The Sandshifter Sanctum is a warped and elemental shrine-fort built atop the overgrown remains of Kaarthik, once the greatest settlement of the Kroot, descendants of the cursed Solir. Following the catastrophic Conjunction of the Realms, when the Primarch Prometheus attempted to merge the Faewyld with the Prime Plane, much of the western fringes of The Sands of Serrakhan was overtaken by uncontrolled fae-growth and chaotic arcana. Kaarthik was caught in the epicenter of this breach—and destroyed.
In its place now stands the Sanctum: a geomantic refuge where the surviving Kroot, forever altered by Faewyld exposure, gather in fractured ritual and exile.
History & Transformation
When the Conjunction tore through the desert, it reshaped not only the land, but the people. The Kroot—already cursed by Malekith's betrayal of Avatar Lumina, already dwelling in exile—underwent a second, irreversible transformation. The planar saturation twisted their elemental bond to the sun into something unstable. Their flesh hardened, their veins ran with dry aether, and their minds split.
Some were overtaken entirely, consumed by volatile energies and reduced to feral, shifting husks. These beings became known as Sandshifters—creatures of instinct and sandcraft, incapable of speech, their forms half-sunken and ever-moving.
Others retained a tenuous hold on their minds and memory. These became the wardens of the Sanctum.
Structure & Ritual
The Sandshifter Sanctum is no temple in the traditional sense. It is a shattered ruin re-woven by elemental will. Its walls move with the wind. Its arches are formed from packed glass-sand, carved daily anew. Towers spiral up and down with the moods of the dunes.
Rituals are performed in silence. The Kroot no longer speak openly of gods. Instead, they conduct rites of pattern—sand weaving, rune carving, and sand-scribing—methods meant to bind memory into matter, to hold shape in a world where their identity has been scorched and rewritten.
Each moon cycle, a new Patternkeeper is chosen from among the lucid. These few serve as guides and sentinels, tasked with anchoring the Sanctum’s halls against the relentless pull of wild Faewyld growth.
Present Status
The Sanctum stands as the last known settlement of the Kroot, though few would call it a city. The Serrakhan Sultanate considers the region a no-entry zone due to ambient instability, and Sultanate emissaries have failed to secure any lasting alliance with the Sandshifters.
Travelers who pass nearby—rare though they are—report seeing shapes rise from the dunes like statues turned to ash, only to vanish moments later. Some speak of great effigies carved from fossilized roots, others of mirrors reflecting a sky that does not match the one above.
Whether the Sanctum will endure or fade with the dunes remains uncertain. But for the Kroot—those few who still remember who they were—this place is not a bastion of hope.
It is simply the last shape they remember holding.