Ancestries of the Ben-tam Scar

Surviving in a Scar of Xios

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 canyonlands are forged by 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.  

The Ben-tam Scar is very lightly populated wasteland, especially for an area as large as it is.  The Scar itself is almost as large as the entire continent of Keoth!  There are a few central trade roads through the area, but most traders, pilgrims and explorers either go north through the Black Lakes, or south their the Sekh.  The Sekh routes- which are the heart of the Sriam trade and the tea and silk overland trade with Onuichua and the Tsang- are preferred by most.  The waste itself is quite treacherous and punishing.  

Humans exist in the Scar of Xios, but as a minority, and often a migratory one.