Ink Hold The Black Hold

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On the moon Deaths Kindle is an ancient near air-less citadel called Ink Hold. Built in the Dawn Era, it served as a collection point for stolen Soul Energy.

The Black Hold was built to hold excess soul energy stolen by Maen Grirngrim and his minions. For Maen Grirngrim, he considered it a re-purposing of energy, crushing one's soul to serve the Creation-Undoing goal of the Primordial Lords and using the captured energy to go deeper into his necromancy and the workings of the energy types. This work at The Black Hold led to the combining of soul energy and unholy energy, eventually successful, they created perhaps the worst energy of the bunch, Necrotic Energy.

When the war with the demons is done, we will need to cleanse this unholy place.

- Bahamut, from a Scroll of Dawn - "The Black Hold"

Undead are drawn to Ink Hold. When they come within one hundred miles of it, they head for the center. On this journey, they began doing the same things they did when of the living. Some try to farm the lifeless land, cast fishing lines into empty ravines, or head to places of work making stuff for themselves and for sale. Some believe this to be the Curse of Ink Hold, attracting undead and then putting them to work for whoever is control of this black city. Its current owner, Lenassu Dras'ee, Queen of Ink Hold, refutes this claim, saying that it is the magic of Maen Grirngrim. She claims the magic keeps the undead occupied, so they don't run amok bothering the visitors, and to keep the more cunning and intelligent undead from becoming satraps or having an interest in taking the throne.

Ink Hold is home to tireless undead in the tens of thousands. These undead minions, of every type, are not idle. They are always working, expanding an enormous citadel rivaling Bal-Kriav's larger cities.

From other worlds, the knowledge to reach Ink Hold is found in a number of necromantic texts. These give the methods of creating teleportation runes. These runes are very expensive, and often hazardous. The maker of the rune must know where to attune it, otherwise those using it may find themselves arriving in an area devoid of oxygen.

Ink Hold is sited in the vacuum of the moon Deaths Kindle. Inside the citadel are places with air. The presence of these air pockets didn't come about until the Second Epoch. Before that, the living that went to Ink Hold needed some sort of magical protections to survive the airless environment. This began to change after 1519, when Ink Hold got a new prisoner, the usurper Lenassu Dras'ee. She was charged with trying to overthrow the Khazarkar Empire's theocracy government, sentenced to three centuries in one of Ink Hold's cells.

Lenassu did not remain long in her cell. In 1521, she escaped, freed her cohort Crick, then went on to overthrow the undead lord holding sway over the prison complex, and then the other masters of Ink Hold. She made her new domain more interesting and vibrant. She welcomed the living, established trade with the outside, and opened Ink Hold's famed necromancy libraries to paying customers. Before all this could come to fruition, she went to work expanding the areas with air. Air motes were bought and then when traders learned they could get finished goods cheaply, all made by undead that were unpaid, traders began bringing in raw materials, and leaving with finished products. Of all the trade that flows through Ink Hold, air motes are one of the more sought after items. They are used for creating tight air pockets, places for trading with the living, practicing spells requiring air, and in those interested in Ink Hold's great libraries of necromantic lore.

Air is also needed in Ink Hold's prison complex. This prison complex is a highly secure place. Even if one does escape, the lack of air will soon become a problem. Around the Year 1600, this prison was opened to dangerous prisoners from Bal-Kriav, Death Kindle's parent world, and other worlds of the Quara'tun System. Ink Hold is paid to watch over them, keep them alive for the duration of their sentence, and then allowed safely leave. This is not to say that they are not harmed during their time here; Ink Hold's vampires depend on them.

When Lenassu's sentence ended on 1 Temporal 1819, she became free to leave Ink Hold. She decided to remain, plotting the return of Khazarkar rule by the Malbazân. In the Cinazan Front, she helped the western Khazarkars, a people also wanting rule by the families of the Minâth-Nôrî. She sent ten undead legions to Bal-Kriav where they fought the chaos hordes of the Flux Pact.

In the dark and shadowy halls of Ink Hold, at the lowest level of a fortress built like an inverted ziggurat, is a lone, rough, pitted tower. It's chipped and battered by arcs of negative energy curving over the ziggurat like a shield. The presence of this energy supercharges a garrison of undead numbering in the tens of thousands. They have no real enemy anymore; the Queen of Ink Hold, their mistress, conquered her rivals long ago. Ink Hold is an ancient place, built in the Dawn Era by those serving Maen Grirngrim. This primordial was sent to what was then called Orb 396. His job: to recruit soldiers for the primordial war machine. This was slow going, so he looked for other means of recruitment. This led to experiments with negative energy and the creation of the first undead, making him the Father of Necromancy. His continued use of this fell energy made him more evil than chaotic. It was because of this energy change that he abandoned the cause of the primordials, no longer interested in helping them, only in helping himself. After he was put down by the archangels of the Golden Seven, Ink Hold's undead were left to wander aimlessly about. The more intelligent ones turned to rallying these forces, while others, now orderless, continued with the tasks that their deceased master had set them on. One of the starkest examples of this is the Bone Brine stream. It's not a real stream, but undead "refilling" a fountain.

- from the Godspawn Saga