Necrotic Zone

The Necrotic Zone is a region of Half-Haul Canal which is home to many communities of necromancers founded during the Long Night.

History

During the Long Night, Samuel Fate had the city of Cannath razed and sought to exterminate anyone living on the island chain of Half-Haul Canal. Exactly how effective this pogrom was is unknown, but it is generally recognized that by the early True Night the region was entirely uninhabited save possibly for a few isolated groups who had regressed to the status of hunter-gatherer tribes.

In about A.D. 2000, Necromancers fleeing the worst of Samuel Fate's aggression began to re-settle the region. They mostly settled on the previously uninhabited souther-western-most shore. Because necromancers naturally prefer to live underground, they found it easy to adapt to living in secret, and eventually built a vast network of caves and tunnels, all hidden from the surface where they grew food and fished for sustenance. It is known from records of the time that Fate was aware "something" was happening on Half-Haul Canal, but as expedition after expedition failed to locate anyone to be killed, it was eventually ignored.

By the end of the Long Night, dozens of distinct temples existed in the area and had been around for over 1,000 years.

When the Age of the New Day began, nearby Sun's Beacon quickly rose to prominence. Despite Fate's many efforts, Sun's Beacon was never really abandoned, and rapidly became the dominant power in the region. One of the first projects once a functional government was re-asserted was to gain control of the valuable anchorage at Half-Haul Canal. The grievances went back as far as the Mage Wars, where Sun's Beacon and Cannath fought bitterly. During the Alliance era, Cannath took valuable shipping from Sun's Beacon, as it provided a more useful stop-over for long-distance trade. The Beacon, eager to avoid a repeat of this, effectively claimed the uninhabited islands of Half-Haul for themselves.

This then led to some concern when the thriving Necromancer communities were discovered in the souther-western regions. They occupied an area of the island with then little economic or military value, and provided a valuable supply of food to the workers looking to rebuild Cannath as a vassal state of Sun's Beacon. Fortunately, the matter was easily resolved by the establishment of the New Day Allaince under Conri Jusenkyou. Effectively, the necromancers were granted eternal rights to their land, citizenship under Sun's Beacon's charter, and everyone was quite happy with the arrangement. Some further negotiations were made a few decades later that granted the temples stewardship over most of the southern island's landmass in order to prevent resource exploitation and preserve the pristine jungles.

By about the end of the first century N.D., Cannath was a thriving port city, while the necromancers maintained watch over a vibrant jungle. Locals from Cannath often traveled out to the temples as guests to explore the jungles and avail themselves of the lush black sand beaches.

The Necrotic Zone

During the early negotiations over the land, the area was called simply "The Necromancer Temple Zone" because it was shared by 13 distinct temples each either various offshoots. This was colloquially shortened to "The Necrotic Zone". The locals in Cannath, many of whom vacationed there or visited on weekends, coined the term and it stuck. The title was not meant to be derissive, indeed residents of Cannath always spoke very highly of the necromancers who lived there. "Going to the Necrotic Zone" even became local slang for taking a much-needed vacation. Quite a lot of jokes abounded in Cannath about being "dead(tired) from work and going to the Necrotic Zone to get raised up".

In the first decades of the second century N.D., the first formal resorts opened up. These were simple affairs, businesses started up by the temples in order to bring in revenue. By then the populations of necromancers had outgrown what they could feed through primitive farming methods, and they were eager to get modern medicine and education for their children. Most of the early resorts were very rustic, little beach cottages with no amenities, and communal meals. As more money came in, the temples invested in continually improving accommodations, and by the mid second-century controlled a thriving network of popular resorts.

In the New Day era, the southwestern-most shore of the main island is rather derisively called "the necrotic zone". This name is owed to the large number of Necromancer resorts that effectively control some of the best beach-front property in the region. Though most of the beaches on Half-Haul canal are good, the ones in that area are noteworthy for the especially fine volcanic black sands, preferential weather, and a host of other factors.

The resorts are of course open to anyone willing to pay the fee, and outsiders are not intentionally excluded. It happened that, during the later stages of the Long Night, the first people to re-settle Half-Haul Canal were necromancers. They built a number of rock-cut temples according to specific astrological alignments in the volcanic cliffs overlooking the beaches. The people of these temples lived and farmed on the slopes and fished off the beaches. When the New Day Alliance was founded and formal governance brought to the island, the land officially became the property of the temples.

With Half-Haul Canal poised to regain its position as an important hub of commerce, the region was again an excellent site for tourism. The temples opened to the public, and the beach became home to many all-inclusive resorts. They were of course built and owned by necromancers, and catered primarily to necromancers; but outsiders were welcome as their money folded just like anyone elses. Though not popular for long stays with non-necromancers, no one has ever reported feeling unwelcome in The Necrotic Zone.