The Scorching Sea

[ParanoidAndriod]

I am planning to work on my world for DnD called Aline and my world is different. I don't have a normal sea on the ground, instead of water, its sand. And waters is only found underground, like there is main land which is the crust, water, then a huge layer of stone, then the underdark, is this a good idea or no

[Scarf Dude]

I am curious how you picture this world.

It it still large land-masses, separated by large bodies of sand? Are the "continents" of your world arid rock formations? I'm imagining the fault-lines of the world pushing up jagged mountain ranges at the heart of each landmass. Eventually, the harsh winds and sands of the "oceans" wear the oldest edges into smoother promontory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promontory) "coasts".

Is this a good idea for a setting? I think it would depend on the sort of game you were trying to run. I think it lends itself to resource management, exploration, and a grim survivalist culture like the Fremen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremen).

What you've presented is a very nifty starting point for a setting. If you're willing to post other elements of it as you continue, I would certainly enjoy reading them.

[ParanoidAndriod]

Well I like that you enjoy that but most of the first paragraph I didn't understand, but yeah they are giant contenants

[Scarf Dude]

Sorry, I was pretty short on sleep when I wrote that.

Rephrasing my previous post:

How would you describe the continents on your world? Are they just as dry as the desert-seas? Do they have protected valleys and canyons where life can survive? Do these land-masses have soil, or have the dry conditions and heavy wind stripped them down to exposed rock?

[ParanoidAndriod]

Oh yeah, some do, some don't, Its all up to what I think of

[brian 333]

Slaying the giant slugs which oozed through the underground rivers had been difficult. Until they discovered mineral salt. The dirty white stone made poor weapons, but arrows tipped with rock salt chips were fatal to them. Scatter some crushed salt on the ground between the slug and the attackers caused them to halt and writhe in pain. Suddenly killing the slugs became easy.

What came after, however, never got better. The carcasses had to be skinned, which meant the hunters had to work through the slime that covered them. The slime stuck to everything and nothing could wash it off. They worked out a system: get naked and keep everything out of the way, and when the deed was finally done, scrub with dry sand. It didn't get everything, but it cut down on the stickiness.

The next step was no less disgusting, but far less messy. The skins had to be boiled in wax, which generated a stench most foul. Then the slimy, waxy hides had to be stretched and allowed to dry. In the end they could be stitched together around a wooden hub and inflated with air. The final product was a wheel the height of a man which spread on contact with the ground. Six of these made it possible to move a heavy wagon across soft sand.

In civilized regions such a wagon was moved by camels or by other draught animals. But to cross the sand seas one used sails. Sails did not tire and needed no feed. More importantly, they had no need of water in the trackless waves of sand where the unceasing wind pushed up massive dunes and blasted them away.

They hunted slugs until they had the materials for ten tires and three sails in order to have spares. It was a summer of work with no return, but it offered the chance for unimaginable wealth if they could move goods from one island to another. On a world of isolated pockets of civilization trade was precious and tbat made traders wealthy.

[ParanoidAndriod]

That was really cool, would you be ok if I used that, since you made it

[brian 333]

That was really cool, would you be ok if I used that, since you made it

Gary Gygax made that around 1980. I'm pretty sure the original patent has expired.

[ParanoidAndriod]

I didn't know that

[brian 333]

I didn't know that

It's in book four or so of the Gord of Greyhawk books, along with the original "good drow."

[ParanoidAndriod]

Ah, I don't own them

[brian 333]

Others have done Sand Sharks to varying degrees of success, and desert bullettes seem a perfect fit, but these giant creatures would force humans to build bigger than the Conestoga Wagons I was describing.

Sand Snakes, Lizards, and Yuan-ti would also be logical choices. Indeed, one could build a Monster Manual of desert monsters alone.

I don't think anyone's done Sand Corals. These polyps are dispersed on the winds to anchor on rock, where they grow into coral colonies until buried by the shifting dunes. They feed by extending fans into the winds at night to filter moisture and organic matter, then hide in silica shells to avoid the sun.

Carnivorous versions secrete digestive juices which are toxic, killing the victim and digesting it at the same time.

Reefs might contain several coral types, and buried reefs later exposed by shifting dunes might be carved by the winds into fascinating and mysterious shapes.

[ParanoidAndriod]

That all sounds like something that would be in the sands but I also want some places in the sands like old tombs, broken towers, etc

[brian 333]

The coral wall grew, shell by shell, over the years, but only within a few inches of the hot desert floor. Too low and sand would bury it; too high and windblown sand would scour it away.

Essik was shoveling sand tonight to maintain the sand-berm that guided the coral's growth. In a century others like him would shovel it away to reveal a stone wall grown by the corals. But they would work at night to avoid the scorching sun. Its first rays were breaking over the horizon now.

The brightening sky created the illusion of a shadowed, featureless ground beneath a luminous sky. The coral fortress, grown over countless years, was reduced to a jagged line dividing day and night.

He must have been daydreaming again because he came to with a tail-slap from Chighiss.

"Wake up, your shift is over!"

***

97 years later:

Essik offered the sacrifice, laying the goat open and containing its organs for the inspection of the fortune teller. Today the new outer wall was being cleared, and soon lizard folk would occupy the space. The fortune teller would determine its future.

The aged lizard woman examined the eviscera. With a deft stroke of a cerimonial dagger she filleted the liver and flipped it open.

"The omens are auspicious!" She announced. "The new district wil be a nesting district with a creche."

Two junior priests removed the carcass, leaving the organs behind. They would remain on the altar until this alter was wanted again: stains to be seen in the stone until coral encrusted it or the sandstorms polished it away.

"I expect you will want to occupy one of the nesting cells," the fortune teller said. "You are old enough and it's about time for you to begin thinking about the future of our people."

***

106 years later:

The aged lizard man examined the wall surrounding the new barracks district. It was well grown, a great curve standing on the eternal sands. Soon the soldiers would move in and set up their training equipment and younglings selected from the creches would begin training as guards and soldiers. But now it was a beautiful bare wall freshly exposed to the sky. Layer after layer of crystal bubbles cemented to grains of sand and the shells of their ancestors.

"Beautiful," he said, admiring the great mass, assembled generation after generation.

"Beautiful?" asked the functionary.

"The workmen are to be commended," Essik answered. He knew if was pointless to attempt to explain any more to the bureaucrat.

***

70 years later:

The elderly lizard man crouched on the windward side of the dune as it encroached on the west wall. He knew it was good that it did this. There was a reason. The city had to grow up. To grow, death was needed. Life built on the shells of its dead. Death was not evil. In dying one could grow into a beautiful wall. Why was he thinking about walls? The walls were covered in sand.

Above him the sky became luminous as the sun's first rays reached across the desert sky. It gave the illusion of darkness below, featureless and lacking depth. The marriage of dark and light that would soon birth a new day.

Essik waited for it, breathless.

[ParanoidAndriod]

Now your confusing me

[brian 333]

Now your confusing me

Sorry.

It's a city built of cultivated coral tended by generation after generation of lizard folk.

You wanted ancient ruins and locations for adventure. This could be a rest stop, a port of trade, of the location of the relic needed to save the world. I was more concerned with the city and how it was made. If you use it, use it in a way that fits your game.

[ParanoidAndriod]

Alright, thanks for your help I will message you if you would like to play in my campaign

[brian 333]

Out in the trackless sands red-brown buttes stand on the horizon hiding their distance by their height and the depths of the vast bowl-shaped valleys between them. From the first sight to the first true butte one travels fifteen miles.

Coming nearer one discovers a fine line of green on the upper horizontal surfaces, six hundred to a thousand feet above the sun-baked sand. It is an archipelago of islands in the sand ocean.

The dwellers on the tops guard access to the tops of the buttes, but rumors tell of palaces with waterfalls for walls and fountains of sweet water spraying into the sky. Far more likely are cisterns and channels to guide the meagre rains into them.

Trade-towns at the feet of these buttes sit empty, usually, but are quickly populated from above when traders come around.


***

"I've seen it," the old man insisted. "As pink as the sky in a late summer sunset. First the dust goes away, the air grows heavy. You sweat, but the winds don't dry it off. The sand gets hard, crusted in white, shattered into squares outlined by white ridges. Looking closer the squares ard themselves are divided into squares, smaller and smaller, down to tiny square grains. Days of crossing the salt flats, and the salt gets on everything. Your hands get raw, thirst grows, unquenchable, and thdn the salt surface becomes a crust under a thin layer of salt, and with every step your boots draw salt up and it encrusts them, inside and out, until every step feels like you're walking on live coals."

"Riiight," said a teamster with a wink to his partners. "Tell us the part about the princess in the salt castle."

"It's true, I say!" insisted the old man. "The salt-castle, the salt-people..."

"And a be-yoo-ti-full princess!" Another teamster sang.

"She was a salt-folk princess, like a rock, not like a girl."

"Next you'll be telling us about the salt-dragon," said a bored patron.

"I never saw a dragon of any kind. Just a white city standing in a pink sea that was no more than knee deep for dozens of miles in every direction."

"Look, buddy, how about I buy you a drink and you don't tell us your story?"

"I don't want your drink! I don't care what you think! You think I'm sun-crazy, but you're all blind. You see your little part of the world and think you know all there is. You're wrong! You're very tiny in this great big world, and there are wonders and terrors you've never imagined out there. One day you might meet one of them but you're so blind you won't see it until it's eating you."

[ParanoidAndriod]

Ok thats enough, I don't want to take your ideas