Sand Ocean
Overview
The Sand Ocean is the most perilous and mysterious region of the Shifting Sands Desert — a vast, seemingly endless sea of dunes so massive and fluid they mimic the tides of water. It is in this vast wilderness that the Great Dune drifts. In the Sand Ocean are present some phenomena hat exist nowhere else in the world; gigantic sandstorms, shifting terrain, and colossal predators.
The Sand Ocean is expanding northward with each passing generation, swallowing oases, hunting grounds, and caravan routes, a creeping tide of sand that reshapes the balance of the desert tribes.
Geography & Features
Endless Dunes – Waves of golden sand that rise and fall like mountains, some dunes large enough to dwarf entire tribes.
The Great Dune – A moving, shifting titan of sand.
Storm Belts – Regions of perpetual sandstorm, where visibility vanishes and even the tribes’ most experienced guides refuse to tread.
Inhabitants: The Titanic Beasts
The Sand Ocean is unlike any other part of the desert, for here roam the greatest beasts ever to walk the sands. They are not a single kind of creature but a vast, terrifying variety: scaled titans, armored behemoths, winged leviathans, burrowing predators, and mirage-born abominations. Some resemble magnified versions of lesser desert creatures, while others defy all logic, their shapes half-born from storms and shadows.
These titans exist in a constant state of struggle. The Sand Ocean is their hunting ground, and predator hunts predator in an endless cycle of survival. Some titans burrow beneath the dunes and strike like ambush predators, while others stride openly across the sands, unchallenged except by rivals of similar size. Winged monstrosities circle high above, swooping down to feed on the corpses left behind by the endless battles below.
The beasts leave colossal marks upon the land: entire dune ridges torn apart by their passing, plains of broken glass left from battles that unleashed fire or lightning, and deep craters where something massive once lay in wait. Caravans whisper of watching titans clash on the horizon — mountains colliding, each strike shaking the dunes like thunder.
No part of the Sand Ocean is safe. For even the smallest creatures here — insect swarms, serpents, carrion-feeders — are monstrous compared to their desert kin elsewhere, twisted and grown vast.
Significance and Reputation
To the Desert Tribes: The Sand Ocean is a place of death and awe. Few enter willingly, save for the desperate or the mad.
For the Khazk Horde (Sun-Scorched Orcs): The orcs have adapted to hunt the big beasts and are their main source of food.
To Scholars: A region of secrets. The expansion of the Sand Ocean has long troubled historians and mystics.
For outsiders, it is simply a place of nightmares — where the earth itself devours the unprepared, and shadows grow teeth.