The Ten Thousand Trackless Sands
Geography: The Ten-Thousand Trackless Sands cover some six million square miles. The Sands embody nearly ever type of tropical desert: scrub, dune, alkali. To the north, the broken Chyrsanthumum Range of the Silvermonts (called the Lords of Dust by the Aharan) marks the boundary between the desert and the green lushness of the Twilight Empire of the Neher. However, there is a considerable amount of disputed territory there, even as far north as the Prelude Archipeligo and the Isles of Dusk in the Gulf of the Sun, where Aharan sloops do battle with Neher galleons.
To the east are the Mountains of Heaven range of the Silvermonts, but those great peaks break and lower to a line of volcanoes spaced out through the thick jungles of the mid-Equatorial Jungle belt. To the south are the Spears of God range and all the myths that surround them. To the west is the Golden Ocean and Islands of the Prophets.
Even further to the south, where the Spears of God end in the Golden Ocean, the Equatorial Jungle prsses against the Sands again, and here the Aharan sloops wage war with Darken Fey galleys, slaves taken on both sides.
Climate: The desert is hot, arid, and hot. Then it's hot some more. There is virtually no rainfall, and the only river to run aboveground is the great Aeops, which bisects the desert from the jungles in the east to the ocean in the west. Oases run along the courses of the underground rivers, though, and these provide some shade and protection from the everpresent sun.
Society and Gazeteer: The Sands are home to the Tribes of Aharan. Each nomadic tribe has many small, roving communities ruled by headmen called Amluks, while each tribe is bound beneath a sheik, who in turn owes his fealty to the Sultana of Zhin, the Sephar of All the Land.
There are very few permanent holdings in the desert, and those that are there are built in the oases. Except for two notable exceptions: God's Eye is a pilgrimage site built near a strange and huge natural pit in the desert. It is said that the foolhardy can climb to the edge of the pit and peer down and see Am's burned red eye at the bottom. Dog is a village on an alkali flat beside a strange salt river.
Otherwise, the nomads of the desert move from oasis to oasis as the water and season allows.
Religion: Most of the people of the Sands follow the teachings of Am (Am is all, Am is.) and believe in the Aharan pantheon of Amism. However, there are some notable exceptions who make sacrifice to the devils of he sands, or to the gods of other lands.
Type
Desert
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