The Labyrinth of Gorhad
"The darkest of all places" was built along with Gorhad, during the First Empire, as a network of connections between the patricians' houses and the imperial palace, it is built around a geometrical, regular core, but has soon met natural caves. Expanded on several levels as the years went by and plotting parties needed space for literally underground jobs, stirred up with subterranean temples of forbidden cults, Gumrach lairs, sewer tunnels, escape ways, it is today an endless place, on which most agree it is infested by dangerous animals, mysterious subterranean races, and monsters unseen elsewhere, and moreover spangled with ancient and recent traps. Some parts of it are fairly safe, and visited by curious and people in need of hiding, but the presence of shifting walls and secret passages makes it so that no place can be though of as isolated, or even as fixed. As most places alike, storytellers hold that scattered treasures from the throne strife before the ascent of Rayvin I still lie in the most secret recesses of the place; for sure there lay plenty of incautious adventurers' bones.
The Passage of Yot
It is a mountain passage, more suggestive than dangerous. Where the Fluctum Argenteum crosses the south-eastern mountain range to reach the sea, it digs there a deep and wide canyon; a road runs on the peaks over its side, and the river is wide and deep enough to allow the passage of ships. Between these two levels, there is a jump higher than 500 arms, and in the middle of it, small cavern openings dot the rocky walls, and staircases too tiny for a human foot reach up and down. The neighbouring mountains are reputedly the dwelling of an ancient race of gnomes, said once to trade and deal freely with men, and reduced now to scant and unsupported reports of a short, nimble shape peering from one of the caves.
The Castle of Neverterminus
The ruins of a huge castle with many layers of walls and countless little round towers, made all of a shiny white stone, are located on uneasily accessed peaks a little north-west of the Zendir mountain passage, from which it is visible in clear days. It was the luxurious dwelling place of Neverterminus, which chronicles call "an extremely powerful wizard", besieged and executed when sorcery was declared illegal by the emperor Septimius, not without a heavy toll in lives from the imperial army. Rumours tell the place is still full of magic, that it has intelligence on its own, and it will host friends in enchanted, luscious, perennial gardens, and perhaps let them take some of its masters' many treasures, while it will sow traps against the enemies. More reasonable voices instead say there is nothing in the plundered rooms, and that the inaccessible position and the dangerously crumbling walls make up for all of its abandonment.
The Cursed Forest
North-west of the lake of Zarvedi lies a huge, thick forest of enormous, ancient evergreen trees. This used to be the emperor's hunting ground before the Dark Age, but during that time, and the following war with the Gumrach, it fell into abandonment, and is now a dreaded place. No Driop lives in it, which is weird enough, but any kind of ferocious animal does. A few bears, boars and wolves live in its impenetrable depths, and they seem to be bigger, more intelligent than their normal counterparts, other than being uncommonly aggressive; furthermore, a large pack of scourges, gone wild countless years ago, seems to live there. But even small animals, such as badgers and adders can be dangerous encounter in this forest, whose vicinity seems to inspire nightmares to sleepers and a sense of impending danger to the wakeful. If these dangers can be defied by the strong and well-armed, others seem to be worse: the heart of the forest seems to be inhabited by the ghosts of ancient hunting parties, poachers and wardens. A few imperial hunting accomodations, probably still laden with some precious material, as well as some old paths are supposed to be still in the area, but nobody dares enter it nonetheless.