"I live in a world of fire and sand, where blistering heat is the companion of days long and cold, where fear-filled darkness rules the night...

"The crimson sun beats down from a shimmering sky, scorching the life from everything that crawls or flies or runs. Listen! This is a land of blood and dust, of unending earthquakes, scouring sand squalls, and swift, violent rainstorms that deliver lightning and death from the sky.

"This is my home: Athas. It is an arid and bleak place, a wasteland with a handful of bleak cities clinging precariously to a few scattered oases. It is a brutal and savage land, beset by political strife and monstrous abominations, where life is grim and short.

"Athas may be an endless wasteland, but it is not all desert. The terrains I have seen are as varied as they are deadly, as starkly beautiful as they are desolate. I have visited forests of green trees, vast obsidian plains, and jagged cliffs shrouded in clouds full of thunder and rain.

"But the land is only part of the picture. Athas is also defined by its denizens, creatures great and small struggling to find a way to survive in this barren world. From humans, who seem to be everywhere, to dwarves and elves and halflings, to the alien thri-kreen, to the mul and half-giants, every people..."