Many days south of Balic, a great plain of broken, black obsidian interrupts the monotony of the Endless Sand Dunes. The obsidian differs throughout the plain—it can be smooth and glassy, low and razor-edged, or shattered into jagged chunks 20 or 30 feet tall. Here and there, bare hillocks rise above the obsidian waves, crowned by a clump of hardy bushes or a small tree, or half-buried remnants of city walls jut out of the glistening glass like the bones of a creature that died in a tar pit. During the Cleansing Wars, a terrible battle was fought on this plain, and a defiler of awesome power broke the world’s skin, flooding the area with molten black glass to destroy whole armies with one dreadful ritual.
With no food, little water, and no shelter to speak of, the Dead Land is one of the worst regions on Athas. By day, the sun’s heat on the black ground can kill a traveler within hours; at night, the armies slain here rise as hateful undead, driven to reenact the last battles of their lives. Near the center of the plain stands an obsidian citadel, built from rock cut from the ground by hordes of skeletons and zombies under the direction of a mighty undead lord.