Palinoia

Geography
To be added.

Information
Legends sing that the maze had been created by the First Ones, way before each kingdom came into existence, at a time where gods wandered the world in their wondrous physical forms. Created to harbor the "Heart of the Wild", the maze was once known as one of the wonders of the world. However, greed became doom to the wondrous place when a mad king by the name of Jenoa tried to seize the heart for himself. In return for his crime, the possession of the heart lead the selfish man to endure a horrible curse; a plague descending on his mighty kingdom. With it, the maze became known as a place of madness itself. It is unclear if these tales are true, however.

Phylactery Creation
Palinoia was once part of the ancient civilization behind the creation of the first phylacteries, serving as a farm to harvest the souls of maledict mages to form new bodies for the ill. The farm was assigned a group of sacrosancts, scholars trained to filter the souls of the cursed through their own bodies, trained from an early age on and assisted by runic automatons. The extraction of a soul required several years until the successful completion of a phylactery, meaning that those deemed incurable once diagnosed with a malediction were raised on farm grounds and considered an honorable sacrifice - regardless of whether they wished to become one or not. Provided for this purpose was an institution similar to a school, in which children were raised in a loving environment until the day their magic would grow to be beneficial enough for the creation of a phylactery. Before its destruction, the children were raised by Iglas and an unknown female caretaker, who acted as parental figures.

Destruction
At the age of seven, a young boy named Lorian first discovered his affinity with magic and was abandoned by his parents to be placed inside Palinoia's farm to serve as a sacrifice for a phylactery. His magic was deemed powerful, yet not yet developed fully, leaving him to be placed inside his new foster home with Iglas, where he was raised in a seemingly caring environment until he was thirteen years old. During a time in which infants were affected by a fatal illness, the completion of a new phylactery was inevitable, targeting Lorian as the catalyst for its finalized creation. [...]

Aftermath
Without anyone to inhabit the farm, its grounds slowly deteriorated, exposed to the wildly rampant roots of the hedges that slowly expanded into a fully grown maze. The Harbinger and its children, now left without guidance and a proper role to play, withered away and slowly decayed into monstrosities formed from bones and debris. Palinoia eventually became infamous as maze without return, as the Harbinger's children continued to kill recklessly and harvest the souls of those who entered their farm, following their instinct to eradicate any life entering their domain. The souls harvested were placed inside the unfinished phylactery still placed inside the depression of the temple, feeding the artifact with an unlimited source of power, yet left it doomed to never be finished. Several centuries passed, in which the only intact automaton, Enjin, archived the days passing, eventually succumbing to rust and malfunctions from its defective hardware that had not been able to stay maintained.

During the present, Lord Aislin sought out Palinoia as contest grounds for his tournament, well aware that contestants would very likely not return from the island. After a large group of people had been sent to the maze under the false pretense of facing an artificial challenge and winning a phylactery for their own use, the majority of the contestants was wiped out by a combination of the Harbinger's children, as well as the hostile hedge roots, or hallucinations that led to their demise. Those who had survived successfully slayed the Harbinger mother and discovered the unfinished phylactery, claiming it in attempt to finish its creation.

Trivia

 * ★ "Palinoia" describes the obsessive repetition of an act until its perfect or mastered.