Zones
Eastern Wastes
Velious's eastern glacier plain — wurm hills, Coldain patrols, dragon flybys, and the Crystal Caverns descent.
- Great Divide
- Crystal Caverns
- Wakening Land
- Iceclad Ocean
Eastern Wastes is the eastern half of Velious's open glacier — a wide, snowed-over plain that runs from the Great Divide on the west edge to the Coldain outposts and the Crystal Caverns entrance on the far side. Wurms nest in the snow drifts; mammoth herds graze across the central tundra; Coldain patrols sweep the safer corridors; and dragons fly over often enough that "eyes up" is the standing rule. It is the second of Velious's two great outdoor zones and the one most groups touch first because the connectors lead almost everywhere.
The zone rewards patience. The XP camps that work — the wurm hills, the mammoth flats, the Crystal Caverns staging area — pay well, but a careless trek across the open will pull a dragon overhead at the worst possible moment. People who run Eastern Wastes well plan their route the way a pilot plans a flight.
The other thing the zone does well is teach Velious tone. The cold is real, the threats are real, and even the friendly Coldain patrols are not going to save you from a roaming wurm if your faction is wrong. By the time a player has spent a few sessions here, they understand what kind of continent Velious is — and the zone earns its central place on the continent because of it.
Content
- Ice wurms — patrol nests, 45–55, classic Velious XP camp
- Mammoth herds — tundra grazing, 48–55, melee-only with charge mechanic
- Coldain patrols — friendly with faction, dispatched from Thurgadin
- Roaming dragons — Claws of Veeshan, will con accordingly
- Snow orc raiding parties — outlier camps, 45–50
- Velium nodes — visible ore for crafters who want to harvest before turn-in
- Crystal Caverns descent — cracked icefall on the south edge
- Ulthork camps — coastal walrus-folk camps near the Iceclad transition
Why bother
Eastern Wastes is the most universally useful outdoor zone in Velious. The wurm camps carry a 50–55 group cleanly; the mammoth flats are an honest 50+ option for melee who want to avoid caster-heavy spawns. The entrances to Crystal Caverns and to the Wakening Land corridor make this the Velious junction zone. Bind here and you cut down corpse runs across half the continent.
The zone is also where a lot of Coldain faction grinds out cleanly. Killing snow orcs and frost giant patrols nudges your Coldain standing without forcing you into the harder named camps in Great Divide, which matters if you're working toward Thurgadin Ally for the Shawl chain or for Thurgadin bind.
For tradeskillers, the Velium ore nodes scattered across the glacier are a meaningful supplemental income. A character running the Coldain forge chain or just looking to stockpile components can harvest ore between pulls without committing extra sessions to it. That dual-purpose use is part of why the zone holds long-term traffic even after a group has aged past its XP band.
Using it well
Bind near the Coldain outpost or near the Crystal Caverns descent — both are defensible and both put you near a connector. Do not bind in the open if dragon patrols are active; you will recognize this fast.
Pull wurm camps singly. Wurms have a tail-stun that will eat a healer cast and the ranged pulls are unreliable from elevation. Mammoth herds charge — keep melee on the flank, not in front, and never pull a herd into open glacier without an extraction plan.
When a dragon does fly over, drop, gate, or invisible — do not assume you are out of agro range. The dragon detection radius in this zone is generous and a single wipe to a Veeshan patrol is the kind of thing that ends a session. On The Last Camp the any-race-class doctrine plays naturally here: a Barbarian Druid can SoW the group out of trouble, an Iksar Ranger can track the wurm pulls just as cleanly as a canonical race could, and a Halfling Wizard can drop a dragon in a pinch if the rest of the raid catches up.