The Badlands are a harsh and lawless expanse of arid hills, broken crags, and dusty plains lying south of the World's Edge Mountains, beyond the civilised realms of men. It is a country ruled by no crown and settled by no lasting kingdom — a brawling wilderness that has become the greatest breeding-ground of greenskins in the Old World.
Here the Orc and Goblin tribes gather in their teeming, feuding multitudes, and here the great Waaaghs are born, boiling up out of the wasteland to pour north through the mountain passes against the dwarfs and the Empire. Ancient dwarf holds once lined the mountains along its edge, and their ruins — Karak Eight Peaks chief among them — are now bitterly contested by greenskins, skaven, and the dwarfs who still fight to reclaim them.
The Badlands are not wholly given over to the orcs. Border princes, exiled adventurers, and desperate men carve out short-lived fiefdoms among the ruins, chasing rumours of dwarf gold and forgotten treasure; most such ventures end in an unmarked grave. Ogres wander down from the mountains as mercenaries, and older, stranger things lair in the deep places. It is a land where strength is the only law and life is cheap — a frontier of ruins and warbands where fortunes are dreamed of and swiftly buried.