May 2025 Newsletter

Much of the Southern Province is rocky and inhospitable, separated by the Dothspire Mountains from the dense woodland and verdant fields which cover the rest of the island. But no area is more hostile and unyielding than the tortured expanse called the Screaming Wastes.

Stalking the shattered landscape, twisted beasts prowl among canyons and colossal, humming crystals. Their roars are drowned out by the howling winds that tear through the jagged formations, creating the unearthly resonance for which the region is named.

Do you want to see your homebrew, unique monster during your adventures in Tidefall?

We are asking the community to design a monster that will stalk the Screaming Wastes. Read on or visit our website to find out more. As ever, drop questions and discussion on discord, we’d love to chat about your ideas and get involved in your creative process!

Enter the competition here

Extract from Volume III (Sarnath) – Chapter VI (The Screaming Wastes)

…Southeast from the hinterlands around Sarnath city proper, and beyond the Sarn Valley, you will likely crest a low hill. From there, a pallid landscape unfolds. Mesas wind through the silty haze…

…Your throat will catch as you breathe this air, for it is thick with salt and grit. You may begin to hear screaming, punctuated only by beasts calling their dangerous—and yet, at least, natural—sounds…

…The very ground shakes and hums. This effect is more pronounced in some areas than others, but it is said that figures form as the wind sweeps up the dust into human shapes. Word is that where the tower shells kiss the sky and the stony faces are angled right, a great thumping heart will come alive. At these moments, between the screams, you might hear words—true words, begging and pleading. Ghosts gather there, where it hums.

At night, the place comes alive with eerie lights as the blitspar pillars—huge glassy stones, both floating in the air and studded in the ground and mountainsides—flash with a faint light. Mostly these shimmer blues and purples but sometimes they shine like stars. In such moments, it is like the night above has come to earth. Constellations glow around you.

You have abandoned all hope, you arrogant traveller, for you have taken the first steps down from your hill and into the Screaming Wastes…

On Climate

…There is only one agreed-upon truth about the Screaming Wastes. The place is named because the persistent wind sounds like countless souls yelling in pain. An army in perpetual agony. A civilisation, tortured, and bringing that torture to all—even the deaf, who it is known can hear this horrid noise in their blood and marrow. You cannot block out this sound. Babies’ cries, it is said, split the groaning. The Wastes scream and you will know this…

…As to why the Wastes scream, this is not known. Many suspect it is the strange blitspar crystals, resonating with the wind. Certainly these do not float suspended and spinning as they do anywhere else on the Island. I have heard a wise man from Riverton say the awful beasts themselves release a scream like the gas from cheap coal. He claimed to have learnt this in Furrodir. In Eftwade, the rumour is that a regional coven casts their enemies there, binding sacrificed spirits to some planar rift. Some link this to the humming places, which resonate with a live, fundamental force. The grit trembles and bounces and travellers grow weak. One famous song declares that this is the last gasp from creation, and the screaming is in truth much more eldritch, deific, even, and that it hurts mortals because we are not meant to listen.

This final explanation has been used to explain another pilgrim group, the so-called Storm Worshippers. These zealots are secretive. It is harder than with the goblins to understand their reasons for making such a passage, but that they are mad, and perhaps attracted to the screams. I did not cover them under customs for there are none, only rumours. The rumours a traveller might hear include that three Storm Worshippers wise, cunning, and holy folk roam the Screaming Wastes, and have done for many centuries before the Storm, dispensing arcane knowledge to those who make the journey. I have heard this explanation made to overlap with the reason for the goblin pilgrimages. Likewise, in the Scourge of Eldor Wood, the Velorian Cycle author implies that the Golden Host got lost in Eldor Wood and followed the distant screams, leading them to the Wastes, where they died. I include this only because antique arms and armours, defaced coins, and jewels have been retrieved from the Wastes. Whether they are even human in make is unlikely, though…