Barbed Fields

The Barbed Fields is a desolate wasteland north of the Ghostlands in Xhorhas, the ground zero of the Calamity and home to dangerous creatures and errant magic.

Points of interest
Arbor Exemplar: Towards the end of the Calamity and the following Divergence, just before the prime deities left Exandria, the Wildmother planted the seed of Arbor Exemplar within the most devastated and barren land. This tree and the Seed of Rebirth, which is the tree that resides in the center of the The Abundant Terrace of Vasselheim, are considered to be sisters.

Creatures

 * Gloomstalker
 * Sorrowsworn
 * Roc
 * Udaak
 * Horizonback Tortoise
 * Dire armadillo

History
It was the ground zero of the Calamity. The forces unleashed in the battle flash-eroded the landscape and left thick spires that, over the following centuries, were eroded further into more hook-like spines.

The Mighty Nein rode through the Ghostlands and into daylight, reaching the edge of the Barbed Fields. At dusk, the moorbounders abruptly stopped and sniffed the air, and they noticed a person sitting next to one of the trees. Caduceus determined it wasn't undead, but when Frumpkin (in vulture form) went to investigate more closely, it wailed mournfully and dashed toward the party. The creature, one of The Lost of the Sorrowsworn, was attacked by the party and their moorbounders but was joined by three more and a swarm of bats. After a successful fight, the party spent the night under the dome.

In the morning, a storm started moving in. The party explored a giant tortoise shell, inside it finding a rough map of the Barbed Fields. From its top, Nott saw what looked like a giant tree in the distance, roughly the direction they were traveling. They continued on, and the strange spires in the landscape seemed to be becoming a little more frequent. Eventually, they saw a dead udaak being feasted on by three gloomstalkers, who noticed them and began flying after them. After succeeding in killing the gloomstalkers, they set off again toward the towering tree as a cold rain began to fall.

That night, the party camped about 100 feet away from the base of the immense tree. Nott noticed unnaturally green grass extending about five to ten feet from the roots of the tree, which continued to grow outward during the night. In the morning, the grass was green about 200 feet out from the tree. Most of the party climbed or flew to its top where they could see that the rock spires circled and became more dense towards the center of the Fields, where there was a large chasm.

Their activity disturbed a roc whose nest was in the tree's canopy, and the party jumped for the ground as the roc began to circle.

During the battle with the roc, Jester Polymorphed it into a bat, and they discovered a baby roc in the nest at the top of the tree. The party mounted the moorbounders and charged off at full speed, eventually finding a cavern where they managed to hide from the pursuing roc. That afternoon, they rode past an orc village and were attacked, but drove them off. Towards nightfall, they saw Bazzoxan in the distance, and pressing on through the night reached the village after dark.