Great Valencian Desert the Black Desert · the Red Desert
Type	Desert
Region	Valencia
Ruled by	Kingdom of Valencia
Settlements	Sand Grain Bazaar, Shakatu, Ibellab Oasis, Muiquun, Arehaza
Known for	Black stones, buried under the sand
Hazards	Heatstroke, hypothermia, sandstorms, no world map
Player rules	Lawless zone
Added	2016, with the Valencia expansion

The Great Valencian Desert is the enormous desert that covers most of Valencia, the eastern kingdom in Black Desert. Hardly anyone calls it by that name. Calpheon named it the Black Desert, after the black stones buried under its sand, and the game takes its own title from that name. Valencia's court calls the same ground the Red Desert, for the blood its soldiers spilled holding on to it.

The desert is the harshest place in the game world. The map does not work inside it, the heat of the day and the cold of the night will both kill an unprepared traveller, and other players are free to attack without warning. It is also one of the richest places to hunt, and the buried stones that started a war are still what the whole economy of enhancement runs on.

The formal name belongs to Valencia, which holds the territory in law. The two names people actually use both come out of the war fought over it.

Calpheon, the republic built on trade, called the land the Black Desert once it learned what lay under the sand, and went to war to take it. Valencia's monarchy answered with the Red Desert, naming it for its own dead. Neither side chose a neutral word, which is why the formal name survives at all.

The game's map divides the sands further. The Great Desert of Valencia, the Cantusa Desert, the Red Desert and the northern and southern dunes are each labelled separately. An adventurer crossing the region passes through several named stretches rather than one flat expanse.

The desert fills the eastern half of the world map, beyond the highlands of Mediah. Travellers coming from the west enter through the Barhan Gateway and leave the last green country behind within minutes.

Almost everything people live in sits on the edge of the sand rather than in it. Valencia City stands in the southeast, with the port of Ancado Inner Harbor below it and the coastal town of Arehaza further west. The Sand Grain Bazaar and the village of Shakatu serve as the last stops for supplies before the deep desert, and the mining settlement of Muiquun lies in the north.

The one reliable break in the interior is the Ibellab Oasis, which has water, shade and a bonfire, and which experienced players treat as the halfway point of any long crossing. The rest is dunes, wind-cut rock, canyons and ruins.

Black stones are found in greater quantity here than anywhere else in the world. An earlier civilisation used them as a power source, and the reactions they forced out of the stones destroyed the minds of its people and brought that civilisation down. What it left behind is scattered across the desert: sunken structures at the Crescent Shrine, buried artefacts in the Hystria Ruins, and ancient constructs still wandering the sand.

The stones did not stop attracting people. The cultists of the Cadry Ruins eat black stone powder in the belief it grants eternal life, and worship Kzarka, whose return they expect. For adventurers the stones are far more ordinary: black stones are the standard material for strengthening weapons and armour, which makes the desert's history a daily part of the game's progression.

Calpheon wanted the stones and invaded to get them. The desert became the main battleground of the long war between the western alliance and the Kingdom of Valencia. The sand did much of Valencia's work for it, and one Calpheonite force was buried whole by a sandstorm.

Valencia won. Calpheon withdrew without the stone fields, and the resentment left over from that defeat still runs underneath the game's main story. The rivalry between the two nations is the frame the whole setting hangs on.

The desert is the only major stretch of land, apart from the open ocean, where the game switches the map off. Adventurers navigate by landmark and by the shape of the ground unless they carry an Ancient Explorer's Compass, which restores the minimap and automatic navigation. Three compass parts bought on the Central Market can be combined into a temporary one that lasts three days.

Temperature is the second problem. Daytime heat brings on heatstroke and the freezing nights bring hypothermia, and both drain health steadily until they are treated. Purified water answers the day and star anise tea answers the night. The tea is made by simple cooking, from purified water and a star anise flower gathered at farms near Valencia City and at Shakatu. An adventurer caught out with neither can reach the Ibellab Oasis instead, where the bonfire clears hypothermia and the water clears heatstroke.

Sandstorms are the third. They do heavy damage to anyone caught inside, so the sensible response is to ride away from one early, or to pitch a desert tent bought from a stable keeper and sit it out.

Travel itself is slower here. Horses and carriages lose speed on sand and horse skills are limited, so camels and elephants — both suited to the terrain — are the usual mounts. A short quest at the Sand Grain Bazaar stable hands out a first camel.

The desert holds more hunting grounds than any other region, running from zones a fresh level 50 can manage up to two of the hardest areas in the open world. The last two are underground.

Ground	What is there
Bashim Base	The Bashim, a demibeast tribe said to be as old as Valencia itself. They keep their own language, avoid outsiders and attack anyone who comes close.
Desert Naga Temple	Desert Naga, the ancestors of the Naga found in the swamps of Serendia.
Titium Valley	Desert Fogans settled around fresh running water, named after their chief. Their numbers fell when much of the tribe migrated west.
Cadry Ruins	A former Valencian temple taken over by cultists who eat black stone powder and worship Kzarka.
Crescent Shrine	Ruins of the ancient Valencian civilisation, mostly buried. The Argos Saunil who hold it are said to perform blood rites at every crescent moon.
Gahaz Bandit's Lair	Bandits under Gahaz Tuval, a known figure on the black market, who has lately taken a black dragon captive.
Waragon Nest	Desert waragon, a branch of the species that builds bird-like nests in canyon shade to survive the heat.
Centaurus Herd	A roaming herd ground on open sand, and one of the tougher mid-range zones.
Basilisk Den	Basilisks, and a noticeable step up in difficulty from the zones around it.
Roud Sulfur Mine	A working sulfur mine. Its lower levels also hold the prison where fugitives are locked up.
Pila Ku Jail	A Valencian prison, and one of the two hardest grounds on the surface.
Aakman Temple	Underground. The Aakman are rumoured to be gathering in secret to bring the ancient giants back.
Hystria Ruins	Underground, and the hardest ground in the desert. The artefacts of the ancient Valencian civilisation are buried here.

Most of the world is safe: another player cannot attack you unless you agree to it. The desert is one of the exceptions, and it is the reason the region has a reputation among players that has nothing to do with its monsters.

Killing another adventurer here through forced player-versus-player combat marks the killer as a Villain for thirty minutes. The mark shows above the character name even under a camouflage set, and it carries the same penalties as bad karma, which means the killer can be attacked in turn regardless of their own standing. An adventurer who dies as a fugitive in Valencia is jailed underground at the Roud Sulfur Mine.

The rule set has since been reused. When Pearl Abyss added Ulukita as the game's highest-requirement region, it announced that the Valencian desert rules would apply there too.

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