Hatching Lands

The Hatching Lands are areas in the Wild Lands where Vlastach is attempting to create new vegari over which it will have complete control. In the original veigur of Vlastach itself, the land still shares some small measure of power with the gods; Vlastach hopes that if it starts from scratch with empty worlds where no gods rule, it can found new worlds where its dominion is completely uncontested. If Vlastach has mostly usurped the position of the gods in its home veigur, it sees little reason why it cannot get by without any gods in a new one.

Since Vlastach is still in the process of trying to gain an influence over the Hatching Lands, it can do little directly toward its goals there. However, many of Vlastach's servants choose to aid it by attempting to further its purposes there; many of Vlastach's most powerful agents labor toward its ends in the Hatching Lands, including a number of ascai.

One of the means by which Vlastach hopes to attain its goals is by building up the population of the Hatching Lands, particularly of its own servants whose devotion strengthens it and consolidates its power—though even the settling of those with no particular allegiance to Vlastach may still help by further setting apart the chosen areas from the rest of the Wild Lands, and perhaps helping develop into vegari. Since the mere act of settling in the Hatching Lands curries favor with the land, some disgraced landworkers and dedicants who want to return to Vlastach's good graces move to the Hatching Lands for that purpose, though of course many servants of the land in good standing also move there to further Vlastach's purposes. In the hopes of building up the population in the Hatching Lands, Vlastach's agents also may encourage people to move there who have no special relationship with the land, especially those people who are persecuted or destitute in their homelands and thus have the best motives for starting over elsewhere. Sometimes servants of the land may free prisoners of certain oppressive regimes such as those of Elukhan or Ocraten to bring them to asylum in the Hatching Lands.

Vlastach's servants also prepare the Hatching Lands directly, through landshaping and through other enchantments molding the terrain according to the land's desires. Of course, since they are cut off from direct contact with Vlastach, those working in such a way must have access to the ritual of discontinuity to be able to work its magics there, which means, since this ritual is a very difficult one that only very experienced landworkers may obtain (or very favored dedicants may emulate), that those who perform these services must be among Vlastach's most favored and most powerful servants, or be working with such individuals who can share with them their power.

Others try to aid Vlastach by researching how its domination of the Hatching Lands can best be effected. This task is particularly suited for (the relatively few) elemental mages in Vlastach's service, particularly those skilled in witchcraft. Even those without abilities of magical divination, however, may be able to help in this regard; other means of investigation include communing with distant gods and other powerful entities that might have some applicable esoteric knowledge, and investigating far-off worlds and planes where comparable deeds may have been done. Among the subjects Vlastach would like to know more about is the creation of new constellations; the areas of the Hatching Lands that didn't already have constellations in them remain starless, and Vlastach would like to change that.

So far, the Hatching Lands comprise at least four different areas, called Carchanel, Hesea, Jmaya, and Oeveron. Carchanel and Hesea are both existing worlds abandoned by the gods, the former after millennia of thriving activity and the latter abortively before its creation was really finished. The other two worlds of the Hatching Lands are simply parts of the Wild Lands that, if they were ever inhabited before Vlastach claimed them, were inhabited so long ago that no one now remembers.