The Southern Badlands
A truly fearful place to live, with the roving bands of gnoles ready to attack any poor travelling with inadequate protection. Some brave souls strike out to make a living by collecting the rare metals found all throughout the badlands. How they do it? I could never say.
Geography
The Southern Badlands are comprised of piles of loess and pockmarks in the ground from erosion, with little to no topsoil. A river does flow through the badlands, but it's dangerous to be camped near it due to raiding parties and bandits. The ground is made up of pebbles and gravel with the occasional boulders, especially in the western region nearer the mountains. The eastern coastline is barer, with perilous crags that make establishing ports difficult.
Fauna & Flora
The badlands are nearly inhospitable to most life, with the only natural fauna existing along the riverside. Even then it is mostly shrubbery with the occasional tree. Any other flora was brought in by settlers and planted in gardens. There is no natural fauna outside of the monsters that prey on the settlers and the raiders both.
Natural Resources
While there are some resources found on the monsters that roam the badlands, most of the resources that the settlers come for are the rare metals found in the ground. These metals include materials such as zinc, aluminum, nickel, and copper, which are especially useful for those that are trying to recreate offworlder technology. Iron can also be found in abundance, although that is exported much less often than other metals due to the abundance of iron in other regions.
History
For as long as anyone can remember, the badlands have been uninhabitable to all but the most resilient of monsters that could live off of the rocks and metals of the region. However, that changed when the gnoles were pushed out of the mountains into the badlands. Denied sanctuary both north and south due to their ragged, mangey appearance, the gnoles believed themselves doomed until they discovered that the greedy would often venture out into the region to mine these rare metals. While these metals were useless to the gnoles, the supplies the miners brought were not. The gnoles began to subsist purely by raiding those that travelled into the region for whatever reason.
When The Golden One created the Golden Empire, he was informed of the precious metals to the south. However, to avoid inflaming relations with other nations that were suspicious of his ambitions, he sponsored no official settlement in the region. Instead, he had under-the-table dealings with potential settlers to strike out into the badlands to set up permanent settlements, creating enough of a foothold in the region so that the Empire could just absorb the region without a long conquest, giving other nations an opening to invade. While there were several settlements set up, the main one is Sors, likely to be a capital if a nation were ever established in the badlands.
While many settlers were fine to live the average frontier life, some saw the freedom of the gnole raiders and began to emulate them, becoming bandits. While the badlands were dangerous before, this only further increased the danger to the settlers because while the gnoles only strike for sustenance, bandits are willing to take more at a chance for easy wealth.
Alternative Name(s)
No One's Land
Type
Badlands
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