Final Retreat of the Stars

The Final Retreat of the Stars is a large, rocky plateau in the Sangora Desolation, located south of the Three Saviors of Sahramina. This windswept highland is a hamada, a barren region of the desert completely stripped of sand. Little can survive on the Final Retreat and both flora and fauna are scarce.

Several of the most widely-traveled paths taken by those following the trans-Sangora trade routes pass over the Final Retreat. To go north around the plateau would be to travel uncomfortably close to the surface-dwelling deep elves of Xorshala, and to go south would involve passing through the equally hazardous terrain of the Keded, a region of the Sangora teeming with hostile desert creatures that hide in the dunes. Most therefore choose to cross the Final Retreat after ensuring their supplies will last for such a trip.

The name of the Final Retreat of the Stars comes from stories told by the Akwarai dwarves. In the legends told by Akwarai clans of the deep desert, the plateau is the place in which the stars were born, or else the last location in which they will be visible from the surface of Kishar. As is typical with many Akwarai stories, notions of past and future are often intertwined and inseparable in these tales, and the Final Retreat simultaneously becomes a location of both celestial birth and death.

To many of the Akwarai, only on the Final Retreat can one truly see the lights of the night sky in their true form.