Odus

The island of the Erudites

Odus launched with EverQuest in 1999 as the smallest of the three original continents. It is reached from Antonica only by sea: the ferry from Qeynos sails through Erud’s Crossing, the route the Great Erud took centuries ago, to the port of Erudin.

The Project 1999 Wiki tells why he came. Disgusted with the dissipation and bad manners of their fellow humans, Erud and his followers left Antonica for an island then home only to the Kerrans, a race of cat-people, and founded a city devoted to pure knowledge, academic, philosophical and arcane. Erud alone is credited with the city’s whole system of law, still in force more than a thousand years later.

Sources: Project 1999 Wiki: Erudin · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Erud’s Crossing · Allakhazam: Erud’s Crossing (zone)

Erudin

Erudin is a quiet, practical city built around its library, which the EQ Atlas calls the greatest store of knowledge among the good races. Its paladins serve Prexus as the Deepwater Knights and its clerics Quellious in the Temple of Divine Light. The palace holds the towers of the three magical schools, the Craftkeepers, Gatecallers and Crimson Hands.

The P99 Wiki records the legends of the Erudites’ looks: some say Quellious darkened their skin against the island sun and enlarged their minds, others give the skin to Prexus, and some say they were always a separate race. Erud’s own records are silent.

Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Erudin · Allakhazam: Erudin Palace (zone) · Project 1999 Wiki: Erudin

Toxxulia and Kerra Isle

Behind Erudin lies Toxxulia Forest, which covers most of Odus. A river divides it: Erudite newcomers hunt the north, while kobolds and necromancers hold the south. Kobolds from the nearby Warrens keep the Erudites in what Allakhazam calls a constant state of battle.

West across a narrow channel is Kerra Isle, home of the Kerrans, peaceful until provoked. The P99 Wiki notes that the Erudites treat them as animals and have stolen Kerran artifacts. Toxxulia and Kerra Isle were remade and merged into one zone in 2007, with The Buried Sea.

The forest is gentle by Norrath’s standards. The EQ Atlas finds it quiet and safe north of the river, with too few wanderers to get a newcomer killed easily, and warns only against going below the bridge before about fourth level. It also has druid and wizard portals, so Odus is not quite as cut off as the ferry makes it seem. The one local the Atlas could not forgive is Rungupp, who out-healed a whole group of 11th-level characters and then simply vanished from the zone.

Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Toxxulia Forest · Allakhazam: Toxxulia Forest 2.0 (zone) · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Kerra Isle · Project 1999 Wiki: Kerra Isle (faction)

The Heretics

The peace ended with Miragul. The P99 Wiki tells how he and his followers took up necromancy and the worship of Cazic-Thule, were named Heretics by the High Council, and began a civil war. Driven south, they suffered a single concentrated blast of Erudite magic that threw a great piece of Odus into space and, by the same account, carried a whole tribe of Kerrans to the moon of Luclin; the moon’s cat-people are told of in the Vah Shir.

In the chasm the blast made, the Heretics built a city, opened a way to the Underfoot by accident, and were nearly destroyed by its elementals. They rebuilt closer to the surface as Paineel, hidden in the hills on Odus’s southern edge, where they walk among their animated dead. Erudin and Paineel have kept a brooding stalemate ever since. The whole story is in Erudin, Paineel and the Hole.

Sources: Project 1999 Wiki: Paineel · Project 1999 Wiki: Erudin · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Paineel

Under Paineel

The Hole, Old Paineel, lies below the city: a ruin taken by elementals and the minions of Brell Serilis under Master Yael, who guards a locked door at the bottom. Allakhazam dates it to June 22, 2000, in the Kunark era, and notes that the long rumour of a way into the Underfoot is a rumour no longer.

Off Paineel’s newbie area, the kobolds of Clan Kolbok hold the Warrens, a low-level hunting ground for all of Odus added in March 2001. At their far end the kobolds broke through into the Stonebrunt Mountains, a huge southern range where the cat-like Kejekans rule from their fort on Mount Klaw, among pandas, tigers and the swift giant creatures called the Ancients.

Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): The Hole · Allakhazam: Ruins of Old Paineel 2.0 (The Hole) (zone) · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): The Warrens · Allakhazam: The Warrens (zone) · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Stonebrunt Mountains · Allakhazam: Stonebrunt Mountains (zone)

Erud’s Crossing

The strait between the continents is a zone of its own. Its one island, at the ferry’s halfway point, is small and dangerous: Kerrans who protect the island’s beetles, spiders that swarm together, wisps, madmen, fire elementals from a volcano, and zombie sailors from a sunken ship. The EQ Atlas warns that it is often mistaken for Kerra Isle, which it is not, and that there is nowhere to flee.

Paineel’s people have the hardest journey off the island: to reach Antonica they must pass through Erudin, whose citizens hunt them.

Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Erud’s Crossing · Project 1999 Wiki: Erud’s Crossing · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Paineel

About the map

The map is an original illustration. Each zone’s place comes from the directions in its EQ Atlas and Allakhazam texts, and the layout was checked by eye against the game’s own maps; nothing was traced or copied.

Erudin stands on the north coast of Odus facing Erud’s Crossing and Antonica, with Toxxulia Forest behind it, Kerra Isle off the west coast, Paineel on the forest’s southern edge, the Warrens in the island’s heart and Stonebrunt along the southern and eastern coast. Leaving Odus is less simple than arriving: the P99 Wiki notes that the ferry to Qeynos never docks in Erudin but waits offshore, so travellers take a shuttle out from the docks.

Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Erudin · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Toxxulia Forest · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Kerra Isle · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Paineel · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): The Warrens · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Stonebrunt Mountains · Project 1999 Wiki: Erudin