they have gone into the waters, Druids have been known to reappear from other waters to those they knew in life, but such visitations are limited to a short march of days following death. After that, only the Hadeshorn itself remains open to the shades that have passed, and even then they can appear only if properly summoned.
Soon after Antrax was destroyed, the weather began to change. Storms racked the entire region as the climate seesawed after being artificially controlled for centuries by the machine-mind. Those storms raged on and off for several months, lashing the southern peninsula of Parkasia until the climate found balance again. As it must have been thousands of years ago before Man used technology to alter it, the unforgiving climate of Ice Henge gathered the lands south of the mountains into its frigid embrace.
Now the ruins of the metal city are blanketed in frost. With Antrax dead, the portals to the underground heart of the city lie blasted open. The battle-scarred corridors of Castledown are empty, save for the shattered ruins of creepers and debris of its lost glory. In the central power chamber, the vast twin pillars that were the heart of Antrax stand cracked and burned. The storage units no longer hum their song of ancient knowledge, the extraction chambers are empty save for slagged metal, and the extraction ports throughout the chamber are burned. All the lights have gone out save the strange flameless lamps. The secrets of the Old World, the prize for two intrepid teams of explorers, lie forever beyond reach, either destroyed in the final overload or frozen into the machinery itself.
Ryer Ord Star, seer and empath.
Ryer Ord Star
Born with the combined ability to be both seer and empath, Ryer Ord Star was desperate to understand the gifts that haunted her. She became apprentice to the Addershag, the renowned seer of Grimpen Ward, in an attempt to learn how to use her gifts: the sight, which showed her the future, and empathy, which allowed her to ease pain. The Addershag had no use for anything but the sight, and eventually threw Ryer out because she could not rid herself of her empathic nature.
She was soon recruited by the Ilse Witch to be her spy on the Jerle Shannara. Ryer agreed, but found herself drawn to Walker Boh and his company. After using her empathy to save the Druid once, Ryer was linked to him, a link that allowed him to see her heart and her betrayal. But he accepted her nevertheless.
The relationship changed Ryer. She openly shared her visions with the Druid and tried to save him when he faced Antrax, even braving the depths of Castledown with Ahren Elessedil to reach the Druid and free him from the Antrax machinery. Without her help, Walker could not have destroyed the monster machine. But Ryer could not save him from his wounds.
Later, Ryer and the Elven Prince were captured by the Morgawr. In an attempt to buy time for Grianne and Bek’s escape and to keep the Prince alive, Ryer continued to play the part of the dutiful seer and spy, misleading the Morgawr with her visions and hiding the Elfstones. Once the time was right, the young seer helped Ahren escape his captivity, even though she knew it would cost her her life.
The Morgawr tortured her brutally for her betrayal, but before he could feast on her soul, she found release, dying as a hero.
The Jerle Shannara expedition discovered a Race of primitive humans living on the Parkasian peninsula. Calling themselves the Rindge, they, too, are descendants of humans mutated during the aftermath of the Great Wars—though for them the beginning of time dates from the Great Wars, as if there had never been an Old World. Any history or memories of who they might have been before are lost.
Mutations generated during the wars have given the Rindge distinctive reddish copper skin, curly red hair, cinnamon-colored eyes, and burnished teeth. They speak an ancient dialect that most closely resembles a variation on the Dwarfish tongue.
An aboriginal hunter-gatherer society, the Rindge are tribal in nature and have developed a hierarchy of high chiefs and sub-chiefs to oversee their villages and tribes. Though they tend to live in relatively small village groupings of less than a thousand, their numbers are spread throughout Parkasia and the continent beyond. Each village is part of a larger tribal group, usually made up of two to five villages. Each tribe is fairly self-sufficient, though different tribal groups specialize in different skills. Some tribes are primarily hunters, while others specialize in farming. Craftsmen of various types are scattered throughout the tribes. Each tribe has its own territory and trades with others only when necessary for goods and services they cannot produce.
Quentin Leah wields the magic Sword of Leah.
Most Rindge villages are constructed of easily available materials such as wood, mud, and bark, with the buildings—often open-air huts—spread out to make use of the natural contours of the terrain. Rooms are divided with hanging blankets or reed screens. Most villages have no defensive walls or moats; the natives prefer to use an elaborate warning system and a network of hidden traps and snares. If danger threatens, rather than fight an enemy that cannot be easily stopped, the whole village escapes to protective terrain while their warriors defend the escape route.
Each village has a medicine man or woman who makes use of local plants and roots as rudimentary cures. These people are rarely gifted healers. Serious wounds sustained on the hunt or in battle are usually fatal, which probably accounts for the natives’ low population density.
Rindge tend to prefer temperate climates, usually wearing sleeveless tunics, short pants, and sandals strapped on with long laces that tie up to the knee. Hunters wear leather wrist guards and carry a variety of weapons, including spears, javelins, six-foot-long blowguns, and knives. The blowguns are their favorite weapon. Most warriors and hunters have the ability to blend almost completely into their surroundings, allowing them to get close to their prey or evade a predator. Occasionally, tribes war against each other, but before Walker destroyed Antrax, it and its creeper and Wronk minions were their greatest enemy.
While Antrax still functioned, it sent out creepers to prey on the Rindge, capturing them to use as spare parts for Wronks. The Rindge are a very superstitious people, and the power of the machine led many tribes to believe that it was a god. According to some of the Rindge legends, Antrax created humans. Many viewed its continued attacks as a sign that their god was taking them back because he was disappointed in them. These tribes often paid tribute to win the god’s favor; some even delivered human sacrifices to the Wronks that had once been part of their tribe. The storms that followed the destruction of Antrax were seen as proof of their god’s anger, driving them from their homes.
Other tribes believed Antrax was a demon. They hunted down its creepers and Wronks, trapping them in deep pits with sharp rocks embedded in the bottom. If they managed to trap a creeper or Wronk, they destroyed it using razor-tipped arrows to pierce the metal while prying its joints apart with spear hafts.
Perhaps as a result of their battles with the creepers and Wronks, the Rindge developed unusually sophisticated fighting techniques, especially for a tribal people. They fought in units designated by weaponry, with heavy spears usually at the fore and javelins and blowguns to the rear. This arrangement was maintained even during travel, with each small group kept intact as a unit, prepared to face ambush or an unexpected encounter. Scouts were used to patrol both front and rear.
But such battle formations could not always protect the Rindge from Wronks. The last of the Wronks destroyed an entire village and most of its defenders before it was hunted down and killed by Quentin Leah and the Elven Tracker Tamis.
The storms that followed the destruction of Antrax forced the southern tribes to migrate north, finding a new home on the other side of the Aleuthra Ark range.
The Parkasian peninsula is divided by a towering mountain range, the Aleuthra Ark, which extends down the interior from northwest to southeast like a jagged spine. This rugged series of towering peaks, deep canyons, and wide valleys extends for several hundred square miles across the heart of the peninsula before smoothing out into broad grasslands in the northeast. The tallest of these peaks rise more than six thousand feet above sea level. While conifers, mostly cedar and spruce, grow on the lower reaches of the mountains, the peaks are bare. Most stand shrouded in snow, their rocky heights swept clean by the vicious northern winds. Shrikes and hawks make their nests on ledges along the steep cliff walls, but little else can survive the wind and cold.
The lower forested elevations are more hospitable, providing a habitat for all manner of forest creatures such as the Parkasian wolf and several varieties of rabbit and deer. But there are areas within the forests of the southern mountains where, as in the Wolfsktaag, ancient magic and residuals of the Great Wars have pooled. These areas are home to shape-shifters and other creatures more of spirit and old magic than of flesh. The Rindge tribesmen avoid these areas of wilderness, for they have learned that the shape-shifters value their solitude and do not appreciate trespassers in their domain.
The entire range is cut by numerous valleys, carved out over thousands of years by rivers wearing through the rock on their way from the heights down to the sea. Many of these valleys are so deep and wide that rain forests have grown up in their humid depths. The largest and oldest of these valleys, nestled between the northern edge of the range and its heart, is called the Crake. Formed from the action of several large, slow streams, the Crake contains a dense, steamy rain forest cut off from the rest of the world by the mountains that encircle it. A thick canopy of jungle trees and vines covers most of the valley, obscuring the sunlight and limiting the plant growth on the valley floor.
Shape-Shifters
Shape-shifters are as much creatures of spirit as they are of flesh and bone. Born of Faerie magic, they can shape themselves to appear as anything—or as nothing at all. Some believe that their magic allows them to live on a plane slightly outside that of mortal senses. They are creatures of spirit energy and seem to be able to form that energy into any mold needed.
Preferring isolated wilderness areas, shape-shifters live in communal groups. There are strong indications that they can communicate with one another almost mind-to-mind, using a natural connection that binds all shape-shifters within a region. Those few who have chosen to show themselves to humans appeared either as large, powerful creatures only vaguely human in shape, or as formless specters resembling shades of the dead more than anything alive. If a shape-shifter decides to hide, nothing living can find it.
Unlike the barren mountains above, life within the Crake is abundant. Ferns of all types, sizes, and colors grow in thick profusion. All manner of insects from foot-long slugs to brilliantly colored butterflies feed on the plants, while brightly plumed birds feed on the insects and various animals feed on both.
Perhaps because of the relative isolation, within valleys like the Crake live creatures that exist nowhere else on the peninsula. The largest and most dangerous of these is the lizard-like creature natives call the Graak, which can grow to a height of over fifteen feet at the shoulder. Resembling a cross between a dragon and a lizard, the Graak is carnivorous and dominates the food chain of the jungle. Equipped with huge jaws of needle-sharp teeth, thick, crusted skin, and clusters of horns on its head and spine, it is a formidable predator. Its slick, mottled skin provides perfect camouflage for the shadowed depths of the rain forest, allowing it to blend seamlessly into its surroundings.
Despite relatively short, stubby legs, the quadruped Graak is capable of speeds in excess of that of a fast horse, even through dense jungle terrain. Once prey is cornered, powerful leg muscles and huge talons allow the Graak to lift onto its hind legs while slashing its prey with its forelimbs, though it usually prefers to grab smaller prey in its jaws, crushing them until it can suck the meat and fluids from their bones.
Graaks usually mate for life, but lay eggs only once or twice a decade, raising their young until they are old enough to fend for themselves. Once they reach adulthood, younger Graak usually leave to find their own mates and territories.
These great dragons were once the most feared predator in the region, but a new danger was unleashed by the Morgawr. Determined to capture Grianne Ohmsford and gain the magic of Antrax, the Morgawr used his dark magic to create cauls to hunt his human prey.
Cauls are natural creatures that have been forcibly transformed by magic into ferocious, magic-enhanced predators. The first caul in Parkasia was created by the Ilse Witch, who transformed a wolf into a Jachyra. Once she was no longer in a position to control it, it continued to mutate until it became much larger and developed poisonous venom. That caul went mad and tried to turn on its creator, only to be killed by Truls Rohk. While predatory animals are usually preferred as the basis for cauls because of their sharp natural instincts, the Morgawr used human prisoners, creating fearsome killers with monstrous wolf-like bodies and human cunning.
The Morgawr, Dark Power of Deceit
Mentor to the Ilse Witch, the Morgawr was a power-hungry warlock who used his dark magic for control and manipulation. Claiming to be related to the witch sisters of the Wilderun, the Morgawr more closely resembled a Mwellret and was most comfortable with them. While he had the ability to shape-change at will, his natural appearance was that of a large, scaled, reptilian humanoid.
The Morgawr, hungry for power, preferred to work in secret. He was responsible for kidnapping and subverting young Grianne Ohmsford, turning her into the Ilse Witch and manipulating her magic for his own purposes. He also arranged the rise of Sen Dunsidan to the position of Federation Prime Minister by murdering his rivals. He was the first magic user known to create cauls, an abomination of nature and magic, though he taught that skill to the Ilse Witch. Mwellrets served him willingly, but he controlled his human slaves by devouring their minds and souls, creating a force of mindless, walking dead.
The Morgawr was killed by the spirit of the keep on the island of Mephitic after a pitched battle with his former student, Grianne Ohmsford.
The Morgawr.
Once transformed, a caul retains the memory of its past life as well as the horrendous pain of the transformation. They are forever linked to their creator, but can be controlled only so long as that creator maintains the binding magic. Released from control, the caul will usually attempt to turn on its creator. Left on their own, cauls often continue to mutate, slowly going mad from the pain and the horror.
Some cauls remained when the Morgawr left Parkasia. Only time will show what damage they will do as they mutate and lose their minds.
The Jerle Shannara never penetrated beyond the Aleuthra Ark range, though its crew made tantalizing discoveries that hint of a broad new land beyond those so far discovered. One of the brave voyagers, the Dwarf Panax, remained behind to travel with the Rindge into the northern grasslands, choosing a life in the unknown wilds of Parkasia over the one he left behind. Perhaps in time, others may follow in his footsteps.
