Marrow Desert
"Turn back. There is nothing beyond but death for our kind" — Warning scrawled in the Blinding Cliffs
The Marrow Desert, sometimes called Marrowland or the Nakhae, is the world of Holos's largest natural desert. It is often considered a truly barren landscape of great dune fields and quicksand seas where life constantly battles to survive. Yet those who see this land is empty often end up paying dearly for such foolishness. The Marrow is the homeland of the Marrowmen, or Nakhae Rijahl, secretive culture comprised mainly of Thri-kreen and Aasimar, dragonborn, or human refugees; and the Tlincali, or Scorpionfolk, who consider all other mortals to be food for their ritual hunts.
Geography
The Marrow Desert comprises much of the Nioan continent. From south to north, the desert begins at the Blinding Cliffs, a massive escarpment that retains the coastal rains of the Sea of Brass from reaching over the Mashiq to the Marrow. To the west of the desert rises the barren Lazuli Coast and it's Lazuli Ocean beyond, while to the east, the Blinding Cliffs merge with the lowlands of the Shanindar Mountain Range. This makes much of the Marrow Desert lie well below sea level, increasing the average temperature of the region by several degrees. The north of the desert is split by the Niru River Valley, an artery of green in an otherwise bone-dry landscape. The banks of the Niru River are fertile and where the Niru has brought life, so too have those mortals that lived alongside it. Beyond the Niru lies the northernmost extension of the Marrow, Ghostdune Desert. However, while the ecology and geography of the Marrow appears to have been formed of natural geological systems, the Ghostdunes were once a more fertile landscape. Here, the first great mortal civilization, the Great House of Temekan rose to prominence and prospered with the aid of the gods and the riddles of the arcane. Yet at the end of that era, that Empire collapsed during what is called the Reckoning of Temekan, when the gods ravaged the homeland of the Temekanians with divine fury. This blight remains to this day, with the lands of the Ghostdunes remaining the homes of unholy monsters, undead spirits, and unburied bones.
The edges of the Marrow Desert consists of rocky hamada plateaus with ergs or sand dune systems making up much of the interior. Many of these dunes are over 180 metres (590 ft) high. What little rainfall there is, in combination with the wind, shapes the desert's features: sand dunes, dune fields, sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains and dry wadi valleys.
Sections of the Marrow with lower elevations are actually closest to a series of underground lakes known as the Nakhae Aquifer. The Desert's proximity to these lakes causes them to produces alramal or the Quicksand Seas on the surface. These seas can stretch for several hundred kilometers and are considered one of the more infamous landmarks of the Marrow. However, some of the chambers of Nakhae Aquifer contain freshwater, which wells up in various parts of the desert to form the valuable oases that makes the Marrow habitable.
Besides the Quicksand Seas, the most unique feature located in the Marrow Desert is likely the Gypsum Forest, a vast territory of alabaster, gypsum, and chalk rock formations that have been worn by the wind and sand for eons. Among the Marrowmen, it is considered a sacred place where chieftains go to confer with the ancestors and the elemental spirits of the Marrow.
Fauna & Flora
Little grows well in the Marrow Desert. The interior is estimated to include five hundred species of plants, which is extremely low considering the huge extent of the area. Plants such as acacia trees, palms, succulents, spiny shrubs, and grasses have adapted to the arid conditions, by growing lower to avoid water loss by strong winds, by storing water in their thick stems to use it in dry periods, by having long roots that travel horizontally to reach the maximum area of water and to find any surface moisture, and by having small thick leaves or needles to prevent water loss by evapotranspiration. Plant leaves may dry out totally and then recover.
Wild beasts endemic to the Marrow include: gazelle, fennec foxes, addax, cheetahs, lizards, hyrax, vipers, jackals, ostriches, silverbills, vultures, dune quail, firefinches, scorpions, scarabs, boar, desert mules, desert lions, hyenas, silver ants, dromedary camels, oryx, sand seals, and goats.
Among the Marrowmen, the most important animals are the giant sunblessed scarab and the dewback, a species of giant lizards. To the Tlincali, they consider the scorpiox, a dire-form of the giant scorpion, to be their most important beast of burden.
Wild monsters/gigantic beasts endemic to the Marrow include: almiraj; ankhegs; desert wyverns; giant vultures; hyenadons (giant hyenas golden gryphons; leucrottas; toratons (giant tortoises scorpiox (dire scorpions bulettes; ghouls; and shoosuvas;
Folk or sentient creatures endemic to this region, besides the mortal races: thri-kreen; tlincali; kobolds; gnolls; jackalweres; lamias; blue dragons; dao; ifrit; djinn;
Natural Resources
Because of the dangers of the desert, competition for natural resources focuses on the barest of necessities. Marrowmen and Tlincali alike speak of all things in terms of their "water weight," or how worthy they are of the effort needed to expend any amount of moisture. Food and water found at oases or wells is tightly controlled. However, in centuries past, some cultures sent folk into the Marrow to establish extraction colonies throughout the region. Since then, these colonies have mostly fallen into the hands of the Marrowmen tribes, though external corporations and states continue to express interest in seizing control of these operations. Resources extracted and refined in the Marrow include: gypsum; gold; acacia (wattle) wood & gum; myrrh; limestone; sandstone; copper; granite; amethyst; animal bones; and dewback hide.
The Marrowmen also are the sole exporters of scarab & scorpiox chitin, a tough black substance that resists bludgeoning, piercing, and acid damage; scorpiox venom, a deadly toxin located in the tail stinger of the infamous scorpiox; and ankheg blood, a volatile compound found in the exoskeleton of desert Ankheg.
Alternative Name(s)
The Nakhae
Type
Desert
Location under
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