The Forsaken Valley

Located within the Sand Dragon latitudes, the Forsaken Valley is a west-northwest cut through the Cataclysmites from Western Krahnis.  The land is covered in jutting cliffs, disintegrating buttes, and chasms, covered in blowing sands and dry packed dirt.  It is known as a desolate and desperate land. It is believed the mountains were ground into sand, the land became so dry it cracked, and cities vanished into history. There are legends of rivers sinking under the earth with creatures living below in sunken kingdoms. 
The nations of the western coast refer to the desert as the Deeossa.  The western coastline is well populated within 50 miles of the shore. But it transitions quickly to dry and sandy, plant life reduces to desert shrubs before vanishing under sands.  The dry ground and sands don't hold water, nor the warmth of the sun thorough the night. Night temperatures plunge to near freezing. The winds from the North Sea blow down the Western Krahnis shores and gets caught into the arid valley.  This produces snowstorms that carry snow, hail, ice, and sands eastward.  These storms and winds turn the western end into frozen wastelands at night.  The snow upon the western end of the desert disappears quickly once the sun has come up above the mountains.  It is believed there is a lingering curse of an old wizard that sends these deadly storms into the valley.
The eastern coast is far more green due to the Burkush Gulf reaching up from the equator and creating a tropical area around its coast.  Southern running mountain rivers cut through the eastern end creating productive lands. Strips of desert and badlands run in between rivers. The easternmost desert has ruins of former cities. And amongst barren cliffs a branch of the Unbroken Road disappears under the sand.  The Unbroken Road leads to a number of cities that have existed for centuries and even millennia.  This is the only branch that ends in nothing. 
Deep within is a vast stretch of old black lava flows, creating a land mass that is cutting to the flesh, and not a blade of green for hundreds of miles.  Lava flows are porous and retain no water, all of it quickly draining into the ground. Few creatures can walk on the lava, and only a handful are known to have lived within the flows, mostly for the protection it gives from any hunters.
Several lived-in and unlived-in locations are famous.
The cliff city of the Leathernecks, the undead of Aggatae, the Desert Flower goddess.  She found them starving and dying and freed them from needing water or food, turning them into a living undead. Never dying, but their bodies aged into decrepit forms. 
The overlooking mountains are sheered, creating many cliffs facing the desert and diverting very little mountain waters to the desert.  There is a late winter high waterfall along the northern cliffs. The settlement, Kava lies under it, partially embedded in the cliff wall.  The waterfall disappears into a crevasse and falls deeper into the cave where it is collected in a rock basin with aqueducts carrying the water through the town into sealed clay reservoirs that preserve the water for the remainder of the year. 
Other settlements exist, often hidden to protect their water sources exist.  Violent nomads travel within, hunting desert creatures for moisture as much as nutrition.  Water mages have great power in the desert, as the ability to create water is to sustain life.

Alternative Name(s)

The Dead Sea

Type

Desert