The Curse of the Sands

The desert can be a harsh place. The sun sends its rays to boil down on the denizens of sand, draining from them every bit of moisture. What little water remains can often be a miles long journey for only a paltry sip. Along the way, gusts of wind brush against any exposed skin, pelting the innocent with grainy bullets. To make matters worse, the desert is hypnotizing. Is that an oasis in the distance? No, it's only a trick of the eye and a mile in the wrong direction. Many have fallen for these tricks, these seductions of the desert, and perished before they could be made aware of their foolishness. Never trust the desert, and never give it the benefit of the doubt. It is trying to kill you -- be it out of malice, or out of nature. That much is unclear for none have survived long enough to discern.

There is more than the all-consuming forces of nature to contend with. What of the corrupted that stalk the arid mesas? Their minds focus solely on their next victim as they prowl the desert with hungry bellies. This hunger pushes away self-awareness and pulls down the predators into depths of depravity deeper than even the desperation would demand, killing and feasting on rotten flesh beyond the point of satiation. There are none who've thus far been able to resist the corruption of the desert. Many centuries of paladins, with long histories of virtue, have journeyed to slay the beasts who've fallen. With each beating ray of the sun, the heat burns away a small bit of their civility until only a desire for malicious chaos and destruction is present. Now, they themselves are the beasts to be slain. To the people living on the border of the great desert, the Gap of Khans, they call this affliction, "the Curse of the Sands". Is it the curse that creates this malice, or did the curse strip away any abstractions, until their true natures were revealed?

How do the people understand the nature of the Curse of the Sands? Village elders speak of this affliction in whispers, clutching marble talismans of their goddess, Minithal, lest they be doomed themselves. You cannot trust the sand to hold you up, they whisper. It desires to swallow you whole. Its hunger is greater than that of any beast in the desert. A beast, at least, will devour a singular person at a time. The sand, desiring ripe, virtuous souls in vast quantities, will chomp with a crash of its coarse maws, swallowing entire tribes: carts, camels, children, and all. These jaws tear with such speed and strength, it takes only but a flash, followed by a gust, to devour away the souls of good men. This leaves behind a soulless carcass for the vultures of depravity, whose eyes turn blood red at the sight of new carrion.

This curse, they whisper, was brought upon the land by the ancient Pellog Khan III. Such was his knowledge of magic, none have obtained a spell repertoire as vast or as vile as his. His consumption of the dark arts was like a starving scavenger upon putrid carrion. His darkness shadowed across the land like a horde of vultures from above, circling for easy prey. It pulled up the roots of grass, leaving behind wastes doomed to whether into sand. It cracked open the barren earth, ripping rifts destined to never fill their bottomless pits. As it barreled up and down the hills, it drank away at the streams, ponds, rivers, and lakes. What little water it could not consume was left poisoned by its putridity. Even millennia since his death, the corruption of his darkness has yet to concede a single grain of its conquered sand, or a single drop of its captured water. The results of Pellog's corruption forced a smile across his face, even as he was drained of his own blood and soul.

Yet, they continue to venture into the desert, those foolish paladins of virtue. The desert is trying to kill you. Out of malice? Out of nature? That much is unclear for none have withstood long enough to discern.