Greystar Canyon

"I swear, on my honor as a Kobold I would've starved to death out there if these peaceniks in the cliffs hadn't picked me up and pumped me full of cactus fruit... What? No, I can't tell you where they are, they had a nice older woman who sent me off with some pastry dish called a 'blin' make me promise I wouldn't." -Transcript from damaged A.C. Task Mage mission report, date and name unknown.

Synopsis: There are... scattered reports of an alleged secular village nestled somewhere in the canyons lining the Battlement Cliffs along the Katharan borderlands of southern Everwealth. What information is consistent, indicates the area as a village-commune at the root of a great desert canyon, where soil meets the sand at a point where in the light of the moon, the canyon is dotted with brightly glowing splotches of land eponymously akin to silver star lights in the night sky. They are supposedly a rugged, simple population that wants for little, content to dwell among themselves, unbeknownst to and unbothered by the outside world. By tradition no man would lie hungry if their neighbor had food, no child asleep in the dark and cold while a mat awaits them by the hearth. While by no measure technologically advanced nor magically inclined, anything beyond a wagon and wheels being a foreign concept to the Canyonites, the people which call Greystar Canyon home are afforded a life more luxurious than many poor souls beyond their lands will ever experience. Greystar Canyon, to the scant few who can even recognize the name, would likely deem it a dream come true, a welcome respite from the horrors Everwealth has come to recognize as the natural state of affairs. However, for whatever reason, despite no reported negative incidents from these monotonously uneventful pacifists, travelers who supposedly returned from Greystar Canyon often shared similarly concerning testimonies. Despite a kind air about those who lived there, something felt... wrong, and the people of the canyon were very insistent that those travelers NEVER came back once their business was tended to.
Resources and Economy: The sand, due to present soil content is fortunately more fertile than most other desert villages. Aside from fruit bearing cacti and Elf-Wheat common to desert populations, the farmers here with diligent effort are able to grow dehydrated cousins of many different berries and nuts found on both sides of the border. Their efforts in agriculture however are not enough to sustain them, relying reportedly on their goat livestock population, alongside what their many gatherers manage to claim from the surrounding deserts such as bodies of large Scorpions for meat and repurposing of it's armored carapace for building materials. There is as well a large lake within the mouth of a greenery-soaked cave at the canyon's edge, a small Oasis amid the arid dunes, containing supposedly filling but remarkably bland-tasting 'sandfish' that live within the lake's subaquatic tunnels of unknown depth, allegedly unexplored despite ruins of an undiscernible structure evident along the lake wall and in the cave itself with matching architecture to the surrounding village.
Government: The people of the canyon, are decidedly non-violent. No military to enforce the will of a despot, or even a cobbled militia to defend against beastial predators exists here. The village instead simply defers to the wisdom of their current elder, known as a Vedmak or Vedma depending on their gender who is elected by 2/3 vote among the Canyonites upon the previous elder's death. This Vedmak (male) typically will simply bide their time assisting with labors where required and ensuring no one is in need of any necessities, the bulk of their duties being called to oversee annual meetings of the town's population, to brainstorm solutions for problems brought to their attention during proceedings, all immediately unsolvable conflict by tradition waiting until these meetings are held to be brought to a resolution, for as is their creed, the Canyonites' deem one's troubles as the canyon's troubles in an... oddly cooperative union.