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Chapter 5: TRAVERSING THE WASTELANDS
Dust Bowls
Dust blows away from where there were once fields and
meadows. Winds now carry the loose, desiccated topsoil,
depositing it in deep layers upon the land. Where the dust
takes hold, enormous bowls of it result in a worthless barren area that is difficult and dangerous to cross. Footing
is uncertain, as any foot sinks to the ankle, knee or even
deeper before finding firm ground beneath. The unstable
ground reduces mobility to a quarter of normal travel
speeds here, if passage even remains possible at all. Travel
is impossible in its deepest places, where dust might rise
over a standing human’s head. These or even deeper
pockets can swallow a wanderer entirely, suffocating him
quickly without immediate aid. The slightest breeze blows
dusty silt into the air, clogging the eyes and throat.
There is one respite among the dust bowls that makes
some skirt their edges in travel: snakes and vermin
avoid them since they cannot stay atop the silt and cannot breathe beneath its surface. Still, there are other
creatures that dwell here, sticking their heads out to
catch a breath while searching for prey.
Salt Flats
Brilliant white salt lies in cracked, jagged crystals along
the parched ground. Sunlight reflects painfully into any
eyes without protection. While mostly in powder or crystalline form, salt does collect into larger clumps, making the flats akin to crossing a hazardous boulder field.
The blowing salt gets everywhere, and any metal gear
so encrusted rusts abnormally fast without care. All living creatures shun salt wastes, but rumors suggest they
harbor all manner of ghosts, specters, and creatures that
can embrace its lifelessness. Such tales keep most men
from venturing too far into them without sufficient cause.
Most would prefer to travel around the salt flats rather
than risk the frightening denizens within.
Cracked Sea Floors
In the deeper southlands, dried and deeply cracked
sea beds lie exposed where there were once seas above
them. The terrain here is very difficult, as the ground
buckles and curls in enormous sheets of dried clay and
mud, sea floors never before exposed to full sunlight.
These petrified waves of earth make movement and
vision nearly impossible. Other obstructions include
the wreckage of once-sunken ships or the dried bone
fields of dead sea creatures, jagged spines and ribcages
crackling underfoot or looming larger than a thakal and
diverting one’s path.
The uneven ground that was once the ocean floor can
hide grottos and caverns deep beneath the arid surface.
A prize at the bottom could be shelter or an untouched
spring, but any wandering creatures finding such prizes
often take up residence and defend them with bared
fang and claw or worse.
Exposed again to the sun are the souls or remains of
long-dead mariners who previously lay contented after their watery ends. They hate that their tombs are
laid bare beneath the blazing sun. A sailor once found
comfort believing his spirit might swim away to eternal rest with alongside the Daragkark Quanian or congregate beneath Tharain’s watchful eyes among the
broken rocks with its own kind. With those two powers
long departed, a Khitan mariner’s afterlife is uncertain.
Give wide berth to any exposed wrecks on the cracked
sea floors, for many who drowned with it haunt its timbers, thirsty for vengeance and any moisture—blood or
tears—from the living.
Natural Flora
As harsh as they are, Khitan deserts are hardly devoid
of life. In fact, except for the dunes and salt flats and
places recently buried by land storms, most areas support some plant-life and an ecosystem of bugs and tiny
creatures that thrive upon them. Few of these have direct impact upon adventurers, but they do lend color to
an otherwise bleak landscape.
Trees
• The kuhjalo or “narrow leaf” tree grows as tall as 15
feet along a jagged, black trunk, flowering yellow
blossoms just once per year.
• The syella or “Khitan oak” stretches 30 feet, all its
round leaves gathered into a tight ball at the very top.
• The slightly smaller eshwell or “white thorn” dares
to hang its branches and leaves low to the ground,
protected by a deadly toxin on slender needles.
Bushes
• The guplam or “blood bush” startles some with its
ruddy, bifurcated leaves.
• Hugging the ground closely is the shevasa or “desert blanket,” tight clumps of which provide homes
for many tiny rodents and lizards.
• The brown-leafed thucage or “hedge” grows dense
branches and leaves that only insects can penetrate,
often creating inadvertent hedgerows without aid.
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