No one alive today truly knows how the desert came to be. The tribes of the Shifting Sands preserve fragments of old songs, hints of a time when the land was not yet endless dunes but a place of rivers, stone towers, and green valleys. These remnants of memory are treated more as legend than fact — stories to entertain children or to caution the young.
Most people accept the desert as it is and as it has always been: harsh, ancient, eternal.
Yet beneath those drifting tales lies a deeper, older truth spoken only in whispers around dying campfires: before the tribes, before the cities, before mortals themselves, two great lineages ruled the newborn world — the red and brass dragons.
The Brass Dragons, curious wanderers of wind and sand, roamed the early oases and carved out their homes among stone mesas long before mortals walked upright. They were known in myths as the first keepers of speech and story, bringing wisdom to the land without demanding worship.
The Red Dragons, fierce and imperial, forged the first great dominion: the Red Dragon Dynasty, a realm of molten stone, obsidian citadels, and rivers of fire. Their shadows shaped the desert’s earliest mountains, and their battles scarred the land with canyons and ash plains.
But even these ancient beings were not alone.
Before dragons breathed flame, before mortals carved tools, the desert itself held life — formless, eternal, and unseen.
These were the Desert Spirits, enigmatic forces woven from sand, stone, wind, and shadow. They were neither gods nor demons but something far older: the consciousness of the desert itself.
They whispered through shifting dunes, guided storms, and appeared in visions to the earliest tribes. Some say the Spirits watched the dragons rise and fall, nudging fate in ways mortals cannot fathom.
The fall of the Red Dragon Dynasty remains one of the desert’s great mysteries. Scholars claim it was pride and infighting — a civil war between ancient wyrms whose fury melted mountains and turned fertile lands into wasteland. Shamans insist the Desert Spirits intervened to end the Dynasty before its hunger for dominion consumed the world. Others believe the dragons simply destroyed each other, blind to the ruin they would leave behind.
Whatever the truth, the aftermath reshaped the land. The once-mighty dragon realm collapsed, its citadels swallowed by shifting dunes. Only a scar remains: the Crimsondawn Basin, where the last surviving red dragons cling to life, broken, bitter, and still at war with each other.
Scattered clues linger, half-buried beneath the sands:
Ruins Beneath the Dunes: Crumbled dragon-built halls, heat-scarred pillars, and strange carvings eroded beyond meaning.
Ancient Relics: Coins, scales, shards of enchanted stone — trade goods for some, sacred artifacts for others.
The Spirits’ Whispers: Visions, omens, and wind-borne voices. Interpreted by shamans, doubted by skeptics, feared by all.
To the common folk, such things matter little. The past is a luxury. Survival is the law.
Few care whether dragons once ruled the land or whether Desert Spirits still watch from the dunes. Most shrug and focus on water, shelter, and survival — for the sands demand every ounce of strength.
But those who listen to the wind, who study bones and ruins, who dream of forgotten ages…
know that the desert remembers everything.
Even if its people do not.
History is divided into Eras of the Sun, each lasting until a major cataclysm or pivotal change occurs.
First Sun: Age of @Scorvian and @Lizardfolk
Second Sun: @Sun-Scorched Orc Dominion
Third Sun: Arrival of @Dune Dwarf and @Sand Elf
Fourth Sun: The @Desertborne Human Exodus
Fifth sun: The Great War Against the @Sun-Scorched Orc
Sixth sun: The calm before the storm. Present day
Just after turning into a desert, the land is unstable: sandstorms rage endlessly, water vanishes, and wildlife mutates into monstrous desert beasts. From the shifting creatures of the newborn desert emerged the @Scorvian , the first sentient race to claim the arid expanse. Masters of survival, they thrived in the dunes and oases. Soon after, the @Lizardfolk appeared on the southern margins, carving out their dominion across half the desert with their spiritual ways and martial discipline.
Some centuries after, from beyond the eastern mountains, orcish hordes stormed into the desert. Fierce and unyielding, they crushed both @Scorvian and @Lizardfolk , driving them into isolated pockets. For generations, the orcs held dominance, ruling the desert with raw strength and imposing their supremacy across its breadth.
From the deepest of desert’s northern mountains came @Dune Dwarf , digging into cliffs and mountains. And from the northern forests @Sand Elf also descended to the sparse forests and shaded valleys. Both races resisted orcish dominance, clashing with them in countless skirmishes. Yet, despite their resilience, neither @Dune Dwarf nor @Sand Elf were able to overthrow @Sun-Scorched Orc control.
From the fertile @The Green Plain , under the yoke of tyrannical rulers, vast numbers of @Desertborne Human fled southward into the desert’s northern fringes. Hardened by exile, they adapted quickly to desert survival, forming a formidable and rapidly growing presence. Unlike the scattered @Scorvian or spiritual @Lizardfolk , @Desertborne Human multiplied and organized rapidly.
@Desertborne Human , bolstered by alliances with @Sand Elf and @Dune Dwarf , forming the Desert Tribes Alliance and waged a long and grueling war against the @Sun-Scorched Orc . Over decades, their combined forces shattered orcish supremacy. The conflict culminated in the exile of the @Sun-Scorched Orc to the desert’s southernmost, most brutal reaches — a land of fire, salt, and endless storms. There, the @Sun-Scorched Orc splintered, diminished, and hardened into scattered clans.
The present era is one of precarious balance, a fragile calm stretched thin across the desert. The tribes wander, trade, and clash in cycles as they always have, yet beneath the shifting sands lies an unease no storm can match. Scholars whisper of signs—the @The Great Dune ’s march northward, beasts stirring in the @Sand Ocean , and omens traced in starlight—while common folk dismiss them as tales. Still, the air feels heavy, as though the desert itself holds its breath, waiting for a storm far greater than any of wind or sand.