Great Bala Desert

"Oh yes the Great Bala is an interesting place, a biome without peer. It is extreme in every measure so much so it near defies expectation. The days get so hot that you can witness steam coming off oases across the deserts and the water will be warm enough to slow broil unprotected flesh if one is not careful. The nights get so blisteringly cold with the near constant wind that the risk of hypothermia becomes ever present. As if that was not enough, the region only gets rain for two months of the year, and those rainfalls will be short, violent storms with lightning strikes and windstorms plenty and perhaps the odd twister or three. To add to this you have the ever present threat of sandstorms both mundane, and of course if the conditions are just right, of the much deadlier Mannasurge variety. However it is a fascinating place chock full of interesting flora and fauna, plants and creatures that seem to defy all odds and logic and survive in perhaps the single most abusive and harshest climate on all of Valerick. It is a marvellous place, one I would spend far more time exploring and studying should I have the means, budget and force of constitution."

The famed naturalist known as Mochi, waxing poetic in one of his lectures about his lost love, the one elusive biome he has yet to truly ingrain himself in and devote the proper attention it deserves to its study, the Great Bala Desert.

Geography

The massive Great Bala Desert that dominates the southeastern regions of the continent of Gavis-Lune, and makes up a large portion of the lands known as Susma, the Kingdom of Kingdoms, is best described as a windswept steppe and desert, a vicious sunbaked expanse that to most eyes would seem desolute and empty. It is a region hammered by the natural climate cycle of its biome, a place of extremes, with hypothermia inducing chills at night giving way to a sun that rises rapidly and by mid morning is baking the land. By noon or not long after any exposed waters are steaming, not quite boiling, but hot enough to put a slow broil on any creature fool enough to allow their exposed flesh to touch it. Consequences for drinking the waters at this point, from the surface of such rare oases, can be dire indeed, including scalding and burning of the throat and even lungs when one inevitably chokes and breaths some of it in.

Besides this the ever present risk of sudden violent sandstorms, and the sheer sapping heat the region is hammered by the climate in many other ways. Earthquakes, whilst rare are not unheard of, though usually quite mild. When near the end of the dry season or the end of the short and violently wet season the risk of Mannasurge Sandstorms increases exponentially. Even in the wet season you would find no true relief, for what little rain the Bala gets in those two months comes in the form of vicious and howling short but brutal gales and thunderstorms, with lightning strikes being common, the rain falling in short bursts and sheets, and with the wind picking up to teeth rattling levels. Tornados are not unheard of at this time of year and kick up with little to no warning in the Bala, the sky rarely seeming to shift color. Generally the only warning one would get is the wind will die suddenly for but a few moments, and if one were to look up, they might see the funneling shape in the skies above.

Ecosystem

In spite of all of this, and though it is not well studied, those few bold expeditions that have returned report the Bala is home to a biome of surprising diversity, seeming to find success both around oases, and even in the wastes between them in a variety of ways. Predatory cacti and thorny plants that are filled with a hydrating nectar draw in animals which they spike and entrap and drain of blood, which they seem to seperate, the spines they grow seeming nearly as strong as iron, and likely the rest used to create the hydrating fluid contained within them that is both bait and a nutritional boon for any bold enough to try and acquire it. All manner of burrowing creature, reptiles and mammals mostly, whom seem to have a very natural rhythm set to avoid the blistering hours of high daylight or the worst hours of the night. The few birds one might see, such as vultures and other scavengers, or blood-tailed screamers, an apex avian predator of the region, seem able to regulate their heat exposure simply by flying high enough. However these pieces of knowledge and understanding are heavily limited as successful studies and excursions into the Great Bala have been very few. The expense, the difficulty, the risk factor, all these things play a role into how little the desert has truly been explored.

Type

Desert