Let's begin with the one that is right now the one who has the most lore and is the best written out. Tiiat or how it is called in the modern days now: The Shadowlands.
Tiiat is the old Kingdom of the old race, the Allaren, who had reigned from here over all of Io. Formerly Tiiat had been covered with lush forests an wide planes with rivers leading towards their city.
The Allaren Kingdom had only existed for 2000 years before it became uninhabitable and deadly. The third and last Warqueen had in her time begun a lot of wars with sourrounding kingdoms that still resisted them and did not want to be taken over. At the end of her reign, she released a great evil.
The old god Ragnar, personification of the Darkness had been trapped under the City since the beginning and the Allaren had formerly been tasked to protect his prison and make sure he isn't able to break out. Over the years Ragnars influence had seeped into the lands slowly rotting it from the inside.
After Ragnar had been freed the Darkness took over Tiiat. Trees burned and the grass turned to sand. The rivers dried up leaving deep crevices behind.
At the day of his release he couldn't smell his freedom for long as at the time the second Warqueen had been there trying tom stop the third. Ragnar couldn't be killed so he instead was trapped again. When the plan to trap him back in the hole again failed instead the Second Warqueen trapped him in his own skin resulting in the giant statue now on top of the citys ruins. Ragnar is still alive inside there and everybody who enters the Shadowlands and comes closer to his statue starts to hear his whisper trying to manipulate them.
The lands are mostly dead with no flora or fauna though one thing does live there. The remnants of the Allaren who didn#t die but were rather taken over by the darkness. They are crawling around like husks of themselves waiting for any unfortunate traveler who could become their next snack. They rarely leave the Shadowlands and if they would, they would die. They somehow fullfill their old purpose of being the keepers of Ragnar and making sure he doesn't escape.
I did such a weird process for this one. I painted the background in gouache, and did the character in ink. Then I printed them onto transparent sheets & did painting overtop/underneath. It was so much fun - definitely want to experiment with this more!