Desert

The land

• Ground: pale sand, rippled by the wind, with red rock breaking through.
• Height: low dunes, and mesas of red rock standing out of them. The biggest mesas have a second tier on top. Some sides of a mesa are long ramps of scree you can walk up; the rest are cliffs.
• Water: very little. Lakes are rare oases. Where a river would run elsewhere, the desert has a dry riverbed: a skirt of grit and pebbles, then a floor of dried mud cracked into plates, with darker silt down the middle.
• Trees and plants: palms and saguaro cactus, prickly pear bushes, Yucca, and wild corn and dragonfruit. See Trees and Wild Plants.

Heat, light and weather

• The light is warm and golden, and brighter still by day.
• No rain: rain and storms bring no rain here, so you are never soaked by the weather, and storms bring no lightning. Snow only flutters down thinly and never chills you.
• If you are soaked (from swimming), you dry three times as fast as elsewhere when you are out in the open by day: in 15 seconds instead of 45.
• When the wind is up, tumbleweeds come bowling across the sand.

See Weather.

Animals

Only rabbits and foxes live here (Rabbit, Fox). No wolves or bears roam the desert.

Night things

At night (Day and Night) more than half of what comes out of the dark here is a band of Chupacabras. The rest are the common four: Gnawlings, Longlegs, Crawlers and Scuzz.

Villages

The desert's villages are built round a big walled courtyard, the houses hugging it close on every side with their doors facing in. Their folk are caravaners, glassblowers and weavers. At sundown, when the heat lets go, they light the market lamps, open the stalls and sit out on the terraces under the stars until late. Folk have names like Amun, Zara, Sefa and Rami, in villages like Sunspring or Dunereach. See Villages, Village Quests and Keepsakes.

What it gives

The desert's trade is glass and linen: Endurium, Long Bone, Sand and Yucca are found here, and worked into Glass and Linen. These go into lanterns (the Glass Lantern), glazed windows, light coats and the Traveler's Pack. On a Spirit Wager, the desert's water favours Fire.

Dungeons

• The desert's dungeon mouths are doorways in carved sandstone, little ruined courts, or stairwells cut down into the sand.
• Inside they are tombs: cross-shaped chambers and halls on rows of pillars, with sand drifted in.
• Chupacabras are common in them, among the common creatures.

See Dungeons and Chests.

The lair: Fulgoria

Each desert region has one lair near its middle, its great gate in a sheer outcrop. Its boss is Fulgoria. Clearing your first desert lair wins The Dawn Lotus, the desert's Jewel.

Creatures

What its traders sell

A village trader here carries some of these, more as you hold more Jewels:

Fish found here more often