Hellhole

A Hellhole is an area of the Penumbra saturated with Wyrmish energies, usually due to something particularly destructive or toxic existing on the material side of the Gauntlet. Hellholes are profoundly destructive to everything around them, and breeding grounds for powerful Banes.

Two infamous Hellholes are Yucca Mountain and the Fresh Kills Landfill in New York City. Yucca Mountain was once the site of a powerful Glen with a very thin Gauntlet; the United States government, however, built a repository for spent nuclear fuel deep under the mountain, transforming it into a massive Hellhole. Local Uktena packs manage the Banes that spew from this site but do not dare attempt to purge it.

The Fresh Kills Landfull ("kill" being a Dutch word for "stream") is located on Staten Island. In addition to the decades of urban trash that piled up there, the site was used to process debris from the 9/11 terror attacks, drawing additional spirits of pain, fear and grief into the Hellhole. At its center lies an avatar of Lady Aife, the Caliph of Pain. The city's Sept of the Green has arranged to transform the site into a park, but it will take decades for the Hellhole to heal.