WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK 0111 0111
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Chapter 5: TRAVERSING THE WASTELANDS
become rocky salt flats and then become a dust bowl or
rust field in a matter of hours and change again just a few
days or weeks later. The unpredictability of a land storm
is only overshadowed by its power.
Forever scarred is the miles-wide swath of destruction
left behind, and absolutely nothing remains as it was. The
storms can strip away and carry off many feet of sand and
dried earth, exposing whole new rock formations, veins
of coal, deposits of precious metals, or even long-buried
ruins. In reverse, newly deposited dust that follows a land
storm’s wake buries once familiar things and obliterates
trails or roads. The detritus chokes fields, buries villages
and towns, smothers caravans and livestock, and often
makes new corpse-filled ruins that might be exposed by
some other land storm in coming years.
Getting caught beneath a land storm is a death sentence. Winds fast enough to knock a man down and drag
him along the ground can also tip over wagons, topple
walls, and rip the roofs off buildings. Air fills with more
dust than a scarf can filter out, so this choking cloud prevents breathing even before it whips up into frenzied
winds. Survivable shelter must block out the wind entirely, which can happen if one is not buried alive. New
dirt piles up several inches per minute to depths of ten
feet or more during a storm. Efforts to climb atop growing
dirt mounds are exhausting and most often futile, as the
storm can last for several hours. The best way to survive a
land storm is to get out of its path as quickly as possible.
Obsidian Mountains
Sharp-edged glass mountains stab out of the wasteland
in many places, towering in high command of the region,
but only for a short time. Exposed by earthquakes, volcanoes, or land storms, obsidian mountains are short-lived,
collapsing into massive shards fairly quickly. They are
difficult to traverse, as razor-edged rubble, sometimes
piled several feet thick, fills every path and valley. The
daytime sun heats them like firebrands, further weakening and splintering the dark crystalline pieces. In some
places, obsidian mountains rise and fall so rapidly that
local sages suggest the very bones of the earth expel the
black glass like some horrible lanced infection.
Fire Rain
A phenomenon unique to the blasted wastelands, fire
rain most commonly falls on or downwind of volcanoes,
tar pits, or wide veins of either coal or sulfur, of which
there are many along the jagged mountains and hills of
the New Dune Wasteland and lands further north. Such
rains announce themselves with thin but roiling black
clouds that rise and fall rapidly in the air above. What
falls are not droplets of water but flecks of hot, oily tar,
most already ablaze and trailing thin black ribbons of
black smoke behind. These incendiary showers ignite
any combustible vegetation they find, but with so little
of this left, the smoldering drops instead sizzle on the
ground until expended, marking the sand and stones
charcoal black.
During and for some time after a fire rain, smoke obscures vision and makes breathing difficult. The sizzling
ground burns the feet, scorching unprotected flesh and
damaging footwear, slowing travel. Anyone unlucky
enough to be caught in the open can suffer anything
from minor burns to life-threatening injuries. One’s
clothing and equipment takes the brunt of the damage,
more often ruined than not by these wicked firestorms
of the deep desert.
Ghost Lightning
Ghost lightning is a dangerous but potentially useful phenomenon of the iron-rich red deserts. It occurs
anywhere abundant metal lies, either on or just beneath
the surface. Iron or copper reserves just underground
may facilitate ghost lightning in an area where such deposits are not immediately obvious. Essentially, a passing lightning storm “charges” a region with unspent
destructive electrical energy waiting to expend itself
when activated. Its only physical manifestation of warning is a greatly increased static charge felt in the hair
and clothing.
Unwitting trespassers are subject to random discharges of electrical energy. Most are painful but not otherwise harmful, and little more than a flash of light with
a loud snap. Among a group, ghost lightning arcs to the
individual with the most metal gear, which is why many
desert veterans keep most metal equipment packed on
animals. Occasionally, a strong lash of ghost lightning
causes unconsciousness, burns, or rare damage and
death. Most often, it is an annoyance that only frightens
animals. Desert folk learn to watch for the warning signs
and choose to avoid it.
Ghost lightning can be useful to a spell caster who
learns to control and harness it. Lightning magic employed in a region already charged with its ghostly
counterpart is greatly enhanced. As with all magic, the
additional energy could pose a danger to the wizard, either in miscast spells or sorcery’s wrath. There are also
desert folk who swear that the Prophet can manipulate
ghost lightning at will. Many others also claim they can
harness it by posting metal-tipped lightning rods in
different shapes across the ground.
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