CH. 5.5 The Grand Atlas Vol. III – The Hollow Vein

The region now known as the Deadlands was once a flourishing kingdom at the height of magical innovation. Though its true name has been lost to time, fragmented Invoker records refer to it as "The Hollow Vein"—a site where part of the world's Pulse was catastrophically severed.

The Deadlands are not simply desolate—they are wounded. The terrain is scorched and fractured, incapable of sustaining conventional life. The air hangs heavy with an unnatural pressure, pressing into the lungs, making each breath feel borrowed. Boundaries of the region shift subtly over time, resisting efforts to map or contain it. Magical instrumentation becomes erratic or fails entirely within its borders.

Long ago, the kingdom that stood here was ruled by a conclave of Invokers who sought dominion over the very roots of Pulse—manipulating life, magic, and time itself. Their ambition culminated in a cataclysmic event: a surge of Pulse unlike any ever recorded, which consumed the kingdom in a single night. What followed was not simply death, but erasure.

What remains is a place stripped of natural rhythm—but not empty.

Reports confirm the existence of Pulse Eaters—grotesque entities born from the warped remains of the kingdom's final moments. These creatures are drawn to any source of living or magical energy, hunting relentlessly across the barren wastes. Descriptions vary, but common traits include distended limbs, malformed mouths, and translucent, vein-woven flesh that seems to shimmer with stolen Pulse.

These beasts do not merely kill—they drain. Magic, vitality, even memory, all siphoned into nothingness.