"The heroe's journy took him through mountains and deserts".

"The treasure, however, was far away, beyond a great desert"

"How will the good captain ever return home? The vast desert is between him and his lands..."

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The desert. The vast, deadly, terrible desert. Rolling dunes and cliffs of red stone, cracked sun scorched earth and strange peoples with gutteral tongues and ebony skins. In fairytales and in mythology, the desert is never a goal. It is an obstacle. A phase in the journy. A danger to be fought against. In the Grimm Lands, all of this exist(and more), in the Desert in Between, the least known great area of the Lands. Least known, naturally, because one can never reach it by desiring to reach it. The great Desert is alwayes, well, in Between. Between you and your goal, perheps, or Between you and the enemy. It can only be reached by not wanting to reach it. The faster one wants to get to his goal, the greater is the chance that this goal lies just beyond the Desert. This is the nature of the Grimm Lands.

The Desert is dangerous, cruel and unforgiving, just like everything else in the Grimm Lands. The sun is a constant hazard. The winds and the sand are another. At night, it is freezing and in the day it is boiling hot. And there is no water. And I have not even yet started with the denziens of it! There are violent nomads and slave traders, drugged cannibal barbarians and warriors of the sand. There are toxic animals all over the ground and beneath any rock, and great and desperate beasts like lions and leopards.

But like everything else, there is also a strange and terrible beauty to the Desert, a wonder that can not be found anywhere else. In the deep Desert, one can find the dangerous tombs of long forgotten god kings. Great dusty cities where the bazaars are full of exotic riches and where the golden domes are alwayes surrounded by flying carpets. Mad sultans and power hungry viziers, cunning djinni and disgusting ghouls. There are forty thieves who live in an invisible cave. There are wondering alchemists seeking enlightment under the cruel sun. Some say that even farther in(which is only an expression, because the true size of the Desert is infinite) smoke belching trains get constantly attacked by grizzled outlaws, and cowboys fight indians in desolate valleys and dirty mining towns.

Wellcome to the Desert.

This looks great! Any ideas for places and people of note (ie, what is the Beanstalk here like, what characters and races are there here, what some Checkerboard Kingdoms here are, are there any clues that might lead to Babylon, what is the Great and Awful Forest's presence here is like, etc.)? Also, is there a place in the Grimm Lands that's sort of like the realms that are home to folks like Santa Claus, the Grinch, and Ebenezer Scrooge (with similar questions)?

People from all the different christmas tales are crammed together in one of the more well known and powerful kingdoms of the Checkerboard: the Winterlands. It's alwayes snowing there, and cold, and Santa Claus and his elven guards rule with an iron fist. all citizens are slaves in the toy factories. Scrooge, ironically, has reformed after he discovered the true meaning of christmas, and leads a heroic resistance against Santa's rule.

The Grinch is just an *******.

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Ass for the Desert in Between... Hmmm I guess the beanstalk here is very dry and in some places sand gets in through cracks in the outer "walls". Some of the minor branches end in ancient underground tombs or caves of wonder.

There's water in the desert. It's just if your smart you'll stay away from it, as the rivers are usually filled with crocodiles and other nasties. The Oasis's are even worse, as bandits, slavers, and child munching monsters usually stake them out, knowing that thirsty travelers can't resist the temptation. Natural springs are usually guarded by angry spirits or gods who don't like to share.

Two powerful creatures, Roadrunner and Coyote, are constantly waging a battle which is stuck at an impasse. However, villages are usually caught in the crossfire. Not that they care, of course.