“I live in a world of fire and sand. The crimson sun scorches the life from anything that crawls or flies, and storms of sand scour the foliage from the barren ground. This is a land of blood and dust, where tribes of feral elves sweep out of the salt plains to plunder lonely caravans, mysterious singing winds call travelers to slow suffocation in the Sea of Silt, and selfish kings squander their subjects’ lives building gaudy palaces and garish tombs. This bleak wasteland is Athas, and it is my home.”

—The Wanderer’s Journal

This world is dying. It breathes its last gasps as water turns to silt, grasslands become sandy wastes, and jungles decay into stony barrens. Bleak deserts exist beside verdant belts, rocky badlands give way to thick forests, and scrub plains surround opulent oases.

Water is more precious than gold in this resource-depleted world, and metals of all sort are likewise in short supply. Except for heat and sun, blood and dust, few things can be found in abundance.

Still, life finds ways to endure even in these hellish conditions.