Hellish Basin

The Hellish Basin is one of the driest sections of the Valine. Encompassing an area of around half a million square miles in southwestern Iosse it can be decades before you see a drop of rain in parts of the Basin. Rain falls in the highlands just once every five to ten years. Additionally, the Hellish Basin can be exceedingly cold, with temperatures as low as -70 degrees Fahrenheit on occasion.
Subterranean water can be discovered in a few small isolated oases, that are typically connected to the bigger depressions, by digging a few feet below the hardened ground. While the conditions make this challenging, the relative ground humidity in such regions makes it easier to detect potential water sources through the appearance of frost - a blessing for travelers, given there are no long-term water sources above ground in the bitterly cold tundra. The southern part of the region's deep depressions are home to the scattering of solitary oases. Apart from some scarps, the Hellish Basin is generally flat, except for a succession of plateaus and massifs near the basin's center and the regions solitary mountain range.
The southern depressions are located immediately east of ancient granite mountains, the highest of which climb to 11,000 feet, which formed long before the sandstones that surround them. They are a breathtaking sight, rising dramatically from the flats that surround them. Hellish Basin's highest point is a sandstone plateau that is surrounded by granite slopes that fall dramatically to lower elevations on all sides. On the plain to the west of the mountains, smaller volcanic structures can be seen in the distance.

Type

Desert, Ice