Velious · The Scars of Velious
The Eastern Wastes
The Eastern Wastes are a vast frozen tundra over the northeast of Velious, crowded with Coldain dwarves, frost giants and the orcs of Ry’Gorr Keep, and crossed by everyone heading deeper into the continent.
A crowded tundra
The EQ Atlas describes a great sweep of frozen ground covering much of the northeast. Allakhazam fills in the shape: in the east a large ice bridge, the Great Span, links the wastes to the islands of the Iceclad Ocean; in the northwest a break in the mountains leads to the Great Divide; Kael Drakkel, the giants’ city, sits in the southwest; and a dragonhead portal to Sleeper’s Tomb stands in the south.
Many factions share this cold. Allakhazam lists a frost giant fort and a few Coldain outposts, and the Ry’Gorr orc clan, well established with a large fort and several outlying camps.
Sources: Allakhazam: Eastern Wastes (zone) · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Eastern Wastes
The dangers of open ground
The Atlas warns that for frozen tundra the zone is swarming with life that has adapted to the weather: mammoths, woolly rhinos, walruses, kodiaks, dervishes, manticores and snow griffins among them. The broken surface makes the open plain risky, because monsters wander into fights, and almost every creature except the Coldain will attack outlanders on sight.
Against that, the Atlas lists plenty of smaller places to hunt in a controlled way: the Coldain huts, the giant fort and Ry’Gorr Keep. It expected the wastes to become a very popular zone thanks to their size and variety, with monsters it rates from about 30 to 50.
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Eastern Wastes · Allakhazam: Eastern Wastes (zone)
Ry’Gorr Keep and the caverns
The orcs’ keep hides the way underground. At its back end, the Atlas says, is a small hut holding a teleporter shaped like a snowball, which leads to the Crystal Caverns, the old Coldain home now held mostly by the Ry’Gorr. The names the Atlas records here, Chief Ry’Gorr, the Glacierbane brothers, Firbrand the Black and Warden Bruke, show how many sides are fighting over the same snow.
The Coldain in the wastes are the outer guard of Thurgadin; see the Coldain of Thurgadin for their long war with the giants.
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Eastern Wastes · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Crystal Caverns · Allakhazam: Eastern Wastes (zone)
Ways in and out
The Atlas gives two common routes. One is to cross the Great Span from the Icy Fingers. The other runs far to the west, through a narrow pass into the Great Divide. Kael Drakkel opens from the southwest of the zone.
Allakhazam’s list of neighbours adds the caverns and Sleeper’s Tomb, the prison of Kerafyrm. The Project 1999 Wiki agrees on the Iceclad Ocean, the Great Divide, Kael Drakkel, the Crystal Caverns and the tomb.
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Eastern Wastes · Allakhazam: Eastern Wastes (zone) · Project 1999 Wiki: Eastern Wastes
Lore tied to this zone
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Eastern Wastes · Allakhazam: Eastern Wastes (zone) · Project 1999 Wiki: Eastern Wastes