Ix

The Green Sands
For travelers in the desert, spying a hazy patch of green through the heat simmer brings a surge of hope and relief like almost nothing else can; where the sight of water in the distance might simply be Akrod's Test, green means plants, plants mean water, and water means life. The edges of the Green Sands region is littered with the skeletons of travelers, beasts of burden, and even Great Lizards for this very reason -- instead of plants and water, these poor creatures found nothing but green sand after rushing in the dawn light toward this verdant decoy.

Of those travelers who do not overheat and collapse after a forced march to reach the "oasis" as quickly as possible, many continue forward, thinking the green in the sand must be a residue left by past water, much like the green scum that develops in stagnant water. Those poor souls are wrong as well, for the grains of sand themselves are naturally green, and the only reliable water for hundreds of miles is the Salt River, a flow of brine that is utterly dehydrating to drink.

Ix
Should a traveler continue to travel upstream along the Salt River, however, they would eventually encounter theunderground city of Ix. Nestled in the crux of the Odon Mountains and the Odz Ox Mountains, at this point the water of the river is in fact merely brackish, and the flow is more than strong enough to support the couple-hundred or so residents. Unlike other cities, where the deeper tunnels and catacombs are generally chilly, the deep underground of Ix fluctuates between comfortable and sweaty warmth, seemingly without any connection to the termperature of the air above the sands. Because of this, the ancient city of Ix was constructed almost entirely of underground tunnels rather than buildings and other above-ground constructions.

Despite its close proximity to the Kadrak Plateau, it is likely the least visited city of the Wastes. Impassible mountains in three directions, twin deceptions of the Salt River and the Green Sands with their skeletal graveyards, with nothing to mark the presence of a city when seen from a distance, Ix is never found except by those who already know where to find it.

Peoples of Ix
The residents of Ix tend to be more welcoming than most who live in the Waste. Being most comfortable with life spent almost entirely underground, dwarves comprise nearly half the population of Ix. Of the rest, the largest demographics are elves and half-elves who, unlike most of their kin, are able to see in total darkness, followed by a small population of orcs who have fled the southern wastes and were able to find acceptance here. The remainder are a bare scattering of con vipa, humans, gnomes, tengu, halflings, elves and half-elves who require at least dim light to see.



Those inhabitants of Ix who are dependent on light generally live closest to the surface, where the natural light can easily be augmented with the growth of bioluminescent lichen, but where the hot and cold of the desert still somewhat influences temperatures in the tunnels. Just deeper than these residences are the main common areas, including the markets and meeting places. The rest of Ix's residents live in the true depths of the city, where even torches are rarely seen; these deep-dwellers often go weeks or months at a time without seeing sunlight.

Although there is some segregation of culture between the deep-dwellers and the surface-dwellers of the city, there is enough interaction between the two that there is still a strong sense of the larger community. For example, the near-surface-dwellers farm plants and herd mammals that depend on those plants, while the deep-dwellers farm mushrooms and herd lizards. The surface-dwellers maintain the irrigation which provides convenient water to the city, while the deep-dwellers utilize natural heat vents to distill pure water from the brackish irrigant, work stone into semi-reflictive surfaces to direct light underground, etc. Each community depends upon the other, and so the larger community goodwill is easily maintained.