Joda Desert

The Joda Desert lay to north of the Jasper Peaks and is the is home to several tribes of desert elves. The most numnerous are the Kur’casna, who made a semi-permanent home for themselves in a small desert city also called Kur’casna.

An uneasy peace existed between the Desert Elves and The Church of the Shroud until occupation of Joda by several Shroud Elders who had remained neutral during the civil war. After Krell was released from his prison, these elders were aware that their neutrality had most likely displeased him. They levied an army in Greystone and marched out to Joda to make war on the desert elves, partly to ingratiate themsleves with their master and partly to keep out of the way of the purge in Greystone. They allied themselves with a group of dark elven Hesterites.

The dark elves of Haarp in the Joda Desert were the most powerful of all Hester’s congregation and had long harboured designs on Kur’casna. By allying with the dark elves the elders played a clever game: if the Shroud Loyalists acted against them, they risked either alienating Hester or handing the desert over entirely to her followers. Neither option would please Krell who needed Hester but did not trust her.

The desert elves paid a high price for the generals’ strategical manoeuvring. They were ground mercilessly under the heel of their new overlords, who installed a new High Junta on the throne of Kur’casna. All attempts to resist the occupation were brutally supressed, and the desert elves’ Water Temple ransacked.

Elsewhere the desert bristled with dangers. Strange abominations roamed the sands: some whispered that they were failed experiments of the Hesterites.

A few miles from Kur’casna the gnomish Warcrafters built a devastating arsenal, unheeded by the world: they too were becoming a force to be reckoned with in Joda.