The Vast Mirage
Summary[edit]
The most iconic, and constantly unbroken desert within the Faewild, is called the Vast Mirage. It is a shimmering landscape of crystalline sand like refractive glass. Cutting the feet of the unwary, this region is unforgivably hot when the sun refracts off the gleam in the day, and deathly cold at night when the light of the moon glistens along the fluid-seeming slopes. It is a dangerous realm of ruins; Apostates, monsters, and the remnants of a dead eidolon continue to haunt it in deadly force.
It is a dangerous place, and anyone seeking to plunder it or the remains that lie within it should consider themselves at risk of death, even amongst those usually warm to the faewild. Friend and foe are barely able to be kept straight in this harsh, brutal epitome of the danger presented in gleam and treasured magic.
The Mercurial Expanse[edit]
To send a being to cross the deserts of the Faewild, in the fae-woven stories of the now, is a synonym for a cruel journey. It is a metaphor to send a man to die. And for the Highborn, if they wish to plunder ancient treasures most powerful where their equally hungry and covetous kin cannot compete so easily? They must drive into the ruins of the ancient enemies, the war-bunkers of their nemesis, which are found within the Vast Mirage. Be they in search of the biggest prey, or the most wondrous of gifts for their master, this is where ambitious High Faerlan go to seek glory or death.
It's exact size, as are many things in the Faewild, is inconsistent. In roused periods where the half-dead corpse that once ruled it shudders to life, Oberon's beauty rots and Titania's joy wilts underneath unstable determination, as the soil crumbles apart back into grains... Until driven into new boundaries, by the hunters and exalts of Oberon.
The further in a man goes, the more the footfalls of the specter and power that haunt it make themselves clear- Sand gives way to broken glass ready to cut the feet and destroy the boots of an unwary being ignorant to the stories, and the shards of glass take on color and glory long gone of crystalline fragments. During the day, sunlight coalesces into heat and reflects and reverberates off of every enchanted sliver, unbearable light gathering and shining.
At night, the gleaming of the moon brings the opposite- Where the argent light flows and glistens, the desert freezes beyond Rhystian compare. An oasis glasses over with a sheet of ice, rocks become rimed with white, and the breath dangerously grows heavy in the air. There is no respite, here, when the sun sets- Only a new form of travail, often the vicious, rapid death of any ignorant trespasser who does know the violent reprisal the Vast Mirage visits on those who grow to accustomed to one of it's faces.
Whether they are confronted with sunstroke or frostbite, in the very depths of the desert, small valleys can sometimes form cohesive, unbroken bowls. Depending on the geomantic array of nearby dunes shifting the tides, liquid sunlight, moonlight and starlight can sometimes be found in these phenomena, wonderfully ready to be spun, mixed, or adjusted when extracted safely.
The Dead Enclaves[edit]
Some beings do live in this forged, vast, and unforgiving charter. Once, the purpose of these places was ingenuity and patience- To take and begin work on some of the most barren, scorched, frozen, and indominable depths of Creation: That most like the Void, and to seek it's mastery and sustainability by the adherents of the Shattered God.
Ruins remain, varied and exquisite; Works of ancient beings lie. With the glossy, crystal laden sands above, once- The concentration of Astratum deposits below made it an ideal point for those bound to the wicked cult to strive below to obtain the catalysts for change to their pieces of their Eidolon's realm, and many enclaves made their own ingenuity. Whether or not the desert was once so extreme and tempestuous, the domes and magical bastions that remain within are utterly incongruous, and very few the same in their bubbles of once-livability.
A man should be terrified to see a still-active globe of magic wherein the air turns temperate and sweet, where grass in strange hues flows up underneath, or a spire rising up out of the sand forged in gold and copper, capped in minarets. To find a cavern that leads through a glowing bubble of hard light, taking them away into the humid, pleasant embrace of a chilly grotto, lined with vines and fruits...
These are the former enclaves of his followers, left fallow- Most of them, left to die without their master's favor or power. Almost all of them? Repurposed, in their final moments, into death traps; As they were stormed by invaders seeking to eliminate all who would remember their master's stripped name.
Monsters forged from those who once remained occasionally still stalk these remnants, their minds melted down and apart even if they came before the purges.
Some apostates might hide within. Beings driven out of every other possibility within the Faewild have occasionally found succor in these holes, hiding in the rotted bones of Oberon's shattered foe. These beings offer no direct tie to the Eidolon there, although every day, there comes a risk of when the droning rises and the begging, shrieking, commanding, enraged, and hollow voices of the master of the sands comes to cloy for their allegiance...
The Ghost of the Wastes[edit]
Inhospitable, the High Faerlan as a whole despise being sent to try to erode at it's occasional expansion; Though, some take perverse glee and pride in holding their demesne in such perilous places, suiting it more to their needs. The most canny realize that holding a position of Borderwarden here for more than a century or two, however, is a death sentence, and foist it off onto more reckless and foolhardy peers.
There is no boundary of certain death. No: There is no longer any prediction to where one is safe within the bounds, without being a dweller able to read it's tides. It is said that the motion of the Unspeakable One within is restless, irregular, and unpredictable. The Shimmer may remain no more than an indescribable, desiccated husk for decades on end. Then, on some high noon or moonless light, the mass shudders and shifts, crawling and bawling out in a thousand screaming voices once more.
Borderwardens of Oberon watch diligently for one of these restless rousings, to stymie some new crusade bubbling forth into the rest of the Faewild.
Animals and beasts hit with the light refracted off of this being find themselves twisted and mad, ready to carry the glinting gleam once more. The ancient entities forged by him begin to rise from their own slumber, shaped by his broken and twisted hands, and without order or true unison any longer, they blindly seek out the goals of the Shattered Mirror. The disposition of these monsters towards mortals can vary, though exceptionally few possess sapient thought, much rarer in any coherent form any longer... But all of them hunger to feed off mankind once more. To Highborn, there is so rarely anything before a berserk hysteria.
While the most faithful of Oberon's servants are blessed to only hear static and come to the awareness that the danger approaches them, those whose hearts falter or of mortal ken might hear the words crawling in, even from miles upon miles away. Psychic screams continue to stain the air, and the warping of the celestial illumination begins to carry it like a sickness.
It asks you to remember. Why won't you remember? it was once so wonderful, how did it come to this? please, help.
And if you listen too long, if you let pity infect your heart for a creature that feeds off of you- You become just another vector for its' disease, flesh bubbling, warping, and twisting. The only answer can be to harden your heart to the corpse's blandishments and flee. Cover your ears. Think of home. Repeat old stories, sing songs you know by heart. Drown it out at all costs.
Lest you, too, become another danger for the next traveler to encounter: Condemned to be an example of this warning.