Once a great island nation, Phorasmos has long since fallen into ruin and neglect. A wretched curse permeates the land, and now the only beings that dare make it their permanent home are the mad specters of those who have died upon its shores.

Phorasmos is an isle shrouded in mystery and misfortune. Much of its history, culture, and language has been lost to time, what little that any can recall only having been passed down through the ages via legend and superstition. Tales there are, however, and the enduring myth has led mostly to its abandonment. For some foolish few, however, the promise of wealth, knowledge, and power are too enticing to stay away. Indeed, some hear the tale and heed the call of the Charnel City.

Untold centuries ago, Phorasmos was believed to have been a thriving population center, home to some of the brightest theurges in Arethil's history. Divine and arcane magics pervaded the island and its grand city, the practitioners of both studying in harmony and working towards the advancement of their home. For an era, it was good. But the Phorasi people could seemingly never be satisfied. For the mages and priests of Phorasmos, reality's limitations existed to be broken, and there was no greater limit upon mortals than death.

No one knows for certain what foul rituals the theurges of Phorasmos performed in their misguided attempts to transcend life and death. What is known is the fallout...their self-wrought punishment. An incurable curse fell upon the land. While animals were spared, any person to perish within the borders of the island had their soul wrenched from their corpse and trapped upon the material plane. Such stranded souls are immediately driven to murderous madness. Mainlanders tell tales that nearly the entire population of Phorasmos was wiped out in a single, cataclysmic night.

Phorasmos is a relatively small isle off the southwestmost coast of Malakath. The climate ranges from temperate to cool, and heavy wind and rain often batter the rolling hills and harsh crags. The sun shines rarely, but the long grasses and legumes that cover the land flourish well under such conditions.

Mostly mundane wildlife populates the isle in small, scattered pockets. This includes deer, boar, bighorn sheep, wolves, various water fowl, birds of prey, small perching birds, frogs, and a quite large species of salamander thought to be an extremely distant relative of Thanasian dragons. More aberrant beasts inhabiting Phorasmos are rare, but not unheard of.

The once proud and sprawling capital of Phorasmos. Its towering spires stretch into the skyline, looming so high that the city can be seen from any coast on the island. Moss and ivy creep from the moat at the city’s edges, attempting to reclaim the structures even as the spirits that haunt the interior cause such plant life to wither with their very presence. The sheer scale of the forsaken metropolis is a testament to the knowledge and might of the bygone Phorasi people. Some eldritch, arcane power courses the edifices, allowing them to stay standing for the millenia they’ve been abandoned, despite their dilapidated appearance.

Visitors to the Isle of Phorasmos call the city Obelus. Whether purposefully expunged or erased by the nature of the curse the Phorasi brought upon themselves, the true name of the ancient metropolis has been lost to time. “Obelus” was chosen to serve as a reminder of its nature, a place of desolation and death.

The ruins of Obelus are rich with secrets and ancient artifacts of the Phorasi, waiting to be claimed by those foolhardy enough to brave its terrors. However, such treasures lie among the homes of the revenants. To walk within Obelus is to curse your own soul to haunt its unhallowed towers for eternity.

The only notable forest on the island, most often referred to simply as "The Pines." While, strangely enough, revenants seem to actively avoid entering the forest of twilight, that does not mean it significantly less dangerous than Obelus itself. All sense of direction is lost within its boughs, a permanent fog hangs over it, and light barely penetrates within. Some of the island's more bizarre and monstrous fauna are believed to dwell within.

Despite its danger, the spiritsmiths consider the Pines to be sacred. At the heart of the forest lays the hallowed Pool of Remembrance, one of the most treasured relics of Phorasi culture.

While Phorasmos is a dangerous place in general, it is not without its sanctuaries. Revenants rarely travel to the farthest edges of the island, making the borders much safer than the interior. A few hallowed sanctuaries remain as well, scattered here and there, brimming with fading theurgic wards that keep the revenants at bay. And of course, the last, small bastion of the living on Phorasmos: Parumora.

Parumora is naught but a small village constructed around the dilapidated remains of a temple. It lies near a beachhead on the eastern edge of the island, just far enough off the beach that it isn't built atop sand, yet as far as possible from Obelus. The spiritsmiths are the primary inhabitants of Parumora, and they are ever vigilant in maintaining the sacred wards that protect it from Phorasmos' foul spirits.

When the ships that travel between Phorasmos and Malakath's mainland make shore upon the island, it is here that visitors make their stays. Parumora is small and reminiscent of a monastery but it contains most everything the smiths need, including their forges. What the spiritsmiths cannot obtain locally, they trade for with merchants that regularly stop through.

Those who walk the Isle of Phorasmos are few and far between. It is a dangerous place, best viewed from the safety of a ship off of its coast. The undead are the primary inhabitants, but there are some who still live and choose to visit anyways.

The name given to the mad spirits of Phorasmos by those who have visited its shores.

Revenants are a violent form of ghost, capable of quick movement and intangibility. Like many ghostly entities, they can phase through most solid objects and can float weightlessly through the air. Revenants instinctively hunt living, sapient beings and attack them. When a revenánt makes contact with a living sapient’s heart, they cause that heart to seize, generally killing the individual and creating another revenánt in the process. A revenánt can still cause massive cardiac damage simply by making contact with any other part of an individual’s circulatory system.

The more powerful the individual was in life, the more powerful the revenánt they leave behind. All revenants are extremely quick, dangerous, and unpredictable, but some are aberrant and possess strange abilities that the others do not. Categorizing subtypes of revenants has proven difficult, as generally those who have gotten close enough to study a revenánt do not survive very long.

While revenants display an active hatred towards people, most generally ignore fauna, drawn instead to the unhallowed halls of Obelus. Recently, visitors to the isle have reported seeing some revenants stalking and supposedly attempting to "inhabit" fauna, but this is as of yet unsubstantiated.

Exceedingly rare spirit entities, numbering in perhaps only a few handfuls across all of Phorasmos' history. While the circumstances of their condition varies widely, the result is the same: aberrants are resistant to the curse that rules the revenants, becoming corrupted by madness very slowly instead of immediately.

Very little has been written of aberrant spirits in the records of the spiritsmiths. They known to be intelligent and often reclusive, avoiding both living people and revenants. Despite this, the spiritsmiths have developed many superstitions around the entities and believe them to be just as dangerous, if not moreso, than their maddened kin.

Still, with such power granted to the aberrants by their undead state and with them maintaining their intelligence, it is not fully understood what these unique spirits might be capable of.

The last permanent, living inhabitants of Phorasmos, spiritsmiths live their lives cloaked in reverence and tradition. They are enigmatic figures that believe their life's work to be a solemn duty.

Spiritsmithing is a truly ancient art, believed to draw its origins to the first few years following the tragic fall of Phorasmos. The craft is one of the few things related to the isle that has survived the centuries of desolation, likely discovered by some of the few Phorasi craftsmen who evaded extinction. While the Phorasi themselves are wholly extinct now, the tradition of spiritsmithing still survives. The art was coined after the similarly named magical devices, spirit vessels.

Spirit vessels are magical devices that trap a soul within upon the body’s expiry. If a soul is contained within a spirit vessel, even on Phorasmos, the soul will not go mad nor turn into a revenant. Not immediately, at least. Spirit vessels can take many shapes, but most commonly take the forms of gemstones, amulets, or pottery.

The spiritsmiths themselves are rare, talented blacksmiths that have passed down the art of incorporating spirit vessels into their creations. It was the spiritsmiths who crafted the very first suit of ghost mail armor, armor that uses a soul trapped within a spirit vessel to enhance and protect the wearer.

Ghost mail is capable of warding off the incorporeal attacks of a revenant and, in some cases, imbuing the wearer with supernatural powers. The most common and generic ability rendered unto the wearer is enhanced strength and speed.

Alas, for all the benefits provided by the early use of ghost mail, it had a critical flaw: after only a short span of time, the soul within the spirit vessel would succumb to the madness of the revenants and kill the person inside the armor. For many generations, the practice of forging ghost mail was abandoned, and much of the ancient knowledge of the spiritsmiths was lost alongside the rest of Phorasmos’ secrets.

It was only within the last generation that the practice was rediscovered, and the key to resolving its critical flaw brought to light. The soul infusing the armor and the person wearing it needed to be in tune. To the shock of many, the crucial element to preventing the spirit from going mad was love. A bond shared between spirit and bearer could extend beyond the barrier of life and death, extending the time it takes for the madness of Phorasmos to infect the soul within the spirit vessel. Furthermore, the armor’s bearer could complete a ritual, usually involving a practice the soul and bearer liked to share in life, to calm the soul and extend its sanity possibly indefinitely. The bond between bearer and soul even grants the bearer more powerful abilities than the more basic original ghost mail could.

Obviously, for one to acquire a proper set of ghost mail, one must lose a loved one and have been near enough to them to trap their soul within a spirit vessel when they died. Those that bear this new ghost mail and use it to delve into the ruins of Phorasmos have come to be called Mourners. They are those that have lost that which is most important in life, yet persist on, purging aberrant undeath from the world and accruing wealth and knowledge for those foolish enough to seek Phorasmos’ horrors.

Of course, this is still not perfect. Ghost mail is not impervious, either; enough of a sustained assault from one or more revenants can overwhelm its ethereal defenses, leaving the bearer vulnerable. Physical damage to the armor or spirit vessel can also cause a “leak” that could compromise the contained soul. A Mourner needs to know the limits of their armor and allow a spiritsmith to maintain it.

The spiritsmiths engage in many near-religious practices to ensure their continued survival, as well as to aid the Mourners in their journeys. Some of those are listed here.

Perhaps the most simple and sought after of all the rites of the spiritsmiths, and the main reason why many choose to brave the island's dangers, even at the relative safety of its outskirts. The Ritual of Rest is a simple funeral rite, performed to ensure that a soul finds peace within the afterlife. While it does not serve any practical purpose for those who have perished on Phorasmos, it prevents the spirits of those who have died elsewhere from lingering in this world and wards necromantic magics from reanimating the body.

This ritual presents an alternative course to those who wish to become Mourners, but whose loved one did not pass away upon Phorasmos' shores. It is similar to the Ritual of Rest, but instead of ushering the spirit it is focused on to the afterlife, those involved with the ritual instead beseech the recently deceased spirit for aid.

If the spirit is willing, the spiritsmiths can bind it to a spirit vessel, allowing for a new suit of ghost mail to be crafted. The rate of success on this ritual is extremely slim, despite its seeming perks over the "traditional" method of binding, and the bond between the Mourner and their spirit is often much weaker than it would be, resulting in a less stable suit of mail. The longer the amount of time has passed between the commencement of the Ritual of Calling and the subject's death, the lower the odds of the ritual working.

This is the rite of passage for any newly initiated Mourner. While proper armor is key to surviving the attacks of revenants, protection does little if the Mourner cannot fend off their assailants. However, no ordinary weapon can harm a revenant. While some warriors may choose to bring weapons capable of destroying ghosts with them from the outside world, most Mourners instead participate in this rite.

The Mourner neophyte selects an armament they feel comfortable with and are given guidance by a spiritsmith in navigating to the heart of the Twilight Pines. The Mourner must reflect upon the nature of life and death as they walk the woods and take care not to rush their pace. Should they be worthy, the Mourner will find the Pool of Remembrance.

At the sacred pool, the neophyte must kneel and offer a prayer to an ancestor, and swear to aid the raging souls trapped on Phorasmos in finding peace, all while soaking their chosen weapon within the pool's waters.

Should all go well, the weapon will be infused with hallowed magic, enchanting it into a state that will allow it to purge the maddened dead: a Requiem Weapon.

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