A barren expanse of shifting dunes stretches from the mountain base to the western horizon. The wind never stops. It scrapes the skin and steals the moisture from your lips. Thirty-foot waves of sand rise and fall like a frozen sea, and in the far distance a clear sky hangs without a single cloud.

Two settlements break the emptiness: one perched high on a mesa, the other sunken around a hidden well. Between them runs a hard-packed road that never seems to shift, even as the dunes slide and swirl around it.

Travel off the road is slow, punishing, and dangerous. The desert hides enormous burrowing creatures whose presence can be felt as low vibrations beneath your feet. Food is scarce. Water is nonexistent.

The nomadic people who live here travel lightly, navigate by stars, and make their way across the dunes with practiced ease. They treat this place with reverence and pride, surviving in a land that would kill most travelers within days.

Windglass—thin sheets of lightning-fused glass—glitters beneath ancient metal spires scattered across the desert. Skilled hands harvest it, and caravans carry it westward in exchange for the food and salt this land cannot provide.

The rest of Shugothnah is empty, harsh, and strangely beautiful. It is a place where only the prepared survive.