Origins of the Desert
Official known origins
No one alive today truly remembers how the desert came to be. The tribes of the Shifting Sands pass down fragments of song and tale, hinting at a time when the land was different — greener, richer, filled with rivers and strange towers of stone. Yet these are no more than whispers carried in oral tradition.
Most Desertborne simply believe the desert has always been. Endless sand, scorching sun, and wandering tribes — the natural state of the world.
Though no unified story exists, scattered traces remind the curious that something came before:
Ruins Beneath the Sand: Half-buried stone walls, strange carvings, aqueducts and shattered obelisks dot the land, though most are eroded and incomprehensible.
Ancient Relics: Traders sometimes find old coins, blades, or tools unlike anything made today. Some whisper they hold strange enchantments.
The Spirits’ Whispers: Spiritual tribes, like the Karkrei, speak of voices in the storm that guard forgotten truths. But even they disagree on what those truths are.
To the vast majority of individuals, the desert is simply the desert. Its past is irrelevant — survival and honor are what matter. Scholars, warlocks, and mystics may debate forgotten empires, but the common folk shrug at such notions.
After all, what use are the ghosts of history when the sands demand every ounce of strength just to endure the present?
The real unknown origins
Long before the desert tribes, long before the dunes swallowed the world, the land was a fertile realm of rivers, forests, and stone-built cities. This forgotten empire was ruled by a people known as the Ishkari, masters of star-magic and elemental craft. They commanded rains, moved mountains, and shaped life to their will.
The Ishkari thrived for millennia — but in their pride, they reached into realms beyond mortal comprehension. In their delving, they uncovered the presence of the Buried One, a colossal entity said to have crawled from the edge of existence where the material world touches the abyss. Its arrival heralded catastrophe: the skies blackened, the rivers boiled, and earthquakes tore the Ishkari lands apart.
The Ishkari, realizing their doom, called upon every mage, priest, and warrior to face the Buried One. For generations, they fought, their armies reduced to ash, their cities burned, their rivers turned to poison.
At last, the greatest circle of Ishkari sorcerers wove a prison from sand, storm, and shadow, binding the Buried One beneath a gargantuan mound of enchanted desert. This was the birth of the Great Dune. But the cost was ruin:
The Ishkari homeland was scorched to wasteland.
Forests and rivers died, replaced by endless sand seas.
The Buried One’s essence seeped into the land, twisting beasts into monstrous forms.
The Ishkari did not survive their victory. The rituals that chained the Buried One consumed their life-force, reducing their bodies to dust. Only their spirits endured — spectral echoes bound to the desert, guardians tasked with watching over the prison they had created.
Thus were born the Desert Spirits, the silent wardens that whisper through storms and guide the tribes.
But, as time passed and other races and factions settled again in this part of the world, the history was lost, and no one remembers it.