**Type:** Mystic / Weird Site **Region:** Deadwood Periphery **Current State:** Haunted grassland --- ## Overview The **Lantern Wastes** are a broad expanse of flat grassland, unbroken by tree or hill, where ghostly lights drift in patterned trails across the night. Travelers describe the lights as **lantern flames**—pale blue, green, or amber—that hover chest-high and move with uncanny precision, weaving together like dancers across the plain. The Wastes are both feared and revered. Some treat them as a place of omen, where the dead send warnings. Others avoid them entirely, believing the lights to be soul-traps that lure mortals toward the Deadwood. --- ## Appearance - **Landscape:** Flat, endless grassland with soil black as ash. No natural landmarks break the horizon. - **Lights:** Lantern-like flames appear after sunset, never in daylight. Their colors vary, but their movements are synchronized—patterns of spirals, lines, and mirrored formations. - **Sound:** On silent nights, the lights hum faintly, like glass being rung. --- ## Local Beliefs - **The Procession:** Villagers claim the lights are the souls of the dead marching toward the afterlife. Following them is said to bring peace—or madness. - **The Warning Dance:** Patterns that spiral inward are believed to foretell war or famine. Outward spirals are seen as a sign of hope. - **Illusory Lanterns:** Superstition says a true lantern light will cast shadow; a Waste-light never does. --- ## Hazards - **Disorientation:** Travelers within the Wastes often lose track of direction; compasses spin and stars seem dimmed. - **Phantom Trail:** Following the lights deeper often leads directly toward the Deadwood’s heart. - **Soul Drain:** Prolonged exposure (long rest or longer) saps vitality—creatures may awaken with one level of exhaustion. --- ## Connections to Lore - **Ashmarrow Tree:** On solstice nights, the lights spiral toward the Ashmarrow Tree, feeding its necrotic energy. - **Duskwatch Theories:** Old Duskwatch journals claim the patterns are coded signals left by ancient wardens. - **Rift Scar:** Some mages believe the lights are fragments of energy leaking from the Rift Scar, given form by the souls buried in the Deadwood. --- ## Adventure Hooks - **The Lantern Code:** A scholar hires adventurers to map the lights’ formations for three consecutive nights, believing they conceal a message. - **The Procession Lost:** A local family insists their ancestor’s soul has joined the lights, begging heroes to retrieve a keepsake carried among them. - **The False Lantern:** Bandits have begun luring travelers into the Wastes by carrying normal lanterns, forcing adventurers to discern trickery from truth. --- ## Summary The Lantern Wastes are both wonder and terror: a plain where the dead march in light and pattern. Whether omen, trap, or hidden language, the truth of the lantern-lights remains uncertain—but few who follow them ever return the same.