Okan

"The Desert Diamond" of Okan has thrived for a thousand years, and will thrive for a thousand more. According to legend, when the world was young, what is now the Okan Empire was home to a grand jungle civilization where gods and monsters walked freely among mortals. But a great sandstorm destroyed the land and turned the jungle to desert. The gods fled the earth amid the catastrophic destruction, and for centuries afterwards, the few survivors eked out a desperate existence scavenging the ruins. Until one young girl took it upon herself to rebuild. She rallied the disparate communities and united them together in the spirit of reconstruction and reclamation. From the ruins, a grand new empire was founded, one that now stretches out as a shining beacon of culture and wealth in desert.   The empire of Okan stretches thousands of miles along the rocky northern coastline of the Desert Continent, and a few hundred miles into the continent itself. From the grand capital of Okan City to the small hamlets of the frontier, Okan is united in the spirit of technology and culture. From across the northern sea, ships from faraway lands flock to Okan in search of riches, be it their technological acumen or their abundance of precious metals and exotic flora and fauna. In Okan, spirituality and science are woven tightly together--grand cathedrals double as cutting-edge laboratories, and there is no distinction between scientist and saint. Even magic is studied as rigorously and methodically as physics or chemistry. "Okan knows everything" as the saying goes, and it's almost true. Almost.   There is one thing that, for all of Okan's knowledge, cannot be grasped: Warden's Desert. South of the frontier towns on the edge of the empire is a vast and impassible desert, where no life can be found. Even the reptiles and insects that thrive in otherwise-lifeless regions of the world dare not enter it. During the day, the sunbaked sands reach temperatures hot enough to cook a man alive, while the nighttime frost can freeze a person in mere minutes. Perhaps it is inevitable, then, that countless explorers have mounted foolhardy expeditions in a vain attempt to map the sands, spurred on by vague and pointless rumors of what lies in wait on the other side of the desert. Only the most idiotic and reckless adventurers would even dream of undertaking such a deadly, pointless quest.