The Singed Wastes

Laying in the center of the known continent, The Singed Wastes stretch from point to point along the peninsula, engulfing the rocky wasteland and jagged spires in unrelenting heat. There are few settlements and traveling nomads among the steep cliffs and rocky badlands of the Wastes, little is known of them as few explorers venture into the badlands, and fewer return from them with tales of horrors and madness. Where Fire Elementals roam, leaving scorched sand and magma pools in their wake. Where dragons have been spotted and subterranean predators coast through the rocky underbelly of the badlands, seeking out unsuspecting prey.

## The Singed Wastes

### Inhabitants

60% Ifrit15% Suli

15% Fire Elementals

10% Tiefling

## History

The Singed Wastes have been a mystery for the length of time, the formation or reason for its existence still shrouded in conjecture and lengthy debate of scholars. Some claim that it is the sight of a massive star that fell to the ground and to this day heats the very sand and rock above it. Some say a cataclysmic event involving dragons swept the land in dragon fire that permanently scarred and altered it.

Be it cataclysmic event, or outside force from the heavens above. The one thing proven beyond a doubt is the Singed Wastes has, for its entire passage in history books, been a gods forsaken place of fire, heat and death.

## Places of Interest

Little within the Singed Wastes has been catalogued, and many previous entries have been found to be in contradiction of later explorers' testimonies. From mirages tricking scholars' minds or the sands of the wastes somehow shifting around, few notable locations have been distinguished in the rare travels of the desolated and sun-scorched cliffs of the lands.

#### The Fingers

A section of the wastes along the center strip of the wastes holds a peculiar arrangements of spires and, twisted and bending at unnatural angles upwards towards the sky lay hundreds and hundreds of pillars of glass, standing in small clusters or singularly, lonely, installments throughout the badlands as the black-burnt glass pillars are seen as hundreds of tiny fingers reaching out of the ground towards the sky. A warning to keep one's distance from the small or large structures during the day as the heat from the sun is bounced off of the glass, emanating enough heat around the base of the structure to scald flesh from bone.

#### The Graveyard

Within the central north section of the Singed Wastes, amidst rocky crags and cliffs, a valley filled with the bones of long dead dragons. Some consumed by the shifting, red sands, and others half-buried as it has been named 'The Graveyard' by locals. Few scholars have set out to locate such a place matching its description, and only two teams have returned. Tales of a 'sea of bones' and harrowing creatures surround the location. Massive scavengers shifting through the bones as a forest, fire elementals seeming to congregate around the ridges bordering it. None know why, or if dragons choose to head to the location to perish, or perhaps it is the sight of a long forgotten battle of dragons versus their kind or some unknown foe. The site has been marked extremely hazardous and to be avoided at all costs.

#### Hell's Roost

Along the southern tip of The Singed Wastes lay a long stretch of cliff some 200 feet above the sea. Here sailors know to tread carefully, for harpies roost along the edge in large numbers. Using their flight to catch fish, or any unsuspecting prey from within the wastes, they are known to descend and attack fishing vessels, trade ships and anything else for man flesh, carrying the struggling, screaming sailors up to their nests to devour or leave for their young. Sometimes, when the harpies have been well fed for the past few weeks, they will accept offerings from sailors, shiny coins, gems, metals, and food to be hauled up to their roosts, which those who traverse it dub a 'toll for safe passage through hell'.

## Settlements

The Singed Wastes has few known villages from various Tiefling and Suli communities, but nothing ranges further than a medium sized village, and most of the inhabitants are nomadic, seeking out oasis, and large underground caverns or passages to pass through the sweltering heat unimpeded. These denizens of the wastes are generally mistrusting of outsiders at best, and outright hostile at worst. They contend with roaming Fire Elementals that rampage through the lands, and dangerous avian creatures, underground monstrosities and everything in between is in a hunt or be hunted land.