Ancestries of the Ben-tam Wastes

Surviving in a Continental Scar

The few scholars who dare cross these lands by caravan, and who have also witnessed the blasted landscape of the Aga-di Rahisda in Bar'al-tai's central south, inevitably pause at the devastation and ponder why the two lands seem so similar.  Perhaps Gods are wrathful in many places.  Both seem to suggest that powerful beings can just scoop away an offending portion of the plane on a whim, and leave only devastation.    

But no.  Unlike the Aga-di Rahisda Fire Wastes, Ben-tam's volcanic plains' stateare is due toforged the powers of the elements- however apocalyptic they may feel- not the wrath of Gods or Giants.  Its ley lines are intact- and are fairly active.  Ben-tam's landscape is scoured and sterile, but not by a civilization-ending war.  It is a weak space in the Veils that divide the Material Plane from the Elemental Echoes of Fire and Earth.