Smokestack Desert

Smokestack is the name of the large desert plateau located in western New Eden. The most popular theory is that Smokestack literally grew out of the earth when a pocket of the melding somehow seeped underneath the earth's crust. This phenomenon created an imbalance in the mantle that put pressure on the crust to rupture and bloat it from underneath. As a result, the entire region ballooned as it was transformed into an enormous fissure vent.

Smokestack is a very hot region with the ground temperature consecutively averaging around 65 degrees Celsius around the year. The heat is so intense that it actually helps to purify the New Eden River, to a degree, as it passes through Smokestack on its march to the sea.

As the ground heated up to unnatural temperatures, much of the indigenous fauna was forced to flee out of the area to safer areas to survive. As a result, much of the region is dominated by aranhas colonies. Often mistaken for flora are the very common furnaces in the region that look like bloated, smoking fungi. These smoke furnaces that have become a common visual throughout the desert landscape.

Despite the nearly unbearable heat and deadly fauna, Smokestack still has gained a high level of attractiveness to those looking to make a fortune for themselves. Southern Smokestack on a whole touts the highest density of crystite ore in all of New Eden, and is the home to the town of Dredge, the Accord's main extraction hub for this most precious resource.

Dredge

As the Accord's main source of crystite, Dredge has become a thriving and crucial strategic asset. Home to daring crystite extraction teams, it's proximity to the Melding has also made it a hub of search and rescue operations, as well as the target of relentless Chosen attacks that keep the Accord busy. But the allure of plentiful crystite, and the convenient habit of Accord forces ignoring anything that does not impede it's production, has also made it a sanctuary for criminals, rebels, greed and sin.

To many, Dredge is the best place to help forge this new world, to find new clusters of crystite or find and help new survivors trapped in undiscovered Melding-free fragments. To others, however, it is ground zero for the battles against the Chosen, or a loose and dangerous place where a bold marauder can skim crystite by guile or force and spend it all in an evening of debauchery. Either way, Dredge has become a vital artery in the construction of Ember and the survival of the Accord.

Located in the shadows of the cliffs surrounding the Smokestack area, Dredge quickly became humanity's most viable source of remaining crystite. After the crash of the Arclight and the resulting Melding disaster, the Accord quickly moved in to Dredge and set it up as its primary crystite extraction operation.