Welcome to the Shroud. The Shroud is the first of One Bad Egg’s Worldseeds™ line, designed for use in your Dungeons & Dragons 4^th Edition games. (Learn More About Worldseeds™)

A Land Shrouded in Evil

Not long ago, in the once-frozen North, beneath vast glaciers that covered the ground, a single chasm—miles across, countries long—opened to swallow the ice, taking small tribal villages with it. Shortly after, a strange and dire mist billowed forth—the ice, melted and transformed into fog, warm and fetid. In time, the fog covered all of the northern lands and came to be known as the Shroud.

At first, it was merely the unshakable warmth that the Shroud brought that troubled the North. Unable to handle such a change, choked off from exposure to the sun, many crops began to die (to this day, the cuisine of the North is now characterized by fungus and root vegetables). Famine broke out among those kingdoms too slow to adapt. Even the strange spirit-speaking tribes of the Ghostcrag Peaks, usually quite insular, came down from their fastnesses in search of food and other things, the Shroud reaching high enough to smoke them out of their homes.

But that was only the beginning. Babes born after the Shroud came developed odd appearances—milky skin, pale eyes, strange auras. Newborn snow-apes of the surrounding forest developed a frightening new intelligence—and then learned speech from the neighboring race. These races are now known collectively as the Shroudborn, and at times develop strange gifts tinged by touch of death.

Other animals also changed suddenly, unpredictably, giving rise to monsters seemingly part flesh, part spectre. But worst of all, in thawing graveyards throughout the North, the dead began to rise and walk.

Hidden by fog, the growing undead presence in Shroudlands cannot be estimated with any accuracy. But it is they that can make an entire town vanish overnight, leaving only the echoes of unheard screams lingering in the air. It is they that seek out ancient burial sites that they might visit some fresh corruption upon the noble spirits there entombed. It is they that build their barges of bone and sinew and ride down the stinking, meltwater-swollen Dusken River, to make war on southern lands.

(The Dusken is no longer the main artery of trade—instead, it is a cancerous heart pumping poison into the land. Down in the Lich Field delta where the river spreads out like a grasping hand, the Poison Gulf births milk-eyed krakens that plague the seas beyond.)

But that is far away from the Shroud, where many more dead yet walk and never set foot on their barges of death. Much of the walking dead are brainless, but too many of the rest have a lively, evil intellect that they turn toward dark purposes. It is some small mercy that none of them have devised a common scheme that would unite them in a single, vile purpose—much like the living, they too are locked in squabbles of their own, rife with infighting over their own set of scarce resources. Though whatever stirs in the darkest depths of the great rift may have ideas of its own…

The Shroud: Our First Worldseed™

Every year, more and more of the land crumbles and collapses into the ground, revealing vast, sudden canyons. The bravest souls among us must face the dangers rising from beneath their feet, now wakening from their ancient slumber. In this new, dying world, you don’t invade the dungeon—the dungeon invades you.

The world is an angry ant-hill kicked over by the boots of the gods. Beneath the ground lie the hidden places, teeming with life and unlife none too happy to have their roof coming down around their ears. Old dungeons, hidden lairs, and buried cities now find their treasures laid bare to the avarice of the surface-dwellers—and find a rapacious greed of their own in the opportunities for fresh plunder now available topside.

Everywhere, kingdoms fall and wars break out as once-mighty realms discover their farmlands have just disappeared into the hungry ground. The land has been forever changed—but there is no place in all the world more changed than the North.

It is this place, the lands of the Shroud, where we first focus our attention. Over the course of the next several months, we’ll reveal the races, abilities, creatures, artifacts, and locales of the Shroud and the Shroudborn—but as noted, we’ll be leaving plenty of room for you to make it your own. Among the products you’ll be seeing:

- Races of the Shroud: The Apelord
- Witch Doctors of the Ghostcrag (New Player Class)
- Races of the Shroud: The Shroudborn
- Friends & Foes of the Shroud: Shrouded Agendas
- River of Death
- And more!

Join us! With the land’s very future shrouded in mystery, who will summon the courage to bring order to the madness? Who will venture into the depths of the cracked-open earth, seeking fame and fortune? Who will search for the cause of the Shroud and quest for a solution?

You will.