Tortured Land

The Tortured Land, also called the Tortured Lands, was a barren area in the northernmost Moonsea region.

Geography
It lay beyond the Moonsea, north of the Ride and just below the southern edge of the Great Glacier, west of the northern Galena Mountains and east of Anauroch and the northern tip of the Border Forest. There was no clear border with Anauroch; only where the plants ended and bare rock began marked where one had left the Tortured Land.

The landscape was formed from lava flows left by ancient volcanic eruptions that were then carved by flowing glacial ice. Scattered around were weird stone pillars and rock formations, which were smoothed by the wind into natural sculptures, with jagged parts where bits broke off. There was also ice, similarly wind-carved.

Flora & Fauna
The Tortured Land was much more moist than the desert of Anauroch, permitted a lot more plants to grow.

There were small prey animals and strangely shaped and savage monsters. The only other inhabitants seemed to be the bats that laired in the few caves of the area.

Inhabitants
Few outsiders went into the Tortured Land, and fewer still lingered there long enough to explore, let alone map it. It was believed to be a cold and harsh wasteland of rampaging monsters.

History
Circa, a dwarf clan dwelling here declined to join a dwarven war party in raiding peaceful settlements of the Border Forest. Convicted as traitors by their kin, they were exiled from the Tortured Land and migrated north onto the Great Glacier. After a year-long journeyed, they settled in Novularond, but only four members of the clan had survived. They went on to found the Innugaakalikurit clan, the modern-day arctic dwarves.

During the Era of Upheaval the majority of the Tortured Land was occupied by flind-led gnoll tribes. The ruins of a forgotten city known as Frozen Flindyke to bards, could have once been a bastion of civilization for these gnolls in times past or could have been the home of a settlement of humans, surrounded by the gnolls. The truth was lost to the sands of time but the shamans of Yeenoghu who ruled over the gnolls and flinds were said to have been descended from those who summoned the Trio Nefarious that aided in the fall of Myth Drannor.