The Southland was always a place of opposites in balance. Fertile plains and lazy rivers, pristine lakes created a rich farmland, and agriculture flourished. In the mountains that ranged along its borders lived the Dragons and some Half-Dragons. The Winged Ones tended to dwell in and among the craters of the long-dormant volcanoes and their granite caverns. The Wingless Ones ranged over the mountainsides, nomads of solitary spendor.
Rock Dwarves still brave the shaking mountains to mine their gems and minerals, but most have left.
Earth Elementals reluctantly followed. A few stay to wander and work the Temple of Hadra, but they are the only ones who dare go near it. For the Winged Half-Dragons guard the Temple now, fierce and angry as their god.
Most of the Rock Dwarves and Elementals drifted to the Northland over the centuries. Fire Elementals have stayed on in the south. Indeed, they have flourished. But, as they live mostly in the hot interiors of the violent mountains, they are rarely seen.
Now the Southland is a vast, seething desert of lava trenches, oozing magma, and hissing gases and steam. What few lakes remain are poisonous and covered with algae. The only Humans who go there now are occasional scientists from the Eastlands or an occasional, and very brave Gem Merchant to deal with mining Rock Dwarves.