“ The desert is a curse from the Water God upon the wicked people who live in the South.
Said people offended the Water God in some way, and so the Water God placed water-trappers, bizarre, water-sucking beings, in the soil, and within years, the wilderness became a desert.
Thus, the desert folk shamans have special powers that allow them to find water-trappers so that they can be dug up and their water harvested.”
“ '...The people of the Dalaben Fens have a custom heretical to our superior Zodashan faith, in which they place their dead upon the grass roofs of their stilt-houses. It is said that they do this because they used to bury their dead before the great Judgement, in which their home became the swamp which it is today.'-Sir Edrosh Metorva, 'The Barbarian Lands of the East, Volume X.'”