The Wildlands
The Wildlands are a term for any land that is not protected from Magic Storms by an Anchor. These places are subject to a variety of disasters that make them considered uninhabitable long term by those who use Anchors, though their many inhabitants would say it just calls for a different way of life.
Ecosystem
The ecosystem of the Wildlands is dominated by the effect of the Magical Storms. These cause a variety of dramatic magical effects that generally fall into one of three categories: summoning, mutagenic, and environmental effects.
Summoning effects bring new creatures into the region - these can be as benign as a deer or a hare, or as terrifying as a demon or a psionic predator. Most of these creatures do not stay in the world for long - the energies keeping them here dissipate over time unless they seek out a means to keep themselves in the plane, though that is small comfort for those they slaughter in their short time in this world.
Mutagenic effects are more enduring, altering living creatures. This generally makes them larger and stronger, but can have a wide number of effects. Most of these come with the side effect of the creature being unable to breed, but the Lingorm and the Axainadrax are both noted and feared exceptions to this.
Environmental effects are spontaneous events, anything from earthquakes to unnatural weather - rain of blood or fire, walls of wind that no mortal can walk through, etc. One particularly common and troublesome effect is a necromantic surge around a collection of the dead. As a result, most cultures in Irion (including the vast majority of Wildlanders) practice cremation or sky burials, these practices destroy the corpse thoroughly enough to prevent it rising to attack the living. Wildlander cultures often also actively try to avoid killing in combat as well, as battlefields can be particularly dangerous, leaving a lot of bodies and a lot of weapons lying in the same place.
The result of all this is that the Wildlands are a vicious example of survival of the fittest. The best survivors are creatures that are particularly stealthy, fast, or dangerous.
Entry for WorldEmber 2020
In response to the prompt Describe a geographically or meteorologically unstable region of your world
Magical storms are always unpredictable. I really like that it's had an effect on how your culture treats their dead, and even stops them trying to kill on the battlefield. Really interesting.
Explore Etrea
The not killing people on the battlefield is strictly for the folks living in the Wildlands - the more "civilized" people are happy to churn out the dead on a massive scale in war. I hadn't really thought of it, but this is actually true of real hunter gatherer cultures as well - it's fairly well documented, for instance, that before Shaka Zulu's reforms, the various peoples that became the Zulu Kingdom tended not to kill in their raids. In Ancient Greece, it was considered so remarkable for a defending force to fight to the last man that we still remember the Battle of Thermopylae today. Compare to the 20th century, where in WWI attacking forces could be considered victorious while taking 80% casualties, and this was standard enough that most of us only barely remember a handful of exemplary battles. I must admit, my main thought at time of writing was giving myself an option for D&D purposes - these "barbaric" societies could easily be assumed to be hostile mooks to kill - having the enemy down a player then make a medicine check to stabilize them seems like it would be an abrupt change in the tone of a battle.