Death Prison

Death prisons were magical artifacts built during an ancient war as magical weapons of mass destruction. They function like landmines or grenades, but instead of exploding and causing massive physical damage, they cause a large implosion in the spirit world, sucking in the souls of anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.

Originally they were designed to store souls to be re-purposed as a power source for magic, but the wizard who created the devices, was betrayed by the demon lord Hhizix whom he had made a pact with to unlock the secret magic to create such a device. The demon lord only wanted the souls for himself, and attempted to use the wizard as a tool to distribute the death prisons across the mortal plane, but the wizard built a safety into the magic devices, that warded demons from ever going near the death prisons themselves, else their souls would be sucked into the devices as well. Hhizix was furious and unforgivingly pursued the wizard's death for thwarting his plans. Unfortunately, the wizard was slaughtered by demons even after extensive protection.

The wizard almost single-handedly ended the war. Hundreds of these devices were buried around the battlefields of war, and after seeing the massive losses they took, the enemies almost outright surrendered. After learning of the wizard's death shortly after however, they pursued further conflict.

A few people showed an immunity to these devices for an unknown reason, and reported that inside each device was a personal hell, a prison made to hold thousands of people where they are kept for all eternity. These accounts gave the devices their name among the enemies and spread fear among their troops.

The devices have been deemed far too dangerous to recover, and there are still many dozens lying in open fields in the Barrow Downs though there are few alive still who remember what they are. No one knows what has happened within the death prisons over the many hundreds of years, but it can be easily assumed that everyone within the prisons have gone mad and likely violent - unfortunately, many of the prisons have malfunctioned as they were never designed to store the souls for this long.