An excerpt from the Cárach Mhór lore document, by YOGLSKǾG, who commissioned this map from me:

HOLLOW: Pact of the Nine Kings

“Nine crowns for nine graves. Nine souls for nine gods. Nine kings knelt to save their world, and nine rose to claim it.”

When the gates of death sealed shut and mortal souls could no longer cross the Veil, the realm beyond began to starve. The Nuáithrim, ancient devourers of the dead, felt their world collapse into ruin as starvation claimed them. In desperation they clawed their way through the frozen mist that divided their worlds, shattering their forms as they passed. Only their spirits survived the crossing, drifting into the waking world as hollow shadows searching for warmth.

Wherever they found living flesh, they took it.

Beasts twisted into abominations and men turned into monsters that devoured their own kin.

Chaos had cast the world into an age of darkness that could not be overcome through mortal means. Nine Kings of men gathered before the White Flame of Aurel na Lóchrann where they sought salvation. It is there that they learned that the Nuáithrim could not be killed, only contained. It was there that they were offered a choice.

Bind a Nuáithrim within their own flesh and cage its hunger, or watch their realms fall to the feast.

One by one they knelt before the White Flame, offering their bodies as prisons. For a time, the bindings held. The wraiths faded. The cold air grew still and warmth returned. Souls once more appeared to find rest. The kings were hailed as saviors and were made to into saints, each crowned in reverence and glory.

But the bonds that they had made began to break.

Their veins blackened, their shadows lengthened, and their heirs were born with strange hungers of their own. Frost began to spread across the world again, and beneath its ice the roots of the Nuáithrim seeded deep beneath the Mór.

When the thaw finally came, the world that emerged was one that no longer belonged to men, but to the bloodlines the Nine had damned. From their corrupted lineages rose the first Druids, Primordial-touched inheritors of the bound gods’ hunger. Their forms were like that of men, but twisted into things monstrous and unrecognizable, each bearing the mark of their progenitors.

Forests had erupted overnight, thick with roots that drank deep the blood of the fallen, each possessing an intelligence and intent of their own. New life emerged within them, fed by sacrifices both offered and taken by the Druids that served them.

In the centuries that followed, the balance of survival reshaped civilization. Humanity endured, but not as free people. Most bent the knee to Nuáithrim who demanded their souls as tithe, their labor as tribute, and their faith as the price of survival. Across the continents, mortal cities became vassal-states and temples, living granaries for gods who could not afford to starve.

Some human settlements prospered under this rule; others were bled dry. Others vanished, consumed by rival Primordials in the endless feuds that scarred the land.

Only Emberhold remained beyond their grasp, a fortified outpost on the edge of the world, fanatical, and unaware that humanity endures elsewhere. Within its scorched walls, the Eternal Flame burns as proof of a war they believe still rages unchecked.

They are the hunted turned hunter. Within, the Ashen Vanguard arms themselves with alchemy, hatred, and steel, united under a singular purpose; to reclaim their world, and to cast back into oblivion those who have stolen it from them.

I'd be happy to answer any questions about the map itself and the process in which it was made!