The Blasted Lands are one of the harshest environments found anywhere. Inhospitable badlands, seas of sand and rocky cliffs all suffer under the blazing eye of an angry sun. The heat can kill a man within hours, and a horse won’t even make it that long.
Worse, the deep desert and badlands are home to a variety of powerful threats all to happy to kill the unwary traveller. Basiliks, Koda’chi’ne and dragon kin all prowl the wastes, each contending with the other in a brutal struggle for survival. Efreeti, marid and other djinn haunt the desert nights often luring unsuspecting travellers to their deaths.
The blasted lands are a strange and inhospitable land, yet their incredible riches lure countless adventures to their death each year. A handful of fire rubies or small deposit of flame iron can let a man live like a king for the balance of his days.
Wealth is not the only reason people risk trekking through the wastes. There is great power for those willing to grasp it. The blasted lands are home to several potent catalysts. The Oasis, The Heart of Fire and Shaitan are just a few of the more well known ones. Adventures can gain great power from these eternal reminders of the godswar.
The blasted lands are a place of mystery and intrigue, dotted by clay cities and nomadic peoples. One can spend a life there and never see everything it has to offer, though most who stay that long do not survive the experience.
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The City of Gateway
Gateway is both the largest and the best known city in the Blasted Lands. It straddles the Tehane pass, the only known way through the mountain range known as the Fangs of the Goods. It is the first piece of the Blasted Lands every traveller sees.
Low squat buildings of sun baked adobe litter the valley beneath the Tehane pass like a jumble of child’s blocks deposited by some careless giant. Surrounding them are a sea of multicolored pavilions where the poor are forced to dwell.
Beyond the tents lie thousands of iron cages containing tens of thousands of slaves. These cages are covered by palm leaves to keep the slaves from dying inthe heat, but in practice many die anyway. This is considered an acceptable loss by the slaver’s guild, which is easily able to obtain more.
Gateway exists for one reason and one reason only- to funnel as much wealth into the hands of those running the guilds as possible. They export fire rubies, flame steel, slaves, camels and anything else they can turn a profit on.
The Blasted Lands has no central government, so Gateway is ruled by a quarter of powerful guilds that use a mixture of fear and wealth to keep their people in line. This makes the city a brutal lawless place, where justice is bought and paid for by the wealthy.
Hasra keeps a large garrison stationed in the city, and has constructed a massive compound to house their interests. The compound receives a steady diet of merchants selling fire rubies, as everyone knows Hasra will pay more than any other source. Even if they didn’t it is unhealthy to sell rubies to other merchants. Hasra is quite jealous over the supply, and those who challenge their dominance tend to turn up dead.
Adventurers seeking to travel within the blasted lands can find everything from a guide to camels to equipment in the western bazaar. The bazaar is a collection of pavilions run by morally bereft merchants who will do anything to part a customer from his purse- including outright theft.
There are only two forms of entertainment. Several brothels offer wine, women and games of chance. For those who prefer more visceral entertainment there is a small wooden arena, where slaves are often pitted against monsters brought in from the wastes.
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The Wastes
The area just beyond Gateway is known as the wastes. It is a sea of empty sand with no permanent settlements and no known oasis, and only those who seek fire rubies bother passing through it. The wastes stretch for over five hundred miles in all directions, and contain many hazards that travellers must be aware of.
Sandstorms are a near daily occurrence, and can arise so suddenly that they are on you before you are aware of them. Those who survive the sandstorms must content with the worms, creatures that live under the sand and attack travellers crossing the wastes.
If you manage to deal with both the storms and the worms you must still contend with the Koda’chi’ne, a group of tribal raiders who answer to no king, and respect no law but their own. They will attack and kill any who trespass on their domain, and they consider their domain to be the entire blasted lands.
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The Badlands
Beyond the wastes lay the badlands, hundreds of miles of broken rock and rivers of lava that flow from the heart of the blasted lands. The badlands lack the sandstorms of the wastes, but they are just as lethal if not more so.
The first major threat is the dragonkin that prowl the badlands. Many theorize that they originate from the heart of fire, but regardless of where they come from no one can dispute their lethality. A single dragonkin can kill an entire caravan of armed men with ease.
The second threat is Shaitan. There is much dispute about who or what Shaitan really is. Some say he is a powerful djinn that hunts people who enter his domain. Others claim he is an entire army of djinn who are collectively known as Shaitan. Still others maintain that Shaitan is a god that died during the godswar.
The last is the most credible, as some adventurers have returned claiming to have visited a dream catalyst of incredible power. Those same adventurers often tell tales of djinn calling themselves Shaitan, which explains at least some of the confusion surrounding the name.
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The Blasted Lands
The true heart of the blasted lands is also where it’s name originates. It makes both the wastes and the badlands look like summer picnic spots. It consists of three dozen massive volcanoes, with lakes and rivers of lava streaming endlessly in between them.
At the very center lies a volcano that dwarfs the others. The Lake of Fire lies at it’s very center, and some theorize that it’s incredible heat is the source of the Blasted Lands. It is probably also the source of the dragonkin that roam the blasted lands, as those who have approached it report that the largest and most terrifying dragonkin can be found nearest the super volcano.
Those few brave souls who survive to see the lake also find massive formations of fire rubies growing along it’s shore. Even a single handful is enough to buy a good sized town, and those who bring back larger halls are often able to buy their way into a prominent noble or royal family with the funds.
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Summary
The Blasted Lands are a wide and varied area stretching for thousands of miles. It is worthy of it’s own sourcebook, and thus beyond the scope of a simple web page. Hopefully what I have discussed will help to fire your imagination until I have time to include more information!
