Flood Road

The Flood Road is a highway of cracked mud for most of the year that runs roughly parallel to the Tusk Mountains. It begins south of the town of Hillcross in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords and runs in a southerly direction past the Algid Wastes, east of the orc city of Wyvernsting in the Hold of Belkzen, between the eastern Kodar Mountains and the Tusk Mountains, and just east of the capital city of Urgir, and ends at the River Esk.

Road or river?

The name Flood Road is a misleading title since it is a road for only 10 months of the year. For the other two months it is a muddy deluge fed by the spring melt from the Tusk Mountains, further to the north in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords. The flood road is nonetheless the lifeblood of the Hold of Belkzen, as it the main trade route between Wyvernsting and Urgir. It also provides access to the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, and many caravans head up the Flood Road in an attempt to capture the strange megafauna of that distant realm. When the Flood Road floods, the water from the Tusk Mountains help rejuvenate the land, but can be dangerous to anyone traveling the road, as it travels in a devastating flash flood. This event also heralds the coming of herds of migratory aurochs and a time of relative plenty across Belkzen, known as the Flood Truce. It is one of the few times when there is regular peace between the feuding orc tribes.

Floodslain

The flash floods that create the Flood Road also create another unique danger, the floodslain, or as they're also often called the "after-the-storm". These unique undead are beings of panic and terror, caught and drowned unexpectedly in the flash floods that beset the region, the floodslain seek to share their grim deaths with the living. Their very touch can flood the lungs of the living with water, causing them to drown, they can also summon spectral waves to buffet their foes.