Achaer is a desert planet, first planet from the sun in the Halion star system. It has no moons, and the stars are rarely seen. Its sands are black as night, its sky a rather virulent yellowish-orange. Yellow clouds of sulfur obscure the sky, coloring the sunsets bloodred every night. The air is barely breathable to humanlike creatures, and foul-smelling to off-worlders. The natives, of course, no longer notice this and have adapted to the toxins.
The land itself is mainly desert, though there are a few mountains dotting the landscape. The desert sand is black, obsidian; in the distant past, the planet was simply a huge, volcanic mass, and few other kinds of rock are apparent on the surface. Vast white deposits of salt dot the darkness, and yellow sulfur hills and huge mountains of metallic hematite tower over the deserts. There are no true oases, merely watery quicksand sinkholes. Some few hardy plants grow in the desert lands, many poisonous but some edible. All types of creatures roam the land, as poisonous as the plantlife.
The weather is usually volatile. Winds kick up the sands into sandstorms and deadly black cyclones. Purple-white lightning slashes through the clouds and down to the ground at any time of day, making lightning-bowls in the obsidian sand from their enormous heat. Every once in a while, sulfurous rain will fall from the clouds to drown the thirsty earth.
There are two races of men that live upon Achaer, flung there by magic while escaping Halci's Apocalypse. They are the desert folk, called Nomads or Meriten, Water-Seekers, and the city folk, called Pales or Jarenthen, Metal-Seekers.
The Meriten live in the deep deserts, surrounded by black sand and white salt. Their skins are weathered by the sun, and range in colour from light tan to ebony. They are usually between five-and-a-half and seven feet tall. Hair colours varywidely through the natural shades, and eyes tend towards shades of red, brown and black. A child born with blue or green eyes is thought to be a very good omen, destined for greatness. Other races are accepted among the Meriten, such as the hyena-faced descendants of the Xiroen. Their clothing is uniformly black, to blend in with the desert sands. The sulfur content of their water and food doesn't bother them, and many have developed immunity to some animal poisons.
They are scattered across the desert, living in clans ruled by a chieftain and his or her Mages. Underground clanholds are created from the obsidian sands by the mutated Talents of Sand-Shifters. There is very little magic or vitality on Achaer, so these Talents are necessary to create shelters; arcane magic just does not work. With this Talent, sand is fused together to make smooth walls and tunnels, shafts and chutes, caverns and dwellings for all of the clans. Temples and meeting-chambers are shifted in the sands topside, so that they can be illuminated by the sun through slits and windows in the walls.
The Meriten grow cactus-like, black-spined red plants called niketa below the ground, for food. They yield small violet flowers and larger, spiny fruits that are the basis of the Meriten diet. Also, the black spines, when crushed, produce strong black fibers that are woven into clothing. Water can be gained from these plants, but the typical way that a Meriten gets water is to strain it out of the quicksand, a dangerous job. Other Meriten hunt the wild creatures in the deserts and sulfur hills. They sometimes use the more tameable of the creatures as pack animals and mounts, or even pets.
When they can, the Meriten seek out the few demon seeds that survived the scorching of Achaer. These demon seeds burrow deep beneath the sands, and produce water as a byproduct of their energy-feeding. Nothing grows near a world-eater seed, so the Meriten do not live very close to them, but come to take water and give sacrifices. These are generally the most prosperous of the Meriten clans.
Technology is scarce in the desert lands, and the only metal items that Meriten have are stolen fromt eh Jarenthen. A few have learned to operate Jarenthan communications devices, which are silvery and worn like a headband with the speaker positioned by the mouth. The manufacture of explosives has been learned from captured Jarenthen, and is used to create mines and other weapons.
Sand-Shifters are also able to create armor from the sands. It is amazingly flexible and strong, but heavy; few offworlders would be able to wear it. Meriten warriors, conditioned from birth, are not hindered. Also, weapons such as swords can be made, but are much more brittle. They work fine against wildlife, but the mines are really the only weapons that can harm a Jarenthen warmachine.
The Jarenthen are white of skin and pale of hair, with eyes that are usually grey. They are substantially shorter and seemingly frailer than the Meriten, and rarely reach six feet tall, seeming like children next to the darker race. They are quicker than their larger enemies, though, and nearly all have some small manifestation of the Gift: magical powers. They tend to have slightly pointed ears and tilted eyes, and let no other races live amongst them.
Their clothing is typically grey, but is never black and often extremely colourful. They wear hoods and shawls when outside, to protect themselves from the sun; they very rarely tan, and can get terrible sunburns.
They build cities of the silvery-black hematite from the mountains, with domes hiding their homes from the sunlight. Living aboveground, they raise many kinds of plants within the confines of their walls, purifying and piping in water from deep underground to the houses. They do not hunt, but raise animals domestically on the cultivated plants. They have electricity from solar and wind-power, and their mountains are frequently dotted wind turbines.
Finding metals in the mountains, the Jarenthen--descendants of the Underdwellers who fled to Andar Prime--have used them and the wealth of technical knowledge from their forefathers to create warmachines in three types: Panthers, Warhawks and Desert Striders. All are powered by suncrystals--clear gems mined from within the hematite mountains that absorb solar energy until they are blindingly bright and hot. The Panthers are small, one-man desert vehicles, silvery in colour and reflecting light blindingly. They are equipped with projectile explosives, though not as powerful as the ones that the Meriten put together. The Warhawks are a dull black in colour, and fly over the desert sands like vultures. They carry two people, a pilot and copilot, but can be flown by a single person. Equipped with lasers, they are used for strafing runs. The third, Desert Striders, were mostly destroyed in the Water Wars, when the Jarenthen had yet to work out a pipe system and battled the Meriten over control of the sinkholes. They were huge, vaguely man-shaped machines, powered by a single warrior who used it like an extension of his or her own body. Heavy and powerful, they could crush a Panther by stepping on it, but most were abandoned beneath the sands or destroyed during the Water Wars.
Hand-to-hand weapons are mainly swords like those of the Meriten, but made of metal and equipped with suncrystal laser edges. Also, small hand-held lasers are used, but not often; face-to-face combat is considered much more honorable. The Jarenthen believe in a merciful, swift death to enemies, even if they are Meriten.
Other creatures live in the desert. Seressvi, the strange two-sided lizards, have made the deserts a dangerous place, as do the black, half-eagle half-feline creatures that the Meriten just call panthers. Poisonous snakes and lizards abound, swimming scorpions live in the sinkholes, and "vultures" circle the skies eternally.
The two races have been fighting for as long as they remember, and few recall what began the wars in the beginning. Perhaps it was water, perhaps territory, perhaps revenge or magic or freedom...but whatever began the wars, it seems that nothing can ever stop them.
Apocalypse Age-->
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