Hellcatch Valley

Overview

The Hellcatch Valley in Marquet has a Mad Max crossed with Dark Sun vibe. Magic is scarce and unpredictable, but a tech hub — such as it is — has formed around Bassuras. Exiles from other parts of the world who left due to being ostracized for knowledge about, skill with, or interest in ancient arcane tech find a home here. A visual language of welded scrap and jury-rigged arcanotech defines the region.

To the rest of Marquet, the Hellcatch Valley is a dumping ground, a trifle not worth bothering with. To its people, Bassuras is a deliberately ignored oasis and a refuge, even in its desperate cruelty. If it were destroyed, the people would expect it to come back. It always does.

Safe travel, functional tech, and reliable magic are all scarce. Travel through the valley is threatened by raiders who attack caravans out of the dust storms. The desert itself is fatal — the ultimate threat, where people are left to die. Succumbing to the elements (getting lost, starving, running out of water, dust storms) is more likely to kill you than raiders, who are infrequent and generally only strike known trade routes.

The flats themselves hunt. Purple worms move beneath the open desert and track the steady rhythm of a walking gait or a rolling wheel through the ground — cross the flats on foot, walking normally, and you draw one to yourself with every step. This is why the desert is a wall and not merely a hardship. Cities are spared: the constant grind and clamor of a place like Bassuras floods the ground with noise the worms won’t approach, which is as much a reason Nuxan’s desert settlements sit where they do as any water or salvage. Step far enough past the noise, on foot, and you belong to the flats.

Two things cross safely. Crawlers run subsonic gear that scrambles what the worms sense, which is why a rig you actually own is worth killing for out here. And the Weathered — the survivors who keep Deshretu’s discipline (see Deshretu) — walk the open desert on foot in a trained, broken-cadence gait that never settles into a rhythm a worm can read. It isn’t a trick you buy or pick up on the way out of town. It’s taught, slowly, to people who’ve earned it, and most who leave without a rig and without that knowledge don’t leave at all.

Notable NPCs

Notable Factions

The Court of Dust — the only faction with any real authority here, and even that weakens sharply with distance from Bassuras.