Before the darkness was placed upon the land, and before the locals settled in the town of Ashwind, the land itself was a place cursed, not by some ancient god of power or devilish spirit, no. It was cursed by the greed of mankind itself, the lust for power over the powers that be are solely responsible for the horror unleashed here.
800 years ago in the flatland there existed a grim and horrible band of bloodmancers. Horrible people who killed for the power that blood gave to them. They roamed the land searching for their nexus of power, their eternal wellspring of blood, mystical life force the world could consider its blood was sought. Eventually, they found what they were looking for, that was the easy part. The planet had no intentions of being infected by an evil as such as this. Resistance was simple and the insane plot was halted.
The band of people decided to take a different approach to the situation. Not willing to give up the strongest source of power they could ever hope to ever know, but not having the power to control it there was only one thing that could be done, obviously. If you do not have the power, you find away to get it. Because of the sacred place the Bloodmancers took up residence, nobody else dared go near it because it was something you just didn't do. Because of this though, their presence went largely undetected.
The first raid took place in the dead of night. The insane people dressed in black robes and holding jagged swords came out of the dead of night. The villagers never stood a chance. The power is in the blood, and no blood was spared for the taking. Women and children were slaughtered, but with their arcane powers, none of the precious blood was wasted, none ever touched the ground, not a single drop.
The first raid was free, but the power was not enough to corrupt the life blood of the planet. The next few days went by and the trading routes reported the ghostly village reports, bloodless corpses strewn about, body parts everywhere. The people warned them not to settle so close to the heartland, it was dangerous and horrible curses would exact revenge upon any who approached. Now their warnings rang true.
The others as a collective whole decided that they were far enough away from the heartland to avoid death. But as with all collective thought in any society, there are always a few who think differently and refused to lower their guard. When the blood seeking horde came again, this time it would cost them dearly. The attackers became the victims and suffered a massive defeat not more then three weeks later after their first raid. In their defeat, but not their destruction they learned much in the ways of revenge since then.
Ten years would go by, the evil scourge upon the land would grow, and villages would be haunted by numerous bloodless corpses that would randomly appear after a night that had no source of origin. The horror and violence would become a nightly thing. Gods and evil spirits replaced the true criminals, and life went on for ten years. Sorrow and anger filled the spirit of the people, and it slowly crept into the land itself as well.
Then one unusually bright and sunny day, there was a horrible noise that came from the heartlands. Nobody knew what it was, or what could make such a horrible noise, but nevertheless, there it was. Investigations according to the historians would report nothing but a massive pool of twisting red blood that had taken on a life of its own. No sign of the monstrous people in black that had killed at least three thousand people from at least fifty villages in the course of ten years.
Some say the land had never been the same, and that the horrible people had done what they set out to do, but became a victim of their own success. This is partly true, the mass of blood did indeed kill its creators, but there are no reports of it at any other time, and unless you search through ages and sift through the records of some old museum, you would never know it now.
Eventually the smaller villages also began to finally give into the fear, and go away from the place. The river that the people lived by was the main water source, and moving upstream and away from the heartland was the only option. The area around the tortured area was then abandoned in less then fifty years.
It would be along while before anybody would dare return to this area. But as all things do. Truth transform into legends, and legends turn into myth. And myth eventually fades into nothing but whispers and rumors of bad things in that general direction.
But it would not remain empty for long. Ambition and greed would again come to this place and with it, the reawakening of the ancient darkness put to an unsettled rest so long ago.