• From the author Wolfsinn -

In the mid Crown's land along the ruin of the old trade road lies a city which was once the central point where land, river, and sea trade came together. In it's glory days it boasted a huge population of men, supported a vast army, and powerful merchant guild houses. It stood for hundreds of years built up upon its humble origin of a river trading post. Wares came to it from all over the world, though in particular Terrac, the empire of riches which lay across the sea.

There are few places known in the old kingdoms that rivaled this city in terms of architecture, size, or cultural diversity. It was also one of the places in the old kingdoms where the learning of magickal studies were tolerated. All that changes after three seasons of progressively worse drought across the midland region. The river from which the majority of the inner kingdoms' trade flowed became stagnant at first, and then stopped flowing all together.

From those days forth the glamor of the city began to diminish and they did not stop. The river's death was followed by the catastrophe of the broken sea. Those great merchant guild palaces built up like miniature fortresses were abandoned one by one as both river and sea trade came to a complete halt. Desperation ruled the street, with many foreigners unable to return home and many destitute natives without means to support themselves tore at one another for survival.

Though in the past this city had known many different names in the tongues of it's inhabitants, those names are all but forgotten and it colloquially known as Dead River. Where the mighty river that once fed it has all but disappeared from the land scape, the city was built around and within the river, channeling it through its many channels and aqueducts in what has become a ghost of that water way's memory. The bones of the old city raise up from these empty canyons, and the darkened tunnels extend into places long forgotten by light.

The ruin is also called Dead River in association with the ghouls thought to haunt the vast uninhabited city and the nearby island ruins. The only living habitation remains inn houses and villages that service the trade road which never comes closer to the city than the great overlook from which its carcass can be viewed and the broken sea beyond. To them the old city is a place of dread from which curses and hungry dead things occasionally creep out from and unwary travelers sometimes disappear into.

I rarely do landscape digital art, so this was an opportunity to try it out.

A commission done for Wolfsinn. By far the most extensive digital art project I've done to date.

Original idea and sketch © Wolfsinn