Smokestack Desert

Smokestack is the name of the large desert plateau located in western New Eden. Though Accord seismologists have repeatedly stated that the region is “now completely stable,” its formation literally happened within a year’s duration. The most popular theory is that Smokestack literally grew out of the earth when a pocket of the melding somehow seeped underneath the earth’s crust. This phenomenon created an imbalance in the mantle that put pressure on the crust to rupture and bloat it from underneath. As a result, the entire region ballooned as it was transformed into an enormous fissure vent.

Smokestack is a very hot region with the ground temperature consecutively averaging around 65 degrees Celsius around the year. The heat is so intense that it actually helps to purify the New Eden River, to a degree, as it passes through Smokestack on its march to the sea. This occurrence is documented with the river’s nickname, “the steamline”, which is derived from the way that steam will rise off the river when it journeys through hotter sections.

As the ground heated up to unnatural temperatures, much of the indigenous fauna was forced to flee out of the area to safer areas to survive. Unable to flee, almost all of the flora perished. These changes in climate greatly opened the region up to foreign melding creatures and plant-life. As a result, much of the region is dominated by aranhas colonies. Often mistaken for flora are the very common furnaces in the region that look like bloated, smoking fungi. These smoke furnaces that have become a common visual throughout the desert landscape.

Despite the nearly unbearable heat and deadly fauna, Smokestack still has gained a high level of attractiveness to those looking to make a fortune for themselves. Southern Smokestack on a whole touts the highest density of crystite ore in all of New Eden, and is the home to the town of Dredge, the Accord’s main extraction hub for this most precious resource.