The World Is a Desert

Athas is a hot, arid planet covered with seemingly endless seas of dunes, lifeless salt flats, stony wastes, rocky badlands, and thorny scrublands. From the first moments of dawn, the crimson sun beats down from an olive-tinged sky. Temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees by midmorning and can reach 130 degrees by late afternoon. The wind is like the blast of a furnace, offering no relief from the oppressive heat. Dust and sand borne on the breeze coat everything with yellow-orange silt.

In this forbidding world, cities and villages exist only in a few oases or verdant plains. Some places don’t see rain for years at a time, and even in fertile regions, precipitation is little more than a humid mist that falls for a few weeks before giving way to long months of heat and drought. The world beyond these islands of civilization is a barren wasteland where nomads, raiders, and hungry monsters roam.

Athas was not always a desert, and the crumbling ruins of a planet once rich with rivers and seas dot the parched landscape. Ancient bridges spanning dry water-courses and empty stone quays facing seas of sand tell the tale of a world that is no more.