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Barrowland

The Great Tragic visible in a map of the area around the Barrowland

The Great Tragic River is a major, fast-moving river that runs through the frigid Great Forest of the northern continent and empties into the Great Forest sea. Wandering wildly from year to year and always flooded, at one point the Great Tragic looped within 3 miles of the Barrowland, which was the spell-bound prison of the Dominator for centuries. After at least four failed attempts to liberate himself, the Dominator would reach out from his grave with his immense power to alter the weather and flood the Great Tragic even more than usual, causing its flow to effect an inevitable escape. By the time the implications of the flooding became apparent to his hated archenemy, his wife the Lady, it was too late to undo the damage. She was forced to take action to handle the Dominator's release in The White Rose.

The White Rose[]

The Dominator caused swift thaws that sent the waters of the Great Tragic to rage and flood miles beyond its banks. The riverbed continually drifted westward:

It abducted tens and hundreds of thousands of trees. The flood was so spectacular that scores from town wandered out to watch it from a hilltop. [...] Brown water gnawed at the hill, furious, fumbling forests of driftwood. Less turbulent arms hugged the hill, probed the woods behind.

And when the early autumn arrived, it "left a mud plain strewn with the wrecks of grand trees" behind.

Raven, using the guise "Corbie", began to understand the threat that the Tragic posed. The Lady would realize it herself, as well, and would explain the danger to Croaker, using a lifelike miniature model of the Barrowland, during his brief captivity in the Tower at Charm.

The Dominator's control over the weather was lost when Tracker planted the Sapling on top of the Great Barrow. However, nothing could be done to stop the erosion caused by the Great Tragic. The Battle of the Barrowland was orchestrated by the Lady and her ally Darling to force the Dominator's escape to happen on his enemies' terms.

The Silver Spike[]

The spike thieves entered the Great Tragic during their long quest in the Great Forest. At one point, Smeds Stahl feared he would be swept into the Great Forest sea. Later, they would use water from the Great Tragic to splash down an accessible path to the Sapling, after they caused a massive bonfire around the supernatural tree. This allowed them to steal the silver spike.

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