Balterflaav
"The Mud Flats themselves are basically useless except to travel over."
~Abide Baht Mig, of Abide and Seak's Bizarre Bazaar
Geography
The Mudflats are a mostly flat expanse of red clay veined with white salt. Here and there, hills of muck have built up in response to some underground disturbance in the bedrock.
Ecosystem
Nature has adapted with strange rapidity to the pollution of the Greenskins. Animals that weren't driven almost immediately extinct learned to use the Greenskins as a resource. This means that the species present are disproportionately predatory, feeding on Goobers where they swarm. Nonpredators tend to be the sort of animal that can live with scarcity, such as moles and scavengers. Lichens grow on some of the rocks, where Norkers haven't licked them clean, and mushrooms sprout where their mycelium can find purchase and nutrients. Molds and puddings are more common than stationary fungus.
Great swarms of Marshflies erupt periodically from the muck.
Ecosystem Cycles
The Badlands experience a rainy season in winter, with Midwinter turning the precipitation into slush. Despite the lack of unfiltered sunlight, the Badlands become hot and cloying in the summer.
Localized Phenomena
Occasionally, a sickly green fog will seep from the ground and linger for a day over an area of the Mud Flats. This fog emits a faint, eerie light and carries a foul odor resembling the smell of bile. If exposed to fire, this gas will violently explode, leaving behind a sticky, burning tar that clings to anything caught in it. The sudden and violent eruption will also burn all of the breathable air, potentially suffocating victims and in the most extreme cases, exposing them to a vacuum.
Climate
Spring, Summer, and Fall in the Badlands tends to be hot and dry, with an unforgiving sun that sheds only indirect light, providing plenty of heat but dim illumination. Occasional rains interrupt the endless heat during these three seasons. In the winter, the temperature becomes milder, and in Midwinter it can reach just below freezing, with more frequent precipitation in the form of razor-sharp hail and soot-shaded sleet.
Fauna & Flora
Moles and similar subterranean insectivores and their prey provide the bulk of the biomass. Lichens dot some rocks, and fungi of all types colonize the shade. Wyverns fly over from the Barrier Mountains on wide-sweeping hunting expeditions, fighting with Manticores over prey. Norkers travel in herds, most domesticated but some wild. They eat anything, and are a staple prey for many of the larger predators.
Natural Resources
The Mudflats are home to several Georima that produce veins of iron and iron-rich muck. Before the Norkers stripped the Badlands clean of most large plants, this produced ironwood trees whose bark was hardened by the iron. Now, it stains the mud and clay red and provides Norkers with the iron to stiffen their bones and hides.
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