Serpent’s Labyrinth is a vast subterranean network of tunnels and bone-choked corridors burrowed deep into the southeastern peninsula of The Sands of Serrakhan, just south of The Serrakhan Scar. Once a nesting ground for the countless spawn of The Great Serpent, the labyrinth served as both cradle and crucible—where serpentine offspring grew fat on lesser beasts before rising as fledgling Sandwyrm and slithering into the dune sea.
The entrance, a gaping depression in the arid earth, is ringed by sun-bleached remains and fractured scales, forming a natural amphitheater of death. The descent leads into a stifling, torchless dark where ancient blood still stains the walls, and the scent of reptilian musk lingers like a curse.
Origins & Significance
In the Fourth Age, the Serpent’s Labyrinth was avoided by all but the maddest wanderers and the most zealous of the Snake Cult, who believed it sacred. It was never a hunting ground of the Great Serpent itself, but rather a birthing den—a sacred nursery where the lesser spawn were left to feast, war, and prove dominance before being deemed worthy of life beyond the stone.
Thousands of years later, during the Fifth Age, the labyrinth was repurposed by the Emris Adventuring Guild as the Second Trial of the Sun, a crucible meant to test not only martial skill but fortitude and cunning (see: Trials of the Sun). Aspiring adventurers seeking patronage from the guild or favor with the Serrakhan Sultanate were sent into the labyrinth to retrieve a serpent’s fang from the bones of one of the fallen wyrms. Only those who returned alive—often bloodied, sometimes changed—were deemed worthy of advancement.
The Rise of Karthage
Following the Conjunction of the Realms and the political turmoil that destabilized the region, a previously nomadic offshoot of the Kroot took root within the labyrinth’s depths. Fleeing persecution and Bastilian occupation, they established the Fortress of Karthage—a fortified enclave of stone, bone, and scavenged steel—embedded into the labyrinth’s natural caverns and ridgelines.
The Kroot of Karthage have transformed the labyrinth into a defensible bastion. Using their knowledge of the winding tunnels, they laid traps, blind pits, and false chambers to deter both Sultanate scouts and Bastilian patrols from Kraken's Landing to the south. Within Karthage, the Kroot train in secrecy, guard sacred relics of their ancestors, and conduct ancient rites long forbidden by the Sultanate.
Though few outsiders have entered and returned, those who have speak of a society bound by ancestral law and the whispers of the dead wyrms that still echo through the stone.
Current Status
Today, Serpent’s Labyrinth is a place of layered legacy—equal parts tomb, fortress, and proving ground. It is a realm of silence and scale, of ancient hunger and new rebellion. Those who brave it do so not only for glory or coin, but to carve their names into the bones of those who came before.
And within its depths, where serpents once devoured prey to earn their place in the sun, now dwell those who defy the rule of kings and empires alike.