The Siltwash

The Siltwash is a large desert of extremely fine silt. Completely flat and unnaturally pristine, the Siltwash's unassuming appearance hides a deadly truth. Air, blown in through a series of caves from the windward side of the coastal shield mountains act as a natural bellows which agitates and saturates the silt with air, creating a huge stretch of dry quicksand. The quicksand is fast and near universally fatal, and the rocky depths hide the bodies of thousands of individuals who were unlucky enough to fall into the wash.   The surface of the Siltwash is flat, with gusts of wind occasionally creating surface clouds. The silt is reflective and refractive, and as such, the sun's light makes the surface glimmer. This combined with the heat makes mirages an extremely common occurrence on the Siltwash and lends to its nickname, the Desert of Illusion.   The bed of the Siltwash is mostly unexplored, and the depth varies anywhere from 100 yards to more than three miles. The small section that has been mapped shows webs of caverns, hard spires smoothed by erosion, and deep crevasses.   Navigating the Siltwash is and always has been a risky endeavor. Basilisks; a species of large reptile indigenous to the quicksand sea were captured and broken in as mounts to ride across the wash, but if the Basilisk in question wasn't fully tamed or got spooked, it would drag its rider down into the depths. More recently, innovations on the ubiquitous Sandsnekke have included a series of pads which when activated, emulated the piston-like movements of the Basilisk.

The Siltwash is the natural habitat of the Orden Basilisk as well as several species of buoyant cacti which house small birds and insects.

The depths of the silt and their treasures are a mystery for the most part, as exploring the vast desert is difficult and expensive. Surface scavengers have found fortunes in reclaiming the sunken cargo and components of the wrecks that over the centuries found their demise on the Siltwash.