Al-Kubra (æl kuːbræ)

The Al-Kubra is a strange and mystical desert, found on the island of Saba in the Southeastern Region. It is surrounded on all sides by the Jibal al-Junun, a volatile volcanic mountain range. There are only a few ways through the mountains, all of them dangerous. The most common access is through the subterranean city of Al-Tana, but passage this way requires permission from the Malikate of Saba, which guards the access point closely and permits only occasional missions into the Al-Kubra.

A Half-Dreamt Place

The desert is a Wild Place and a Dreamland. It exists only partially within the physical realm, and the rules of reality are warped within its borders. Its interior is much larger than its perimeter should allow, and the creatures that dwell among its shifting dunes are hazardous to mind, body, and soul. Legends abound of flesh-eating ghuls, and of deceptive manticores who stalk the wastelands and cry like lost children. The enormous Makhfiir hides in plain sight, silently waiting for some unwary creature desperate for shade. And somewhere within lies the magnificent city of Madinat al-Brunz, home of the Jinn, who bear no love for flesh-bodied visitors.

Navigating a Trackless Land

To journey through the Al-Kubra requires familiarity with its landmarks. There are occasional oases where travelers may find water - knowing how to locate these is of utmost importance. A few notable features may also help orient the wanderer; while not all are safe to approach, glimpsing them from a distance can help one find their way.

Greatest among these is the City of Brass, Madinat al-Brunz. It is described as a magnificent metropolis with marble walls and buildings constructed entirely of brass. Its grand architecture and opulent interiors are a sight to behold, but few mortals ever see them. Entering Madinat al-Brunz without an invitation is punishable by death, and while some adventurers have made it inside, few have ever returned.

Another landmark is the Asthimarga, or the Bone-Strewn Path. This track through the desert is marked with enormous piles of bones, many arranged in eye-watering displays of alien artistry. The Asthimarga leads to the settlement known as Madinat al-Ghul, or the Great Necropolis. This sprawling graveyard is rumored to be home to the ghuls. Legend holds that it was once the capital of a great empire that sought to master death - and fell to its own obsession. Madinat al-Ghul is said to hold the remains of ancient sorcerers, kings, and warriors, buried with their most prized possessions. It is also rumored to contain hidden passageways and deadly traps, designed to guard the treasures of the dead from would-be tomb raiders.

Travelers say it is safe to walk the Asthimarga so long as one journeys toward Madinat al-Ghul. Nothing that lives in the desert will attack those en route to the Necropolis. But once there, the wanderer must negotiate safe passage away from the ghuls - and that price must be paid in flesh.

Though these landmarks can help travelers locate themselves within the Al-Kubra, many more elements conspire to confuse and mislead. Mirages are frequent, and those who follow them may become hopelessly lost. Some have encountered sandstorms that seem to move with a will of their own, shifting direction impossibly and engulfing everything in their path. Strange rock formations dot the landscape, many of them taking on unnatural shapes - and some appear to relocate themselves when unobserved. Most disturbingly, the stars themselves are different in the sky above the Al-Kubra, forming bizarre and malevolent constellations.

To Sleep within a Nightmare

Travelers in the Al-Kubra are often plagued by strange and unsettling dreams, which seem to blur the line between imagination and reality. Wounds received in dreams often leave marks upon the body - and more than a few wanderers have screamed in their sleep and never woken again.

Strange, otherworldly beings populate these dreams. Some are indifferent, drifting through the minds of dreamers and leaving fractured thoughts in their wake. Others are overtly hostile, seeking to unravel or consume the minds they encounter. Those who survive such experiences often claim that they have been changed by their dreams, granted new ways of seeing the world. These insights can lead them down strange paths, toward alien gods, forgotten truths, or madness. Many believe that dreamers in the Al-Kubra are forever marked - and forever altered - by what they have seen.

The Edge of Reality

Those who travel beyond the desert are few - and even fewer have returned. But those who do report that there are mountains past the sands - not the Jibal al-Junun, but taller, stranger peaks that stretch impossibly high, their sharp summits lost in an endless sky. A high pass runs through these mountains, strewn with ruins older than the peaks themselves - toppled by their rise, yet still enduring in some form.

To walk this pass is harrowing. The air grows thin and cold, and the sun abandons the sky, leaving only glaring stars overhead. But beyond the highest point, the traveler can see past the peaks - into a world as vast as the one outside the Al-Kubra, yet utterly alien. The desert lies only upon the outer edge of a far greater and stranger realm. It is a liminal space, a threshold between the Great Ring and this other place - one that has persisted for as long as memory and history can recall.

Perhaps it is mere accident that this hidden world intersects with the mundane one. Or - so many who have gazed upon those impossible skies have come to suspect - it may be only a single facet of a vast and incomprehensible design.