Crawling Sands

"Just like time itself... crawling foward in a steady fashion no matter whatever may try to stop them" -A Priestess of Syria.

The name of this desert is quite easy to understand once you have seen it once; perpetually there is a massive sandstorm moving over its perimeter, making the dunes fade away and set in new positions as it passes by; from a distance it would appear as if the desert itself was some sort of massive caterpillar ever crawling foward due the unseen orders of some greater force.

There are very few settlements in this region, most well outside the range of the ever moving sandstorm, a particular pair of them are extremely ancient and home to much of the greatest advances in the world; as the dunes shift with each passing of the storm they cover and uncover the ancient ruins that lay underneath the sands, ruins of a civilization far more advanced and that faded from history a long time ago.

The Diggers
At the heart of the desert well beyond the range of the storm lays an oasis that keeps the desert at bay due the rolling hills that push back the sands all around it, in here the city of Mekanus can be found, this ancient city set all around a massive mountain that pierces into the heavens is home to the many adventurers, treasure hunters and researches that explore the ruins uncovered by the storm; they are commonly refered to as diggers.

A lone digger is an odd sight as the vast majority of them have formed several guilds that can be found all around the city, while each guild has its own leadership and views the members of one guild will always be ready to defend their friends from conflict with another one. Digger guilds became a necesity in order to record and stablish proper practices to dig the sites uncovered as well as handling the items found within.

Nowdays there are 3 types of digger guilds: Santioned Guilds, Freelance Guilds and Black Guilds.

Sanctioned Guilds
The Sanctioned Guilds are those that have sought the approval of the Church of Syria as the main things found inside the ruins in the desert are of the so called Lost Tech, they in a way serve as a hand of the church in order to uncover these artifacts and bright them to the light; sanctioned guilds often have a small temple of Syria attached to them were a small number of acolytes and priestess of the church rest and aid with identifying, restoring and deciding what to do with the uncovered items.

Freelance Guilds
Unlike sanctioned guilds, the Freelance usually work a bit more freely, for the most part they sell their finds to sanctioned guilds, to the church itself or to particulary wealthy individuals that the guild feels they would gain more from than sending to the church and awaiting its often slow methods of handling the items.

Black Guilds
Black Guilds are hard to find, as they are essentially the black market of Lost Tech the Church of Syria is constantly trying to stamp them out as they see the way they handle the items as desecration and potential dangerous; this still has not stopped all of them as new ones usually spring up after one has been taken out, this has lead to several men becoming far more threatening that they would be due buying access to this ancient devices.

The Eternity Cathedral
Moving ahead of the sandstorm is a massive moving fortress, this is the home of the Church of Syria known as the Eternity Cathedral; the fortress is a gigantic machine built by unknown methods in ages past and set upon a pair of tracks, for some reason the sandstorm of the crawling sands follows these tracks as well always a week or so behind the cathedral.

From here the priestess of Syria go into Mekanus to strike deals with the guilds and bring back the Lost Tech found in the ruins, it usually takes a long time for the priestess to restore the items and identify their purpose, those they think can aid the world as a whole are reverse-engineered and then plans are sent to Mekanus and Avatis to mass produce them; those they deem to dangerous are often locked away in the vaults of the cathedral or outright destroyed.

The Grand Library
Another place of note is far on the southeastern corner of the desert, the greatest center of knowledge and research of the world can be found in the city of Az-azir; its grand library its a maze of bookcases filled to the brim with ancient tomes and much more, no one knows for sure how big the library actually is as no one has ever gone down to its lowermost level.

The researchers of the library pursuit all knowledge with great zeal, striking out in the world just to come back with books from other regions and their own personal journals filled up with their experiences; this soon find their way to the library's archives before they strike out once more.

The Flamesteel Wagons
Linking the 2 major settlements as well as another point in the edge of the desert close to the west mountains are the Flamesteel Wagons, the Church of Syria long ago repaired these massive devices and set them to work in order to facillitate communication and travel over the desert, each one is a massive structure of pure black steel the size of several long buildings linked together, they are set upon similar tracks as those of the Eternity Cathedral but they do not move along the desert's perimeter like it does.

The Wagons stop at 3 points in the desert; named Sand Station, Forge Station and Library Station by the priesthood, Forge Station is on the outskirts of Mekanus just outside the barrier of hills that keeps the desert at bay, similary Library Station is on the outskirts of Az-azir although very close to the library itself; Sand Station used to merely drop one close to the mountains in the west, many found it the most useless of the stations and wondered why the circuit the wagons travel along stopped there; nowdays its seen in a much favorable condition as the mountain city of Tirgath is a relatively short walk away and after reaching it access to the great plains can be achieved.

Current Settlements
Although few in number settlements in the desert are quite important. Furthermore the ancient ruins of Castle Niphel lay on the northwest of the desert, long abandoned by its lord; although recent rumors speak of a new owner and lord that is trying to restore the castle.