In the southern Tablelands stand the shadowwrapped ruins of Kalidnay, a formerly great city. From an immense palace surrounded by the mansions of his nobles and templars, the sorcerer-king Kalid-Ma ruled over a city-state as large as Tyr and as wealthy as Balic. No one knows how Kalidnay’s end came, for it was not destroyed by a rival city or laid waste by the Dragon. All that is known for certain is that disaster struck on the eve of a celebration proclaimed by Kalid-Ma in honor of his queen Thanok-An. A few days later, a caravan arrived in Kalidnay and found the city deserted. The only sign of disaster was a tremendous crack that split open a pyramid in the necropolis a mile outside the city walls—a grand tomb for Kalid-Ma that had been under construction for decades.
Some tales say that the sorcerer-king sacrificed his citizens in a terrible defiling rite. Other stories claim that Thanok-An slew her husband in a bid to steal his powers and lost control of the dreadful magic she had gained. Whatever happened, the city was never reoccupied because perilous shadows still haunt the ruins. Those who know the secret of walking in other planes report that Kalidnay now exists mostly in the shadowy otherworld of the Gray; every night, strange mists roll through the streets. Any creature caught in the cloying fog is destroyed or drawn away to an unknown fate—perhaps just as the people of Kalidnay were.
Usually, creatures that take shelter in the jumble of ruins the city has become are safe from the creeping mists. As a result, bold raiding tribes, vicious monsters, and strange shadow creatures lair in the crumbling structures.