Torrid Sapping

This is a phenomenon affecting the Melocazh Barrens in its southern reaches, though its influence rises ever northward.

Dry Heat

Many deserts of the world may be familiar with the concept of a dry heat, where the sun eats away at the critical moisture keeping life secure in its precarious footholds throughout the land. The lands of Everbright, for example, know this exceptionally well, but some climates are hungrier still, than a perpetual sun.

Gifts from on High

Historically, the Melocazh Barrens were quite the opposite of what their name implied. This, of course, is because this name was given to the region in recent times to reflect its changing climate — Danicasus, as it once was known, was a land of fertile farmland, much like its neighbors in the Savelan Northlands and Brineveil Forest. Things took a turn for the worse when a strange structure fell to the earth from the skies above.

Hungering Crystals

The foreign body which crashed to the ground in Danicasus was not large, but it made its impact almost immediately. Grasses withered around it, some crumbling to dust in but moments from contact, and the effect spread quickly. Though the effects were less pronounced from a distance, it was clear its power grew with each passing moment.   Upon examination by local residents, the object was determined to have a crystalline structure — revealing this only served to amplify its effects. It radiated intense heat, burning and cementing itself a passage into the earth beneath the region. As it burrowed deeper, its effects grew beyond its small radius at an alarming rate, drying and hardening the dirt it passed through first, until it began affecting the surrounding land in equal measure.   Lush fields turned into crumbling sediment, winds eroding the parched landscape until all became fields of sand and dunes. Every rainfall offered no respite, the earth drinking it away and leaving no opportunity to rehydrate the land. Soon, the rains stopped reaching the earth at all before the moisture dissipated. Heat radiated from the earth, unlike the heat of a desert sun, though the effect was similar.

Deserting Agriculture

The people of the land struggled to adapt. All who resided near the impact zone lost their fields, their wells dried, and the land could no longer support life. Most folks went missing, their whereabouts unknown. Others fled north to find lands unaffected by the structure, but found themselves relocating farther north, still, as the effects grew stronger, pushing most Danicians beyond their borders into the Savelan Northlands. Now, even the Northlands are threatened by this force.   As the region grows hotter and drier by the day, many wonder what will become of the lands, and why none in Aurel seem keen to acknowledge the phenomenon at all, or assist those who suffer from it.