Warp

The Darklands warps are anomalies scattered throughout the cave networks of the Darklands, where distance is distorted and either stretched or shrunk.

Passing through a warp can potentially allow for much faster travel than a long overland trip or even seafaring voyage, but it is extremely perilous. Warps tend to be unpredictable - a given warp may usually shorten travel, but at times the same warp can instead lengthen or even cause hapless travelers to disappear entirely, never to exit.

Warps are almost imperceptible, a fact that has caused some unwary adventurers to enter them by mistake. Only marked by a slight shimmer on the surfaces of caves and tunnels, warps are difficult to locate unless one already knows of their presence. The cave past a warp entrance appears normal from both sides of the entrances and exits. Many only know they have entered a warp once a strong sense of dread and impending doom sets in, a near-universally reported phenomenon.

Warps are largely static in their locations. New ones rarely appear, and old ones can be relied on to remain present - while a few are recorded as having vanished, this is quite rare. Skilled and experienced adventurers may know the location of one or even two warps, but like the Darklands as a whole, the warps remain un-mapped and generally poorly understood. The dwarves of Barazar El are one of the few exceptions to this - they are known to regularly travel through the Darklands with the assistance of the warps, using them to come and go from their deep ocean cities.