One of the largest continuous desert areas on a continent of many deserts, the Searing Plains spans several provinces that used to be forested regions and fertile plains before the Calamity, but became scorching hot and arid lands of sand dunes and little else. Some parts of the plains have low mountain ranges, rock gullies, or ravines, but, yellow sand dunes and salt flats remain the most common features. A constant, hot wind blows from the East and North, creating sandstorms regularly.

This video is showcasing the UI in combat in its current state.

What's new, you ask? Several things:

- Target's Stats and Expected Outcome

While the active character (whose turn it is) is displayed on the left part of the UI, the current target can be seen on the right side. When you select a skill on the active character, you can see its expected outcome (damage, etc.) as well on the target panel.

The Calamity burned down the great forests, tranquil glades, and neat hedges of the region that is now the Searing Plains. A part of it, what is today called Smolderbone Flats, used to be a series of large lakes and islands surrounded by these forests. During the cataclysm, the lakes became sour and salty in a matter of hours and everything in them died. Today even the traces of them are gone. What remains is a barren, infertile, salty flatland that is only inhabited by weird monsters that thrive in such environments: salamanders, fire lizards, even fiery elemental creatures. 

Another horrifying undead joins our creature roster: the Congregated is here. It'll be one of the more challenging enemies in the game.

A unique kind of undead was formed when the lethal hot ash of the volcanic cataclysm hit the regions at the foot of Dvendar Tharr in a wall of searing death on the eve of the Calamity. The ash cloud covered many human settlements in a heartbeat, finding people on streets and inside homes. These unfortunate souls died an agonizing, fiery death, and did so in the most unexpected positions, often clinging to each other in their final moments. The ash blanket preserved them, and the curse of the region later reanimated them: amalgamations of corpses that are drawn to all life and bent on extinguishing it. The Congregated. They are fused together forever by the ash and the curse, encased in a grotesque, porous, stone-like form. These sad beings roam the area near the lost kingdom of Dvendar Tharr, a lethal threat to all travelers.

After the Dragon Lords arrived and descended upon the broken continent in the wake of the Calamity, they settled down in the middle of the landmass and cast their ancient magic on an area large enough to comfortably sustain their nests and broods. The magical energies crushed the plains and physically elevated the region, molding it into spacious highlands and great mountain ranges, as well as carrying up earth and ore from deeper below, thereby banishing the fallout of the Calamity, making this land fertile once again. Thus, the Dragonlands were born.

Avernum is the most important city in the Northern Searing Plains. The reborn Empire moved back to the scorched and abandoned region soon after the Calamity and found it ideal to settle because of the new resources that can be found in the vicinity: salt, rare minerals, and even obsidian. Thus, Avernum was built at the center of the Smolderbone Flats. The city mostly lacks the religious apparatus of large provincial settlements, but has a fairly large military presence there under the direct control of the Prefectus, its governor. Rumor is that due to its backwater status, the city of Avernum follows Imperial regulations more loosely, and it has become essentially the private kingdom of the reigning Prefectus.

Our next character reveal - and related artwork - is that of the unfortunate mutant Crifta (literally meaning 'feathers' in Imperial). The player meets the cunning archer in the Prologue, where she debuts as a tough enemy. She can be recruited later in the game, however.

Crifta was born named Navassia Degado in the kingdom of Viran. She became an archer in the army of the northern continent after her brother got killed in earlier battles and she felt compelled to avenge him. Captured during the battles for Santo Lucadas in Viran, she became a slave in the Empire. She was forced to be a prostitute for some time in military camps, but in a year or so she contracted the Taint, and after her transformation she was not so attractive any longer. They moved her to a stone quarry near Deven where she was both a worker and a prostitute. There, she joined some slaves who organized an escape into the wastelands; they became fugitives, escaped slaves, but at least they were free.

Called the Desert of Black Sands, or the Black Desert (Arenas Negrasin the Imperial language), this vast, empty desert that has fine, black sand instead of any other color is probably one of the most ill-reputed places of the post-Calamity era. Nothing lives here, not even insects. The silence is deafening. People who enter the desert and stay for a while usually inexplicably disappear. In the center of the area is a terrible place, supposedly the source of all evil in the region: The City of the Dead, Arx Mortis.

Formerly the capital of the Sanvorati province and previously known as the Shining City, Calderum was made into its own horrible caricature by the Calamity. These days, Arx Mortis is a dead place filled with eerie moaning and groans, cast in perpetual twilight, beset by bone-chilling cold and a pale, frigid light emanating from the faded rocks that are almost all that remain from the once beautiful buildings and walls. Now these stand vacant and hollow, often reminding visitors of broken teeth peeking out of black gums.