Battleground

The Battleground, known in the East as the Realm of Fighting Spirits,  is a Near Realm within the Umbra containing every battle that has ever been fought, from the earliest conflicts between neolithic tribes against bears and wolves, the Impergium and the Wars of Rage up to the current conflicts within the Middle East and gang wars. It is a realm dedicated to violence and rage, and chaos rules it as armies mix up and Wehrmacht soldiers end up fighting against roman legions and the Confederates allying themselves with viking barbarians against Soviet troups. The ground is littered with structures and debris from every time period imaginable. Wreckage of Sherman tanks and APCs shares the plain with medieval castles and roman-era fortifications. Trenches, rows of barbed wire, and prison camps liter the realm; clouds of smoke and acrid gas slowly drift along the landscape, limiting vision to about 50 yards under most conditions. Only one feature of the place remains constant: the Signpost, from which one can gain a short overview over the conflicts within the realm. As long as one does not enter one of the conflicts, a visitor walks on a "track" appropiate to the battle they witness (a motor boat for a naval battle, a roman road for a conflict during the punic wars etc.). As long as they did not step of the track, they will not be attacked directly.

In the center of the realm is a great, silent, empty field, that Theurges think to be the battlefield of the Apocalypse itself. Around it, three armies assemble themselves, constantly warring against each other. One horde bears the sign of the spider and act with complete discipline and precision. Their arachnoid soldiers build bases and bunkers as they go, spinning roads, fortifications, and encampments out of metallic silk, signifying them as servants of the Weaver. The second horde is a chaotic mess of amorphous spirits, apparently of the Wyld, who have the smallest army. The last army is of the Wyrm and it is is growing each day, compromising of Banes and emanations of the Maeljinn Incarna.

There are three ways of leaving this realm: Joining a battle and win; dying during a battle (Death in this realm is not permanent and the "dead" reappeares somewhere else within the Near Umbra) or finding an evacuation site.