The Waste is the name given to what used to be the Northern Plains province of Cambria. Before the formation of
The Rift the area although sparsely populated was famed for its herds of wild horses and
aurochs. After The Rift formed the weird mists it spewed out tended to drift north with the prevailing winds and once
The Wall was completed most of the monsters that came up out of the chasm had little
choice but to head also in that direction.
It is said that five years after the Rift formed less than a third of the original population still lived
in The Waste. Little of those lived in the centre and south of the region, which was now a barren and dangerous area,
and even the horse herds and aurochs
that survived migrated north to seek shelter in the mountain valleys.
Since those days both the mists and the monsters only sporadically appear but the province has been vastly changed.
For one thing the King's Law no longer operates north of The Wall, Cambria having offically washed its hands of the
area. Such civilisation as there is is clustered around the western, eastern and northern borders of The Waste. A
number of villages in the west sit on the ancient Dwarven road from
Mountain Hall to
Pell's Hold and to these at least a modicum of prosperity has returned. The villages
in the northern foothills of the White Mountains are also surviving well. The villages on the eastern coast, however,
find life precarious with both the hazards of The Waste and the threat from
Reavers to concern them.
Such law as exists in The Waste is provided by the mayors of the villages, the Dwarves who patrol the roads that still
exist and organisations like the
North Star. There is little law, however, in those villages that still exist in
the interior of The Waste. These are populated by fugitives from Cambria and other kingdoms and hunters who pit their
wits against the aberrations of The Waste, hoping to make lucrative kills (there is a profitable illegal trade in exotic body parts
that are smuggled into Cambria). It is a dangerous trade - some find it easier to prey on the hunters rather than confront
the monsters of the wild.