Table of Contents
The Road
This province gets its name from a small but important shard that was created when a Shadow Shard collided with a Material Shard to create a unique shard system. Because gravity is relative in the Aether, these two shards actually appear to be two sides of the same thirty-six mile wide body floating in the void. Both sides are connected by a cobblestone road that defies all the logic of gravity to run down one side and up the other connecting one shard to the other, which gives the body its name.
Two Elemental Shards, complete the shard system. A fire shard named Hatestar hangs above the Shadowfell city of Flaygallows, bathing it in warmth and brilliance. This ruined city has changed significantly since the Sundering, but the Shadar-Kai descendants of the refugees who put this shard back together have become capable if stoic farmers. Water flows from the far side of the shard like an M. C. Escher drawing to nourish the fertile farmland of this shard. The wealthy, urban denizens of Flaygallows clutch to the secrets kept beneath the restored finery of their city, even as they misunderstand its import from a previous age long forgotten.
On the other side of this shard, The Road is connected with a Material Shard named Nixheim that is frozen by the cold brilliance of a water shard called Meridian. Three villages of antagonistic barbarian clans live here, trading occasionally with the city on the far side of the shard. They fish in the monster-infested Great Alxfear Lake and tell ghost stories about the long-abandoned caves hidden in the cavities between the mighty peaks covered in snow. In one such cave complex, a Voidspan Gate has been discovered connecting The Road to Welmet. This allows the entire shard to sell raw materials and goods in a larger market, providing a measure of economic activity.
Other Shards
Other shards found in the frontier province of “The Road” include: